All right, I got so much technology hooked up to me here
Like the bionic man up here
All right. Well, it's great to be here and glad to see everybody come out. It's real exciting
to see folks come out from
Of course, you know the churches
Vancouver, I almost said Portland, and elsewhere. Same thing, all right. I didn't say it, you said it,
but and everybody, of course, here from Boise, and just, you know, by show hands,
who here lives in the Boise or the Boise greater area?
And so just kind of getting a feel. Of course, you know, part of the purpose of us being here
is just because we have been kind of thinking about starting a church up here and
you know, I would just kind of get a show of hands just kind of seeing how many people would be interested in attending a church like this.
So, okay, great, you know, I see several, okay, you can only raise one hand, all right?
If someone's getting on their back raising all fours, feet, don't count, all right?
But, you know, so I'm excited about that, and that's certainly something we would like to see happen.
And, you know, it's something that we need to see happen.
You know, not just here in Boise, but of course all across this country in this world. There's such a a real need for leaders
And that's really what I'm preaching about tonight. It's just the need for leaders
You know, we need people to stand up
men to rise up and to be the leaders that we need to reach our churches like this and
I want to preach to you about that tonight and my first point is simply that is that you know leaders today are lacking
We're lacking leadership today and even those that are in positions of leadership. They're not really even
The leaders that we need them to be often there
They're getting soft on a lot of things and you know the world's just getting darker more evil and more wicked
I mean if the events of this last week of aren't evident of that
I don't know what else is our country's is becoming more and more divided and people are getting bolder and more bolder with their wickedness all
The time and it's unfortunate
You know that people that are already soft people that are already weak people that are already
Don't have much of a spine to begin with they're gonna become even more spineless
As a result, they're going to be even less bold than they are now, which really isn't even that bold to begin with.
So we have a real need today. And if you would go over to first Peter chapter five, first Peter chapter number five.
Leaders are lacking today in America and across the world and we need to have leaders in every seat or in every city as
Titus was told by Paul
He was what left in Crete that he should set in order the things that are wanting and ordain elders in every city as I had appointed me
So, Paul is leaving Titus in Crete so that he would ordain elders in every city.
That is a vision that we have as the greater new IFB movement.
I know that's the burden of my heart, Pastor Anderson and others.
Pastor Thompson's no stranger to this.
He's got churches started and we want to see more of that.
But you know, we can't just start that without somebody in a leadership position
You know, we need men to take up those reins to grab that by you know
Bull by the horns as it were and just kind of you know be the leader that we desperately need in this country
We need strong leadership and if we don't have it, you know, there's gonna be severe consequences
You know, I was gonna have you go to Ezekiel
But we all know the verse where God says in Ezekiel 22 that he sought for a man among them
that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap for me in the land, for the land.
So God looks down and he's saying, there's a gap there, there's a hole in this hedge,
and I'm looking for somebody to stand in that gap that I should not destroy it, right?
God is saying, if there's nobody to stand in the gap, then judgment's going to come,
wrath is going to come, people are going to be destroyed.
You know, he said, why do we need another Baptist church?
Why do we need another independent Baptist church?
What we really need is another independent Baptist soul winning church.
Because even a lot of the independent Baptist churches today are no longer doing the soul winning.
And as a result, you know, there's a hole there, there's a gap that isn't being filled,
and people as a result are being destroyed.
You know, if people don't hear the gospel, if they don't have that preach to them,
they're going to die and go to hell.
You know, we're not Calvinists, you know, but unfortunately even a lot of Baptist pastors have this, you know quasi
Calvinist thinking where they think that oh if God really wants someone saved that they're just going to wander into their church and
Come down an aisle, you know at an altar call and you know stick their rear end up in the air and and pray and receive
Christ or something like that
So but that's just not the case. That's not that you know, that's not how it works
We have to go to them. We have to go out there and boldly proclaim the gospel of them
I know I'm preaching the choir right now because that's exactly what took place this afternoon. That's what's going to be going on tomorrow
That's why we need leaders. That's why we need to start churches so that people will get saved
And not just that, but also it'd be great to see people have a church where they could go to and and actually be able to
Express what they believe about the Bible without having somebody look over their shoulder wondering where they heard that
You know, I was just in the church plant. We started just recently in St. Louis and after the you know
The services there we all got together and we were just kind of sitting around a dinner and one of the guys that attends there
He just said man
It's just so great to go to a church where I can just talk about the Bible and not have someone walk up and say who you've been listening to
You know or or kind of you know after some kind of Spanish acquisition to find out whether or not you've been listening to the new IFB online
It's great, you know, we need that and we need that for you know
The young families that are here and the children are coming up and to see them grow up in a good
Bible preaching soul-winning church. That's on fire for the things of God. We have a desperate need today for leaders
We need people to stand the gap and if we no one does, you know what wrath is gonna come destruction is gonna be coming
Well the unsaved are not gonna get saved
You know, they're gonna go without hearing the gospel
Families might not you know grow into the godly families that they could be and
We need desperately today to have leaders leaders are lacking
You know he says unfortunately is equally as equal as he killed excuse me that he should just he sought not to destroy it
But he didn't find anybody said I found none
Therefore have I poured out my indignation upon them?
I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath their own way have I recompensed on their heads say it Lord
So there's severe consequences when there's a lack in leadership today
Souls going saved families aren't built up and people don't serve God like they could you know
We church we need churches like this because the fact is
People are gonna get more done in a church like art kind of a church than they are in some you know dead as a doornail
Cold Baptist church look I'm sure you can go to a lot of these other Baptist churches and learn a lot of fine doctrine
You can learn the Bible and you can be blessed and you can have a good time and great fellowship
But you're not gonna get the kind of work done that you could in a church
Like our churches. It's just a fact and I'm not saying that in a braggadoce. It's just fact
It's just the way it is and look there's nothing holding back them
You know the old ibe and then they could start soul winning anytime they want
You know, it's kind of funny in st. Louis
We had you know people kind of come out of several different
Baptist churches in the area and one of them when they found out that this church was getting started in st. Louis
You know that church all of a sudden they're all over social media. Hey, we went we went soul winning
Hey, we went door knock all of a sudden you know became that that's what they started doing and that's great
You know, I don't know how how committed they are to that
I don't know if they were just doing it to you know show us or something like that, but hey great
We need more of that. You know, we need more people to get on fire and and we need leaders
But here's the thing about the need for leaders is we can't just have anybody we need leaders
Take charge you know to lead churches like this you have to be somebody who takes initiative and takes charge and
Just as I said grabs the bull by the horns
We have to have leaners that have the right motives
I had you go to 1st Peter chapter 5
Look at verse 2 he said feed the flock of God, which is among you so has to be somebody that's capable of getting up
Expounding the word of God
Exorting reproving rebuking with all-long suffering and doctrine has to be something that can feed the flock of God
Which is among you taking the oversight there of but notice not by constraint
But willingly not for filthy looker, but of a ruddy mind neither is being got lords over God's heritage
But being in samples of the flock so we need not just leaders
But we need particular kinds of leaders we need people that are in it for the right motives and
Our motive of course is to preach the gospel our motive is here as as you know as Peter said to feed the flock
to edify the body of Christ and not to serve ourselves.
We don't wanna do it because other people desire it of us.
Like it's great to have a burden for people
and other people wanna encourage people
to take on the reins of leadership,
but we have to make sure that we're doing it
because it's something we want to do.
And not just because it's by constraint.
Somebody else is just kinda,
well, I guess I should just because
all these people are putting all this pressure on me.
No, we need to do it not because others desired of us, but because it's something that we want to do
And I'm not gonna take the time to expound all this here, but he has also not fulfilled the looper
Now I don't know how much of that's really a temptation in an independent Baptist church
You know the the riches of the Baptist faith aren't exactly, you know a thing, but you know, it's possible
Yeah, you could become overly concerned with money and wealth and buildings and everything else that you actually would begin to compromise
You're preaching you start to compromise the word of God just to build a crowd
You know, it's funny though is that when you preach hard and you and you preach the Bible the crowd comes anyway
You know, that goes back to what I'm saying, we need leaders because people are desperately
looking for strong, bold leadership today.
And I believe that there's more of that coming.
I think there's going to be a whole other way of this next generation or two that's
coming up.
They're looking for conservative, bold, strong leadership.
And that's what we need today.
We don't want to do it for the wrong reasons, you know, we don't want to do it for filthy
We don't want to do it for power or reputation
We don't want to do it as Jesus said of the Pharisees to be seen of men
We don't need guys that just want to fill a pulpit so they can you know see how big a YouTube channel
They can build look I'm all for the social media in fact
I should probably be more for it
You know I should probably get back after mine just got nuked and I'm trying to figure out what I should do
But you know we don't need guys that are just want to see their name and lights or whatever
We need guys that want to feed the flock and just be the strong leadership that is needed in our land today
Not to be seen of man not for glory of men not to seek glory of others
So that's the kind of leadership that we need. We need guys that are going to be bold and are doing it for the right motives
And we need guys that are going to do things by taking the initiative taking the initiative
You're still there in 1st Peter chapter number five look there in verse one
It says the elders which are among you I exhort who am also an elder and a witness of the suffering of Christ and
A partaker of the glory that shall be revealed feed the flock of God which is among you
Taking the oversight thereof not by constraint
But willingly not for filthy lucre, but I've already mine. So he says taking the oversight there of meaning you're gonna be the one
That pays attention to all the details. You're the one that's gonna be you know running all the things that need to be run
You're the one that's gonna be making sure the invites get printed. You're gonna be the one that makes the website
You're gonna be the one that you know pays the bills and make sure that you know the landlord is
You know gets his payment and take care of these get all the administrative work that goes into it
There's a lot of
Little details that go into you know running a church
So it's not enough to just you know be a guy who's willing to get up and preach the Bible and be bold
You also have to be somebody that's gonna pay attention to the details
You got to be somebody who's gonna take the initiative
You know leaning a church is something you must want to do because there's a lot of hard work that goes into it
There's a lot of details that a lot of people they don't see
You know they see the pastor get up the preacher get up and rip face and preach your heart sermon and amen
And he's they might see how everybody just loves to hear this preacher and loves to hear that preacher and that's great
We love that we love having an influence
We love making an impact and changing in people's lives
But what a lot of people don't see is all the nitty gritty that goes on behind the scenes
All the just the day-to-day all the stuff that you know, it's just time-consuming and it's just a lot of details
We need people that are going to take initiative and not have to have their hands held
Leading church is something you must want to do. You know, we're in the big leagues in the new ISP
I believe that this is hardball that we're playing here. This isn't this isn't t-ball. This isn't softball
You know this isn't bad mitten, right? It's not cornhole or horses. This is you know fast pitch
You know fastball curveball right down the line. You got to wear a helmet
Baptist church, right?
It's it's serious what we're doing, you know, we're you know say why why start another church?
Why seek to start churches?
Well because it's important the work needs to get done. We believe in what we're doing here and it's difficult
If you would go over to acts chapter 16 acts chapter number 16
You know, we need guys that take initiative when it comes to starting a church.
And, you know, it's one thing that's really got, you know, people ask me how's it going in St. Louis.
You know, St. Louis is a church, you know, we just had our official service.
This last week, but you know, it's been going on for like a month
You know a brother Eric Engelfritz who many of you might not even know him
He's not really out there, but he's somebody that I've known over the years
He's visited our church in Tucson and he's somebody that I've built a relationship over the years
You know, he's a guy that really did exactly this. You know, you asked me how it's going in St. Louis
It's going great, but honestly, it's not because I'm
you know, over there, you know, looking at every minor thing and making sure everything's done
just the way I want to do it. It's because we have a guy like Eric, brother Eric, who's just
from day one has just grabbed the bull by the horns and has just taken the reins and has just
followed up on all the details and, you know, and he's just made it so easy to start that church,
you know, and I would love to start more churches, but that's the kind of leadership that we need.
We need guys that take initiative and pay attention to the details.
If you look here in Acts chapter 16, I love this testimony about Timothy or Timotheus as it is here
It says in verse one
Then he meaning Paul came came he to Derby in Lystra and behold a certain disciple was their name Timotheus
Right, that's Timothy a jump ahead to verse two
He says which was well reported of by the brethren that were in Lystra and Iconium him would Paul have to go forth with him
I mean what an amazing opportunity, right to be a part of such a powerful ministry like Paul's
To have a guy like Paul the Apostle come to town and say, hey, I'm gonna have you go with me
You're gonna come with me and we're gonna go light this world on fire with the gospel
We're gonna go start churches all over the world
We're gonna be traveling here going there and just all the I mean what an adventure right everything that happened in Paul's ministry
I mean, I don't know that he would call it that but you know, he went through a lot of things obviously
But it's exciting nonetheless. I'm sure he'd say that
You know, I'm sure he doesn't regret any of it how how exciting would have been just to be a guy
That's just you know kind of his right-hand man a guy who's just there to you know help him with you know
The the day-to-day and just meet sure all his needs are met or make sure that you know
He could just stay focused on the things that he needs to stay focused on and not have to worry about all these minor details
And things like that. What an amazing thing to be a part of a ministry like the Apostles. What an amazing thing to be a Timotheus
But you have to be a tomothius right and what was it said of tomothius when paul came to town that he was well
Reported of by the brethren when paul came to town. He didn't say okay. Let's let's make a leader
No, there was a guy that was already there who's already taking initiative a guy
He was already serious about the things of God a guy was already doing the soul winning a guy's already faithful to church
A guy who's already trying to raise his family for God a guy who's just already you know checking all the boxes
That's who paul said that's who I'm gonna have come come with me
Because he's a guy who's already ready to do the work
We need people that take the initiative
They have to be found faithful in order to be the leader that we need today and look maybe not everyone here in this room
You know, obviously speaking more to the men tonight
That's because you know the the pastorate or the preaching is something that's reserved for the men, right according to scripture
But you know, maybe there's guys in here who aren't quite there yet who would say, you know, I don't know that on the leader
I need to be well, that's something we can all work on
You know, that's something you could start, you know, go down a checklist, go through the requirements of a pastorate, make sure that you're already, you know, a guy like Timothy's, make, you know, become a guy that it could be said of you, I'm being going to be found faithful.
So maybe when an opportunity does come along, you know, when somebody is, you know, ready, willing and able to start a church in some town, there's already a guy there who's already, you know, doing the work and being what he needs to be as a leader.
Love that about to Mothius. He was found faithful. He didn't become faithful once Paul showed up town
He's like, yeah, I'm just gonna start being faithful now or I'm serving
He found faithful
You know sacrifices are gonna have to be made. There's a lot of time and energy that goes into a ministry
You know, especially if when you're just starting one out when you're just trying to get one off the ground
There's gonna be a lot of you know, maybe you're gonna have to probably have to work a second job
You know, you're probably gonna have late nights. You're gonna probably have to you know, there goes your weekends
You know, there you know, there goes, you know, hey, you got to go fly around and go preach of these different places
There goes all your pay time off, you know, I could testify to that one, right?
I'm burning up sick time up here and I'm glad to do it, right?
But you know, that's not much of a sacrifice I get it
But you know that even something like that might stop some people. Well, you know, I really don't want to give up my vacations or my weekends or
you know, I don't want to have to write sermons and prepare bulletins and take, you know, attendance,
you know, recordings and, and, you know, share this information with, you know, and just do all that
stuff. You know, some people just aren't going to want to do that. They're going to want to do all
the other things, right? They're going to love all the, you know, the, the, uh, maybe just being seen
of men or being able to preach the sermon or whatever. That's all fine and good. They want to
do the soul winning, but, you know, you have to be willing to be somebody who can make sacrifices
It takes a lot of time and energy to build a church.
And the other thing is, if you're going to be the leader that we need,
if people are going to be the leaders that we need in churches,
you have to go into it with this attitude that quitting is not an option.
Quitting is not an option, you know, that's something that I was told and something that just kind of been burned into my brain
You can never quit
I mean just you cannot quit you can't have that kind of an attitude now
I'll say this failing is an option
You know we are like you all like that people use that, you know failure is not an option actually it is
You know we could fail
You know, if we, you know, we could mess up, we could get into sin, we could get cold hearted and whatever, but you know, we can't go into the ministry and be the leaders that we need to be.
If we have the attitude that, well, maybe I'll do this for a while, but I'll quit because if you go into with that attitude, you know, you will quit.
Because what you're going to find out is that it is hard, that it is difficult, and that it is a lot of sacrifice and that it is a lot of work and it is a lot of demands and pressure.
You know, I remember talking to Pastor Thompson years ago and he he said if I get some of the ministry up in one word
It's pressure and I've always thought about that. It's like, you know, and it's always funny
I like guys fill in the pulpit in my church and then they all of a sudden they've had this newfound respect for me when I get back
They're like, how do you do that three times a week? I'm like exactly
You know and that's that's kind of ties in with what pastor Thompson said. It's it's just this unrelenting pressure
It's always there. It's like it's not like you get done Sunday morning Sunday night like oh, it's like nope Thursday's coming buddy
And then you go off Thursday's out of the way. Well Sunday's right behind it
Well, here we go again, and it's just over and over again. Obviously, it's a privilege
It's an honor to be able to preach the word of God, but I'm not going to sugarcoat it either
It's a lot of pressure to get up and preach sermons that people actually want to hear you got to put effort into it
You got to make them bold and interesting and you got to have a lot of Bible in it
You got to know what you're talking about. It's a lot of pressure
So we need people that have the odd attitude that you know quitting is not an option because if you in the back of your mind
Think well, I'll just dip my toe in this and see how it goes
You know
You're probably gonna get to the place one day where you want to quit because you're gonna find out
It's it's difficult and it is hard and look failure is devastating
You know, when people fail and quit ministries, it hurts.
It's devastating when people, you know, blow things up.
I mean, some of you know something about that around here.
When a guy takes over a ministry and just drives it
into the ground, you know, people,
that's a devastating thing.
When someone just takes over something that a lot of people put a time and effort in and just for whatever reason
I mean who wants to unravel that rats nest, you know, just drives that thing into the ground, you know that it's not just a shame to that
individual
Joe Jones
Right, but it's also
Devastating to the people that who were excited about a church like that who were serious about a church like that who had made
Sacrifices opened up their homes, you know, that's a huge inconvenience
You know tithing to that church, going to that church, being faithful to services, helping build that church, and then just have somebody come in and just crash the thing, you know, that's devastating, failure is devastating.
So if we're going to do this thing, you know, people have to take it seriously, and go into an attitude of, hey quitting is not an option, and be cautious about the fact that, you know, failure is an option.
You could blow things up, you could make it a disaster, and that is a very devastating thing.
You know I would like to see a church started here in Boise. I think there's you know a need here and
You know you say well
I don't know that there's a lot you know a lot of people to start a church well
Then I guess we won't need a very big space, you know
I mean like okay, I guess we can rent a real small place that you know
I guess I guess our overhead will be low
Right, and I think that it would it be something that you know would be beneficial
Obviously to the people that are already here
But I also think about all the souls that would be saved all the people that would come to Christ through a church
like ours being started here and
You know, it's something I definitely want to see but here's the thing
You know as pastors all week, you know, the best way we can do this is just kind of give the people here
Just like a macro vision, okay?
And the person on the ground, they're the one that has to have,
I don't want to say the micro vision, but they have to be the one that kind of sees all the details, right?
And, you know, this was something that I kind of learned, you know,
Pastor Anderson is here tonight when he hired me.
You know and let me just kind of talk about that for a minute the Bible says I'll get a retreat you in Titus chapter 1
That Paul left Titus and Crete that he should set in order the things that are wanting
So Paul is saying hey you go you go to Crete and set in order the things that are wanting you take care of it
He's saying here's the vision start a church in every city
Here's the big vision now you go set in order the things that are wanting this is how
Churches like this, you know if a church like this were to start here. That's how it would have to happen
Where you know the pastor just says hey, here's here's what we're trying to achieve and we that's no mystery to us
You know, I love about churches. They're not overly complicated things
Obviously the bigger they get the more you know work goes into it
But just as an organization in general, they're not exactly the most complicated things
You have a pastor and you have a congregation and you have basically one mission right go out and preach the gospel to every creature
It's not it's not this complex thing that we got to spend you know years in school figuring out or something like that
It's pretty straightforward. It's simple. That's not to say it's unimportant. Obviously the stakes are high
It's incredibly important
But you know generally speaking it's a very simple thing
And paul's just saying hey go set order the things I want to go preach the gospel throughout creek or dain elders in every city
Right and but he doesn't sit there and hold titus's hand the whole way
You know, he gives them the big vision. It's up to titus
To figure out the finer details and make sure everything that gets done. He needs to get done gets done
So Paul appoints Titus to set and order these things and this is kind of how you know
Straight paths Baptist Church as we know it today in Tucson, you know got started
I remember it was you know before I even got ordained as the deacon at faithful word
I was you know preaching up at the north church. We had a church called faithful word north up on 35th
Avenue, I think in Campbell
I don't know and you know as a space as much it was even smaller than this
You know and it was great training
It was a great opportunity to get up and preach and get a feel for how you know things are supposed to work
And I remember at one point during that time that summer
I suggested to brother Chris Segura who's on staff down there a faithful word
I said hey, what do you guys think about starting a church in Tucson and pastor or pastor a brother Segura just said
Yeah, you should do it. I was like hold on. I mean
Right, this is another thing that you find in ministry a lot people will come to you and say hey, we should do this
And you're like yeah, you should
You know, it's like hey pastor. Here's another thing for you to do. It's like no, you know, but you can do that if you want, right?
And it was kind of funny, you know, later, you know, a few months later, I remember it was a Wednesday night service, Pastor Anderson called me and some of the other guys had been preaching up that north location into a room there in the church.
And this is right, you know, right before Wednesday evening service. And he's just saying, we're thinking about, you know, closing down the north church and going and starting a church somewhere else.
Does anybody have any ideas? And I opened my big mouth. And I was like, hey, what about Tucson? He's like, that's exactly what I was thinking.
Right, so we started to start decided to do that and ten minutes later. It was getting announced
You know, I just love that right we're gonna start this church and boom all of a sudden
You know I was like, yeah, that sounds like a good idea then during announcements ten minutes later
I was like, hey, we're starting a church of Tucson. It was great, you know and
You know, but from there it was hey find a building, right? It wasn't Pastor Anderson coming. He's like well
Here's the building, you know, you want to just look at you. It's like was on us to go find the building
it was on us to go and make sure that it had everything that it needed. It was on us to
do all, you know, set in order all the things that we're wanting, right? And that's how these
things have to work. And I'm saying all this because that's the reality of it.
And it's great to want a church. It's great to the desire a church to be started in your city
But you have to understand that in order to do that you have to be the ones that get involved
You have to be the ones and we need a leader who's gonna stand up and yes
Boldly proclaim the gospel boldly preach the word of God be the flock which is among them
But also be the one that sets and order all these things
You know, we found the building and then shortly after that, you know, I got ordained as the deacon there and then shortly after that
You know, I was suggested. Hey, maybe you should think about moving down to Tucson, which is what I did
But you know, I didn't you know, I didn't ask pastor to go on Zillow and find me a house
You know, I did that, you know
I was the one that went down there and took and made that happen, right and
Later it was hey, you know, I think it's time for you to go independent and guess who did all the leg work on that one
You know with me again, right? It was like a you know, go figure out how to get all this
You know legalese figured out and and call me when it's done basically kind of a thing, right?
And look I'm not saying that like well, can you believe this guy? You know, that's how it's got to be
That's how it's supposed to be. You know, that's why Paul left Titus in Crete
He said you set in order the things that are wanting I'm gonna keep going do what I'm doing
I'm gonna I've got my own vision. I've got my own mission. I've got my own responsibilities
You know, we need you the tightest to just go take care of these things that I'm too busy for
You know was one of the first things I remember when I got hired Pastor Anderson just said I don't want to hold your hand
Right, and he's saying I don't want to be you know, here's how we do this and here's how we do that
You know, you just want to say here's the big vision make it happen, right?
That's how we need to run our churches. That's how things like this gets started
And that's why, you know, I believe the St. Louis church is off to such a great start because, you know, pastor, brother Eric just reached out to me and just said, hey, what do you think about starting a church in St. Louis?
And I was like, hey, let's talk. Literally the next day, he's like, here's three buildings we can rent.
Here's a, and then like within, within five days, here's a website.
Oh, here's, here's flyers I've already designed. I want me to print them up.
I mean, he was, you know, I like to say I was leading it, but he was more like he was behind me, like pushing me.
Like hey, let's start this church and look that's a good thing
You know he wanted to see something happen in his town and he took initiative
You know he grabbed that thing by the horns and he got it going
You know he suggested it and then he followed up with all the details
If you would keep go over to first Timothy chapter 4, I'll close there
I'm sure I'm well below 40 minutes, but I'm sure you guys won't mind if I don't wrap up a little bit earlier here tonight
And turn it over to pastor Anderson
But it says there in 1st Timothy chapter 4 verse 13,
till I come give attendance to reigning,
to exhortation to doctrine, neglect not the gift
that is any which was given thee by the prophecy
with the laying on the hands of the Presbytery,
meditate upon these things, give thyself holy to them
that thy profiting may appear to all,
take heed to thyself and to the doctrine,
continue in them for in doing this thou shalt both
save thyself and them that hear thee.
So Paul is saying, look, till I come, right,
you do all of these things.
You know, till I come, make sure you're giving attendance to reading, to doctrine, to exhortation.
Till I come, make sure you're meditating upon these things and giving yourself holy to them.
You know, the responsibility falls solely on the boots on the ground.
That's the person that has to take a lot of these things upon themselves in order to make a church happen.
It can't be some pastor, you know, a few thousand miles away trying to straighten out all the minor details in a church.
You know, I liken it unto a train, right?
You know, if I were to, you know, like me starting that church in St. Louis,
it's like, I'm just there, I told, this is what I told brother,
I'm just here to make sure this thing stays on the track.
Right if you go off the rails, so to speak and I don't think that ever will you know
I'm gonna be the one that steps in and gets it back on track and
You know make sure that the you know, it's full steam ahead
But it's the guys there. It's the people there. It's the leader there that actually has to what you know
Shovel the coal into the engine has to do the legwork the hard work the dirty work of actually leading a church
And look it's not easy
It's it's it's hard, but you know the best place to learn to swim is the deep end. That's what I found
You know go start you know go start a church in Tucson. That's the deep end
You know that that's that's you know what but that's the best way to do it
I think because it's sink or swim and when it's on you and you have to make it happen
You know that's when people rise to the occasion
The best training I ever got was just simply being given the opportunity to you know learn how to do it
So, again, I would love to see a church started here, you know, but we need a leader, we need
people and people to back up that leader and to be serious about this thing.
And it's, you know, I don't want to sound overly cynical here, but the fact is, a lot
of times people say, oh, if there was a church like this in my town, I would attend.
And then a church like that comes to their town and it's just like, where is that person?
Look, that happens, right?
So it's not just leader.
We need people to be serious about a church like this
and show up and support leader.
And we need leaders to rise up, not just here in Boise.
We need leaders all across this country.
It is so desperately needed today.
And I understand that it's not for everybody.
It's certainly not for the faint of heart.
But you know, it's still a great need and I hope that you know, we can get something going here
And I'm sure I'll be you know, so I'll be here all day tomorrow and we can talk about things and see what we can do
You know, I can't make any hard promises right now, but you know my I'm open to the idea
But do we have the leadership that we need is that person here? Is there you know a tomothus?
It's found faithful. It's ready to take on these challenges
Is there a body that's ready to support that work and to take on the work of you know preaching the gospel to their community?
I pray that there is let's go ahead and close in a word of prayer your Lord again
Thank you for this group of people here that have assembled tonight Lord out of a desire to hear the preaching the word of God
I pray that
They would be edified by your word for having been here and Lord
I pray that you would lead and guide in establishing a church or if it's your will that one be here and lord
We know that you desire churches and the gospel to be preached
Churches established in the gospel we preach every word lord
I pray that you would open a door that you would guide and lead in that way so that we could see
Uh, the the the gospel go forth and we could see christ glorified. We ask these things to his precious name amen
All right, we'll go ahead and sing another song