225. The Baptist Potluck Draft and John Hamlin's Thoughts on Preaching

Welcome back to the For Freedom Podcast. What a wonderful season we have had this year. We are excited about taking our summer break, taking a couple of months off in June and July as we normally do. And we've got some fantastic sermons lined up for you to listen to. We've got some bonus interviews that we're going to be dropping this summer. But before we get to the summer, we have to do our summer episode, our last episode of the season. Brett, we are at episode 225 going into the summer. Six years ago, me and John, we never thought we'd make it to 225, much less make it this far. We never thought we'd have our own cigar company. We never thought any of this would happen, that I would have wrote a book. But I'm grateful for the opportunity to sit behind the mic and talk to you guys. And grateful for my friendship with Brett. And we've got an action-packed episode today. This may be the summer break episode, but you don't want to miss it. We're going to jump through some fun things here in the second half of the podcast. And so, Brett, welcome back to the show. How are you doing, my man? Man, things are going great. And speaking of the past, you know, I remember meeting you and John at the For the Sake of the Gospel Conference. And I think we met in Bourbon, I think, was the first time we met. We've been to a couple of conferences. And I never imagined that I would ever be on the podcast. But I was a longtime listener. And I am so thankful to be here with you and to be recording on the podcast. And one day, John's going to come back. And I'm going to be on the episode with y'all. Because every time he's come back, I've been absent. I've been off doing something. So, we're going to have to see if we can, next season, get him on here where all three of us can be on here. I think that'd be great. Absolutely. Yeah, I think we can make that happen. And he doesn't do anything. He acts like he's busy. But he really doesn't do anything at all. He does listen to every episode. So, we can always crack on him a little bit and have a good time. But, man, I am grateful for today. I'm thankful that we had a wonderful episode this last time with Bridget and all of her insight that she gave on her book. If you haven't went and purchased that and begin reading that, go and do that and support her in that way. She's got a powerful story, a powerful testimony. JC always used to say on the RFP podcast, the power of a story and what a story can bring and the light that it can bring to people's life. And so, what a wonderful way to encourage herself and to help others. Believe it or not, you're going to interact with people that are hurting, that have been hurt. Maybe you yourself have been hurt. And that's a great way for you to work through some things. And she's got some different checkpoints in there. And so, hopefully, you'll go and check that out. But, again, thanks, Bridget, for coming on last week and sharing your heart and your testimony. And looking forward to furthering with her in the future with some projects and things. Now, James, you said when you started reading this book, you almost couldn't put it down. Yeah. Yeah. That is correct. Yeah. Cool, cool. I'm looking forward to getting a copy of it and reading it. Just listen to her story. Listen to the stories that you told me about the book. But I'm going to get it pretty soon. I'm going to read it as well. Yeah. So, Brett, we've got, when this comes out, this is the last episode of May. The next episode won't drop until June. So, this is the last time that we'll be able to talk on the air. We've got a 15% discount on all of our cigar stuff. It's May 15 Freedom. Go and stock up on that for the summer. Stock up on that for any gifts, Father's Day gifts coming up, things that you can give to. I was listening to the podcast. My son was in the car this last week, and we were listening to it. And he heard you talking about the hoodie. And he leaned over to me and he said, Dad, I need that hoodie. Like, if Brett's talking that great about the hoodie, I've got to get one. Can you get me one? I said, sure. He said, Dad, do you have any hats? I said, it's funny you ask. I'm actually talking to a designer to create us a custom hat with the patch, the For Freedom patch on the front of it and have that ready hopefully by like October. I've got a big event in October. So we've got a couple of things we've got going on, a couple of things that we're going to be working on. And so hopefully that'll help out a little bit for you to advertise what you believe and support us in a great way. But, Brett, we've got Orlando coming up. Oh, man, Orlando's going to be fun. We're going down to the National Southern Baptist Convention. Last night, our church just voted to make me and my family messengers. And so it's kind of official. It's in the church notes. So a couple of weeks we're heading down south. We talked about this last week, but my vacation Bible school starts on May the 31st. And then it ends the night before we go to Orlando. So it's going to be a busy week that week. But it's always good to get away, get down there. You know, it's a convention, but it's also a time away from my family. A time to rest, recharge a little bit. And I'm looking forward to it. I've never taken my boys to Orlando. And then, of course, spent a couple of days at Universal Studios. But what I'm looking forward to the most is getting with the pastors down there. And listen, man, if you're listening to this and you're going to be at the convention, please hit us up. That's what we want. That's what we live for. We want to hang out with you. You know, we rented a house. And we've got a couple of guys coming over already. But we want to fellowship with you. We want to talk to you. If you're going to be down there, please, by all means, hit us up. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's one of the things that I look forward to the most is just being able to get together with guys, Q, and other guys from different conventions and different areas that we've made contacts with over the years. And so hopefully you'll let us know. I've got a guy that I went to college with that lives not far from where we're going to be at. He's going to come over and hang out with us. I'm super excited about that. And, man, I'm just excited about being down there with you and our families getting away. For us, it's like you said, it's a little mini vacation that we get to get away part of it and then refresh our soul to the preaching and then go to the convention and see what's going on with all that. But, yeah. We're going to get to see the – I'm talking about the Dr. Marcus Merritt. He'll be down there. Man. Hey, has he said anything to you about Parikh being down there? Not yet. I did talk to him about Parikh the other day, and he said that she is doing well. She had taken a little bit of a vacation, but everything for them is back to normal where they're at. She said there is no conflict whatsoever. And so she said that they're just waiting on airlines to open back up, so everything's back good rolling. I got nervous because when everything happened with the attacks, I reached out to her. And normally she's really good about within a day or so reaching back out to me, and she didn't. And so when I was talking to Marcus about a couple of things the other day, he said, yeah, she's doing really good. I just talked to her and just trying to get a couple things going. So, yeah, it's been really good. I'm interested to talk to her because, you know, my church, we want to do the Footsteps of Paul trip, and that's the Grease trip. And so I want to know if that's still on, if that's still something we can schedule. They've got two, and for any of those, any of our listeners interested, and, of course, any trip that me or James put on is open to our listeners. So one of the things in this Footsteps of Paul, there's a land tour, and there's a water tour where you go on a little cruise ship. And so I'm thinking we'll do the cruise ship. But then, of course, you know, we got this cruise ship with this Hantavirus, and now everybody's scared to go on a cruise ship. You know what I mean? We're Baptists. You know, we ain't scared of no Hantavirus. Hantavirus, you know, you ever been in a nursery that ran out of Lysol? I mean, Hantavirus ain't got nothing on that. That's right. Speaking of cruise ship, Brett, I cannot go without mentioning this. Today, the time this episode comes out, me and my wife celebrate 15 years today. And so we are, she's put up with me this long. Haven't ran her off. I think there were probably times that she wanted to run away. But I had her in Idaho that was, you know, 2,400 miles away from civilization and family. And so she probably couldn't get away. But I am thankful that she's put up with me this long. And so speaking of cruises, this is what reminded me. I just booked our 15th anniversary cruise. We've never been on a cruise before. We're going to Nassau and the Bahamas, a four-night, five-day cruise down there. And it's going to be in July after our camps that we have for our youth camp and kids camp. We're getting away for a week, shipping the kids off to grandparents and family. And just going and hanging out down there. And I'm looking forward to it. So hopefully I don't come back with some rat virus. First time it was birds. Now it's rats. I don't understand what's going on. But I've heard fantastic things about cruises. So we're really excited about that as well. Man, that's awesome. It's interesting that your 15-year anniversary is today. Because in two weeks is my 20-year anniversary. Let's go. Me and Emily have been married 20 years. And my oldest son, Colin, he graduates college this coming Sunday. And so got a lot of things, a lot of milestones ahead of us in the next two weeks. Yeah, absolutely. Well, with that being said, let's jump into today's episode. We've got some fun things planned for you. A fun episode going into the summer. Revolving around a couple of things. Let's jump into that right now. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Welcome to the For Freedom Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with everyday issues. I ain't saved by dress codes, not by what I eat. I'm covered in the righteousness washed from head to feet. No tally of tradition, no man-made code. Blood bought my freedom, now I ride that road. They clutch pearls when they see smoke rings rise. But my praise still ascends past the legalist cries. Christ plus nothing, that's the real math. So miss me with your fence laws and your extra path. He sat with sinners, I'm sitting with saints. Sipping grace from the bottle, no room for face. I light one for liberty, toast to the king. Every ash a sermon, death has lost its sting. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Cigars and victory justified, released. Let grace begin. For freedom, you set me free. Not for change, not for guilt, not for pharisee. Grace lit the flame, now I'm puffing peace. Now here are your hosts, James Saifert and Brett Martin. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the For Freedom podcast. Tonight, we're going to put theology aside for a moment and tackle the issue that has divided Baptist churches for generations. Today, we are going to be talking about something that has been the conflict of many, many church splits. The conflict of many different arguments of which one is better and what is the best. Today, we will be talking about the Baptist potluck draft. Coming to you live from the Family Life Center where sweet tea is cold, the casseroles are hot, and the church ladies are judging every decision that you make. I am your host, Brett Martin, alongside my co-host, James Saifert. And tonight, we're drafting the ultimate Baptist fellowship meal. Now, James, the experts are calling this one one of the deepest potluck classes in years. They've never seen a field like this before. Absolutely, Brett. Elite talent at the dessert table this season. Strong casserole depths. And the second round, this is where it gets difficult when you begin judging and looking through those side dishes of what you're going to pick and where you're going to go. Exactly. And there are already rumors that a banana pudding may go earlier than expected. You know, in years past, we've been wrong about that. But it's looking like it's going to go quick this year. Yeah. Honestly, Brett, if banana pudding falls outside of the top three, someone must have lost their mind. Absolutely. Now, let's go over the rules for today's draft. This is a snake draft format. And what that means is no trades, no duplicate picks. And once a food is drafted, it is off the board. It is out of play. That's right. And so today, me and you are going to go head to head drafting our favorite things of food. We're going to start with a main dish. We're going to head to the side dishes. And then we'll be going to our dessert, our drinks. And then we're throwing in a wild card pick as well of some various different things that you may throw onto your plate as well to have a wonderful, well-put meal put together. Absolutely. And at the end of the episode, you decide what plate wins. We'll be taking our plates. We'll be posting them on social media. And you get the vote. You have the power to decide who wins the draft tonight. Now, before we begin, James, who are your sleeper picks tonight? Sleeper picks. There's a couple of things we're looking at. But we're looking at really good things about the funeral potatoes. You know, those are those little thin sliced potatoes that come out only at funeral times. Veteran presents. I mean, they're there when times get tough. Strong church history. It travels well. It stays warm. It's got that cheesy layer on top of them. If you make them that way, they're a dime a dozen to get one of those. That's a solid pick. Now, personally, I think deviled eggs are underrated this year. Yeah. Strong flavor profile. Dangerous when it comes to close quarters. That little paprika sprinkling on top of it, it can make for an eye-appealing grab there on that side dish. That's a fair point. And when you get a deviled egg, you don't know what pickles you're going to get. Are you going to get sweet pickles? Are you going to get deal? You just don't know. So it is a risk, but it is a risky move tonight. Absolutely. Before the clock gets started, Brett, let's talk through a couple of commentaries of some of these items that we're going to jump through as we begin to walk through this analysis of the potluck items that we're going to be talking through. This year's draft class, it's loaded with desserts. Man, the desserts are just full. The table's full. I feel like every time we go to a potluck like this, you just never have enough desserts. And so you've got to have another dessert that comes into it. Experts are calling this one of the deepest potluck classes in recent memories. What's your thoughts on this, Brett? You know, I'll tell you what. You've got the strange picks today, the wild card picks, but then you've got the fan favorites. You've got the ones that you know are always going to be at the top. And, of course, we cannot talk about the draft without talking about fried chicken. I mean, fried chicken remains the gold standard of the Baptist potluck draft. I mean, it's still the safest overall pick in Baptist history. You know, you may get criticized for going traditional, but let me tell you something. Fried chicken delivers every Sunday. Any given Sunday, it delivers. You can never go wrong. Siding with the fried chicken, that's a foundational ministry food. Yeah, Brett, what about mac and cheese, right? Mac and cheese, it comes in. It comes in strong every year. Kids love it. Adults love it. Grandparents love it. Teenagers love it. Everyone loves a good dish of mac and cheese. The only problem with mac and cheese is sometimes you get that mac and cheese that's been overcooked too long, right? It just turns into mush, but then you've got that other one that's been baked perfectly, that's got the perfect cheese crust on top, that's got the gooey middle as you begin to go through it. The noodles aren't mushy. They're great. So there's a little bit of plug and play that goes here with the mac and cheese, but it's just one of those items that it can be a big, huge bust, or it could be the biggest upside to make your team the greatest team of all time. Absolutely. Absolutely. And, of course, before we get into this, we have to talk probably about one of the most controversial prospects in this year's draft, and that is the potato salad. I mean, we've got a high ceiling. We've got a dangerous floor. Listen, when it comes to potato salad, when it's good, it's elite. When it's bad, it can divide the church worse than the color of the carpet. There are major chemistry concerns when it comes to potato salad. But somebody's amp makes the greatest potato salad on earth, and everybody else thinks theirs does too. So there's a lot of divided opinion on the field this year when it comes to potato salad, but I'm interested to see which way we'll go this year. Yeah. And, you know, as we throw this through here real quick, Brett, the thoughts on store-bought food, right? The guys that show up with the Bowberry – I don't know if y'all have Bow-Jankers here – Bowberry biscuits or the KFC chicken bucket. And all of a sudden, they've brought in a pretty good heavy hitter with some food that they didn't have to prepare, but it's there. It's made, right? The pre-made cookies from Walmart that are store-bought, that are thrown in there. The talent's there. The idea is there. But sometimes people would rather go for that homemade, home-filling, grandma-style cooking versus just going for the KFC bucket of chicken. Exactly. But I'll tell you what. There are a couple of exceptions. When you're sitting in the Family Life Center in the Fellowship Hall and the doors open and the buckets come in, maybe not from KFC, but from the local gas station. A fried chicken that was made down at the Pump and Go. Man, that can be some of the best fried chicken on the earth. You're excited about it. You want to get to the line first and fill your plate up, get white and dark meat, a breast and a leg. And so it is up in the air about that. One of the last things that we'll talk about before we go into our draft are the sweet tea options. Sweet tea is the undisputed number one drink prospect in the South. There's not even a close second. That's a franchise beverage. You draft sweet tea early and you build around it. Absolutely. All right, Brett, let's jump into it. We're going to flip a coin. You got a coin ready? So I'll flip and you call. All right, here we go. Fails never fails. Fails. Fails. Fails it is, baby. Let's go. All right, first off is main dishes. All right, main dish on the clock. I'm jumping in first. Here we go. My main dish pick as we walk through this, as we have been walking through these items. There's one that stuck out in my mind as I was reading through the list of things we got. A good smoked brisket. I'm throwing that on my plate. I'm jumping into the brisket for me. I'm taking that with a little bit of barbecue sauce, rubbing onto the side. And it looked perfect. I saw the juices flowing out as I picked it up with the tongs. It is there and it's ready for the taking. All right, let's see. Going on to my pick is we are going to play it safe and we're going to go with the fried chicken. Fried chicken? This isn't the homemade fried chicken. This isn't the KFC fried chicken. This is the gas station fried chicken. I showed my hand a little bit early with that. And when they walk through those doors with a box of chicken from the local gas station, you put it on top of your head, your tongue will beat your brains out trying to get to it. Absolutely. We are going with the fried chicken from a first pick on the main dish. All right. So that means I get the next pick in the side dishes. That's right. First round pick of the side dish. That's right. So I am going to I'm going to go against what people would mainly pick. And I'm going to pick fried okra. It's going to be my side dish. A lot of these others are good. But when I see fried okra on the counter, I'm going to get it every single time. It is a go-to standard for my plate. And if I don't have room, I'll make room. You know, at a potluck, you fill out your plate. When you run out of room, you start stacking. You've got a second layer. Start going up. Yeah. Fried okra is something I'm picking every time. You know, Brett, fried okra is one of those ones. It's a dangerous pick for you. You know, it could come out super soggy and not done all the way. Or it could be overdone and cooked too much. And then it's got that burnt taste in your mouth. So, you know, at a potluck, having fried okra on the table could be one of those things that you just really wasn't prepared for. Or you may pick up one and it's like the best one you've ever had. And the key is to know who made it. If you know who made it, you've got a good indication that it's going to be a good round this year. Yeah. You know, for me, I'm going with my safe bet because I've never met one that I didn't like. And that's a deviled egg. Deviled eggs with my brisket. I'm rolling with that. And so that's one of those ones. I've been at four different churches, five if you've kept my home church. And I've yet to come across a deviled egg that wasn't absolutely delicious. So even with the sweet pickles, even with the dill pickles, my father-in-law who throws in a little brisket with it, like there hasn't been one that I've had that I didn't like. So it's one of those safe, like, honey hole. You're going to give it to the guy and he's going to score a touchdown with it. So I'm going with that. I'm going with deviled eggs. You know, deviled eggs is a great pick. It is my favorite, actually. I would have picked deviled eggs, but I was going for more popular. Not a lot of people like deviled eggs. It is one of my favorites. So I will give you that. Great pick. All right. I'm getting to pick the first dessert as we roll out the dessert side. If you know me, you know me well. And you know that if this dessert is on the table and I get a chance to get it, I'm going to go all in. And so my first round pick for the dessert has to go to the chocolate pie. And so I'm jumping in chocolate pie all the way. And yeah. Chocolate pie is a great choice. Great choice. All right. For me, this is one of those things. If I see it, I'm going to get it now. And that is, of course, I'm going popular. I'm going the top of the list. I'm going banana pudding. Now, the banana pudding that comes out of a box is good. Don't get me wrong. I'll never say no to it. Get that banana pudding that was homemade. Did not come out of a box. That they actually put in the oven. Baked it in the oven. Baked? Okay. You're talking baked banana pudding. Baked in the oven. Okay. Homemade from flour, baked in the oven. Okay. Banana pudding, not out of a box. The box stuff is good. But man, the elite level is that banana pudding that's homemade, that grandma used to make. She's passed down the recipe. This is the best banana pudding on the man. And I'll never say no to it. So my pick on the dessert is going to be banana pudding. I got to give you a little input here on banana pudding. I've never had baked banana pudding until I went to, I coached football a couple years ago, right before COVID, here at the public school. And churches sponsored the meal, the pregame meal. And so I got to go to all these different churches. And we went to Little River Baptist Church, and they had baked banana pudding. And I was like, I don't know about this. Baked banana pudding? Like, I don't know if I like this. But they were, all the coaches know, listen, you've got to get some faster. Like, this is great. I took a bite of it. Fantastic. I'd never had it before baked like that. Oh, my goodness. It was so good. But one other here. This is like some of these sleeper things. Because everyone makes banana pudding a little different, right? Some people thinly slice their bananas, and they're like perfect mixture of the two. We had a lady at my last church, and my wife does not like banana pudding at all. But if she made her banana pudding, she was getting it. Her name was Amy. And Amy, this is how much care she put in. It's all about the care that you put into the banana pudding that you make it. She took each and every vanilla wafer and put peanut butter in between the vanilla wafers. And made peanut butter vanilla wafer sandwiches. And put those vanilla wafer sandwiches into her banana pudding. Not just regular wafers, right? She's throwing a little extra care in there. And so you had the peanut butter vanilla wafers. You had the banana pudding. You had the bananas. You had the whipped cream. You throw that into one bite. Oh, my goodness. You're talking about some good banana pudding. And it's the best banana pudding I've ever put in my mouth. Wow. I'll tell you, before we move on, I've got a banana pudding story, too. I'm not going to tell you the church or any names. I'm going to change the names to protect the innocent. But we were going to a church one time. We visited a church of a friend of mine. And his mom brought banana pudding to the church. And it was an independent fundamental Baptist church. And she had used to be at IFB. But she wasn't anymore. But she was back visiting. And she had brought some banana pudding. And the people in the church loved it. I mean, they scraped the bottom of the bowl. And they kept asking her, what's your recipe? What's your recipe? I've got to make this. It is so great. And she kept saying, I'm sorry. It's a family recipe. I promised I wouldn't tell anybody what was in it and what made it good. I wouldn't give the recipe out. I'm sorry. Everybody asked her. She denied. I thought that was kind of odd because that was outside of her character. So later on, come to find out the reason why she didn't tell anybody is because the secret ingredient was banana rum. She was keeping it a secret. That's awesome. All right. Moving on to the drink category. And I'm going to tell you, I mean, you've got your populars. You've got your rare picks. But, you know, I'm going to go the safe pick. It's my pick. I'm going safe. Safe bet. Strong pick. Sweet tea. Tea is going to be my pick. It's always a fan favorite at the Baptist Potluck. And so we're going strong with not saccharine, not unsweet, not split, but sugar tea. Absolutely. Come on. Come on. All right. You took my pick. That's the first one where you took my pick, Brett. So I have to go to my backup. My second pick. You're in the South. We're in North Carolina. We're in Cheerwine country. I'm taking Cheerwine as my drink. It's the drink of the South. It's the flavor of the South. My wife did not like it. Now she'll actually go to a restaurant and she'll order a Cheerwine if it's on the fountain tap. So we're taking Cheerwine. And then we're throwing in this wild card here. We got a wild card Baptist Potluck wild card round where it's your hodgepodge of appetizers, your various different things that didn't quite make it into the sides round. They're not really a main course meal. They're not really a casserole. They're just sort of there. These are the people that just throw in a couple of things. And so my pick for this is the Buffalo Chicken Dip. I'm going all in on the dip. Absolutely. Great pick. Great pick. All right. My pick for the Baptist Potluck wild cards is I'm going to go with one on here that I am excited about. And that is the Rotel Dip. It's not like gold standard of traditional. But, man, if you've got a Rotel Dip on the board, on the counter, I'm probably going to go for it every time. Rotel Dip, I think, is a good choice. All right. Well, when we posted those on our social media page, you take a vote of which meal you would prefer if that plate was in front of you. And what a great time we had with that and just having a little bit of fun with it. But before we move on, I'm going to go through and I'm going to give you my second pitch real quick. All right. My second picks were main dish, chicken and dumplings, side dish, mac and cheese. Dessert was Oreo Delight. That was my second pick. Drinks for my second pick was Dr. Pepper. And my wild card second pick was cracked chicken. All right. My second picks were chicken casserole, mac and cheese. Or, yeah, mac and cheese was number two. Pecan pie for my dessert. Ooh. That's good. I had, cheer wine was my number two. My number one was sweet tea. So I had to go to that. And then my number, my wild card was Velveeta Dip, which is like Rotel Dip. It's really the same thing. But, yeah, I threw that instead. Awesome. All right, Brett, as we close this episode out, we were sent a picture this week. It was called the Five Pillars of Old Fashioned Preaching. What happens is the IFB discovers this thing called ChatGPT and they create some fun things. And so what we did is I pulled this up and we're going to talk through. It's John Hamlin. He's preaching. And I don't know if this is a quote. I don't know if he made this. I don't know if someone made this. We'll post it on our social media as well. But it says, in a high-tech era, there's a vital need to return to the antique style of homiletics. All right, homiletics, the style of preaching. These five pillars represent the foundational preaching style required, required, get this, required, to spark the prairie of fire of the spiritual revival that we need today. And so he's got it broken into two different categories. The crafting of the message and the power of the delivery. So, Brett, I'm going to start with the first one. And we're going to just diagnose each of these and each of the five different ones there. He's got a sixth one that's at the very bottom and we'll hit it at the very end. The first one, we'll start on the crafting of the message. It says that you must have authoritarian preaching. Prioritize the delivery of scripture over personal stories so people will remember God's word. Absolutely. Because when you're trying to get a message from the word of God, the first thing you need to do is think about how you're going to deliver it. Not actually how you study it. Don't worry about that. No, don't study it on the word. Commentaries or reading through the passage or any original languages. You need to think about just how you're going to deliver it. Absolutely. How's the authoritarian there? Which is funny that he put this as number one because, Brett, how many times is the story of the pastor or some event that happened that week the highlight of the entire message? And the word of God is the very – we open up with the scripture and that's about it. We walk away from scripture and we tell stories and we just story tell the whole time. Exactly. Because that is – that's kind of the gold standard of the IFB message. And it's the first thing on the list for putting the message together is being authoritative and getting them stories out. Yeah. Number two, Brett, jump into it. Great. Number two is articulate preaching. It says view words as a master craftsman. Use his favorite tools to ensure clarity. And so we've got to make sure that we get all the cliches, all the colloquialisms in there. Make sure, you know, we get those – you know, put that in your tailpipe and smoke it and get those words in there so people will remember. Sure. Because that's the most important thing is they remember how well you delivered the sermon. Yeah. And that's what we want to be – you know, the message of the sermon is secondary to how you delivered it. Absolutely. You know, those catchy statements of don't let the door hit you where the good Lord splat you, brother. Amen. Right? We want to be able to throw those out at any given time. All right. Listen, I will tell you that God bless him. But JC is so good at that. He knows those sayings that he'll throw them out. And it is hilarious when he does that. All right. All right. So that's crafting the message. You've got the authoritative preaching. You've got the articulate preaching. Now we get to the power of delivery. Now he begins to walk through. When you deliver this message, you've got to have aggressive preaching. All right? We're staying with the A. You forgot animated. Well, that's at the bottom. We're going to come back to that because that's part of how we preach. I think this was written as the top two on both sides, and then he went down to the bottom, I think. So aggressive preaching, true preaching, right? True preaching, this is how he has it listed, always demands a decision after either to get saved or to get right. So if you're not preaching for a decision, you're not preaching at all. So, Brett, thoughts on that. Man, just look at that word, aggressive. Aggressive. I mean, you've got to be always aggressive. You've got to be 90 to nothing the whole time. Your whole point is to rip someone a new one. Don't worry about encouraging or edifying someone. You're just there to rip them up one side down the other. Be aggressive the whole time. Love it. Yeah, absolutely. Now, this next one, Brett, that you're going to get to, I do agree with this one. This one, I believe, is vital. Like, you have to have this if you're going to be preaching. Right. I've not been sarcastic here. I've been honest. Yeah. Anointed preaching, it says, the touch of God is the essential element that makes thundering, the thundering tenants effective. And, you know, yeah, you're right. Anointed preaching. If you're not bathing your message in prayer and you're not seeking the face of the Lord before you preach, then you probably shouldn't even get up and talk at all. And so, I agree with that. There needs to be anointing in your preaching, and it needs to come from the Lord. And then it gets to really the eclipses of all of the preaching of the IFB, and it's animated preaching. Right? Delivery should be, what does it say here, be a flame of fire, never resembling a lullaby or a book report. You've got to be animated. And there's no, there's no, if you're not, if you're not jumping around, if you're not Billy Sunday jumping on top of the pulpit and raising your fist and going crazy, how are they going to listen to you? Like, you've got to be animated. Now, I'm all for moving around. I move around all the time. I know what I'm preaching, so I have the freedom to move around. But I do understand you've got to have a balance here of preaching with delivery and not just be monotone. But the way this is saying is, if you're not moving, if you're not animated, you're not going to have a powerful message. Right. And I think, I mean, in all seriousness, there does need to be a balance. There need to be times where you get people's attention, and there needs to be times when you're just standing there very solemn. And because of the subject matter, you always go off the tone of the passage that you're preaching. You know, and I'll be honest, going from an IFB background into kind of these Southern Baptist searches, you know, when I pull out the IFB style preaching, it kind of shocks people sometimes. I'll throw it in there every once in a while to keep people on their toes, keep people on their feet. I am for animated preaching, but, you know, we're not going 90 to nothing all the time running the pews and jumping the pulpit. And then, of course, this is the sixth pillar of the five pillars, and it is old time fire. Uh-oh, James. We didn't alliterate. We didn't alliterate. This one doesn't start with an A. We did not alliterate. What is he doing? Could we improve this? Could we think of an A word to go here? I don't know. We'll think about it. All right. Old time fire. We need preaching to spread across the country like a prairie fire once more. And, you know, that's a good statement. I got it. Accelerated fire. Accelerated fire. There you go. All right. There you go. But we have to get the old time in there. That's what I'm saying. The old time. We got to get back to the 50s because they didn't have any problems at all. No. No. We got to get back to the old time of the accelerated fire, accelerated old time fire. And, man, AI couldn't have done any better. That's right. Hey, I love it. Hey, one of the things that I love about this, Brett, is he talks about the exposition of Scripture. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a fine print. Yeah. Down there, the fine print. He talks about how you should exposit the Scripture and not preach preferences, but preach the Bible. So, you know, those things are in there. If you're going to have old time preaching that just like Paul preached, you know, as Jesus was preaching and teaching on this land. I mean, he's really pulling out the tenets of what Jesus and Paul were preaching and Peter in those days. Well, hey, listen, you know, Paul, Paul wasn't right because Paul didn't have a King James. You're right. You're right. So, you know, this is better than Paul. He corrected it. So. Right. Right. King James came along. So. So before we close out the episode, let's real quick talk about our three favorite episodes and moments from this year. I'll start. Of course, one of my favorite episodes this year was the Erica Pacey interviews. I thought that that episode, it got the highest height, the most anticipation. Um, we had that episode scheduled Erica Pacey for, I think, over a year or more. Yeah. It was one time. Yeah. And so we've, but, you know, you, you're really close to Eric. And so to have him on there and just to think back to me being at Isles Anderson as a student, having Erica Pacey come up and preach in chapel. Um, you know, and I fell in love with Erica Pacey's preaching then. And I've been to his church several times in hot springs. He's to date a girl from there. And, uh, you know, uh, I love Erica Pacey and I love the way he's being used. I love his story. And, uh, you know, I'm glad that we got a chance to talk to Eric on the podcast. Yeah. You know, my number one favorite moment of this last year, uh, was probably the connection that we've made with James Spurgeon. Um, I appreciate what he's done with the Texas Baptist Crucible and, uh, just the friendship that we've developed. We got to hang out while I was in Texas, uh, this last year, last, almost a year ago. Now at the convention last year, uh, we were able to have him come back on a couple of weeks ago, uh, and just talk to sort of where he's at and what he's going through. Um, I just appreciate his heart in the matter. He's super humble and, uh, thankful that that friendship has been developed. He actually texted me this morning and just said, Hey, great message. You're great in the episode last week. And, uh, so I do appreciate that and the connections that we've made, the friendships that we've made. Um, number two for me would be that Erica Pacey interview. Um, again, just being able to talk through that with him, uh, was great. And, uh, just able to, uh, share some of our thoughts and where we're at and him to share his heart of where he's at. Uh, may not agree with everything that, that was said or done. Um, but I gave the opportunity for him to share. Um, and then I think that, uh, that is one of the great things that we get to do is allow people to come on and share their story. We don't necessarily critique their story. Uh, although we may not agree with everything they say or do. Uh, but we do get them to share their story and then to be an encouragement in that area. Um, and so, uh, do enjoy that as well. Brett, what's your number two? Building off of that, my number two is James Spurgeon as well. Um, he's just easy to talk to. He's a great guy. He's got a great story. Um, he's comes out of the IFB world. He knows a lot about it. Um, so it was a great episode just to get to hang out with him again. I always enjoy talking to him. I don't mind having him back on in the future. Anytime I get to talk to James Spurgeon is a good day. Um, I really enjoyed our episode. I liked the little game that we played. Was it Uncle Chuck or not? Yeah. Yeah. I thought that was great. I was glad he won. Um, you know, so I was, I was real happy for that, James. Uh, so James is my number two. And then of course, my number three pick for a favorite episode. Um, and you may or may not have picked this, but mine is Father Kelly. Uh, the reason is because, you know, Israel has such a big place in our hearts and, uh, you know, just to go there. And we, I got more out of this second trip than I did the first one. We got to go to more places, do more things, see things that weren't discovered before, learn more about all these areas. And then Magnala, I thought was just going to be just a little stop. We'd already seen it once. Yeah. The synagogue is cool. It's, it's a synagogue that Jesus preached in. That'll always be awesome. It'll always be a highlight. But I thought we'll get out and see the synagogue. We'll leave. Man, Father Kelly, man, he come in there and then he took us on a journey. Yeah, he, he, he, we, we told us things that we didn't know, took us back to the center and, uh, just open up the word of God to us. Even though he's a Catholic, Catholic priest, he reached across denominations, really spoke to us so much so that we had him, uh, come on the podcast. He's got a great story. Great. He's had a interesting life. And, uh, man, the Father Kelly episode is definitely on my top three. Yeah. Uh, that was a great one. And Magdala, I was excited about going to Magdala. Um, it was one of those spots that as I look back on, it was going to be one of my highlights because I just didn't expect it. And then it just blew me out of the water again. So yeah, I appreciate that. And I think that'd be great. Um, the last one, mine, um, it's going to be cliche, but I enjoyed having Bridget on just last week. Um, I had actually tried lining her up a year and a half ago, uh, when shiny happy people came out and we did a review on shiny happy people. We talked through that. She had some influence in the, uh, Gothard movement. And I asked her to come on and share during that time. She had agreed. And then she said, you know, there's some things going on. Don't feel comfortable at this time. Um, and I never pressured anyone to come on anyways. And so I said, Hey, thanks for, thanks for thinking of us and, and, and talk, thinking about it and praying about it. And so then when her book came out and I reached out to her, this was my response, my thought of response. She's already told me no once. She's not going to tell me no. She's going to tell me no again, but I'm going to send her a request anyways. And so I was thankful that she came on. She shared her story. Um, I'm excited about talking more with her. Um, I think she's got a lot to, to give to our audience. And I think she's got a lot to give in just her hurt and trauma, um, and abuse that she went through and how she can help others. And so excited for that. And I'm thankful for that. I'm excited to see where that's going to go and how that interview is going to impact other people. Man, that's a good thing. Yeah. That was a great episode, Bridget. I really enjoyed that. Yeah. All right. Well, Brett, I'm excited about the future. We'll be seeing each other in just a couple of weeks, and then we'll be going down to Nicaragua together to do a pastor's conference. Lee has been texting us while we've been recording. And so looking forward to that. Um, hopefully you'll come and see us in Florida in just a couple of weeks as we're down there and be looking for our summer drops of different episodes. Uh, but until next time, we're going to sign off one last time for the season as we start back, uh, in August. I believe it'll be August is when we start back up. Uh, Brett, to God be the glory. Great things he has done. Found my new name. Found that good grace. Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face. When I found my beginning. It has no ending. Found that second chance. Found my best friend. Found my forgiveness. Found my happiness. I've been singing ever since. Found my freedom in you. Thanks for listening to the For Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do us a favor by liking, subscribing, or sharing our podcast on whichever podcast platform you use. Be sure to join us next time for the For Freedom Podcast.

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