Tuesday, October 10th | The Role of a Spiritual Leader

Welcome back, everyone. Today is Tuesday, October the 10th. I'm Ryan Hill, John Galantis, and 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, or 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.

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We're going to leave a link in the description of this podcast so you can do just that. And today's verse of the day is coming to us from 2 Thessalonians 3, 3, but the Lord is faithful who will establish you and guard you from the evil one. There's so many times that we are concerned about the world around us.

There's so many times that we are so focused on the difficulties that we have to overcome. And I'm not saying we should ignore those, but we need to remember that God is faithful. The same God that we read about who was with Moses, who was with Joshua, who was with David, who was with Daniel, who was with the disciples in the New Testament, that same God is the God that we worship.

That's right. And he's no less powerful, and he's no less capable of working miracles today than he was in the Bible. And I think that's what he says here in verse three is a direct consequence of the other. He's going to establish you, right? And so if he establishes you, if you are an established Christian, then the enemy is coming after you.

That's a direct consequence. So I love that it says, but the Lord is faithful. He's going to establish you, but then he's going to guard you from the evil one. Because if you are, especially if you're in ministry and you're doing things like we're doing here on the Clearview Today show, or you're doing things in your community, then you're painting a target on your back for the enemy. But God is stronger. And so the Lord is faithful enough to protect you. And that's one of those things that I know gives me comfort when we do the kind of things that we do.

That's right. I was driving here this morning and I saw some... That's a good thing. Yeah, I was driving and I had my eyes open.

They weren't closed at all. And I was looking around at some of the cars and it kind of struck me like, do you ever look, and this is really not related to what we're talking about at all, but do you ever like look at cars that you see on the street and just wonder like, what on earth happened? Oh, 100%.

Absolutely. Like you're driving past and you have a trash bag taped over your window. I created an entire story for you. Actually, there was a, this was some of my friends and I did in college. We would sit, you know, this is a version of people watching. We would sit in cars that would go by. We would be like, oh, that's so-and-so. We just create a whole story.

Like that's Charles Bentley, the fifth, who came here from blah, blah, blah. And we would take turns making stories for these random cars that came by. It's just like little things. Like my wife had her hubcap stolen and she just never replaced it ever.

It's been gone for like five years. Wow. And I wonder sometimes what people think. Like that woman has three hubcaps and she's just always had three hubcaps. Or like when you see people who were like, they have a complete mountain of trash in their passenger seat and then you try to get in, they're like, oh, just throw that stuff in the back. And it's like, I'm throwing it in the back? I have to take care of your trash detail? You want me to sort your car? Okay. And then I'm like, you want me to just go get a trash bag?

No, no, no. Just throw it in the back. Throw it in the floor. I'm like, okay.

Yeah, I guess I'm going to. Like I just see cars sometimes and I'm like, what happened? There's a story here. Something caused this huge dent in the back of your car. Or like a car is driving by and it has one different colored door.

What happened? That's really common in the South. I wonder how common that is apart from the South. Like in New York, I wonder if that ever happens.

I feel like I've seen it in New York. Like I feel like I've seen people driving around in cars that have like a van with like, the van is red, but the door is like teal. What happened? This didn't go together originally.

What happened? Or like you take parts from other cars. Another thing people do in the South, I've been seeing this a lot, is they'll make, and I'm not a country beau at all, but they'll do what's called squats.

I'm not a country beau. They'll make a squat. You understand?

Why did you get so aggressive at the microphone? What they do is they'll take it and it's like the opposite of a lift kit where they'll bring it all the way down to the, and it's funny because I wonder who's doing this because everybody that I talk to says that it looks ugly. Yeah. Here's the thing though, like you never see a squatted like minivan. No. A squatted like Volkswagen Beagle.

No. Or a squatted school bus. Well, they're already pretty low to the ground.

You don't want to get too much lower. They squat a school bus and it's like all the kids are jumping up and down. It's like scraping the asphalt.

What is happening? I just see, I just hear so many people talk about how ugly stuff like that is, but somebody out there must think it looks good. Who's still doing it? Yeah. Yeah.

Everyone that I've heard criticizes it, but there's got to be people still doing it because I see it. You ever see people do the lift kits that are way, way up high and it like just doesn't look good. You need like a ladder to get in the truck. You need a ladder to get in and it's like the guy, and then I hate to even say this, but like the people get out of the truck and you're like, that makes sense. Yeah. Yep. That's you want to, you would want to really.

So the tire is larger than you are. What are you doing? What are you doing? Text it. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to send in pictures of cars that you've seen that are like, what in the world happened?

Send those pictures to 252-582-5028. I wonder if this was a thing in India. Like if Dr. Shell ever looked at cars and was like. I don't even know how many cars there are in India. I think they drive like mopeds and stuff. Or like if there's like a moped or like a scooter or something. Like a tricked out scooter. Like someone puts like rockets on.

Or one that's like the wheels are different sizes. It's like barely hanging on. It's like. Yeah. The handlebars aren't original. You can tell they're not original.

They're bicycle handlebars, but they put them on the scooter. What in the world happened? I'll ask him. Let's ask him when he gets in. Text in and let us know 252-582-5028.

Have you ever seen a car that you're like, what the world's going on there? You can visit us online at ClearViewTodayShow.com. We'll be back after this. Hey everyone, my name is Ellie.

And I'm David. And we want to take a look at what's going on in Clearview today's show. We want to know how we can pray for you as well. There's a number of ways that you can get in touch with us at Clearview and share your prayer request. But the best way is by texting us at 252-582-5028. You can also send us an email at prayer at ClearviewBC.org.

Or you can download the Clearview app on iTunes or Google play. You know, on that app, there's a dedicated prayer wall that helps us to get to know what's going on in your life, how we can pray for you and how we can take any necessary steps to get you moving in the right direction. Thanks for listening.

Now let's get back to the show. Welcome back to Clearview Today with Dr. Abadan 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 or suggestions for new topics, send us a text at 252-582-5028.

That's right. Today's your first time moseying on by the Clear View Today Show. We want to welcome you, let you know exactly who's talking to you today. Dr. Abadan Shah is a PhD in New Testament textual criticism, professor at Carolina University, author, full-time pastor, and host of Today's Show.

You can find all of his work on his website. That's AbadanShah.com. Sometimes you're just moseying on the radio. You know, a lot of people, they download the podcast, but we're first and foremost running a radio show. That is very true. Sometimes you should be driving along just like moseying on through these channels. Yeah, my dashboard says seek or like, you know, change the frequency, but I never noticed mosey. Speaking of cars, Dr. Shah, you know, when you were growing up in India, how many scooters or mopeds versus cars did you regularly see?

Oh, wow. Scooters, like let's just say two-wheelers, because then you have bicycles, motorcycles, mopeds versus four-wheelers, cars, all that. I would say 75% would be mopeds and two-wheelers, and then the rest 25% would be the cars and auto rickshaws and this and that.

How many of them would you say were in states of disrepair? Like we were talking today, like when you see a car and like the door is just a completely different color or like there's just a trash bag in the window and you have no clue how... Like duct taped over where the window should be. Yeah. Well, growing up, we didn't see stuff like that as much. Really? Right. Now, if you talk about trucks, like a little dump truck is what they usually used to use, but now they have the big rigs now. But at one time, yes, they would have these trucks and those trucks did look like they were back from the 50s, 60s, even like the allied landed with them.

Nice. Yeah, because the British were in India, so some of these trucks may have been in World War II. Fair enough. But this is back in the 70s, 80s that I remember that. But now, when I went back to India for my mom's sickness and then her funeral, it looked like I was on the highway here because the cars and the trucks, they all look like we have here.

And just when I saw the scenery that I knew was this was not America, this is somewhere else. But still a lot of two wheelers though? Not on the highway as much.

Wow. Yeah, not on the big highways. Like even in my hometown now, they have an overpass.

There was no overpass where we were growing up. There's a video of you on Facebook preaching at your dad's church with your dad. And you were preaching in English and he was translating. And then I remember distinctly, because my wife and I stayed up and watched it, and you were saying, in life, things are going to fail you, cars are going to fail you, scooters are going to fail you. And I remember looking at Ellie like, scooters? And she was like, yeah, they probably, I think they drive a lot over there. I remember when you come back talking, because I always just thought it was just tons and tons of cars. But no, lots of... In Bombay, you'll see a lot of taxis. I mean, a lot of taxis. But still, the percentage of two wheelers is significantly more. Maybe not in Bombay as much, because it's dangerous to be out there. Mostly men driving them? No, you have women driving them too. Yes, yes. I didn't know that. Of course.

That's insane. And sometimes you have men sitting behind women. They're being carted around.

She's the more experienced driver. Like, here we go, honey. On the way, on the way we go. Like when I was with Libna, going back and forth to the hospital? No, I rode behind her. Really? On a moped? On a two wheeler? Yes. Wow.

Oh yeah. She's like, you can drive. You know, you can drive. I was like, no. Wow.

That's incredible. Last thing I want is like, run into something and then I'm in the hospital. Fair enough. I had a two wheeler accident. Yeah.

That's, that's pretty embarrassing. Well, speaking of, you know, whether it's, whether it's men or women driving, one of the, one of the compliments that, that you get a lot, Dr. Shah, and we hear a lot about Clearview is that there's a lot of men. There's a lot of men, not just attending church, but stepping up to lead. You know, today's Tuesday, we just had our men's prayer this morning. And there's a lot of guys that come out every morning from six to six 30, every Tuesday morning from six to six 30 and spend time in prayer. And for every compliment that we get here, there's a person listening on the radio going, Dr. Shah, how did you get men?

How in the world do you do this? Well, it's a problem in America and has been for several decades that women are the ones who are carrying the burden of church ministry, church work, church leadership. And that's not right. That's not how it should be now. They will do it. And they have done it and done a great job with it in, in some places.

I wouldn't say every place, but it's not how it's supposed to be. Men are called to be leaders. Men are called to step up and be that person who leads his family well, but also is active in church. And this is not about who is superior.

Forget about that. I will 100% go down to my grave saying that women are more spiritually minded and have a better grasp of spiritual things than men do. I'll say that I'll, I'll challenge any man on that. But God in his divine wisdom has said, okay, women are more spiritually minded. They understand spiritual things faster and better than men, than men. But I want men to lead.

That brings a balance in the relationship. Imagine if women are spiritually minded and then they're leading too, then what do you do with men? Well, looking around in our culture, that's what has happened. What do you do with men? Well, they're sort of these Neanderthals who don't really get life and they don't understand compassion and they're not really mature. They're just diseased men.

All they want is sex and beer. And we have sort of left them to the side. The albundies of the world. The albundies of the world, or maybe a little bit of the home improvement type. I'm not saying, because I love home improvement show with Tim Allen, but it's sort of like that.

He just doesn't get it. That's not a good representation. Yeah.

And I think that's, that's really, it's, it's great that you bring that up because a lot of people would hear you describe that and they say, no, I think that's, I don't think really society views men like that. And yet every single sitcom since like the eight, when did home improvement air? Like the eighties, nineties? I would say like since then, that's what dads and men are typically portrayed like. Yeah.

Yeah. And this is not about who's superior, who's not. My mom, as you guys heard me talk about her, has had a master's in education, was a leader, was a principal, was leading men. So it's not about that. It's about how God has designed a balance in relationship where men are called to lead and it's leading by serving. This is not leading by demanding or leading by some sense of superiority. No, this is leading by humility, washing your wife's feet. And again, I'm not saying necessarily go and wash her feet, but, but serve her. Right.

And live with your wives with understanding so that your prayers may not be hindered. That's the different level of servant leadership. Yeah. And I just knowing your heart and working with you over the past, you know, almost 10 years at this point, Dr. Shah, I know you have a desire to see men step up and lead and be equipped to do so. It's not a matter of just like, Hey, why don't you do this? And I'm going to shove you in this place. It's, we're going to give you training and we're going to give you resources and give you role models that you can look up to and creating those spaces, creating those opportunities for men to step up and to feel comfortable leading. That's right.

That's right. So when I came to this church, this has been my first and only church. I'm sort of following my, following my dad's example. He pastored his first and only church for almost 60 years when he died. He was still pastoring. Wow.

And so I want to do the same thing. When I first came here, of course there were men in our church, but the ratio was very different. Really? Really skewered towards women? Oh yes, of course. A lot more women, a lot more women doing what needed to be done.

Although we had male leadership, but it was really not. Yeah. And so I began to study on that matter. It's like, what, who do I need to talk to?

What do I need to do? And it was a great book out there. Why men hate going to church. It's a good book. I don't agree with every single thing about what that person believes, but overall the author did a great job in highlighting a problem in American churches.

Why men hate going to church. So after reading that book and then doing my own research, this is where internet was sort of, you know, in this first decade, I guess. So it took me some time to do the research and, and figure out where the resources are. Cause there were not as many as there are today. Right.

And by the way, there are not many today either, but in studying and reading, especially that book, I began to understand we have to change. Yeah. I think, I think I think, you know, if, and I think that's, that's really the answer to that question that people may be asking is how did you get men to come to church?

People will typically give an answer. Like you just do the right things elsewhere and men will come. Like you just preach the gospel, they'll come. Yeah. It doesn't work like that. I love that you did research and you asked a question, how do I get men to come to church?

Research that question, found the answers, and then implemented those answers. Little by little, I began to change things. Yeah. Cause there's an intentionality to where people will typically cop out and say, you just do these other things and men will naturally come. Right.

But they're not as spiritually minded as women. So things have to change. For example, things have to change with how we decorate the church. I mean, we do decorate the church, right?

Everybody does it. Even if it's been left decorated by your great grandmother, it's still a decoration. Yeah. So all the flowers that we put in the church right up front, all the flowers, I'm like, we don't need all these flowers. Although I love flowers, but they have a place. Right.

Cause if you begin with roses everywhere, I mean, who are you appealing to? Right. Right. So let's, let's back off a little bit on that. Then music.

If those songs are just very feminine oriented, then I wanted to kind of balance them out with some strong male led songs. Then the language had to change. I had to make sure that my language was appealing to men, speaking in a way that they can relate with direct action oriented steps, concrete content.

These are things I had to work on and still to this day, I work on them. And as I was doing that, I was also side by side reading a book on how to speak to women in the church. This was done by a woman who was saying, you know, pastors, you sometimes when you're speaking, again, I want to agree with all her theology or her stance on women in ministry, but I got her point.

I think we can learn from each other. And I got her point, which was the women in the church. And if all your examples are David and Moses and Peter and Paul, then you have a problem. So have you noticed often I'll talk about Sarah or I'll talk about Esther or talk about Ruth or Mary Magdalene or Priscilla.

I would mention those names. So the women in the congregation can also say, this appeals to me because many, many, many of our examples are simply male focused. So we have to take that away. Cause I have two daughters. I don't want them to walk away thinking the Bible doesn't apply to women.

Yeah, that's true. That's a great point that I think a lot of people don't really think about is what in that talking to men, how do you also get women to come behind and support that rather than feel alienated or feel like the focus is no longer. Now you are going to turn this into a male club and women are second class and we get your agenda. And I never want to do that. I want to be biblically accurate. And without a shame, I would say I'm a complimentarian. And so I want to make sure that is my view, but how do you do that?

How do you go about? I want to make sure I do it with kindness and grace, both towards men and women. There was also a lot of design choices that were very subtle, that a lot of people probably never picked up on consciously, but subconsciously like for instance, one of the big things when we moved into the new building, if you remember, we did the little slides that go behind our lyrics. They're all nature. And not just like pretty streams, but they're like rugged mountains. There's like big snow-capped peaks in the wintertime. I don't know if we have a copy of your two devotionals in here, but one of them has a life raft on the cover, like the sea out fishing this imagery.

And then the other one has the mountain. These are images that make sense to the context of what we're talking about, but also an image that's not to the context of what we're talking about, but also an image that a man would be drawn to. That's right.

Yeah. And that's, that's very conscious. You know, the design choices behind color palette, font choices, everything, everything that we do is designed to appeal to everyone, but especially the men because they're going to resonate with what they see. Men are visual. I also had to ask the question, are women going to be behind this new approach? And so I had to explain to our ladies as well, Hey, look, I'm doing this and I know it may seem sort of one-sided, but do you want your husbands to be sitting next to you? Do you want your sons to be coming to church?

Do you want your grandsons, your nephews, your uncles to come, come to church? Yes. Okay. Then help me out. Don't immediately be defensive or think I'm here to bring some male chauvinist garbage. I'm actually getting your family here that you're very concerned about, you're burdened about.

So help me out. And I would say our women definitely helped and they supported me. And today many, many, many of them have their spouses, their husbands, their sons, their grandsons, their nephews, their uncles, whoever in church and it works. Now I often talked about the example, even of Jesus, when Jesus began to call people to his ministry, he called men. That doesn't mean for a moment that women were not there or women were not important to Jesus. I mean, so many examples where Jesus is talking to women, like healing Peter's mother-in-law, then seeing the widow whose son had died or a certain woman who had a flow of blood. I mean, these are all women.

And he took time to talk to them, took time to minister to them. And then there were women who were not that great, like the woman caught on adultery or the Samaritan woman at the well or Mary Magdalene. These were women who had a questionable reputation, but Jesus met with them, changed their lives. And then there were parables of women who lost her cause, or the 10 bridesmaids, or the poor widow who brought her might to the offering. So these are, if you really look at it, and anybody out there says the Bible is patriarchal or some gender hierarchy going on here, they haven't read the Bible.

Exactly. And they don't know the context that the Bible was written in because that was a time where women were considered to be second-class citizens. Because they can always say, well, for every one example of a woman who's shown a place of honor, there's like 20 men.

But you got to think about like when he was doing that. It was revolutionary at the time for Jesus to treat them with such honor and respect. And I would also say maybe it was revolutionary in some sense, but biblically women have always been honored. Women have always been, I mean, go back in time. It's Eve who's having a conversation with the serpent, but then when God comes, he doesn't say, Eve, where are you?

He says, Adam, where are you? I called you to be the leader. You were made first and you turned your back.

You failed in your duty. So there's a perfect example right from the beginning of a woman having value, and yet the men has been called to accountability. And then down the ages, you see same things happening with Sarah and Abraham or Rebecca and Isaac or Rachel and Leah and Jacob.

I mean, that women are always there side by side with them, with the men. If people are listening, what practical advice would you give them? Maybe they're listening, especially in a ministry context or just thinking about how to get the men in their life to church. What advice would you give them? I would say, for one, you need to have your belief system right.

Egalitarianism, which is, we're all equal and we have equal roles and we can do anything anybody else can do. Okay. Sounds good on the surface. For one, it's not biblically accurate and it has a lot of ramifications. It's like sitting on the branch that you're trying to chop off. So you're trying to get men in church.

You're trying to do that, but you're chopping the very branch. So stop and think, and don't look at the Bible as a problematic book or that goes against culture and our times and how we need to don't, don't stop, stop. If you think the Bible is the word of God, then it has the truth that changes lives for the better. It doesn't divide people. It does not demean people. It does not put women in their place.

It actually raises the value of women. So let's, let's come from the right presupposition. The Bible is the word of God, is the inerrant inspired word of God. Okay.

So it's going to help you not hurt you, which means let it say what it needs to say. Women are equal to men, but at the same time, God has given certain roles to women and certain roles to men. Let's not confuse those roles.

Let's celebrate them. Now with that understanding, let's bring some balance in our churches where men feel welcome, where we need to work on our language, where we need to work on our communications. It doesn't mean you have to like begin every service with like, like a caveman howling or something. I've seen people do that without proper research and prayer. When you jump into something like this, then you do dumb stuff, which really doesn't attract men.

No man out there goes like, I love the way he, he howled. I mean, that's, that's what I want. That's the church I'm going to. One or two will, and I promise you, you don't want those. You don't want those two. Those are not the ones you want.

That's not the audience. Yeah. You want, you want, you know, men who will come to church and see their lives change. And it doesn't happen by just trying to, you know, shout and scream and, and be rough and gruff and talk about hunting and fishing. Like, yeah, you'll get a tiny substrata of men who are into that, but not a lot of them.

Yeah. I would rather prayerfully think through and, and maybe doing the fishing and hunting thing is going to bring men by all means do that, but don't think you can just do gimmicks. I like the word you use because gimmicks don't work, but for so long, have a prayerful strategy of what you're doing. And then if that strategy involves having a wild game night, by all means do it.

If that prayerful strategy involves going out fishing all day or going, having a men's event or we had here a fishing event, we had all the major anglers who came in and huge names and bass fishing. Yeah. And, but we invited them in as well. Right. So that can also happen. But anyways, don't do gimmicks is what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do gimmicks. We, we did things that would attract men, but that was not what our church, that wasn't the foundation of our church.

Just do gruff things and people will come. Right. Maybe not.

Yeah. I appreciate that so much. I appreciate your heart behind that, Dr. Shaw in researching both men and women and figuring out how best to speak to both demographics and, you know, creating a church where people, both people feel like they belong here. If you guys enjoyed today's episode, if you have any questions or suggestions for new topics, maybe you'd like more information about how to get men in your community, more involved in church, send us a text at 252-582-5028. You can visit us online at clearveetodayshow.com. Remember to scroll down to the bottom, click that donate button and become part of our giving, our giving partners for our Clear View Today show family. We count it a privilege to serve alongside you as we reach the nations with the gospel. We love you guys. We'll love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear View Today.