H.B. Charles Jr. on Pastoring, Preaching, and Trusting God - Pastor Well | Ep 13

[Music] hello and welcome to the pasture well podcast I'm Herschel York the Dean of the school of theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville Kentucky and pastor of the buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort the pastor well podcast is dedicated to helping those who serve the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ be faithful in their ministry I am absolutely to the death today to welcome H B Charles to our podcast and we're gonna be talking about preaching and theology with one of my favorite preachers H be welcome thank you it's the joy to be with you well men we tried to arrange this for some time and things kept to transpiring yeah but the Lord and His Providence has brought us together today you are the pastor a teacher at the Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville and which is I guess in Orange Park Florida right yeah if I got that right is it Orange Park we meet in two locations I got downtown Jacksonville and in Orange Park all right and you've been there since 2008 I have all right now the fascinating thing about your story though mm-hmm that just absolutely blows me away you grew up in Los Angeles and then and your dad was a pastor yeah of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church and he died suddenly he did he pastored that church for 40 years 40 and he took ill and very quickly the Lord took him home and I was 16 years old actually flying home from preaching a youth meeting in Detroit when he passed all right at what age did you feel called to preach as a boy I would say 11 years old mmm I it was an irresistible matter I knew that there was a burden call on my life to preach my father and the men around him reacted the way I guess they're supposed to react when the eleven-year-old boy says yeah he wants to preach and they let me do a five-minute thing at the end of a youth musical just to get me out of their hair and I showed up to preach and I've been preaching since that since a boy let me yourself you know I have a very similar story mm-hmm I was 10 yeah and I went in and told my dad and you know I knew what it was gonna sound like sure and my dad he just said her she said you know if God calls you to preacher in your 10 just say yes when you're 10 he said just get in a habit of saying yes to God and you'll always be in his will sure and you know I think my dad he wasn't sure if it tended that was gonna stick and here's what I really what God really wanted but his advice was great just just say yes to God I've been wanting to do it ever since my dad was very over joyed by my accepting a call to preach he believed that the Lord would use me life in that way but he would regularly say that he wanted the Lord to call me not him that's right and so he was if I may say just kind of hands on and hands off at the same time in different ways dear brothers and sisters I did have siblings and older siblings and a little sister and only preacher really yeah so when your dad doing the Lord took your dad home though what happened Jimmy that's what the church did sure so the the Lord took my father when I was 16 years old that summer the weekend of Father's Day 1989 and a year and a half later the church called me to be his successor I was 17 years old November of 1990 a senior in high school I was a senior at Los Angeles high school and I went to the meeting that night to vote and they mentioned that they were going to take nominations from the floor but I think they knew that there were people in the church who felt that I should be the pastor and my name was mentioned some people laughed and at the end of that meeting I was the new pastor of the church Wow yes sir how big the church was it it was a it's an amazing thing when I was a young man that age Mount Sinai was considered a big church more than 500 people on Sundays you know and over the years as I served there with the mecca churches we kind of just lived in the shadows of much much larger churches but it was more than 500 people but I don't care who you are 17 pastors Church of 500 yeah that's that's amazing it's the thing and yeah and did it go well I had a wonderful honeymoon because of two factors number one all I wanted to do was preach and number two all they would let me do is preach and the church was growing but they ran the church and as I am learning to preach and as I am teaching God's Word I started raising the questions why are we doing that why are we doing the other and I think I must have raised the wrong questions about the wrong things mm-hmm and around 21 years old and it got rough where to be honest I took the Sunday School class of a couple of teachers who refused to come to Bible study this just makes perfect sense to me yeah but you should not be able to teach Sunday School if you want to attend Bible study yeah that was not a logical thing in eyes of some people and so I it created a season of extreme conflict and I didn't think I was going to survive I did not know church politics I did not know how to fight my father's pastor it was a peaceful so I had not known this and I didn't think I was going to survive but I did and the succeeding years were peaceful and joyful and the Lord drugged me from that church kicking and screaming but giftedness and calling don't exempt you from problems they oh absolutely not gifting and calling I had old deacons in that church who affirmed my gifts and were determined to put me out they would I have heard of situations where in protest the frosted gets up and men walk out I had just the opposite they were set outside in the lobby and plot and then when I get up to preach come on in and hear me preach they didn't question my calling my giftedness my faithfulness to the scriptures they were just issues of power control leadership and leadership things that but I would say I don't talk about those stories often because I don't want to give the wrong impression outside of a few people I was in a church that loved me that is how I survived but I will tell you I don't also want to give the end oppression impression that this is some negative dark season in my life God taught me how to pray and how to preach and how to lead I look back and think about those days and no grateful for it yeah it's important that you're there guys listen to you right now that are in that they need to hear that and that the Lord uses that yeah form us to be like Christ you know if the Son of God learned obedience through suffering yes sir how much more does Herschel Yorkin HB Charles how much more do we need to learn the lay audience they're suffering absolutely God uses that you were there 18 years I was there 18 years Wow yeah and then you were called to pastor at Shiloh yes my non theological way of saying call to Shiloh is that the Lord drugged me to Shiloh kicking and screaming really yeah I didn't expect that I would be leaving the church that I served yeah because your dad had been there is a life he had been there and I expected to be there and I went to preach to fill the pulpit at a vacant Church on the other side of the country one Sunday they were clear we just need you to fill the pulpit we are not interested in you we already have targeted our guy and I'm good because I don't want to come here right and the Lord had other plans I'm grateful though he had other plans and and shadow had was troubled at the time right well so I did not want to leave where I was and if the Lord was going to send me somewhere I did not want it to be there the church was going through the aftermath of a moral failure and I remember the men flew out to LA because they felt it was the honorable thing that would win me over they just flew to LA and told me all the bad stuff that was going on they gave me the full story and they finished like you know we put all the cards on the table and he's gonna and all of this was just further present proof I didn't want to go in there not want to go that no way and I really the night I knew the Lord was sending me there I wept all night and I asked the Lord what did I do wrong that is how bad the situation was I thought the Lord was sending me to preside over the funeral of a church that's what I thought the future of that church was and again I was just gloriously wrong God had other plans oh praise the Lord you know Adrian Rogers told me about I think it was when he was called to Merritt Island that he went there and he talked about the trash laying outside the church grass growing up in the parking lot it just looked awful and and he said I knew he said God was calling me there he said there was they were like a sheep they were like sheep without a shepherd yeah and that resonated the thing that would drive most people away pulled him in they need a shepherd was it similar to that feeling that the Lord got you there where then these people need Shepherd as soon as I arrived it was it was my congregation the Lord made it clear just gave you their hearts and in a connected story once I announced my departure I recommend it really not I expected my preaching assistant to go to Jacksonville with me I recommended him the Lord led me to recommend him to the elders and the elders prayed about it and affirmed this so they are in Los Angeles announcing my departure and the vote for the new pastor at the same time and they voted for him to be the new pastor eight days after I left they flew me back to leave the meeting and I just feel like all of that was God's providential way it right in front of me saying this is no longer your congregation your assignment is in Jacksonville Florida and I just went home and to Jacksonville to the new city he had called me to in the new church and God when I think about it it is Philippians chapter 1 where Paul says I hold you in my heart yeah.that 8 verse the Lord just put a church in my heart the Lord put a city in my heart and it was almost just immediately that he did that and how many years have you been there I am in my 11th year now you know I watched you preside as the president of the pastors conference at the Southern Baptist Convention a couple years ago yes your choir came first of all oh my goodness Wow yeah what a choir yeah but as great as they are musically and they are fantastic what I love to see was there affection for you yeah I just saw the delight they took in their pasture the joy that they had as you presided mhm man that blesses me you have to see a love affair between a pastor and a congregation is one of the most beautiful things outside of marriage itself sure and I get to enjoy that you've been in my church and I love that immensely you know when you see a pastor enjoy that it's just uh it's such a happy thing a Providence of God that is so gracious my mother lives in Oklahoma City and when she left Los Angeles to go there she was caring for my grandmother she caught me and said I'm gonna take a job at a local churches the minister of music what do you think and I know a little bit of the story of the church and I told her that if you can't hang on for five years because it'll take them five years for them to begin to acknowledge you weren't the previous guy if you can't hold on for five years then it's not worth you doing it and I thought about that when I went to Jacksonville that it will take me years before they'll ever begin to get to accept me and I again was wrong the Lord took me to a hurt but loving people and in a real sense they they felt like the Lord calling me there was his sign that he wasn't finished with them and they just embraced me in my ministry and with all the ups and downs that we have had it has been a blessed experience separating that church how significant though would you say that your preaching of the word has been in that needing of your hearts together that the way the Lord has United you would you say that your preaching of the word is the major factor or something else it is an amazing thing I passed her 217 as a 17 year old boy and all they would let me do was preach and I learned the I picked this phrase up for Marcy's bro the powers in the pulpit yeah and the Lord was shaping the church through the pulpit i sat in the overflow section during church meetings while a moderator left the meeting but the preaching of his word has shaped it and 17 years 18 years later the Lord calls me to another church and in my mind you know I'm a young man still but I have two decades almost a pastoral ministry but it felt like a reset I went to a hurting Church they did not trust leadership and there were internal fights going on so even though now I'm at a much bigger church and from the outside looking in you got all these resources and all of this I was not able to do much and I preached I prayed and I shook hands and God was working through the preaching of the word I did not have much say I would say I was four or five years into my pastoring in Jacksonville before I got the reins of the church to make any significant decision to some behind the scenes but the preaching of God's Word was shaping the life of that church I remember if I made just real quickly I remember visiting there just to preach and they told me about the guy who come before and hitter he believes and elders and we'll never have a pastor to believes in elders and I was like yeah that's great I didn't expect to go there so god bless whoever yeah and I just taught and the Deacons were like pastor the Bible says this why aren't we doing this and so I was blessed to be with all of the challenges at a place where preaching was in season and I have seen God's Word work how do you preach do you preach through books sections of books series tell me how you strategize your preaching my general strategy for preaching is that I will do a New Testament book a series of expositions under some theme say prayer and then an Old Testament book theme New Testament book so I'm in I'm in a cycle of Old Testament the New Testament I'm currently preaching through the book of Mark take me a couple of more years my wife insists you'll be an old lady by the time I finish mark I appreciate through Luke yeah and know it I'm but I'm trying to do it in two years was a pretty fast clip but you're taking longer than that for mark I am well but you know what that gets down to how good you are in the pulpit guys asked me all the time how long can I preach and how long can I do a series and the answer is as long as you can hold their attention you can do it as it gets down to that yeah so what does your sermon prep look like how do you how do you layout your preparation how far in advance are you looking at a text and the week of your preaching was it look like so I I plan my preaching for a year and I part of the fall period of New Year planning and our church's life as me laying out my preaching for the full calendar year so I know where I am going I as a husband father pastor and other things I do I cannot be wondering where I'm going from week to week right I need to know I then the Lord is free to change that but I need to know I have to have a plan however I don't do the heavy exegesis until the week of mm-hmm that weekly preparation is a part of God's sanctifying work in my life so I I don't know how pastor survive who do their thing all week and then steal something off the internet over the weekend yeah it's it's a part of God's sanctifying work that's really so I am spending the entire week I I start slow when where I'm reading rereading doing observations I'm starting this because there is still for me a recovery from the previous week and then early part of the week I am meetings and those things trying to spend that time there so that by Thursday I'm doing heavy lifting Thursday and Friday I'm doing a heavy lifting for Sunday I am picky over the manuscript so I would like to say I'm done on Saturday but I'm not done on Saturday do you fully manuscript a sermon I I call myself a manuscript preacher who cheats my goal each week my goal for Sunday is to write out a complete manuscript word for word that I will internalize enough by Sunday that I only have to take my Bible to the program Wow do you succeed in that if you typically go up there with no notes most weeks I am NOT neurotic about it if I need the whole thing I would system preachers don't ever sacrifice clarity for style so if I need it I'm gonna take the whole thing most times if I feel uncertain about something I'm gonna take a half sheet of paper and I'm saying okay dude whatever you need you're only putting it on a half sheet so it is forcing me to be in the pulpit not chained to a manuscript I think the greatest sin of a communicator is to fail to communicate yeah and I want to be able to engage the congregation I would say a trick of mine if I may say it that way is that really I just kind of want the the progression of the text to be the roadmap of the sermon mm-hmm so it's not a bunch of memorization I made there's a detail of a quote or something like that in our illustration but really the roadmap is the next verse and if you kind of done your work and structure the sermon around the progression and content and meaning of the text I feel like it simplifies that yeah well I've seen in your Instagram feed mm-hmm you've taken pictures of of notes you do so yeah like and you sort of color-coded certain things then you take that in the pulpit with yours that's just for your study that is internalized that is my internalizing I'm I'm keeping that document said my book back here I'm keeping that document with me the whole week so wherever I am I have my wallet my cell phone and that document where I'm kind of just living your road map where I'm living with that text you got the Holy and how long do you normally preach I am allotted 40 minutes I would say 40 minutes no one not guess who lives with me thinks I preach 40 minutes I'm probably 45 minutes on average yeah but again you can preach as long as you can hold though yeah you know knowing him oh do you have multiple services we do so that keeps you on a clock in order then you can just have one yeah I have a hard stop and you know I had a pastor that came passing through town to visit with me and he asked me about the consecutive exposition and those matters and I you know I learned it sitting in the back of Grace Community Church in Southern California listening to John MacArthur preach and one of the things though I said you know doc would spend maybe the first 20 or so minutes reviewing where he had been yeah and I thought to myself this is great that this church is getting this kind of teaching if I try to do this I will empty my joint out back and one of the things I learned for me early and and at this point I recommend I feel like it's not a issue about this series and how long the series is each sermon needs to be able to stand yes and if the if that is a self-contained message that speaks to the congregation right in front that is not dependent upon you here in the last three sermons to make sense of this one there is a sense in which this sermon is speaking to the congregation in front of the shrine I think you can sustain that preaching to a book that's right but you are doing both things you're giving them the big picture like like in mark what is Mark doing with this story how about this story here absolutely but you're but you're not taking 20 minutes every week like reviewing show everything but you are putting it in the grand story of mark right you're putting it in the grand story and I think the the the knowing where this text sits in the progression of the argument so I felt like context is significant but the context should serve the text that's right it's just what why does mark tell the story this young man who runs naked yeah why is that there yeah why you know isn't so it's not merely you're not just preaching the story but what the authors doing with it absolutely and you do that extremely well what what role does your wife have in your preaching do you talk to her about it before you preach it after you preach it does she critique your sermons talk to me about your relationship with your wife and your preaching yeah so I talked to Cristal about everything so your voice softens why have you seen it all yeah the Lord has blessed me richly in gifting me Cristal I am talking to her about the message all week mm-hm and I enjoy the opportunities I get to preach away of course my favorite place to preach is my own pulpit hmm it is the most challenging place to preach because my wife is sitting on the third row and it just keeps me honest yeah she is going to ask me during the week where I am on the piece she's she has kept me from the time we were dating and I would ask her to go out with me on a Friday night and she said where are you on your Sunday really that is why your dating yeah she wanted you getting your work done before spending time with her absolutely so she I'm preaching it to her all week what do you think about this this is where I'm going with this and so she felt like she hears the sermon multiple times before sunday comes and I am going to ask her after it is over what does she think about the message and those are I don't know I've been married over two decades now they are they are critiques but I just feel like she has a good honest assessment and I just appreciate it it's not and you trust her I just I trust her instincts and I think she can tell me I think you she recently told me and I have not said this to my staff except a couple of people so we went through a period where we were in between executive pastors and so I am the default executive pastor and I am in meetings all week and I finished the sermon and that evening I asked her about it after my nap and she said that were great there were great points in there she says but but maybe I could tell you had not written that she says in there are many weeks I can't tell if you wrote it or not but it was obvious that you had not written it and that as you were standing there you were trying to talk your way clear as you were saying it I don't know if anyone else would have known that and I don't know who would have just the freedom to just honestly talk to me about it and it was a turning point I just I I went in the next elders meeting and said I have to find me an exit the pastor meetings and I don't feel like that stone to hear that it was just the truth yeah and I needed it and she she in she is God's gift to me in the sense that there are times where she knows where to be rough yeah and there are times where she knows how to gently I can tell me in town New York would get along well yeah what a grace of God to give us wives like that absolutely you have how many children three children in their ages nineteen seventeen and eleven how's it going oh boy my son is uh in college and I blame him for leaving me in the house with three women so I have three people telling me what to do all the time it's a joy yeah well praise the Lord man first of all I I will just use the word man I'm a fan I loved hear you preach I love you I love your spirit I love God's gifting in you you are you are such a blessing here at Southern Seminary your trustee mm-hmm also just what you bring to the Southern Baptist Convention mm-hmm HB God has nothing gifted you he's given you a grace that you show others you lead us in so many ways I just want to say thank you on a personal level yeah I like to conclude each each podcast with what I call the twinkling of an eye around just asking quick questions and you just get your quick response but there be a bell there were not reveled yeah just like they sort of know a little bit about your show do you follow sports I don't what what are your favorite sports or teams I am a sports fan so it doesn't matter man I just I love it I am a I am a lifelong I grew up in Los Angeles I am a lifelong Dallas Cowboy fan really I am now a Laker fan again that LeBron James is there and I a New York Yankee fan and I am an Alabama football fan and a Duke basket I guess what angle Kentuckians are now following the Lakers now the Anthony Davis is your favorite you have favorite secular authors any you read any secular authors not much or not consistently okay yeah favorite kind of music other than gospel I am outside of gospel Christian music kind of like eighties 97th ESRB what I grew up around when my father was not around what translation you preach other the English standard version well and finally if you knew if you could take your wife anywhere in the world tomorrow where would it be we have been talking about going to Paris and it hasn't happened yet but I trust this gonna happen so that's where we go well I know this isn't what you meant but we have a parish Kentucky if you can't make it process run across some water to get okay stop talking about well HB it's a joy to have you yeah as a friend as a guest on pastor well thank you so very very much I appreciate you immensely thanks for having me it's a joy well I want to thank all of you for tuning in to Pastor well if you've not yet subscribed make sure you do on youtube or on your favorite podcast app so you don't miss an episode I look forward to seeing you next time on pastor well

Channel: Southern Seminary

Views: 6,091

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Length: 32min 29sec (1949 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019