(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 I'm sick of overcompensating men telling everyone else what to do. Why can't we just let the kinder and softer gender take the lead? Now, of course, I'm not suggesting that there's only two genders, just that one half of the population seems to believe that they should be in charge. But true men will do everything their wife tells them to do without complaining because everyone knows women always know what to do. Just think about how safe our streets would be if we eliminated guns, first of all, from society, along with all those hateful and racist male police officers. And instead, we had kind, compassionate ladies of the law policing the streets of America. Now, law does sound kind of harsh. Makes it sound like rules exist that someone would have to enforce. Honestly, I think we should all police ourselves, except for Republicans, MAGA freaks, and bigots. They should be arrested immediately for existing. But for the rest of us, I propose this idea. No one should be in charge, just like Ephesians 5 says. No bosses, no authority, no leadership, complete and utter anarchy where no one is the boss. I'm paraphrasing, of course. What the male chauvinists don't seem to understand is that love wins. They seem to think people are inherently evil or something, but the reality is if we just loved a little bit more, we'd have no need for things like rules, laws, and leaders. Everyone's in charge. No one's in charge. But just in case someone does get out of line, we should probably elect someone to enforce our rules. They'd have to be motivated by altruism and justice. Perhaps even be the strongest and most fit of our society. Individuals guided by logic and not feelings. Great upper body strength, unmatched grit and stamina. Someone like Lizzo. Why? Think about it, folks. The patriarchy is outdated and an unrealistic and unfair paradigm. As men, it's time for us to move forward. It's time for us to immediately disarm ourselves, stop working out, no more meat, just soy, and embrace communism. The only thing holding us back at this point are those mean-spirited, brisket-eating, fascists with that horrible disease of the mind we call the Baptist Bias. Hey everybody, thanks for joining us for the Baptist Bias. I'm your host, Pastor Shelley, and I've got my co-host, Ben the Baptist. How's it going, Ben? It's Tuesday night. You know what that means. It's the Baptist Bias. Baptist Bias time. I'm excited. And we've got a great guest again this week. We're going to be bringing on Pastor Jimenez and we're really excited. It's going to be a completely different show again. So we went from Dr. Hovind, Alex Rosen. Now we're going to clean up our act and get a real class act here. We're going to get Pastor Jimenez and he's going to be joining us. And so I'm excited for the show and we're going to be talking about leadership. And really, it's great to have Pastor Jimenez on because talk about a great leader, someone who's really excelling in church and in his family and is really just someone that everybody I know looks up to. And so I'm really excited to bring him on. We should have him here with us. Pastor Jimenez, can you hear us? Yes. Hi. Hello. Thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. How's everything going in Sacramento? It's good. Everything, you know, we're busy but everything is going good. Now you guys just ended up moving into a new building pretty recently. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, absolutely. We moved into our new building. We purchased a building, I want to say it was like three or four weeks ago that we moved in and it's a 400-seat auditorium and it sits on four acres of land and it's just down the street from where our previous building was and there was a lot of work obviously moving in. Before we moved in, we had about six months of work days and just a lot of our church family came together and did a lot of work on it. We moved in but there's still a lot more work to do and though we moved in, our grand opening service is actually going to be Easter which is this Sunday. So we have like a soft opening where we brought our church family, just our congregation and friends and then on Easter is going to be the big grand opening service. But on our soft opening which we weren't really promoting other than just telling our friends and our congregation, we had 300 in church that Sunday morning. Wow. So I'm excited to see what Easter is going to be like. That's great. That's really exciting. What's the address of your new building? It's 4191 Norwood Avenue. If you know anybody that's out in Sacramento, if you know where Norwood Avenue is, we're across the street from the Starbucks and the building that we purchased, it's a real iconic building that if you're from this area, when we're out soloing, we tell people the church building across the street from Starbucks on Norwood and everybody's like, I know exactly what building you're talking about. It stands out a lot and people just know it well. If you live near Sacramento, come check us out. If you live anywhere in the area, you need to go to Verity Baptist Church for Easter this Sunday. Check out the new building. That's really exciting. I haven't seen it yet, but I look forward to visiting this year and getting to see it. Could you imagine the Verity haters that are still around from 2016 to steal a portion of Pastor Jimenez's sermon when he preached for us at the Fire Breathing Baptist Fellowship as they're waiting in line at the drive-thru at Starbucks getting their cafe frappe latte or whatever people order from there, and they're looking at this giant, nice, beautiful-looking building, and it says Verity Baptist Church on it. Yeah, I mean, obviously the AIDS probably hurts pretty bad, but looking at Verity getting a new building is even more of a sting. So that's exciting. No, that's great. And I'm really looking forward to getting to see this property, see all the work that you guys have put in. Obviously, it takes a lot of work, a lot of effort to purchase a building, to renovate it, to get in there. How many total square footage do you have approximately for this building? I'm not 100% sure on the square footage. I want to say it's 15,000 square feet. I'm not 100% sure. That's great. But it's a good-sized facility, and yeah, we're just really happy about it, and a lot of work went into it. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the Red Hot Preaching Conference and having all of you guys out here and having our first conference, our first Red Hot in this building. Just a week after Easter, we're having our Next Generation Youth Rally. And actually, we have a lot of people coming from steadfast, so thank you to your church family for coming out and supporting the youth conference that we put on, but we're looking forward to that as well. Yeah, that's exciting. The youth rally, that's coming up pretty soon. That's April, what is it, 9th through the 10th? Yeah, April 9th and 10th, and we've got, right now it's the second year we've done it, and we have 70 teenagers that are registered for the conference. But of course, we're family-integrated, so we have 70 teenagers that are registered, but they're bringing their parents and siblings and whatever. So we have young people coming from all over the country, and we're just getting ready for that, and we're just, you know, we're busy, but it's going to be a great time. April 9th and 10th, and Pastor Thompson is going to be preaching the evening service. On Tuesday night, I'll be preaching the Wednesday night service, and then in the morning services, we're going to have Pastor Buzarnsky from Fresno, from Old Fast Baptist Church, and we're actually going to have Pastor Tavener from the UK. He'll be preaching in the morning session on Wednesday morning, so it's going to be a great time. Wow, that's pretty cool. Get some tea and crumpets, and I know last year, you all had something like WWE stuff going on. Ben's a big fan of some wrestling. Are you kind of envious, Ben, there? You don't get to go and wrestle or what? I definitely was. I wish I was there last year for that, for the professional wrestling match. Is this a Pastor Jimenez smackdown? Yeah. So Ben, come on down. I want to see Pastor Jimenez smackdown Pastor Thompson, so that's what I want to see. I want to see him pick him up and twirl him and throw him on the ropes or something, right? How does that work? Yeah. It's going to be great. Well, there's this conspiracy theory going around, because there's wacky conspiracies. There's this conspiracy theory that professional wrestling isn't real, and I just wanted to put that to bed. If you watched the match last year at Verity Baptist Church, you saw a legitimate fight. A couple of good fights, actually. Yeah, that's what makes it really good, is the realism aspect of it. Pastor Jimenez got in the ring. Took some bumps. And we'll have a lot of surprises for this year's conference as well. It's going to be great. Now, your Red Hot Conference, you've had it every year for several years. What is this, like the seventh or eighth? This is the ninth. Wow. The time flies when you're having fun. The ninth conference. Now, I think every year prior, you've had it in July, but now you've moved it. It's now in June. Is that correct? What are the dates for the Red Hot Conference? Do you have that? Yes, the dates are June 20th through the 23rd, so it's a Thursday through Sunday. Every year we've had it in July, and we're trying something new here in June, and we'll see how that goes. I'm excited about it. The main reason why we moved is because July is just the hottest time of the year here in Sacramento, and I've always just thought it was just ... We picked July originally for logistical reasons, but I just always thought it was silly that I would invite people to come from all over the country and different parts of the world to California, which is beautiful, and I bring them out here just when it's the hottest, most miserable time of the year. Obviously, the conference is called the Red Hot Preaching Conference, but we're going to try June and see because it's a little cooler in June and a little nicer weather. We're going to try that. Of course, June, you've got the whole LGBT thing, so that kind of works with Red Hot anyway. Same topic. Yeah, that's what we're ... Is that a Red Hot Preaching topic or something or causing any controversies or anything? Probably going to come up this year, I would imagine. It would be a safe bet that somebody may use the word faggot. I'm not sure, though. Well, that sounds hateful, so I don't know. No, that's exciting. Yeah, if you're anywhere in that area, again, you got to go to the Red Hot Preaching Conference, and it's even a conference for sure worth traveling to. Red Hot Preaching Conference is really unique. It's a really special event. Everybody that goes has a blast, and you get to really meet a lot of people from around the world. Every time I've visited, there's been people that travel from all over the country and even just other countries, people, international travel. I know you've been maybe, was it two years ago? What was the last one you went to? I went to last year's Red Hot Preaching Conference, and I went to the one the year before that as well and obviously had a blast. The fellowship is amazing. The preaching is amazing. It is, because you just talked about professional wrestling. It is the WrestleMania of the new IFB, the Super Bowl for you NFL fans out there. I know some of you are watching, all right? I know you're watching. The Super Bowl of our movement of the new IFB, really a tremendous event, and huge thank you to Pastor Jimenez and your staff and church members for all the work you guys put in to put that on, because I know from the, again, I shouldn't say I know. I've never organized a conference myself, but I would imagine that it's very hard work. The Been the Baptist Conference would be pretty cool, but I have to say, shout out to our listeners. We got over 200 people in the stream, lots of people in the chat. We're gonna actually be taking call-ins this evening, and if you'd like to ask a question to Pastor Jimenez, this is your opportunity. The guy is super busy, got lots of things going on, but this is your chance to ask him a question. About leadership. And we really want the questions to kind of focus on our topic this evening. We're talking about leadership, and we wanna apply this to all areas of life, so we're gonna talk about leadership in the church, which obviously Pastor Jimenez is really succeeding in, excelling in. Also, we're gonna extend this to the home, to the family, which also is another area where Pastor Jimenez has a great family, and it's very evident. He exudes a lot of leadership qualities. I know he's been in the military as well. Maybe he might share some of that. Also, just what the Bible has to say on this topic, but I know a lot of people are interested in this topic, learning how to be a better leader, better husband, better just in every area of life, whether it's at the career, at the job site, in church. Leadership's important. I know you also have a leadership class. Pastor Jimenez has told me he's done a leadership class as well. If you'd like to call into the show, 231-Babdist, even our phone number's kind of biased. 231-Babdist, and of course, you can even pop in a question in the chat if you have any questions. Someone's asking the dates for the Red Hot Preaching Conference. It was June 25th, 20th through the 25th. Is that correct? Yeah, let me just double check that. It's June 20th through the 23rd. Okay, June 20th through the 23rd. So you can stay those extra two days though. He won't mind. Even stick around for the next Wednesday service if you'd like. So 231-Babdist. So I just want to kind of pick your brain here for a second, Pastor Jimenez. I know you have a leadership class. I know obviously leadership's really important. From your perspective, you know, when we talk about leadership from a biblical perspective, how important is leadership? I'm sorry, my computer I think might have froze. You're okay. Yeah, let me rephrase the question. Obviously you have a leadership class and you were in the military, so you have a lot of experience around this topic. So I just want to kind of pick your brain here and see from a biblical perspective, how important is leadership? Yeah, I mean, I think leadership is paramount. You know, it's often been said that everything rises and falls on leadership. And obviously if you look at the Bible, you see that the Bible centers the worship of God, the advancing of the work of God. It's all centered around leaders. And in the Bible, when there are good leaders, things go well. When there is no leadership, things don't go well. When there's bad leadership, things go worse. I think that leadership is extremely important. And this is something that I'm happy to talk about. I do want to just say that in no way, shape, or form do I claim to be a leadership expert or anything like that. But leadership is something that I'm passionate about. It's something that I think about, something that I read a lot on the subject of leadership. I've taken university level courses on the subject of leadership. I've obviously studied leadership in the Bible. I teach on leadership. So, you know, we're all learning and I'm trying to become a better leader every day. But it's something that I do think a lot about and I do have a passion for. And I think it's very important in the Christian life. Well, obviously Pastor Mendez is pretty humble here. We definitely look to your leadership when it comes to how to run a church, a conference, all kinds of different things. Everybody I know speaks very highly of you and your church. So we definitely wanted to bring you on because we feel like you're an expert in leadership and you're really leading the way, leading the charge, leading one of the best conferences in the world, if not the best. And so, you know, we really commend you for that. Getting a building definitely takes a lot of effort and energy and takes a lot of leadership. I know that you had to rally the troops on this one. You know, so it's definitely something that directly affects churches. Do you feel like you've been in any church situations where you've seen kind of the pros or the cons of that leadership you're talking to? Maybe some of the churches that you've grown up in or maybe you've just seen from afar. What are some of the experiences you've seen when it comes to leadership in the world we see today? Yeah, absolutely. Well, when it comes to church world, I mean, I grew up an independent fundamental Baptist. I've been a Baptist my whole life. I was a Baptist before I was even saved. So I definitely have a Baptist bias. And, you know, I grew up in church. I grew up in different churches as I was growing up. And then while I was in the military, while I was in the Air Force for four years, and we, as we traveled, we were a part of different churches. And then, of course, for the last 13 years, I've passed a very Baptist church, but I've had the privilege and the opportunity to know a lot of churches and be connected with churches. And I definitely see a connection between leadership and just the success of a church. And that's not to say that that's the only factor. Obviously, it's not the only factor. But I do think that if you're a pastor and you want to pastor a thriving church, you want to pastor a healthy church and a growing church, then investing into your own leadership development is absolutely something that is crucial. Well, you know, I feel like, especially when it comes to soul winning, I feel like if the pastor is not setting an example, the Bible talks about the importance of doing the work of an evangelist, that, you know, whatever example the pastor is showing and modeling for the congregation many times is going to be kind of a standard for them. And it's not to say that you can't do more than your pastor or you can't be more zealous or do more work. But I think for a lot of people, to them, they usually look to their pastor or people on staff as kind of the ultimate standard. And, you know, maybe that's an unfair thing that they're putting on that person, but at the same time, it's just reality. It's just how it works that many people look to that standard. And I know I went to a fundamental Baptist church where the pastors were not soul winning. And in fact, whenever I was there, I was trying to encourage the pastors and the staff to do more soul winning. I told them I was going. But I remember this sermon specifically where one of the pastors was talking about the importance of handing out tracts and inviting people to church and just kind of evangelism in general. And he said he was going to get his hair cut. And he said he gets his hair cut like every couple weeks from the same person. And he's just been really praying about, you know, inviting this person to church. And so he said, you know, he was finally like, all right, this next time I go, I'm going to do it. And he said after talking with her for a while, he chickened out and he was afraid to ask her, like give her an invite to church. And then he said, just at some point, randomly she just asked him like, what church do you go to? And then he ended up pulling out the invite and was able to give it to her. And he was just like, it was just amazing how God was just working in that situation. And it just kind of like, it just kind of baffled me that I was thinking like, you know, I wouldn't even share this story because I'm just like, I don't know what the motivation is entirely. Like, what are you trying to encourage the congregation to do here? Just have tracts in your pocket and just hope that someone asks about it. I mean, to me, that just seems kind of weak. Like if you heard that, Ben, from the pulpit, like what do you walk away from the sermon taking practical application for? How to be too afraid to share a tract with another individual. That would be all that I would walk away with. I mean, Pastor Jimenez, have you seen churches or been to churches where the soul winning is just kind of non-existent or kind of weak? Do you feel like the pastor is really responsible for that? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, like I said, you know, I do believe that everything rises and falls on leadership. And one of the things that we must do as leaders is obviously set the example. And the point of being a leader is that you take the lead and you go first and you really have to set the example. And I believe that it is the pastor the pastor's job and the pastor's wife obviously contributes to this and the staff as well to create the right culture for the church. And part of that is done through the preaching and teaching of God's word. But part of that is done through modeling and through showing people, you know, the Christian life. So Paul told Timothy, be thou an example of the believer. He didn't tell him to be an example of the believer. He didn't tell him to be an example to the believers. He said to be an example of a believer. And I believe that in a healthy church the church family should be able to look at the pastor, look at the pastor's wife, look at even the family. And again, there should not be an expectation for them to be perfect or sinless. Obviously, we're all human beings. We all are imperfect. But they should see here's what here's how a husband or wife treat each other. Here's how they interact with each other. Here's how parents interact with their children. Here's a family that goes soul winning. They're faithful to the church. Like, they should be able to look at that and see an example of what they should be striving to be. So I do think that the pastor, and not just the pastor, but the leadership, they set the culture, they kind of set the temperature of the church. And yeah, I mean, you're not going to have a soul winning church if the pastor's not a soul winner. And every church that I know that has that is soul winning, has zeal for soul winning, the pastor himself is a soul winner. And you know, the thing is, when it comes to soul winning, there's people in our church, our church, God has blessed our church. I think this last Saturday, we pushed a big Saturday soul winning rally. This last Saturday, I want to say we had 120 soul winners. I think that's what the number was. And I appreciate that. I'm glad about that. I will definitely say that there are some soul winners in our church that go soul winning more than I do. Now I go soul winning every week, and I'm faithful at soul winning. They just happen to be in a different season of life. Maybe they're young, they don't have kids, they're not married or whatever, and they're able to spend more time doing that. When I was younger, I did a lot of soul winning too. I remember Pastor Anderson and I, before either one of us was a pastor, when I was just a teenager, we would go soul winning eight hours every Saturday, and multiple times during the week or whatever. But obviously, having six kids, being married, the business of life, I don't have that ability now, but I do have the ability to be a soul winner, be a faithful soul winner, weekly soul winner. And one day I might be in a different season of life. My kids might be grown and out of the house. I might find myself having more time to do more. So I don't think that the pastor or the leader has to do more than everyone else. I think that's a way to, if a leader feels like they have to be doing more, keeping up with everyone, they're gonna burn themselves out. But I do think they need to set the right example and model for people what it is that they're supposed to be doing. Yeah, I think that's a great point, and I think balance is obviously a big part of also being a leader. And having a family is important, and not just leading the church and not just leading soul winning, but leading that family. And what's crazy is how many churches today and how many pastors really don't subscribe to male leadership and male authority in the household anymore. We have a clip I wanna play here, and I'm gonna get your thoughts on it, Pastor Menes, but this is Andy Stanley. It's the son of Charles Stanley who had a pretty famous TV program for a long time. Andy Stanley pastors a church. It's pretty big, kind of inherited a church through his father's ministry. And Andy Stanley has got some strange ideas. Let's play this clip real quick. Here's the verse that sets the tone for everything that follows. Here's our verb, submit to one another out of, and there it is again. Every time the apostle Paul tells us to do something, he points us back to Jesus. Not the Old Testament, not the 10 commandments, Jesus. As God through Christ has done something extraordinary for you, you are to demonstrate that same kind of love in your relationships with each other, including romantic relationships, including marriage. You are to submit to one another out of reverence to Christ. In other words, the submission, guys, get ready, is mutual people. This is why Christian marriage, this is why Christian marriage is a submission competition because the command to submit is mutual. It is mutual submission. My friends, if you don't hear anything else today, this makes marriage amazing. This makes relationships amazing. This is what happy couples know. Wow. That guy is not happy. A submission competition. No, what do you want? No, what do you want? What do you want? No, what do you want? What do you want? How does that even work? No decisions are ever made. Have you ever heard of this, Pastor Jimenez, of a submission competition within marriage? I haven't heard that phrasing specifically, but I have heard people preach that verse and pretty much use that same idea that because the passage begins with that verse that it doesn't mean that the wives need to submit to their husbands or that the husband is the head of the wife, which obviously it's contradictory to interpret that verse that way. You know, one thing that I've heard throughout my life preachers say and people teaching on leadership is that an organism with two heads is a monster, and an organism with no head is dead. And there obviously needs to be a leader. There needs to be someone who is making decisions, and that verse, that's not what that's talking about. Yeah, it's funny if you actually just read the next two verses, and I want to see if we can pull this up on the screen, but he was referencing Ephesians 5, and he was referencing it in the NIV, the non-inspired version, so obviously there was already a mistake there. He should be using the King James Bible. But what I think is funny is how these pastors just cherry-pick a singular verse and put it out there on the screen. I want to try and get this on here, so as soon as you get it, just pull it up. But it's funny how they put it on the screen, and I think since most people don't read their Bible or even take a Bible, they don't notice that the next two verses literally contradict Ann Lee Stanley's point, because he's trying to say that this is a mutual submission where essentially the husband submitting to the wife, the wife submitting unto the husband, but I think what's so funny is if you just read the next two verses, so it says here, let's see if we can read it here. Ephesians 5, verse 21, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Verse 22, wives, submit yourselves and your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the savior of the body. I mean, how could you read these three verses in context and then walk away saying, nope, husbands need to submit their wives? It's because you have a soy interpretation that you're projecting on the text that isn't actually there, and you're not a man, you're limp-wristed and effeminate. That's the only explanation possible because the text does not guide you in that direction whatsoever. I mean, I just, I can't, I would be so embarrassed if literally the next breath of Scripture is contradicting the point that, it's super clear he did not read this passage. He didn't like read the passage and try to get the essence of the passage. He's just cherry-picking a verse out and not even trying to figure out how that would work with the rest of the Bible. I mean, if we're literally going to submit to, everyone submits to everybody, just constant submission, competition, then how do we ever make a decision? How does anybody ever lead? Like, are you just completely dismissing all the verses that talk about, like, servants being obedient under their masters? Or just any aspect of submission where it talks about, like, submitting under the rulers that are over you in the Lord? There's no practical application that makes any sense whatsoever. Not to mention Ephesians chapter 5, as great as it is and as clear as it is, it's not the only place that we would go to to teach that wives should submit to their husbands. You have Titus chapter 2, where it says that women should be obedient under their own husbands. 1 Peter chapter 3, as well, is where we can derive this doctrine. So Pastor Mendez, are you having a competition with your wife to see who can submit the most? Or how does it work in your family? Well, we try to follow the biblical pattern of the husband is the head of the wife. And obviously the Bible teaches that the husband is to love his wife and to sacrifice for her like Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. The Bible says that the husband should be selfless. It says that he should love his wife the way that he loved himself. But the Bible obviously teaches, and I think that when we align ourselves with the word of God, we are going to be the most content, have the most joy, and therefore we just have to do what the Bible says. The husband is the head of the wife, and the wife is to submit to her husband. And then obviously, the question is, what do you do with Ephesians 5 21? And what these preachers do, whether they read the whole passage or understand the whole passage, or whether they're just being completely dishonest because they just don't want to teach what the Bible actually teaches because they're going to have a bunch of pant-wearing, short-haired, feminist women in their church that are going to be mad at them and upset. And those women are the ones that run the home, so they're going to lead their husbands out of the church, which is why he's not saying what the Bible actually says. But you know, you do have verse 21 there, and submitting yourself one to another in the fear of God. And I feel like some preachers, they find this contradictory because it says submitting yourselves one to another, but then obviously the next couple of verses, why submit yourselves unto your own husbands, for the husbands of the head of the wife, and the Christ of the head of the church. So, but to me, what I think, when I see something like this, I think, well, God is trying to make a point. He's purposely putting these verses one right after the other to make a point, and these words are being used here to draw our attention to someone. And obviously, I don't know what other preachers teach or whatever about Ephesians 5-21, but my understanding in the way that I've taught this is that the Bible definitely teaches that wives are to submit themselves unto their own husbands, the head of the wife, and she's subject unto her husband. Obviously, that's not the only, like Ben said, not the only passage of scripture that teaches that. What I do believe the Bible teaches about leadership, since we're talking about leadership, is that the Bible teaches what some might refer to as servant leadership. And some people don't like that phrase, and that's why it's not a phrase that I would argue with something about. But what I believe servant leadership is, and I'm always careful to define what I mean by servant leadership because servant leadership is not a submission competition, right? Servant leadership is not that you're doing the chores for your wife or that you're doing the chores for your children. But what I believe servant leadership is and the way that I've defined it for our church family as I've taught on this subject is that servant leadership is when the leader is leading for the benefit of those that follow him. So it's not that we are submitting to them. The leader submitting to the followers is not submission. That's rebellion. That's anarchy. But what it means is that we as leaders use our authority, our influence, our resources, the tools at our disposal to make decisions, but we're not leading for our personal benefit. I'm not leading my wife so that I can have a slave. I'm not leading my children so that I can have a slave. I'm not leading my church family so that I can fly in a jet and drive a luxury vehicle. And we're not leading people for our personal benefit, but a biblical leader is positioned there to lead. Yes, make decisions, but that is to lead people for their benefit so that my wife, Lord willing, would be a better person as a result of her being married to me so that my children would fulfill their spiritual potential as a result of having me as their father so that my church people, our church members, would be growing and learning and leading more Christ-honoring lives, more successful lives as a result of being under my ministry. That's servant leadership. It's that we're leading for the benefit of others. So I believe when the Bible there is saying, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, the idea is that as a leader, I should be doing what's best, not just for myself, but yeah, for myself. That's part of it, but also for the people that are following me. And I believe that's the interpretation of verse 21, which is then what leads us to wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, but then Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, is telling men, love your wives, you know? And he's saying that we should love our wives like Christ loved the church and gave himself glory and that we should be ministering unto them and helping them. The Bible says about Christ that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot over a small wrinkle. This is the idea that's being put forth in this passage. Well, and I definitely agree that leaders should not be selfish. When Moses was appointing leadership, he wanted to appoint men that were hating covetousness and making sure that they were doing things in the fear of God, caring for the things of God, putting God first. I try to take a pretty simplistic approach when it comes to Ephesians 5.21. I kind of view it as just simply saying that we should submit to human authority. And that's just kind of what it means. So it really falls in well with the next verse is a wife's human authority is her husband. And when we have other human authorities such as the pastor or we have the police or we have the government or you have parents, mom and dad, that we should submit ourselves one to another in the positions that are there. I think that there's sometimes this attitude that I've seen or heard where people will say, well, I don't follow any man. I just follow Jesus or I just follow Christ. And I think that this verse is kind of trying to put that attitude in check by saying, no, no, no, no. You still submit yourselves one to another. You're still going to have wives submitting to their husband. You're still going to have children submitting to their parents. You're still going to have the man submitting to the pastor in the context of church. And you could even still have overlap here. You could have a pastor who is a spiritual authority over someone in the congregation. And then someone in the congregation has a job or a business and hires the pastor. And the pastor has to submit to his boss at work. And so it's like in their different roles and in their different positions, they're submitting one to another. But to say that this verse somehow just completely undermines the whole next verse and that wives are no longer supposed to submit to their husband. I mean, my definition of submission, which I always try to give to people, as I say, it's not doing something when you agree. It's doing something when you disagree. And so in order for submission to work, you have to have two parties that don't agree and one decides to acquiesce or accept or embrace the decision that someone else made. So if the pastor wants to make a decision that you don't, you embrace that decision anyways and submit yourself. For a wife, it's not submission to agree with your husband. That's not submission. Submission is when you disagree with your husband, but you do exactly what he wants anyways. And what the Bible is trying to say is that ultimately the decision maker in the family is the husband. He's the ultimate decision maker. Sometimes he may be selfless in those decisions, and I think that that's an important thing to challenge men and leaders to make selfless decisions. But we need men to make decisions. We need men to lead, and we need them to be the final authority in the household. This is how it works, and frankly speaking, you know, I think everybody understands the fact that women sometimes just struggle to make decisions. If you've ever asked her this question, what would you like to eat? Have you ever had that, Ben, have you ever asked someone, a lady, what she'd like to eat and she just wasn't quite sure about it? Almost every time. I know, though. Yeah, of course, you know, there's gonna be differences between men and women. We have our strengths, we have our weaknesses. God, I believe, built men to lead and to make decisions and to be logical. And women, they're a little bit more empathetic. They have a closer touch with their feelings, and it helps them to better, I believe, raise children, empathize with them, pick up on a lot of their clues. Somehow women can just read their children like a book, and us men, it's just like, why are you crying? You know, and so I think that there's definitely strengths and weaknesses to us. This is why they compliment one another. Exactly. And God created a harmonious relationship between men and women, not one, based on competition. Well, some people call it complementarianism. Sounds good to me. And, you know, I think that that makes sense. The man compliments the wife, and the wife compliments the man. And again, I think there's nothing wrong with men helping women, or women helping men, but we're talking about submission, we're talking about the decision-making in the household. What are your thoughts, Pastor Menes, on the idea of Ephesians 5, 21, just kind of endorsing or emphasizing the idea of just submitting to the authorities and the leadership you have in your life? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. That's definitely a concept taught throughout the Bible. I mean, the Bible talks about submitting ourselves in, you know, all sorts of authorities, and there's not just the authority of the husband, like you mentioned. You know, the Bible says that the powers that be are ordained of God. And again, that's not just a blanket, do everything that the government tells you to do, verse, either. But what the Bible does teach is that we all have been given God-given authorities in our lives. And children have their parents, and they are to obey their parents in the Lord, for this is right. Why is there to submit themselves to their husbands? Men go to work and they shouldn't be rebellious towards their bosses. And, you know, I often tell men, sometimes men complain about their wives not listening to them, but then I hear them complaining, rebelling against their bosses and complaining about their bosses and saying how their boss is an idiot. And I think to myself, well, you're just re-going yourself there. You know, in every area of life, we have authority, and we may have authority, or we may be under submission. You know, at our church, I run the show. I like to control things, and I don't know, maybe that's not good, I don't know, but I like excellence, I like attention to detail, and, you know, you better believe that Verity Baptist Church, everything, every decision is being made, it's meeting a certain standard. But when I go to other churches, I submit myself to the authority of that pastor, you know, and I think that a good leader needs to know when he's wearing the hat of leader and authority, and when he needs to take that hat off and put the hat on after submission, because if I work a secular job and I had a boss, then I need to submit myself to that boss. And there is a place for government, and I need to submit to government. Obviously, in all of these areas, it's interesting to me how the Bible is very always clear to say, obey your parents in the Lord, that wiser to submit to their own husbands, it says, as it is fit in the Lord. And the idea is this, that obviously, if your authority is asking you to sin, whether it's the government or your pastor or your husband or your parents, if they're asking you to sin or asking you to do something that is outside of the bounds of what God would have you do, at that point, we ought to obey God rather than men. But I think if people just understood authority and understood when they are to obey and when the Bible would ask them to not obey, then it would just solve a lot of problems. Amen. I'm really glad that when I go to Verdi Baptist Church, the decisions were run by Pastor Jimenez, because I don't know what the church would be like if it wasn't. And it's definitely, you can see the excellence. It's a world machine, for sure. I want to park it on this point for a little while, because we have a few more clips, and I find that a lot of people find this really interesting when it comes to the dynamic, because a lot of people, just being honest, a lot of people do struggle in marriage, a lot of people do struggle in family and in leadership and just kind of knowing what's right. And I think because there's just so much bad teaching, I didn't even realize that clip was out there. We have another one. Let's get this Creflo Dollar clip and see if we can get that. It sounds like a normal name. Are you going to name your son something like that? I was assuming, and this whole time I've assumed, that it's a stage name of some sort. That's not his real name. Yeah, it's a stage name. It is? But why not embrace it? It flows like rain off the tongue, right? Why is he using a stage name? Is there a reason for that? I mean, he probably doesn't love money or anything like that. Maybe you could go with like... Pastor Dollar. Ben the Bitcoin or... Lying of the night so far. All right, let's see if we can play this clip from Creflo Dollar. Now, this is so important because Paul was talking about a lot before he got to this particular point, but he concluded this about submission, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of the Lord. And most of us, especially in church, submission only deals with the woman, and don't forget, real submission, biblical submission, is mutual submission. You know, that's what we share in common. The women. Amen. That's right, Pastor. Submission is not just directed to a woman. Submission is also directed to a man. It is mutual. And this idea that you, you know, you cherry pick and say, no, no, no, I'm supposed to, you know, you as if it's okay for you not to be submitted. And Paul was saying, now that we are all heirs together, that submitting yourself one to another in the, out of respect for God and in the fear of the Lord, it's mutual submission. So, if you're going to talk about biblical submission, you must first conclude that it is mutual submission. To say that submission only pertains to the, to the woman is not biblical submission. Wow. I could just see some black women and they're like, I'm going to tell him when I get back, you know, put him in line. That's, that's what black women need, is to be told that they're in charge. Cause they're already, you know, really struggling in that area, right? Being too submissive. I mean, that's what a joke. What a joke that this guy is getting up here and just, just saying this mutual submission stuff again. Have you, I mean, again, I'm just kind of flabbergasted. I never heard this kind of preaching. You wonder why, I just want to say, you'll wonder why the inner city communities are struggling so badly. It's because this is the horrifying leadership that they have at their disposal that they have to look up to. Well, and let's just be honest for a minute. I mean, obviously we were looking at, who's committing the most crimes. It's a lot of the people in the inner city, a lot of poor people. And honestly, if you look at the demographics, a lot of young black men are born into fatherless homes. And so you could see how that would empower women to feel like they have a better head on their shoulders. They make better decisions. They're smarter. And when they hear preaching like this, you could just see how the women might think that they need to really dominate the men, domineer them, tell them what to do. Is this something that you've seen, Pastor Jimenez, where maybe couples come struggle or they come to your church, they ask you advice and it seems like the wife really has a hard time not, you know, ruling over her husband. Is that something that you've seen at all? I don't know if he, I don't know if we paused. We offended him. We offended him. It's your fault. He's so offended by that clip. I didn't do anything. It was you, just to be clear. Dude, I think that's crazy. Let's, I want to just, we have so many clips. Let's see if we can do another one real quick. There's a Catholic, I mean, you know, Catholic. I wonder, do you think he's going to have the right position on this? I don't know. Let's see. Let's see if we can have the Catholic. He's Catholic. Let's get, you know, let's see what happens. It comes back to this. Okay, men, you got to lead your family. You got to lead your wife. You got to lead your, lead, lead him. You got to just lead him. Like, okay, that means I got to, like, I'm in charge. That means, okay, I'm going to make the decisions. Even brides will say something like that. Like, yeah, I guess that means that, you know, he makes the decisions in the family. That means he's in charge of the family. I don't, is that what it means? Is that what Christian fatherhood, Christian husbandhood, Christian leadership means? I think that we are paying attention to one part and not paying attention to both parts. Like, we're paying attention to half of it. So again, there's Catholics, there's Christians who are like, yeah, we're being adamant about this. Scripture says wives submit to your husbands. He's going to lead. Okay, he's going to lead. So I'm going to embrace that and be true to the Bible. It doesn't mean like, oh, therefore I make all the decisions. That way, you know, my word is the final word. Maybe it does in some cases. Maybe it does in your family. Maybe that's how you've worked it out. But that doesn't necessarily come from the Bible. So men don't have the final word. Husbands don't have the final word in their marriage. That is not from the Bible. Hey, do we have any Bible on that, Ben? I mean, again, apparently it's not from the Bible. The husband is the head of the wife? I mean, there you go. What about 1 Corinthians, chapter number 11? Doesn't that clearly say that the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church? We have all kinds of verses on this particular issue. How about just normal phrasing when people go and they knock on the door of someone's house and they say, can I talk to the man of the house? I mean, what does that imply, Ben? It implies there's an authority figure in the home that you're wanting to speak to. This is not rocket science at all. The man of the house. But Pastor, are you shocked that a Catholic got this one wrong? Well, you know, Catholics seem to be very consistent. They're very good at interpreting the Bible incorrectly. Like the complete opposite. Pretty much every single time, they always have the Bible wrong. And so it's definitely not surprising. But it was surprising, you know, how many evangelicals do. I think we have Pastor Jimenez. Sorry, he froze there for a second. Did you get to see either of those clips, Pastor Jimenez? OK, never mind. I want to say real quickly that when it comes to servant leadership, one of the ways that you've defied pastoring, Pastor Shelley, is this way. You've said you just want to or one of the things you want to accomplish is to help other people serve Jesus Christ better. Is that not servant leadership in your mind? Well, again, you know, servant leadership, I think, is just the mentality that every position of authority should have is that they're there to serve the people for the better. So whatever is going to be the best for them. That doesn't mean that you're necessarily giving them what they want. Your children don't always know what they want or what they need. And as a good leader, you're going to make sure that you're serving them in a sense of giving them what they need or what's best for them. Also helping them. I think as a pastor, it's, you know, it's a goal to feed the sheep. So in a sense, you're serving them spiritual food. You're trying to look out for them. You're trying to guard the flock. So there is an aspect of serving for sure. But at the same time, just like Pastor Mena says, you're not really doing the chores. You're not going to be doing the dirty work. You're not doing the labor. A leader is going to be in the front of the battle showing, modeling, being an example unto everybody. And so I think from a leadership perspective, we want people to have the right mentality and the right idea. You know, I think here's a tip that I sometimes give too. And this is a practical reality question. Just because God has ordained it and said you're in charge and you may have the title, that doesn't mean that your followers or the people that are under you are going to always follow your lead. And often the better of a leader you are, the more likely they are to follow. So if you're struggling with someone following you or submitting or doing what you're saying, often what you need to try and do is just be a better example and continue to improve and to make it more enticing to follow. So if you're a man out there and you feel like your wife doesn't necessarily follow your decision-making very smoothly or complains a lot or has issues with it, sometimes you need to ask yourself, are you a good leader? Are you leading well? Are you making it easier for her to follow? And I find that men who are really good leaders, often it's a lot easier for their wives to follow, whereas if you're just being lazy and being a jerk and then just saying, come here, feed me, do what I want, rub my feet, then often you can build a lot of resentment, bitterness, hostility, and often it's very difficult for wives to stay motivated to serve. Yeah, and I would imagine you probably get that question a lot as a pastor from men who want to know how to best motivate, provoke their wives to follow them better. And one other question I had for you just staying on that topic is, what do you think about the Jihoo method? Do you think it's effective for husbands to maybe, if they want their wives to be more spiritual, to just walk up to them and say, hey, woman? You know, obviously you'd be a little nice in that. My point is, hey, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. We're going soul-winning Saturday 10 a.m. You're coming, bring the kids, leading by example in that way. Yeah, I mean obviously leadership is a difficult task because it kind of necessitates perfection where it doesn't necessarily always exist, but of course the better you model yourself and the more separated, sanctified that you are, the more likely it is, again, that people are going to follow that lead. And so it's definitely really important to make sure that you're not a hypocrite. You know the Bible talks about not, you know, trying to cast the mote out of someone's eye before you get the beam out of your own eye. And I think for leaders that's also very important. As leaders we don't want to be a giant hypocrite. We want to make sure that we're focusing in on our issues and just leading. You know, if you think about a leader, if a leader's at the front of the pack, he's not focused on what's behind him or what's going on. He's focused on him and going forward and encouraging people to keep going with him. And I think that would be an important distinction is that, you know, as a leader I don't think you need to sit here and cherry pick everything that's going on behind you and trying to get all the motes out of their eyes, but rather you want to make sure that you're just focused on leading and going forward and doing right. So, you know, if your wife doesn't have a good day, well, you know, just don't worry about it. Just keep moving forward. You know, the Bible literally tells husbands not to be bitter. You know, husbands love your wives and be not bitter against them. Well, what is bitterness? Bitterness is harboring ill will for someone's wrongdoing. So that implies to me that verse that wives are going to do things wrong, that they're going to not always be perfect, that they may cause some kind of resentment or anger from their husband. And so they need to make sure that they, when their wives do screw up, give them grace. God gives us a lot of grace and as leaders, we need to extend a lot of grace to our followers as well. I think we got Pastor Menes, sorry we're having a few technical difficulties, but I think we have Pastor Menes back on the line. And Pastor Jimenez, don't you think it's important for leaders to make sure that they're extending grace to the people that are following or under their leadership? Absolutely, yeah. And I'm sorry, we're having issues. Those clips were so terrible that my computer just froze and stopped working. But yeah, absolutely. You obviously have to have grace and patience with people if you're going to lead them. You know, when it comes to that pastoral qualifications, the Bible teaches that we need to be long suffering and we need to just realize that as we lead people, they're not always going to get it right and they're not always going to do everything they're supposed to do. So we need to be long suffering and patient. And I would also advise the follower to be patient with their leader and to realize that whoever their leader is, whether it's a husband or a parent for teenagers or a boss at work for men, that they're not always going to get it right. They're not always going to make the right decisions or say the right things or whatever. And we all need to extend grace to each other. Can I just say this irks me as a church member over the years, not so much at Steadfast Baptist and DFW, but in some other churches I've been a part of where you hear people nitpick the pastor or other pastors. Maybe it's not the pastor at that specific church, but other pastors. You hear people nitpicking them, picking them apart, playing the Monday morning quarterback, as if they know what it's like to lead a congregation. Pisses me off. Well, it's easy to be an armchair quarterback. And I think that we have to be careful that we don't do the same thing and we don't cherry pick people's positions that we don't know anything about. And it's definitely easy to be critical of others. And I think that a constant challenge from the pulpit and from church and from the Bible is to constantly look inwardly, judging ourselves and looking to how we can improve rather than just always focusing on other people. Because frankly speaking, we can't really affect other people that much and we can affect ourselves greatly. And so, you know, as a good leader, a good leader is going to be the most critical of himself. And I think that that helps you to improve, look at ways that you can make changes and at the end of the day, we all have blind spots. So that's why it's good to go to church. That's why it's good to listen to your pastor and listen to the preaching. And, you know, I'll even say this. While my wife submits to me and is under my authority, she often gives me really good advice and can give me lots of good suggestions for things that I might have a blind spot or things that I'm not aware of. And so it doesn't make me somehow less of a leader to taking her advice or allowing her to give me suggestion or even taking her decisions very seriously as well and reconsidering my position. Because frankly speaking, she's really great at giving me feedback and she's really honest with me and I really love that about my wife. And I think if you have a wife that can give you a lot of tips and suggestion and help, you should really embrace that. Just like you would want at your workplace, you would want the boss to listen to your ideas and hope that he takes your feedback seriously. I think that husbands also need to take the feedback, the advice, the counsel of their wives as well. I know that Pastor Menes, half of his sermons are written by his wife and so that really helps him with his preaching. No, I'm just kidding. It's probably only up to you. That would be nice. I'm just kidding. That's what I do when I guest preach. Right. Is that cool? Yeah. Well, that's how I come up with the show. My wife just writes the whole show for us. Writes the script? Yeah. Somebody's got to write it. Yeah. There's definitely a lot more commas. I'm really bad at commas and my wife's really good at putting commas into sentences for me. You've mentioned in the podcast here so far that leaders should take accountability. They should take accountability for their actions and not necessarily just constantly deflect and things like that. And something you said, Pastor Shelley, in your sermons when you preach on marriage is you've told us, hey, don't just like nudge your wife and be like, hey, this applies to you and think that everything's about her. No, take the sermon about marriage and apply it to yourself. Right. Yeah. I mean, wouldn't you agree, Pastor Menes, though, although we are leaders that our wives can still give us a lot of great counsel, I'm sure that there's been lots of times where you've leaned on your wife and she's been able to help you. Can you talk about that balance when it comes to leadership and yet kind of leaning on your wife as well? Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, the Bible literally says that God created a wife to be a helpmeet. And again, that doesn't mean that she's the boss or in charge, but she's there to help you succeed. And when a wife helps her husband succeed and the husband is leading for the benefit of the family, not just selfishly for himself, then it's a great thing. It works perfectly. And I think when it comes to marriage, you know, because we live in this feminist culture and people get really confused, I think, when it comes to like marriage and husbands and wives, that I think one of the best things that someone could do is realize that leadership principles and submission principles, they apply in other areas other than just marriage. And when you apply those in the other areas, sometimes it's a little easier to have clarity because it's not this male-female romantic relationship. For example, like, and again, I was off when all those clips you guys were showing, just my computer decided it didn't want to listen to any of it. It didn't want to submit. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing, you know, think about this argument, the argument that they were making, mutual submission, mutual submission. Obviously they're saying that because they don't want to offend women and in their congregation and they've got soy men that aren't leading or whatever. But apply that in other areas of leadership. I mean, when the police officer pulls me over, am I going to tell him, hey, it's mutual submission. And, you know, this time I'm giving you the ticket. Right. Write him a ticket. Is that going to work when I'm standing in front of a judge? Does that work at work for men when their boss is telling them what to do and they're like, no, mutual submission. So obviously in a relationship between a leader and a follower, mutual submission is ridiculous. I mean, it's funny when you put it into those other contexts. So I think in that same way, we can understand that. But to go back to the question that you're asking, because I think sometimes men can have the tendency maybe in certain churches or whatever, I'm not talking about our churches, but I'm just saying when we take this conservative approach to the Bible and we just teach what it says, men can get this idea that, well, then they don't have to listen to anybody. They don't need to take advice from anybody. They don't need counsel from anybody. But is that how you want your boss to treat you? I mean, obviously your boss at work is going to make the final decision, but don't you want him to take you into consideration? And especially if you're closer to a situation, wouldn't it make sense for the boss to ask you, hey, what do you think about that? Or can you give me some insight? Is there anything I'm missing here? Obviously the boss makes the decision, but like here at our church, I've got three full-time employees and they all have different areas that they work in. Our deacon brother Oliver takes care of our media as far as like editing videos and things that we produce. I've got brother David who does all of our sound and in the church services and the audio and the speakers and all of that. And I've got brother Shaw who takes care of all of our soul winning and printing of maps. And what I'm saying is it would be silly for me to walk into brother Oliver's office and tell him, I don't like you using this software. I use this other software. I don't know anything about video editing. Now, obviously at the end of the day, I make the decision. At the end of the day, I give the final approval. At the end of the day, I say, no, I don't like that picture or I do want that video. But what I'm saying is a good leader also realizes that the people under him are, they have strengths, they have thoughts, they have ideas, they're smart and you would be wise to listen to them. Now, again, when I say listen to them, I don't mean submit to them and let them make the decision. I mean, get their insight, get their thoughts. The Bible says in the multitude of counselors there's wisdom. So I think it would be silly. I think a husband is hurting himself if he never allows his wife to give her thoughts or to ask his wife, what do you think about this? And again, sometimes you're going to agree. Sometimes you're going to say, well, I understand what you're saying, but I still don't think that's the right choice. And a leader needs to make the decision. But I think leaders would be wise to hear people out, especially people that are maybe closer to the situation. Well, we know if Deacon Oliver comes in and demands a raise, he's been listening too much Creflo Dollar. And so we better watch out for that. I want to go to you, Ben, again. When it comes to this particular situation of leadership, do you find that it's really difficult to go to a church and follow the leadership of your pastor or a pastor in the churches that you go to? Even if the pastor's got some issues. I mean, you went to a church in Florida where the pastor wasn't necessarily the same as like a New York beat pastor. But did you find it really hard to submit to that pastor? No, not at all. I didn't see it as difficult whatsoever. I mean, obviously there's going to be times, and you brought this up, that submission is when you don't agree. And there may be times where you have to have that discipline to do what the pastor is asking, even if you have a personal disagreement with that. I've experienced that a lot as a church member. I would say at Steadfast Baptist Church even, we've worked on a lot of projects together where we're working on a documentary and I say, hey, what do you think about adding B to the documentary? And you say, no, we're going to do A. And then it's incumbent on me to respond by going, all right, A it is, let's go for it. So there's been situations like that for sure. How many times would you, in video editing, would you put something in there and I'd be like, well, this is complete trash, remove it. I would say several times over the last few years. Now, I want to apply this to a harsh clip here, but it really tests the limits here. We got one with Pastor Brzezinski, and you know what? He's just not feeling dinner, and so he has his own ideas here. It kind of blew up on the internet. Let's see if we can play Pastor Brzezinski's clip here. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, the Bible says. It says, let the wives be unto their husbands in everything. It says the wives are to be subjected to their husbands in everything, everything. So, you know, that's not popular today, but there's a lot of things that are just left up to the husband. They're left up to the husband. They might not be in the Bible. If I came home and my wife had a whole meal on the table, and I said, you know, I want pancakes. And she's like, oh man, but I've already made hamburgers. And I'm just like, I have to have pancakes right now. Look, she should make pancakes. That's right. I mean, that would be kind of a jerk thing for me to do. And I wouldn't do that, and in 23 years I've never done that. But the point is, the husband is in charge in everything. And if I want pancakes over hamburgers, that's not against what the Bible says. So, you know, a lot of people, like with marriage today, this is all mixed up, because it's just, you know, the world is teaching something completely different. Yeah, I mean, that's an extreme. But hey, I mean, how many times when we video editing, you bring me a McDonald's sandwich and I say, no, pancakes. Oh, it's happened many times. And, you know, I would be a horrible follower if I was contentious about it and wasn't listening. So I think in those scenarios as a follower, like I said, it is incumbent on me to go with what I'm being asked to do and say, all right, if my authority is saying we're going with plan A, not plan B, I'm all in on plan A, let's make plan A happen. I mean, in marriage, again, you know, it's definitely a different relationship than a boss, an employee or a pastor and a church member. But at the same time, some of these parallels are pretty equivalent. And do you see, Pastor Menes, you know, any problem with telling your wife she's got to make pancakes? Well, I mean, no, absolutely not. Personally, I'm a waffles guy. But hey, if you want some pancakes, you know, that's what's on the table, right? I think that what people need to understand, because, you know, Pastor Wozniewski, obviously I love Pastor Wozniewski, and he makes the point, and he's making a point. And then in the point, he says, I would never do that, you know, in 23 years I haven't done that. I think what people need to realize is that sometimes, you know, as a pastor, I've found that sometimes I'm talking to the leader and sometimes I'm talking to the follower. So if the wife is complaining, my husband, I made dinner and my husband came home, he wanted pancakes. You know, the advice to the wife is to make pancakes. Because the Bible says that you are to submit in everything, and as long as it's not a sin, as long as he's not asking you to, you know, help himself crack cocaine or something, that's obviously wrong. Because if your husband is asking you to sin, you ought to obey God rather than men. And so, but if he's not asking you to sin, you should do it. That's the advice when you're talking to the follower. But if I'm having this conversation with the leader, you know, to the leader, I'm going to say, you should consider your follower. You know, I mean, do you really need pancakes that bad? And because, are you within your rights? Absolutely. Absolutely. But this is one of the things that I've found in leadership. And this is a conversation that I have with all of the, you know, Pastor Pizarro is somebody we sent out. Obviously, I love Pastor Pizarro. He's great. He has a great marriage, great kids. I mean, he's awesome. But a conversation that I've had with all of the guys that I've sent out over the years is this idea of credibility and how far you can push things with your followers. And it's not just I'm not just talking about marriage. In fact, I've had this conversation mostly under the context of a pastor. But I do think it applies to every position of leadership. And this is actually something that a pastor taught me years and years ago. And what it taught me was this, that we as leaders, when we lead and we are succeeding, we're, you know, winning, whether it's winning games, if you're a coach or yours, the business is making money and you're succeeding in business or whatever, the church is growing and things are going well. Whenever things are going well as a leader, we are earning credibility with our followers. And the example that was given to me was think of credibility as like a credit, like you get a credit at an arcade, a coin, you know, you've got these coins in your pocket. And what happens, and this is more, I'm applying it to pastors, is that we have a certain amount of credibility with our followers. And every time we help them, every time things go well, every time we succeed, subconsciously they get, you get a certain amount of credits deposited into your pocket. And you can earn those when things are going well. But you can also lose them when you do a jerk move, when you lose your temper, when you do something that you shouldn't do, you can lose your credits. And what I have found is that when a leader gets to the point where the credits get to zero, that's when he loses the follower. That's when he loses the heart of his children. That's when he loses the respect of his wife. That's when the church member quits the church. So we always want to be careful about what we're doing. You know, yes, it's within your rights to say, you worked for an hour and a half making this meal, throw it all away, I want pancakes. Obviously that's within your rights. And if you've not done that in 23 years and your wife is happy and she knows that you love her and you've, you know, taken care of her and you can do that and she's probably just going to smile and be like, okay, I don't know what got into him. But if your marriage is hanging on by a thread and, you know, you've had issues and problems, that might not be the wisest thing to do, you know? So, anyway. Someone put in the comments, spend leadership capital carefully. One thing about Pastor Przarnsky, he's also got a great banner. I really love that banner. It looks really nice on the video there. And obviously, you know, if you want pancakes, sometimes you got to say it. I think obviously in that scenario, you know, you want to be careful with your wife, especially with cooking because they put a lot of effort and energy into it. It's often very special to them. So maybe you could say, can we have pancakes after the hamburgers? Might be a fair compromise. But at the same time, you know, Ben, when we've done the video editing, there may have been times where I was kind of harsh or I wanted you to change something and maybe you didn't agree. But weren't there also a lot of times where maybe after, maybe you didn't agree, but then afterwards you kind of saw my vision and maybe thought, you know what, that was kind of the right decision. Do you feel like that ever happens? That happens often, and I can give you a specific example. The ending of the preserved Bible. I had a theme song that I put in there, if you want to call it that, background music that I put in there. And when you watched it, you said, we're going to switch that out for something else. And I didn't agree internally, but I said, all right, let's go for it. And it turned out to be way better. I think the film came out better. And on top of that, we ended up using the song I wanted originally for LGBT terrorists, and it fit that movie way better, and it was more appropriate for that film. So there's a specific example of that happening. Sure, you can look back at situations like that and go, man, I didn't agree at the time, but actually the authority was right there. Well, I kind of was thinking you were doing a cheap plug there for the preserved Bible, but then I realized it was a double plug because LGBT terrorists was brought up as well. And then we'll just Trinity it, you know, the sodomitedeception.com. You got to go check it out. Hey, also, if you want to call in 231 Baptist, we're going to be taking calls. We do have a caller on the line we're going to get to in just a second, and you can be asking your questions to Pastor Menes. This is your opportunity to call in. Also, we do send out an email through our steadfast Baptist email list, but we're also created an email list for the Baptist bias, and we'll be sending them out to both. But if you want to join us, you can join us at BaptistBias.com slash join. You just type that into your browser. It's going to take you to a really simple form where you can just put in your email, and that's going to be the best way for us to track you. You know, God bless Rumble for allowing us to have this stream and to continue the show, but we never know where we may go or how things may change. And so we're really trying to gather a lot of emails, and we want to encourage you to do so as well. I know that Pastor Jimenez has an email list, Banned But Not Bound. You need to check that out. Get subscribed to his email list. They send out stuff weekly. They're sending out their sermons and also just other really great videos that you can check out. And so you want to get plugged in. Check out these email lists. Also, I want to tell you, I've been banned on virtually every social media you can think of. And then in the few places where I'm not banned, they usually ghost ban me or search ban me. And it's where essentially when I send out posts or I make any kind of clip or I share anything, it really usually only goes to my followers or maybe even just a small portion of my followers. And so the only way for our content to really get out there, we need you guys to get our content and to share it for us. Make clips of our show. Take out little snippets. Send it out there. Share it. Blog it. Tweet it. Post it. Reel it. What else is there? Short it. Tout it. Tout it. I don't even know what that is. Gab it. I don't know. Gab it. Yeah, Gab it, right? There we go. You know, just all of it. It's not tweeted anymore. It's exit? Or how does that work? Exit. Truth it. Truth it. On Donald Trump's truth social. Yeah, just, hey, I don't even care. Just print out a flyer and literally just hang it on someone's door or a tree or, you know, make it anything you can. It really, really helps us. And so, you know, we really need you guys. Also, we added to the links there, there's a join button that is on the Rumble stuff and it goes to what's called locals. Now, I'm not really an expert on locals, but I think that locals is a paid subscription service. Now, here's the thing about locals, though, specifically, I'm not planning anytime soon or probably ever to put any content on locals that's exclusive. Sometimes you can put exclusive paid content on locals and then people pay to basically see those episodes or the final pieces. I want to put all this stuff out there for free. But if you do sign up for our locals, it just gives us an opportunity to have some extra support and to be able to keep the show going, make more projects. We have a lot of other documentaries and projects that we'd really like to get to. We're working on the Daniel series, which we're going to be releasing the Daniel series as a live stream, 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, immediately following the Baptist Bias season. And so you want to get plugged into this Baptist Bias Rumble channel so that you can check out the Daniel series. It's going to be releasing in a few weeks whenever we finish our season. And then additionally, we're going to be making other projects. We've been working on a soul winning documentary and some other films. And so we really want you to get plugged in. We also love you to check out the show live so you can give us questions in the chat. You can call us. And we actually have a caller, Drake, who called in and he has a question for us for Pastor Jimenez. Drake, are you on the line? Can you hear us? I am. All right. Tell us where you're from, Drake. Hello. I'm from Michigan. Nice to talk to you. I'm Pastor Jimenez. That's Shelly, brother Ben. Yeah, thanks for calling in. Did you have a question for us today? Oh, yeah. I was going to ask Pastor Jimenez some good leadership traits for a husband with no kids. His credit might be, you know, it might only have like one or two left. I just listen. And where my wife feels like she doesn't have a purpose in life since we don't have kids. So I don't know, were you able to hear that question, Pastor Jimenez? I was able to hear some of it. Can you? Yeah, basically, he's just asking, he's saying he's asking for some marriage advice in relation to his to his situation or anybody's situation. But he's saying specifically, you know, if you don't have any children and perhaps maybe you don't have a lot of as you kind of described it, you know, leadership traits. You know, what would be some advice to maybe earn some more of those tokens or just kind of improve the situation? With his wife? Yep. Yep. Yeah, well, I mean, as far as like earning leadership credit, you know, I'll give you an example that's not marriage, because obviously everybody's marriage is very personal. And I can't speak to how this would apply to to your to your wife. But let me just give you an example. Your wife. But let me just apply it to to church. That's something I'm extremely. You know, obviously, I've passed it for 13 years, so something I know every time that I set out to do something and. I succeed or we succeed, I should say, subconsciously that the church members in our church, they're the way I think of it is I'm earning credits. And when I fail from time to time, you know, we're all going to fail. Then then I lose those credits. So there have been times when I maybe was having a bad day and I was a little rude or sharp with somebody on my staff or maybe even a church member. But, you know, they they forgave it or they didn't even think anything of it or they just moved on because over the years I've earned credits with them. I've earned credibility. So what I'm saying is you need to be looking for wins. Like, for example, I'll give you an example. We have a vision offering here we do every year. And we we just did a big vision offering to actually remodel this this building we're in. And I went to our church and I challenged them to raise one hundred thousand dollars in one special offering. And I thought to myself, if we fail, this is going to make me look bad. Right. If I have to stand up and say, well, we didn't hit the goal or whatever. But what I thought to myself is I feel like I have enough credibility with our church people that if we fail, they're not going to see me as a failure. And of course, we not only did we hit our goal, but we went past it. And that's giving me more credibility in their eyes. And this is something that the Bible talks about. You know, the Bible talks about when Joshua led the children of Israel over the Jordan River, that God magnified him in the eyes of the people. When Solomon, you know, took the leadership and people began to realize his wisdom as he was making decisions and judging the people. The Bible says that God magnified him in the eyes of the people. So what I'm saying is. If you're a coach of a team, of a baseball team or a football team, the way you earn credibility with your players and your fans is you win games. And if you win enough games, when you lose a game here and there, they're not going to fire you. But you can lose so many games that they fire you. And that's what I mean by credibility. And what I would say is you need to figure out as a leader. When we lead for the benefit of others is what how can you help your wife win? Because that's the whole point of being a leader. The whole point of being a leader is not that I've got 250 church members that serve me. That's not what Jesus taught. The point is that I'm helping them. And again, that doesn't mean that I'm doing their job, but I'm helping them succeed. I succeed as a leader when the people that I lead are succeeding. So you've got to figure out what that means for your wife. You know, we're talking specifically for you. If you were a parent, I would say for your children. If you were an employer, I would say for your employees. And that's the answer is going to be different in every situation. But how can you help your wife succeed? And again, I'm not talking about you do all the chores. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how can you leverage your resources, your influence, your authority to help her succeed in life? And I think that as you as you lead your team to wins, you gain credibility. You get those credits. Yeah, I think that's a great that's great advice. I would say additionally, just on a kind of real simple, practical note, especially if you feel like maybe there's some tension in the relationship, because you're you're asking her to maybe do some things or make some changes that she's not very comfortable with. So just for example, if you know, maybe if you're taking to church and she's not as excited or zealous about church, or you're having her go out soul winning or you're asking her to stay home or just whatever, whatever is happening where maybe there's a little bit of tension, try to identify something that she really wants to do that you could do with her and try to suggest it to her as some kind of a compromise. And I wouldn't necessarily word it that way, but I'm just simply saying, hey, you know, I know that maybe you weren't excited about going to church today, but I would really like to take you to your favorite restaurant for lunch or hey, you know, I want to go soul winning and I'd like to go with me at one. But then afterwards, let's go to the park at two, you know, and we can hang out or, you know, let's go on a walk or we'll go to the go to your favorite store and we can go look in and shop a little bit or something, or just something that you you recognize and identify that your wife really likes and trying to plan some events that are geared towards her specifically in her interest. You know, sometimes as a leader and as a husband, it's good to study your wife and try to pay attention and notice the things that she says and the things that she likes and to try to coordinate and plan some of those activities to make her feel special and make her feel like you care not only about your agenda being met, but like as Pastor Jimenez said, you know, making her successful and caring about her wishes and wants and and sometimes not just only thinking about what she needs, but even sometimes what does she want? I think that that will get you some some of those credits, maybe if you're looking for, or could cause a little bit more love, compassion, empathy in the relationship. Also, just, you know, that's a part of what women always say, romance, right? That's what they always want. They want this romantic relationship. And, you know, there's a time and place for that. But ultimately, what women really want is they just want someone who is thinking about them and doing things and making them feel special. And so I think it is important to consider, you know, what does she want and how can I incorporate that into our plan while not sacrificing, of course, the things that we need to do as a family. Ben, you know, when it comes to earning marriage credits, do you find that planning or maybe a special outing or doing something that your wife wants maybe gets you some extra credits every once in a while? Well, I think it's positive reinforcement. Hey, we'll do this activity and we'll attach something you really enjoy to that activity, which then subsequently leads her to be a little bit more excited about it. One other aspect of the call I wanted to refer to is that he mentioned not having kids and his wife struggling with that thought of maybe a lower sense of self-worth. And I've experienced that exact scenario. For a while, my wife struggled greatly with having a low sense of self-worth as we struggled to have kids. And one thing that I really tried to instill in her is this idea that even though we're in a difficult season in life, praise God, now we have two children with one on the way, but my point is at the time I told her, hey, we're in a difficult season in this area, but you can still serve the Lord Jesus Christ. You could still go out soul winning. You could still, you know, read your Bible, memorize scripture. We could still pray together. There's still plenty that we could do to serve God, even if this specific area is locked down to us at this point in our lives. Some good tips there. Thanks so much, Drake, for calling in. Do you have any other last thoughts or another question here before we let you go? Nope. Thanks for taking my call. Yeah, thanks so much, Drake. Thanks for calling in. You have a blessed night. Ben, I know that you said that you have another question here that you wanted to throw out here on the table. What are your thoughts here? I have a question for both pastors on the line. So that would be Pastor Shelley, Pastor Jimenez. Often I hear this idea that in order to be an effective leader, you have to, at one point in your life, learn how to be a good follower. And I think we see this pattern in scripture. I'm in the book of Amos in my reading, and I noticed in Amos chapter 7 in verse 14 it says, But I was an herdman and a gatherer of sycamore fruit. So we had humble beginnings. David had humble beginnings. Saul had humble beginnings. Moses, humble beginnings. My point is, is there a season in your life that you could look back to and think about how that was a particular time where you really learned how to be a great follower? Because, of course, all great leaders were great followers at one point. So, again, just my question is, was there ever a time in your life that you could think of whether it was a particular job that you had or just maybe, you know, growing up in your parents' household? Whatever the case may be, is there a time where you could look back and say, that's where I learned how to follow? I'm going to let Pastor Jimenez go for this question first. I mean, I grew up in a Christian home where my dad was definitely the boss. You know, he's definitely the head of the home, and I think just growing up in a Christian home where that's the example set forth, you know, I think growing up that way, that helped me just learn how to be a follower. Obviously, I was in the military, so I mean, you definitely learn to follow in the military. They don't care about credits there. They don't care about your feelings. And as a church member, I mean, I remember one time a pastor at a church that my wife and I were at, the pastor just at one point while we were there, and I don't feel like he was trying to flatter us. It was at a time when we were actually getting ready to leave. And he genuinely, you know, took my wife and I aside and said, I want you to know that you are the best church members I've ever had. And I felt like that was a very kind thing for him to say. And what I often tell leaders is that we reap what we sow. I should say this way. What I often tell followers that want to be leaders is that you reap what you sow. And look, I've been in churches where the pastor rebuked me. I've been in churches where the pastor was mean to me. I've been in churches where I knew for a fact that the sermon was directed at me specifically. And, you know, I didn't get up and just get mad and angry and whatever. I stayed and I took the rebuke and I, you know, and they were right. And even if they weren't right, they were the pastor and they were a good man. You see what I'm saying? So I feel like we just need to learn to be good followers. And even now as a leader, I still find myself in situations where I'm the follower. And we need to just realize that if we're going to exercise the right to correct people, to rebuke people at times, to instruct people, then we need to be able to take that as well and take it well. And I don't think it's a coincidence that in the Bible you see Joshua following Moses and then Joshua becomes a great leader in his own right. You see Elisha serving Elijah and then Elisha becomes a great leader in his own right. It's just the process by which you become a good leader is by first learning to follow. I definitely don't know that I'm the best follower in the world. So, you know, at the end of the day, though, I definitely can think of situations where I would say this way. I feel like I'm definitely not a good follower in my mind. Where when leadership or a boss or someone is making a lot of decisions that I disagree with, I'm definitely thinking about how much I disagree with those decisions. But I think that, you know, and again, I don't know what's going on in other people's head, but I think what I do try to do is I try to make sure that I'm not allowing that to affect my performance. I'm not letting that affect my relationship or how I, you know, carry myself. And I think that most men that have a tendency towards leadership often are kind of thinking in their mind like, I think there might actually be a better way to do this or they're constantly just being very critical in nature. They're very critical in just trying to think about really good ways to do things and they're really effective. So it's probably natural to have those tendencies. But I think what's really important is that when you are struggling to make sure that you're not allowing that to affect your face, your attitude, your behavior, your communication or your job performance. And I know specifically I did work for one company where the boss was a dictator. He definitely was the I want pancakes when you've made hamburgers kind of guy. I even specifically remember it was a coding job, but I came to work all weekend without him asking, without anybody asking. I just like did all this work and I was like really excited to kind of get this task done. And I presented it and I'd done something in the specific code that my boss didn't like for some reason. So he literally just went in and just deleted my entire work just in front of the entire team. And I was just I was really kind of flabbergasted at his response because I was kind of coming in thinking like, oh, he's going to be excited that I got all this done and like it is going to be a good thing. And then all of a sudden it turned into like a bad thing. And I'm being like publicly rebuked in front of my team and he just like delete all my work. But, you know, I just tried to take it in stride. I didn't get angry. And I watched other people that I work with not be able to handle my boss's demeanor. And they were constantly getting fired left and right. And while I didn't necessarily enjoy working there. The thing that I noticed, though, is because my boss was so critical and because he was so extreme, it caused me to grow a lot in my career. It caused me to really think really hard about the tasks that I was doing and to work really hard and to try and make sure that I was doing a good job. And I think it actually made me a lot better employee, even though my boss was just like kind of a jerk and just kind of just like over the top. And so I think even if you find yourself in a really bad situation or a highly critical situation, just allow that to draw the best out of you. I haven't been in the military. I'd like to get Pastor Mendez's perspective on this. But I would assume that drill surgeons are not the friendliest, nicest people you've ever met. In fact, some people might think they're a jerk, but it seems like those environments sometimes draw the best out of you. They kind of force you to do the best that you can. And and, you know, obviously not everybody responds well. But just generally speaking, even if you do have a jerk as a boss or a leader, you know, you can still take that opportunity to grow and to take the criticism and to implement that. You know, being in the military, you know, where your drill sergeants, you know, the best people you've ever met or what was what was your experience there, Pastor Mendez? I mean, you're definitely, you know, being yelled at and humiliated and all those things, you know, but, you know, I want to say what what you described. You said that you weren't sure if you're a good follower. That's that's all. I don't I think I think you're a great I think what you just described is a great follower because a follower is not someone who just agrees with everything that the leadership does. Obviously, you know, husbands need to realize that their wives have brains, their teenage kids have brains, their employees have brains and they think things and they're not always going to agree with with us. And what makes them a good follower is that they can maybe give their thoughts or insight of their ask for it. And if the decision is made and it goes against what they said, that they just are respectful. And it doesn't mean that they agree. It just means that they submit and they have a good attitude about it. And and, you know, and this is what the Bible says. I was just thinking of this verse in First Peter 2 18. The Bible says servants be subject to your masters without fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the forward. So the responsibility of the follower. And this is what I mean, like when you're talking to the follower and you're talking to the leader, the conversation might be different. Right. When you're talking to the follower, you're saying, hey, even if your job, even if your boss just deleted all the work that you did, just. Be respectful. Do your work. Don't let it affect your your your work. The production that you're doing is keep a good attitude, whatever. But, you know, about if I was giving advice to the to the leader, I would be saying, you know, maybe that's not the best way to deal with that situation. So sometimes I think we want these answers that apply to both. And the answer, it's not always that clear. You know, you're telling the wife, yeah, if your husband wants pancakes, making pancakes, but then you're telling the husband, you know, is that something you really need to be doing? You really need to just be deleting all the work of this employee in front of all these employees and humiliating them or whatever. But the point is this. When we have the hat on a follower, then we need to be subject to our masters, not only the good and gentle, but also to the forward. But that doesn't mean then when you're the leader, be a jerk because they have to submit to you. And that's what the Bible says. They do have to submit to you. And that is what the Bible says. Right. But that doesn't mean that that's always going to happen or whatever. Now, that's a great verse. I didn't you know, I wasn't thinking about in that context, but sometimes you do have a forward boss or leader or someone over you that you don't necessarily gel with. But that doesn't mean that you don't have an opportunity to still grow, learn. And we see many men in the Bible having bad bosses and it ended up still working great for them. You have Jacob working for his father-in-law Laban, and Laban's not a good boss, but God sees him doing a good job and God ends up rewarding Jacob for being a faithful employee. And you know, I think a lot of people that are younger, and I know you have a youth conference coming up, Pastor Mendez, I think a lot of young teenagers and maybe even young adults, they have a desire to do or to be a leader. Do you think that they should try to do anything different or should we just encourage them to focus on following? Do you think that following is a sufficient enough path to lead straight into leadership roles, or do you actually try to encourage them to think differently or to employ certain tactics? Is that something when talking to the youth that you would give them any kind of different advice here? I would say, let me say it this way. I do not think that simply being a good follower will translate to being a good leader. I've seen plenty of great followers who were not good leaders. I do think that the first step to being a great leader is first being a follower. So that's definitely in that line. If you want to be a good leader, you have to be a good follower. That's what you have to start. Just like if you want to be a disciple of Christ, you need to get baptized. That's the first step. But just getting baptized doesn't mean that you are now just living for God. There's other things that need to happen there, too. And I would say with leadership is the same way. Just because you're a good follower does not necessarily mean you're going to translate into being a good leader. I think you need to work on your leadership skills and capacities. But I do think that it's a non-starter. If you're just rebellious, critical, never submitting, you're not going to be a good leader if you can't learn to follow. Well, I'd like to get your idea if you have some other thoughts. Some tips that I give to people is, number one, anytime there's a door open, there's an opportunity. You know, if you have a desire to be a leader, you need to take it. You know, if they say, hey, we need someone to lead this soul-winning group, or we need someone to take charge on this project, or we need someone to help the new guy. You know, that's an opportunity for leadership. Sometimes those opportunities aren't even necessarily spoken. It could just be you notice someone visit your church and they're new, and you just take it upon yourself to go introduce yourself, show them where they can seat or sit, or give them some of the information about the church, just being friendly, just kind of helping them. Maybe you notice someone that's new to soul-winning and you invite them and encourage them to go out soul-winning with you. So you're just taking initiative. I think that leaders are ones who take initiative, and I always tell, you know, our church, and I try to emphasize this to the men, that you should just always be prepared to step into the role, even if you haven't been called. And so, you know, specifically, I know when I went to Faith Ward Baptist Church, or just really any church in general, I just always have a sermon ready. Even if I'm just a visitor or a guest or just, you know, you never know what's going on, I just take it upon myself to say, hey, if whatever happened, I had to preach tonight, I'm ready. Like, I'm just ready to preach, and I'm ready to go. And I remember specifically, you know, I kind of had re-encouraged myself in that, so I decided to write a sermon. And the next Sunday, when I was in my old IFB church, during the morning service, it was kind of over, and for some reason we did announcements after the whole service. I don't know, it was kind of weird. But the pastor is just making announcements after the service, and he just says, all right, tonight, we're going to hear a sermon from Brother Shelley. And I was just like, what in the world? Like, he'd never said anything to me. I was just like, okay, you know? And it was just really funny to me, just how that worked. And it was just kind of, and I was really pleased with myself that I wasn't just thinking like, oh no, what do I do? Like, I already kind of had something ready to go, and I was able to use that. And I just took it serious from then on that I said, hey, you know, and it's not that hard just to write a sermon one time. And I remember I'd written sermons, there's been times where I'd written sermons, and it took me six months or a year to preach it, just because the opportunity didn't happen that next week. So I don't want you to get this idea like, all right, I got a sermon. I know my pastor's going to call on me this week. You know, there's been plenty of times where it took a while, but I think just where you want to go, you know, look at what that person's doing, think about how, if you had to step into their shoes, how you'd be prepared for that role. And just prepare yourself, you know, don't necessarily antagonize leadership saying like, I'm ready, coach, put me in. But at the same time, when the opportunity rises, when you get the call, be ready to step forward and say, here am I, send me. You know, do you have any other tips that are kind of similar there, Pastor Menes, or is there anything that maybe you would encourage people, if they have a desire to be a leader, what would be some things that they could try and work on? Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with that. Absolutely. There's a prepared place for a prepared man. So that's definitely a principle of leadership. And what I try to train, you know, we have a leadership class that I put guys through that are interested in learning about leadership. What I often teach guys is that leadership is not a title. It's not a position. Obviously, leaders often have titles and positions, but you can have no title and no position and still be a leader because leadership is influenced. It's influencing people. It's leading people in the direction that they should be going. And there are plenty of people that have titles and positions that are not leaders. You know, I mean, everybody's had that manager, the guy has the title of supervisor or manager, but everybody rolls their eyes when he talks. He has no credibility. He has no competence. He's an idiot, and everybody knows it. He may have a position, but he really has no influence. Are you talking about Joe Biden? Exactly. So what I tell people is start working on being a leader. And you might find that as you gather your ability to communicate, because, you know, there are leadership skills that I think there are some skills that every leader has to have. We've talked a lot about credibility already. That's one of them. But that's not the only one. A good leader has to be able to communicate well. A good leader needs to be competent, needs to be confident, needs to have character. These are all things that you can begin to work on before you have a position. And you might find that if you start working on those things, then they might give you the position. And I know at our church, we have all sorts of different ministries and things. One of our ministries is our team captains, where we have our church divided into different teams, and we have faithful couples that are over those teams. And they just help us with keeping an eye on people, helping people, being there for people, providing fellowship activities and things like that. And what I do when I choose team captains, I don't find someone that's doing nothing, give them a title and hope that they'll start doing what they're supposed to do. What my wife and I often do is we identify someone that we've already noticed. This person all on their own is reaching out to people when they're not at church. They're already all on their own having people over for dinner. They're already on their own doing certain things. And we think, well, they're doing it, and they're good at it. So let's ask them to do it officially, you know, and give them a title. So oftentimes, that's how it works, that you start practicing leadership, and then people identify you as a leader and then give you the position. Yeah, I think that's great. Great tip. And of course, you know, you never want to make you never want to undermine the leadership by trying to gather people under you. But, you know, just making sure that you're staying within those boundaries. But there was a quote that I put on the thumbnail, and it seems very apropos. It says, the boss has a title, but the leader has the people. And, you know, obviously, Ben, you know, you don't necessarily have an official title here. You're the Baptist. But I feel like you exude a lot of leadership skills and qualities, and I think a lot of people do look to you, and they're definitely encouraged by your zeal. The videos that you make, you know, just a lot of things that you say, a lot of people tell me that you preach really good sermons. And so, you know, I really appreciate, you know, the fact that someone like you that doesn't have to have the title, but can still try to be a leader. I kind of want to wrap up the show, but I want to toss it over to you. Do you have any final thoughts or questions or some other thing you wanted us to cover here before we kind of wrap up? Well, first of all, thank you for that. One thing I wanted to ask both of you is this. As a husband, it's important to lead, obviously, our wives, but we want to do it effectively, and we want to keep them encouraged. And I was wondering if you could speak to the importance of providing encouragement to followers when they do something that is right. I remember in one of the sermons that you preached on marriage, Pastor Shelley, you said, make sure you're encouraging your wife when she does something that you think is right or good. Maybe she cooked a good meal. You know, your encouragement should vastly outweigh your criticism. Can you speak to the importance of providing encouragement for those that are under our authority? Well, my father always was a big proponent of this idea of positive reinforcement. He would emphasize speaking positively and encouraging people, but I can't remember this from him specifically, or maybe he was quoting somebody, but I heard that you need to have nine positive comments to every one criticism. So you have like nine encouragements to every one criticism, and I'm not saying that that's necessarily a hard and fast rule. That's just something that I was told, and I do think that there's some truth to that. I think that, you know, in general, we want to make sure that we're praising individuals, and you can even see this in the Bible, where there's a lot of characters who, before they offer criticism, or perhaps before they kind of approach some, you know, tension, they will often first address the positive. You can see this in the epistles, even where Jesus Christ himself commends the churches first, and then he kind of lays out some of the negative things that are going on. So you can see that Jesus Christ is even balanced in the sense that he praises his subjects, he praises his churches and his leaders and his members for the things that they're doing positively and good, and then also he's willing to dole out the criticisms. And you can even see, from those seven churches, some are like almost all positive, some are kind of almost all negative, and then some are kind of right down the middle. And I think that, of course, you know, Jesus Christ is very fair in his assessment, he's the perfect judge, but we too, as leaders, should make sure that when there is something to praise, that we do, we're not flattering, we're not giving insincere compliments, but when we can recognize and notice things that are good, we're calling them out. In a marriage, it's also very important to constantly praise your spouse. You see in the Song of Solomon that both the husband and wife are just almost as over the top, but it's just like, boy, are they just praising one another, praising each other with all kinds of titles. You know, my dove, my love, my sister, my spouse, my undefiled, they're just constantly praising one another, and I think that that will really greatly bless marriages if husband and wife are constantly praising one another. It definitely softens the blow to the needful criticisms that come from time to time. That's what I say when I come home from work. Yeah, of course. I'll let Pastor Menes give some final thoughts here. Yeah, I think about that. I think, yeah, I agree with everything that you said, and I think in regards to leadership, a rule that I try to follow is that, you know, well, the Bible says that we should give honor to whom honor is due, and I think that as leaders, when things go well, when people, when we're succeeding, when we're winning, then we should give credit where credit is due, honor where honor is due, and we shouldn't be taking all the credit for ourselves, although subconsciously the people will give you credit, but we shouldn't be doing that. I think that as leaders, when things go well, we need to take responsibility and not try to blame other people, but just realize that I'm the leader. The buck stops here. But when things go well, that we don't try to take all the credit that we spread that around, and we give honor to whom honor is due. So when we win, the team wins, and when we lose, you know, it's my fault. I'll take responsibility. I think people respect that, and I think that people see that you're willing to acknowledge the part that they played on the team, the role that they're playing, the things that they're doing, and they appreciate that. Well, thank you so much for all of your wisdom and giving us so much time. We really enjoy having you on The Baptist Bias, one of our favorite guests, and we really look forward to seeing your conferences and your new building and you guys thriving and just really sticking it to all those protesters. We definitely love to see the victory, and of course it's the Lord that's giving us that victory, and we all recognize that, of course. Before we drop off, do you have any last plugs or anything else that you'd like to say, Pastor Jimenez? Obviously, I want to say thank you to you, Pastor Shelley, for your friendship and for having me on, and Brother Ben, of course, thank you for your friendship. I'm a fan of Ben the Baptist, too. He's definitely someone that has a lot of influence, and I appreciate you. Yeah, I would just say that if anybody is interested, we have a youth rally coming up in April 9th and 10th. If you've got a teenager and you'd like to register them, come out to Sacramento, and it's going to be a great time. It's going to be sermons geared towards teenagers. There's going to be activities and skits, wrestling shows. It's going to be a great time. And of course the Red Hawk Preaching Conference, we'd love to have. I mean, it is the event of the year, and I don't say that in any sort of arrogant way. It's taken on a life of its own. I feel like it's the new IFB family reunion, and I would encourage anybody if they're able to come out to the Red Hawk Preaching Conference. Yeah, of course, if you're in Sacramento and you're not going to Verity Baptist Church, you need to go. Most likely, everybody listening to our show is probably fully aware of Verity Baptist Church. And so what I want to do is I want to challenge you guys that are in these areas that do know about this church. Invite your friends. Invite your co-workers. That's how churches grow. We grow by the church members going out there and inviting people, meeting new people, encouraging them to visit the church. Verity Baptist Church is a great church. You should be very pleased and happy that you can invite them to a church like Verity Baptist Church. There's so many people out there that don't have a very good church to go to or have a church that they're not necessarily very supportive of. And if you have Verity Baptist Church, you have no excuse. You need to get the t-shirt, the hat, you need to get the banner, you need to send out the emails, you need to be... Apparently on Twitter, or X, it's Zoysting. I don't know. You got a zost? Someone said it was a zost? I don't know what that means. You got to get it out there and you got to put that information out there and get people plugged in. Are you sure? I don't know. That's what someone said. I'm not sure. I'm trusting the comment section. How reliable is the comment section? That does not sound right to me. But I want you to check it out. And of course, if you're not in the area, you got to make it to the once a year pilgrimage. It's where we all show up, the Red Op Preaching Conference. I was graciously invited again. I don't know what I have to do to get uninvited to this conference. But I told Pastor Menes maybe I might do some live pyrotechnics or something. I mean, he's got a new building and so that might get a little dicey. But no, I'm really excited. I'm going to be out there this year. Of course, God willing, but I've been invited. It's a great honor to go out there. One of the best conferences you could ever imagine. The 9th Annual Red Hot Preaching Conference. You got to check it out. Check out Verity Baptist Church. Do you have any other plugs for Verity that I'm not thinking of? I just want to make sure I'm covering all my bases. I think you got them all. The only thing I want to point out is we have hosted the Baptist Bias from the Red Hot Preaching Conference in the past. And I don't know if you plan on doing that again. I won't promise anything prematurely to the audience. But all I have to say is this. Folks, tune in to Red Hot if you want to hear some epic preaching. And this year, for the first time, from their new building. Yeah. I don't know. We'll have to see if we can travel again. But that was a lot of fun. That was a lot of excitement to host in there. And it was hot. Literally and figuratively. And every way you could ever want it to be hot. Well, thanks again for tuning in for the Baptist Bias. I want to make sure that you are signed up. You got to join us at BaptistBias.com slash join. That is our email list. Also, we want you to watch the show live because you can call in 231-Baptist. You can put in chats and often we'll check out your chats. Maybe we even read them if it's a good one. And also, we want to let you know I did add a join button on our Rumble streams. You can join and support the show. I'm not planning on putting any content out there that's paid. But if you'd like to help support the show, you can. And I wanted to also let you know we are going to have our normal show next Tuesday night at 8pm. But we're going to try and do a special stream on Friday, which is kind of referred to by many as, quote, Good Friday. Now, I actually made a chart about the timing of the Passover a couple years ago and I actually preached a couple sermons on this, I believe. And I think the scripture is pretty clear that it's actually Good Thursday. But what I thought would be pretty special is if we had a live stream on Friday and we actually talked about that. So you can check us out on Friday at noon. That's Central Time, Texas time or the Promised Land time. You can check us out at 12. We're going to be streaming. I actually have a guest. Pastor Steven Anderson is going to be joining me. We're going to be talking about the timing of the Passover and we have, I have a chart, we have lots of different things that we can bring up. We're going to be looking at the scripture. There's a lot of articles on this. I think Got Questions, I was reading their article today. They actually put the kind of information about a Friday, Thursday, and Wednesday view. And I think at some point in my life, I've probably held all three. I think when I was growing up, I kind of held the Friday view. And then later, I ended up kind of getting convinced that maybe it was Wednesday. And now I've kind of settled on Thursday. I was kind of hot, cold, and then now I'm just right. Okay. And so I really encourage you to check out the stream. It's going to be a great show. You can tune in live. We might even take some calls or even some chats. Friday, special stream. Good Friday. It's Holy Week. So, you know, this is your one time to shine, Easter only, Christians. You know, get in there, get to church. It's okay. We won't hurt you. We still like you, even though you only come once a year. But make sure you're going to church on Easter. Ben, where can they find our show? Do you have any other plugs for The Baptist Bias? Now, if you just want to check out our podcast, then you could do so on Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Apple Podcasts as well. Just Google it, basically, and a bunch of platforms will pop up. So you can listen at the gym, at work, as long as you do your job, though, okay? We're not trying to provoke people not to do their job. And anywhere on the go. I've definitely Googled it, and I found our show on all these platforms. It doesn't seem like Season 3 was up yet. Have we put Season 3 on Spotify and all those yet? That's a technical issue here. I didn't know that, so I'll work on it. Okay. We'll make sure and get Season 3 on those other platforms, but of course you can find us on Rumble. You can find us on GodResource.com as well. That's another platform that will never take us down. And so you can definitely check it out there. But that's pretty much going to do us for the show. Thanks so much for joining in. Everybody's got a perspective. But you know what? You need to get The Baptist Bias. We'll be right back.