The Pastor Who Helped Me Start It All

Welcome back to the show for caregivers about caregivers hosted by a caregiver. This is Peter Smith from Hope for the Caregiver. Welcome back to the show for caregivers hosted by a caregiver. Thanks for listening this Truth Network Podcast. Welcome back to the show for caregivers hosted by a caregiver.

Thanks for listening this Truth Network Podcast. A lot of pastors aren't comfortable with some of the things that I always thought, you know, part of the job of clergy was, you know, visiting the sick and the homebound and so forth, particularly hospitals, yet that seems to be changing a little bit for a lot of clergy members. They're outsourcing that. Have you noticed this trend as well? I would agree with you. It's always unfair to make broad sweeping generalizations, but I think there is a new type of, I don't really think pastors are the right word, a new type of preacher. And this will sound critical.

I don't mean to be unfair, but they want to write books and they want to be on the stage and they want the big crowds and a little bit of notoriety, which, you know, there's not anything inherently wrong with those things. But maybe what you're getting at, I certainly agree with, that the old fashioned pastor who visits the sick and who comforts those who mourn and who ministers to the lonely, kind of the hidden ministry, it's hidden. It's disappearing.

Well, I don't know why, but I do see that trend. Well, I know that in our case, you know, in fact, I think it was only appropriate that you gave us our membership vows thing while Gracie was actually physically in the hospital bed. We were in the hospital when you came over. And I thought how appropriate for us to take those vows of church membership while we're in the hospital.

Why shouldn't it be that for us? But you've been a pastor for almost 40 years. My dad has been a pastor for now almost 60 years. And this idea of going to the hospital, of going to the infirm, the shut in, that's not exclusively in the domain of the pastor, but the pastor sets the tone for how these people are going to be treated and their caregivers. And I'd like to hear what your thoughts are on some unexpected benefits to that pastor, to that preacher, to that minister by immersing themselves in the suffering of others in that role.

Because I think that there are some, and I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. What are they going to these young seminarians that are coming out and say, okay, look, yeah, the big pulpits and all the big lights and the books and all that kind of stuff. That's very exciting.

The great music program. But don't overlook this because here's what can happen when you do this. Can you can you kind of unpack that a little bit? I've got a couple thoughts. One is I think we as pastors grow.

You know, none of us have arrived, Peter. We're all we're all a work in progress here. And pastors need to be growing as well.

Coaches need to be improving as coaches, not just the players, the coaches too. And pastors need to be broadening and maturing and growing in their faith. And I think there's a great benefit that comes as we as we go where the pain is.

And we particularly for younger men who don't think about their own mortality very often, but to acquaint themselves with the one who has borne our grease and carried our sorrows by going where the pain is, by going where we're all uncomfortable. There aren't words to say. Peter, I have never felt like I did a good job when I was in a crisis situation where you want to wave the magic wand. You want to have just the right word or just the right verse or just the right prayer to pray. Every time without fail, I've left those situations and think to myself rather sheepishly, I just didn't do well. You know, I just didn't have that's that's a 100 percent of the time. That's the way I have felt.

But there aren't words to say. You just you just need to be there. And as you're there, you grow.

And I'll tell you another benefit. I think it makes your preaching better. I think as you walk with people that are hurting and you go where the pain is, you know, whoever goes to a hospital just for recreational purposes, people only go to the hospital when there's something bad going on. Like I say, the best part of a hospital is leaving it. But it makes us better people, makes us better preachers.

We're more in touch with reality. The relationship is strengthened. I've been in the hospital a few times. You've been there many times and gracing a lot, of course. Don't you remember the people that come to see you?

You don't always remember what they say, but you remember that they cared enough to show up. And that relationship takes another step forward. So I think it I think it helps the preachers grow. And I think oddly enough, I think it makes our preaching better. Well, and that's what I wanted to have on because I want you to be able to offer that and we'll put this out on the podcast.

And by the way, the podcast is free. You can go out to our website and hopeforthecaregiver.com and get this because I want young folks that are coming out of our seminaries to understand what this looks like. That this is not a drudgery chore, but this is an opportunity for you to grow as a minister. And I'm going to be speaking over at the local hospital here in Bozeman, Montana next month. And they're having they're inviting all the clergy in from around the whole county.

It's a special annual thing they do. And I'll be speaking to that and it's being sponsored by the hospital chaplain. And I have a real heart for these folks who are doing this because I get it. I've been on the receiving end of this, you know, more times than I want to remember and really more times than I can count. And so I think this is important.

I think you're right. I think it does change the sermons and I want these young folks so they don't have to come up with the great new cool sermon topic kind of thing. You know, Christian ministry is is hard work. It is it is rolling up your sleeves and getting into the ickiness of a lot of people's lives. And nowhere does that kind of present itself in such a way graphic ways it does at hospitals.

You know, I remember one time. Go ahead. Well, I just I want to be sure I'm not missing understood. We don't we don't visit the sick and the afflicted and the mournful in order to become better preachers or in order to grow more, but it's a sad benefit happens. We do it because we it's a it's the right thing to do.

And B, we hopefully we love people. We're we're shepherds of our of our flock. Jesus, you know, he he left the ninety nine to go to the parallel.

But leaving the ninety nine to go look for the one that was lost and straying and that I think that's a great model for us to show individual attention to know people by their names. Jesus said, my sheep know my voice. And so really being invested in people's lives. I don't care how big the church is or how small it is.

A pastor should be someone who has a real heart for people. And it just ought to be instinctive, really. I had a staff member one time that told me that I couldn't motivate him to go to the hospital. And he said it should be for him. It was like pulling his fingernails off.

And I never have forgotten that. And I wondered, I mean, he was very gifted, very gifted speaker and teacher and very well liked. But he just had an aversion to walking through the doors of a hospital. I'm glad he didn't say to Gracie because she would have said it was like pulling my legs off. So she would have said that too. Well, I remember one time I needed to hear that she, uh, she coded one time and it was, it was a pretty dicey situation. I looked over and she was blue and I was sitting there just, just reading beside her and, and, and all of a sudden I looked and she, she had literally turned blue and, and I got the nurses and everything called the code team.

And, and they, we, uh, you know, they, they were able to resuscitate her and get her, save her life. And as all this drama was going on and there were nurses in there and I was standing right there beside, I didn't leave. They didn't ask me to leave. They, I stood right there. They, they all knew me at that point. And I looked in the doorway and there was our friend, Larry, um, your colleague and associate minister there. And he just stood there and he just looked at me and you could just see the compassion in him. And he was my, you know, you, you two guys were my pastors. And then when they all left, they took Gracie down to intensive care from there and so forth. And as we're leaving the room, he just, he didn't, he didn't say anything.

He just put his hand on my shoulder and he just looked at me. That's right. And that's, that's all it takes. That's all you have to do is just, like you said, just show up. Larry was a wonderful, uh, Larry was a better pastor than I and would drop what he was doing and the twinkling when I, I remember one time one of our members was sick and, uh, in Murfreesboro, which what's that 30, 45 minute drive from Nashville.

And I went looking for Larry and, uh, he was gone and I found that he'd gone to Murfreesboro to, to see this man. So it was very inspiring. For him. And, and that's, that's why I know God gives us different gifts, but, um, somewhere in there at the very, this strikes at the heart to me of what a pastor is. He's not, he's, he's more than a preacher.

He's a, he's a human being that loves other human beings. And, and, uh, doesn't mean he doesn't have conflicts and his own set of struggles, but his calling ought to be to love those sheep, to lead them still. Waters and green pastures and, and, uh, to walk with them. Um, even in the Valley of the shadow of death, that's what our shepherd does for us. You guys were there with me as, as it got really, really dicey and you, you didn't ignore me in order to see Gracie. You saw both of us and, and that meant the world to me and it changed the way I look at a lot of things. And it's helped shape this show and the whole outreach we have with family caregivers.

I want to switch gears just a little bit because we had a tragedy in the pastoral world and that Jared Wilson took his life last week. And he was a young minister who was very open about his own mental health issues and his depression and so forth. One of the things I do on this show is I deal with caregivers who are dealing with somebody who are in relationship with somebody who has mental health issues. And I don't think we think of pastors being that way, but a lot of pastors do struggle in this area. They struggle with depression. They struggle with really hard things. And talk about that a little bit in your experience because you've been doing this a long time, Jim. Pastors hurt.

They are, you guys are people. You're flesh and blood. My dad's a pastor.

You're flesh and blood. And a lot of pastors feel that sometimes maybe it's a sign of weakness for them to reach out for help, professional help sometimes, but it's not. Well, believe me, we need a lot of help, sometimes professional, sometimes just friendships and relationships. But I fully understand what that young man, I've never suffered clinical depression, but I've been around people who do. And even without suffering clinical depression in the ministry, well, just in life, you know, the highs can be really great, really euphoric.

And the lows can be just devastating and crushing and more than any of us can bear. And one of my favorite stories in the Bible is, I don't think it's well known really, but it's around 1 Samuel 30. And David and his men have been off fighting somewhere and they're on the way home. And while they were gone, the Amalekites came to town and burned all their houses or whatever. They burned them all down and took the women and children captive. And I mean, you just read between the lines and David and his men are coming over the hill. They could probably smell smoke, you know, and they get home and the men are distraught. They assume, of course, that their wives and children are dead and killed.

They hadn't been, fortunately. But check me on this, but I think the Bible says David wept until he could weep no more. And in the midst of all of his personal sorrow, he had a near mutiny on his hands. The men talked of stoning David.

They blamed the poor guy for what those Amalekites had done. David has been off fighting a war and he comes home and he's got his own suffering, his own grief because of what's happened. And then here, his men are about ready to, as we would say in Presbyterian circles, about ready to have a session meeting. You can envision them tossing rocks in the air, forming a circle around David and say, boy, let's have a session meeting here.

We're going to fire this pastor. And it's a little verse, a little verse. David says to the priest, bring me the ephod, which was his way of trying to discern the will of God. And it says that he encouraged himself or he strengthened himself, depending on which version you read, he encouraged himself in the Lord. And I think that's such a beautiful, David was somehow able to read the Bible, as it were, of his day. And with all this chaos and all this grief he was experiencing and his own life on the line, he found a place of quiet rest. He strengthened himself in the Lord. And as he read the ephod, trying to discern the will of God, he said, boys, let's go get the Amalekites.

And battle weary though they were and fatigued, they hopped on their horses and went off and whipped the Amalekites and rescued their wives and children. So that's been a great encouragement to me that, man, all hell could be breaking loose around you, but you can find strength in the Lord in the worst of times. Our extremity, you know, is his opportunity. And I know you've been low and I've been a little off the job. Well, that's the message of this show right there, that particular passage, that we can do that.

It is available to us. It's hard work and we can't somehow just magically pull this out of the air. It is hard work to do it and it takes a great big step of faith to trust that God is moving, that the chaos doesn't have to go away for us to be at peace with what God is doing. You know, there's a hymn, How Firm a Foundation, and the words are, the soul that on Jesus hath lain for repose, he will not, he will not desert to his foes. That soul though all hell should endeavor to shake, he will never, no never, no never forsake. I love that hymn. I think it's How Firm a Foundation.

It is. And David had it. I mean, he was between the rock and the hard place there. Literally between rocks.

He was literally between rocks. Well, listen, Jim, this is why I love having you come on the show and it means a lot that you took the time on this. And I want you to just, we're going to have these conversations fairly regular because I am convinced in order to effectively minister to family caregivers, the church has got to be out in front of this.

And, you know, thank you for helping equip me for this. And thank you for helping me understand these things a little bit more because if the church is not out in front of it, who are caregivers going to listen to? The world? The governor of Virginia?

I mean, who are they going to listen to when it comes to these things? And so thank you for helping us just knock these ideas around. And for you pastors out there, take heart to these words. Go out and see the suffering.

If you're not dealing with suffering yourself personally, go see someone who is. It will change your life. It will change your understanding of the gospel. And Jim, thank you so much for being a part of this today. And it means a lot that you took the time to call.

One quick question. When I'm low, I saw a picture of this guy recently, a good looking guy on a horse looking out over all these mountains and things. Looks like beautiful therapy. I just want to know if I'm low, when I'm low, do you have a horse for me? Come on out here. We got a horse for you.

You remember that horse algebra from the little rascals with that big sway back? That's what we got for you. Hey, this is Jim Bachman at Stevens Valley Church in Nashville, Tennessee. And I put the website out on the podcast, StevensValleyChurch.com.

If you're in the middle Tennessee area and you need a good church home, I want you to go over there because these guys have cared for me for a long time. Listen, I got to tell you about this show is sponsored by Standing with Hope. It is the presenting sponsor of everything we do here. And Standing with Hope, Gracie and I founded this many, many years ago.

It was born out of her vision to provide prosthetic limbs to her fellow amputees. And that's what we do. We collect used limbs from all over the country and they go to a local prison in Tennessee. And it's run by CoreCivic and it's one of their many faith-based programs. You know, faith-based programs helped prevent prisoners coming back to prison.

That's the whole point of it. Lower that recidivism rate. And inmates volunteer to do this and we disassemble those legs all the way down sometimes to the screw level. And we take all these materials and then we ship them over to West Africa where we've partnered with the government of Ghana for almost 15 years.

And we provide these raw materials to them and we purchase other materials and then we go over there ourselves. And we've been training and working with them for years to help them better care for their own amputee population. And you see, if I give a leg to a man, he's going to walk. But if I teach a man how to make legs and equip him to make legs, hundreds are going to walk. But if we do both of those things while pointing him to the gospel, then they're going to be standing with hope.

And that's the whole point of this. And it's a great program. You can check out more of the faith-based programs at CoreCivic.com. They've been an amazing partner to work with and these inmates love doing this. Would you go out to standingwithhope.com today and take a look at it.

See what we're doing. See how you can be a part of it. And if you like what you're hearing on this show and if you find this message to be compelling and meaningful to you, and if it's like a cool cup of water to you as a caregiver in a dry and thirsty land, get involved with it. Sponsor it.

You can find links to the books out there. The podcast I said is free. There's music out there you can listen to.

You can download it. We've got the blog. We've got so many things we offer to fellow caregivers. See, our ministry at Standing With Hope is for the wounded and those who care for them. And it's personal to Gracie and me.

It is. And so when we did this and we launched all this and said, okay, we're going to draw from our own experience. Gracie draws from her own experience as an amputee. And she gives of her own journey so people can lean on the same hope that she clings to. And that's what I do as well with our caregiver outreach.

Hope for the caregiver. That's the book. That's the podcast. That's the show.

That's everything. Hey, Jon, we're out of time. Oh, well, I mean, there's always next week.

There is indeed. Hey, we'll have this out on the podcast a little later on tonight or tomorrow, depending on how fast I get it done. And hopeforthecaregiver.com. Thank you for spending a little bit of time with us. We want to leave you better than we found you. We hope you've been able to be inspired and even laugh a little bit. I'm Peter Rosenberg. We'll see you next week.