Spiritual Leadership Conference 2017: Roundtable with Pastor Chappell

well I'm sitting here in my study today with three dear friends and co-laborers and Ministry of our Lord and we're discussing the spiritual leadership conference coming up June 11th through the 14th and very excited about the enrollment about the topics of discussion and teaching and most of all about the preaching from the Word of God and with me today of course is dr. John gash the executive vice president here at West Coast Baptist College dr. Mike Norris from the Franklin Road Baptist Church in Murfreesboro Tennessee and then dr. Jim Shetler who is also a vice president here at West Coast and and I think each of us working with pastors nearly every day pastors and training and preaching in the meetings we sense that pastors need encouragement that pastors need reinforcements and reminders all of us need to be challenged again and again repetitions the key to learning and so this conference has been used of the Lord in a very special way spiritual Leadership Conference has a three-fold emphasis first of all spiritual leadership we want to emphasize the moving of the holy spirit and the leadership of the Holy Spirit in in our local churches secondly soul-winning leadership we want to encourage leaders to be personal soul winners and to remember that Jesus came to seek and save the Lost and then thirdly servant leadership the Lord Jesus Christ humbled himself and took upon himself the form of a servant and many times and conferences and fellowships there can develop spirit that's more hierarchical in nature and and a ladder climbing mentality and we really believe that pastors and evangelists and missionaries all of us are the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ he's the chief Shepherd worthy under shepherds and so the conference has this threefold emphasis and dr. Getz let me ask you first of all as you preach so much and as you work with pastors evangelists training and out of the ministry what are some things that you sense need to be reinforced from the standpoint of a conference like this well I think the most encouraging thing for me as a preacher is to hear preaching and you just get around a conference like the spiritual leadership conference and you hear preaching the stirs your heart let's face it as we preach day after day week after week we can become professional we can become mechanical we can become stable and getting around a conference like this where there's strong preaching yeah I think that strikes me about the conference is when the Lord called the twelve disciples it says he called them to be with him right and it's interesting to me that he didn't he didn't say come come with me I'll teach you how to preach come with me I'll show you a method he said just just come with me and be with me and there's there's something about a conference like spiritual leadership conference where you know the Lord's there but then you're also with men and and women and people in the ministry that you're working with there's there's an iron sharpening iron there's an encouragement that takes place because you're around people doing what you're doing and and to me that's part of the encouragement of the conference is just being with people that are trying to do the same thing you are and finding that encouragement from their life as well amen and and people who maybe have different backgrounds at college and training and parts of the country but who have the same principles and convictions that relate to Bible preaching and soul-winning and servant leadership and and convictions and conservative godly worship and we're coming together around biblical principle to encourage and edify one another work and and like you said nothing like preaching to get that done our theme this year is by grace and of course grace is the inner working of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and without grace without a fresh anointing many pastors are not going to make another year to in ministry and brother Norris even in the Bible Belt there's so many things I know right in your own town there's there's mosques and there's so many multicultural challenges and from your perspective why is the grace of God and this emphasis so needed in ministry for pastors today well grace is a is a big word and sometimes even in our circles it's miss defined the Bible said that Jesus his ministry was full of grace and truth I think one of the things about the conference is this that is very Christ focused and the preaching gets people back to Christ Christ's ministry somebody said I was reading in my study today there was no greater life we have no more perfect life live no more perfect ministry than that of Jesus Christ I think the emulation of Jesus Christ and follow his example for the preacher and the young preacher is what's most important even older preachers need to get back there and in this conference Christ is exalted and I thought about how Christ was in a very poison culture more so maybe the Eyres and that's what we need we need to see on Jesus Christ related those people the people that would come to him that maybe wouldn't fit in with the rest of the designers how he related to them and this this dynamic is is finds its way and even the workshops of how you relate to the culture what religion people and I'm most impressed by you know the subject and the theme by grace as you said sometimes the definitions get a little squirrely and not biblical we certainly recognize grace is not permission to just treat the ministry however we want this ministry here this conference is not about redefining church it's not about taking Liberty with God's church we believe this is the Lord's Church and we do not believe that grace is our license we're not to use grace as a Liberty or an occasion flash but we also recognize this grace is the powerful working of the holy spirit within us and without that kind of grace we're not going to get the work done right yeah and and that's something that I try to stress so often because it's not a new website and it's not a great lighting kit and it's not a new method that's gonna bring God's power yes the Holy Spirit that brings that power that's why it's spiritual leadership conference and so we're not anti every new method there are the principles never change methods can come and go but when the method is emphasized over the power of the Holy Spirit we have a problem using and so the theme by grace I think comes back to that basic now really Shetler you know over the years you first came here as a delegate yes and and now you're you're a teacher and a co-host of this conference but maybe tell me one or two things that you look forward to for your staff for yourself yeah when you came as a delegate yeah pastor I tell you one thing that really helped me in the busyness of the ministry in the pastor it sometimes we get off-track I felt that when we would come we were all together as a church staff realigned again and what is most important and you know it wasn't when we drove down to the to the to the conference it wasn't like we weren't saying that so when he wasn't wasn't important we did but when we got here I think we all got realigned again on what is really important I'll tell you the other thing that was really good for me with this conference was my chance to mentor my staff and you know for the pastors that are thinking about coming tell to bring their staff right and I think I didn't have times lot times during the year but it's spiritual Leadership Conference I took time alone with my staff we prayed together we were in the room together and I'm out we got realigned we got refreshed we were ready to go again yeah you know one of the things pastors do is they'll sit down with their staff before the conference even and they look at all the topics that are being taught and to kind of decide who's going to go to what session exactly and then a lot of pastors will take the day after the conference go over to the Reagan Library go to Ventura beach somewhere and spend a day with their staff debriefing and and then writing out some goals and some priorities and this year we have such great opportunities for that kind of growth and I'm excited personally dr. Don Sisk is doing a lecture on the ten greatest lessons he ever learned in life and ministry what an awesome privilege to hear that dr. Bobby Roberson more than 50 years in one place I want to learn from him I want to finish strong and he's teaching on how to die to self and how to live the Crucified life I'm excited about that then the sessions I think of Gabe rule and Jerry four so who just led our church into the greatest outreach in the history of this church just this past Sunday and they're going to be talking about soul-winning and disciple II these are great opportunities great topics for all of us to grow in and I believe that a conference like this has the potential to totally change entire ministries or them for the glory of God dr. Getz as you preached in churches that are start startups and restarts and everything in between how would you encourage a pastor to prepare and and to attend spiritual leadership conference if he's coming by himself right you're thinking of a younger pastor right coming by himself I think it's important that as you prepare to come to a conference like this that you come with a heart that's open amen you know just let the Lord speak to your heart we need those times the Lord often took his disciples apart away from the busyness of theirs work and got him alone where they could recalibrate has this been said and I think if you come saying Lord you know what I need yes sweetie you know the message I mean you know the session that I need direct me to that it's always amazing to me when you preach this actually happened last night in preaching my main emphasis of the sermon was not what somebody got in other words they came up and said you know it wasn't even your message that spoke to my heart it was this little part that caused the Holy Spirit to touch on something in my heart and if you come with an anticipation of that Lord what do I need what is it maybe it's not maybe you need something very very minor as far as what pastor chapel might preach or dr. Robertson might preach but the Lord knows how to hit that button in your life if you have an open heart - yeah a lot of times all of us can attend a conference we're kind of sizing things up you know who are the preachers and what are they saying that for and you know this type of thing and I agree we've got to come with an open heart and and just expect God to work and brother Norris from the standpoint of staff you have a very large staff as staff come what are some things you're hoping that they'll have built into their heart through this time we do just exactly as you as you said them only good we look at the workshops trying to get guys in their their area of expertise so they can sharpen their sword while they're here but we really come with a heart of expectation and if I could just kind of throw in here our guys come back revived and I know this isn't revival when we look at it maybe as more educational and inspirational but I will tell you that even even the person that may be asking the question about why this guy why this particular thing as soon as you get in that service you get caught up in the spirit of all of it and even in the workshops just last year four or five of us were eating over here we had to make QuikTrip we couldn't make one workshop so we popped in one on prayer I've got the place is packed but with people that here's four guys it's been a ministry a long time we're in the one on prayer amen I mean revival broke out in that classroom that we can either just deeply convicted about our prayer life and I guess of the things that I took home was just sharpen myself up in prayer and so I asked the guys don't just look at that at the particulars of your area of ministry being a newsie be it Sunday school would but look at the spirit of what's going on in this and ask God to speak to your heart and bring out fresh ideas and a fresh spirit and as as dr. shatner said it was a huge shot in the arm for our staff it was every year amen our churches are autonomous they're independent baptist churches so you know we believe in the autonomy of the church and this is not about trying to elevate a particular cause other than the cause of Christ we want to respect the autonomy of those who at the end and we want them to come in here feeling as though they're God's men they're doing God's work and what can they learn from another autonomous church and to take what they can use and and mostly to be re-infused spiritually the the sessions on youth music counseling church administration all of those sessions are practical helpful but fundamentally the Word of God has to has to motivate us and that's that's the highlight of the conference for me as well brother Shetler what would you say to someone that's you know maybe never been here it's just a way of encouragement to come to the leadership you know thanks for asking that question because I kept on putting spiritual Leadership Conference off and you know what we could always find something on schedule and legitimate - you've got to make a priority it's you got to decide you know what I'm going this year I will tell you this after I started going I there's never been a Miss obvious on staff now but still but once we started going that was it and I think it's just the this year we're making it a priority and we're gonna do it we're gonna do it maybe the first year I'd have them to bring their wife - you've talked a lot about staff and it was good but be innocent master and his wife need to just get away for it as well but if they just one year would say alright we're going with amen we're gonna and if they haven't been for a while I really mean this I think sometimes with oh I did that like six years ago I was out of that Spanish Leadership Conference they need to come back again I just think it would be very helpful finally let me just remind all of the alumni of West Coast Baptist College that our annual alumni meeting will be held on Wednesday at the spiritual Leadership Conference and dr. Getz just remind the Alumni summer obviously brand new what are some of the things that we look forward to at that meeting well the greatest things to see how old people are getting but it is really a great time just to reconnect with friends and and students that you remember from your college days and what's exciting to see their families but our meeting itself is a highlight of the conference for the Alumni as we get together for that that meal and just some good fellowship and Shanna from God's Word a gradient from Pastor we honor some alumni that are out there and really we could honor them all a man as they're all doing a great job but we always honor a couple of them as a representation of what God is doing through their ministries amen harvest I agree it's one of my highlights is just to see the Alumni come back men and women that you know oftentimes are on foreign fields in different parts of the country really digging in and doing a great work for God and I hope you'll join with us I think you'll be encouraged to see so many classmates standing true to gods weren't being faithful and so we invite you for that as well once again we hope you'll be in prayer and looking forward to seeing you the second full week of June hundreds of pastors have already registered but we want those that really are seeking and hungry for revival those that want to come and fellowship learn and grow and then go back and put into practice what they've learned and the dates are June 11th through the 14th we will have a golf tournament on the 15th if you'd like to see some sights in Southern California will help direct you in any way that we can after the conference but we would ask you right now to do a couple of things number one would you pray for us as we're in the final planning stages I'm working on sessions right now on the grace of God in building a biblical church dealing with the ideas of outreach and assimilation and education I cover your prayers these men do as well secondly I would ask you to get your calendar out and mark it down and then thirdly go to the website you go to Lancaster Baptists org or SLE conference comm and get registered there are a couple of incentives there number one you get a seat closer to the front as you get registered and then secondly we have a gift for all those that register this month and then finally let me say that if you have a friend that's never been invite them encourage them to come and we'll look forward to joining together and just sensing the Lord work once again this June this is simply one church serving other churches for the glory of God thanks for taking a minute to hear from us and we look forward to seeing you soon [Music]

Channel: Lancaster Baptist Church

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Keywords: lancaster baptist church, lancaster baptist, baptist church, paul, chappell, paul chappell, pastor paul chappell

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Length: 17min 20sec (1040 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 21 2017