sick of overcompensating men telling everyone else what to do. Why can't we
just let the kinder and softer gender take the lead? Now of course I'm not
suggesting that there's only two genders. Just that one half of the population
seems to believe that they should be in charge. But true men will do everything
their wife tells them to do without complaining because everyone knows women
always know what to do. Just think about how safe our streets would be if we
eliminated guns first of all from society, along with all those hateful and
racist male police officers. And instead we had kind compassionate ladies of the
law policing the streets of America. Law does sound kind of harsh, makes it sound
like rules exist that someone would have to enforce. Honestly I think we should
all police ourselves. Except for Republicans, MAGA freaks, and bigots, they
should be arrested immediately for existing. But for the rest of us I
propose this idea, no one should be in charge. Just like Ephesians 5 says, no
bosses, no authority, no leadership, complete and utter anarchy where no one
is the boss. I'm paraphrasing of course. What the male chauvinists don't seem to
understand is that love wins. They seem to think people are like inherently evil
or something, but the reality is if we just loved a little bit more, we'd have
no need for things like rules, laws, and leaders. Everyone's in charge. I mean,
excuse me, no one's in charge. But just in case someone does get out of line, we
should probably elect someone to enforce our rules. They'd have to be motivated
by altruism and justice. Perhaps even be the strongest and most fit of our
society. Individuals guided by logic and not feelings. Great upper body strength,
unmatched grit and stamina. Someone like Lizzo. Why? Think about it, folks. The patriarchy
is outdated and an unrealistic and unfair paradigm. As men, it's time for us
to move forward. It's time for us to immediately disarm ourselves, stop
working out, no more meat, just soy, and embrace communism. The only thing holding
us back at this point are those mean-spirited, brisket-eating, gun-toting
fascists with that horrible disease of the mind we call the Baptist bias. Thanks
for joining us for the Baptist bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley, and I've got
my co-host, Ben the Baptist. How's it going, Ben? Tuesday night. You know what
that means. It's the Baptist bias. Baptist bias time. I'm excited. And we've got a
great guest again this week. We're gonna be bringing on Pastor Jimenez, and we're
really excited. It's gonna be a completely different show again. So we
went from Dr. Hoeven, Alex Rosen. Now we're gonna clean up our act and get a
real class act here. We're gonna get Pastor Jimenez, and he's gonna be
joining us. And so I'm excited for the show and we'll be talking about
leadership. And really, you know, it's great to have Pastor Jimenez on because
talk about a great leader. Someone who's really excelling in church and in his
family and is really just someone that everybody I know looks up to. And so, you
know, I'm really excited to bring him on. We should have him here with us. Pastor
Jimenez, can you hear us? Hi, hello. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.
I appreciate it. How's everything going in Sacramento? It's good. Everything, you know,
we're busy, but everything's going good. Now, you guys just ended up moving into a new building
pretty recently. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, absolutely. We moved into our new building. We
purchased a building. I want to say it was like three or four weeks ago. We moved in and it's a
400-seat auditorium and it sits on four acres of land. And it's just down the street from where
our previous building was. And there was a lot of work obviously moving in. Before we moved in,
we had about six months of work days and just a lot of our church family came together and a lot
of work on it. We moved in, but there's still a lot more work to do. And though we moved in,
our grand opening service is actually going to be Easter, which is this Sunday. So we have like
a soft opening where we brought our church family, just our congregation and friends.
And then on Easter is going to be the big grand opening service. But on our soft opening,
which we weren't really promoting other than just telling our friends and our congregation,
we had 300 in church that Sunday morning. So I'm excited to see what Easter is going to be like.
That's great. That's really exciting. What's the address of your new building?
It's 4191 Norwood Avenue. If you, you know, anybody is out in Sacramento, if you're,
if you know what Norwood Avenue is, we're across the street from the Starbucks. And the building
that we purchased, it's a real iconic building that if you're from this area, you know, I,
when we're out soul hunting, we tell people the church building across the street from
Starbucks on Norwood. And everybody's like, I know exactly what building you're talking about. It's
just a very, it stands out a lot. So, and people just know it well. So yeah, if you live near
Sacramento, come check us out. Yeah. If you live anywhere in the area, you need to go to Verity
Baptist church for Easter this Sunday, check out the new building. That's really exciting. I haven't
seen it yet, but I look forward to visiting this year and getting to see it. And, uh,
could you imagine the Verity haters that are still around from 2016 to steal a portion of
Pastor Jimen is a sermon when he preached for us at the fire breathing, about his fellowship,
as they're waiting in line at the drive through at Starbucks, getting their cafe frappe latte or
whatever people order from there. And they're looking at this giant, nice, beautiful looking
building and it says Verity Baptist Church on it. Yeah. I mean, obviously the AIDS probably hurts
pretty, pretty bad, but looking at Verity getting a new building is even, uh, even more of a sting.
So that's exciting. No, that's great. And, uh, I'm really looking forward to, you know, getting to
see this property, see all the work that you guys have put in. Obviously it takes a lot of work,
a lot of effort to purchase a building, to renovate it, to get in there. Um, how many
total square footage do you have approximately for this, uh, building? Um, I'm not a hundred percent
sure on the square footage. I want to say it's 15,000 square feet. I'm not a hundred percent sure.
That's great. But it's a good, it's a good size facility. And yeah, we're just really happy about
it. And a lot of work went into it. Yeah. I'm looking forward to the Red Hot Preaching Conference
and having all of you guys out here and having our first conference, our first Red Hot in this
building. Uh, just a week after Easter, we're having our next generation youth rally. Um,
and actually we have a lot of people coming from StepFast. So thank you to your church family for
coming out and supporting the youth conference that we put on. But we're looking forward to that as
well. Yeah, that's exciting. This, the youth rally, that's coming up pretty soon. That's April, um,
what is it? 9th or the 10th? Yeah, April 9th and 10th. And we've got, right now we, it's the second
year we've done it and we have 70 teenagers that are registered for the conference. But of course,
we're family integrated. So we have 70 teenagers that are registered, but they're bringing their
parents and siblings and whatever. So we have young people coming from all over the country
and we're just getting ready for that. And we're just, you know, we're busy, but it's going to be
a great time, April 9th and 10th. And Pastor Thompson is going to be preaching the evening
service. On Tuesday night, I'll be preaching the Wednesday night service. And then in the morning
services, we're going to have Pastor Basarnsky from Fresno from Old Fast Baptist Church. And
we're actually going to have Pastor Tavenner from the UK. He'll be preaching in the morning
session on Wednesday morning. So it's going to be a great time. Wow, that's pretty cool.
Get some tea and crumpets. And I know last year you had some like WWE stuff going on. Ben's a big
fan of some wrestling. Are you kind of envious, Ben there? You don't get to go and wrestle or
what? I definitely was. I wish I was there last year for that, for the professional wrestling
match. Is this a pastor and a man of Smackdown? Yeah. So Ben, come on down. I want to see, I want to see
pastor and men as Smackdown pastor Thompson. So that's what I want to see. I want to see him pick
him up and twirl him and throw him on the ropes or something. Right. How does that work? Yeah. Yeah.
It's gonna be great. Well, you know, there's this conspiracy theory going around because there's,
you know, there's wacky conspiracy. There's this conspiracy theory that professional wrestling isn't
real. And I just wanted to put that to bed. If you watched the match last year at Verity Baptist
Church, you saw a legitimate fight. A couple of good fights actually. Yeah. That's what makes
it really good is the realism aspect of it. So Pastor Jimenez got in the ring, took some bumps.
Absolutely. And we'll have a lot of surprises for this year's conference as well. It's gonna be
great. Now your Red Hot Conference, you've had it every year for several years. What is this,
like the seventh or eighth? This is the ninth. Wow. The time flies when you're having fun.
The ninth conference. Now, I think every year prior, you've had it in July, but now you've
moved it. It's now in June. Is that correct? What are the dates for the Red Hot Preaching
Conference? Do you have that? Yes. The dates are June 20th through the 23rd. So it's a Thursday
through Sunday. And yeah, every year we've had it in July and we're trying something new here in
June and we'll see how that goes. I'm excited about it. It's just with July, the main reason why we
moved is because July is just the hottest time of the year here in Sacramento. And I've always just
thought it was just, you know, we picked July originally for logistical reasons, but I just
always thought it was silly that I would invite people to come from all over the country and
in different parts of the world to California, which is beautiful. And I bring them out here
just when it's the hottest, most miserable time of the year. And obviously the conference is called
the Red Hot Preaching Conference, but we're going to try June and see because it's a little cooler
in June, a little nicer weather. We're going to try that. And of course, June, you've got the whole
LGBT thing. So that kind of works with Red Hot anyway. Is that like a Red Hot preaching
topic or something or does that cause any controversies or anything? Probably going to come up this year,
I would imagine. It would be a safe bet that somebody may use the word faggot. I'm not sure
though. Well, that sounds hateful. Yeah. So I don't know. No, that's exciting. Yeah. If you're
anywhere in that area, again, you got to go to the Red Hot preaching conference and it's even a
conference for sure worth traveling to. Red Hot preaching conference is really unique. It's really
special event. Everybody that goes has a blast and you get to really meet a lot of people from
around the world. Every time I visited, there's been people that travel from all over the country
and even just other countries, people international travel. I know you've been, maybe was it two years
ago? What was the last one you went to? I went to last year's Red Hot preaching conference and
I went to the one the year before that as well. Okay. And obviously had a blast. The fellowship is
amazing. The preaching is amazing. It is because you just talked about professional wrestling. It
is the WrestleMania of the new IFB, the Super Bowl for you NFL fans out there. I know some
of you are watching. All right. I know you're watching the Super Bowl of our movement of the
the new IFB. Really a tremendous event and you know, huge thank you to Pastor Jimenez and your
staff and church members for all the work you guys put in to put that on because I know from the
again I shouldn't say I know I've never organized a conference myself but I would imagine that it's
very hard work. The Bend the Baptist conference would be pretty cool but you know I have to say
shout out to our listeners. We got over 200 people in the stream, lots of people in the chat. We're
going to actually be taking call-ins this evening and if you'd like to ask a question to Pastor
Jimenez this is your opportunity. The guy is super busy, got lots of things going on but this is
your chance to ask him a question about leadership and we really want you know the questions to kind
of focus on our topic this evening. We're talking about leadership and you know we want to apply
this to all areas of life so we're going to talk about leadership in the church which obviously
Pastor Jimenez is really succeeding in, excelling in. Also we're going to extend this to the home,
to the family which also is another area where you know Pastor Jimenez has a great family and it's
very evident he exudes a lot of leadership qualities. I know he's been in the military
as well maybe he might share some of that. Also you know just what the Bible has to say on this
topic but I know a lot of people are interested in this topic, learning how to be a better leader,
better husband, better just in every area of life whether it's at the career, at the job site,
in church, leadership is important. I know you also have a leadership class. Pastor Jimenez has
told me he's done a leadership class as well. If you'd like to call into the show 231-BABDIST
or even our phone number is kind of biased you know 231-BABDIST and of course you can even pop
in a question in the chat if you have any questions. Someone's asking the dates for the Red Hot
Preaching Conference. It was June 25th, 20th to the 25th is that correct? Yeah let me just double
check that it's June 20th through the 23rd. Okay June 20th to the 23rd so you can stay those extra
two days though. He won't mind even stick around for the next Wednesday service if you'd like.
So 231 Baptist. So I just want to kind of pick your brain here for a second Pastor Jimenez. I know
you have a leadership class. I know obviously leadership is really important. From your
perspective you know when we talk about leadership from a biblical perspective how important is
leadership? I'm sorry my computer I think might have froze. You're okay. Yeah let me rephrase
the question. Obviously you have a leadership class and you were in the military so you have
a lot of experience around this topic so I just want to kind of pick your brain here and see from
a biblical perspective how important is leadership? Yeah I mean I think leadership is paramount you
know it's it's often been said that everything rises and falls on leadership and if you obviously
if you look at the Bible you see that the Bible centers the worship of God the advancing of the
work of God it's all centered around leaders and in the Bible when there are good leaders things go
well when there is no leadership things don't go well when there's bad leadership things go worse
I think that leadership is is extremely important and you know this is this is something that I'm
happy to talk about I do want to just say that in no way shape or form do I claim to be a
leadership expert or anything like that but leadership is something that I'm passionate about
it's something that I think about something that I I read a lot on the subject of leadership I've
taken university level courses on the subject of leadership I've obviously studied leadership in the
bible I teach on leadership so you know we're all learning and I'm trying to become a better leader
every day but it's something that I do think a lot about and I do have a passion for and I think
it's very important in in the Christian life. Well obviously pastor Menes is pretty humble here
uh we definitely look to your leadership when it comes to how to run a church a conference um all
kinds of different things everybody I know speaks very highly of you and your church so uh we
definitely wanted to bring you on because we feel like you're an expert in leadership and you're
really leading the way leading the charge leading one of the the best conferences in the world if
not the best and so you know we really commend you for that getting a building definitely takes a lot
of effort and energy and takes a lot of leadership I know that you had to rally the troops on this
one um you know so it's definitely something that directly affects churches uh do you you feel like
you've been in any church situations where you've seen kind of the the pros or the cons of that
leadership you're talking to maybe some of the churches that you've grown up in or maybe you've
just seen from afar what is some of the experiences you've seen when it comes to leadership in the
world we see today yeah absolutely um yeah when it comes to church world I mean I grew up an
independent fundamental baptist I've been a baptist my whole life I was a baptist before I was uh
even saved so I definitely have a baptist bias and um you know I grew up in church I grew up in
in different churches uh as I was growing up and then while I was in the military while I was in
the Air Force for four years um and we as we traveled we were a part of different churches
and then of course for the last 13 years I've passed a very Baptist church but I've had the
the privilege and the opportunity to know a lot of churches and be connected with churches and
I definitely see a connection between leadership and just the success of a church and and that's
not to say um that that's the only factor obviously it's not the only factor but I do think
that if you're a pastor and you want to pastor a thriving church you want to pastor a healthy
church and a growing church then investing into your own leadership development is absolutely
something that is crucial. Well you know I feel like especially when it comes to soul winning
I feel like if the pastor is not setting an example the bible talks about the importance
of doing the work of an evangelist that you know whatever example the pastor is showing and modeling
for the congregation many times is going to be kind of a standard for them and it's not to say
that you can't do more than your pastor or you can't be more zealous or do more work but I think
for a lot of people to them they usually look to their pastor or people on staff as kind of the
ultimate standard and you know maybe that's an unfair thing that they're putting on that person
but at the same time it's just reality it's just how it works that many people look to that standard
and I know I went to a fundamental baptist church where the pastors were not soul winning and in
fact whenever I was there I was trying to encourage the pastors and the staff to do more soul winning
I told him I was going but I remember this sermon specifically where one of the pastors was talking
about the importance of handing out tracts and inviting people to church and just kind of
evangelism in general and he said he was going to get his hair cut and he said he gets his hair cut
like every couple weeks from the same person and he's just been really praying about you know
inviting this person to church and so he said you know he was finally like all right this next time
I go I'm going to do it and he said after talking with her for a while he chickened out and he was
afraid to ask her like give her an invite to church and then he said just at some point randomly she
just asked him like what church do you go to and then he ended up pulling out the invite and was
able to give it to her and he was just like it was just amazing how God was just working in that
situation and it just kind of like it just kind of baffled me that I was thinking like you know
I wouldn't even share this story because I'm just like I don't know what the motivation is entire
like what are you trying to encourage the congregation to do here just have tracks in
your pocket and just hope that someone asks about it I mean to me that just seems kind of weak
like if you if you heard that bin from the pulpit like what do you walk away from the sermon taking
practical application for how to be too afraid to share a track with a with another individual
that would be all that I would walk away with I mean pastor Benes have you have you seen churches
or been to churches where the soul winning is just kind of non-existent or kind of weak
uh you feel like the pastor is really responsible for that absolutely absolutely I mean I and I like
I said you know I I do believe that everything rises and falls on leadership and one of the
things that we must do as leaders is obviously set the example and point of being a leader is
that you take the lead and you go first and you really have to set the example and I believe that
it is the pastor the pastor's job and and the pastor's wife obviously contributes to this and
the staff as well to create the right culture for the church and part of that is done through the
preaching and teaching of God's word but part of that is done through modeling and through showing
people you know the Christian life so Paul told Timothy be thou an example of the believer he
didn't tell him to be an example to the believers he said to be an example of a believer and I
believe that in a healthy church the church family should be able to look at the pastor look at the
pastor's wife look at even the family and and again there should not be an expectation for them
to be perfect or sinless obviously we're all human beings we all are imperfect but they should see
here's what here's how a husband or a wife treat each other here's how they interact with each
other here's how parents interact with with their children here here's a family that goes
soul-winning they're faithful to church like they should be able to look at that and see an example
of what they should be striving to be so i do think that the pastor and not just the pastor but
the leadership they set the culture they kind of set the temperature of the church and yeah i mean
you're not going to have a soul-winning church if the pastor is not a soul-winner and and every
every church that i know that has that is soul-winning it has zeal for soul-winning
the pastor himself is a soul-winner and and you know the thing is when it comes to soul-winning
there's people in our church our church god god has blessed our church i think this last saturday we
we pushed a big saturday soul-winning rally this last saturday i want to say we had 120 soul-winners
out that's what the number was and and and i appreciate that you know i'm i'm glad about
that i will definitely say that there are some soul-winners in our church that go soul-winning
more than i do now i go soul-winning every week and i'm faithful at soul-winning they just happen
to be in a different season of life you know maybe they're young they don't have kids they're not
married or whatever and they're able to uh spend more time doing that when i was younger i did a
lot of soul-winning too i remember pastor anderson and i before either one of us was a pastor when
when i was just a teenager uh you know we would go soul-winning eight hours every saturday and
multiple times during the week or whatever um but obviously you know having six kids being married
business of life i don't i don't have that ability now but i i do have the ability to be a soul-winner
be a faithful soul-winner weekly soul-winner and one day i might be in a different season of life
my kids might be grown and out of the house i might find myself having more time to do to do
more so i don't think that the pastor or the leader has to do more than everyone else i think
that's a way to if if a leader feels like they have to be doing more keeping up with everyone
they're going to burn themselves out i do think they need to set the right example and and model
for people what it is that they're supposed to be doing yeah i think that's a great point and i think
balance is obviously a big part of also being a leader and you know having a family is important
and not just leading the church not just leading soul winning but leading that family and what's
crazy is how many churches they and how many pastors really don't subscribe to male leadership
and male authority in the household anymore. We have a clip I want to play here and I'm going
to get your thoughts on it Pastor Menes but this is Andy Stanley it's the son of Charles Stanley who
had a pretty famous tv program for a long time. Andy Stanley pastors a church it's pretty big
kind of inherited a church through his father's ministry and Andy Stanley has got some strange
ideas. Let's play this clip real quick. Here's the verse that sets the tone for everything that
follows here's our verb submit to one another out of and there it is again every time the apostle
paul tells us to do something he points us back to jesus not the old testament not the 10 commandments
jesus as god through christ has done something extraordinary for you you are to demonstrate that
same kind of love in your relationships with each other including romanic relationships including
marriage you are to submit to one another out of reverence to christ in other words the submission
guys get ready is mutual people this is why this is why christian marriage this is why christian
marriage is a submission competition because the the command to submit is mutual it is mutual
submission my friends if you don't hear anything else today this makes marriage amazing this makes
relationships amazing this is what happy couples know wow that guy is not happy a submission
competition no you what do you want no what do you want no no what do you want what do you
how does that even work no decisions are ever made have you ever heard of this pastor menace
of a submission competition within marriage i haven't heard that phrasing uh specifically
but i have heard people preach that verse and pretty much use that same idea that because the
passage begins with with that verse that in it doesn't mean that why is he to submit to their
husbands or that the husband is the head of the life which obviously it's it's contradictory to
interpret that verse that way um you know one one thing that i've heard throughout my life
preachers say and and people teaching on leadership is that an organism with two heads is a monster and
an organism with no head is dead and there obviously needs to be a leader there needs to be someone
who is making decisions and that verse is that's not what that's talking about uh so yeah you know
it's funny uh if you actually just read the next two verses and i i want to see if we can pull this
up on the screen but he was referencing ephesians chapter number five and he was referencing it in
the niv the non-inspired version so obviously there was already a mistake there he should be
using the king james bible but what i think is funny is how these pastors just cherry pick a
singular verse and put it out there on the screen uh i want to try and get this on here so as soon
as you get it just pull it up but it's funny how they put on the screen and i think since most
people don't read their bible or even take a bible they don't notice that the next two verses
literally contradict and Lee Stanley's point because he's trying to say that this is a
mutual submission um where essentially the husband submitting to the wife the wife submitting
under the husband but i think what's so funny is if you just read the next two verses so it says
here let's let's see if we can read it here aphesians chapter 5 verse 21 submitting yourselves one to
another in the fear of god verse 22 wives submit yourselves and your own husbands as under the lord
for the husband is the head of the wife even as christ is the head of the church and he is the
savior of the body i mean how could you read these three verses in context and then walk away saying
nope husbands need to submit their wives it's because you have a soy interpretation that you're
projecting on the text that isn't actually there and you're not a man you're limp-wristed and
effeminate that's the only explanation possible because the text does not guide you in that
direction whatsoever i mean i just i can't i would be so embarrassed if literally the next
breath of scripture is contradicting right the point that it's super clear he did not read this
passage he didn't like read the passage and try to get the essence of the passage he's just cherry
picking a verse out and not even trying to figure out how that would work with the rest of the bible
i mean if we're literally going to submit to everyone submits to everybody it's just
constant submission competition then how do we ever make a decision how does anybody ever lead
like are you just completely dismissing all the verses that talk about like servants being obedient
under their masters or just any aspect of submission where it talks about like submitting under the
rulers yeah that are over you and the lord there's no practical application that makes any sense
whatsoever not to mention Ephesians chapter five as great as it is and as clear as it is it's not
the only place that we would go to to teach that wives should submit to their husbands you have
Titus chapter two where it says that women should be obedient under their own husbands
first Peter chapter three as well is where we can derive this doctrine so pastor minas are you
having a competition with your wife to see who can submit the most or how does it work in your
family well we try to follow the biblical pattern of the husband is ahead of the wife and
and obviously the bible teaches that the husband is to love his wife and to sacrifice for her like
christ loved the church he gave himself for it the bible says that the husband should be selfless
it says that he should love his wife the way that he loves himself um so but the bible obviously
teaches and i think that when we align ourselves with the word of god we are going to have the
most we're going to be the most content have the most joy and therefore we just have to do what
the bible says the husband is ahead of the wife and the wife is to submit to her husband and then
obviously you know you you have the question is what do you do with ephesians 521 and what these
preachers do you know whether they read the whole passage or understand the whole passage or whether
they're just being completely dishonest because they just don't want to teach what the bible
actually teaches because they're going to have a bunch of pant wearing short-haired feminist women
in their church that are going to be mad at them and upset and those women are the ones that run
the home so they're going to lead their husbands out of the church which is why he's not saying
what the bible actually says but you know you do have verse 21 there and submitting yourself one
to another in the fear of God and I feel like some preachers they find this contradictory because it
says submitting yourselves one to another but then obviously the next couple verses why submit
yourselves unto your own husbands for the husbands of the head of wife, in this Christ of the head
of church so but to me what I think when I see something like this I think well God is trying
to make a point he's purposely putting these verses one right after the other to make a point
and these words are being used here to draw our attention to someone and you know and obviously
I don't know what other preachers teach or whatever about Ephesians 521 but my understanding and the
way that I've taught this is that the Bible definitely teaches that wives are to submit
themselves unto their own husbands the head husbands the head of the wife and she's subject
unto her husband obviously that's not the only like Ben said not the only passage of scripture
teaches that what I do believe the Bible teaches about leadership since we're talking about
leadership is that the Bible teaches what what some might refer to as servant leadership
and and some people don't like that phrase and that's fine that's not it's not a phrase that
that I would argue something about but what I believe servant leadership is and what I want to
I'm always careful to define what I mean by servant leadership because servant leadership
is not a submission competition right servant leadership it's not that you're doing the the
chores of for your wife or that you're doing the the chores for your children but what I believe
servant leadership is and the way that I've defined it for our church family as I've taught on the
subject is that servant leadership is when the leader is leading for the benefit of those that
follow him so it's not that we are submitting to them the leader submitting to the followers is not
submission that's rebellion that's anarchy but what it means is that we as leaders use our authority
our influence our resources the the tools at our disposal to make decisions but we're not leading
for our personal benefit I'm not leading my wife so that I can have a slave I'm not leading my
children so that I can have a slave I'm not leading my church family so that I can fly in a jet and
drive a you know a luxury vehicle and and we're not leading people for our personal benefit but
a biblical leader is positioned there to lead yes make decisions but that is to lead people for
their benefit so that my wife lord willing would be a better person as a result of her being married
to me so that my children would fulfill their spiritual potential as a result of having me as
their father so that my church people our church members would be growing and and learning and
leading more christ honoring lives more successful lives as a result of being under my ministry
that's that's servant leadership is that we're leading for the benefit of others so i believe
on the bible there is saying submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of god the idea is
that as a leader i should be doing what's best not just for myself um but yeah for myself that's
part of it but also for the people that are following me and i believe that's the interpretation
of uh verse 21 which is then what leads us to wives submit yourselves into your husbands but
then paul under the instruction of holy vows is telling people telling men love your wives
you know and he's saying that we should love our wives like christ loved the church and gave himself
glory and that we should be ministering unto them and helping them but i will say about christ that
he might present it to himself a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle this is the idea
that's being put forth in this passage well and i definitely agree that leaders should not be
selfish when moses was appointing leadership he wanted appointment that were hating covetousness
and making sure that they were doing things in the fear of god caring for the things of god
putting god first i i try to take a pretty simplistic approach when it comes to aphesians
521 i i kind of view it as just simply saying that we should submit to human authority and
that's just kind of like just kind of that's just what it means so it really falls in well with the
next verse because a wife's human authority is her husband and when we have other human authorities
such as the pastor or we have the police or we have the government or you have parents, mom and
dad that we should submit ourselves one to another in the positions that are there. I think that
there's sometimes this attitude that I've seen or heard where people will say why don't follow any
man? I just follow Jesus or I just follow Christ and I think that this verse is kind of trying to
put that attitude in check by saying no, no, no, no. You still submit yourselves one to another.
You're still going to have wives submitting to their husband. You're still going to have children
submitting to their parents. You're still going to have the man submitting to the pastor in the
context of church and you could even still have overlap here. You could have a pastor who is a
spiritual authority over someone in the congregation and then someone in the congregation has a job or
a business and hires the pastor and the pastor has to submit to his boss at work. And so it's
like in their different roles and in their different positions, they're submitting one to
another. But to say that this verse somehow just completely undermines the whole next verse
and that wives are no longer supposed to submit to their husband. I mean, my definition of submission,
which I always try to give to people, as I say, it's not doing something when you agree,
it's doing something when you disagree. And so in order for submission to work,
you have to have two parties that don't agree and one decides to acquiesce or accept or embrace
the decision that someone else made. So if the pastor wants to make a decision that you don't,
you embrace that decision anyways and submit yourself. For a wife, it's not submission
to agree with your husband. That's not submission. Submission is when you disagree with your husband,
but you do exactly what he wants anyways. And what the Bible is trying to say is that
ultimately the decision maker in the family is the husband. He's the ultimate decision maker.
Sometimes he may be selfless in those decisions. And I think that that's an important thing to
challenge men and leaders to make selfless decisions, but we need men to make decisions.
We need men to lead and we need them to be the final authority in the household.
This is how it works. And frankly speaking, you know, I think everybody understands the fact that
women sometimes just struggle to make decisions. If you've ever asked her this question, what would
you like to eat? Ever had that been? Have you ever asked someone, a lady what she'd like to eat and
she just wasn't quite sure about it? Almost every time. I know though. Yeah, of course,
you know, there's going to be difference between men and women. We have our strengths, we have our
weaknesses. God, I believe built men to lead and to make decisions and to be logical. And women,
they're a little bit more empathetic. They have a closer touch with their feelings and it helps them
to better, I believe, raise children, empathize with them, pick up on a lot of their clues.
Somehow women can just read their children like a book and us men, it's just like, why are you
crying? You know, and so I think that there's definitely strengths and weaknesses to us.
But that's why they complement one another. Exactly. And God created a harmonious relationship
between men and women, not one based on competition. Well, some people call it
complementarianism. Sounds good to me. And you know, I think that that makes sense. The man
compliments the wife and the wife compliments the man. And again, I think there's nothing wrong with
men helping women or women helping men, but we're talking about submission. We're talking about the
decision making in the household. What are your thoughts, Pastor Menez, on the idea of Ephesians
521, just kind of endorsing or emphasizing the idea of just submitting to the authorities and
the leadership you have in your life? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. That's definitely a concept
taught throughout the Bible. I mean, the Bible talks about submitting ourselves in, you know,
all sorts of authorities. And there's not just the authority of the husband, like you mentioned. You
know, the Bible says that the powers that be are ordained of God. And again, that's not just a
blanket "do everything that the government tells you to do" verse either. But what the Bible does
teach is that we all have been given God-given authorities in our lives, and children have their
parents and they are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right. Wives are to submit
themselves to their husbands. Men go to work and they shouldn't be rebellious towards their bosses.
And you know, I often tell men, sometimes men complain about their wives not listening to them,
but then I hear them complain, rebelling against their bosses and complaining about their bosses
and saying how their boss is an idiot. And I think to myself, "Well, you're just rejoining your soul
there." In every area of life, we have authority and we may have authority or we may be under
submission. At our church, I run the show. I like to control things. And I don't know, maybe that's
not good. I don't know, but I like excellence. I like attention to detail. And you better believe
that Verity Baptist Church, every decision is being made. It's meeting a certain standard.
But when I go to other churches, I submit myself to the authority of that pastor. And I think that
a good leader needs to know when he's wearing the hat of leader and authority and when he needs to
take that hat off and put the hat on of submission. Because if I worked a secular job and I had a boss,
then I need to submit myself to that boss. And there is a place for government and I need to
submit to government. Obviously in all of these areas, it's interesting to me how the Bible is
always clear to say, "Obey your parents in the Lord." That why is it to submit to their
own husbands? It says, "As it is fit in the Lord." And the idea is this, that obviously if your
authority is asking you to sin, whether it's the government or your pastor or your husband or your
parents, if they're asking you to sin or asking you to do something that is outside of the bounds
of what God would have you do, then at that point we ought to obey God rather than men. But I think
if people just understood authority and understood when they are to obey and when the Bible would ask
them to not obey, then it would just solve a lot of problems. Amen. I'm really glad that when I go
to Verde Baptist Church, the decisions were run by Pastor Jimenez because I don't know what the
church would be like if it wasn't and it's definitely, you can see the excellence. It's
a well-oiled machine for sure. I want to park it on this point for a little while because we have
a few more clips and I find that a lot of people find this really interesting when it comes to the
dynamic because a lot of people, just being honest, a lot of people do struggle in marriage.
A lot of people do struggle in family and in leadership and just kind of knowing what's right
and I think because there's just so much bad teaching. I didn't even realize that clip was
out there. We have another one. Let's get this Creflo Dollar clip and see if we can get that.
That sounds like a normal name. Are you going to name your son something like that?
I was assuming in this whole time, I've assumed that it's a stage name of some sort. That's not
his real name. Yeah, it's a stage name. But why not embrace it? It just flows like rain off the
tongue. Why is he using a stage name? Is there like a reason for that? I mean, he probably doesn't
love money or anything like that. Maybe you could go with like... Pastor Dollar. Yeah, Ben the Bitcoin
or Lion of the Night so far. All right, let's see if we can play this clip from Creflo Dollar.
This is so important because Paul was talking about a lot before he got to this particular
point. But he concluded this about submission, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear
of the Lord. And most of us, especially in church, submission only deals with the woman and you forget
real submission. Biblical submission is mutual submission. You know, that's what we share in
common. In other words, submission is not just directed to a woman. Submission is also directed
to a man. It is mutual. And this idea that you can say, no, no, no, I'm supposed to, you know,
just love you as if it's okay for you not to be submitted. And Paul was saying now that we are all
heirs together that submitting yourself one to another in the risk, out of respect for God and
in the fear of the Lord, it is a, it's, it's mutual submission. So if you're going to talk about
biblical submission, you must first conclude that it is mutual submission to say that submission
only pertains to the, to the woman is not biblical submission. Wow. I could just see some black women
and they're like, I'm going to tell him when I get back, you know, put him in line. That's,
that's what black women need is to be told that they're in charge because they're already,
you know, really struggling in that area, right? Being too submissive. I mean, that's that what a
joke. What a joke that this guy is getting up here and just, just saying this mutual submission
stuff again. I mean, again, I'm just kind of flabbergasted. I never heard this kind of
preaching. You'll wonder why, I just want to say, you'll wonder why the inner city communities are
struggling so badly. It's because this is the horrifying leadership that they have at their
disposal that they have to look up to. Well, and let's just be honest for a minute. I mean,
obviously, if we were looking at who's committing the most crimes, it's a lot of the people in the
inner city, a lot of poor people. And honestly, if you look at the demographics, a lot of young
black men are born into fatherless homes. And so you could see how that would empower women to feel
like they have a better head on their shoulders, they make better decisions, they're smarter. And
when they hear preaching like this, you could just see how the women might think that they need to
really dominate the men, domineer them, tell them what to do. Is this something that you've seen,
Pastor Jimenez, where maybe couples come struggle or they come to your church, they ask you advice,
and it seems like the wife really has a hard time not, you know, ruling over her husband. Is
that something that you've seen at all? I don't know if he, I don't know if we pause. We offended
him. Sorry. We offended him. It's your fault. He's so offended by that. I didn't do anything. It was
you. Just to be clear. Dude, I think that that's crazy. Let's, I want to just, we have so many clips.
Let's see if we can do another one real quick. There's a Catholic, you know, Catholic. I wonder,
do you think he's going to have the right position on this? I don't know. Let's see. Let's see. Let's
see if we have the Catholic. He's Catholic. Let's see what happens. It comes back to this. Okay,
men, you got to lead your family. You got to lead your wife. You got to lead your, lead them. You
got to just lead them. Like, okay, that means I got to, like, I'm in charge. That means, okay,
I'm going to make the decisions. Even brides will say something like that. Like, yeah, I guess that
means that, you know, he makes the decisions in the family. That means he's in charge of the family.
Is that what it means? Is that what Christian fatherhood, Christian husbandhood,
Christian leadership means? I think that we are paying attention to one part and not paying
attention to both parts. Like, we're paying attention to half of it. So again, there's
Catholics, there's Christians who are like, yeah, we're being adamant about this. Scripture says,
wives submit to your husbands. He's going to lead. Okay, he's going to lead. So I'm going
to embrace that and be true to the Bible. It doesn't mean like, oh, therefore I make all
the decisions. That way, you know, my word is the final word. Maybe it does in some cases. Maybe it
does in your family. Maybe that's how you've worked it out. But that doesn't necessarily
come from the Bible. So men don't have the final word. Husbands don't have the final word in their
marriage. That is not from the Bible. Hey, do we have any Bible on that, Ben? I mean, again,
apparently it's not from the Bible. The husband is the head of the wife. I mean, there you go.
What about 1 Corinthians chapter number 11? Doesn't that clearly say that the husband is
the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church? We have all kinds of verses on this
particular issue. How about just normal phrasing when people go and they knock on the door of
someone's house and they say, "Can I talk to the man of the house?" I mean, what does that imply,
Ben? It implies there's an authority figure in the home that you're wanting to speak to. This is not
rocket science at all. The man of the house. But pastor, are you shocked that a Catholic got this
one wrong? Well, you know, Catholics seem to be very consistent. They're very good at interpreting
the Bible incorrectly. Like the complete opposite. Pretty much every single time they always have the
Bible wrong. And so it's definitely, uh, it's definitely not surprising, but it was surprising,
you know, how many evangelicals do. I think we have pastor, I mean, it's already froze there for a
second. Uh, did you get to see either of those clips, uh, pastor? Okay. Nevermind. I want to say
real quickly that when it comes to servant leadership, one of the ways that you've defined
pastoring pastor Shelley is this way. You've said you just want to, or one of the things you want
to accomplish is to help other people serve Jesus Christ better. Is that not servant leadership in
your mind? Well, again, you know, servant leadership, I think it's just the mentality
that every position of authority should have is that they're there to serve the people
for the better. So whatever is going to be the best for them, that doesn't mean that you're
necessarily giving them what they want. Your children, your children don't always know what
they want or what they need. And as a good leader, you're going to make sure that you're serving them
in a sense of giving them what they need or what's best for them. Also helping them. I think as a
pastor, you know, it's a goal to feed the sheep. So in a sense, you're serving them spiritual food,
you're trying to look out for them, you're trying to guard the flock. So there is an aspect of
serving for sure. But at the same time, just like Pastor Minnis says, you're not really doing the
chores, you're not going to be doing the dirty work, you're not doing the labor. A leader is
going to be in the front of the battle showing modeling being an example unto everybody. And
so I think from a leadership perspective, we want people to have the right mentality and the right
idea. You know, I think here's a tip that I sometimes give too. And this is a practical
reality question. Just because God has ordained it and said you're in charge and you may have the
title, that doesn't mean that your followers or the people that are under you are going to always
follow your lead. And often the better of a leader you are, the more likely they are to follow.
So if you're struggling with someone following you or submitting or doing what you're saying,
often what you need to try and do is just be a better example and continue to improve
and to make it more enticing to follow. So if you're a man out there and you feel like your wife
doesn't necessarily follow your decision making very smoothly or complains a lot or has issues
with it, you know, sometimes you need to ask yourself, are you a good leader? Are you leading
well? Are you making it easier for her to follow? And I find that men who are really good leaders,
often it's a lot easier for their wives to follow. Whereas, you know, if you're just being lazy and
being a jerk and then just saying, you know, come here, feed me, do what I want, rub my feet,
you know, then often you can build a lot of resentment, bitterness, hostility. And often
it's very difficult for wives to stay motivated to serve. And I would imagine you probably get
that question a lot as a pastor from men who want to know how to best motivate, provoke their wives
to follow them better. And one other question I had for you just staying on that topic is,
what do you think about the Jehu method? Do you think it's effective for husbands to maybe,
if they want their wives to be more spiritual, to just walk up to them and say, hey, woman,
you know, obviously you'd be a little nice in that. My point is, hey, come with me and see
my zeal for the Lord. We're going soul winning Saturday, 10 a.m. You're coming, bring the kids,
leading by example in that way. Yeah, I mean, obviously leadership is a difficult task because
it kind of necessitates perfection where it doesn't necessarily always exist. But of course,
the better you, you know, model yourself and the more separated, sanctified that you are,
the more likely it is, again, that people are going to follow that lead. And so it's definitely
really important to make sure that you're not a hypocrite. You know, the Bible talks about not,
you know, trying to cast the moat out of someone's eye before you get the beam out of your own eye.
And I think for leaders, that's also very important. As leaders, we don't want to be a giant hypocrite.
We want to make sure that we're focusing in on our issues and just leading. You know, if you think
about a leader, if a leader is at the front of the pack, he's not, he's not focused on what's behind
him or what's going on. He's focused on him and going forward and encouraging people to keep going
with him. And I think that would be an important distinction is that, you know, as a leader, I
don't think you need to sit here and cherry pick everything that's going on behind you and trying
to get all the motes out of their eyes, but rather you want to make sure that you're just focused on
leading and going forward and doing right. So, no, if your wife doesn't have a good day, well,
you know, just don't worry about it. Just keep moving forward. You know, the Bible literally
tells husbands not to be bitter, but you know, husbands love your wives and be not bitter against
them. Well, what is bitterness? Bitterness is harboring ill will for someone's wrongdoing.
So that implies to me that verse that wives are going to do things wrong, that they're going to
not always be perfect, that they may cause some kind of resentment or anger from their husband.
And so they need to make sure that they, when their wives do screw up, give them grace. God
gives us a lot of grace. And as leaders, we need to extend a lot of grace to our followers as well.
I think we got Pastor Jimenez, sorry, we haven't a few technical difficulties, but I think we have
Pastor Jimenez back live radioing. And Pastor Jimenez, don't you think it's important for
leaders to make sure that they're extending grace to the people that are following or under their
leadership? Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm sorry, we're having issues. Those clips were so terrible that
my computer just froze and stopped working. But yeah, absolutely. You obviously have to have grace
and patience with people if you're going to lead them. When it comes to that pastoral qualifications,
the Bible teaches that we need to be long-suffering. And we need to just realize that as we lead people,
they're not always going to get it right. And they're not always going to do everything they're
supposed to do. So we need to be long-suffering and patient. And I would also advise the
follower to be patient with their leader and to realize that whoever their leader is, whether
it's a husband or a parent, or teenagers, or a boss at work for men, that they're not always
going to get it right. They're not always going to make the right decisions or say the right things
or whatever. And we just, we all need to extend grace to each other. Can I just say this irks me
as a church member over the years, not so much at Steadfast Baptist and DFW, but in some other
churches I've been a part of where you kind of, you hear people nitpick the pastor or other pastors.
Maybe it's not the pastor at that specific church, but other pastors, you hear people nitpicking them,
picking them apart, playing the Monday morning quarterback as if they know what it's like to
lead a congregation. Pisses me off. Well, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback. And I think
that we have to be careful that we don't do the same thing. And we don't cherry pick people's
positions that we don't know anything about. And, you know, it's definitely easy to be critical of
others. And I think that, you know, a constant challenge from the pulpit and from church and
from the Bible is to constantly look inwardly, judging ourselves and looking to how we can
improve rather than just always focusing on other people. Because frankly speaking, we can't really
affect other people that much. And we can affect ourselves greatly. And so, you know, as a good
leader, a good leader is going to be the most critical of himself. And I think that that helps
you to improve, look at ways that you can make changes. And at the end of the day, we all have
blind spots. So that's why it's good to go to church. That's why it's good to listen to your
pastor and listen to the preaching. And, you know, I'll even say this, while my wife submits to me
and is under my authority, she often gives me really good advice and can give me lots of good
suggestions for things that I might have a blind spot or things that I'm not aware of.
And so it doesn't make me somehow less of a leader to taking her advice or allowing her to
give me suggestion or even taking her decisions very seriously as well and reconsidering my
position because frankly speaking, she's really great at giving me feedback and she's really
honest with me and I really love that about my wife. And I think if you have a wife that
can give you a lot of tips and suggestion and help, you should really embrace that.
Just like you would want at your workplace, you'd want the boss to listen to your ideas and
hope that he takes your feedback seriously. I think that husbands also need to take the feedback,
the advice, the counsel of their wives as well. I know that Pastor Menes, half of his sermons
are written by his wife and so that really helps him with his preaching. I'm just kidding.
That's what I do when I guest preach. Right. Is that cool? Yeah. Well, that's how I come up
with the show. My wife just writes the whole show for us. Yeah. So it's pretty helpful. Yeah.
There's definitely a lot more commas. I'm really bad at commas and my wife's really good at putting
commas in the sentences for me. So you've mentioned in the podcast here so far that
leaders should take accountability. They should take accountability for their actions and not
necessarily just constantly deflect and things like that. And something you said, Pastor Shelley,
in your sermons when you preach on marriage is you've told us, "Hey, don't just like nudge your
wife and be like, 'Hey, this applies to you,' and think that everything's about her." No, take the
sermon about marriage and apply it to yourself. Right. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you agree, Pastor
Menes, though, although we are leaders that our wives can still give us a lot of great counsel,
I'm sure that there's been lots of times where you've leaned on your wife and she's been able
to help you. Can you talk about that balance when it comes to leadership and yet kind of leaning
on your wife as well? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the Bible literally says that God created a wife
to be a helpmate. And again, that doesn't mean that she's the boss or in charge, but she's there
to help you succeed. And when a wife helps her husband succeed and the husband is leading for
the benefit of the family, not just selfishly for himself, then it's a great thing, works perfectly.
And I think when it comes to marriage, because we live in this feminist culture and people get
really confused, I think, when it comes to marriage and husbands and wives, that I think one of the
best things that someone could do is realize that leadership principles and submission principles,
they apply in other areas other than just marriage. And when you apply those in the other
area, sometimes it's a little easier to have clarity because it's not this male-female
romantic relationship. For example, like, and again, I was off when all those clips you guys
were showing, just my computer decided it didn't want to listen to any of it. It didn't want to
submit. Yeah. But the thing, you know, think about this argument, the argument that they were making,
mutual submission, mutual submission. Obviously, they're saying that because they don't want to
offend women and in their congregation and they've got soy men that aren't leading or whatever.
But apply that in other areas of leadership. I mean, when the police officer pulls me over,
am I going to tell them, hey, it's mutual submission? And, you know, this time I'm giving
you the ticket. Right. Write them a ticket. Is that going to work when I'm standing in
front of a judge? Does that work at work for men when their boss is telling them what to do? And
they're like, no, mutual submission. So obviously in a relationship between a leader and a follower,
mutual submission is ridiculous. I mean, it's funny when you put it into those other contexts.
So I think in that same way, we can understand that. But to go back to the question that you're
asking, because I think sometimes men do get, men can have the tendency, maybe in certain churches
or whatever. I'm not talking about our churches, but I'm just saying when we take this conservative
approach to the Bible and we just teach what it says, men can get this idea that, well, then
they don't have to listen to anybody. They don't need to take advice from anybody. They don't need
counsel from anybody. But is that how you want your boss to treat you? I mean, obviously your
boss at work is going to make the final decision, but don't you want him to take you into consideration?
And especially if you're closer to a situation, wouldn't it make sense for the boss to ask you,
hey, what do you think about that? Or can you give me some insight? Is there anything I'm missing
here? Obviously the boss makes the decision, but like here at our church, I've got three full-time
employees and they all have different areas that they work in. Our deacon, Brother Oliver, takes
care of our media as far as editing videos and things that we produce. I've got Brother David,
who does all of our sound in the church services and the audio and the speakers and all of that.
And, you know, I've got Brother Shaw, who takes care of all of our soul winning and printing of
maps. And what I'm saying is it would be silly for me to walk into Brother Oliver's office and
tell him, "I don't like you using this software. Use this other software. I want you..." I don't
know anything about video editing. Obviously, at the end of the day, I make the decision. At the
end of the day, I give the final approval. At the end of the day, I say, "No, I don't like that
picture," or, "I do want that video." But what I'm saying is a good leader also realizes that the
people under him, they have strengths, they have thoughts, they have ideas, they're smart,
and you would be wise to listen to them. Now, again, when I say listen to them, I don't mean
submit to them and let them make the decision. I mean, get their insight, get their thoughts.
The Bible says in the multitude of counselors, there's wisdom. So I think it would be silly.
I think a husband is hurting himself if he never allows his wife to give her thoughts or to ask
his wife, "What do you think about this?" And again, sometimes you're going to agree. Sometimes
you're going to say, "Well, I understand what you're saying, but I still don't think that's
the right choice." And a leader needs to make the decision. But I think leaders would be wise to
hear people out, especially people that are maybe closer to the situation.
Well, we know if Deacon Oliver comes in and demands a raise, he's been listening too much
Creflo Dollar. And so we better watch out for that. I want to go to you Ben again, when it comes to
this particular situation of leadership, do you find that it's really difficult to go to a church
and follow the leadership of your pastor or a pastor in the churches that you go to?
Even if the pastor's got some issues. I mean, you went to a church in Florida where the pastor
wasn't necessarily the same as like a New Actee pastor, but did you find it really hard to submit
to that pastor? No, not at all. I didn't see it as difficult whatsoever. I mean, obviously there's
going to be times, and you brought this up, that submission is when you don't agree. And there may
be times where you have to have that discipline to do what the pastor is asking even if you have a
personal disagreement with that. I've experienced that a lot as a church member. I would say at
Steadfast Baptist Church even, you know, we've worked on a lot of projects together where we're
working on a documentary and I say, "Hey, what do you think about adding B to the documentary?"
And you say, "No, we're going to do A." And then I have, you know, it's incumbent on me to respond
by going, "All right, A it is. Let's go for it." So there's been situations like that for sure.
How many times would you, in video editing, would you put something in there and I'd be like,
"This is complete trash. Remove it." I would say several times over the last few years.
Now, I want to apply this to a harsh clip here, but it really tests the limits here. We got one
with Pastor Brzezinski and you know what? He's just not feeling dinner and so he has his own
ideas here. Kind of blew up on the internet. Let's see if we can play Pastor Brzezinski's
clip here. "Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ," the Bible says. It says, "Let the
wives be unto their husbands in everything." It says, "The wives are to be subjection to their
husbands in everything, everything." So, you know, that's not popular today, but there's a lot of
things that are just, they're left up to the husband. They're left up to the husband. They
might not be in the Bible. If I came home and my wife had a whole meal on the table and I said,
"You know, I want pancakes," and she's like, "Oh man, but I've already made hamburgers," and I'm
just like, "I have to have pancakes right now." She should make pancakes. Right. I mean, look,
that would be kind of a jerk thing for me to do, and I wouldn't do that, and in 23 years I've never
done that. But the point is, the husband is in charge in everything, and if I want pancakes
over hamburgers, that's not against what the Bible says, okay? So a lot of people, like with
marriage today, this is all mixed up because it's just, the world is teaching something
completely different. Yeah, I mean, that's an extreme, but hey, I mean, how many times when we
video editing, you bring me a McDonald's sandwich and I say, "Nope, pancakes." Oh, it's happened
many times, and I would be a horrible follower if I was contentious about it and wasn't listening.
So I think in those scenarios as a follower, like I said, it is incumbent on me to go with what I'm
being asked to do and say, "All right, if my authority is saying we're going with plan A,
not plan B, I'm all in on plan A. Let's make plan A happen." I mean, in marriage, again,
it's definitely a different relationship than a boss, an employee, or a pastor, and a church member.
But at the same time, some of these parallels are pretty equivalent. And do you see, Pastor Menes,
any problem with telling your wife she's got to make pancakes?
Well, I mean, no, absolutely not. I mean, I don't know why.
Personally, I'm a waffles guy. But hey, if you want some pancakes,
that's what's on the table, right? I think that what people need to understand,
because Pastor Woznowski, obviously I love Pastor Woznowski, and he makes the point,
and he's making a point. And then in the point, he says, "I would never do that. I'm 23 years,
I haven't done that." I think what people need to realize is that sometimes, as a pastor,
I've found that. Sometimes I'm talking to the leader, and sometimes I'm talking to the follower.
So if the wife is complaining, "I made dinner and my husband came home and he wanted pancakes,"
you know, the advice to the wife is to make pancakes. Because the Bible says that you are
to submit in everything, and as long as it's not a sin, as long as he's not asking you to,
you know, help himself crack cocaine or something that's obviously wrong,
then because if your husband is asking you to sin, you ought to obey God rather than men.
But if he's not asking you to sin, you should do it. That's the advice
when you're talking to the follower. But if I'm having this conversation with the leader,
you know, to the leader, I'm going to say you should consider your follower. You know,
I mean, do you really need pancakes that bad? Because here's the thing, are you within your
rights? Absolutely. But this is one of the things that I've found in leadership, and this is
a conversation that I have with all of the, you know, Pastor Pazoranski is somebody we sent out.
Obviously, I love Pastor Pazoranski. He's great. He has a great marriage, great kids. I mean,
he's awesome. But a conversation that I've had with all of the guys that I've sent out over the
years is this idea of credibility and how far you can push things with your followers. And it's not
just, I'm not just talking about marriage. In fact, I've had this conversation mostly under
the context of a pastor, but I do think it applies to every position of leadership.
And this was actually something that a pastor taught me years and years ago. And what it taught
me was this, that we as leaders, when we lead and we are succeeding, we're winning, whether it's
winning games, if you're a coach or the business is making money and you're succeeding in business
or whatever, the church is growing and things are going well, whenever things are going well as a
leader, we are earning credibility with our followers. And the example that was given to me
was think of credibility as like a credit, like you get a credit at an arcade, a coin, you've got
these coins in your pocket. And what happens, and this is more, I'm applying it to pastors,
is that we have a certain amount of credibility with our followers. And every time we help them,
every time things go well, every time we succeed, subconsciously, they get, you get a certain amount
of credits deposited into your pocket. And you can earn those when things are going well. But
you can also lose them when you do a jerk move, when you lose your temper, when you do something
that you shouldn't do, you can lose your credits. And what I have found is that when a leader gets
to the point where the credits get to zero, that's when he loses the follower. That's when he loses
the heart of his children. That's when he loses the respect of his wife. That's when the church
member quits the church. So we always want to be careful about what we're doing. Yes, it's within
your rights to say, "You worked for an hour and a half making this meal. Throw it all away. I want
pancakes." Obviously that's within your rights. And if you've not done that in 23 years and your
wife is happy and she knows that you love her and you've taken care of her, then you could do that
and she's probably just going to smile and be like, "Okay, I don't know what got into him."
But if your marriage is hanging on by a thread and you've had issues and problems, that might
not be the wisest thing to do, so anyway. Someone put in the comments, "Spend leadership capital
carefully." One thing about Pastor Przarnski, he's also got a great banner. I really love that
banner and it looks really nice on the video there. And obviously, if you want pancakes,
sometimes you got to say it. I think obviously in that scenario, you want to be careful with
your wife, especially with cooking because they put a lot of effort and energy into it. It's
often very special to them. So maybe you would say, "Can we have pancakes after the hamburgers?"
Might be a fair compromise. But at the same time, Ben, when we've done the video editing,
there may have been times where I was kind of harsh or I wanted you to change something and
maybe you didn't agree. But weren't there also a lot of times where maybe after, maybe you didn't
agree but then afterwards, you kind of saw my vision and maybe you thought, "You know what,
that was kind of the right decision." Do you feel like that ever happens?
That happens often. And I can give you a specific example, the ending of The Preserved Bible. I had
a theme song that I put in there, if you want to call it that background music that I put in there.
And when you watched it, you said, "We're going to switch that out for something else."
And I didn't agree internally. But I said, "All right, let's go for it." And it turned out to be
way better. I think the film came out better. And on top of that, we ended up using the song
I wanted originally for LGBT terrorists. And it fit that movie way better. And it was more
appropriate for that film. So there's a specific example of that happening. Sure, you can look back
at situations like that and go, "Man, I didn't agree at the time, but actually the authority
was right there." Well, I kind of was thinking you were doing a cheap plug there for The Preserved
Bible. But then I realized it was a double plug because LGBT terrorists was brought up as well.
And then we'll just Trinity it, thesodomitedeception.com. You got to go check it out.
Hey, also, if you want to call in 231-Baptist, we're going to be taking calls. We do have a
caller on the line. We're going to get to you in just a second. And you can be asking your
questions to Pastor Jimenez. This is your opportunity to call in. Also, we do send out
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I know that Pastor Jimenez has an email list, Banned But Not Bound. You need to check that out,
get subscribed to his email list. They send out stuff weekly. They're sending out their sermons
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tweet anymore. It's exit. How does that work? Exit. No, they post it now. Truth it. Truth
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Now, I'm not really an expert on locals but I think that locals is a paid subscription
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you to get plugged in. We also love you to check out the show live so you can give us
questions in the chat. You can call us. And we actually have a caller Drake who called
in and he has a question for us for Pastor Minnis. Drake, are you on the line? Can you
hear us?
I am.
All right. Tell us where you're from, Drake.
I'm from Michigan.
Awesome.
Nice to talk to you. I'm Pastor Minnis. That's Shelly Burbin.
Yeah. Thanks for calling in. Did you have a question for us today?
Yeah. I was going to ask Pastor Minnis, some good leadership traits for a husband with
no kids that his credit might be, you know, might only have like one or two left. I just
listened and where my wife feels like she doesn't have a purpose in life since we don't
have kids.
So I don't know. Were you able to hear that question, Pastor Minnis?
I was able to hear some of it. Can you?
Yeah. Basically, he's just asking, he's saying, he's asking for some marriage advice
in relation to his, to his situation or anybody's situation. But he's saying specifically, you
know, if you don't have any children and, and perhaps maybe you don't have a lot of,
as you kind of described it, you know, leadership credits, you know, what would be some advice
to maybe earn some more of those tokens or just kind of improve the situation?
With his wife.
Yep.
Yeah. Well, I mean, as far as like earning leadership credit, you know, I'll, I'll give
you an example that's not marriage because obviously everybody's marriage is very personal
and I can't speak to how this would apply to your wife, but let me just apply it to
church.
That's something I'm extremely, you know, obviously I've pastored for 13 years, so it's
something I know.
Every time that I set out to do something and I succeed or we succeed, I should say,
subconsciously the church members in our church, the way I think of it is I'm earning credits.
And when I fail from time to time, we're all going to fail, then I lose those credits.
So there have been times when I maybe was having a bad day and I was a little rude or
sharp with somebody on my staff or maybe even a church member.
And they forgave it or they didn't even think anything of it or they just moved on because
over the years I've earned credits with them, I've earned credibility.
So what I'm saying is you need to be looking for wins.
Like, for example, I'll give you an example.
We have a vision offering here we do every year and we just did a big vision offering
to actually remodel this building we're in.
And I went to our church and I challenged them to raise $100,000 in one special offering.
And I thought to myself, if we fail, this is going to make me look bad, right?
If I have to stand up and say, well, we didn't hit the goal or whatever.
But what I thought to myself is I feel like I have enough credibility with our church
people that if we fail, they're not going to see me as a failure.
And of course, we not only did we hit our goal, but we went we passed it.
And that's giving me more credibility in their eyes.
And this is something that the Bible talks about, you know, the Bible talks about when
Joshua led the children of Israel over the Jordan River, that God magnified him in the
eyes of the people.
When Solomon took the leadership and people began to realize his wisdom as he was making
decisions and judging the people, the Bible says that God magnified him in the eyes of
the people.
So what I'm saying is if you're a coach of a of a team, of a baseball team or a football
team, the way you earn credibility with your players and your fans is you win games.
And if you win enough games, when you lose a game here and there, they're not going to
fire you, but you can lose so many games that they fire you.
And that's what I mean by credibility.
And what I will say is you need to figure out as a leader when we lead for the benefit
of others is what how can you help your wife win?
Because that's the whole point of being a leader.
The whole point of being a leader is not that I've got 250 church members that serve me.
That's not what Jesus taught.
The point is that I'm helping them.
And again, that doesn't mean that I'm doing their job, but I'm helping them succeed.
I succeed as a leader when the people that I lead are succeeding.
So you've got to figure out what that means for your wife, you know, we're talking specifically
for you.
If you were a parent, I would say for your children.
If you were an employer, I would say for your employees.
And that's the answer is going to be different in every situation, but how can you help your
wife succeed?
And again, I'm not talking about you do all the chores, that's not what I'm talking about.
Talking about how can you leverage your resources, your influence, your authority to help her
succeed in life.
And I think that as you, as you lead your team to wins, you gain credibility, you get
those credits.
Yeah, I think that's a great, that's great advice.
I would say additionally, just on a kind of real simple, practical note, especially if
you feel like maybe there's some tension in the relationship because you're, you're asking
her to maybe do some things or make some changes that she's not very comfortable with.
So just for example, if you know, maybe if you're, if you're taking her to church and
she's not as excited or zealous about church or you're having her go out soul winning or
you're asking her to stay home or just whatever, whatever's happening where maybe there's a
little bit of tension, try to identify something that she really wants to do that you could
do with her and try to suggest it to her as some kind of a compromise.
And I wouldn't necessarily word it that way, but I'm just simply saying, Hey, you know,
I know that maybe you weren't excited about going to church today, but I would really
like to take you to your favorite restaurant for lunch or Hey, you know, I want to go soul
winning and I'd like you to go with me at one, but then afterwards let's go to the park
at two, you know, and we can hang out or, you know, let's go on a walk or we'll go
to your favorite store and we can go looking and shop a little bit or something or just
something that you recognize and identify that your wife really likes and trying to
plan some events that are geared towards her specifically in her interest.
You know, sometimes as a leader and as a husband, it's good to study your wife and try to pay
attention and notice the things that she says and the things that she likes and to try to
coordinate and plan some of those activities to make her feel special and make her feel
like you care not only about your agenda being met but like as Pastor Menes said, you know,
making her successful and caring about her wishes and wants and sometimes not just only
thinking about what she needs but even sometimes what does she want.
I think that that will get you some of those credits maybe if you're looking for or could
cause a little bit more love, compassion, empathy in the relationship.
Also just that's a part of what women always say romance, right?
That's what they always want.
They want this romantic relationship and there's a time and place for that but ultimately what
women really want is they just want someone who is thinking about them and doing things
and making them feel special and so I think it is important to consider what does she
want and how can I incorporate that into our plan while not sacrificing of course the things
that we need to do as a family then you know when it comes to earning marriage credits
do you find that planning or maybe a special outing or doing something that your wife wants
maybe gets you some extra credits every once in a while well I think it's positive reinforcement
hey we'll do this activity and we'll attach something you really enjoy to that activity
which then subsequently leads her to be a little bit more excited about it one other
aspect of the call I wanted to refer to is that he mentioned not having kids and his
wife struggling with that thought of maybe a lower sense of self-worth and I've experienced
that exact scenario for a while my wife struggled greatly with having a low sense of self-worth
as we struggled to have kids and one thing that I really tried to instill in her is this
idea that even though we're in a difficult season in life praise God now we have two
children with one on the way but my point is at the time I told her hey we're in a
difficult season in this area but you can still serve the Lord Jesus Christ you could
still go out soul-winning you could still you know read your Bible memorize scripture
we could still pray together there's still plenty that we could do to serve God even
if this specific area is locked down to us at this point in our lives.
Some good tips there thanks so much Drake for calling in do you have any other last
thoughts or another question here before we let you go thank you so much Drake
thanks for calling in you have a you have a blessed night Ben I know that you
said that you have another question here that you wanted to throw out here on the
table what what are your what is what are your thoughts here I have a question
for both pastors on the line so that we pastor Shelley pastor Jimenez often I
hear this idea that in order to be an effective leader you have to at one
point in your life learn how to be a good follower and I think we see this
pattern in Scripture I'm in the book of Amos in my reading and I noticed in Amos
chapter 7 in verse 14 it says but I was an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore
fruits we had humble beginnings David had humble beginnings Saul had humble
beginnings Moses humble beginnings my point is is there a season in your life
that you could look back to and think about how that was a particular time
where you really learned how to be a great follower because of course all
great leaders were great followers at one point so again just my question is
was there ever a time in your life that you could think of whether it was a
particular job that you had or just maybe you know growing up in your
parents household whatever the case may be is there a time where you can look
back and say that's where I learned how to follow. I'm gonna let Pastor Minas go
for this question first. I mean I grew up in a Christian home where my dad was
definitely the boss you know he's definitely the head of the home and I
think just growing up in a in a Christian home where that's the example
set forth you know I think growing up that way that that helped me just learn
how to be a follower. Obviously I was in the military so I mean you definitely
learn to follow in the military they don't care about credits there they
don't care about your feelings so and as a church member I mean I remember one
time a pastor that at a church that my wife and I were at the pastor just at
one point while we were there and and I don't feel like he was trying to flatter
us it was at a time when we were actually getting ready to leave and he
genuinely you know took my wife and I aside and said I want you to know that
you you are the best church members I've ever had and I felt like that was a very
kind thing for him to say and and what I often tell leaders is that you we reap
what we sow I should say this way what happens all followers that want to be
leaders is that you reap what you sow and look I've been in churches where the
pastor rebuked me I've been in churches where the pastor was mean to me I've
been in churches where I knew for a fact that the sermon was directed at me
specifically and you know I didn't get up and and just get mad and angry and
and whatever ice I stayed and I took the rebuke and I you know and they were
right and and even if they weren't right there they had them they were they were
the pastor and they they they were a good man you know you see I'm saying so
I feel like we just need to learn to be good followers and even now as a leader
I'm still find myself in situations where I'm the follower and we need to
just realize that if we're going to exercise the right to correct people to
rebuke people at times to instruct people then we need to be able to take
that as well and take it well and and I don't think I don't think it's a
coincidence that in the Bible you see Joshua following Moses and then Joshua
becomes a great leader his own right you see Elisha serving Elijah and then
Elisha becomes a great leader in his own right it's it's just the process by
which you become a good leader is by first learning to follow I definitely
don't know that I'm the the best follower in the world so you know at the
end at the end of the day though I definitely can think of situations where
I I would say this way I feel like I'm definitely not a good follower in my
mind where when this it when leadership or a boss or someone is making a lot of
decisions that I disagree with I'm definitely thinking about how much I
disagree with those decisions but I think that you know and again I don't
know what's going on in other people's head but I think what I do try to do is
I try to make sure that I'm not allowing that to affect my performance I'm not
letting that affect my relationship or how I you know carry myself and I think
that most men that are have a tendency towards leadership often are kind of
thinking in their mind like I think there might actually be a better way to
do this or they're constantly just being very critical in nature they're
very critical in just trying to think about really good ways to do things and
they're really effective. So it's probably natural to have those
tendencies but I think what's really important is that when you are
struggling to make sure that you're not allowing that to affect your face, your
attitude, your behavior, your communication or your job performance and I know
specifically I did work for one company where the boss was a dictator. He
definitely was the "I want pancakes when you've made hamburgers" kind of guy. I
even specifically remember it was a coding job but I came to work all
weekend without him asking, without anybody asking. I just like did all this
work and I was like really excited to kind of get this task done and I
presented it and I'd done something in the specific code that my boss didn't
like for some reason so he literally just went in and just deleted my entire
work just in front of the entire team and I was just I was really kind of
flabbergasted at his his response because I was kind of coming in thinking
like oh he's gonna be excited that I got all this done and like it is gonna be a
good thing and then all of a sudden it turned into like a bad thing and I'm
being like publicly rebuked in front of my team and he just like delete all my
work but you know I just tried to take it in stride I didn't get angry and I
watched other people that I work with not be able to handle my bosses demeanor
and they were constantly getting fired left and right and while I didn't
necessarily enjoy working there the thing that I noticed though is because
my boss was so critical and because he was so extreme it caused me to grow a
lot in my career it caused me to really think really hard about the tasks that I
was doing and to work really hard and to try and make sure that I was doing a
good job and I think it actually made me a lot better employee even though my
boss was just like kind of a jerk and just kind of just like over the top and
so I think even if you find yourself in a really bad situation or a highly
critical situation just just allow that to draw the best out of you. I haven't
been in the military I'd like to get Pastor Minnis' perspective on this
but I would assume that drill surgeons are not the friendliest nicest people
you've ever met. In fact some people might think they're a jerk but it seems
like those environments sometimes draw the best out of you they kind of force
you to do the best that you can and and you know obviously not everybody
responds well but just generally speaking even if you do have a jerk as a
boss or a leader you know you can still take that opportunity to grow and to
take their criticism and to implement that you know being in the military you
know were your drill sergeants you're you know the best people you've ever met
or what was what was your experience there pastor menace I mean you're
definitely you know being yelled at and humiliated and all those things you know
but you know I want to say what you described you said that you weren't sure
if you're a good follower that's that's how I don't I think I think you're a
great I think what you just described is a great follower because a follower is
not someone who just agrees with everything that the leadership does
obviously you know husbands need to realize that their wives have brains
their teenage kids have brains their employees have brains and they think
things and they're not always gonna agree with with us and what makes them
a good follower is that they can maybe give their thoughts or insight of their
eyes for it and if the decision is made and it goes against what they said that
they just are respectful and it doesn't mean that they agree it just means that
they submit and they have a good attitude about it and and you know and
this is what the Bible says I was just thinking of this verse in first Peter
2 18 the Bible says servants be subject to your masters without fear not only to
the good and gentle but also to the forward so the responsibility of the
follower and this is what I mean like when you're talking to the follower and
you're talking to the leader the conversation might be different right
when you're talking to the follower you're saying hey even if your job even
if your boss just deleted all the work that you did just be respectful do your
work don't let it affect your your your work you know the the production that
you're doing just keep a good attitude whatever but you know about if I was
giving advice to the to the leader I would be saying you know maybe that's
not the best way to deal with that situation so sometimes I think we want
these answers that apply to both and and the answer it's not always that clear
you know you're telling the wife yeah if your husband wants pancakes making
pancakes but then you're telling the husband you know is that something you
really need to be doing you really need to just be deleting all the work of this
employee in front of all these employees and humiliating them or
whatever but the point is this when we have the hat on a follower then we need
to be subject unto our masters not only the good and gentle but also to the
forward but that doesn't mean then when you're the leader be a jerk because they
have to submit to you and that's what the Bible says they do have to submit
to you and that is what the Bible says right but that doesn't mean that that's
always gonna happen or whatever now that's a great verse I didn't you know I
wasn't thinking about in that context but sometimes you do have a forward boss
or a leader or someone over you that you don't necessarily gel with but that
doesn't mean that you don't have an opportunity to grow learn and we see
many men in the Bible having bad bosses and it ended up still working great for
them you have Jacob working for his father-in-law Laban and Laban's not a
good boss but God sees him doing a good job and God ends up rewarding Jacob for
being a faithful employee and you know I think a lot of people that are younger
and I know you have a youth conference coming up past I think a lot of young
teenagers and maybe even young adults they have a desire to do or to be a
leader do you think that they should try to do anything different or should we
just encourage them to focus on following do you think that following is
a sufficient enough path to lead straight into leadership roles or do
you actually try to encourage them to think differently or to employ certain
tactics is that something when talking to the youth that you would give them
any kind of different advice here I I would say let me let me say it this way
I do not think that simply being a good follower will translate to being a good
leader I've seen plenty of great followers who were not good leaders I
do think that the first step to being a great leader is first being a follower
so that's definitely that in in that in that line if you want to be a good
leader you have to be a good follower that's what you have to start just like
if you want to be a disciple of Christ you need to get baptized that's the
first step but but just getting baptized doesn't mean that you are now just
living for God there's other things that need to happen there too and I would
say with leadership is the same way just because you're a good follower it does
not necessarily mean you're going to translate into being a good leader I
think you need to work on your leadership skills and capacities but I
do think that it's a non-starter if you're just rebellious critical never
submitting always go here you're not gonna be a good leader if you can't
learn to follow well and you know I'd like to get your idea if you have some
other thoughts some tips that I give to people is number one anytime there's a
door open there's an opportunity you know if you have a desire to be a leader
you need to take it you know if they say hey we need someone to lead this
soul-winning group or we need someone to take charge on this project or we
need someone to help the new guy you know that's an opportunity for
leadership sometimes those opportunities aren't even necessarily spoken it could
just be you notice someone visit your church and they're new and you just take
it upon yourself to go introduce yourself show them where they can seat
or sit or you know give them some of the information about the church just being
friendly just kind of helping them maybe you notice someone that's new to
soul-winning and you invite them and encourage them to go out soul-winning
with you so you're just taking initiative. I think that leaders are
ones who take initiative and I always tell you know our church and I try to
emphasize this to the men that you should just always be prepared to step
into the role even if you haven't been called and so you know specifically I
know when I went to Faithward Baptist Church or just really any church in
general I just always have a sermon ready even if I'm just a visitor or a
guest or just you know you never know what's going on I just take it upon
myself to say hey if if whatever happened I had to preach tonight I'm
ready like I'm just ready to preach and I'm ready to go and I remember
specifically you know I I kind of had re-encouraged myself on that so I
decided to write a sermon and the next Sunday when I was in my old IVB church
during the morning service it was kind of over and for some reason we did
announcements after the whole service I don't know it's kind of weird but the
pastor just making announcements after the service and he just says all right
tonight we're gonna hear a sermon from brother Shelley like he'd never said
anything to me I was just like okay you know and and it was just really funny to
me just how that worked and it was just kind of and I was I was really pleased
with myself that I wasn't just thinking like oh no what do I do like I already
kind of had something ready to go and I was able to use that and I just took it
serious from then on that I said hey you know and it's not that hard just to write
a sermon one time and I remember I'd written sermons there's been times where
I'd written sermons and it took me six months or a year to preach it just
because the opportunity didn't happen that next week so I don't want you to
get this idea like alright I got a sermon I know I know my pastor is gonna
call on me this week you know there's been plenty of times where it took a
while but I think just where you want to go you know look at what that person's
doing think about how if you had to step into their shoes how you'd be prepared
for that role and just prepare yourself you know don't necessarily antagonize
leadership saying like I'm ready coach put me in but at the same time when the
opportunity rises when you get the call be ready to step forward and say here
am I send me you know do you have any other tips that are kind of similar
there pastor Menez or is there anything that maybe you would encourage people if
they have a desire to be a leader what would be some some things that they
could try and work on yeah I mean I definitely agree with that absolutely
there's there's a prepared place for a prepared man so that's definitely a
principle of leadership and what I try to train you know we have a leadership
class that I put guys through that are interested in learning about leadership
but often teach guys is that leadership is not a title it's not a position
obviously leaders often have titles and positions but you can have no title and
no position and still be a leader because leadership is influence it's
influencing people it's leading people in the direction that they should be
going and there are plenty of people that have titles and positions that are
not leaders you know I mean everybody's had that manager the guy has the title
of supervisor or manager but everybody rolls their eyes when he talks he has no
credibility he has no competence he's an idiot and everybody knows it you he may
have a position but he really has no influence are you talking about Joe
Biden exactly so what I tell people is start working on being a leader and you
might find that as you gather your ability to communicate because you know
there are leadership skills that I think I think there are some skills that every
leader has to have we've talked a lot about credibility already that's that's
one of them but that's not the only one a good leader has to be able to
communicate well a good leader needs to be competent needs to be confident that
means to have character these are all things that you can begin to work on
before you have a position and you might find that if you start working on those
things then they might give you the position and I know at our church we
have all sorts of different ministries and things one of our ministries is our
team captains where we have our church divided into different teams and we have
faithful couples that are over those teams and they just help us with
keeping an eye on people helping people being there for people providing
fellowship activities and things like that and what I what what I do when I
choose team captains I don't find someone that's doing nothing give them
a title and hope that they'll start doing what they're supposed to do what
my wife and I often do is we identify someone that we've already noticed this
person all on their own is reaching out to people when they're not at church
they're already all on their own having people over for for dinner they're
already on their own doing certain things and we think well they're doing
it and they're good at it so let's ask them to do it officially you know and
give them a title so oftentimes that's how it works that you start practicing
leadership and then people identify you as a leader and then give you the
position yeah I think that's great great tip and of course you know you never
want to make you never want to undermine the leadership by trying to gather
people unto you but you know just making sure that you're staying within those
boundaries but there was a quote that I'd put on the thumbnail and it seems
very apropos it says the boss has a title but the leader has the people and
you know obviously Ben you know you don't necessarily have an official title
here you're the Baptist but I feel like you exude a lot of leadership skills and
qualities and I think a lot of people do look to you and they they're definitely
encouraged by your zeal the videos that you make I you know just a lot of things
that you say a lot of people tell me that you preach really good sermons and
so you know I really appreciate you know the fact that someone like you that
doesn't have to have the title but can still try to be a leader I kind of want
to wrap up the show but I want to toss it over to you do you have any final
thoughts or questions or some other thing you wanted us to cover here before
we kind of wrap up well first of all thank you for that one thing I wanted to
ask both of you is this as a husband it's important to lead obviously our
wives but we want to do it effectively and we want to keep them encouraged and
I was wondering if you could speak to the importance of providing encouragement
to followers when they do something that is right I remember in one of those
sermons that you've preached on marriage pastor Shelley you said make
sure you're encouraging your wife when she does something that you think is
right or good maybe she cooked a good meal you know your encouragement should
vastly outweigh your criticism can you speak to the importance of providing
encouragement for those that are under our authority well my father always was
a big proponent of this idea of positive reinforcement he would he would emphasize
you know speaking positively and encouraging people but I can't remember
this from him specifically or maybe he was quoting somebody but I heard that
you need to have nine positive comments to every one criticism so you have like
five nine encouragements to every one criticism and I'm not saying that that's
necessarily a hard and fast rule that's just something that I was told and I do
think that there's some truth to that I think that you know in general we want
to make sure that we're praising individuals and you can even see this in
the Bible where there's a lot of characters who before they offer a
criticism or perhaps before they kind of approach some you know tension they will
often first address the positive you can see this in the epistles even where
Jesus Christ himself commends the churches first and then he kind of lays
out some of the negative things that are going on so you can see that Jesus
Christ is even balanced in the sense that he praises his subjects he praises
his churches and his leaders and his members for the things that they're
doing positively and good and then also he's willing to dole out the criticisms
and you can even see from those seven churches some are like almost all
positive some are kind of almost all negative and then some are kind of right
down the middle and I think that of course you know Jesus Christ is very
fair in his assessment he's the perfect judge but we too as leaders should make
sure that when there is something to praise that we do we're not flattering
we're not giving insincere compliments but when we can recognize and notice
things that are good we're calling them out. In a marriage it's also very
important to constantly praise your spouse you see in Song of Solomon that
both the husband and wife are just almost as over the top but it's just
like boy are they just praising one another praising each other with all
kinds of titles you know my dove my love my sister my spouse my undefiled like
they're just they're just constantly praising one another and I think that
that will really greatly bless marriages if husband and wife are constantly
praising one another it definitely softens the blow to the needful
criticisms that come from time to time what I say when I come home from work
yeah of course I'll let pastor menace give some some final thoughts here yeah
I think about that I think yeah I agree with everything that you said and I
think in in regards to leadership a rule that that I try to follow is that you
know what the Bible says that we should give honor to whom honor is due and I
think that as leaders when things go well when when people when we're
succeeding when we're winning then we should give credit where credit is due
honor where honor is due and we shouldn't be taking all the credits for
ourselves although subconsciously the people will give you credit but we
shouldn't be doing that I think that as leaders when things go well we need to
take responsibility and not try to blame other people but just realize that I'm
the leader the buck stops here but when things go well that we don't try to take
all the credit that we spread that around and we give honor to honor is due
so when when we win the team wins and when we lose you know it's it's my fall
I'll take responsibility I think people respect that and I think that people see
that you're willing to acknowledge the part that they played on the team the
role that they're playing things that they're doing and they appreciate that
well thank you so much for all of your your wisdom and giving us so much time
we really enjoy having you on the Baptist bias one of our favorite guests
and we really look forward to seeing your conferences and your new building
you guys thriving and just really sticking it to all those protesters you
know we definitely love to see the victory and of course it's the Lord
that's giving us that victory and we all recognize that of course before we before
we drop off do you have any last plugs or anything else that you'd like to say
pastor Minas obviously I want to say thank you to you pastor Shelley for your
friendship and for having me on and brother Ben of course thank you for your
friendship and just I I I'm a fan of Ben the Baptist too easy is definitely
someone that has a lot of influence and I appreciate you and yeah I mean I would
just say that if anybody is interested we have a youth rally coming up in
April 9th and 10th if you got a teenager and you'd like to register them come
come out to Sacramento and it's gonna be a great time it's gonna be sermons
geared towards teenagers there's gonna be activities and skits wrestling shows
it's gonna be a great time and of course the Red Hawk Preaching Conference
we'd love to have I mean it is the the event of the of the year and I don't I
don't say that in any sort of arrogant way it's just it's it's taken on a life
of its own I feel like it's the new IFB family reunion and I would encourage
anybody if they're able to come out to the Red Hawk Preaching Conference. Yeah of
course if you're in Sacramento and you're not going to Verity Baptist
Church you need to go most likely everybody listening to our show is
probably fully aware of Verity Baptist Church and so what I want to do is I
want to challenge you guys that are in these areas do know about this church
invite your friends invite your co-workers that's how churches grow we
grow by the church members going out there and inviting people meeting new
people encouraging the visit the church Verity Baptist Church is a great church
you should be you know you should be very pleased and happy that you can
invite them to a church like Verity Baptist Church there's so many people out
there that don't have a very good church to go to or have a church that they're
not necessarily very supportive of and if you have Verity Baptist Church you
have no excuse you need to get the t-shirt the hat you need to get the
banner you need to send out the emails you need to be apparently on Twitter or
X it's zoasting I don't know you got a zoaster you got it you got to get it out
there and you got to put that information out there and get people
plugged in sure I don't know that's what someone said I'm not sure I'm trusting
the comment section how reliable is the comment section but I want you to check
it out and of course if you're not in the area you got to make it to the the
once-a-year pilgrimage it's where we all show up the Red Hot preaching
conference I was I was graciously invited again I don't even I don't know
what I have to do to get uninvited to this conference but I told Baster Minnis
maybe I might do some live pyrotechnics or something I mean he's got a new
building and so that might get a little dicey but no I'm really excited I'm
gonna be out there this year of course God willing but I've been invited it's
it's a great honor to go out there one of the best conferences you could ever
imagine the ninth annual red hot preaching conference you got to check it
out check out Verity Baptist Church do you have any other plugs for
Verity that I'm not thinking of just want to make sure I'm covering on my
basis I think you got them all the only thing I want to point out is we have
hosted the Baptist bias from the red hot preaching conference in the past and I
don't know if you plan on doing that again I won't promise anything prematurely
to the audience but all I have to say is this folks tune in to red hot if you
want to hear some epic preaching and this year for the first time from their
new building yeah I don't know we'll have to we'll have to see if the red if
we can travel again but that was a lot of fun that was a lot of that was a lot
of excitement to host in there and it was hot so literally and figured in every
way you could ever want it to be hot well thanks again for tuning in for the
Baptist bias I want to make sure that you are signed up you got to join us at
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show live because you can call in 231 Baptist you can put in chats and often
we'll check out your chats maybe we even read them if it's a good one and also
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and support the show I'm not planning on putting any content out there that's
paid but if you'd like to help support the show you can and I wanted to let us
to let you know we are gonna have our normal show next Tuesday night at 8 p.m.
but we're gonna try and do a special stream on Friday which is kind of
referred to by many as quote good Friday now I actually made a chart about the
timing of the Passover a couple years ago and I actually preached a couple
sermons on this I believe and I think the scripture is pretty clear that it's
actually good Thursday but what I thought would be pretty special is if we
had a live stream on Friday and we actually talked about that so you can
check us out on Friday at noon that's central time Texas time or the promised
lands time you can check us out at 12 we're gonna be streaming I actually have
a guest pastor Stephen Anderson is gonna be joining me we're gonna be talking
about the timing of the Passover and we have I have a chart we have lots of
different things that we can bring up we're gonna be looking at the scripture
there's a lot of articles on this I think got questions I was reading their
article today they actually put the kind of information about a Friday Thursday
and Wednesday view and I think at some point in my life I probably held all
three I think when I was growing up I kind of held the Friday view and then
later I end up kind of getting convinced that maybe it was Wednesday and now I've
kind of settled on Thursday I was kind of hot cold and then now I'm just right
okay and so I really encourage you to check out the stream it's gonna be a
great show you can tune in live we might even take some calls or even some chats
Friday special stream good Friday it's Holy Week so you know this is your one
time to shine Easter only Christians you know get in there get to church it's
okay we won't hurt you we still like you even though you only come once a year
but make sure you go into church on Easter Ben where can they where can they
find our show do you have any other plugs for the Baptist bias now if you
just want to check out our podcast then you could do so on Spotify Google
podcasts and Apple podcasts as well just Google it basically and a bunch of
platforms will pop up so you can listen at the gym at work as long as you do
your job though okay we're not trying to provoke people not do their job and
anywhere on the go I I've definitely googled it and I found our show on all
these platforms it doesn't seem like season 3 was up yet is that have we put
season 3 on Spotify and all those yet that's a technical issue here I didn't
know that so I'll work on it okay we'll make sure and get season 3 on those
other platforms but of course you can find us on rumble you can find us on
godresource.com as well that's another platform that will never take us down
and so you can definitely check it out there but that's pretty much gonna do us
for the show thanks so much for joining in everybody's got a perspective but you
know what you need to get the Baptist bias