What Other Pastors See in Your Preaching That You Missed

Host: TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Josh MacClaren

Summary: In this episode of Rural Church Renewal, TJ Freeman, Joe Wagner, and Joshua McLaren discuss the value of not being isolated as rural pastors and the benefits of forming cohorts to enhance pastoral skills and spiritual growth. They recount their experience with the Simeon Trust, an organization aimed at improving preaching through collaborative workshops. The pastors share how they have organized local groups to work on sermon preparation and theological understanding, leading to stronger preaching and deeper camaraderie. The discussion emphasizes the importance of mutual support and continuous improvement in ministry.

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Transcript

TJ: Rural people like to be left alone. And if you're a rural pastor, that might be true of you as well, but could being alone actually be hurting you and your ministry? What if there was a way that you could spend time with other guys, grow in your relationship with the Lord, and your pastoral skills? That's what we're talking about on this episode of Rural Church Renewal. 

Well, hello, my name is TJ Freeman. I am a rural pastor and I'm joined with two other really rural dudes. I wanted to get a third R in there. Really rural. 

Joe: Rednecks. 

TJ: Rednecks! Who preach. Anyway, they are.

Joe: Hey, I'm Joe Wagner. I am a royal pastor as well.

Been in real ministry for almost 20 years. 

Josh: What's going on guys? This is Joshua McLaren. I've been in rural ministry seven years.

TJ: And just like you, dear listener, we are ministering in the middle of nowhere and we very much know what it's like to want to spend time with other guys sometimes, but it's a pretty hard thing to do.

We want to grow in some of our skills as a preacher or as a counselor or whatever. And it's really hard to do, and I happen to have some inside knowledge about Joe and Josh. 

Joe: Uh oh. 

TJ: They have some experience figuring out how to spend some time with other guys growing in their skills as preachers, and their skills as just pastors generally, and in their own relationship with the Lord.

And how have you guys done that most recently?

Joe: We got together with other pastors and walked through the Simeon's Trust teaching on how to preach better and prepare your sermons better. We brought a bunch of other pastors in together with us, and we sharpened one another as we talked about the sufficiency of scripture in preparing sermons.

Okay, so what is the Simeon Trust?

Josh: They're an organization that is seeking to see better preaching all around the world by training men, not just in how to exposit scripture, but how to articulate scripture for the context, the people that they're shepherding. 

Joe: Joe, how would you describe that? A bunch of guys getting together and figuring out best practices, best ways to be able to make their preaching better, hone their preaching. And it's not like you, you go to Simeon's Trust and you're a horrible preacher. Actually, everybody who goes to Simeon's Trust, right? We all kind of feel like horrible preachers sometimes, right? We're not striving for perfection. We're striving to progress in our. 

Josh: Making progress, baby! 

Joe: Yes. Making progress.

TJ: Can I make an annoying interjection? 

Josh: Please. 

TJ: Josh. 

Joe: You always do. 

TJ: You, I'm good at that. You'll relate to me, Josh. What's the last book of the Bible? 

Josh: Revelation. 

TJ: And what is the last book of the Bible not? 

Josh: Revelations. 

TJ: What is the organization that teaches guys how to study the Bible?

Josh: The Charles Simeon Trust.

TJ: And what is it not? 

Josh: The Charles Simeon's Trust. 

TJ: Sorry, Joe had to go below the belt there. 

Joe: I didn't even realize I said it, so. 

TJ: I know. And if you say espresso, I'm gonna just storm out of the room. 

Josh: Oh. Can I tell a funny Uganda story? Really quick? 

Joe: Espresso. 

Josh: On a menu. On a menu. Instead of saying affogato, they misspelled it and put Afro Gado.

TJ: Oh my goodness.

Josh: It was awesome. Anyway. 

TJ: Josh, you just took a trip to Uganda for? 

Josh: Training pastors on how to study the Old Testament. 

TJ: Did you use any Simeon Trust principles while you were there? 

Josh: I actually did the pathway of preparation for them. That's awesome. Just as a means to show them that there's relevance in preaching the Old Testament.

And we used Mark chapter one 40 to 45 to prove that because Jesus heals a leperous man. And you need to understand the book of Leviticus to understand the, the weight of what Jesus does when he reaches out and touches that man and makes him clean instead of becoming unclean himself. These guys some of them haven't even read some of the books in the, in the Pentateuch, so the Simeon Trust framework I think is just a super helpful and an easy to understand method that I think can be understood cross-culturally. 

TJ: Sweet. That's great. So you guys took advantage of that material to get some guys in Pennsylvania together. Tell us a little bit about that.

Joe: Well, we already had a group of guys that were gathering together once a month. Man, there's like 20 of us and you know.

TJ: Who are these guys real quick? 

Joe: They are pastors within a two hour radius. Actually we've got guys coming from the Finger Lakes and Dundee, New York. Yeah. Yeah. And then all the way down to State College. And so for us, that's like a four hour circumference of guys that are gathering together once a month, which is really, really cool. We get like 15 to 20 guys every time we gather.

And then we took those guys, we're like, Hey, can you guys get together and we can work with one another to progress in our preaching abilities and our prep? Abilities and. There, there was like seven, eight dudes that were like, yes, we wanna do that. We wanna get together. And so there was this natural desire that they had had to come together and have their preaching be better.

And so we did that. We fed them too, but then there was just this natural relationships that started to build. So not only did we go into this to learn how to write better sermons, but we were building better relationships. So it was very relational. As we were doing that. 

TJ: Awesome. So lemme summarize what I'm hearing. So Joe, you're saying, out of our equip group, which is just a monthly group that gathers of pastors to broadly encourage each other, you saw a need to maybe hone in specifically with a smaller group of guys on preaching.

What were you seeing that made you want to do that? 

Joe: I had realized how much my preaching had grown and had gotten better, and I wanted to share that with other guys too. I really think that preaching and preaching better continuously, even guys who are super, super gifted in preaching, we're all progressing.

We can all learn new ways to prepare. We can all be closer to scripture and wanted to share what I had learned, what Josh had learned, what Pastor Mike had learned with other guys too. 

Josh: Yeah. Not to mention the fact that every time you go back to a semi intrust workshop the principles are always the same.

What changes is the work that you do and the feedback you get. So to be able to even create a precedent for giving feedback to our peers in receiving the feedback on how we're preparing our sermons. That's just super valuable. I mean, we've been to five Simeon Trusts workshops. These guys have just been introduced to the, to the first principles, and I was convicted and challenged in some of the things I was preparing and even time management. So even as someone who's been to a number of workshops, it was just really fruitful.

TJ: What I like that I'm hearing is. We saw generally a need to grow in our preaching. Do you think that's common in rural places?

Joe: I 

don't necessarily think so. I remember when I was just starting out, probably the first decade of my ministry, I really felt confident in my preaching like, alright, that's one thing I've gotten down and I'm gonna start try to focus on everything else.

And so that my preaching that I felt confident in that people told me, Hey, you did a great job pastor, great sermon pastor. I learned a lot, pastor. Like all of those things that I was hearing. I was like, alright, I'm clearing that bar. I don't need to get better. I'm here. And didn't put a lot of effort into that.

And man, I came to the realization that I really could use some of that. So I think even just experientially for me, if I was thinking that, I bet some other guys are thinking that too, that they don't think that they necessarily need to continue to work on that or continue to progress in that area.

Josh: One of the things Simeon Trust teaches is the, the danger of frameworks. We all have frameworks and oftentimes we're blind to our own frameworks. So then to have men be able to look into and peek into our work and peek into the sermon preparation it reveals some of those frameworks and exposes some of those frameworks.

And for brothers in, in rural churches the ability to have your work critiqued and or encouraged is likely lacking. You know, we have a great culture of that here. I think Pastor TJ, you, pastor Ben, have done a great job of recognizing that if we're gonna grow as preachers, we need feedback. Guys who don't have co-laborers aren't gonna have that.

So this cohort was super valuable in creating that. And even then, like I've had. Some guys reach out and say, Hey, can you listen to this sermon and just gimme some feedback? And then I've had the opportunity to reciprocate and say, Hey, what could I have done better? What could I have been more clear in? So that, that has been super fruitful. 

Joe: That takes a lot of humility, man. It does. And that's, that's learned as well. Yeah. That need is learned. 

TJ: When I was 16 years old, my parents let me drive an hour to the shopping mall. You remember malls? 

Joe: I remember malls. 

Josh: I even remember malls. 

TJ: Okay. And there were two things at the mall I was interested in sneakers and girls. And so I drive myself up there all by myself, so proud of myself, and I get into the mall. And this is gonna be TMI, but my stomach didn't feel the greatest. 

Uh oh. 

So there was a trip to the restroom that resulted in me accidentally tucking a long stream of toilet paper into the back of my pants. Well, horrifying.

Well, not yet. 'cause I didn't know. And I'm walking around the mall and I see people looking at me and they're just glowing, man. And the girls are looking at me with these big smiles and I'm like, yeah, they know I'm a man now. And I get in my car and I drive all the way back home an hour, and I get out.

My parents are there, you know, there's no cell phones yet. So they were like eagerly waiting to see me, and I start walking across the driveway toward the house and I feel a tug on the back of my pants. And I turned around and there's my dad holding a piece of toilet paper that I'd been dragging around the whole time.

So I had confidence when I was at the mall that people were smiling at me because I was so studly and in reality, they were laughing at me because I had toilet paper hanging out in my pants. I think that's a good illustration of what you guys are talking about. A lot of times we have confidence in our preaching and we don't realize that there are some things that we don't see that are actually making what we're doing less valuable.

And so what you guys have done through this cohort is given each other an opportunity to learn some principles that you might not have known before about preaching, to think more care carefully about things that you did know but maybe had gotten lazy with, and then even to see some things in your preaching that you didn't know were happening that it'd be good if somebody tugged those things and freed you from 'em.

What are some other ways that you found the cohort experience to be valuable?

Joe: I really appreciated where other guys were stronger in areas and they would be able to help bring me along. Mm-hmm. Like, deep biblical context is an area of work. I may have a little bit of a weakness. I would admit that that might be an area of weakness for me.

It doesn't come as naturally as what it does, but man, there were two or three dudes there who. Had a real breadth and depth of biblical context, right? So if we're studying a scripture in the New Testament, they had the resources to be able to dive in and say, Hey, this is how this relates to these two or three areas in the Old Testament.

And that's not something that I was super strong in. And so I was able to like. This is how they do it. This is how it's important, this is how it works. I really, really appreciated that. But there was other places where I might be a little bit stronger in like application and they were able to learn that from me.

So getting together and sharpening one another, just really being able to encourage and exhort one another in areas of weaknesses and strength to make everybody a little bit better was really, really cool. And to do that openly too and humbly and say, Hey, I really appreciated how you did that.

Good job brother. Teach me. 

TJ: That's good. Josh, was there anything that you picked up that was just really helpful? 

Josh: Yeah, I thought just generally the comradery, so like we talk about. Men in our churches, in rural places, like if you wanna disciple the men, you need to do what they do. So you get, you know, you get your hands dirty, cutting wood, or going on a deer drive or something.

Well, for these pastors that was really getting our hands dirty, was studying the scriptures in depth together. So that produced the camaraderie that led to opportunities to share about our lives, about our ministries, to pray for one another. We were getting our hands dirty together and that built relationships with these guys.

It also like just encourages partnership, I think, and teamwork in the kingdom like this. This is not just for my congregation, right? This is not just for my church and the benefit of my church, like the kingdom is benefiting from this. So that was sweet. 

TJ: Yeah, that's right.

And that's something we need to be thinking about more often as pastors in the middle of nowhere. We're not here just for our church, and our church isn't just there for itself. We're here to advance the kingdom of Christ and your little outpost in the middle of nowhere is actually very strategic, and your ability to rightly handle God's word is so essential.

So if you're not in relationship with other guys who are helping you and who you are helping in your region, consider doing a cohort. Guys, if somebody wanted to start a cohort on their own, using the material that you guys have used, how would you recommend they get started?

Josh: I think you just call up your friends, go knock on doors.

The material's $25 online in the lectures. It's crazy cheap. The lectures are there, so no one has to do any teaching. Like no one has to be the lead instructor. You can just walk through the material together and encourage one another. So it's actually really simple. You set a time, you set a date.

Maybe you all go in for some lunch or something like a pizza and you work through the video material and then you do the worksheets, like it's pretty straightforward. 

Joe: I think in this particular area when we're talking about preaching too you gotta be a little bit bolder than what you might be, than what some guys might be. Because you're going to be calling up your friends or your acquaintances or other pastors and you're gonna say, Hey, let's get together and work together to make our preaching better. And be ready for some little bit of pushback and a little bit of resistance, because guys might not want to open up to be that vulnerable.

Josh: I had to have Joe translate for his dad. His dad was giving me critique at one point, and I was like, Joe, I know your dad was trying to help me. I just didn't totally understand. He's like, and Joe translated, he said, basically he said, tell it to me like I'm five, not like I'm a seminary grad, which has been a perpetual problem for me so that was really helpful.

One other benefit I wanna mention is that I would feel comfortable with any of these guys filling the pulpit for me now. Yes. Yeah. So we've just created 10 dudes to fill pulpits for each other. Swap with each other. Yeah. Yeah. So what a blessing to give you a break. To show that it's not just about our church, it's about the kingdom. I think that's a really sweet benefit that'll bear fruit in the in the coming days. 

TJ: That's right. Well, if you'd like some help thinking through how you could get a cohort going in your area, we'd love to help put some structure around that, if that would serve you well. So if you go over to brainerdinstitute.com, you can find out some more information and we would love to connect with you there.

One of the best things you could do would be to sign up for our newsletter. Right at the bottom of the page, you can sign up for that. But also, if you wanted to reach out to us, you could reach out to me at tj@brainerdinstitute.com, and I would love to have a conversation with you about how a rural cohort could develop in your area.

 It's very challenging, but very worth it. Any final thoughts on cohorts, guys?

Joe: You caught me unaware. Do 'em. Yeah, do 'em. And it, it's not expensive. You just get together and do it. It takes a little bit of time. Be committed. Sometimes guys won't make every single time that you get together. Guilty.

Yeah, me too. But that's okay. And if you can make four or five outta six or seven different cohorts that you've got going on, that is plenty enough to do that and to continue to build trust in one another, relationships with one another, sharpen one another, and in this particular case, become better preachers.

Awesome. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Hey, can I end with one Timothy four? I hope you do. He says, practice these things. Immerse yourself in them so that all may see your progress. Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this for by so doing, you will save both yourself and your hearers. Mm-hmm. 

TJ: Well, on that, Joe, what should they do?

Joe: Raise your Ebenezer. 

TJ: Goodbye.