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Welcome to the Church Revision podcast.

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A podcast all about church revitalization and church health.

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We are passionate about helping churches regain energy and excitement about their church's vision.

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Our goal is to help you trade frustration and ineffectiveness for a healthy, thriving.

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You can learn [email protected].

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Now here's your host, Jeremy Wallace.

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Well welcome back to the Church Revision Podcast, and thank you for taking a little time to listen to this episode on this Friday.

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Recently we interviewed Pastor Isaiah Lewis.

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On this show, and it was a fascinating interview.

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We actually divided it into two episodes, but in that interview we talked to him about some challenges that he faced in ministry.

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He went to a new church with excitement and energy only to realize he had been lied to in the interview process that they had a.

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The church he was going to had an unhealthy leadership structure, and there were some pretty key doctrinal differences that the church didn't disclose.

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How do you rebound from that kind of situation? In that interview, we talked about rebounding from ministry discouragement.

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We also talked about how do we know when we should leave a church or when we should.

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Stay and fight it out, so to speak.

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But one of the things he mentioned in that interview was that he wished he would've asked some additional questions during his can, an interview process.

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And so I asked him, what are some important questions that a potential pastor should ask a search committee or a team of elders or a church that they are considering going to and serving in? Let's listen to how he answered that specific.

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One final question that, um, may seem a, a little off topic, but I think it, it would be helpful.

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What, what would you say are the most important questions to ask in an interview process? Um, so obviously you're a, as a pastor, you're being asked ton of questions.

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One of the things you said was that you wish you had had.

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Done more asking and listening, what are some of the most important questions for a pastor to ask a church or a, a pastoral search team or elders, whatever the structure may be in that interview process? Oh man.

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Um, Jeremy, you, you could probably answer your own question better than I can.

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Um, but I'll, I'll give two or three, uh, that, that I think are really, I.

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Um, I think it's really important to know why there's a vacancy.

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Um, and at the risk of sounding really cynical, um, ask if you actually have the whole story as to why there's a vacancy or if the answer that you're being given.

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is to protect individuals or the church itself.

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And this is the agreed upon answer. I think it's okay to ask a question that directly I wish I had that, that was, we haven't even touched on that, but we had actually been lied to about why there was a vacancy at, at the church to, to begin with.

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Um, and that would've been really helpful to know just shepherding people.

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Yep. Um, and it, it, it probably would've changed whether or not we'd gone there, but even if it hadn't, it.

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It would've changed how we'd interacted with the elders because it showed a real unhealth, um, among the elder team.

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I think a question that I was asked before we went there by, uh, someone in my life, they, they asked, So are the elders biblically qualified? Which I thought was a great question, but at the time I didn't have categor.

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Or questions to know how to get an actual answer.

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Like if you ask an elder who's searching, serving at a church, if he's biblically qualified, he's probably gonna say, Yeah, I'm biblically qualified.

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Right? And you don't really have an answer. Um, so I think it's important for elders, for pastors to know to, to have hammered out the nuances of like polity in their own, uh, heart and convictions, and have some sort.

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Metric, some sort of, uh, way of getting to an answer with an individual elder.

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Um, if you don't have, if you're not surrounded by men, um, who understand what a biblical elder is and are committed to it and are qualified.

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To lead as elders, then you're, you're kind of, you're in a hole, um, before you've even begun.

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Uh, and it's gonna be a hard dig out.

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So I think those would be two or three. You've been listening to the Church Revision podcast.

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Thank you again for taking a little bit of time to listen today.

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Listen, if you have not already done so, take a few minutes to check out our [email protected].

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You'll find all kinds of articles, other podcast episodes, resources, services that we.

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And all of these flow out of our desire to be a help and an encouragement to pastors and churches.

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Also, if you have a question, feel free to email me. You can reach [email protected].

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I would love to hear from you. We know you're headed into the weekend.

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We know church is right around the corner. Please know that we'll be praying for you if there's ever anything we can do to assist you, to encourage you to help you.

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Please. Let us know. Again, thank you so much for listening.

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We'll see you next week on the Church Revision Podcast.