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The Five-Fold Podcast
Five-Fold ministry for today. In this podcast we will attempt to determine biblical timelines as they correlate with current events. We will examine the offices of the Five-Fold ministry and gain biblical direction for the world today.
The Five-Fold Podcast
The Pastor’s role and responsibility - Interview with Pastor Brahm French
Ever wondered what it truly means to shepherd God's flock in today's world? Join us on the Five-Fold Podcast as we welcome Brahm French for an enlightening conversation that promises to deepen your understanding of the pastoral role within the fivefold ministry. Drawing parallels to the biblical figure David, Brahm and I underscore the profound responsibilities pastors bear, especially in safeguarding their congregations from spiritual dangers. We reflect on the dedication required to preach truth, uphold accountability before God, and ensure they can stand with a clear conscience, having done everything possible to guide His people faithfully.
But that's not all—leading a church isn't without its trials. From handling doctrinal deviations to the daunting task of course correction after years of subtle drift, Brom and I share inspiring stories of realignment with biblical truths. We liken the journey of spiritual growth and ministry to cultivating a spiritual garden, complete with the challenges and rewards such a process entails. By sharing personal experiences and emphasizing the importance of grace, we offer hope and encouragement for pastors and leaders striving to follow God's calling with conviction and resilience. This episode is a heartfelt tribute to the courage and dedication required to shepherd God's flock in today's ever-changing world.
Hey, good evening and welcome to this episode of the Five Fold Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Weidman, and I would like to say thank you for taking the time and joining us tonight on the podcast. The Fivefold Podcast focuses on the fivefold ministry and the importance of that ministry in today's society. We believe that there is still a need for apostles, for prophets, for pastors, for teachers, for evangelists. They haven't ceased. There's still an operation today and necessary for the success of today's church. So join with us as we dive into this episode of the Five-Fold Podcast.
Speaker 3:What's happening everybody? Welcome to tonight's episode of the Five-Fold Podcast. I'm your host, michael Evening, and we are joined tonight by our good friend, the one, the only, the important, brom French Say what's up to us real quick brother. What's up to us real quick brother.
Speaker 1:Man, it is great to be on the Five-Fold Podcast. Thank you for letting me sub in for you here a few weeks ago. That was quite a blast.
Speaker 3:It was a fantastic episode. Fantastic episode. You must not listen to it. I did.
Speaker 1:I did, I actually did.
Speaker 3:I listened to it. So it's a joy to have you with us tonight. We're looking forward to what you're going to share with us. Obviously, the name of the podcast, the Five Fold Podcast. We deal a lot with the five fold. That's kind of something that the Lord put on my heart, and one of those offices of the five fold is the office of the pastor, to which you and I are both kind of used to and accustomed with, because we I mean obviously we've stepped into those offices of being the pastor.
Speaker 3:In Ephesians, chapter four, god gave some apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers, pastors and teachers. The word pastor in Ephesians, chapter four is that Greek word, poisman, which means shepherd. Shepherd means to tend to the flock. And here's the great thing about the pastor is the pastor is supposed to oversee the already established flock of God. If you look at Old Testament, our favorite Bible character, david, he was a shepherd boy, right? The great thing about the shepherd boy is he didn't have his own sheep that he looked after. He looked after daddy's sheep. He didn't, he didn't have his own flock, he was looking after somebody else's flock. And as pastors, I mean that's our, it's our calling, that's our obligation. Uh, look after the flock. That belongs to God, not to us. You know, our father owns the flock. Our father owns the sheep, um, but he has entrusted us as pastors. He has entrusted us to oversee and to look after, to protect, to feed, to guide those sheep that he loves. And to me, that's one of the biggest blessings of being a pastor is the fact that God has looked at me and and saw that, trusted me. I guess you'd say he's trusted me with his flock. Um, I mean, what better honor than God to say you know, I trust you enough that I will leave what I love, um, in your hands. Yeah, yeah, I mean that's to me that's awesome. Yeah, what he died for, yeah, yeah, I mean that's to me that's awesome. Yeah, what he died for? Absolutely, absolutely. No, we're not perfect, obviously. I mean I don't know about you, I'm not, I'm just perfect. Looking Right, right, right, right, right, okay, I got you, I got you. So conceited is one of the words I was looking for. Or delusional, I can't. They both sound the same, I don't know. Especially, it's an honor. You know, god, god has trusted us with his flock and you know, it amazes me too.
Speaker 3:Like you think about the story of David. Why would David fight a bear? And why would David fight a lion? Um, just for a lamb. You know why. Why put your life in danger just to go after something that really, I mean, what does it matter? Right, you've got all these other lamb, what's one, what's one? You know? And Jesus answered that question. You know that he would leave the 99 to come after the one. But you also got to think about it too.
Speaker 3:At the end of the day, david, why would David go after the lion? Why would David go after the bear? Why would he put himself in danger? It's because he had somebody he had to answer to. He had to go back to dad. And he had to go back to dad and say look, dad, I did everything I could to protect your sheep. You know, fighting the lion off, I mean sure the lamb gets caught in the lion's mouth. It could have killed the lamb, right, it could have ripped it to shreds, as long as he came back with something and said, dad, I did everything I could to make sure I did everything I could.
Speaker 3:And at the end of the day, as pastors, that's our obligation. You know, when we stand before God on Judgment Day, can we look at Him and say, god, I did everything I could to reach this one. I did everything I could to get this one, to save this one, to help this one. I left it all on the field, everything I had, I put it out there and sure, the lion's going to get some of them, the bear's going to get some of them, but at the end of the day I'm going to stand there I'm going to say I did everything I could. Yeah, I fought off every lion I could fight off. I fought off every bear I could fight off. So it's our role and our responsibility as a pastor, um to to stand before God and to say look, I did everything you called me to do. Right, you know, I preached the message that was not popular. You know, while the church down the road was getting hundreds, you know, coming to their Superbowl Sundays and um coming to their programs. You know I did everything you called me to do at the end of the day, and that's that's our, that's our goal, that's our goal.
Speaker 3:But sometimes we don't always do everything God's told us to do and that's on us. I mean I'm guilty. I have been guilty so many times. You know, the Lord says I want you to do this, and I'm like I don't know if I want to do that, lord you know. So you've personally shared a little bit with me and I really feel like it's a good topic that I think everybody needs to hear. You know, kind of kind of start us off and let us know where. Where did everything start to start to blend together?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. Where did it start to go astray? Yeah, right, so well, we had started the church that I'm pastoring for the second time back in 2007. And I went on the road and evangelized after about I don't know, about four years or so. And while I was on the road, you know, we, they went through several pastors and they went through several pastors, and when we returned, I had this great idea, and part of that idea was a mix. Part of it, basically, was that I don't want to preach or bring things that are extra biblical.
Speaker 1:When I first started going that direction, that was my thought is, if it's extra biblical, we don't want to preach it. Right, we want everybody to feel welcome and we want to be the term you know it's now been for years is seeker friendly. We want to be a seeker friendly church, and so we're going to just talk about the good things, right. And so what we eventually did, or what I found myself doing, was there were very clear, clear, crisp, cut out biblical scriptures that we just weren't going to talk about because we didn't want to offend people. We wanted them to come and our prayer was and we'll talk about it behind the scenes right, our prayer was. I'll give you some examples. We had a homosexual couple coming that we were praying and believing that God would deliver. The problem is we didn't want to offend them so we would never preach against homosexuality. Now they are quote unquote married. Now let me make sure we're very clear. Marriage isn't defined by the government. Marriage is defined by God. They are not married, and I don't care what a judge says. Supreme Court can say what they want. They're not married, right. However, we didn't want to offend them. We wanted them to keep coming and we wanted the Lord to convict them, but we didn't want to talk about it. So how is the Lord going to convict them if we don't love them enough to say, hey, jesus loves you, but he wants to say the same to you that he said to the woman that was caught in the act of adultery Right, go and sin no more.
Speaker 1:And so a few years later, I was talking to a relative of mine, like one of my favorite relatives of all time. I mean, this lady is amazing, just absolutely amazing. She doesn't listen to the podcast, so I'm not expecting her to bless me for saying so, she barely has internet, right. But she was asking me what would you tell a homosexual, if you have one that's coming to your church? And at first I gave like a patty cake answer, but then I got up and I walked away and it's like the Lord convicted me and said well, if you really love them, that's not what you're going to tell them. What you're going to tell them is what I told the woman caught in the act of adultery. So I went back and I said hey, I need to clarify that. What I would tell them is go and sin no more, because when you come in contact with Jesus, your life should be changed.
Speaker 1:Part of the issue was in my desire to be seeker friendly. We stopped preaching things, stopped addressing issues that needed to be addressed, and not just that's a very obvious issue but being apostolic there are all kinds of other issues Right. And so as we went down further down that road, we started putting people in positions that didn't have a full understanding of, for instance, hero Israel. The Lord, our God, is one. And some of them didn't have full understanding of receiving the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, or at least as the Spirit gave the utterance, to use a more biblical term right. They didn't have a full grasp of that, and now they're in positions teaching other people. And so, and man, I had gone just so far down that path that then, when the Lord began to get a hold of me and let me share a little bit of that story I was driving.
Speaker 1:So I live just outside of San Antonio and I'm driving north Austin. It's about two hours and as I'm driving there, the Lord speaks to me and says hey, you need to listen to Mike Chance. That was my pastor growing up. You need to pull him up on YouTube and listen. I said, oh, yeah, lord, that's great, awesome. So I get out my phone and I pull up Anthony Mangan and I listened to Anthony Mangan all the way and preach a great message, absolutely Good message. But when I got where I was going to work or whatever, I'm heading back and the Lord speaks to me and says hey, that's not what I told you. And it's kind of funny, because I actually told Mike Chance, my pastor. I told him hey, the Lord told me I need to listen to you. Instead, I listened to Anthony Mangan and he looks at me. Oh, what a compliment. It's like ouch. What a compliment. I was like ouch.
Speaker 1:But on the way back or maybe it was the next day, I don't remember, but I finally pulled up a message of him preaching and I don't remember it could have been because of the Times or one of those conferences and as he was preaching, the Lord began dealing with me and made it just so clear how far I drifted. And my initial thought and it's kind of crazy because I'm driving down 35. 35 between Austin and San Antonio now is basically a parking lot that moves about 15 miles every two hours. So I'm sitting there in traffic and as I'm listening to him preach, I've got tears streaming down my face and I'm just repenting and speaking in tongues and people around me must have thought what happened to that guy, right?
Speaker 1:But in the prayer I was like, okay, lord, we'll correct the ship, we'll correct the ship. I got it. I've heard you. Okay, lord, we'll correct the ship, we'll correct the ship. I got it. I've heard you loud and clear We'll correct the ship.
Speaker 1:And so I felt him impress me to have basically like a revival, not to call it a revival, but to have a revival. And so I said, all right, lord, we'll do that. We'll do that, we'll get a great preacher that's going to come in and preach a convicting message. We'll do that. We'll do that. We'll get a great preacher that's going to come in and preach a convicting message. And, man, my mind just started working like, yeah, we're going to get this fixed. And I'm already going through the list. Maybe we have this guy come and that guy come, and so I'm talking to the Lord about it, and then the Lord speaks to me and says they're not the ones that took the ship the wrong direction. You're the one that messed up. No kidding, no kidding. And so if it's going to be fixed, you're going to have to be the one that's going to fix it. And I'll try not to cry now, right? And so again, I found myself repenting all over again. I said, okay, lord, then we'll fix it, we'll fix it. And we scheduled three days, four days Thursday, friday, saturday, sunday. We ended up having a Sunday night as well, and all it was was going back to the basic biblical principles and, man, almost at that point, the church began to turn around.
Speaker 1:However, we still have people in positions that aren't biblically sound. Now I would love to tell you like this all transpired within. I'd love to tell you like just six months, bro, it's been years, yeah, it's been years and still at this point, there are times where, like I'm going to cringe because somebody's going to say something that's in a position it's like, oh, that's not biblical. There have been times where I've had to send out a group text. I went back and tracked everybody that was in that service. I didn't do anything on Facebook we do send it out there on Facebook Live but I did send it to everybody that I knew was in the congregation that day and I said, hey, just in case any of us have any doubts, the Bible actually says this.
Speaker 1:And the really cool thing and the Lord is so good, I mean, he is just amazing the really cool thing is the people that have said the things that were extra biblical, if you will. They reached out and said, hey, was it me? What did I say? And some of them have gone back to watch the stream to see what it was and then said, hey, I noticed, I said this and I'm so sorry I didn't. And so you know Jesus really does have our back Absolutely If we'll step up there, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But the challenge in returning right, because when we first started the church man we were. You couldn't be more apostolic, right. But now the challenge we've got is it's been years and we're just now starting to get and we've grown, which is growth is awesome. But what do you do when you've got people in positions that some of them, some of them probably haven't even been baptized in Jesus name yet. Right, some of them haven't gotten the Holy Ghost yet. You know not the biblical way that you receive the Holy Ghost, right, they don't have the evidence. And what do you do at that point? And then you're going to come and preach it. And then, right, so we've made very clear that in the garden there was one man and one woman. So we've gotten that clear. Now we lost some people.
Speaker 2:You can probably guess who some of those people are right. You can probably guess who some of those people are right.
Speaker 1:However, we had several years where we did love and we preached the truth, and when the rubber met the road, they had to make their own decision Right and we loved them all along, and if I were to see them in the store today, I would and now they also did move Right I would hug their necks, I would make sure they knew that we love them and their life matters to us, their life matters to Jesus, but we're not going to compromise the truth of God's word and so making that call. What we have seen is we've had amazing services, but we're still having seen is we've had amazing services, but we're still having the background that we're going to have to deal with the things that are going on behind the scenes, and we've had some people that, when it became clear that you know you need to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gives the utterance, you ought to do it instead of resisting, if it's a gift that God gives you why would you tell God no?
Speaker 1:Why would you resist a gift? If Jesus has something he wants to give me, I want it and I don't care if I didn't have to speak in tongues, but I could, I'd want it Absolutely, absolutely. So we still got some of those background issues that are taking literally years to correct, and it has been a constant, continual struggle. Now, today I come. We started talking about doing this podcast a few months ago now.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, man, I'm so thrilled to announce that at this point, one of those people that we are struggling with and we put in position has come around and is very just. There was a moment was like and this guy, this individual, preaches. You know he's, he's speaking all the time and you know that's one of those times where we're like oh God, what's he going to say? We start chewing our fingernails, you know, and freaking out. But in the last month or so, he has just really grasped the Lord's word Right and even to the, to the extent where, you know I know this is what I thought, this is how I felt, but that's not what, what his word says, and isn't that what it's about? Absolutely, you know. So I I'm thrilled to announce that. You know, we're not in the same place we were when we first started about talking about doing the podcast, but we still have a little ways to go, you know, and it definitely is a challenge you know, and that's the thing is.
Speaker 3:When you recognize you really don't know, you're off course until you're. You're so far off course that you have to turn around and you have to figure out where it went wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know if, if, if you've ever looked at any kind of sailing or anything like that, if you're going a long distance sailing and you're just a couple degrees off just a couple degrees off depending on how far you go that could wind up taking you hundreds of miles out of the way. And that's just a couple degrees because at first it doesn't feel like it's that much. You know, it's not that far off. Yeah, it's not that far off. I'm. I'm just I'm. I'm just ignoring certain things that I know the Lord wants me to address. I'm just, let me just put those, you know, in the closet for a little while. I mean, let me sweep those under the rug for a little while and let me just do what I feel like that you know, this is where we're seeing growth.
Speaker 3:We're seeing people come into the church. We're seeing you know they're, they're happy. You know we're having a good time. We're having a good time coming together in church. You know, but's still moving, but it doesn't feel like it used to, but but it's just a little bit. It's just a little bit, and before you know it, you're so far off. You've got, you've got people that don't even believe the truth, that are leading others, and that's that's hard, and it's gotta be hard as a pastor to to look back and to to think, okay, that was my fault. Right, absolutely, but it's not too late to change that. Yeah, yeah, and there may be somebody listening to this podcast right now that is in that same boat, that feels like they have failed and they have taken their church so far out of whack that it's too late.
Speaker 1:It's not, oh amen, no, it's not. And you can take it too far out of whack on both sides. Yeah, absolutely. You can go too far where you're ultra conservative and just unbiblically ultra conservative, absolutely. Or you can do what we did, and we went so far the other way where you could do anything you want.
Speaker 1:And it's really interesting because I know other pastors and I've spoken with some of them. You know I won't give any names, but there was one in particular who had told me that he had gone so far that people in his church didn't know that he spoke in tongues and so he was trying to bring them back and so, but it was a slow process and he was telling me that one of them, you know, like he just started and he was a pastor in church of hundreds of people and but he told them just a couple of people, not publicly, but that he spoke in tongues and they were shocked. And so here he's trying to bring them back and I'm thrilled that he's trying to do that. But he wanted to do a podcast talking about it, right, and I totally get that. And I grew up under a pastor for the first seven years of my life. That I mean, he was cutthroat man, he was hardcore, but he wanted to pastor a large church and so he allowed things to go. And now he's elderly or up there in age and is looking at his exit, eventually recognizing that his days are numbered, and so it's really interesting to see that when he's getting the closer he's getting to the end of his life, the more he's trying to push the congregation in the church back to where it should be.
Speaker 1:For me, I was so thankful that nobody passed away while I was pastoring going through that, that nobody passed away while I was pastoring going through that. Right, absolutely. There was nobody there that I hadn't told that you need to be baptized in Jesus' name. Right, there wasn't anybody that I just had watered down so much that they passed away without me being able to tell them hey, this is what God's word says. Right, I'm so grateful Me being able to tell them hey, this is what God's word says, right, I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1:But that pastor, that pastor is a very large church. He wouldn't be able to come on the podcast and say, you know, even though, like on Facebook, I mean, he's right out there, you know, you've got to have this, you've got to be born again and which I love, absolutely love. But as I looked around because I wanted, I got my own podcast, like I would love to have somebody on that. We could have this discussion. But who else would open up and say, hey, I goofed. Yeah, exactly, I really messed up, exactly, and I'm glad that the Lord was able to put me in a car all by myself for several hours at a time just to say hey, brum, you're an idiot.
Speaker 3:You know, the thing about it is like whether it's letting things go right, just not preaching certain things, or even, let's take it a little more personal as far as people's daily lives. Maybe you're not a pastor, maybe there's just certain things in your personal life that you just said you know, I just don't know, and you just forget about it and you just keep going. And the longer you go, the easier it is for you to ignore it. Yeah, you know, and it's not necessarily because it becomes more right, right, the longer you live in sin doesn't make it more right, right, right, and that's probably not good English, but whatever. The longer you live in sin, the easier it is for you to forget what right really feels like. The hard thing is that when you're wrong, right doesn't feel good. Turning your life around, repenting, changing, doesn't feel good, it's uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:There's a reason Adam and Eve hid in the garden.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. You know that's the thing. Anybody who's done any kind of growth as far as gardening or anything like that. You know we're all spiritual garden. You know God, we need to grow, but in order for us to grow, sometimes God has to cultivate us, and that means taking something sharp and digging deep into the ground. The seed's not the problem, the sower's not the problem, the ground's the problem. Yeah, and sometimes it's got to be cultivated and that's an uncomfortable process, for sure. I definitely appreciate you talking about it because it helps, especially as a pastor. It helps to know that, yeah, you may go years and ignore certain things, but it's never too late to start doing right.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's never too late to start doing what God's told you to do.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, though, fixing that, fixing the ship, correcting the ship was probably the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I believe that that was the most difficult thing I've ever in ministry easily probably in my life, probably in my life. As a matter of fact, I didn't trust myself. After the Lord got a hold of me, I didn't trust myself. After the Lord got a hold of me, I didn't trust myself. So usually I'll preach without notes. I used to always preach without notes, but I was so timid and so scared that I knew I wouldn't have the guts to say the things the Lord wanted me to say. And so I would write notes and practically read them just to make sure I addressed what I was supposed to address.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, because you know, the flesh is weak, yes, you know. And when you've let things go and now you're going to have to stand in front of people and say, hey, I messed up, what you're doing is wrong you got to find a place of repentance and knowing that they may very well decide I don't want to be a part of this you know that they could walk away. That's really the same thing and I appreciate you bringing out, because it's not just ministry. That's in our lives as well, because when we start to live right, there are people that will weed themselves out. That really probably shouldn't have been a part of our lives anyway, and that's more of a blessing than it is a curse.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is. Yes, it is Matter of fact. Almost immediately after we addressed that right, we did have some people leave, but immediately we had, I think, three or four families join. So, yeah, we did, we had some leave, but God turned right around. And now that doesn't mean that everything became rosy right. You still got your challenges and you still had to correct the ship and everything, but it was in the process of that that the Lord started bringing people. So it's definitely worth it. It's hard, but it's worth it.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely that's. The thing is that the responsibility and the weight of the ministry is heavy, but whenever you add on top of that the fact that God has entrusted you to watch over his flock, yeah, yeah, it's heavy, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's, it's, it's heavy yeah absolutely, especially knowing that I was the one who made the wrong choice Right. And now I have to face the music. Yeah, you know, I I. It's easy if somebody else made the mistake right, cause I can preach grace to them all day long. But how much grace do I give myself? And that's important to remember too. You have to give yourself as much grace as God gives you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that can be very challenging as well, but so grateful at the same time that he chose to give that window, that time, absolutely, to say, hey, wait, you can still turn back to me, absolutely, you know so it's, it's his goodness is just so absolutely amazing, amen. I'm still teased and right For us in. You know, came up in the apostolic movement. I'm still teased about being charismatic now and people are always poking fun at me and I deserve every bit of it. And, granted, I have a quirky sense of humor so I don't mind at all and I deserve every ounce. I've got no room to complain. But now I'm probably more hardcore than 90% of y'all. That's true, that'sall, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 3:That's true, brother. I appreciate you sharing that with us. I really do, I really do, and you know what? I'm glad that each one of you have been able to hear that and to listen to that. And if you're a pastor and you're struggling with leading the church, the way that God has called you to do it, now's the time. Amen. The way that God has called you to do it, now's the time. Now's the time. Don't wait any longer. Do what God's called you to do, be what God's called you to be. Hey, we love you, we appreciate you. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 2:God bless. Hey, I want to say thank you for joining us tonight on the Five Fold Podcast. I pray that you've been blessed and that you have enjoyed what you've heard. Join us every week as we release new content concerning the Five Fold Ministry and their place in today's church. You don't want to miss this the Five Fold Podcast. God bless.
