You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.
This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Mike Clement, Michael Gleb, Tony Malm, and company.
Mike Clement
We started this conversation and I said, "Well, wait a minute. Let's go back and talk about this." And so, Brother Tony, you were talking about the importance of the idea that what you're preaching from the pulpit isn't just a motivational speech. It's something that needs to be lived out, including you and your family.
Tony Malm
Yes. Oftentimes when we were on the road in evangelism, I would make the statement to that congregation, of course, in evangelism, you're with a different congregation every week. And I would remind them that, "Hey, what I'm preaching here is not just something for Sunday. As a matter of fact, my wife's in the congregation, our son, our daughters, I'm preaching to my family. I'm not just preaching at you people, that we maybe see once a year, but Christianity is something that's to be fleshed out, if you will. It's to find itself in shoe leather on the Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays of life. And, you know, it's amazing how, at least from my perspective, that sometimes people have the idea that being a Christian is all mystical and you escape the realities---the raw realities sometimes---that life can bring. But the fact is, as a pastor, and that's what these programs I've picked up on have had to do from the pastor and his family. Not only does it say that the pastors be the husband of one wife, but the Bible and just two, three verses later says, "one that ruleth well, his own house and having his children in subjection with all gravity." That's from 1 Timothy 3:4. And so the measuring rod for the pastor's qualification has to do with the home. And not that the preachers kids are perfect. I mean, the deacons kids usually are teaching them....No, I'm kidding. But honestly, my children probably heard the first curse words they ever heard, sitting on a pew in a church. And I know that's gonna blow some away to hear that. But we were in church daily and many of the conferences that we were blessed to be a part of, and so there's the reality of, you know, Christianity. It follows us not just from Sunday to Sunday, but from day to day and moment to moment and interaction and challenge. Just right on the way, we have the opportunity to honor the Lord. And God says, if we honor Him, He'll honor us. And I'm so thankful, and I don't wanna take up the whole program, but you know, the greatest blessing for a parent is a child. John said, "I have no greater joy than my children walking in truth." And I'm sitting at a table tonight with two of our children, and I'm thankful for our son, and he and his family are faithful in their church. But a daughter that's just married a pastor, and that has experienced the fact that if you honor God, He'll honor you. As they came to the marriage alter, they brought the gift of purity. It's irreplaceable. And I just pray that God will continue to bless their home, and I know He will, and I'm excited for them. Yet this thing about the gravity in the fact that, you know, what the pastor's preaching to everybody else, well, he's got a checkpoint. Because mom's sitting there, children are sitting there, and so it's a blessing to serve the Lord.
Mike Clement
Years ago, I heard of a congregation that saw a real disparity, wrong word. Whatever, between the pastors preaching. The pastors preaching from the pulpit and the life that he lived during the rest of the week. And someone made the comment. They said "when he preaches, he preaches in a way that we wish that he would never get down. But when he lives during the week, he lives in such a way we wish that he would never get back up again."
Tony Malm
Wow.
Mike Clement
And unfortunately, that happens. You know, that same passage that talks about the qualifications of pastors or bishops. It says, "A bishop then must be blameless." Now, you should understand that blameless does not mean perfect.
Tony Malm
It's not sinless.
Mike Clement
Yeah, it's not sinless. However, I believe that the things that God had in mind are the rest of the things he gives there. But these are the things that, you know, need to be in line with the pastor's life. And it may not be all where we would like to see them. I've always looked for men who are growing, that I can put in positions of leadership. And there have been times when we had somebody come from another church, and I looked at the maturity level of some of our deacons, and he said, "Pastor, you know, why is he a deacon?" And I said, "you can only see where he is right now. You should see where he came from, and the direction that he's going in." I would much rather have somebody in a position of leadership and influence that is growing in their Christian walk. Though, somewhat less mature than somebody who's very mature and dead in the head in every other way. You know, their life may be going in the opposite direction. They may know more about the Bible, but they're not living it. And that's so important. Brother Gleb, how do we apply this from the perspective of being bivocational? Can you define what it means to be bivocational?
Michael Gleb
I'm not a bivocational pastor though.
Mike Clement
You were though, weren't you for a while?
Michael Gleb
No, Actually haven't been able to, and that's, that's been a huge blessing to be able to---
Mike Clement
But comment on it anyway.
Michael Gleb
Well, I'll say this is, you know, sometimes I'm always reminded. I'm like, you know, I'll be up here at the office study in a way, and then I get up on Wednesday night and wonder why they're not as excited as I am to go through the book of Ecclesiastes. And I'm looking out, and I'm thinking to myself, "They've been smacked around by the world today, you know?" And here I was getting excited about studying the Bible, that's what I was doing all day. And, you know, so I have to check myself in that regard and say, "Wait. A little patience with these guys. You know, their tired, they've got the world on them." I sometimes think to myself, "you know, it's a privilege to be able to pastor and not have---and I've been in ministry now, since 2006, full-time ministry. And it looked different in different times, but you know, it's a privilege to be able to study God's word, to help somebody. And when they do come to you on a Wednesday night to give them some encouragement, some needed strength for the rest of the week, so to speak. But, I can't really comment on being bivocational at this point in time, but the Lord may lead me in that direction. Who knows?
Mike Clement
Well, I know for me, there were a couple blessings. One was, I met people that I wouldn't normally meet. I worked with them, you know, they may not come to my church and I might stumble across them at Walmart or something. But I worked with these guys and these gals and so I could see the world that they lived in, and they could watch me live in the same world. And that actually was a blessing. The other thing that helped me understand, was people's limited time. And especially when I was working at the Sugar Beet factory, there was a rotating shift. If you were days this week, you worked afternoons the next week, and you worked midnight the next week, and it rotated around. And boy, some of those were just killers. And then I come to church, you know, just really shot. And that was when my wife's father was the pastor, and I would struggle to stay awake. Just got off of a midnight shift, not enough time to get any kind of a nap. And boy, I would just struggle. And it just gave me a greater appreciation. But that whole idea of being visible, you know, we talk about being visible in the church, the people that are in the church, you're visible in the community too.
Michael Gleb
Yeah. Being in a smaller town like Torrington, you know, I've been here and getting to know people now, the last five years. You know, you go into the radar for the first couple, but you start to get self-involved and, you know, getting friends even outside of church.
Mike Clement
Yeah. And again, there's another place we're talking about. Qualification. It is talking about having a good report with them or without.
Michael Gleb
Yes.
Mike Clement
That's the people you do business with. That's your next door neighbor.
Michael Gleb
And business with. That's important.
Mike Clement
Yeah. I heard a preacher, he was actually a professor at Dallas Seminary, but he just bought a new house. And it was a real deal, because it was the worst looking house in the neighborhood. And so he just threw himself into doing the inside. But he did the outside too, you know, he was planting grass and cutting grass. And he says, he's out there on a real hot, nasty day, sweating like fury. And there's this kid, a neighbor kid that's watching him, and the neighbor kid says to him, "my dad says, 'for a preacher, you sure do work a lot." A little insight to what the neighbor thought. But also a little insight into, you know, what the perspective of a pastor was. And then he said, "the previous owner of that house was a pastor as well." And, you know, we don't worship our lawns. We don't worship our houses. But for people that feel that that's really important, watching their property values go down because of what's going on in your house is important to them and it's got to be important to us. So that whole area of consistency, being the same person---and we've got to be careful because we are called as pastors, were called to be the leader of the church and to lead the flock. But I remember one guy at a conference I went to, he said, "a pastor that's three steps in front of his church is a leader. A pastor that's 12 steps in front of his church is a martyr? You know, you need to understand where your people are, and you bring them along. You know, the shepherd doesn't go running across the field and say, "Keep up!" He's in front at that time. He was in front, but he wasn't aways in front. Always ever to be seen.
Tony Malm
A preacher Evan Hill from Los Angeles talked about, you know, "If you call yourself a leader, but if nobody's following you, your just taking a walk."
Michael Gleb
That's exactly what came to my mind.
Tony Malm
And, you know, in 1 Peter it says, "The elders, which are among you." This thing of being among the people is what I'm hearing. And there's gotta be that interaction. You know, there's even an effort now, an effort of movement; of rather than having a pastor among you and on location, is to go and watch something. And he's in another town. But the Bible says, "among you." The marvel! No wonder God says that it pleased Him by the foolishness of preaching. Here's a person that's breathing the air you breathe, they experienced the hardships. You experienced the same tornado that tore up your house, tore up their house. And yet God uses them with His grace to demonstrate His love. It's undeniable. And only who, but the Lord could have come up with that. We're not just in ivory towers. We live on the same road the other folks live on.
Mike Clement
That's right. As my football coach said, "we put on our pants one leg at a time." You know, I just close with a thought. Years ago, I was making payments to IRS, and I was gonna miss a payment and I knew it. So I went down to the office and I actually got to talk to the guy who was in charge there. Brought me into his office, and I told him what was going on. He said, "well, have you missed any other payments?" I said, "No," and he tapped on his computer and looked at the screen. He said, "Yes, you did. You missed the first one." Well, the first one was in April. I had just finished paying one year, got ready to start paying the next year. And I said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I really did." And then he said, "Well, you know, we'll make an exception this time. It's all right, you came in." And then we started just talking. And he said, "You know, it's hard for me to go to church anywhere? And I said, "Is that because you work for IRS, and people don't trust you or whatever?" He said, "No, it's because I know what's going on in the finances of the leadership of the church." And then I said, "Oh, and here I am missing a payment." He said, "No, you came in and you made arrangements." He said, "That's what needs to be done." He said, "By the way, if you're gonna miss another one, make sure you call us before you come in." But boy, I mean, it was something to be learned. Terrible experience there.