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What Every Pastor Needs to Know about Studying God's Word | Scott Graham

  • Writer: Ryan Franklin
    Ryan Franklin
  • May 6
  • 42 min read

Updated: 15 hours ago

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In this episode of The Christian Leader Made Simple Podcast, Ryan Franklin sits down with Scott Graham, General Secretary of the United Pentecostal Church International, to explore the high calling of preaching and the power of studying God’s Word. Scott shares defining moments from his early ministry, including personal struggles that shaped his approach to Scripture. Together, they discuss practical study habits, common pitfalls pastors face, and how to balance sermon preparation with personal spiritual growth. With decades of experience and a gift for communicating truth, Scott offers encouragement and wisdom to help pastors deepen their love for the Word and lead with eternal impact.






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Transcript


There was a moment at an altar that the Lord just really worked me over that I had a nice habit, but I didn't really have a prayer life and I made some drastic changes in my just attention to and focus on God as a routine matter of life. It became life to me. Welcome to the Christian Leader Made simple podcast. I really hope this episode helps you learn and master the skills you need to grow your leadership, effectiveness and enjoyment. Be sure to hit the subscribe button to get notified as soon as I post a new session so you don't miss a single episode. I'd also greatly appreciate any reviews, likes and shares that you can give me. It just helps me extend my reach to more people. So leaders, I know just how frustrating it can feel when you're in the weeds of work or ministry and life is chaotic and you're struggling to feel effective and you're just not enjoying leadership as much as you could be. And so to help you, after many years of leadership and executive coaching, I've developed a framework called the Christian Leader Blueprint that'll guide you to find clarity. In your life and leadership. It'll help you gain a better rhythm of life, it'll help you see yourself more clearly to leverage your strengths, and you'll produce more productive relationships. It's a step by step guide to leadership transformation and I have that in two formats now. I have a free short guide that you can find on ryanfranklin.org and I have a book, the Christian Leader Blueprint and you can find that in any format, including an audiobook, wherever you buy your books. I have a few more things on my website that you may be interested in, so just head on over to ryanfranklin.org and check it all out. And now let's get to our session. Welcome to the Christian Leader Made simple podcast. On the show today we have a special guest, the General Secretary of the United Pentecostal Church International, Scott Graham. Scott has dedicated all of his adult life to ministry, including 15 years of pastoral leadership in St. Louis, Missouri. He he has served as youth pastor, associate pastor, and Senior pastor in the local church and he has served in a variety of offices in the UPCI organization and as mentioned, he currently serves on the national level as the General Secretary and as an international speaker. Scott shares his insights and his experiences. He preaches and teaches with audiences all around the world. And when I personally think of Scott Graham, I think of leadership, but I also think of his strong ability to communicate the Word of God. He's a master at it. And so I've asked him to come on today to talk about this specific subject. So, Brother Graham, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show. Well, you are very kind, if not marginally misguided, but I thank you so much. It's a joy to be here. And man, after all that, I can't wait to hear me. I wouldn't expect anything less of you than to say something witty like that. That's. That's what makes you. You. You're really good. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here, Ryan. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. So we'll just jump right in. I'd love for you to take a. Take us back to maybe the early days of your ministry and just share some, maybe a defining moment or even a personal struggle that has sort of shaped how you study the word of. God today, you know, reflecting on that a little bit. And I suppose I'll make myself a little vulnerable here, but that's okay. I grew up in an apostolic church. I grew up in the United Pentecostal Church. I've often joked that my earliest memories are waking up having slept on my dad's Bible and I've got red letter edition stamped across my cheek for about 30 minutes after church. This is all I've known and I'm grateful for that. I say that to the Lord's credit and I'm very blessed by that. Grew up all my years going to youth camps, going to youth convention, all those sorts of things. About the time that I was coming through college, I was in Bible school. I'm the youngest of three siblings in my family. About the time I was coming through Bible school and Michelle and I had met, we were dating, we're engaged and looking at marriage. My family began to make some turns directionally in terms of their church involvement, their belief structures and so forth. And so I find myself coming out of Bible school, about to get married, establishing my own pathway through life, my own home and so forth. And I'm suddenly confronted with, I'm not going to call it a crisis of faith, that's probably a little overstatement, but a window where I had to take some hard looks at what do I believe, why do I believe it? Is this convenience? Is this just what I've always been, what I've always known? Or do I find these truths to be rooted in scriptural foundations and it just did something to me in terms of driving me to dig deep into the scriptures? It was the first, I mean, I had gone through Bible School made good grades there. But this was my first real moment, I think, where I was compelled to dig into the Word of God for myself to just kind of establish some things. It was significant in that moment, certainly for setting the pathway of my life and our home for Michelle and for me. But beyond that, the residual effects of comprehending the value of digging into the Scriptures continue to this day, I believe. Yeah, I had a very similar situation in my life when I wrote Salvation Made simple, which has gone on and has been published in a lot of languages and has gone all over the world. But it's become a pillar in my life. But I was 17 years old when I started grappling with that. And so I can relate to how that could be a turning point in your life and how that has kind of shaped your desire and your ability to study the Word. How has that kind of shaped. As the years have gone, how has that kind of. What direction has that gone? Well, let me pause to say I think everybody, anybody who serves God for a significant length of time is going to come to that moment. At some point, it just has to cease being convenient or just this is what I am for no particular reason. So I think everybody comes to that moment. I do think perhaps I came to mind a little sooner than some, and I'm grateful for that because those foundational pillars have remained and have been the foundation from which I've been able to serve him, lead a family, see ministry, develop, preach to those that I've been blessed to touch with the Word of God. I've never gotten away from those moments that I just settled some things now that's, of course, 19 years old or 20 years old. I guess I was probably 21 at that point. Maturity over the years helps you deepen and enrich and provides nuances, the color to the photo and so forth. Over time, it gets richer. But the underlying identity was established in that moment, and it's been my anchor point. I've gone back to that through the years. I mean, anybody that would criticize me for this is just not being honest with themselves. Through the years, I've had friends, close friends, family that have taken directional turns and things that have been hurtful, I won't deny that to see. But I've gone back to that anchor point more than once. I've gone back to that study and the digging in the Scriptures I did. And it's been a. It's just been a place that my tent stake was tied down. And I'm grateful for that. Very thankful. So out of that, has sort of. It has. Everything else in ministry and teaching and preaching has kind of flown out, has kind of flowed out of that, at. Least was anchored to it. Yeah. Yeah. Has there ever been a time where. And maybe not doctrinally, but has there ever been a time where you've maybe felt unprepared or overwhelmed at your responsibilities as a pastor or as a teacher preacher, where you felt like you were just struggling with wrestling with scripture in a deep way? Well, certainly being confronted with the magnitude of the chaos that is in lives that you meet. I'm not numbered. I've heard people say, you know, boy, I wish I'd lived in the days of the apostles. And I'm like, I'm not sure. I really wish that. I kind of like indoor plumbing and air conditioning, you know, But I will say there were times certainly in pastoring and in other opportunities of ministry that I thought, you know, pastoring in 1960 might not have been bad. You don't meet any good sinners anymore. Nobody comes to your church. Just nuclear family. Me and the Mrs. And the two kids and the 1.7 dogs and just everything's fine. You know, we got a good job and a decent home and we just all baptism in Jesus name. Great. I'd never seen that before. Boy, you just hardly ever meet those people. The people that come are so broken and so damaged and the world has gotten so chaotic that there were more than a few occasions that I just felt like, what am I going to tell this person? What can I preach or teach to this person who is so. Life is so dysfunctional and so broken and these deep psychological wounds and so forth that. Yeah, more than a few occasions, you know, you just almost feel, I don't know how to do this. I don't know. I mean, I've got this book and it's full of timeless truths. But, man, what do you do in those moments? Yeah, well, what I tried to come back to was that God is really good at being God and he doesn't expect me to be him. I told our church on more than one occasion that one of the great. In all my years of study, one of the great differences I've discovered between God and us is that God never thinks he's us. Unfortunately, on the other side of that equation, we sometimes tend to have this deity complex. Well, I'm supposed to be God. That's good. God doesn't expect me to fix those people, to solve them. He expects me to declare his word and the principles of that book are timeless and they're eternal and they're alive. I think that that fact has been such a help to me through the years. That book is dynamic. It's living energy. And if I will declare it, I don't have to figure out how it works necessarily, because I look at. I don't know how. It's the foolishness of preaching. The Bible uses that term. Not foolish preaching, but the foolishness of the idea. But something miraculous happens in that moment when the written word becomes living and the dynamic energy that is released. So I have had to remind myself, myself, when I feel a little overwhelmed by the task, that if I will be faithful to my calling and faithful to His Word, divine energy is unleashed and lives are changed in a miraculous way. In the same way. Perhaps I can phrase it this way. I don't understand the how of. I take a drop of olive oil, I put it on somebody's head, I pray in Jesus name, and their scoliosis is healed. I don't know how that happened, but it did because of obedience and faith and the power of his name. In similar fashion, I can't always describe the how of putting together a sermon, delivering it. If I've prayed and there's an anointing of God there, I can't explain the how. But the wonder of it is that divine energy in the Word of God is released and lives are changed. And I need to trust in that. It's not about me in the first place. It's not about what I can do in the first place. Usually that you ask about overwhelm. Usually in my life, at least, when I get that feeling of being overwhelmed, it's because I'm trying to take on something that was never my responsibility in the first place. I'm trying to assume too much responsibility for the results instead of being committed to the process. That's a powerful thought. Powerful thought. So I want to come back to that. But a little bit of a rabbit trail here. You wrote an article in SGI Journal of Leadership about the high calling of preaching and that it's not just a position, it's a divine commission. That's what you wrote. Can you describe the moment when you first felt the calling to preach? What did that look like? What did it feel like? How did it shape your approach to preaching and teaching the word? I appreciate that I can, but the first moment, I'm not sure I can. So I don't know that I can go to the first one. I can come to the moment that I came to grips with It. And it had a twofold thing there, probably at about 16 years old or thereabouts, began to have these little tuggings. You go to camp or convention or youth congress or whatever, and you'd have this really powerful God moment. And I just began to have this tug. Is that what my life's purpose is supposed to be? Is that what I'm supposed to do? I had my future all mapped out. I was majoring in computer engineering at the University of Illinois. I had won an academic scholarship based on my ACT score from the Illinois Veterans Administration. My dad was Korean War vet. They were paying everything. I mean, I had a full ride at U of I, paying tuition, room and board, books, everything. It was all covered. And I'm just. You know, I go there for that first year. I had a great time. I loved it. It was involved in the church there, loved what I was studying. This was in 1983. Nobody had PCs yet. Nobody had home computers, but you could see that kind of on the horizon. And so, man, I think I'm positioned perfectly for what I'm going to do. And I even had a. I got connected through my physics professor with a representative from Hewlett Packard, and they offered me these summer internships and a job when I get out. And so I leave my freshman year of college, and I'm just. I've got it set, man. My college is paid for. I got a job waiting on when I get out. I got paid internships in the summers. And then I went to youth camp, and Anthony Mangan preached. And on Tuesday night, he preached a message titled, My Obligation to My Generation. And when I tell you I've heard people say, oh, the preacher stepped on my toes. No, he broke my knees. He gutted me like a fish. In the immortal words of the late Norm Pasley, entrails were flung from wall to wall. I mean, I crawled to the altar, Ryan. I mean that in the most literal sense. I cried and squalled and stayed and prayed and left the tabernacle only when the staff made me leave to go to the dorm. And I. I waited till everybody went to sleep. I was not a perfect kid, but I tend to be a rule follower. It was the only night of my youth camp career I ever snuck out of the dorms. And I did to go back over to the tabernacle. And I was there when the sun came up. I stayed there all night and died and crucified a bunch of stuff and went home from that camp and turned in my scholarship and called Hewlett Packard and told him I wasn't coming and left and went to Bible school. And that was the night that I really came to grips with it without question. And it was overwhelming. It was frightening, because, again, I thought I had an old future laid out, and to suddenly just jerk all those roots up and say, okay, God, I don't know how this goes. I don't know what this is going to look like, but here it is. And it was funny. I've actually joked with Brother Mangan about this because that Hewlett Packard thing, again, had I stayed through school, I would have graduated in 1987. And this deal that Hewlett had offered me was that when I got out, they'd start me with a job in their management development track. And starting salary was $48,000 a year, which in 87 was really good money coming out of college. And I got out of Bible school and went, became a youth pastor and made $13,000 my first year and told Brother Mangan that I was this close to sending him an invoice for 35 grand. You did this to me. You know, it just. It was frightening. And my family had the obvious. And I get it, the obvious concerns about, is this just a youth camp high. You come home and you're changing your whole life based on this moment. But that was the night. That was the night that I built the altar and said, this is what you're calling me to do, and this is what I'm committed to. Which, again, I think in my mind, becomes a great pillar to your history, to your memories, you know, fall back on. Can't tell you how many times I've gone back there emotional. Well, and that was my next question, is how important was that moment in times of questioning, challenging, you know, did I do the right thing? Oh, yeah. That moment was not near as important. When you walk off the platform on Sunday night and it's. Everything's just roared and gone great. And, man, everybody's patting you on the back, telling you what a great job you did, that alter you. I'm visiting, right? Then when you take six steps off that platform and a family comes up and says, we're not coming back, or you have staff challenges or whatever, it doesn't matter what the crisis is, or you invest, pour yourself into somebody, and then they walk away, backslide. Those moments when you're broken and crushed and hurt, boy, you gotta be able to go back to some moment that you say, right now, I can't make any sense of it, but I know, I know I know. And you've got to be able to go back to that moment. I had another, if you don't mind me sharing, another moment. Like I had another of those moments that I come back to when I was still in this wrestling. You know, what am I called to do? Is this my life purpose? My grandfather was an old preacher guy. Now nobody knows him. His name was Paul Klepper. He pastored little small churches across southern Illinois. An old coal miner, but that's on my mom's side of the family, the maternal side. That's where Pentecost came into my family. It was through him. When I was 19 years old, he was dying. He had been unconscious for probably three days. His kidneys had shut down, body was horribly swollen. He was in his last days. We were taking turns sitting with him there in the home where he was. And I happened to be there. And again, he hadn't been awake in three days. And he all of a sudden just opens his eyes, sits up and reaches out with his left hand and finds his Bible that we had on his nightstand there. Reaches out with his right hand and grabs a handful of my shirt and pulls me over the bed. I said a word to him, he didn't know I was wrestling anything like this. Pulls me halfway over his bed, takes that Bible, slaps it against my chest. And the last words he ever spoke to me, he said, preach truth, son, preach truth. And I grabbed that Bible. It's right over here in my office. If you ever buy here, I have it in a display case here in my office. Because somehow, at some level in the spirit, he knew something I didn't even know yet. But boy, I've come back to that moment too. And I know right now people are going, dude, you had that moment and you still had to wait till youth camp for brother Mangan. Yeah, I hard headed old German family, I guess, but. But I have come back to that moment as well. Many times that even before I could acknowledge it, God knew where I was going to be. And so yeah, those anchor points coming back to those moments that are definitive call. And it's sobering. It's overwhelming at times. I mean, it's humbling. I'm like, really me? But yeah, I've come back to those moments a lot. That story reminds me of the patience of God. Are you talking about why did that not do it for you? And the Lord has patience with us and sometimes he has to confirm things multiple times and often has more with. Me than I have with myself. Yeah. So in your earlier years of ministry, as you were moving into that, what was the biggest challenge that you faced in growing as a student of the Bible? Were there moments of doubt, frustration, even failure that taught you lessons as you were studying and trying to process how to study the Bible? Yeah, I think so. The one thing I would say, in retrospect, it's a lot easier to see it now than it was at the time. It's interesting you just mentioned that word. I was a little impatient in the process. I wanted to sit down with my Bible and in about seven minutes, have mastered some subject or have dug out some deep, profound truth or. You know what I mean? I think youth and impetuous. I was young and clueless in some regards. I'm old and clueless, maybe in a few less regards. But I do think I was a little impatient. I tended to expect microwave results. Push a couple buttons, the bell rings in five minutes. And I've uncovered this profound something out of Scripture. And that was probably one of the great challenges I had to study is not being willing to take a long enough perspective approach to things. Yeah. And this is not a microwave thing. You've had to develop a consistent routine, daily deep study in order to. Because I've heard plenty of your messages over the years, and they're not shallow, they're deep. They stir any intellectual type people. It's going to stir them, but it's going to deeply impact people emotionally. You preach with lots of stories and things of that nature. It's just. It's phenomenal. It's a masterpiece. But that does not come in a microwave form. No, it doesn't. And I've had. And I. You're very kind. You know, no matter what I say now, it sounds like I'm agreeing with you, and I. That's a little awkward, but it doesn't. I. That I won't. I won't hedge on. You know, I've had young, young preachers occasionally come up and, you know, brother Graham, I want you to lay hands on me and pray the anointing you have. God will put that on me. And I'm like, dude, you don't know what I've paid to be where I am. You don't. You know, I mean, I appreciate the fact that you're looking for the Bogo offer, you know, buy one, get one free, but it doesn't work that way. And much of what any of us who, it's not exclusive to me, but many times the depth that we are able to glean from scripture or the Depth we're able to glean, even in terms of anointing, that comes through pain, that comes through hard times. And I think it's a little unfair for any of us to say, God, I want the result of those hard times without having to live through them. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way because some of the more profound lessons. I am of the opinion that most everything we preach, if we preach it effectively, it's because we live through it first. And so to look for a short circuit to that, I've often laughed and said one of the greatest examples that I can see of our generation or this generation's propensity for wanting instant results is the fact that even on the box of minute rice there are microwave instructions. I mean, we haven't cut it down enough to minute rise. We want to microwave the minute rise. That is the nature. And I get it. I mean, I totally understand it. That's easier, that's cheaper. You know, I understand why that's attractive. It's just not real. It doesn't come that way. And I think early on that was probably the greatest flaw I had, was just, you know, I can't wait to have patience, that kind of thing, you know. Yeah. And you know, I hear you about the experiences in life. You got to go through some things to be able to preach about those things. However, that's also paired with deep study. And many times those daily responsibilities sort of get in the way. For pastors out there, church leaders out there that are trying to deeply study those daily responsibilities get in the way. What's some mistakes that you see pastors doing with their daily and routine study habits and what's your recommendations on how to correct those? Well, and I want to be careful because I have been one of those unusual guys that's been very blessed to have been in full time vocational ministry from Bible school on. And I totally get it that a lot of guys just don't have that privilege. And I honor you. Got some church planters going out and digging out of church. See, he's got to work, man. He's my hero. Not me. It's that guy. Absolutely. So I'm cautious. I want to temper anything I'm going to say by acknowledging that the ideal doesn't exist for everybody. Personally, for me, I think that one dedicated hour of study is more advantageous than six 10 minute slots. Okay. For deep study of the word of God to really dig and probe. And mine, I do think that one uninterrupted Hour is better than six 10 minute windows here and there throughout the week. Now again, sometimes the ox is in the ditch. You got to do what you got to do. Okay, I get that. And I'm not knocking anybody. That said, man, I squeezed 10 minutes in on lunch hour of my second job. Totally respect that. But in the ideal world, I do think uninterrupted windows for me at least serve me better than little disjointed sections. Intentional plans for what I'm studying, how I'm studying it. You know, I'm going to do this word study. It may take me a month to get through it because of limited time window, but I'm going to do this word study on justification or whatever. Or I'm going to do a character study of the life of Joseph. I'm going to. Not just the flannel graph, boy I dated myself right there. Not just the flannel graph. Sunday school story we tell the junior high class. I'm going to probe and dig and ponder what he was feeling and what emotions and what kind of thoughts he had to go through. And some of that stuff I heard years ago. I heard Max Lucado make a statement or read a statement he made. Famed author, poet with words. He said, some of my favorite parts of the Bible are the white spaces between the verses. I get what he was saying. He'll pause and think, well, what was going on right there? What did somebody feel right there? What was he thinking right there? And so sometimes I'm going to take this intense study of this character. I'm going to take time to really ponder and meditate and think till I'm immersed with that so that I'm thinking about this in those little 10 minute windows throughout the day. Or I think some intention about what's my next deep study going to be? And not just. Not just so I can get another sermon to preach. I know that pressure. I get that temptation. I told somebody, somebody said, what's hard about pastoring? I said, one of the things is Sunday comes around every week, every week. There's a Sunday every week, every week. And whoever that Jasper was that sang that song easy like Sunday Morning, he wasn't a pastor because there's nothing easy about it. But how do you balance that though? How do you balance that? Because I find myself studying something and I'm like, well, this is good stuff. I need to share this. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. So if you're studying and something comes out, you go, yeah, I'm going to preach that I'm going to develop that. That's co. I think intent. Sometimes I think I have to. Each of us has to sit down with the Bible and say, I'm not studying this just to see if I can find something to preach. I'm studying this to better myself. I'm studying this. What can God say to me? What lessons do I need to learn? Admittedly again, I said it before a lot of times, what we live, what we learn becomes something we preach. I get that. But I do think motive wise, there have to be times that you just go, you know what I'm going to study? I'm going to study the life of Abraham because man he pleased God. I want to please God. What can I learn from his life? Now maybe down the road, how do I say this? I want to deepen my well, okay? Now down the road, when I'm pulling out water to give somebody else to drink, I'm going to draw out of that well. But I'm deepening the well for my own well being, my own good. So I would offer one thing that I've suggested sometimes. Bi vocational guy and man. All my time every week is consumed with just finding what I'm going to preach Sunday or what I'm going to teach Wednesday night. Get that? Totally get that. I've suggested sometimes find you another neighboring pastor who is bivocational as well and swap Sundays with him. You come preach for me a Sunday, I'll come preach for you a Sunday. And I can, because for that Sunday, I'm not saying you just fluff it off, but you maybe can use something you've preached before or rework it a little bit. It doesn't have to be maybe as fresh if the Lord will release you to do that. But the Sunday he comes, what I've told a couple of young men that I try to invest in that Sunday that he's going to come for you. That's not your week off. It doesn't mean you just don't have to study. It means that week you can devote your study to you. You can devote your study to you without having to worry about how's this going to translate into what I preach on Sunday. The more one can do that, whether it's that mechanism or whatever you hollow out this hour. God, I'm not. And I think you make that a part of prayer when you come into that study time. Lord, I'm not studying today. Sermon mining. I want you to help me speak to me today. And I want to take this topic and Maybe you make. I don't know, I'm talking out loud now, but maybe you just make a personal commitment. God, I just want to tell you this hour is about you and me. And I'm not even going to look for anything to preach out of this. I'm not going to. I'll do that later, and you'll speak to me later about that. But for this, maybe someday what I learned here, what I go through, will make its way because we all become the composite of what we've studied and it flows into our preaching. But for today, this is just the hour that I need you to work on me. I want your word to work on me. I think those times can be a little more deliberate, a little more. Less pressure filled. Sometimes when I'm studying to preach, I feel the pressure. I gotta get something, I gotta get it, I gotta develop it. I gotta get ready. Sunday's coming. Those times that I'm just mining for what I can, digging my well deeper. There's a little less pressure there. It's more relational. I love that analogy. You're digging your well deeper and you're letting what you give to others just kind of flow out of. Out of you. And I use this. I'm sorry, I used this picture before, too. Along that line, you know, we all, especially when we're younger, probably more than now for me. But when we're younger, like, man, I want a cool thought. I want a cool thought. I want to preach something that's. What a cool thought. Cool water comes out of deep wells. Wow. Yeah, that's. That's powerful. That'll preach. Yeah, well, probably have. So to get that cool water out of that deep well, you gotta have a bucket, you gotta have practical tools, practical habits, things of that nature. What have you found to be most valuable to you in your personal study? Well, you know, I tend to be a pretty regimented guy. I readily admit that my life is very ordered. I had somebody ask me one time, they said, you have ocd. I said, no, I have cdo. They have to be alphabetical. I can't have. I can't do that. I don't think I actually have ocd. But I do tend to be pretty regimented. I'm one of these guys that every pocket on my briefcase has certain stuff that's in it. And my day is very scheduled and very orderly task list on Outlook and all that kind of stuff. So I do tend to be in my mind. You need good study resources. I appreciate. And I've got the Bible and That's enough. Well, it is. I got it. Boy, there's some great tools out there. And in today's world, with computer software, I highly recommend an investment in a really good piece of Bible study software. I use Logos. That's just what I've used for years. It was a very significant financial investment to get a really. They've got smaller packages that I could have done, but I had saved up and bought a really nice package with Logos. I use it. I do still like books, physical books. I do. I've got several study resources. I still like to get out the physical copy and plow through it. But, man, there is no denying that being able to click those hot links and it just jumps to every article in Nave's topical Bible and everything that is related to that topic. The time saved from having to dig through those volumes physically. So I think in terms of that thing about time, boy, you can't replace the value of a really good set of study tools, digital study tools. I know everybody's on this AI thing. I wanted to ask you about that. You know what? How do you feel about that? How do you feel about AI helping a preacher? Study? Helping. I got. Okay, so maybe pause and say, I believe that AI is becoming the line that defines me as old. I really have about decided that my mother is still living. She's 92. I get so tickled to her sometimes when we try to give her very simple instructions, something to do on the computer, and she won't touch it because she's scared what she's going to do. I've tried to assure her, mom, if you click on the wrong link on your banking app, you are not going to launch a missile at North Korea. Okay? It's going to be okay. But she's so scared to do anything because she just, you know, it's intimidating her. I'm about to decide that AI is that line for me. I just. I'm like, I ain't doing it. I ain't touching it. I'm not going there. I have enough genuine ignorance. I don't need artificial intelligence. I don't know. I just. I can't. It's not my world. I get it. Huge time savings. I think that the trap in it is okay. So I use it to create a title slide for my sermon. Great. I got no issue. Fantastic. You know, Cool. I use it to find. And I'm looking for an illustration for some topic and I ask, you know, and it gives me this really great historical illustration. Wonderful. I got no issue with that. I think the trap is that the first time that I'm pressed for time and I just say, prepare me a sermon on or. Boy, then I'm really uncomfortable because I just. I'm going to cross somebody's theology probably here. But I. This calling is so, so high. And the danger is once you do it once becomes very easy to do it again and again and again and always have a justification for why I was pressed for time. And I know it. Again, I respect the bivocational guys, but boy, if you just. It can become such a crutch, then. I'm not here for my struggle with it. I think it's another tool. I think it's an important tool. But I think that the problem that we, in my opinion, what we may run into is that it starts, you know, the well isn't dug deep anymore. It becomes. Exactly. The person can become shallow in a study. And that's dangerous, in my opinion. Yeah. Because again, part of the effect of the study is to deepen who I am. Exactly. And if I don't have that, I'm just. Yeah. So I have concerns that the tool could start to manage us instead of the other way around. Yeah. And that to me is dangerous because if I'm not. There's something. There's just something alive about that book. And when I have time with it and I spend time with it, See, I. Again, I'm old. I still carry a Bible, physical Bible, to church. I feel naked without it. I carry it to the pulpit. Now, I will freely admit I've got all my notes on my computer. I've got a tablet computer. I preach off that. I don't have paper notes, thank God. Most times I carry that Bible to the pulpit and I carry it back and I've never touched it while I'm preaching. Physically, it's just there, but it's. Man, I can't go to church without it. That thing is. That book is my friend. It's my sacred companion. I just. Yeah, I'm old school in that regard. I'm going to Bible study. We're recording this on a Wednesday. I'll be going to Bible study tonight. I will have my Bible with me. So before we continue on with the podcast, this episode is brought to you by Christian Leader Community Coaching. Are you. Are you a Christian leader who is overwhelmed by the complexity of trying to figure out how to grow your team? I want to introduce to you our Christian Leader Community Coaching program. We have an easy to use online platform that has a full archive of courses, supportive community live group coaching and elements that are customizable specifically for your team. And I've personally seen the quick and enormous impact that it can have on a team of leaders who are focused together on learning and mastering the skills needed to grow their leadership, effectiveness and enjoyment. And we want to be a part of that with you. We want to help you create and implement a plan. The community is very much affordable, but I would say that you can't afford not to have focused growth within your team. Your results heavily depend on it. So don't wait any longer. Let's do this together. Go to ryanfranklin.org and join Christian Leader Community Coaching today. I look forward to seeing you and your team inside the community. And now back to our podcast. So in the article that I mentioned earlier, you reminded us that that preachers aren't just speakers. They're called to reach the loss with the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. That's how you worded it. Is this something that you keep in the back of your mind at all times as you're preaching and teaching? And how does that shape the way you study and preach? You know, if we, I mean, the short version, I think it has to. Ryan, we. If I ever forget that this is not a secular enterprise, this is not a natural, this is a supernatural event that's about to happen when any of us steps to the pulpit. And I gotta tell you the thing that is so the gravity of the fact that people that are there could potentially have their eternity altered by what happens that night. And I don't know how that doesn't drive you to your knees if you keep that in focus. I've told some young men, and I had an elder tell me this. So I've passed this along. I had an elder tell me one time when I was young in ministry, early in pastoring, I guess he said, you know, he said, there are a group of people sitting on your church pews. They're going to heaven. And they are probably going to heaven no matter how bad a job you do as pastor. The heartbreaking thing is there's probably another set of people on the pews. They're probably going to hell, and they're going probably no matter how good a job you do as pastor. But there's this segment in the middle, whose eternity and whose eternal destiny you can affect. Well, God can affect through you. If you're spiritual and diligent and intentional and have the mind of God and preach with compassion and passion, you can affect their eternity. I don't know how to escape the magnitude of that. I mean, I think of a surgeon who can step into somebody with a dire situation, and they, by their skill, by their training, by their practicing their art, they can save that person's life. What that must feel like. I mean, what's it feel like to step back in and say, Mr. And Mrs. Smith, your son's going to be okay. We were able to remedy the situation, and he's going to be all right. And how rewarding that must feel. But even saving their son's life only buys him 70 years, maybe 80, 90, if I do my job right. And it's not about me, but if I am willing to be spiritually minded and committed and devoted to this cause and doing my very best, man, somebody's eternity. Eternity can be affected. That drives me. That's still, you know, the other thing, Ryan, that I've pondered before is when I'm there preaching, there could be somebody on that pew whose grandmother has been praying for them for 30 years or whose mother has fasted untold numbers of meals for that person. And God allows me, with all my challenges and faults or whatever, to have the potential at least to be a part of the answer that he sends to that lady's prayers that grips me until I just. I can't get over that. And so, yes, I think the magnitude of what's happening, the high and holy nature of this calling, what I'm being both assigned and privileged to do, has to compel me. It's not flippant. It's not casual. It's not. And I've tried to take that mindset some years ago now, it's admittedly been. A few years ago, a lady in our church who did our nursing home ministry asked me, pastor, would you come preach in a nursing home service? And I went and I preached to this little group of seniors. And you know how it is. Anybody that's ever done that, you're not sure they're listening. They're just, you know, they're sweet folks, but you don't know. Afterwards, she paid me a really high compliment. She posted on social media, which. That's another one of those lines that shows how old I am. I'm not really much of a social media guy, but I saw it, somebody showed it to me, and she posted. Very high confidence, said, whether he's preaching a general conference or preaching nursing home, it feels the same. Well, I want it to, but in reality, these people probably don't have much time left. If there's any place that I should Give my very best. It's to them in light of eternity. And so I am driven, very much so. And I think we all should be, by the magnitude of what we're doing. We are rescuing souls. What I hear in that is this is not about you, not about your personal gain. It's about eternal impact. It has to be. I will tell you. Let me share a little story with you that I don't know the demographics of our audience or how young or how old the average hearer is, but. It'S a wide range. There you go. So some here certainly would remember Brother Jesse Williams, who was our longtime assistant general Superintendent at the UPC for the Eastern Zone Pastor, Fayetteville, NC. Amazing man. When I spent my years at the Youth division, I just gotten there. I'm young and I'm suddenly. I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but I'm just kind of suddenly propelled this national footprint. Suddenly I'm traveling here and there and preaching and preaching at youth camps and all this stuff. I was in a setting one night where Brother Williams preached. It was magnificent. I mean, it was just deep and rich and wonderful. The pure spirit of that man came through so much. He was preaching. And afterwards I went up to speak to him. I wanted to thank him and. But in the crush of people, I'm hearing person after person say, oh, Brother Williams, that was great. You did such a great job. You did so great. You know, all that. And I was now in a season of life where I was experiencing that. When I would go preach at a youth camp or whatever, you have all these people saying all these wonderful things about your ministry efforts that night. And so when I got up to him, rather than just take that moment to compliment him again, I said, can I ask you a question? I said, how do you handle this? How do you handle this adulation, this pats on the back, all these compliments, all these people. Well, Ryan, he told me something changed my world. He said, you know, Brother Graham, for several years, when I get done preaching and I get back to my room, whether that's at home or hotel room or whatever, he said, if I go in a hotel room, he said, when I get back to my room tonight, before I do anything else, before I change clothes and clean up or whatever, I will pause for a moment, get down beside that bed, and I'll say, lord, those people at church tonight thought you did a great job, but they couldn't find you to tell you. So they mistakenly told me, and I've saved it all up. And I'm bringing it here right now to lay it at your feet and tell you that you did a great job tonight and I thank you for it. And he said, then I go on my way and I unburden myself of all that I give that worth belongs. Wow. Wow. It changed my. It totally rocked my world. Changed my world because it's. You said it a minute ago. It's not about me. It's not about me. That old line, you've probably heard it, that thing about some guys preach and people walk out saying, my God, what a preacher. And some people preach and they walk out saying, oh my preacher, what a God. And that's what I want. That's what I want. Well, that definitely shows through with you. Well, that's kind. I appreciate it. I wanted to, you know, you've been in ministry for decades, obviously, and you've preached for many, many years. Is there anything that you've learned over the years? And we're going to kind of bring this to a close, but is there anything that you've learned over the years that you wish, like you know now, but you wish you would have known when you started? Well, that's a great question. There's probably several. Probably several of those things. I referenced one earlier and that is that he doesn't expect me to be him. He expects me to be me. Certainly that as soon as I stop trying to improve, I'm. I'm in decline. That's a great point. I think I needed to learn that a little sooner. But if I had to cut through it all, probably the one lesson, if I could go back to the 20 year old Scott Graham and let the 60 year old version of me, which that is how old I am, speak to him. This is certainly related to the topic. It's not specifically just about study. But I think the one lesson I would want to tell him is that there is a significant difference between a prayer life and a prayer habit. Early in ministry I had a prayer habit. Now again, I'm very regimented in life. I'm very structural. So did I pray every day? Yeah, he was a prayer habit. This is what you do. This is one of my to do's, like check your email, you know, put the trash cans out on Friday night, et cetera. This is what you do. You pray every day. The relational component of that was sorely lacking. Oh, I'm not, I don't want to overstate. I'm not saying I was backslid or nothing like, but I'm just, I'm just Saying, I'm not sure my wife would feel profoundly loved if she looked on my task list and saw a thing that said, talk to Michelle today that I could then check off the list when it was completed and feel good about myself because I'd done it. That's what a husband's supposed to do. It's what a Christian's supposed to do. It's what a preacher's supposed to do. He's supposed to talk to God. I did it today and, boy, there was a moment at an altar that the Lord just really worked me over, that I had a nice habit, but I didn't really have a prayer life. And I made some drastic changes in my just attention to and focus on God as a routine matter of life. It became life to me. It became, you know, this thing right here, this is God's house. You're the temple of the Holy Ghost. Yeah. I find a very un. What a. On the surface appears to be a very un. Jesus like moment in Jesus life when he starts kicking over tables, braiding a whip and driving out people. And he did it for one reason. My house should be called a house of prayer. This is supposed to be a house of prayer. And it wasn't. It was a house of diligent attendance to things that need to be done. And prayer was one of those. But I think probably as much, and that is not disconnected from the broader topic of this time together. Because if I'm not saturated in prayer, spiritual things are not carnally discerned. And so deep things in Scripture that I want to dig down and find are not going to be uncovered through natural or humanistic or carnal or fleshly pursuits alone. There's a spiritual component, and I was too disconnected from that in a relational sense early in my ministry. That's good. Very good. What would you say to the pastor who may be listening to this, who feels sort of inadequate or discouraged in their ability to study and preach and teach? What would you say to that individual that just needs a word? Well, I think I'd offer this. The scriptures tell us a couple things. When we compare ourselves among ourselves, we're not wise. And so for you to look at anybody and say, I can't do what he can do, you know what, he can't do what you can do. So that's one thing we're not wise when we compare ourselves among ourselves. Secondly, I would tell you it's almost this backhanded slap in God's face to say, I can't do that when he's the one who knew us and called us. So are you called to preach? Do you have that altar? You can go back to where God called you. Are you called to that city? Did God commission you to plant that church? Did God call you to pastor that congregation? If you know that, then to say I can't do it is to say God. For the first time in recorded history, God made a mistake. He didn't know what he was doing. Well, yes, he did. He knew you. He knew all your foibles, all your challenges, all your limitations. He knew all that. And still, in his perfect, unbounded and unerring wisdom, called you and called you to that ministry position. If you're comfortable knowing that half of it, if you have that moment at the altar, you can go back to say, I know God called me, I know God sent me here. Then the only logical extension of that is I can do this or he would not have put me here. So that's another thing I think you hang on to, is that God did this and he knows what he's doing. I'm not sure how, but the more I do think, the more I can at least accept that, then the more dependent I am on him, the more I'm. You know, I've used this analogy before. God could have touched David, and David could have crushed Goliath with a two pound, a two ton boulder. He could have had a Samson moment and thrown a rock the size of a Buick and crushed that dude to the ground. If that had happened, the rock would have gotten the credit. But as it is, the king gets the credit. And so, yeah, I'm not much and neither are you and none of us are. But if God kills a giant with that, then the king gets all the credit. If I had unbounded natural ability and I had perfect eloquence and I had whatever and I used all that, then I might be prone to go, boy, I did pretty good today. But when I know that I'm just a broken vessel, when I know I'm just a ragged piece of a broken rock that God picked up and killed a giant with it, then the king. See, I don't hear anybody singing songs about the rock. Saul killed thousands. David killed 10,000. Nobody sings about the rock because the rock doesn't get credit. The king does. And you think about it, that rock was a broken something. It broke loose at some point off that mountain, came tumbling down there. It was fractured and broken and not what it once was. But the king got Psalms written about him. So I would say okay, you're broken, you're not perfect. I get it. We all do it. It's dangerous. But I've got two talents, he's got five. Yeah, okay, great. But the reward, the accolades that the master gave when he came back to the guy that brought back the two plus two and the five plus five, same thing. He didn't give higher compliments to the one who had more natural stuff to start with than he did the other one, as long as they did what they could with what they had. The only guy that was condemned, of course, as you all know, was the one who didn't do anything. So don't limit yourself. Don't say, well, I can't do what somebody else can do because I don't have as many natural talents or I don't have as much skill, or I don't have the. I get it. Try to release yourself from that. You're there because God called you. And the king is the only one that's going to get glorified out of this. You know, what's the danger? One reason I am convinced that we get crowns over there is because if we got crowns here, we'd be tempted to wear them over there. We know what to do with them. We take them off and throw them in. We don't get crowns anyway. It's not about us. And so God knows you. He called you. He'll use you. You just make sure that the songs are all sung about him and deliver yourself from the pressure to have to be what anybody else is. You be you. God called you. I love that. I love that. I've got one final question for you, but just want to check in with you. Is there anything else before I give you my last question on the subject of preaching teaching, I've probably said more. Than I should have been. Really good. Be a student of it, work at it. I don't think there's anything wrong with us. I said while ago about you don't want to make it fleshly, you don't want to make it carnal, and you don't. It is a spiritual enterprise. But at the same time, I don't think there's anything wrong with us being intentional about trying to hone our skills. Yes, it is true that God can use anybody, that's true. But that's like saying I can cut down a tree with a sledgehammer if I hit it enough times. But if I sharpen it, make it an ax, I can cut it down a lot quicker. And so while God can use anybody sure he can. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to be sharpened. I don't think there's anything wrong with trying to be better and homing the skills and the study and all that to be better at what we do. There's nothing wrong with that. So I don't think that's like humanizing it too much. That's just saying I want to present to God the best tool I can be. Okay, yes, a sharp ax will cut down a tree faster, but I promise, you can sharpen an axe, lay it down beside a tree, that tree will never fall over. It still takes somebody swinging it. God is the one who does that. But if I can sharpen myself and be better about who I am and better with my skill set, if I can give God something that has an edge on it, that I've worked hard to put there, then I'm just accentuating what he can do with me. So don't be scared of being intentional about seeking to be better at what you do. That's really good. I like that thought. This is a leadership podcast, obviously, and I'm just curious, from your vantage point in higher leadership, what do you see as the biggest challenge or obstacle that you're seeing among pastors, ministers, leaders, currently? In my perspective, I think what I hear from pastors most often is the profound challenge of building commitment in people. I think that's what I hear at least as an underlying threat. It may manifest itself in some different specific. But I just can't get people to be committed. I can't get them to be committed to a ministry position, you know, to just that, that. That dear old gray headed lady who taught Sunday school for 30 years, I can't find her now. You know, they teach for six months and they're tired, they want to quit. I can't get people who are financially committed. I can't get people, you know, we have. I can't get people committed to prayer meetings. That's what I hear as much as anything is the challenge of trying to lead people to commitment. And the frustration that I hear in pastors of I feel like I have to do everything because I can't find committed people. That's real. I don't know that. It used to be 80, 20, now it's like 90, 10 or 95. 5. I'm not convinced that you're not wrong. I mean, I'm not convinced you're wrong with that. I think that, yeah, to me that is probably the greatest frustration I hear from people and I wish I had a magic wand to wave and answer that. I was going to ask you if you had a magic ability to overcome that. You know, I followed Brother Jones in this position. I've looked in every drawer in this office, and I cannot find his magic wand. I don't know where it is. I did not get that. In this role, I think all you can do is say, this is going to take a sovereign something from God. I can pattern it. I can preach it. I do believe you get what you preach, and so it has to be a consistent theme. I don't think you can. I don't think you can drive people to a commitment. I think you can only lead them to it. You can only pattern it, extol the wonders of it, the blessings of it, and try to lead people that. I don't think you can condemn people into being committed. Conviction is good. I'm a conviction. I tend to be a conviction preacher, and I'm okay with that. So conviction is powerful. But I don't think you can preach out of anger or frustration and drive people being committed. You can only lead them, pattern it, mentor them one on one lead, build one, then build another. And again, that's not microwave. And so we don't like that. But I think that's the only solution it gets. You know, I've used the analogy before. I grew up in a little small town. My mom. There were three little grocery stores in town, none of them very big. My mom shopped at all three every week. Not because one of them had something the others didn't have. I mean, as goofy as this sounds, and I've laughed with her about this, she bought cheese every week from the deli counter at Tupper's grocery store. The other places had cheese, but she bought cheese there and did it every week. My dad and mom bought every gallon of gas they ever bought in our little town from one service station. My mom and dad bought every car they ever drove from one dealership. Even when they moved out of state, they would come back to that little town to buy their cars there because they were committed to them. Now, I got to tell you, I don't do that. If gas is a penny cheaper across the street, I'll go over there. But that generation had this commitment thing. And so in the greater culture, that bleeds into the church, if I don't like this church, I'll go find another church. And that's dangerous. Pastors deal with that frustration. And it's real. It's a cultural trend that bleeds in. So I think, again, I'm in circles now, but I think you preach it, you pattern it, you mentor it, you can't drive it. And you have to be patient and try. And we can't get discouraged with that because it's reality. It's the world. You're facing it, I'm facing it. Everyone's facing it. It's just reality. Yeah, it is. It is. Doesn't mean we have to like it. And it's okay to be countercultural. It's okay to preach a level of commitment that is not common in our culture. I think we just have to be wise enough to understand we're preaching something that is less inherent in people than it was a generation ago. Very good. Well, Brother Graham, I think this is a good place to come to a close. And I just want to thank you again so much for joining us. I greatly, greatly appreciate your time today. Oh, I'm delighted, Ryan. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for the investment you're making in the kingdom through this. And I appreciate you letting the old 60 year old guy come alongside and have something to say. It's been great. It's been great. Thank you. And so this concludes our show today. My name is Ryan Franklin. Thank you so much for joining us on the Christian Leader Made simple podcast.


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