[Music] you're listening to Salty believer unscripted a conversation on Christian Ministry and the Christian Life this is salty believer unscripted I'm Josiah Walker I'm Brian catherman and today's episode Brian and I are taking a break from packing our suitcases uh we're getting ready to go to the CI and Trust Workshop uh in California and uh we're going to talk about I mean we we've done some online stuff we we've interviewed these guys but now we're actually going to a workshop so here's what I suggested uh Sor list ERS know that we should just sort of
to to document our trajectory through this whole thing by way of podcast so come along with us on this journey there you go and so what about the people okay so what about the people who are not preachers what would be the value of listening to this do you think I going I have some ideas what do you think we're going to talk about our engagement with a preaching Workshop that's in Southern California why should people listen well for one they could recommend it to their Pastor maybe there you go um but I think it's
a a great tool and a great resource to help you understand God's word and study it better if they were interested like doing online classes I'm just going to throw this out there and then we'll talk about what we're we'll get into it I think it's really helpful to realize what goes into preaching sure so a lot of people I mean I I remember hearing once Alistair beg talk about some critic he had that goes well I could just stand up behind that box and talk right and so B like well let's give it a
try and see how it goes like there's a lot that goes into prep it's not we're just not getting up there throwing around our opinions we're rightly handling the word of Truth which Paul encourages Timothy to do it's a scary thing you've talked about like you're handling God's word and it's God's bride that you're feeding speaking like this is a bigger deal than people think it's not and then they my wife gives me grief like oh you said this on accident yeah CU public speaking is a thing there's a lot that goes into this and
I think too based on our listeners based on your background you might not understand kind of what goes into preaching just based on your background cuz I mean you and I both preach expositionally yes you know and but I grew up in a kind of Pentecostal background and I know some of those guys would just get up and say well I just want to share what God put on my heart you know and when you and I to I want to preach what God put in his word and handle the word rightly and that's a
little more uh in depth you know I I Don't Preach that often I've got about 30 sermons under my belt and it takes me about 20 to 30 keep saying I've got 30 sermons under my belt for a year how many time I mean you preached you it's got to be 30 5 36 37 you're pushing 40 you got to be pushing 40 at this point but you're getting what 10 12 13 14 15 this year how many is it yeah I got about 12 on the dock of this year for sure plus we're trying
to get a evening thing going and get a bunch in there yeah all right cool but what I'm saying is I spend probably 20 hours a week when I prepare my sermons I mean how how many hours a week do you I would love to be spending 20 hours a week but at I try to make sure I get about 12 I don't say like I'm pushing but 12's about the ballpark yeah you know that doesn't include when I'm driving down the road thinking about things but like okay I've I've worked on the text for
a bit uh it's broke up over the week because I have other appointments I have things that I'm doing but okay I did this I have one whole day about eight hours it really is driven into the prep and then the rest has to kind of get around stuff but yeah about 12 because I've had to learn and hone the skills what you're doing you're meeting with people and your account of people so we're going to this workshop for those who don't know about preaching and to kind of hone our preaching skills yes uh together
with other pastors it's a 2 3-day event 2 and a half we have the schedule so it's a Charles semi and Trust Workshop so you can go to their website which is Charles S trust I think it's just Sim and Trust Sim trust.org if I was a good host I'd have that dialed in but and you can Google it but you can see all the workshops across the country they do different workshops across the country yeah um you are you doing the so they also do online courses we've talked about that and they do the
the Chicago course which we talked to jimy me about but we're not doing any of that right I'd love to do the Chicago course but I don't to Chicago okay so you've done you've done I've done first principles okay and found it helpful I did find that helpful and I noticed it's not necessarily a requirement to do that before going to the workshop right but you recommended it cuz you felt like it'd be really helpful to kind of have some of the verbage down I think that's the reason for the the course is here's our
overarching methodology and thinking about properly preparing and delivering sermons and so that's and then like even if you do the online online courses which we have people in our church who've done some they're 19 bucks you know and they're so valuable and that gives you access to it for like a year right year yeah and there's a lot of material they have a right of there's a lot there the first principles is generally honed into that first principal's class all the rest of the classes I think are coming out of some some Workshop lectures and
Seminary lectures and they are once you get that first principles done man those the biblical theology amazing the the persuasion amazing so you've done first principles I've done first principles you've done like almost every yeah I think we've done almost all um and then the workshop that we're going to they do these across the country and they're always like different topics different books so we're going through the Epistles second yeah Epistles is the the genre and the book they chose was second Timothy yeah so we'll go through the whole book I think based on the
Workshops the lectures the they do a demonstration so there's going to be some preaching to see the process demonstrated there's like some teaching it's helpful pretty cool so we're going as participants so we don't have to actually preach no while we're there no but we do to prepare two passages as if we were preparing a sermon yeah not with the whole homiletical you know every little detail but what's the main point there's a whole worksheet yeah they have that worksheet we got we got to fill that out we got some homework yeah there's some prep
work before we go out there and then I I've heard there's like small groups like some breakout sessions so what I'm gathering and I think what we'll do to help people really follow along kind of how this works if they've never done it is we'll just work through we so we have Robert Kenny scheduled he's going to be teaching our one of the instructors at our Workshop he's going to be in Utah and we're going to get him on the podcast so that'll be fun but uh and I think we're going to go to lunch
too so that'll also be fun but we'll get him to kind of explain pieces maybe somebody who's gone that sort of thing but basically from what I'm seeing on the information they sent there's some instructional sessions where we'll all be together and they'll teach on some principles of how to preach Epistles then then they'll demonstrate with some preaching I think or they'll demonstrate maybe like here's let's let's go through a passage of scripture which wouldn't be the preaching part and then we all work on that as a group then I think there's some examples of
preaching so you see that part of that text that be preached and we'll get to see that and then we'll be in small group sessions throughout the three days and the small group sessions each person in the small group cu the breakouts they've been assigned a passage and so it looks like from what I understand no two people have been assigned the same passage so like I would go through a section here's how I see it here's what understand the main principle of point being here's a melodic line here's the you structure and outline here's
the all that stuff right here's how I bring It Forward here's whatever's in the worksheet and then someone else will do that and someone else will that so by the time we're done we should have really done a pretty good job going through a big chunk or a good part of if not all second Timothy so pretty cool really intense a lot going on it's it's definitely an intensive deal what I found interesting was you know we're going to this deal and I think I think there's only going to be one or maybe two people
from the Charles Tean trust uh it looks like a lot of the the work is being done by people at the church that we're meeting at or at least people who've been meeting there I don't know for sure but yeah in the area or some kind of yeah yep and we can ask we can ask uh Robert Kenny when he's here like what's the situation with that so that's interesting what are you nervous about and what are you excited about like uh what do you start let's start with excited what are you excited about I'm
excited to really grow preaching that's something I want I want to really focus on this year and I've been reading books on that but I'm glad to see like a tangible way to just really comment and learn some stuff and gain some insight that way yeah what what about you I I am I really enjoyed sharpening the saw I think my preaching this last year has greatly improved just just by thinking about preaching and working through these and then picking up on a lot of the things they're teaching which has been so helpful but I
think I'm I'm excited about doing some of this more Hands-On with other preachers yeah getting some of that feedback hearing some of their take because I've been doing all the the online courses which is is void of others do it on my own and so I'm really excited about okay I want to I want to hear hopefully it's gracious and kind some feedback on my work I want to hear some other thoughts in the lecturing because on the online courses they cut that part out the lecturer speaks there a couple questions and then they they
you know the video says hit pause and look at the text yourself and then you play again you're like I want to hear what other people people are saying I want to hear how that goes and I do too I I want to hear what other people are saying but what's exciting you is what's making me nervous is I'm not really wanting to open myself up to to critique of my sermon outline and because I feel like I'm probably going to be the inexperienced Guy having like 33 and a half sermons under my belt 33
and a half like but I worry that there's going to be guys who are more experienced than me and I might look like a weirdo who doesn't know what he's doing well so I want to I want to speak into that for a minute especially for people who don't preach and and maybe don't think about this when you are preaching and you're rightly handling the word of God God Is Watching and and analyzing your preaching and so to have a congregation listening and hearing from the Lord through you and and Eternity is on the line
and there sanctification is a part of it you know I think that's a higher standard than having three other pastors that might be able to help me tell me something that's not going to be I'm not going to stand before God and give an account based on what I showed these pastors compared to in the same way as me preaching that to the congregation so I I hope you start to recognize wow these guys are in this too but I almost want to be more nervous and tremble more at the fact that I give an
account before the Lord so if these guys can help me to stand before God and give a better account to feed the congregation the word of the Lord better and that I'm welcoming that although yes I do understand like that that idea of like okay I'm going to going to hear a critique right in front of me maybe I've gone through it enough I'm going back to like I'm having flashbacks to my first oral presentation in class in 8th grade you know yeah every everyone's looking at you I know those things are scary but I
if if we really want our preachers to do well so I would say if you're listening to this and you're not a preacher you know go give your pastor $19 to say this is so you can take a Charles Simeon trust course not because I think you're a terrible preacher but because I want to keep encouraging and supporting you and then if they can go to if your pastor can go to a workshop help him go to a workshop I mean we're in Salt Lake City so I mean the closest one to us is in
California but some of these are really close to churches and stuff they do a pretty good job at scattering across the country I want to go to one that's overseas yeah that'd be cool I don't have the money for a flight but that'd be cool that'd be a little more than $19 but that'd be a blast um and then I'm excited too um cuz your son's want to be a preacher one day and and he's going to kind of tag along with us right and be a fly on the wall maybe yes I am so
so grateful for the Charles Simeon trust guys and you know I'm probably getting them in trouble or something but generally these things are are preachers right so if you're just wanting to go you know the the criteria is do you are you training to be a preacher are you a preacher do you have regular preaching responsibilities are you over 18 because there's a whole lot of feedback here but here's the thing so Daniel my 14-year-old at the time of the recording uh you know what do you want for Christmas what do you want for your
birthday what do you want to do here what do you want to do and more than anything on the planet he would just beg and beg and beg to go to a preaching conference with me sure like I cuz he wants to be a pastor he's uh training up he's doing a Bible study with some of his homeschool peers and I say home school peers not just my house but we have a right so but like he is really this is the trajectory he wants in his life and so so I reached out and kind
of kind of begged them can he just come he won't speak he won't do anything can he be a fly on the wall even though he's under 18 this is what he wants more than anything and they were really really gracious to to allow that I'm pretty sure we paid for him to go so we're still paying the registration think can't remember if they W that or not but I think they didn't and and I'm fine with that and then he even had toeach a sermon so he's preached a sermon we filmed a sermon like
he's training to be a preacher but they waved the age requirement but he's doing all the homework he's done three classes online so he did all the first principles with all the handouts and questions like he took it really seriously he's doing the homework going in so even though he won't speak or participate he's going to do the text that I'm also doing and um just because they've been so gracious I've told them you have to take this seriously he's preaching a sermon when he gets back at our senior adult luncheon from a text from
second Timothy like he's taking it very seriously so I very excited to be going on a road trip with him like that'll be fun maybe we'll have to interview him I can't imagine you know being 14 years old and getting to have an experience like this here I am 40 I'm trying to figure out how to start preaching right all I cared about when I was 14 was like my dirt bike bicycle dirt bicycle yeah uh BMX bike right and Super Mario had been out for about a year right so like that was the coolest
thing on the planet and that was it and he's like so dedicated and serious to this wanting to understand his craft and I he reads my sermons when we drive into church every morning he reads them out loud to me goes through my outline with me goes like he's very serious about this so the fact that they're letting him come I think is really pretty neat hopefully somebody someday you know when he's a pastor at a church and he's telling stories like oh because I went to this preachers Workshop so I guess I can't be
intimidated if somebody at 14 is is willing to step up and go just so serious about it right so awesome I think that's pretty exciting um I I like that we're traveling but I do kind of wish we were able to be closer sure you know uh I think cuz that'll eat that's part of the time we got to take a bunch of time to do that so that's a little bit un maybe that'll be good maybe that'll be bad road trip I don't know sure I mean yeah it's nice to probably get away but
it would be nice I feel like I'd go to more workshops if they were closer that's kind of why you've done a lot of the online things is because we're not really close we live in the west there's just not as much stuff the cities are all spread out yeah and that makes it tougher there's not a ton of uh Christians I know some would take offense to what I'm saying but there's not a ton of Christians in Utah or even in the west or at least uh those who hold to the Trinity who who
would hold to the Creeds and confessions we believe and then there's even less expository preachers you know that are preaching through God's word and so the the pool is less where we're but I would love to see and I would love to see a workshop here at some point who knows I don't know let's go see what the workshop looks like first find out so yeah and so I I don't know what what else any other thoughts before we kind of head out head that way I think what we should do now I I don't
know if they'll come in time based on how we're going to do the recordings because a bunch of them we're going to do there right sure I hope so isn't that we're hoping to do I'd love to be able to interview some people while we're out there I think if people would be interested to email us what's uh something believer gmail.com there you go they can ask questions about this um if there are others in our area that would like to talk about it more I guess I don't know people who've gone who might want
to give us some feedback I don't know I mean maybe this is just a terrible trajectory for a podcast series but I don't think so I don't think so I think it'll be good there's also if you're listening and you're not so if you're listening and you're a preacher I'm sure you're thinking hey maybe I should do this maybe I shouldn't maybe I should look into Charles Sim and Trust maybe I shouldn't if you're not a preacher there is a little book by let me think stall for me while I look for this book so
yeah if you if you've listened to our podcast before you've heard us interview some of the guys from Simeon trust uh if you've never heard those podcasts I'd encourage you to go back and listen to those find those um podcast CU they kind of go into more detail about the Chicago course on preaching and the workshop and uh just the different options that are available whether you're close to uh these things are not meanwhile Brian's going to keep looking for this book by I found it christop all very good stalling while I look for this
little book good job good job uh if you uh would really like to enhance your listening to the preached word this is a little tiny guide it's 30 pages long it's called listen up a practical guide to listening to sermons by Christopher Ash that's why it's easy to lose on your bookshelf it's it's not very thick super tiny yeah there's no a half hour right there yeah no this is easy but this is so helpful and I honestly think if your pastor or the one you're listening to and sitting under and preaching is regularly working
hard in the exegetical sermons I think being able to learn how to listen to preaching rightly will really enhance your sanctification your growth in the Lord I think that'll be really good for you so if you are listening to this little journey and you're hearing the work that's going into it I hope we don't uh miss the opportunities for those that are hearing yeah right but if you're a preacher if you're a pastor if you're in seminary I really I want I could not encourage more that you go check out these Charles Simeon trusting they've
been so helpful for me we are not sponsored by them as of yet I think they're sponsored no the podcast they do it's 9 Mar or something we're not sponsored by anybody but uh we just want to encourage you to check that out and then I think we'll try to do some on location interviewing maybe we'll do one in the car with Daniel see what his thoughts are going down as long as it's not the dri who's operating so but we'll see what happens come alongside this journey with us and and hopefully if you decide
to go go to one of these workshops you'll know what you're getting into cuz you came along with us and uh we'll let you know what we think maybe we'll see at one of those workshops if we go to another maybe we'll see you while we're down there uh either way until next time thanks for listening salty believer unscripted is a production of salty ver.com visit the website to find more resources like the podcast you've just listened to