Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Coming up on Max Impact, the goal.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Is that pastors don't quit, churches don't die, communities don't lose a lighthouse, and the lost have more opportunity to hear and believe and not less opportunity.
[00:00:41] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of Max Impact, where we look to make a maximum impact for the Kingdom of God. Xander Deakins here, finally back in the Mars Hill studio proper here on a beautiful Monday morning. And we're here to talk about a very, very important subject. We're talking about millennials, Gen Z, younger generation getting into the pastoral ministry. You know, it's a, you know, the Bible says anyone who desires to be an overseer desires a very noble task. And so this is something that's, you know, really important, you know, in terms of encouraging the next generation and people raised up in the next generation to impact even people younger than them and people who are going to come up after them, you know. So it's just, it's a really, really encouraging thing and I'm very thankful to have the guests that we have in the studio who's been my pastor for almost 20 years, the man who baptized me, and the founder of Keep the Fire Burning, ministering to pastors in the northeast and across the country and all over the world.
Please welcome Pastor Bruce Aubrey.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: Great to be with you. Xander and Teddy, thank you for the opportunity. No problem.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: It's just really great to have you on here because of your experience not only pastoring to your local community, but also ministering to other pastors in the area. And like I said, all over the world. We're going to get into that in a little bit. But first, you know, just a little bit of background, a little bit of biography on yourself. How did you get called into ministry? When did you start to feel that calling? And then what did it look like getting into it?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Sure.
Well, thank you again. This is a great opportunity. I appreciate it. For me, I was born in the north country of New York. So this is my home state up in Franklin County, a little town called Burke. My dad was a dairy farmer.
I came to Christ at the age of 14 under the influence of a minister who came in, preached the gospel, realized my need for Christ. My whole life was music. I had studied piano since I was seven. I had been in bands since the fifth grade. I did well in music and that was going to be my dream. I figured I would go to Crane School of Music in Potsdam or Ithaca College or Juilliard was the pipe dream.
Performance would be great, but short term goal probably would be a high school Band instructor. But I also had some experience singing with a little gospel group. They needed a piano player. It put us in a lot of different churches across the northeast and in that area of the country. And we would go and do a concert or sing on a Sunday morning and they'd allow you to share testimony sometimes like before your song, the leaders of the group. And so as a young man, I'm getting exposure to all these churches and I'm having an opportunity to share about what the Lord's done in my life. And I wouldn't say that was all of it, but that led to a moment where I just, I felt like God put a squeeze on my heart.
Over a six month period of time. I knew this is what he was calling me to. So in the summer of 1975, as a 17 year old, I just driving down the road and my parents car began to weep, which is not a good thing to do.
But I just said, okay Lord, you know, I'm in. And I didn't know all that meant. I'm not surprised at all that it meant pastoral ministry. As I was telling people about my plans, they're like, well, well, you can major in music and still go to seminary. I said, I know, but music for me could have been my Isaac. It could have been the one thing I love more than God. I certainly have used it through the years, but I really had to lay that down. And probably the best definition I ever heard of. How do you know if you're called to ministry?
When I was in seminary in Memphis, Tennessee a few years later, a professor was asked, well, how do you know? And I knew I was, but my ears perked up because I wasn't sure I would answer that. And, and I said, and so I'm listening intently and he goes, if you can do anything else and be happy, do it. And that might not work for everybody, but I get that because I know I was made for this. You know, I don't profess to be the greatest pastor ever, anything like that. It's an incredible honor just to serve the Lord, but yeah, to shepherd God's people and to encourage them and to walk with them and nurture them and has been the thrill of my life.
[00:04:44] Speaker A: Yeah, no, absolutely, yeah. And you have used music very effectively in your ministry. When you occasionally he'll get up and lead a song from the piano and it's just, it's incredible. But anyway, yes. So one of the things we really want to talk about is, you know, just relating to, you know, young, young pastors young people coming into ministry because, you know, obviously, you know, it's a little bit of a different time.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:05:05] Speaker A: But you know, there are some things that don't change.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: There are things that are timeless and there's advice. Obviously the advice of scripture is always timeless. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Yes, sir.
[00:05:14] Speaker A: So we just want to, you know, maybe discuss like, what were some challenges that you felt, you know, like coming into, like as a young man coming into ministry.
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Well, for one thing, I have to be patient. You know, I mean, even discerning that call, before I said yes, when I felt like I knew what God wanted me to do, I went to a woman who was like a spiritual mentor to my mom. I'm just a young teenager and she is the most godly person I knew in our community.
And my mom really respected her. And I just went one day and said, I think I'm supposed to go into the ministry. I don't know, but I'm fighting that. I thought she'd give me all these statements about, you know, don't argue with God and you need to surrender to him. And what she said, I don't remember saying anything, Xander. What I remember is, well, what I'm confident of is that she prayed for me. So I would say to those of you listening or watching, you know, if you know somebody that you may sense God has a calling on their life, don't you be the one to call them. He'll call them, but pray for them because there's going to be a spiritual battle for their future.
And I'm absolutely confident that that moment of surrender, driving down Route 11B in my parents car was a result in part to the answer of that woman's prayers.
So I think then, you know, my dad told me early on when I told him I felt called to ministry, he's like, you do know you'll never make much money.
Which was a bizarre thing. I was kind of hoping he'd say, I'm really proud of you.
I'm excited for this. This is great. Now let me tell you something though. My dad was an incredible godly man and he didn't mean that to deter me. And the fact of the matter is, I believe it was an absolute God moment. For one thing, he had no point of reference of a church that would care well for their pastor because oftentimes in churches we had seen, pastors had struggled and churches hadn't necessarily cared for them well.
But I'll tell you what it did for me. It made it for me to know that this would never be about the money.
This would always be about something that was way more valuable than that.
Money's not evil. The love of money is the root of all evil. So I'm actually very grateful for his counsel, and he would be grateful for how God has cared for me through the years he passed years ago. But what I learned early on, people are tough.
I would say it this way, guys, ministry is a blessing, and it's brutal.
And the winds can change at any time, and you don't. And you're carrying stuff sometimes others can know about or don't know about.
I guess I would take it one step further and say, the second most important decision you ever make in your life is who you're going to spend your life with.
So knowing that you're marrying the right person. Like, I was 17 when I felt called, went off to College in Rochester, New York, would go to seminary in Memphis, Tennessee.
You know, I was 24 and not married. And back in those days, that seemed old. It sounds very young now, but people be like, you know, do you think Bruce will ever marry? I'm like, I'm 24. You know, what the world, you know.
But I think I watched a lot of people just put up with each other, and I thought, I don't want to be married if that's the way it is. I go to a restaurant and I watch an older couple, and they're just sitting there staring at each other or out the window. And I thought, surely. But that is so huge.
Xander, you know, Kathy, and We've been married 43 years.
She was the secret sauce to our family.
She has been my cheerleader all my life. I don't know anybody who loves Jesus more than her.
And so that has been important. Now, early on, it's like, how much do you tell your wife, you know, so when I was pastoring in Tennessee, my first church, where I was lead pastor, they'd come to her and say, now I'm sure that Brother Bruce has told you everything. And she'd look at him and say, actually, I have no idea what you're talking about. And then she'd thank me later, you know, because it actually spoke for my integrity and she felt protected.
But then I had a preacher friend years later who said, my wife and I are one. I can tell her anything I want to. Which I get that, too. But I also believe that God gave me grace to be a pastor. He didn't give her grace to be a pastor.
So there are some Things I have to carry. And on occasion she just had to say, you know, if she knows I'm burdened, she just needs to know it's not her.
No, I'm not upset with you. I'm not, you know, I'm carrying something we can't really talk about right now, you know, and I've still felt. So now it's a much more balanced approach. I trust her completely, but I also want to protect her and help her. And I would just say when I came to Northside, you know, God's been very gracious to us through the years and we've seen a lot of things happen, but it was nine years before we ever broke 200 consistently.
And I think one of the reasons for that was I wasn't going to sacrifice my family.
If my kids had a game, I went to it. If they had a concert, I went to it. And that 8, 5 and 2 year old are now 40, 37 and 34. And God gave us another 25 and I.
Pastors don't sacrifice your family for the sake of ministry, but at the same time serve the Lord with your family and ministry. So that's a lot, but we'll leave it there.
[00:10:25] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's really, really neat and I appreciate you sharing that because one thing I immediately take away from that is as a pastor, you definitely need to choose your life partner wisely and have someone who is fully supportive of you being in the pastoral ministry. I mean, that goes for any sort of ministry, but especially the pastor, because it is a, as Andrew said, it's a. It's a noble, it's a higher calling than most.
And with that, higher calling is like a greater amount of responsibility and. And that to me is just really paramount. You know, I'm in a newer relationship myself and I'm, of course, I'm not in the pastorate, but. But I would say just her being my number one cheerleader has really made it so helpful.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:11:10] Speaker C: For me to carry on the responsibilities that I have. And I would say some of the burdens that I carry are probably lighter than what a pastor has to deal with, especially shepherding flocks. So I think that's really, really important and I appreciate your insights on that. And also just the family aspect is super important and I'm sure we're going to touch a little bit more about that. But that's really good that you include the family in your ministry as well.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: And I would say pace is a big factor.
Like we're either lazy or crazy, you know, I love pastors, so I don't mean this demeaning in any way, but it's a job. There's sometimes there's not a ton of accountability and am I really putting forth the effort that I should?
And then there are others. They're just consumed by it and never break away.
And if 0mph is lazy and 160 is crazy and 80 is busy on the, on the dial, let's just say I think a lot of people are running like 140 and calling it busy when it's closer to crazy.
And he who watches over Israel neither slumbers or sleeps. There's no place in the ministry for being lazy or being crazy. You gotta pace yourself. The ministry is a marathon, not a hundred yard dash. So spend time with the Lord daily. Take Sabbath weekly. Have a day a month where you recalibrate two to three days a quarter, where you take a retreat and get your heart in the right place. And make sure you spend time on vacation with your family annually in something you love and enjoy. Doesn't have to be elaborate, whatever you're able to do, but don't miss that.
[00:12:43] Speaker A: Yeah, just the talk of pace and like the talk of like, you know, keeping keeping a balance with your work in the ministry and your work in your life and your family and all that, it's leading me to like a kind of interesting question where it's like, what do you do when you come to that realization point where you realize you have been kind of consumed by this? And it's almost like, in a sense, almost become an idol? And it's like, well, how do you do when you try and reconcile the fact that this is something that is honoring to God? Like the work of ministry is honoring to God, but it's become an idol. Like, that's like the weird cognitive dissonance. Like, what do you say to someone who's kind of had that sort of like, aha moment?
[00:13:20] Speaker B: You guys asking heavy questions, man.
So back in early 2000s, I'm at a men's rally in Rochester. It was like the Promise Keepers movement or something like that. And some of our guys had gone and there's thousands of people there.
It was the first time I ever heard the Katinas sing live, which I just dated myself, a family group that loves the Lord and they do some great worship. But I'm sitting in that room with thousands of people and I thought, you know what?
I turned to the guy next to me from our church and I said, I know what I got to do this weekend. And he said, what do you got to do? And I told him. He goes, then you got to do it. I was like, no, I don't think so. Well, here's what I wound up doing.
So the next day, like Sunday at church, when I got done preaching, I said, before I'm finished, I need to call my family up here.
And they were younger, obviously. My son tells me since then, he thought I was going to resign that day. And if I had, he was going to tell him. He doesn't mean it, you know, But I said, so what I said was, I love this family. And I pointed to our church family, these people all out in front of me, and I said, and I love this family, but I need you to know, if I ever have to choose between this family and this family, I choose this family now.
[00:14:41] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:14:41] Speaker B: I haven't always done that well.
I've sought to do it well, but at the end of the day, somebody else could. Pastor Northside, but nobody else could be my wife's husband. Well, actually, they could, but that's not going to happen.
But nobody else could be my three daughters dad and my son's dad.
And, you know, somebody asked me one time, you know, what's your vision? He's a business guy. And I've spent a lot of time with guys like that, Xander, because they get me thinking in ways I haven't thought of otherwise.
So, you know, what's your vision? I was like, well, I know what I want on my tombstone.
He said, well, what do you want on your tombstone? I said, I wanted to say he was a good husband. He's a good father. Now, I don't know that I'm worthy of either of those. But apart from the gospel and my relationship with Jesus, nothing would mean more to me than that.
But then in 2011, I told my son, I said, I think there's a third line I want on my tombstone. I wanted to say. And he loved pastors.
And he said, daddy, I think you were born for this. You know, and that's when the seeds for all of what I'm doing now were really starting to be birthed. You know, I just. It is a constant challenge. Just, you know, I would have deacons lead the midweek service, and I would go to the school and be there for my kids. And for the most part, we did that. You know, I think my wife says, with Bruce, I never feared the other woman.
The other woman was the church.
And so. And you feel like, well, but they need me, you know, but you have to weigh, like, even the hospital visit. Okay. If somebody just had a heart attack and they're in the icu, yeah, you probably better be there. I'm talking about pastoring a smaller church where you may not have a whole lot of leaders, a whole lot of. We have eight pastors at Northside and deacons.
But if you're the guy, and I've been that. Right. I came to a church as the only staff member and we had a church of 80 people.
And so, well, I got to be there for them. I've gotten up in the middle of the night at the answer of a call to go be with somebody in the midst of a crisis. But if somebody's having a gallbladder out, God bless them and I love them and I'm going to pray for him. But I may not get. You know what I'm saying?
You have to weigh all of that. I ask myself the question, will this ever happen again? People only bury their parents one time. You know, people only have their first child one time. So what are the things that you can prioritize? And then you try to put a grid up that way.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that's really good. Before you ask another question, Xander, there's just a question that's been on my mind since you brought this up in the beginning, and it's kind of a good follow up to your question, Xander. But you mentioned early on, like, making sure that you didn't love the Isaac in your life more than God, and maybe that Isaac was music. Right. Just based on your experience with pastors in the ministry and maybe in your own experience as a pastor, like, what is a common Isaac that you see in the pastorate?
[00:17:28] Speaker A: Great question.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
So it's probably different for everybody, you know, and the reality is, so music came easy to me. I was a clarinet and saxophone player. I wanted to be the lead alto Saxon at Johnny Carson Tonight Show Band played for Doc Severson back in the day.
Doing music for me is just not that hard. It's kind of like ice cream.
Tell me to never play music again would be like telling me, don't ever eat ice cream again. Just, it's. Don't ever ask me to work in your house or your car, but you need a song, I'm probably your guy. If we're doing Shout to the Lord, just tell me what key we're in, you know, or any of the. Many of the modern courses. Okay, what are we doing? And so I just. I just get that.
But I was hoping, you know, everybody hopes with their Isaac that God's just saying, lay it down and I'll let you pick it back up. Yeah, but Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham thought he was going to have to go through with it and God would raise him up.
So it's a true letting go. Yeah. Oh yeah. But if he's Lord, and he is, then he knows what's best and you can trust him.
And a year before I came to Northside, this group was traveling up to our church and they had no accompany us coming with their 40 Voice Youth Choir to the north country up in Brushton.
And I said, well, if I was you, I'd be worried. But I'm telling you, don't worry because two of us could probably play whatever you put in front of us, we'll be okay. By the end of that week, we took a day and went up to Lake Placid just to give the group a day off. And walking down the main street of Lake Placid, this guy said to me, I think it's great that God gave you this gift of music. And you know, I said, yeah, but you don't understand. It's my eyes. And that day he said, but God would have never given it to you if he didn't expect you to use it. I'm sure that's not the first time somebody told me that.
But that day the Holy Spirit just spoke to my heart and said, you're free now.
What I didn't know is a year later I would come to Northside and lead worship for 10 years as we were laying a foundation for what's going on even today.
And really my son's a worship pastor and being used of God greatly in this area. And I just for me it was worth it to lay it down. He did years later.
Let me pick it back up again. Doesn't mean I never played, never sang. I just knew it couldn't be. I think there's another answer to your question. It might be the reason why the Lord led you to ask it.
If pastors struggle to be successful in ministry, and I hate that word, but I think you understand what I'm saying. They don't feel like they're being fruitful. They don't feel like they're being effective. Who really wants to start a ministry and say, I hope this doesn't go well? Nobody's going to say that exactly. But then maybe it's not going well. So then they look for what they could do that would go well. And all of a sudden now they're like, well, you know, the church isn't doing so well, but I picked up this. Well, it's okay to pick up this if God led you to pick up this. Unless this becomes one more distraction from you really pressing into what needs to be dealt with in a pastoral way in your ministry. And so beware of any Isaac, but don't overthink that God's not a killjoy. He gives us all things richly to enjoy. I stopped realizing you can still have fun in life, you know, and that he's given us all things richly to enjoy, like I just said.
But I also would say be careful that you don't then just like we didn't start keep the fire burning 14 years ago because I didn't feel like I was being effective in the pastorate. We did it because God led us to have a ministry to pastors.
But in any life you can start saying, well, I used to be really good at this, but now I'm looking for something. And pastors can feel that way.
And I know from 47 plus years now, 39 as a lead pastor, that there are seasons and there are challenges and you just persevere. Yeah.
[00:21:16] Speaker A: Amen.
[00:21:16] Speaker C: That's good. So basically, in short, you're saying like the Isaac and pastors lives are things that they want to take up because the journey of the pastor is not going as well as they anticipated.
It's not something they're called in, per se.
[00:21:33] Speaker B: That could easily be.
Let me go back to your statement, even about marriage. See, whether you're a pastor or not, this whole marriage thing is a big deal. Oh yeah. You know, don't marry the person you think you could see yourself with.
Marry the person you know you could not be without.
And then secondly, when it comes to Isaac, I think every Christian struggles with an Isaac. Yeah, it's the one thing. And it could be many things. Again, don't overthink this. It's just such a powerful story in scripture where anything that I could love more, give myself more to time wise, investment wise, whatever, than the Lord himself, you know, he's God. There'll be no rivals, you know, you shall have no other gods before me. When that starts becoming a God in your life, by the way it consumes you, then you have to ask a serious question. Is this something I need to lay down?
[00:22:29] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that's really good. And I just want to make this comment before Xander, you give your thoughts on that specifically. And then something else. We talked about the Isaac thing, at least for me in my life. My Isaac was marriage and just having that relationship leading to marriage. Because a lot of people have been saying to me, like, teddy, when are you going to get married? When are you going to get married? And ironically, it was right after I fasted and prayed for the first time in my life about this, for God to even put me in the right direction with my heart and everything. And so I just got to a point where, like, I was like, man, like, I really need to lay this down. I had laid it down a couple times. I was like, no, I really need to lay this down. I was like, I don't care if I'm, like, 35 and it finally comes or if I'm 40.
I just don't want to think about this. The Lord's got other things for me. And I really, finally laid it down.
And then after doing that, two months later, I ended up in a relationship that God led me into and led her into. And now this is the woman. I haven't made those plans officially yet, but this is the woman I do see myself spending the rest of my life with. And so, you know, that's so important, like, really, really, really laying it down. And at least with the music in your case, you know, Bruce, I've seen you in other settings. Like, you preached at the baseball game this past year, the Faith and Family Day, and also some of the national days of prayer.
And I can really see your heart for the Lord and the heart for the ministry, which is such a blessing, because you don't always see that in pastors, unfortunately. Like, some pastors are maybe not even called to the pastor, but they go in because they think that's what's going to bring them that success, like you said. But I can see your heart and how you follow the calling of the Lord.
And that's the thing is, as you laid that down, the music as that was your Isaac, so to speak, as it says in the Psalms, if we delight in the Lord, he will give you the desires of your heart. So you delighted in the Lord first and let him lead you in the calling. And then that desire of your heart of music came back into play within the ministry of your pastorate.
[00:24:35] Speaker B: And I think that verse even means that he'll change your desires.
[00:24:38] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:24:39] Speaker B: And form them into his desire so that what he wants for your life, you'll want.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:24:43] Speaker C: Amen to that.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Amen. Yeah, and it's perfect. You mentioned Keep the fire burning. I just wanted to see if we could talk a little bit about that, you know, as we're speaking, you know, we're a little, we're about three weeks away from the big conference that we have, the Keep the Fire Burning Conference at Northside church from the 20th to the 22nd. Great speakers. You, Dr. Chris Calley, Herschel York, and also Alistair Beggar here. And for how many years exactly has the conference been going?
[00:25:10] Speaker B: So I try to keep this short, but 2010 I was in a doctoral seminar at Liberty University and Dr. Ron Hawkins shared his story of how he came to Christ.
And by his terms he told us that it was a little Baptist church and he had already told us he had grown up in New York. So end of the day I asked him what was the name of the town and he said, Addison, New York.
So I looked it up and there was about 1800 people. And I thought I grew up in a town like that, you know. And he tells the story of how he, at the age of 16, was a broken young man who was very bitter knowing that he had grown up with a father who had been an alcoholic. And there were seven kids and he was the oldest of the kids and he'd worked since he was 13 to give his mother a paycheck.
And yet here I am listening to a man lead a doctoral seminar who is now at the time the third highest ranking academic officer of the largest Christian university in the world, who got saved at the invitation of a co worker from a hospital in a church in the Southern tier New York that probably had 50 people that day.
And I thought who's helping churches like that and who's going to help pastors in churches like that and who's going to be the pastor of a church like that?
And then I played out the scenario in my head, which was hypothetical, but I'm sure guys have lived. I could just imagine who's going to. There are not a lot of guys that are in seminaries of Bible college today saying, I hope when I'm done they send me to a town with 1800 people in New York to pastor a church of 60 people. And yet those churches need that. I grew up in a church of 40 people in a town of 1300.
And so I just thought, I know who's going to go there. They're going to call some young guy out of college, he's going to be excited. He's got his first church, they're going to be excited. He's got us a young preacher and about a year in he's going to have some ideas and he's going to go and say, you Know what? If we did this, I think we could reach more people in our community.
And totally hypothetical, I'm just talking here. And they go, well, we're not going to do that. They're like, what do you mean we're not going to do that? And then we'll come the speech. Eventually, maybe he puts it off for six months, goes back to him, says, really got a burden for this church. I think I could really thrive.
And finally they look at him and say, we were here before you got here and we'll be here when you're gone. And we're not going to do that.
And a year and a half in that guy may leave ministry. In fact, he may not only leave that church, he may never be in ministry again.
And he and the church lose because the church still has to find another pastor. And are they going to settle for having like a chaplain, even though they'll call him pastor, somebody who'll just do religious duties but don't lead. So I love pastors. I love churches. Out of that was born a conference. 2011 is the answer to your question.
So Jonathan Falwell was one of the first speakers ever. Charles Billingsley came and led worship.
We did it for six years.
Then we paused, took a sabbatical, if you will. And then God led us to take it on the road we had in the Philippines and in New Jersey. We've done one in South Korea. We did it virtually during COVID And we've been back engaged more recently with in person conferences.
[00:28:32] Speaker C: Thank you so much, you guys, for tuning in to part one of Mind and Xander's conversation with Pastor Bruce Aubrey. There's so much more to this conversation that we're gonna get into in part part two of this episode. But before we get there, I do want to mention the Keep the Fire Burning conference that we just spoke about has already passed. But we do want to let you know that there's so much more information about it and ways you can stay connected with Keep the Fire Burning by going to their website. It's ktfbconference.com again. That is ktfbconference.com again, thank you so much for tuning in and we're going to see you over in part two of of this conversation. Thank you again for helping us make a maximum impact for the Kingdom of God. God bless.
