The Work of Our Pastors

00:00 - Speaker 1 The church is. In my words, the church is the service station, not the service. The service is outside the church. Send them into service, Send us pastors. When you send us, then things will happen, you know, and that's when the life becomes exciting for lay people. I mean it really does, when they catch that vision. 00:18 - Speaker 2 Welcome to the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast, https://IgniteAmerica.com, where Barry's book and passion for spreading God's love are guaranteed to ignite your life. Now listen in and prepare to have your life ignited. 00:34 - Speaker 1 Pastors, I want to know I am in awe of what you do. I mean, I could never do what you do. You have an awesome job you really do do, and you're not always honored back properly. Your people are not always hanging around every word. We hear about this apathy of the people in the pew that you preach your heart out and when the service is over they're more interested in lunch and think to this world, and hard to give me any feedback at all over a sermon that Jesus poured your heart out on. And so there is this apathy issue within the church today. That is significant. It really is significant, and I'd just like to share some thoughts with you for whatever they're worth. 01:16 I'm a layman, I'm a professional layman. I was bored of the church. I calculated a few months ago that I have heard over, I've sat under about well, at least a minimum conservative number 8,000 sermons in my life. You know I go to retreats, I listen to sermons on the radio, I listen Sunday morning. I get two or three sermons before I go to church on Sunday morning. So I mean a lot of preaching coming my way. Been in a number of different churches. I've been pretty faithful to my churches. So I know what it means to a pastor to have a faithful layman that's there and loving on them and doing the work of the church. And you can't live without volunteers and a core of people that really love you and I understand that whole dynamic. 01:57 But on this issue of apathy, let me just give you a suggestion from my viewpoint, if I could. I think people are apathetic because they're bored. They've been going through the motions of church so long that it gets rote. I mean it's very easy to do that. It doesn't happen to you. You're studying every week because you have to give. You know you have to give a sermon on Sunday morning, maybe on Sunday night or Wednesday night or whatever, and so you're continuing digging and digging and digging. And you're digging with purpose because it's a message that you're having to share. But for us lay people, if we don't have to share, it's just being religious, if you will, or being disciplined, if you will that we come, we sit through another sermon and quite frankly, it can get to the point where it's yeah, I know jesus loves me and I know he's full of mercy and grace and we're going to go to lunch. I mean it can get down to that basic thing. Unfortunately, no matter how hard, it's not your fault, I mean, you're preaching out but you could just kind of get where you've just done it so much you know, and and the shame of that is that your ministry is being wasted and it has to be so frustrating for you. 03:06 When I started listening harder to what my pastor was saying and taking that and looking for ways to use it, that next week I started finding, wow, how smart my pastor is and how God was using him to give the right message to me at the right time to change lives that week. And I would just suggest you know when you're preaching before you preach. I would just suggest you know when you're preaching before you preach. I would just say, or maybe at the end of every sermon, say something like you know, I've already sought God for this and this was God's message for you for this week. I know that and I would encourage you to go out this week and find ways to use this message you know as often as possible throughout the week Understand, you're Christ's ambassadors. 03:46 You're in full-time ministry. My job is to equip you for ministry and my job is to send you that out. You're all surrounded by people of the world, non-christians. I'm not. I'm surrounded by Christians. That's my role. I'm here to equip you. The church is, in my words, the church is the service station, not the service. The service is outside the church. Send them into service. Send us pastors. When you send us, then things will happen, and that's when the life becomes exciting for lay people. I mean it really does, when they catch that vision. You know what? And then what I would do. I've thought about this If I was a pastor, it seems to me I'd like to bring up lay people on the platform and bear witness to the very things you're saying. 04:30 You know, I think, if the stories start coming back, imagine stories coming back to people using your sermon in different ways and you call a guy Dave, hey, come here, finn. You just tell me a story before service. Come here, oh pastor. Come here, Finn. You were just telling me a story before service. Come here, oh Pastor. It was just so amazing. Well, tell us the story. 04:47 You know, pastor, I never shared my faith. I didn't think I was responsible. I didn't think I was supposed to do that. Do you know? 56% of all Christians have no thought that they have responsibility for their spiritual life or those around them. They have no thought they should be sharing their faith. So just the very fact that you send us makes a difference. A lot of people are doing it. Most are not okay, and when you send us you get these kind of stories. 05:09 Imagine Dave coming up, just a layman, one of the group, he's one of us, and now he's up there saying you know, pastor, I took your message to heart and I was looking for ways to share. And then it just happened. You know, this friend, this co-worker, this employee, this boss, this somebody in the soccer field came and they started sharing their problem. I was loving them and asked them what was wrong, if I can do anything for them. They started sharing this problem and you know, the very scripture you gave me on Sunday morning was the exact scripture I needed for that person and it just broke him. He broke into tears and we cried together, we hugged each other and I led him closer to Jesus Christ. That was the craziest thing, it was wild. I never thought I could be used by God in my life when that kind of test, that talk about reality TV man. How about reality church? How about reality Christianity. 05:59 People from the midst come in from sharing it. Think of the impact that can have. I mean, it was a layman that got me going sharing my faith. Your job is to equip us and teach us, whatever, but it's something about having layman to layman, you know, layman to layman, encouraging and saying that's what I do. You should be doing it too, and we're kind of third-party endorsers for what you're telling us. Okay, and we can say it in a way that you can't say it. That has just a feeling of importance only because you're getting paid to do it. I'm not getting paid to do it, I do it because I love to do it. It changed my life and when you get people, you're people sharing with it. 06:34 Sharing and sharing. You know, everybody in that congregation seems to me would be taken back by the fact that one of their own got up there a week ago, had no thought of sharing their faith and this week is up on the platform talking about how they led somebody to Jesus Christ. Wow, just a thought. But the work is being done outside the walls of the church. It's about being the church outside the walls of the church. It's about extending your ministry outside the walls of your church to your community. So, pastors, if what I'm saying is ringing true to you, you know and I hope it is take it from a guy who's been in church all his life. I have so much respect for you and I just want to be an encourager to you that people are ready to go to work. You just need to check. 07:16 - Speaker 2 If you enjoyed today's episode, let us know, and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review to help us reach more listeners. Remember sharing your faith ignites your faith. See you next time on the Ignite with Barry Meguiar podcast.