# 104. Officer Training w/David Hall

An episode of [Polity Matters](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1697383708), 7 Oct 2025, 35 min.

Audio: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2215222/episodes/17962830-104-officer-training-w-david-hall.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:04] SPEAKER_00: Well, hello and welcome to Polity Matters.
[0:07] SPEAKER_00: My name is Ben Ratliff, and I'm joined by my friend and yours, Mr.
[0:10] SPEAKER_00: Jared Nelson.
[0:11] SPEAKER_00: We are nearing the end of our time in the rules for discipline and are starting to line up some other guests to come in and just kind of help fill some time between now and we when we get into the directory.
[0:21] SPEAKER_00: So although we're not done with the rules yet, we have a special friend with us today to talk to us about uh officer training and just some of the some of the things that come along with that.
[0:31] SPEAKER_00: Just trying to think through practical aspects of our polity uh so that you know we don't just treat this as kind of a dry blue brick uh like it can be sometimes.
[0:41] SPEAKER_00: And so our friend today is David Hall.
[0:43] SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh I'm gonna ask David to introduce himself, to tell us uh where he is, what he's up to.
[0:49] SPEAKER_00: I know he's got some there's some like uh you know breaking news probably when this airs of something that's coming up that we want him to tell you about.
[0:56] SPEAKER_00: And uh anyway, David, we're we're thankful for you being here.
[0:59] SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for your time.
[1:01] SPEAKER_02: Thanks.
[1:02] SPEAKER_02: Uh it's an honor to be with you.
[1:03] SPEAKER_02: Uh I am the uh senior pastor of Midway Presbyterian Church outside of Atlanta, Northwest uh suburban area.
[1:10] SPEAKER_02: We're in our 23rd year.
[1:12] SPEAKER_02: Prior to that, I was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for almost 20 years.
[1:17] SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh so we've we've uh enjoyed long pastorates, which is not the plan or the norm for my generation.
[1:25] SPEAKER_02: And uh it's it's been a joy to be a pastor.
[1:28] SPEAKER_02: One of the parts of that, of course, is is training present and future uh officers.
[1:33] SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm happy to share with you about that.
[1:35] SPEAKER_02: Prior to that, uh I was ordained actually uh in the Southern Presbyterian Church in the main line in 1980 after graduating from Covenant Seminary in St.
[1:47] SPEAKER_02: Louis.
[1:48] SPEAKER_02: Uh prior to that, uh I was at Labree for a while.
[1:51] SPEAKER_02: That's what led me as a Methodist, dispensationalist, charismatic parachurch guy to uh a Reformed seminary.
[2:02] SPEAKER_02: And uh prior to that, uh my wife and I both grew up in Memphis, Tennessee.
[2:06] SPEAKER_02: She was a Catholic.
[2:07] SPEAKER_02: I was a Methodist, and we met at the University of Memphis, where I majored in uh all humanities and nothing that was ever employable.
[2:19] SPEAKER_02: So uh I'm thankful that I've been allowed to be a pastor all these years because I couldn't hold a job uh in anywhere else in the marketplace.
[2:28] SPEAKER_02: Uh so that's a little bit about us.
[2:30] SPEAKER_02: What's coming up?
[2:31] SPEAKER_02: It's not really breaking news, it's kind of old news, but uh we're uh thankful to host the Reformation Worship Conference uh October 16th and 19.
[2:38] SPEAKER_02: Love for any of your audience to come.
[2:39] SPEAKER_02: Many of your audience have been there.
[2:40] SPEAKER_02: I think that's I think I'm right, Jared.
[2:41] SPEAKER_02: I think that's where I met you first.
[2:44] SPEAKER_02: I think you uh were were tagging a little bit.
[2:47] SPEAKER_01: Well David Gordon has been down there before, so it it was either there or uh another I don't make it to many conferences, but uh it would have been a while ago.
[2:56] SPEAKER_02: I hate those things too.
[2:57] SPEAKER_02: But but I'm sorry, scratch that.
[2:59] SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm I'm in the north, so uh you don't you don't bring a lot of conferences up north, so yeah.
[3:04] SPEAKER_01: So if they want to come to your conf the conference, uh what day is it?
[3:07] SPEAKER_01: Uh can they come and just register at that day?
[3:11] SPEAKER_02: 48 hours Thursday noon.
[3:12] SPEAKER_02: Basically, we start at one o'clock until Saturday noon uh with an option to stay over Sunday.
[3:19] SPEAKER_02: We have great preachings.
[3:20] SPEAKER_02: Our Lord's Day service will start with combined Sunday school, a lecture from Carl Truman, uh preaching in the morning service by Neil Stewart from First Press Columbia, uh, followed by a joint Presbyterian worship service that evening with Bob Godfrey preaching.
[3:37] SPEAKER_02: So we we have a lot of our stalwarts back.
[3:40] SPEAKER_02: Uh all of the information is on the midwaypca.org website, top right tab for the Reformation and Worship Conference.
[3:47] SPEAKER_02: And uh we'd we'd love to uh welcome any friends or any guests.
[3:50] SPEAKER_02: We've done this for about 15 years with a three-year hiatus around COVID.
[3:59] SPEAKER_02: And uh last year we held the conference in Savannah, and we have a home and away uh uh uh schedule with Savannah Independent Press uh for four years.
[4:10] SPEAKER_02: This is year three of that experiment to see how that works.
[4:13] SPEAKER_02: But it was always our always our plan early on to rotate the locale uh of the conference.
[4:19] SPEAKER_02: It was originally going to be Atlanta one year, Savannah one year, and Columbia, South Carolina, back when uh Dr.
[4:24] SPEAKER_02: Old Hughes Old was uh alive.
[4:26] SPEAKER_02: He was part of the early foundation of this.
[4:29] SPEAKER_02: So we uh we've got things going on, and um it's a pleasure to talk with you, but enough about me.
[4:35] SPEAKER_01: Well, I took uh class actually when I was in Dallas.
[4:39] SPEAKER_01: Uh they were offering one at it was uh at that point, Westminster, Dallas, with Hughes Oliphant Old.
[4:45] SPEAKER_01: And so I actually got to take a class on reformed worship from Hughes Oliph and Old.
[4:48] SPEAKER_01: So that was uh that's a a special thing.
[4:51] SPEAKER_01: And and now your conference is um that's a hot topic, I think, because the directory for worship uh is um possibly going to be a part of our uh uh our BCO in the future.
[5:03] SPEAKER_01: Did you ever think that you would live to see where there's a real possibility that we might have a directory for worship that's constitutional?
[5:11] SPEAKER_02: Uh no, I didn't, and I'm not sure.
[5:13] SPEAKER_02: I still uh envision that.
[5:14] SPEAKER_02: But uh Terry Johnson, who uh likes to think he's funny, has uh entitled uh one of his uh breakout sessions, Why the PCA Needs One Big Beautiful Directory for Worship, uh riffing off of President Trump's one big beautiful bill.
[5:37] SPEAKER_02: Uh so I even gave Terry a chance to change that title, but he's sticking with it.
[5:40] SPEAKER_02: Why the PCA Needs One Big Beautiful Directory for Worship.
[5:44] SPEAKER_02: Uh so Terry will do a good job discussing that.
[5:49] SPEAKER_01: All right.
[5:50] SPEAKER_01: Well, the topic we're going to talk about today is uh officer training.
[5:54] SPEAKER_01: And uh I was looking through my old books and I found I have two copies of your book uh for officer training.
[6:01] SPEAKER_01: One of them had a co-author, he apparently fell off of there.
[6:04] SPEAKER_01: And uh then I have another one that's marked up, I think, from when I uh was preparing for ordination.
[6:10] SPEAKER_01: Um how did you come to write a book on officer training?
[6:13] SPEAKER_01: Why did you put this out there?
[6:15] SPEAKER_02: Well, first an explanation about the co-author, his name dropped dropped off.
[6:19] SPEAKER_02: Mark Buckner was a ruling elder uh in our church in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
[6:24] SPEAKER_02: Uh he still is, very fine guy.
[6:27] SPEAKER_02: Uh and he helped me on the first edition.
[6:29] SPEAKER_02: And whenever I moved down here, because it's not a money-making proposition, and he's a PhD in physics.
[6:38] SPEAKER_02: Um, he doesn't need that for his resume.
[6:40] SPEAKER_02: Uh, when I would do a revision, I just dropped his name.
[6:43] SPEAKER_02: Um, but uh that's why uh the earlier editions have two names.
[6:48] SPEAKER_02: Uh the reason I did it, and and most of this, Jared, is most of this is I I could show you probably somewhere in my file cabinets.
[6:56] SPEAKER_02: Back in the day when you would do it, officer training, you'd have little handouts and you would mimeograph them and copy them and give them out.
[7:03] SPEAKER_02: And over about almost 20 years in our our pastor in Tennessee, I realized that I accumulated a whole lot of handouts.
[7:12] SPEAKER_02: And uh I I I was repeating myself and I thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if I could just give this?
[7:16] SPEAKER_02: In fact, we earlier did uh a video recording of that and provided that.
[7:21] SPEAKER_02: Uh which the goal of that was just to give you an officer training module in a box.
[7:26] SPEAKER_02: So you have the written material and uh recorded lectures.
[7:30] SPEAKER_02: Uh, but we we dropped the lectures.
[7:32] SPEAKER_02: Um but i i there's a need for that in the church.
[7:35] SPEAKER_02: There's always going to be a need for the church.
[7:37] SPEAKER_02: My background, as I interrupt myself, in the southern president church, they had a crazy process that allowed elders or deacons to be elected and then trained later.
[7:56] SPEAKER_02: So we would we would frequently in the Southern Presbyterian Church elect elders and in the training process find out they didn't they didn't embrace anything in the confessional standards.
[8:08] SPEAKER_02: So it's just much better.
[8:11] SPEAKER_02: One of my predecessors here, a man named Todd Allen, who was actually one of the founders of the PCA, um proposed an amendment to the BCO that required officer training on the front end.
[8:24] SPEAKER_02: But that didn't that wasn't part of the original uh PCA uh ethos.
[8:29] SPEAKER_02: It makes all the sense in the world.
[8:30] SPEAKER_02: So now you you guys, everything you've seen in your whole ministerial life, you see the BCO prescribes nomination, uh training, and then election.
[8:41] SPEAKER_02: That wasn't always there.
[8:43] SPEAKER_02: First 15 years or so of the PCA.
[8:45] SPEAKER_02: There was no requirement to have officer training.
[8:47] SPEAKER_02: Most of us discovered that the hard way.
[8:49] SPEAKER_02: And if you get a couple of elders on session, they might be very popular, might be very dynamic individuals, uh, but they don't uh work for the same playbook, then you're gonna have nightmares.
[9:00] SPEAKER_02: So officer training is to to take a season.
[9:03] SPEAKER_02: Some some churches I know do this in much more detail, uh, some in less, but uh whatever the amount you you really should do a good job.
[9:13] SPEAKER_02: We require that.
[9:14] SPEAKER_02: So every officer in our church uh goes through this.
[9:17] SPEAKER_02: And then at the end we we actually do the book has some sample written exams, we give written exams and our session interviews, and we have a questionnaire, and that saves time so that all the elders can uh get some statements in writing, similar but on a lower level to what you would do for say licensure uh as a as a pastor.
[9:39] SPEAKER_01: So a couple of questions on that.
[9:41] SPEAKER_01: Like if somebody's listening to this and they're thinking about uh starting officer training, uh first uh time period, and then I'm gonna ask uh content.
[9:49] SPEAKER_01: But time period, how long do you think it takes to do officer training uh for someone if before election or before nomination, perhaps?
[9:58] SPEAKER_01: Or uh do you have a thought on the order there?
[10:01] SPEAKER_01: Are you nominated and then trained and then elected, or should you do training and then you're eligible for nomination and then elections?
[10:07] SPEAKER_01: You can do thoughts on timing.
[10:09] SPEAKER_02: You do it either way, it depends on the congregation, but as far as time, I think you should allow a minimum of of uh eight to ten weeks.
[10:19] SPEAKER_02: Uh the manual that that I produce uh can easily be broken up into eight-week installations of about an hour and 15 minutes each, or it can be 12 uh segments of say 45 minutes to an hour.
[10:33] SPEAKER_02: So that that's a minimum, and and again, some churches do this with much more detail and do a far better job.
[10:40] SPEAKER_02: Uh but this covers the water side.
[10:42] SPEAKER_02: And uh in my uh approach and manual, about a about 50% of the course is an overview of the Westminster Confession.
[10:52] SPEAKER_02: So you you can tell there's not tons of depth, but it's important, particularly ministering in the South, uh, to cover some of the distinctives.
[11:00] SPEAKER_02: And then a quarter of the book is on the BCO.
[11:04] SPEAKER_02: And then the last quarter is on PCA history and a lot of very practical things.
[11:09] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I see six sessions here, and they can be broken up into A's and B's and um do a little bit more than that.
[11:16] SPEAKER_01: Uh and this is on the um the the the kind of paperwork uh side of things.
[11:23] SPEAKER_01: Now, to be an elder, you should be apt to teach.
[11:26] SPEAKER_01: Uh how do you see this fitting in with looking at how do you evaluate then uh maybe they know the Westminster Confession, how would you evaluate this training with character or shepherding skills?
[11:39] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's one of the weaknesses of uh my particular book, even though uh in writing I stress those aspects, you simply cannot do those things in a short period of time, in three months.
[11:54] SPEAKER_02: Those are the more important parts, I will say.
[11:58] SPEAKER_02: Uh in fact, at one of our worship conferences several years ago, and these are all online, you can find them somewhere.
[12:04] SPEAKER_02: Uh Carl Truman did just a phenomenal uh presentation that didn't have anything ostensibly to do with worship or with his writings, but from 1 Timothy 3 about the character that is necessary for the elders.
[12:17] SPEAKER_02: Uh in one of my early chapters of the officer training manual, I paraphrased a lot of Samuel Miller, who did something similar, stressing sort of the generic uh character instead of the details.
[12:27] SPEAKER_02: Uh the apt-to-teach qualification has to be observed.
[12:30] SPEAKER_02: It that should be observed and already in place uh for elders.
[12:35] SPEAKER_02: It's not a qualification for deacons.
[12:37] SPEAKER_02: Uh but deacons, uh, according to Titus I are also to know uh more than just the elementary truths, the deep things, and to be able to defend those.
[12:47] SPEAKER_02: So there's there's a doctrinal requirement for an officer in the Presbyterian Church, but that just scratches the surface.
[12:55] SPEAKER_02: Matters of of family life, character, piety, evangelism, um, uh ability to relate to uh a diversity of ages and backgrounds in a congregation, uh all of those things are much more difficult to discern and and really just take a long time.
[13:11] SPEAKER_02: There's no short formula.
[13:13] SPEAKER_02: Uh I don't think you can create a test or or or give any kind of litmus for that.
[13:17] SPEAKER_02: That's why we do require that anyone who takes our training be a member uh at least for one full year, which may sound short, but we elect officers every two years.
[13:30] SPEAKER_02: So in in practicality, you have to be a member at least two years.
[13:35] SPEAKER_02: And um some new churches that would be fine, but in our particular church, we want our our officers to be known in the congregation, to be respected, particularly for the office of elder who are going to be shepherding.
[13:51] SPEAKER_02: Uh they have to have have a track record that the congregation, when they vow to submit and support the new officers, they need to be able to know uh who they're submitting to and who they're supporting.
[14:03] SPEAKER_02: So those those matters of character, um I I I I will just tell you my particular book doesn't help that much on that.
[14:12] SPEAKER_02: Uh and yet it's it's hugely important.
[14:14] SPEAKER_02: It it it's it's more important.
[14:16] SPEAKER_02: I've said for years that if I have an elder who's who's as theologically sharp as both of you put together, but he never wants to pray, and he doesn't really have a zeal to come to worship and bring others, uh, I would put the theologian on the bench and find a more humble man uh whose character was proven.
[14:38] SPEAKER_02: Uh raising our our families is is one of those things.
[14:42] SPEAKER_02: And if anybody's listening, whenever you do a pastoral search, I've I've latched on just this year to the phrase, and Ben, you probably heard this at Greenville that the best or worst part of your resume is your own children.
[14:55] SPEAKER_02: I mean, the tons tons of things are explained about uh an officer.
[15:00] SPEAKER_02: Uh and that's a high standard.
[15:02] SPEAKER_02: So character, uh the person needs to be known, he needs to have proven gifts.
[15:08] SPEAKER_02: Uh, I don't I'm not one who believes that you ordain and solomane and then prove his gifts, they should already be observable, and the congregation uh should already be able to have confidence in all of those character matters.
[15:21] SPEAKER_01: Is that something of a role for the other uh elders and deacons, perhaps, is to keep an eye out for those that are doing those things?
[15:28] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've I've often heard that, you know, how do you find new elders and deacons?
[15:32] SPEAKER_01: Well, look, who's seems to already be doing things like elders and deacons do?
[15:36] SPEAKER_01: Um you know, offering to pray, teaching in Sunday school, um, especially younger ones, um, you know, the guy that's at the church all the time helping to set up and and fixing things.
[15:45] SPEAKER_01: Um is that a way that you can get some of your existing ruling elders and deacons involved, or do you also have them involved in in teaching and training?
[15:53] SPEAKER_02: Uh I pretty much do the teaching and training, but but our elders teach, most of our elders teach the Sunday school classes and in other groups.
[16:03] SPEAKER_02: Again, that's part that's part of the office.
[16:05] SPEAKER_02: Teaching and shepherding are are the two most essential things.
[16:08] SPEAKER_02: And if a man comes to me and says the most essential part of the eldership is governing, then I'm gonna have all kinds of red flags go up.
[16:17] SPEAKER_02: The most essential parts of the eldership are shepherding, caring for people and teaching.
[16:22] SPEAKER_02: I I've I've actually had elders who sit on the session who said, Well, yeah, I'm called to be an elder, but I'm not gonna take a shepherding group and meet with them.
[16:30] SPEAKER_02: I'm too busy.
[16:31] SPEAKER_02: I'm going, uh, then you know, you you probably should do something else.
[16:36] SPEAKER_02: Because that's at the heart of what we do.
[16:39] SPEAKER_02: But yeah, you see it.
[16:41] SPEAKER_02: Look for proven fruit.
[16:44] SPEAKER_01: So when you're training, how do you prepare them for the things that they're not expecting?
[16:48] SPEAKER_01: Like maybe they weren't expecting to do shepherding or discipline.
[16:52] SPEAKER_01: Um, how do you, in a sense, do some boot camp with with officers and get them ready for the things that they didn't know to expect?
[17:03] SPEAKER_02: Well, you do the best you can in the time you have.
[17:06] SPEAKER_02: I go over the rules of discipline, the directors for worship uh in part of our course, and try to give them I always tell them that in my particular manual, there are three layers of information you're gonna get on every topic.
[17:20] SPEAKER_02: First, you're gonna get some biblical instruction, and then secondly, you're gonna get some historical or constitutional layer, and then thirdly, you're gonna get a practical layer.
[17:32] SPEAKER_02: So when we go over the rules of discipline, for example, I I want them to know more importantly than where every paragraph is, and I always tell them the most important page in the BCO is the index.
[17:46] SPEAKER_02: You don't have to know everything, but you have to know where to find it.
[17:50] SPEAKER_02: And so the the most important thing is to be able to do that, but more important, it's our officers need to know why we have rules of discipline, why we have things in the directory for worship.
[18:03] SPEAKER_02: And I I think you spend more time laying the biblical foundation for that.
[18:07] SPEAKER_02: And then uh the the particular manual that that that I have put together also draws on a lot of historical resources, sort of a highlight reel of some of the best snippets.
[18:18] SPEAKER_02: You know, we've got John Murray, for example, on Westminster Confession Chapter 3, uh short thing.
[18:23] SPEAKER_02: I've got a sermon by Spurgeon in there on election.
[18:26] SPEAKER_02: So you you put all of these things together so that the officer doesn't have to search long and hard.
[18:32] SPEAKER_02: By the way, I'll tell you, Ben, uh almost everything, almost every book I've ever written uh would not be written today because nearly everything I've ever written uh was written because some of those resources were not available.
[18:46] SPEAKER_02: Now everything's available.
[18:48] SPEAKER_02: So, you know, my big book, Paradigms and Polity, it's all it's all it's on the web today.
[18:54] SPEAKER_02: You just do a Google search or an AI search and you can get everything.
[18:58] SPEAKER_02: But 30 30 years ago, yeah, a long time ago, that stuff, hardly anything in that book, Jared, was available.
[19:04] SPEAKER_02: You had to go to libraries in Europe to find some of those some of those things.
[19:09] SPEAKER_02: Um so you can you can find that information, uh and we have a historical layer, but the practical part's important.
[19:15] SPEAKER_02: And and back to your question, how do you prepare men?
[19:18] SPEAKER_02: Uh I end up, and and a lot of my last lesson is, guys, this is gonna be really hard.
[19:24] SPEAKER_02: And if you don't want to be in the crosshairs of Satan, uh don't do this job.
[19:31] SPEAKER_02: Because if you come onto the session, you can pretty much bet you're gonna be the center of spiritual warfare.
[19:37] SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be hard.
[19:38] SPEAKER_02: You're gonna lose friends, you're gonna have to deal with things you don't want to deal with.
[19:42] SPEAKER_02: Uh it's it's really, really hard work to be an elder in any local church.
[19:49] SPEAKER_02: Um, Jerry try to at least give them that that warning.
[19:54] SPEAKER_00: Uh how would you counsel uh like a young minister, perhaps, um, you know, late twenties, early thirties, he's in a call, s solo pastor situation.
[20:04] SPEAKER_00: D he's got elders, he's maybe even trained these elders, they're installed, and they're not really latching on to some of the significant aspects of of the ministry, but they are the officers he has.
[20:15] SPEAKER_00: How how do you counsel a guy like that?
[20:17] SPEAKER_00: He's younger than them, he he f he feels like he's up against a wall, you know, between a rock and a hard place.
[20:23] SPEAKER_00: You got any wisdom that you would dispense to a man like that?
[20:27] SPEAKER_02: We we patiently uh teach in season, out of season.
[20:32] SPEAKER_02: Uh we uh try to win, as it says in Second Timothy two, those who disagree with us.
[20:39] SPEAKER_02: And uh as a pastor you have an advantage that that few other people ever have, and that week in and week out you're you're preaching from the pulpit, you're teaching in Sunday school.
[20:51] SPEAKER_02: And I I think churches change often over a long period of time.
[20:56] SPEAKER_02: Uh in with the cumulative effect of hearing a lot of sermons, and and face it, we don't get it the first ten to twelve times.
[21:05] SPEAKER_02: So I think you have to be very faithful in the in your pastoral office to preach often.
[21:10] SPEAKER_02: And I also think you you have to draw a contrast.
[21:14] SPEAKER_02: It's it's part of our job to and and this is not in a mean-spirited way, i i it's not making fun of of another denomination or tradition.
[21:25] SPEAKER_02: But we have to draw the contrast and and be able to say in our in our teaching and preaching ministry, and here's why we do this.
[21:34] SPEAKER_02: And it has to be done over and over and over again.
[21:38] SPEAKER_02: And after a while, people get it, and a lot of people love Presbyterianism and Reform faith because they're coming from from bad backgrounds, either dysfunctional in polity, you know, maybe they come from like a Mars Hill church or they come from a charismatic church where there's been no order, there's been no no no no regularity and assurance, and so they love.
[22:00] SPEAKER_02: Love some of the uh fixed nature of of Presbyterianism.
[22:05] SPEAKER_02: Uh who is it?
[22:06] SPEAKER_02: I know it's in another podcast I did with with the reform reform guys, when I I think it was Carlton Wynn who said what one of the things he tries to teach is that Presbyterian worship is calm.
[22:18] SPEAKER_02: And that just really resonated with me.
[22:19] SPEAKER_02: I thought that's a good that's a good sound bite.
[22:21] SPEAKER_02: It's it's not disorderly, it's not chaotic, it's not frenzied.
[22:26] SPEAKER_02: And uh the the the close uh synoptic term for that would be boring.
[22:32] SPEAKER_02: And we don't think it's boring, but it's but it's but it's calm.
[22:35] SPEAKER_02: So we we have to draw this contrast, uh, and you have to do that with your officers.
[22:39] SPEAKER_02: And you don't just do it from the lectern.
[22:41] SPEAKER_02: You have lunch with these guys, you have coffee with these these men, you you're in their homes, they're in your home, and you talk about these things.
[22:50] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[22:50] SPEAKER_01: Well what do you include now that when you first wrote your first manual and you first started doing officer training that you go over now that wasn't maybe necessary 20 years ago, or you it was necessary and you've learned to include it now.
[23:04] SPEAKER_01: Uh what do you think that people should be thinking about with with uh officer training now that they haven't in the past?
[23:11] SPEAKER_02: I I have uh de-emphasized uh the latter part of the manual.
[23:17] SPEAKER_02: I do far less on PCA history than I used to.
[23:22] SPEAKER_02: A little bit.
[23:23] SPEAKER_02: It's important to know.
[23:24] SPEAKER_02: I used to have a section of new members' classes of PCA history.
[23:29] SPEAKER_02: And uh I I've just learned that, you know, that that's something we learn as we go.
[23:33] SPEAKER_02: It's not unimportant, but they're far more important priorities.
[23:38] SPEAKER_02: Uh I, in the particular location I'm in, and I thank the Lord for this, in this particular PCA church in the Deep South, we don't have a whole lot of controversy over the doctrine of predestination or infant baptism.
[23:52] SPEAKER_02: That's rare.
[23:54] SPEAKER_02: Most PCA churches in the South are dealing with that week in and week out.
[24:00] SPEAKER_02: That happens to be just a function of this.
[24:02] SPEAKER_02: The other thing I've changed, Jared, is too, go back to my new members' classes, similar to the officer training.
[24:07] SPEAKER_02: I think both of those are absolutely necessary.
[24:09] SPEAKER_02: You will you will not see reform in your church unless you have both of those, with no exception.
[24:14] SPEAKER_02: I mean, if I go to another church, my wife has to take the course.
[24:17] SPEAKER_02: My kids have taken the course for new members.
[24:21] SPEAKER_02: But I used to be more argumentative in my new members' courses because I I sincerely wanted to persuade and convince from Scripture all of the Baptists and Arminians and charismatics to come on board.
[24:38] SPEAKER_02: And this happened even before I came here back when I was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.
[24:42] SPEAKER_02: It dawned on me that these are not up for debate.
[24:46] SPEAKER_02: I need to spend more time saying, this is who we are.
[24:50] SPEAKER_02: This is what we do, this is what we believe, uh, instead of uh more of a an apologetic approach.
[24:58] SPEAKER_02: So that's that's probably a big change uh in in how I approach both of these.
[25:04] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, one one thing I was thinking when I asked that though was uh technology.
[25:09] SPEAKER_01: And uh I wonder if that's more of um something that has to be on the radar, whether it's how they're using their own technology in their spiritual lives or or to their spiritual detriment.
[25:20] SPEAKER_01: Um or uh in evaluating somebody, if you see them online, you might think, oh, this guy might be a good officer, and then you see how he conducts himself online.
[25:27] SPEAKER_01: He's like, maybe not.
[25:29] SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
[25:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[25:31] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[25:32] SPEAKER_02: Um I don't I don't really get into that a whole lot.
[25:35] SPEAKER_02: I you know, they're great great parts of technology, they're they're dumb parts.
[25:41] SPEAKER_02: Uh and thankfully in the pastoral ministry, you you don't have time to uh to get off too much if you've got another Bible study to prepare and another sermon to prepare and a class to teach and a hospital to visit and a young person to meet with, uh, you don't you just don't have that much time.
[26:00] SPEAKER_02: Although still we've seen some of our peers get into a lot of trouble, which is sad.
[26:05] SPEAKER_02: But I I don't have any particular uh expertise uh to talk about that.
[26:13] SPEAKER_01: It sounds like with ongoing um training and spiritual maturity, a lot of that comes from the pulpit.
[26:20] SPEAKER_01: But would you encourage anything as a session uh uh in terms of growing together?
[26:25] SPEAKER_01: I mean, do you read books together?
[26:27] SPEAKER_01: Do you uh have retreats together?
[26:29] SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you keep that going after the initial training?
[26:32] SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
[26:33] SPEAKER_02: I I have I uh with my background, I've always been prone towards systematic and historical theology.
[26:40] SPEAKER_02: So when I lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which was a town populated by science nerds, uh many of them worked at the National Laboratory and got off at 4.15 or 4.30, and we would have happy hour theology starting at five, five to six.
[26:59] SPEAKER_02: So the the co-author original of this, Mark Butner, for example, uh you know, I had Mark read through me with me uh Principles of Sacred Theology by Abraham Kuyper.
[27:10] SPEAKER_02: Um Turitan when it first came out, and uh a number of works.
[27:17] SPEAKER_02: Uh Dabney, we read Pardon?
[27:20] SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
[27:21] SPEAKER_01: It was 1700s, I have to make an old joke.
[27:27] SPEAKER_02: Uh we read through Dabney's uh uh lectures on systemic theology together.
[27:32] SPEAKER_02: I think that's a part of the pastoral ministry.
[27:34] SPEAKER_02: Today, what I'm doing, and you can look on my I've got a substack that I do almost daily except for the Lord's Day, and there's a review section.
[27:42] SPEAKER_02: Um the name of the substack is Cheering Folly's Demise.
[27:46] SPEAKER_02: But under the review section, I've got a ready-made course that does a review of Kevin DeYoung's book, Daily Doctrine, which we've been using, and it's it's less of a review and more of a packaged class.
[27:59] SPEAKER_02: So Tuesdays from 445 to 545, I meet with a group of 15 to 20 of the greatest young men you'll ever meet, some of whom are interested in seminary, some of whom could go to seminary but are called to other vocations, and we go through 10 pages of Kevin's book a week and have a discussion, and I I give them an overview, uh comment brief commentary on the section, and then we talk about it.
[28:27] SPEAKER_02: That that's that's essential training of the future generations.
[28:32] SPEAKER_02: We should should all be doing that.
[28:33] SPEAKER_02: If you have one person in your congregation, you do it with one.
[28:35] SPEAKER_02: If you have three or four, that's great.
[28:37] SPEAKER_02: Uh, I'm also a big believer.
[28:38] SPEAKER_02: I say you have to go home at six, be with your family, have family worship and dinner with your wife.
[28:43] SPEAKER_02: I don't want your wives mad at me.
[28:45] SPEAKER_02: So uh, but you can squeeze in sometimes.
[28:48] SPEAKER_02: Some people do things like that in the mornings.
[28:50] SPEAKER_02: So we should always be reading through important things, growing ourselves, and that's that's been a staple in in my ministry for all these years.
[29:01] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so your book obviously is for more of the knowledge side of things.
[29:06] SPEAKER_01: Um do you have any other books that you would use or supplement or suggest to people as so they have your a copy of your training guide?
[29:14] SPEAKER_01: What else should they be going through in a in a training class?
[29:17] SPEAKER_01: Any other books that you think would be uh good for skills or for uh character or anything like that going through officer training?
[29:25] SPEAKER_02: That see, that's my problem.
[29:27] SPEAKER_02: Maybe my maybe my weakness.
[29:29] SPEAKER_02: Um I I just don't think there's a great book on character.
[29:34] SPEAKER_02: That's life.
[29:35] SPEAKER_02: I mean, if you if you guys will tell me, I'll include it.
[29:38] SPEAKER_02: Um skills have to be learned, and again, we we sort of presume that teaching and and shepherding, some of those things are already recognized and going on.
[29:49] SPEAKER_02: Um so again, I I lean toward the systematic and historical, and you know, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm big recommending Kevin's book on daily doctrines, just a wonderful text, and I've encouraged that to be used in places outside of the U.S.
[30:04] SPEAKER_02: It it lends itself to that.
[30:05] SPEAKER_02: But that doesn't get to what you're talking about.
[30:07] SPEAKER_02: I think I think those matters of character, to be honest, those are matters of discipleship that are caught, not taught, sometimes observed.
[30:17] SPEAKER_02: And I think the best, for example, I I think it's a very hard thing to teach homiletics.
[30:24] SPEAKER_02: I have never desired to do that.
[30:26] SPEAKER_02: I I don't know, I confess I d I wouldn't know how to do that.
[30:31] SPEAKER_02: I've done that for 45 years.
[30:33] SPEAKER_02: But it's sort of like marriage, it's still very mysterious to me.
[30:36] SPEAKER_02: I'm glad it works.
[30:38] SPEAKER_02: But I couldn't write a book or or uh define how it works.
[30:43] SPEAKER_02: I could refer you to some good classic homiletics texts, but the best young preachers are those who have grown up hearing good preaching in a local church.
[30:57] SPEAKER_02: And many of now a second generation, many a PCA pastor has never had a good local church experience until he's in the pastor.
[31:08] SPEAKER_02: They'll either come from a parachurch background, a campus ministry, uh perhaps, you know, a a broken and and dysfunctional home, and they'll just be clueless about what the local church is like.
[31:22] SPEAKER_02: And those those folks need to be paired up in a just a regular local church and and see how things work.
[31:31] SPEAKER_02: And um encouraged to grow in their gifts, but uh but to learn until they see those models.
[31:38] SPEAKER_02: And I I just I think it's a world of difference, for example.
[31:40] SPEAKER_02: I think there's a world of difference between a seminary trained preacher and a congregation trained preacher.
[31:50] SPEAKER_02: And and and I'm I I I can't quite quantify it in every way, but the seminary trained preacher, and what I mean by that, I'm I'm I'm a big fan of seminaries, but what I mean by that is if that's the the major experience or the major basis of knowledge for a preacher, he's gonna preach like he's taught in the three years of homiletics lectures.
[32:12] SPEAKER_02: And what's gonna happen is the sermons are gonna be more a function of a fine young man, maybe a very orthodox pious man, telling you what he knew from Systematics 2 and what he wants you to know.
[32:27] SPEAKER_02: But it may not be the passage, and it may be not not what you need to know.
[32:33] SPEAKER_02: Those who grow up in uh a church or spend five or ten years there, I think come to learn that that there's a difference.
[32:41] SPEAKER_02: Preaching, for example, is is not about what I like, what I'm interested in, or how much I know.
[32:47] SPEAKER_02: It's about what the Lord has said and what you need to help you get through next week.
[32:54] SPEAKER_01: So say somebody has uh found this, they're just thinking about doing their first officer training, uh, they're a little bit overwhelmed or daunted by it.
[33:02] SPEAKER_01: Uh do you have any just kind of final words to them?
[33:04] SPEAKER_01: Um I'll let Ben ask any f additional questions he wants, but uh, would you have any other just kind of final thoughts to somebody that uh is thinking about doing officer training?
[33:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just as I'll I'll uh overarch the principle.
[33:18] SPEAKER_02: Officer training is 2 Timothy 2 2.
[33:20] SPEAKER_02: Take the things that you have heard from me and pay pass as unto faithful men who will pass as unto others.
[33:26] SPEAKER_02: It's discipleship.
[33:27] SPEAKER_02: So yeah, we got a book.
[33:29] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we have confessional standards we need to make sure are upheld.
[33:33] SPEAKER_02: But this is part of the this is a subset.
[33:36] SPEAKER_02: Officer training is a subset of discipleship, which we do all the time in every way, every coffee, every conversation, every meal, whatever.
[33:45] SPEAKER_02: We're always trying to take a man or a woman or somebody God's led to our church and take them farther along uh in the line of knowing Christ.
[33:57] SPEAKER_02: So think of it that way.
[34:00] SPEAKER_00: Um I think it would be at this point only appropriate to say that as ruling elders and deacons everywhere would certainly say this podcast is over.
[34:07] SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
[34:08] SPEAKER_00: Uh David, we appreciate your time so much and that you gave us uh this this uh this hour here uh to pass along so much wisdom that you've learned.
[34:17] SPEAKER_00: Um I I think I'm I'm so encouraged by ministers who have longevity uh at churches and in certain ministries.
[34:26] SPEAKER_00: Uh there's a lot more wisdom there, I think, than we realize.
[34:30] SPEAKER_00: Um and so we we appreciate you sharing some with us.
[34:32] SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
[34:33] SPEAKER_02: Glad to be with you, and I sure appreciate what you guys are doing.
[34:35] SPEAKER_02: You're doing a great job.
[34:36] SPEAKER_02: Keep it up.
[34:37] SPEAKER_00: Well, we have fun with it, I think.
[34:38] SPEAKER_00: So uh listeners, if you enjoyed the show, consider following us on Facebook or Twitter at Polity Matters and subscribe in your podcast app of choice.
[34:46] SPEAKER_00: If you have questions or comments, you can contact us at Politymattersfeedback at gmail.com.
[34:52] SPEAKER_00: And there is a link below where you can support our work and help keep the show moving along from week to week.
[34:57] SPEAKER_00: Uh all that being said, we would just say thank you again for spending time with us.
[35:01] SPEAKER_00: Until next time, say goodbye, gentlemen.
[35:04] SPEAKER_00: Goodbye.
[35:05] SPEAKER_00: Goodbye.
[35:06] SPEAKER_00: Y'all take care.

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