Friday, September 1st | Bolstering Each Other

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Friday, September the 1st. I'm Ryan Hill.

I'm Jon Galantis. You're listening to Clearview Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com. If you have any questions for Dr. Shah or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028, or you can email us at contact at ClearviewTodayShow.com. That's right, and you guys can help us keep the conversation going by supporting the show. You can share it online, leave us a good review on iTunes or Spotify and where you get your podcasting content from.

We're going to leave a couple of links in the description so you can do just that. Today's verse of the day is coming to us from Romans chapter 15, verse 31, that I may be delivered from those in Judea who do not believe, and that my service for Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, that I may come to you with joy by the will of God and may be refreshed together with you. Paul's writing this letter to the church in Rome, but he has not visited the church in Rome at the time of this writing. He's expressing his desire to go be with them, his desire to see them, and that his service is acceptable to them. He's like, I want to be that role model for you. I want to be that good example, and I want to be that foundation that you can build your life upon. Yeah, the people we meet in life are not chance happenings that we somehow have to work together for God's glory and his goodness. When we meet people and when we minister to other people and we start to build lives together, these intertwined story narratives that we call our lives, that's not by chance. Those are acts of God's grace, and he's doing that to invite other people to share in his blessings. When you live in God's will, that's what the foundation of your joy in life is, is living in God's perfect will.

That's why he says, I want to come to you with joy by the will of God. Why? So we may be refreshed together with you. Yeah, I love that. Be refreshed together with you. Are you refreshing to other people as they meet you? Do you bring a sense of calm, a sense of a breath of fresh air? Do you tend to drag people down? Do you tend to dump your problems on other people? Check what you're bringing into your relationships.

What do you bring into those conversations? I've been refreshed this week. You have? I've been refreshed this week. Well, that's good. Ever since we went to track drums, I think that was in July 10th. July the 10th, I have not been in the gym since then.

Really? It has been five to six weeks. Now I'd go sporadically, but no gym time at all. So I started back this week. Good for you.

That's awesome. It's I have dropped in weight. I have dropped in endurance.

I find myself wanting to quit pretty quickly into the work. I would say maybe two or three exercises in, I'm like, I'm going to dab. I'm fixing to head out. I went back to the gym.

Same scenario. I was out for a good bit longer than you. But I was back in on Monday, this past Monday, and I was going to the workout. I was like, man, we're going to do this.

We're going to do this. And it was like, oh, I've really gone down in how much weight I can move and how much weight I can put up. It takes some time to get back into it. But it's a mental shift. It's largely mental. And I will tell you this, that voice is like, well, maybe I don't have to do this.

Maybe I can. That voice has crept up a lot. But I'm like, you know what? I've never regretted going to the gym. Never in the time that I've been going, never regretted going to the gym and coming back.

I'm like, gosh, I really wish I hadn't done that. Nope. Yeah.

We took David's light away. So I don't know if you want to put a camera on him, Nicholas, but David actually gave me a program that he's doing. And I was like, I'm going to just do this program.

I'm going to kind of get rid of the one I'm doing and I'm going to just jump on a program with him. So it's this weird thing where it's like, you do all these normal exercises, like deadlifts or curls, but you just do them so foolishly. It was so foolish. And I jumped on it. I was like, you know what?

I'm not doing this. I'm going back to a decline bench press. And that's all it is.

And he gave me grief for it. No. One, I want to go ahead and say that anybody who has been working out knows exactly what a front squat is, but the program is not meant to do like, be like a normal workout.

It's meant to mimic different strong men, like who have done competitions and stuff so that you build up your endurance and your strength. Really? Yeah. Wow. That's crazy. Wow.

Crazy. It was, I hate to say this because I think he was, he is excited about his program and he's making good gains. I'm three weeks in and I've lost like four pounds. He's making good gains. For you, man. That's awesome.

But it is foolishness. It's a bunch of silly poses and like doing the, grabbing it backwards, doing the split, coming up, checking yourself. Balance it on top of your head, hands out, then do a squat. David's more about building strength, I think. He wants to be strong.

I want to look good. The only workout on that program that I'm like, huh, is literally on the thing. It tells me to do cheat curls.

And then I looked up like from there, I remember I was talking about this. Cheat curls? Cheat.

Cheat curls. And then I'm like, okay, what does that mean? Cause maybe this is just something I've never heard of. It's like, no swing, like swing the dumbbells up.

That's the only thing where I'm like, Hmm. What does it accomplish? You just overload past what you're actually capable of doing, but you, you control it on the, um, D centric. Is it E centric? Which one is it going down? I believe it's D centric, right?

Yeah, I think so. You control on the way down. That way you're still getting that.

You swing up and then come on back down. I guess that's fine. Cheat curls. I go home and eat cheese curls. That's why I got to get in the gym.

Well I don't, I don't know. I mean, it seems like though back in the gym, like back in the routine, back in the swing things, that's a good thing. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah.

And it's paying off too. Yeah. My shoulders are looking bowling balls.

Looking good. Like bowling balls. Or like softballs. Softballs. They'll be, they'll be bowling balls. Softballs is good. Bowling balls is, I don't know. That's, you might want to get that checked.

That looks like Popeye. We're going to jump into the episode in just a second. But if you guys have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-58-25028 or visit us online at Clearview Today Show dot com.

We'll be back after this. Hey there, listeners. I'm John Galantis.

And I'm Ellie Galantis. And we just want to take a quick second and talk to you about Dr. Shah's and Nicole's book, 30 Days to a New Beginning, daily devotions to help you move forward. You know, this is actually the second book in the 30 Days series. And the whole point of this devotional is to help us get unstuck from the ruts of life. You know, when it comes to running the race of life, it matters how you start. But a bad start doesn't ultimately determine how you finish the race. You can have a good finish even with a bad start. And that's where this book comes in. No matter who you are or where you are in life, you're going to get stuck.

Instead of going out and buying some gadget or some planner, like I know I've done several times. I know that's right. 30 Days encourages you to find your fresh start in God's Word. Life doesn't have a reset button, but our God is a God who does new things.

His mercies are new every day, which means every day is a new chance for you to start over. You can grab 30 Days to a New Beginning on Amazon.com. We're going to leave a link in the description box below. And if you already have the book, let us know what you think about it.

That's right. Send us a text to 252-58-25028. Share what God has done in your life through this devotional. Hey, maybe we'll even read your story on the air. Ellie, you ready to get back to the show?

Let's do it. Welcome back to Clear View Today with Dr. Abbadon Shah, the daily show that engages mind and heart for the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. Or if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, send us a text to 252-58-25028.

That's right. And if today's your first time ever joining us here on the Clear View Today Show, we want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abbadon Shah is a PhD in New Testament Textual Criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and the host of today's show.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbbadonShah.com. Peep the tie. You know what day it is. Peep the jacket. Mm-hmm.

Peep the hat. Mm-hmm. You know what time it is. It's time to rule Gotham City. Wait a minute.

Not that one. No. Curse you, Batman!

Batman! No, it's time for lightning round questions with Dr. Questions himself.

Nice. Dr. Questions.

Lightning round, lightning sound effect here. Dr. Questions has been out of the house for a good bit.

I know. I hopped on the phone. But today, the doctor's in.

Yeah, I hopped on the phone earlier this week. I was like, hey, I need Dr. Questions to come back. Oh, a special appearance by Dr. Questions himself.

You don't say. Well, like we tell you guys, we are excited about lightning round questions, because they're questions that you've been asking every time that we tell you to write into the show, 252-582-5028. We take those questions, we compile them around a subject matter, a central theme, and then those are the questions that populate our lightning round questions. These are the questions Dr.

Questions is going to be answering today from users, from viewers, from listeners alike. James G., I'm a pastor looking to get my sermons slash podcasts on the air. What's the best way to begin that process? Every big accomplishment has small beginnings.

So start small. For me, it was listening and watching my own sermons. I would come home. I'm going back to the early 2000s. I had a little handheld camcorder that I would put on a tripod in the back. And then Sunday night, after the Sunday night, we used to have Sunday night services.

I would sit down and watch the sermon and take notes and change things in my delivery and my presentation. So I began to do those kinds of things, even in the early 2000s, when podcasts were not even heard of. Radio shows were, but I was like, I don't know about radio shows. Who does radio shows anymore? I'm not realizing that 20 years later, we'll be on a radio show.

And radio is still here. So I would suggest just start by watching your own presentation and making improvements. And then little by little, start uploading it via a blog site, a WordPress blog site. Put it on there. Get a YouTube channel. And you may not have thousands of views, but you may have 10. Start there.

And that's what I did. And little by little, people don't, they see me in this position, they don't realize that it has been 25 years of adding this and adding that and taking this away and tweaking that, that we have now come to this point. And there's still so much we have to learn.

Right. That's some of the best advice I think you've ever given me is to watch your own performances. And I think people, like, especially in this day and age where every like 16 year old is on YouTube and they're getting like millions and millions of views, you're like, okay, it's easy.

I can do that. And then you start doing it, but you don't even know if your product is good. You know what I mean?

Like I was, I was in the same thing. Like how do I get like our worship on the level of other churches and get millions and millions of people coming in and just demanded that we buy albums without even asking, am I good at it? I mean, surely I can get through a service, but I'm actually skilled. Am I connecting with the culture?

I mean, there's so many questions you have to answer. So begin small, take your time, don't give up, and in God's timing, you will have what you need. Talk to people, right? We spend so much time, I know you have, Jon, called up people, other churches, other ministries, other personalities. You called them up and you overcame the fear of calling them, call them, and just talk to them and say, hey, you guys, we watch your show or we listen to your podcast and we're just so impressed. Can you tell us what you do, how you do this? And guess what?

I would say 100% of the time they actually answer. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I've learned so much just by calling people and just kind of just acting like we're friends.

Hey, listen, been watching your show for years and years and years. How do you do this? Why do you do this in particular?

How do you structure? Can you send me a PDF of your run sheets? Can you just show me your behind the scenes, your click tracks, whatever it is.

Can I just get an email? Even if you get a watermark on it, just send me your resources, send me your thought process. Even with you have done that, like how do you think about the way, like when you see a perfect service or a perfect worship set, what do you think about it?

What's something that triggers in your mind, hey, I liked that, that was really good. Or let's not, maybe we'll take that in a different direction. But that was the thing that helped me. And the biggest challenge is exactly what you said is just taking your time because I'm conditioned and my generation is conditioned to think if you're not a world famous megastar changing the face of Christianity by 25, it's too late. Yeah. It's too late. Oh yeah.

I would say majority of young people, whether in the Christian world or the secular world feel that way. I did. I did. And I believe in the sovereignty of God. So I believe that if God wanted you to be successful by 25, he would have made you successful as long as you're working hard and working smart, like we say, Ryan, as you say it. I would say if he hasn't done that is because your success is going to come later in life.

Your best years will be your latter years. And that's okay. That's okay.

I'd rather make that impact then, than to sit here and moan over and grieve over the fact that you could not hack it by the time you were 25. That's right. That's exactly right. A lot of life left. Our next question comes from Linda B. This one is from Superfan Linda B. What are some of your favorite podcasts, other than Clearview Today, obviously? Of course, Clearview Today is my favorite. Of course. Number one.

So I like to watch different ones or listen to different ones. I love John Maxwell. I think he's done a great job and he continues to inspire me. After 30 years, I've been following John Maxwell for 30 years. Can you believe that? That's crazy. That's a long time. That's a long time. I'm 31. Just so everybody knows.

I'm 31 years old. Yeah. I've been following John Maxwell's ministry, listening to his tapes, and then graduated to his podcast. And so I like his work. I will also listen to sermon podcasts like Chuck Swindoll, Adrian Rogers, Ed Young.

These are great old timers, if I can say it that way, oldies but goldies. So I listen to them. Harvard Business Review has a podcast. I listen to it sometimes. And then I used to be big on listening to theological podcasts and things like that. Lately, I've sort of backed away from some of them. Not like I don't like them or anything. No, I just kind of, I'm listening to Audible more. Yeah, listening to leadership books or just historical books. So focus on that more.

Gotcha. Craig T., what has been the biggest reward in staying in the same church? Oh my goodness, what a great question. The biggest reward to me is actually seeing the life cycle of ministry. Because in many places, people move every three years, five years, seven years move. How do you get to see the life cycle? And what I mean by life cycle is tilling the ground, sowing the seeds, waiting for the rain, waiting for the crops to grow, harvesting the crops, protecting the crops. This is a life cycle that sometimes takes 10 to 15 years.

And unfortunately, many in ministry, three to five years is a max and they move somewhere else. You never imagine a farmer who only tills the ground and then moves to another field and tills the ground. Yeah, he doesn't harvest financially. Yeah. Yeah. Or they're just sowing the seed.

They never get to harvest the crop. So I would say, and I do understand there are sometimes some young guys end up pastoring their first church in some very rural community with 200 people. And there's the first United and the first Presbyterian and the first Baptist and the Catholic church. And it's all those 200 people are divided in those four churches. I get it. So you have to move and go somewhere if you want to expand your ministry. So I get that. But many times I think we're blaming the Spirit for leading us somewhere else, when actually it's just us moving and God is saying the whole time, if he had just stayed, if he had just stayed. Yeah. Do you think people attribute their, especially when I say people, I typically mean people in ministry, do you think they attribute their dissatisfaction to the things around them, like their community or where they're at or their congregation, instead of saying, maybe I have unrealistic expectations about what ministry is supposed to be?

Yeah, I agree. Not just unrealistic expectations, but also just naivety. They don't understand what leadership is about. They don't understand how to gain the confidence of the people.

They don't understand what it means to have courage. When people in your congregation, even your best friends may stand up to you or try to put a roadblock and you have to go, I hear what you're saying, but we're going here. And I have substantial reasons, biblically as well as, you know, just by leadership, I can just tell you that we need to head this way. And what you're thinking, you may be very well experienced in your field, but I believe this is the right view, right way to go. And so many times people don't get to see that.

Yeah. That's one of the things that has always captivated me about your story and your mindset on ministry, Dr. Shaw, is, you know, when I came here almost nine years ago now, you had already been here for a while. And that was unusual to me because I'd grown up with, you know, a pastor for a while and then he'll move on and then a pastor for a while. And, you know, I didn't have that example of longevity, but then hearing your story, hearing like, this is my first and only church, this is where I'm going to be. And then coming from your dad's legacy as well, like that's his first and only church. I was like, man, that's what I want.

That's what I want too. I want this to be my first and only church. I want this to be like where God has grown ministry. And even just the ways that God has grown ministry here at Clearview from the time that I've been here, seeing your faithfulness and how God has expanded what Clearview is able to do. We didn't have Clearview today, nine, 10 years ago. What do we do now?

And then where are we going to be in 10 years from now? Did you? Did you find, did you find it difficult in the early years for people to make a genuine connection with you because they had a concept in their mind that pastors come and go. Oh yeah. So did they, did, did people kind of keep you at arm's length because of that? Well, it was kind of a different reaction that I got. It was not as much as keeping me at arm's length.

Some did, but some just treated me with the kind of patronizing pat on the head. Yeah. Yes. Yes. You, yeah.

You, you, you'll do great things for the Lord. Okay. Yeah.

All right. So what they were doing was in a patronizing way, telling me, we know you're not going to stick around. So we're going to go ahead and tell you it's time to move on in a couple of years.

So go ahead and use us as your learning ground, as your training ground. But then do understand, we expect you to move along. So for me, it was insulting.

It was angering that you're treating me this way. For some pastors, probably they wouldn't care. They'd be like, okay, that's fine. I mean I guess we're all agreed on that. You got me.

So I'm going to stick around here for three years, practice on you guys, pretend to be really a pastor, your shepherd, but really I'm not, I don't, I'm going to move and find me another flock somewhere. But for me, it didn't work like that. I could not stand that. Yeah. I found that very condescending.

I would imagine so. And I, I struggle to see how anybody could expect that from their pastor who is their shepherd. You know what I'm saying? The whole point of your pastor is that you build this lifelong relationship with them and yet you've lulled yourself into thinking it's normal that you get a new one every couple of years. And unfortunately, some of that has been taught or ingrained in the people by the pastors because they kept moving. So after a while the congregation says expected people to pastors to just move. So I think some of this has been caused by people in ministry. But to me it was unacceptable. That's not how you treat a pastor. I agree.

And there were times I, I fought back when, when people were condescending to me or were rude to me or acted like, yeah, yeah, you stay out there, we'll, we'll take care of this right here. Go ahead and preach a sermon. We're going to do this. I was like, uh-uh, not me.

Never going to happen. Yeah. You may not ever accept me as your pastor. That's fine. I'm going to definitely walk and talk and lead as God's man for this flock. I'm just, I'm just going to do that away.

Yeah. Amen. Our next question comes from Lyle S. Lyle wants to know, how did you get to the level of leadership that you're at now? A lot of mistakes. But with time, I began to minimize my mistakes.

That's the key. Sometimes people almost glorify mistakes like, oh yeah, yeah, you got to make mistakes too. That's where you learn. You learn by mistakes. So you make mistakes. The more mistakes you make, the more you learn. No, you learn to make less mistakes. You learn from your mistakes. You're not just accident prone. You learn from your accidents.

You don't go out there and do it the wrong way so that you can learn from it. Yeah. And in a while you'll just be nothing but a walking, talking ball of, you know, broken bones. Yeah. That's not what I want to be. Yeah.

So learning from my mistakes, making less mistakes, being wiser, being more connected to the mind and the heart and the purpose of God. You've really helped me a lot to see that the mistake, like when I make mistakes, the mistake didn't happen here. The mistake happened back here. We got to this place and now it's unavoidable.

Like confrontation and a bad outcome is unavoidable. But that's not where the mistake happened. And it's taken me a long, long time to kind of think through that to where recognizing the mistake before it's at critical level, you know what I mean?

Yeah. That was a valuable lesson. I also watched people who were leaders, some good, some not so good, but I watched their behavior. I watched their mindset. I watched and learned about their worldviews and the principles on which they operated, about which they operated and their accomplishments. What did they accomplish? Where are they in their personal lives?

Where are they in their family life, familial life? And so I watched a lot of that and I learned a lot. I read a lot of books, love biographies and autobiographies to see where people...

I'm reading one right now on Abraham Kuyper. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. So that's why I gave a quote just a little while ago. I knew that quote a long time ago.

You heard me use that in sermons before. But Abraham Kuyper, he was kind of a staunch Calvinist, not that I am, but I really admire him. So learning how he led, what mistakes he made, is shaping my thinking right now in leadership. We were kind of doing that as a team too, reading through the life of Billy Graham and seeing the mistakes that he made and thinking that, well, number one, it's encouraging.

And all the things he did right too. That's right. Yeah.

That's right. There were many successes and there were some failures. There were shortcomings there too. And that's what I love.

I love those failures. Yeah. I love about going through that book with you, Dr. Sean, with the rest of the team, is that it doesn't shy away from those failures, but it highlights what we can derive from that, how we can grow, how we can learn. By the way, the book is Leadership Secrets of Billy Graham by Marshall Shelley, Harold Myra, and Marshall Shelley.

Very good book. Yeah. Carter T. Too many of my pastor friends complain about being stuck in a rut. I know you and your wife wrote a book about that recently. What's your go-to advice for pastors stuck in one way of thinking?

Yeah. That's so easy to get that way, especially if you are built that way, that you feel like I'm right and this is the way, that's what I do, what I do. I met a pastor like that recently, not here, but in India. I went to visit my family and I saw that he's a young guy, but guess what? He's already stuck in a rut. Oh no. And I'm thinking, I get it if you were up in age and stuck in a rut, but you are young and you already are building a ministry stuck in a rut.

I feel for you. Yeah. Our next question comes from Ricky G. Ricky wants to know what is the biggest truth or principle that you've learned while in ministry? Biggest? Oof. I've learned many.

Biggest would be a hard one to give. I mean, of course, longevity is a big truth principle in ministry. The longer you stay, the more you will see growth and success and accomplishment. Also learning to work from weakness. That to me is also a great principle where we try to be the super somebody, the superhuman, the superman in ministry when actually it comes from brokenness, it comes from weakness when you realize that you cannot do it and you need God and your confidence is not in yourself, but it's in God.

There's a place for confidence, but it comes from God's hand in your life. That's true. So there's so many truth principles that I wish I could nail down one, but I can't. Yeah. Do you have a favorite? The one I'm learning right now would be the favorite one.

Nice. The one I'm learning right now is learning to look away from self unto Christ, right? Learning to die to self and live unto Christ. Learning that it's not in you, it's in him.

And sometimes he will break you off your self-confidence so that he can shine through you. Amen. Harold B.

This is also another super fan who writes in all the time. Harold B. was very sorry to hear about the passing of your mother, Dr. Shah. What's one thing you feel you learned or took away from this ordeal? One thing I learned starting right off the bat, right off the gate is the power of prayer. When we prayed for that emergency visa and it was not coming, I felt very helpless. And then John, you prayed and Ryan, you prayed as well.

God opened the door and I was able to get that visa in my hand, my passport in my hand and go. So I saw the power of prayer. I saw the sovereignty of God. God is in control, the providence of God that he works all things together, not just for my good, but for his glory.

I saw that. So those are some powerful lessons. My faith in God and his work through Christ in this world has grown.

My faith in him has grown. Dr. Shah, thank you so much for answering those questions. If you guys enjoyed that, or if you want your questions answered on an episode of Lightning Round Questions, write in and let us know.

Send those questions to 252-582-5028. Or of course you can visit us online at ClearviewTodayShow.com, where you can partner with us financially. Stand shoulder to shoulder with us as we seek to impact the nations with the gospel of Christ. We love you guys. We'll see you next time on Clear View Today.