Do You Think You Know Better Than God?

Welcome to ClearCast. ClearCast is a ministry of Clearnoat Church in West Indianapolis. I'm your host, Tim Dukeman. I'm here with our producer, Martin, and of course, Pastor Dave. So to follow up on what we've been discussing, I'd like to change gears a little bit and talk about how our tendency as human beings is to think that there's a sense in which we have it together. as it related to parenting when I got to this church. And what if you don't feel like you're drowning? Is there a place for pastoral care in your life? If you say, well, that doesn't resonate with me at all. I don't feel like I'm drowning. What would you say to someone who doesn't feel like they're drowning? You're normal. Most of life is not. I think when we think of drowning, you're thinking of crisis. I think most of us live and are like, it's like living paycheck to paycheck. It's like, it's a really, if we're, if you're thinking just financially, like living paycheck to paycheck is really vulnerable, really dangerous. Like it doesn't take much to upset the, you know, to upset your finances. It just takes your water heater to go out or your roof to leak. And all of a sudden you're like, Oh no, Oh no. Um, but lots of people live that way and they don't think that there's any, like they just think that's what's normal, right? That's the way we live. And then the crises pop up.

And then it's like, oh no, like it's terrible. But the rest of life, they're just like, well, they just become accustomed. You just become accustomed to what life is and what the burdens and the difficulties and the hardships. And we just have kind of a passive approach to like, well, that's just tough. That just happens. Like you can't, what we really think is nothing can be done about that. Whether that's having savings or, you know. if he's in the financial example or at home, like there's nothing that can be done about my child. That's disrespectful or won't eat at the table or won't go to bed or talks back to their mother or is failing in school or whatever. We're just like, well, that's just how it is. Like, I mean, you've probably all heard people say about kids like, yeah, they're sweet now. Wait till they get older. It's like, we just assume that it's, it's just gonna be miserable. Like part of their personality. Yeah. And, but, but the misery is like a low grade misery. It's not like the house is on fire. It's like, it's just kind of like,

the way it is. And so all of those are analogies. When we come into our lives, our spiritual lives, our, our walk with the Lord, we just think, well, what can be done? Nothing. And, and, and the answer, whether we never, you know, so much of this stuff goes on in our heads and we don't, we don't ever give word. You don't ever say it. It was like, well, nothing can be done. Like, that's just the way it is. Um, and so everyone asks, Hey, how are you doing? You're like, I'm fine. If someone comes up to you and pushes a little more, it's like, are you okay? You, What does everybody say if you're like, are you okay? What's going on? 90% of the time they're going to say, I'm tired. I had a long week at work. And it's like, that may be true. But that's not always true. That's not always what's going on. We're not always tired. Or maybe we're tired because we were up crying all night or whatever. We're just not accustomed to speaking about or having.

our lives dealt with unless it's a crisis. And the thing about a crisis is you can't hide it. It just can't be hidden. So it has to be out in the open. So people have to know about it. And there's a sense in which if the crisis arrives, it's already too late. Like the work that needed to happen should have happened before the crisis ever started. Yeah, yeah. I think so much about pastoral care as preventative maintenance. I mean, our church, we joke about our church and say, if you're over 30 in our church, you're like in the older half. If you've got a child that's in elementary school, you're in the older half. If you've been married more than four years, these are just the demographics of our church. And so I spend a lot of, we know a lot of our work is working with young people, young marriages, young parents. And what I often say, especially to the young men is, I would much rather do preventative maintenance than rebuild your relationship, your marriage from the ground up. Like let's get to it. Let's, let's work on it before the crisis. And so that's, and that's pastoral care is he's getting in before the crisis comes and averting it. Right. You know, like I remember when I was, when I worked in Chicago, when I got out of high school until I moved to Bloomington, I climbed trees for a living as a tree guy, an arborist.

And one of my responsibilities there was to be the safety coordinator. And so my job was to make sure that nobody got hurt, killed, and we didn't tear up or break any of our clients' stuff. And so we had all of these OSHA procedures and policies and all this stuff. You're like, oh, you've got to put your chainsaw pants on to make a cut. And you're like, well, it's just one cut, and I don't want to walk all the way back out to the truck to go get them. It's like, you've got to go get them. And so that part of my job, I wasn't real popular. People didn't like that.

But then our district won the safety award. We didn't have an accident for like 18 months or something, which when you're doing tree work every day, you didn't ding somebody's gutter or rip their landscape lighting out or whatever. Someone didn't have to go get stitches. That's significant. And it was all preventative maintenance. And the interesting thing was, though, when we were doing all this preventative maintenance, everyone just scoffed at it. Because like, why do we have to do all this? We never break anything. We never tear anything up. And it's like, it's because. We do the preventative maintenance that we don't have the catastrophe. And so pastoral care is the same way. We'd much rather get in with a young couple when they're first getting married and talk with them about what marriage is like. When you have your children, what children, what having a baby is like. This is me with the men, the husbands and fathers. This is my wife or the older women in our church talking to the young mothers. This is what life's like. This is what it's going to be.

It's not when the kid's four and screaming and has broken something big. It's just when they won't eat their food or when they throw it on the floor. Let's just deal with that. That's the normal stuff. Everybody has to deal with it. But if you don't deal with it, what I often say to people is that doesn't scale. That thing that's going on right now, you kind of halfway think it's cute because they're only 18 months old. But when a four-year-old's doing that same behavior with a four-year-old's, like it's not going to be cute. And then when they're like seven or eight or 10 or 15, like it's really destructive. Right. Yeah. You told me that once when this is back when we were working on parenting stuff that like, Hey, that tantrum, that's going to be breaking windows and breaking laws when he's 15. Like you've got to turn that ship now. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think what, what is your, so why don't we deal with stuff ahead of time? Like that's the,

Because I often find myself when I talk to people and I say things to them and they look at me like I'm crazy. They're just like, what do you mean? Are you serious? And I'm like, well, yeah, I'm serious. And I think the thing that's behind that is we just minimize. We're just like, well, it's not that bad. Well, it's going to get better. So it's either this can't be, nothing can be done about it, or we minimize, it's not that bad. And so if someone comes in and says, actually, that's a big deal. it can be jolting yeah um yeah i think that that's what i i've told pastor dave this before that um so my background i i went to seminary i know a bunch of bible verses like if he quotes a verse i'm familiar with it i've read the bible like 12 times and um so it's not a situation where i have a knowledge problem as it relates to what the the content of scripture

um in general it's that i have a deficit of content the the content and meaning of scripture in particular where i will read a verse and go right past it and think oh that's talking about someone else and that is my tendencies oh that verse that was written for those other people who are bad and not me and and what the most striking recent example of this was uh pastor dave's been preaching through the sermon on the mound and He got to the verse where it says, like, if you're angry with your brother, then you've murdered him in your heart. And the point of the sermon was that all of us are murderers. And that is, like, such a good example of how I think our tendency, especially as American Christians, is to want to think that we can just check the box. Oh, that verse, I've got that one down. I can claim I am righteous in this way.

And what we need is for someone to say, no, actually the bar's higher. And I, in particular, am really bad about taking the bar down to the point where I'm already querying it. Yeah, it's funny. One of the things I've found, I mean, the thing is when I preach or counsel, anything I've got to say is usually downstream of me thinking, why would I have done what you just did? And then I address it. what temptations or pressures would I feel if I were in your shoes? And I go, okay, now I understand why you did that really stupid thing. Cause I would have done a really stupid thing too. If I was only given the opportunity. So, um, so the other thing I'd like to hear you, you lay it on, um, recently in a sermon, you were talking about these people who will, you can pay the, pay the money on Patreon or whatever, and they will give you special access to their content. Um,

and why you think that that's not what people actually need often. Oh, yeah. I've sort of had this thing. Here we are doing a podcast, and I have this thing about. We have to work really hard to talk faster. Yeah, as an aside. Yeah, this is a multi-year project. Yeah, as you should know, for a few years, these guys have wanted to do a podcast, and my constant refrain has been two things. One, bring me a proposal, and I'll take it to the elders and relate to that. I said, I'm not going to do. I'm not going to do this sort of thing unless our elders say they see value in it because it is a time commitment and it is a ministry of our church. But generally, I'm telling guys in our church and young women, they do different things. The men tend to, they're not on Snapchat or Instagram or TikTok. They are on there, but they're not on there learning how to be husbands and fathers.

the wives and the mothers may be more, but the men are listening to their manosphere stuff about how to be a man, how to be a husband, how to be a father. And I'm always telling them, I'm like, it's one thing to have information. Like you can have someone say something true. And what I've, you know, half jokingly, I've said to these guys, like saying something true is not hard. Like you can teach a monkey to say true things. You can teach chat GPT to say, to regurgitate facts. That doesn't mean it's helpful. And so this idea that we get all of our training or all of our needs met just through this abstract, generalized teaching, I said there are a number of deficits with that. And a lot of that stuff is meant to stand in the place of pastoral care. It's amazing to me how much you'll ask Google your questions, but you'll never ask an older man or an older mother about...

how to live your life and how to do these things. It's not that people don't have questions about marriage or don't have questions about parenting or don't have questions about work or the meat and potatoes of life. It's just that we've just become accustomed to not asking the people we know those questions. We just ask strangers those questions. The thing about asking strangers those questions is, this might be like saying the sky is blue, the strangers don't know you. And so it makes me think back to when you asked Tim and you asked me about parenting and you're like, do you have any book or articles or anything? And I bristled at the question. I thought this is a bad question. I'm glad you're asking the question to me, but the resource you're looking for is not going to be as helpful. And so I said, no, what you need to do is come to my house and let's just have dinner. And I want to think the issue was actually about dinner and like just how to get the kids to eat and not.

That was one of the issues. It was one of the issues. There were several. I remember sitting there. I think you guys had two kids, young, little kids. It was your oldest son. And I remember we were having tacos. It's like it happened last night. And my wife and I are sitting there with, I don't know what, eight kids, seven or eight kids. And so my wife and I, with our eight kids, and we're all eating tacos. And you and your wife, I remember watching. Neither one of you even ate a whole taco because you were both so involved in your son. I can't give you a book to fix that problem. Like I don't know of a resource, a stranger who can just feel the pressures relationally that exist in that situation between you and your wife and be able to address it. I mean, maybe some guy can throw a dart in the dark and hit that problem. Yeah. But here's the thing. You may well decide.

He doesn't know what the real problem is. You might not think that's a problem. You might think that what you're doing, so much of what you've become accustomed to is normal. And you need someone who can see it firsthand and go, that's not normal. That's not the right thing. And that's what's lacking with online teaching and with podcasts and social media and all this stuff is it's just very general. It's take it or leave it. It's take it or leave it. And what it relies on is your ability to diagnose the problem. I've seen parents come and they ask questions about parenting and then like they, they, maybe the thing they're up there, they're interested in is, um, got some substance to it, but it is not the real problem. Right. And, or some couple will come in for marriage counseling. I'll meet with some young single guy and they're like, talk, talk, talk about their, their issue, their question, their concern, whatever it is that, you know, you know, got, got, you know, captivated their mind. And I'm just like, that doesn't matter. Like that is not,

What you need to be thinking about or worrying about. Well, online resources don't ever say that's not the problem. They rely on you to tell them what the problem is by the way you ask your questions. And so that's what's missing or available in actual pastoral care is someone to sit and be like, oh, you think the problem is this? Yes, but that's three layers away from the root of the problem. This over here is the root of the problem. It makes me think of in the Bible when King David commits adultery and then murders the husband of Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan comes to him and he tells a story of this man who had this giant flock of sheep and his next-door neighbor had one little lamb that ate at his table and he cherished that lamb.

And then the rich man actually steals his one little lamb and eats it to feed to his guest. And I think that so much teaching in America, it stops there, that that's the end, that they tell the story and you just apply this. And like, here's a story with some principles in it. Just apply it. Yeah, I think one of the ways that's made really popular is this idea that it's, the Holy spirit's job to convict. Yes. And, and like faithful preaching does not include you killed him. Right. It's, he was killed by men who aided him and who called down his blood on their own heads, but never is it said like, all that's true. I'm speaking about Jesus death. You know, when, when the Jews are like, let his blood be on our head, you know, and then you have Peter sermon at Pentecost and he goes through this whole, like, here's who Jesus is and you should have known and all. And then,

And then at the end, he says, you crucified him. And then they were cut to the quick. And then they said, brother, what must we do to be saved? If you leave off that last part, that's the pastoral care. All of the rest of that sermon, they already knew Jesus was dead. It was all preparatory so that Peter could say to them directly, those with the blood on their hands, you did this. That's pastoral care and preaching. It's a good example of it. It's like you say that thing at the end. No, I mean, it's always awkward after you preach a sermon. People come up, and sometimes nobody says anything, and I'm just left being like, okay, I don't know what that means. Sometimes people come up and say, well, thank you for your sermon, or that was really convicting, or whatever they have to say. And sometimes they'll come up and they'll say, I felt like you were preaching to me.

And often I'm like, really? I was like, I wasn't thinking about you. Yeah. Like particularly. But sometimes I am. And so then I'm left being like, well, what do I say to them? And I go, yeah, I was thinking about you when I said that. That part was for you. Right. And it's just sweet. I mean, it's one of the things I love about our church is that people can come and say, I felt like that sermon was for me. And I'm like, it was. Yeah. You're not the only one. It was for, there's lots of other things you don't know that are going on.

Yes, you were in my mind while I was thinking and preaching because pastoral care, preaching is just one mechanism or way of doing pastoral care. One aspect of it is it needs to be personal. There are sermons that you can take a text of scripture and what you're going to say on that text of scripture is determined not so much by the Greek and the syntax and the commentaries and all this stuff. It's actually determined by the people you're talking to. What do they need to hear from this text? Okay, I'm going to tell them what they need to hear from this text. And if I was speaking to a different crowd, a different group of people, I would say something different from the text. I mean, generally the same, right? But that point of emphasis, the personalized instruction or exhortation or encouragement is going to be specific. Yeah, I think a lot of this comes back to the difference between listening to, because you can go,

on the internet and get and listen to a sermon by some famous pastor who has written books and speaks at conferences. And most of the time, the spiritual power of that sermon in your life is going to be very limited. And then you can go to your church on a Sunday morning and hear God's word preached by a man who may not be as good of a preacher and definitely hasn't written any books and isn't this profound orator. doesn't know as much theology or as much Greek or whatever it is, and it will hit you where you live. And I think the key thing is that what we need as sheep is we need someone to tell us, we need an authority figure to point at us and say, you in particular killed Jesus. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember when I was in pastoral training, I went to New Geneva Academy.

It's an in-house, basically you have pastors training pastors instead of professors training pastors because of some of the stuff we've mentioned, but that's just not a part of seminary training. Part of my training was like, you have to preach in a church, in a church that knows you, not a church where you're interning for six months or a year, but like the church you got married in under the pastor who married you, like in front of your small group leaders who've known you for, you know, what have you. But we had to preach to that congregation. we had to be in counseling session, which is, if you think it's really awkward for the person being counseled, you know, but it's no more awkward than when you go to the doctor and the doctor sticks his head in and say, Hey, I've got, I've got a med student here who wants, you know, do you mind? Same thing. But like, and so like there, we'd be like, well, okay. You know, cause it's for their good. And it's, it's, it's, it's for, you know, it's a way so they can learn how to take care of other people. When we come into the church, we're like, no, you can't like, it's all very private. And so it was really sweet to be able to go sit in some,

In some actual real counseling sessions where, yes, we read books about counseling. Yes, we had to write papers about counseling. But none of that was as valuable as sitting in a room with somebody sorting out what's going on in their life. I think that our tendency is if we have an option to say, oh, this sermon, it's talking about someone else. It's not about me. Or that verse isn't about me. I think if we have that option, we will take it. And so much of pastoral care is having a man who you have, by virtue of joining the church, you have agreed to submit to his leadership. And when he tells you, no, that thing you did, that was sin, are you going to argue with him? And it just takes away all your defenses. And I know, for me, I am more than sinful enough to, if there is any defense left, I will...

I will use that defense to try to escape accountability. And I just need someone who's willing to keep pushing until there's no other recourse. And the only path left for me is repentance. Yeah, I mean, we can talk about, I think we're going to talk about repentance in another episode. But man, repentance is way harder and way more humbling. I mean, you want me to say humbling, but really the word is just humiliating. Yeah. You know, than we'd ever like it to be. I just think that the life of the church in pastoral care is the life of a family together, of fathers and mothers and brothers and sisters and sons and daughters and cousins. But you all know each other. If you were to think of your own family, for one, it's probably all messed up and there's crazy people and brokenness and sins and all kinds of stuff. But they're your family. And unless it's really, really bad, you work it out. You figure it out.

You're in relationship. They say things and you're like, ah, at Thanksgiving. And you say things and they're like, oh, I can't believe you're there. But you live with them. You love them. You have those relationships. But that's the paradigm for the church is that it's the household of faith. It's the family of God. We're brothers and sisters. And we have, by God's grace, pastors and elders that take care of us, that look after our souls. that means that they're going to be put in the position of the father. Sometimes having to say things that are like unpleasant. It's, it's fun. It's funny, you know, for me to hear you guys talk about things that were said to you and you're like, ah, you know, oh, like I've had people, I've had those same experiences where someone says that type of stuff to me and I'm like, ah, that hurts. But it's also like, you know, in case it's not clear to you guys, it's also very uncomfortable to have to say those things. Yes. Like,

Even when the person's younger than you, because he's not a pastor yet, but Eric, a director of family ministries at our church, pursuing LAPs, pursuing ordination right now. Tim and I got an argument on a thread with Eric there too. And Eric makes a different group, pulls both of us onto it and said, this argument is way out of hand and you guys need to work it out and not in front of everybody else. Yeah. And it was helpful. and preserve the peace in a, in a way that like, I mean, Eric is almost 10 years younger than me. Yeah. Martin is very old. He's younger than me, but he, he calls us out and says, you know, you need to, you need to work through this in a way that's more healthy than, and Abram's done the same thing on other threads. Yeah. That kind of pastoral care in just small ways is, is how families work and it's how the church works. Yeah. And I, I would want to say to that,

Like building on that, Martin and I both know a lot of Bible. And so if you asked us for a list of verses on preserving unity, loving the brothers, like we could rattle them off. We know what, what scripture says on this topic. What we need is for someone to point at the thing we're doing and tell us that thing you're doing is why the Bible tells you not to do this. Yes. Especially Tim. Right. Yes. Especially me. And in the absence of having someone point at the thing you're doing right now and saying, when the Bible says you need to be diligent to preserve the unity and the bond of peace, then that verse is forbidding the behavior that you are currently engaging in. Stop it. And in the absence of that, we're not going to realize what we're doing until maybe later we think better of it or something. But by then, we've already created a huge mess.

And as we mentioned, Martin talks very fast, so he can create a mess very quickly. But to Pastor Dave's point, the other thing I would want to encourage, like everybody in the sound of my voice, there's a verse in Corinthians where Paul says, you've had many teachers, but you have not had many fathers. And a guy on the internet, even if he's a great preacher, he cannot be your father. You can have many teachers and learn many wonderful, beautiful truths of scripture from those teachers. But what you need is you need a father who will say, no, stop it. You need an authority who will say, you killed Jesus. You in particular did that. You needed someone who can say, that verse is for you. You don't get to check that one off the list. Yeah, I think the other thing I'd say about pastoral care, I remember when I was, you know, before the Sermon on the Mount, I was preaching through 1 and 2 Timothy, and we came to the passage where it says that there will come a time when they won't endure sound doctrine, but desiring to have their ears scratched so they'll humiliate for themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires. And one of the most uncomfortable things that I had to say, I felt compelled to say during that text, during that sermon, I don't know if you guys remember that sermon, but I said, you guys, you can make...

You can make my job really hard because you don't want me to take care of you. You don't want to be cared for. And so it's really easy to say, well, the pastors are unfaithful. Well, the pastors are, well, they don't say, well, they're not bold. Well, they don't. And I'm like, well, yeah, because you're miserable to deal with. Now, pastors aren't ever supposed to say that about their people or people in general. You're miserable to deal with. But Hebrews tells you, like, obey your leaders and submit to them. For they keep watch over your souls. And we stop there. Hebrews 13, 17. There it is. But then it continues. Obey your leaders and submit to them. For they keep watch over your souls. Let them do this with joy and not with sorrow. For that would be unprofitable for you. And I can tell you as a pastor, there are people you don't want to deal with because they're just miserable to deal with. And the reason they're miserable to deal with is not because they sin. It's because they're proud. It's because they won't listen.

And if they won't listen, it's like, well, okay. It's hard. Jesus says, if you go into a city and they don't receive you, shake the dust off of your feet. And you're just like, oh, but there would never be a place that would do that. Except that he gave them that instruction because there were places like that. And he also tells you in the Sermon on the Mount not to throw your pearls before swine. Otherwise, they'll turn around and devour you. And it's like, well, that's not Christian ministry. And I'm like. but those are the judgments and the pressures that pastors feel like, are you worth can say that way? Like, is this worth is, is doing this worth it? Or is this something that actually scripture actually tells me not to, to do because you're, you're not going to, you're, you're, you're not going to receive it. You're not interested. Yeah. And, and so part of pastoral care, I mean, we can talk a lot about what your pastor needs to be and what your elders need to be like and all of their work, but really.

Most of the people you guys listening probably aren't pastors and elders. You're probably just Christians. And you need to not make your pastor and elder's life miserable. That's what I would say to you as a pastor. Don't make their work harder. Because Hebrews tells you it will be unprofitable for you. If we went in any other profession, there would be, off camera, I was just talking to Tim. Tim's a financial advisor. And I said, Tim, don't you ever have clients that you don't want to manage their money? And he's like, yeah, I mean, you can just tell they're going to be high maintenance. They're going to be, they're just going to be trouble. Now you don't say that to them. You don't say like, uh, you're miserable, so I don't want to manage your money. But when you're doing your prospecting, you take into account how much you want to do their, their management or not. And you, you sell them your pitch in a way that communicates to them. I may not be the best fit for you. Right. And I've told, I've actually told a few people you shouldn't hire me.

Like that's pretty rare, but it does occasionally happen, especially if they want to do these wild speculative strategies that don't make sense and that we don't implement. Right. You're like, I'm not your guy. Right. You want something that I'm not about. And so we can all look at that and go, yeah, that just makes good business sense. But in the church, you do realize that pastors have those same thoughts. Like, I don't know that you're the kind of person I want to come to my church because you seem like a troublemaker. You seem like a malcontent. And we're just like, well, pastors, because you're a Christian, you can't say that. And I'm like, but some people are miserable. There have been people over the course of our years that we have disinvited from our church. And it wasn't mean and nasty. There was one time we did actually physically remove a guy from worship service because he was screaming and yelling at the pastor during the Lord's Supper. That's a whole other story for another time. Wow.

But there are people where we've said, I don't think we're a good fit. You don't seem to be thriving here. We are not what you're looking for. You should probably move on. And people look at it and it's so weird. They're like, how can you say that? You're the church. You're supposed to have no boundaries. You're supposed to have no sense about this stuff. And I don't think that that's the case. I think we should understand being a part of God's family. and being a part of the church and receiving the ministrations of the church as an incredible blessing that we shouldn't take for granted and that you should realize your pastors are not perfect men, right? John Calvin says, you know, God could have given you angels to preach to you, but he gave you men to keep you humble. Like if your pastor is a sinner, if he's not doing things the way that he's supposed to be like, encourage him, strengthen him. Like Moses needed Aaron to hold up his arms. And so build them up, encourage him, invite him into your life.

So that to do his job, you know, when I talk to people who don't go to our church or they ask me questions about things they've got going on there, you know, well, my pastor, they just tell a situation. I say, have asked him, have you asked him? Like you're asking me, have you asked him? Like go to him and ask him, invite him to do pastoral care. Not in those words, but go to him on a regular basis and say, hey, would you mind if we got together once or twice a month for coffee for an hour? Would that be okay? Like invite him to do his job. You'd be surprised how many men will, will do better if they feel like you're, they're not going to get their, their heads bitten off as soon as they, you know, I have, you know, this isn't pastoral care, but in, in terms of the same principle applying, like our kids go to a, go to school. We've got eight kids in school right now. And I make a point at the beginning of, of each school year in my first, one of my first interactions with our teachers is I tell them, listen,

You have free reign from us, free license from us. Not that you need it, ultimately. I need to express it, but I just want you to know we are never going to be the problem if our kids are out alone. Correct them. Straighten them out. We know they're sinners. Let us know. We are not going to be those parents who are going to be critical and angry and nasty to you if you want to say no to our kids. Now, we're not asking them to do pastoral care with our kids. We're not asking them to be parents to our kids. But what I do want to say to them is, you're free to be my kid's teacher, and I realize my children are not perfect. And so when they fail, correct them. And you're not going to get blowback from my wife and I. And they always say, thank you. Because they've all had to deal with parents who think that their kid walks on water and is never at fault. And so I think it's important that we invite people that are in these positions.

the coaches, the teachers, the pastors, the Titus II women, the elders, what have you. Invite them into your life and say, help me. I am willing and open for your help. I want your input. You're older, you're wiser, you're godly. I want to learn from you. That's what I want. And you'll get a lot better results personally in your life if you'll do that with people who know you instead of trying to find it all online or trying to figure it all out yourself. And being ashamed, oh, well, if they knew, you know, maybe the easiest thing to say is you're not as good at hiding it all as you think you are. Yeah. It's like, you know, some people are, you know, maybe a little more discerning than others, but the general problems or character laws that you have, it'd be funny that if your pastor and your boss got together, having never met and talked about you, that they would know each other, because they would deal with the same stuff, you know?

They're like, oh yeah, I see that over here. He's doing that thing. And you're like, yeah, yeah, he does that. And then the wife can come and she can say, yeah, yeah, he does it at home too. And it's like, you're not as good at hiding and pulling the wool over everyone's eyes as you think you are. So you might as well just be honest. Everyone already knows what you're trying to hide about yourself. So just go get help for it. That's really the point, I think. What I would encourage our listeners to think about as well, If you are like me and you're stubborn and when people try to help you, you don't always listen to them or especially not right away. I would encourage you to go to the people, the elders in your life and just thank them for the work and apologize for your stubbornness. The other thing I would encourage you to do is think about a couple of times when they told you to do something and you didn't do it. And then.

Something bad happened. Or they told you to do something and you didn't do it. And then later you started doing it and you realized, oh, there is a reason they told me to do this thing. Go to them and admit you were wrong because that will help build a kind of relationship that will help you get... where you need to go that will help you be holy help you repent of your sin like that's the kind of dynamic you're looking for um and so that that would be my encouragement to you is like you've been wrong in the past they've been right like start start if you need to restart your relationship in a sense restart it on that basis of like recognizing that they know better than you do and maybe there's a reason he's the pastor and you're not um and it's okay for you to admit that um And finally, what I would urge you, if you don't have a church where your pastor can be a father to you and you can trust him in that way, then try to find a church that is. And we'd love to have you here at Clear Note or on the west side of Indianapolis on Hunt Street. Or if you're not in the area, we'd love to help you find a good church for that. But I can't overstate the importance of having someone who can be a father to you.

You can have many teachers, but you haven't had many fathers. You need a father. And as someone who spent a big chunk of my life, we'll probably get into this in our next episode, but growing up, I went to over 100 churches because we church-topped so much, and we were very consumeristic about it. And so I've lived a big chunk of my life without Pastor Walker, without that spiritual leadership. And so I would urge you, if you don't have this dynamic in play in your life, Find a way to get it. This needs to be a top priority in your life because Satan is a roaring lion. He's seeking to devour you and your family and destroy your life. And if you don't take these steps, then he will eventually devour you. Any last thoughts, Pastor Dave? The only thing I think I'd add to that is pastoral care doesn't only come from pastors.

It comes from elders. It comes from deacons. It comes from the older godly men in your church. What you want is some, we call it pastoral care because it's the work of a shepherd primarily. But it's also the pastor's job to teach the people to do the work of the ministry. And so it would be unreasonable to think that the pastor of a church, our church is 120 people or something, to think that I'm the only person in our church. that has these relationships that has these conversations is just crazy. Is this not true? Right. Like Eric is our assistant, my assistant, he does this stuff. We've got four elders. They do this stuff. We've got deacons. They do this stuff. Like you guys are friends and at various times are doing this thing for each other. It's simply, this is life together. Right. Um, but it's called pastoral care. So you guys encourage us. That's one thing that stuck out to me because I was talking to some family last night and mentioning the fact like,

Pastors also need pastors. Some people that are listening might be thinking in the terms of, we have one guy, he's the pastor, and he gets to boss everybody else around and tell everybody what to do. And if you knew the rest of our elders, you would know how hilarious that image is. Because there are people to take care of you, and you affirm and encourage. I've had multiple times when other elders have said to me, I noticed this conversation you had, and thank you for doing that because that was helpful. Basically affirming what you're wanting us to do and helping us encourage to do that because everybody has to be in on this together. Yeah, I think one thing I would say about pastoral care is that to get at the sort of the caricature that you're pointing out, it's this little economy of where there's one guy who does all the… And, and to say that there's absolute authority and that, that he, everything he says is right. Like I often tell people, like, I'm not, I may not, I'm not always right. Like you need to figure out, like you do need to, depending on the issue. I mean, if it's like you're living with your girlfriend, okay, I'm right. Cause the Bible's right. But when it comes to a lot of, a lot of the normal stuff in life, it's not. So here's the chapter and verse and how you sort it out. There can be a, a accusation.

That the goal of pastoral care, what we've been trying to describe, is that you don't have any agency in your own life. You don't make any of your own decisions. You're not responsible. And that's not the case. That's not what I'm saying. Pastoral care is counsel. It's advice. It's having a dad. It's not often like, let's go out behind the woodshed sort of talk. You do have those sometimes. That's not the normal. And one of the things that, like I said, the accusation that comes is that that caricature is how it gets painted. This is what you do. This is how it works. No, that's not what happens. What I find is interesting, though, is that the people who will accuse of that being the case, that it's just this top-down, just everybody's being told what to do. I try to diffuse that tension by saying, If I'm feeling that pressure as a pastor, I say, listen, I've got a wife and 10 kids. I don't need any more people to tell what to do. I have enough people that are heavily dependent on me to guide them, lead them. I'm not trying to be your wife's leader. I'm not trying to run your house. I'm not trying to live your life. I've got my own life to live. I've got my own kids, my own family, my own sins.

So anything I've got to say is not meant to come across as me standing on your neck and saying, you'll do this or else. I mean, how many years did I tell you to get off social media, Tim? Two. Two. As many years as three. Less three, wasn't it? Yeah. So for three years, loving you, living in church. I just tell Tim, I'm like, you've got to be a husband and father. You've got to get off social media. I see what time you're posting. You should be tucking your kids into bed at night. And I remember saying to you at one point, Tim, if you want to be on social media, I want to see your social media posts at 5.30 and 6 o'clock in the morning. Because that's when your family doesn't need you then. If you want to get up early and you want to go do your thing on social media, get up and do it then. But at 6 or 7 o'clock at night or at midnight, you should either be in bed or you should be with your family. And that went on for a number of years. I remember the first time I told you you should get off social media was at a men's retreat.

And you about turned inside out. You were so mad at me. Like I was getting ready to leave and you like hunted me down out in the parking lot. And you're like, why did you say that? You've got a wife and kids like you need to be home at night. Like, and so that really is the, and that's about the tone in which I said it to you was like, Tim, you just need to. And I remember you being like your person. You're like, but why, but why? And I was like, Tim, if you just trust me, I'm not going to defend it. I'm just telling you, this is important.

And now you're off social media and you've got, you're doing well at work. Your family is growing and it's, it's been good. But that was a decision that you allowed Tim to make and you guys were allowed to disagree. Yeah. I mean, it's funny how more than a year, if you guys could see Martin's face. Yeah. It's yeah. I mean, it's not, this is not, this is just an example of saying like, I'm not trying to live your life. I'm not trying to make your decision. I'm just trying to tell you that's a good, that's bad. Do more of the good. Do less of the bad. What's interesting is the people who would accuse pastoral care as being a sort of this just top-down edict. Dictatorship. Yeah, dictatorship. That's the word I'm looking for. Thank you. They chafe underneath it because that's their conception of it. But what I've found on more than one occasion is that when they have a problem in their life with somebody,

Whether it's their spouse or their children or just someone they care about. They hate it all the rest of the time. They're like, well, that's bad and it's no good and it shouldn't be like that. But as soon as there's a problem, they get mad that I can't duct tape their kids to a chair in their bedroom and lock the door so their kids can't go out and whatever their kids are out doing. And it's like a thief thinks everybody steals. Because that's how you conceive of caring for people. You think that's how we do it. And so you get mad at us, but whenever it becomes time to do it, you're like, well, this is how it has to be done. And we're like, I'll tell people, it's like, we talk about pastoral care and we talk about the authority of the church and we talk about the necessity of being involved in each other's lives. At the end of the day, as a pastor, what authority do I have to affect the change? I have words. These are my weapons. I have words and I have prayer.