#254 | Understanding the Modern Mission Field: Insights on Ministry and Discipleship

As I've engaged with Apollos Watered and with you, you've always been good to interact with my questions, and I'm sure that I'm not the only one. But I've appreciated that.

One of the things that I have learned is to really give room to people so that they can think and they can wrestle with things.

That you can have conversations with people that you don't necessarily theologically agree with, and they may even get a little bristly with you at times. But you can still have those conversations and realize that those folks are important.

Welcome to those who Serve the Lord, a podcast for those at the front lines of ministry. You've given your life to serve, but what happens when the well runs dry?

If you've felt the weight of leadership, the tension between tradition and change, or the challenge of staying faithful while engaging culture, you're not alone. I'm Travis Michael Fleming, founder and executive director of Apollos Watered, the Center for Discipleship and Cultural Apologetics.

I've been at the front lines for over 25 years, leading churches to become thriving testimonies of God's grace. I've wrestled with the same questions you're facing, and I've seen how God brings renewal even in the hardest seasons.

Each week we have conversations with pastors, theologians and cultural thinkers as we seek to equip you to lead well and stay rooted in Christ amid shifting cultural tides. So grab your coffee and listen in because your faith matters, your work is not in vain, and the Lord is still with you every step of the way.

Welcome back to those who Serve the Lord, a podcast for Christian leaders on the front lines of ministry. Today's episode marks the final installment in our Blueprint series.

Over the past several weeks, we've explored the real life challenges and opportunities confronting church leaders to today and how kingdom living in the modern world offers a fresh way forward. Joining us today is Dr.Scott Duncan, senior pastor of River Cities Community Church in Huntington, West Virginia, right at the crossroads of Appalachia and modern secularism. Scott's journey is both personal and powerful.

Like many of you, he began listening to Apollo's water, looking for clarity, encouragement and tools to navigate the complexities of ministry in a fractured world. What he found wasn't just content, but real answers to what he was already feeling.

His story reflects the spiritual hunger and cultural fragmentation we see in so many places today, from biblical illiteracy and addiction to the deep need for theological depth and culturally aware discipleship. What Scott is facing is what many of us are facing and it's why I wrote Blueprint. Blueprint isn't just a book. It's a new framework to help your church rediscover the gospel, reimagine discipleship, and re engage the world with wisdom and courage. And that's the heart of Apollos Watered to water your faith so you can water your world. Let's dive in.

Scott Duncan, welcome to those who serve the Lord.

Thank you.

Start off by telling our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got connected to Apollos Watered.

So I minister in Huntington, West Virginia, which is where West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio come together. Actually live in the southern tip or south point of Ohio. And so now I'm easy to find if you look at the map.

I have been at River Cities Community Church in Huntington for about 17 years. And about two years ago, I became a senior pastor of the church as our pastor retired.

So the way that I got connected with you guys, actually, it's when I was working on my doctorate with Corbin University and I was listening to a missionary and I cannot remember his name. Yes.

So I was listening to different podcasts with him, trying to figure out his story, and I ran across Apollos Watered, and I was hooked at that point because you were talking about things that I was thinking about, both ministry wise and then also with my doctorate.

And so there are two or three of the episodes that I remember reaching out, maybe four or five that I reached out and we talked about different issues that some of the guests would talk about. And so that really is kind of the way that I got hooked in. And then I locked it into my playlist on Spotify. And here we are a couple years later.

So it's been a while. I remember when you became senior pastor, you told me about that, but it's been probably, what, three, four years?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it was in the midst of me getting my doctorate as I was working on my dissertation. And so as I'm listening.

Oh, that's exactly where I am because I was working on apologetics and some different things like. Like that and how it would connect to the church here in Appalachia and just different things that people would be questioning or wrestling with.

And it seemed like we were on the same track in our thinking. And so I thought, I'm going to listen to this.

Tell us what it's like to pastor in that region.

So Appalachia is actually, I mean, it goes all the way up to a part of New York, and I mean, it's much larger than most people think. But I always joke and say we're in the Bible Belt, but we are where it unbuckles. So. But I'm actually in a college town.

We are where Marshall University is Huntington, West Virginia. So if you've ever seen the movie, we are Marshall. Matthew McConaughey and those guys, that's the city that I am in.

We're also known for at one point the highest overdose rate per capita in the United States. Now that's been several years ago. There was a documentary on Netflix called Heroin, I think is what it was called.

And so that is some of what we deal with here in the city of Huntington.

But the typical Appalachian difficulties of lower paying jobs and some lower education and things like that are normal for the area, but not necessarily our city.

Again, since it's a college town, but we also get the influence of a college town because the college that a lot of the teachers are really honestly working against the gospel, not all of them. We have some college professors that come to church here and even folks that are in some of the administrative offices. So.

But that's something that we're continually wrestling with. And we have. Huntington has actually been called the San Francisco of West Virginia. And so as West Virginia goes, Huntington is a very liberal city.

And so that's, those are some of the things that we are wrestling with. So it's a lot of drug addiction. There are lots of people looking for jobs or are unemployed.

Those are the kinds of things that we deal with because of the addiction rate. We have a high amount of children that are in the, the system, the foster system. And so those are things that we look at as well and wrestle with.

Those are some of the things that we deal with. And again, it's, it's a weird mix and at least in our city of folks that are more blue collar, not college educated folks.

And then you also have the white collar educated folks. And so it's a weird mix within this city.

So you've got blue collar and white collar. But what are the spiritual challenges that you see within the church itself?

That's a good question.

So when I think of our church itself, probably like most churches, it seems like every five years you have a new congregation, you know, even in this area. But one of the things that we see is a lot of what you have talked about on Apollos Watered with the idea of biblical illiteracy.

There are a lot of folks that come in and they know, may know some Bible stories or none at all, but they can't connect them to the Overall meta narrative of Scripture.

And so that's something that we have been working on for a long time to try to help folks connect Genesis and the promises and, well, even Genesis 3:15 with the one who was coming to crush the head of the serpent. And then following from Genesis to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, all the way to Jesus, trying to connect to those kinds of things.

So biblical illiteracy would be one of those things that we're working on. And even the idea of helping folks learn how to deal with things apologetically.

One of the shifts that we made within our church is with our children's ministry.

So as they come into preschool and up to, I think it's third grade, they're getting the typical Bible stories, you know, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus.

But then when they hit fourth and fifth grade, we have shifted and we're actually doing apologetics and teaching them some basics on how to apply the faith, how to understand that yes, the flood was worldwide, yes, creation was by God, and trying to build those things into them so that as they get into middle school, they have something to begin to chew on. And so we have seen that be pretty effective in, in our children's ministry and a lot of the parents are responding well to that as well. So.

So those are a couple of things.

So biblical illiteracy, learning how to defend the faith or at least be able to trust the faith or our doctrine, those are some of the main things theologically or educationally, family wise, lots of broken families trying to help folks either put things together or walk through the trauma of a divorce or a death or whatever the case may be. Those are things that most churches deal with as well. But some, those are some of the main things that we're dealing with as a pastor.

Having so much of biblical illiteracy and broken families, how has that affected your preaching?

That's a good question. As I think through the way that I have been taught to preach.

Of course it's expositional preaching along the lines of a Dallas Theological Seminary, but not breaking the verses apart so that it's one verse at a time, but it's again painting the picture. Yeah, I've preached through first John, right now we're in the book of Nehemiah.

And so trying to paint the picture of what Nehemiah was doing and what God had called him to do without making it just a leadership book or just about the wall, but how God is restoring his people and restoring the city so they can again worship him. And so learning how to share some of the narrative of the Scriptures so that folks can begin to put the stories together.

And then of course, being in the epistles and teaching some theology and the gospels and things like that. So trying to share theological depth without choking people to death with things that they either aren't ready for or don't need at all.

Maybe now with the people that you have that are there, you said you've got kind of a mix. You've got people that are, that have grown up in the faith or they have familiarity with Bible stories.

But you sent me a statistic the other day that was quite surprising to me. Now that I know a bit more of the makeup of your congregation or the community, it helps me.

But give, give our audience the statistics that I think will be a bit surprising for them about the makeup of the community around you.

Yeah, I was actually surprised when I, when I heard it because I was at the Appalachian Conference at Tri State Bible College and they threw this stat out and I was honestly a little shocked. Now they looked at again, I'm right at the edge of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio.

So they were looking at the communities around the Bible College, but that would also include where my church is. But I was surprised to find out that 70% of people do not claim any Christian faith in our area.

Yes, 70% of the folks do not claim any faith, especially not in Jesus. And we've seen that because we've had teenagers come in not know what the church building is.

Now, honestly, our church is kind of shaped like a circle, so it's kind of weird looking. We refer to it as the gospel spaceship. Sometimes just joking around, they came in and had no idea what it was.

And somebody had invited them and said, well, it's a church. Well, what is a church? Well, it's where we talk about God and Jesus and they looked at us like we had two heads.

You know, God, Jesus, the devil didn't even know who the devil was. And so that's the level of unawareness or ignorance that, that we are dealing with in some ways.

And so those are the kinds of things that we're dealing, we're also dealing with. On the, the flip side of that, the atheistic worldview that comes out of the college many times, but even our culture.

And so those are the kinds of things that even Appalachia is dealing with that most people think, oh no, it's the Bible Belt, Billy Graham Church on every corner. But it's not necessarily true. We may be saturated with churches, but we're not saturated with biblical teaching or.

The gospel I noticed, though, that it's not just an exclusively English church that meets there. So what else do you have meeting there that's interesting.

So several years ago, we were praying about planting churches. And at that point, our pastor, Pastor Larry, was here. He was the senior pastor.

And as we were praying, we invited the elders to pray, we invited the congregation to pray about planting a church. And we looked at different options and we didn't want to just do it because everybody was doing it. We felt like we were supposed to.

And so every door we knocked on got shut. And so there's a Mexican restaurant that is across the parking lot from the church, or it's not there now, but it was there.

And this is probably 11 or 12 years ago. And I would go over there all the time and get chips and salsa and eat. And I would visit that Mexican restaurant quite often.

Got to know the guy who was the owner, and he asked me what to do for a living. And I said, well, I'm a pastor at the church across the the parking lot and pointed at the church and he said, when's your Spanish service?

And the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart and said, yeah, when is that? I said, well, we don't have one yet.

So I came right back and I talked to Pastor Larry and he, I can remember he slapped the the desk and said, that's a church plant I could get behind because it's not everybody what everybody else is doing. So we looked in the area and there really were no Bible believing churches that were reaching out to Spanish speaking folks.

Now, to be honest, the population of Spanish speaking folks at that point was way less than 1%, at least that we're reporting. But we began to pray about this. And so as the Lord led us, we started a Bible study for Spanish speaking people.

Had a friend who was a missionary who had come back from Peru. So we started reaching out to the, the restaurant workers.

We quickly learned that that had to be an evangelistic endeavor because they were here today, literally gone tomorrow, and we wouldn't know where they were. And so we continued to pray and something amazing happened. We invited the congregation to begin praying about that.

And one of the men who goes to our church, his name is Mick, he goes by Papa Smurf on the street and he's always helping. I know he actually looks like Francis Schaefer, okay. But he's always working on the street and he is a man of prayer.

And so he's downtown in Huntington and praying and meeting with folks. And something happens that he has to go home.

And as he goes home, he takes care of what he needs to at home, gets back in his car and he's getting ready to turn back to Huntington. And he just, he prays, lord, where do you want me to go?

And he said he felt impressed to go to the Huntington Mall and so which is the other side of town. So he goes to the town, he's in books a million. And he's sitting there reading his Bible.

Now he's not a guy that's like in your face reading his Bible. He's reading his Bible. A woman walks up and says, oh, I see you're reading your Bible. And they start talking.

And he comes out with the fact that he was an English teacher at once at one point. And she said, I'm a Spanish teacher. He said, really? He said, our church is praying about starting a Spanish ministry. She said, that's amazing.

My uncle is a missionary in Colombia and he has a church planter that wants to come to America and learn English and plant a church. That man 10 years ago came to Huntington and helped us establish Isperanza Ministries, which is a Spanish speaking church.

And so that church, over 10 years has, is in the process of planting four other churches. And so it really has been interesting to see God do this. So there's a church in Huntington, there's one in Ashland, Kentucky.

There's one in what's called Cross Lanes, West Virginia, Beckley, West Virginia, Lewisburg, West Virginia. And now somebody from Pittsburgh has contacted him and wants a Spanish speaking church up there.

Since then there has been a factory called Nucor that is moving into the area. And they're going to have, you know, thousands of jobs. Lots of Spanish speaking people are coming. And so he is prepared to minister to those folks.

And so that's. We always joke and say, God had to put this in Spanish so we wouldn't mess it up.

I like that.

But that has, that's been a blessing to be able to be kind of multicultural in an area that is predominantly not multicultural.

One of the things that I really appreciate what you just said, talking about the multicultural dimension.

I mean, you listen to a lot of our episodes and, you know, one of our heartbeats and part of the missiolistic approach or missio holism is the distinctive transcultural community. And one of the things that we see is how God is redeeming people from each nation.

And when they come together, it's a sign of the heavenly powers of the reality of the new creation, you know, the gospel. But that's not easy to do. It's just you have a. Have to heartbeat for it.

And what we like about mystical holism, and I think this is one of the reasons our hearts connect, is that we're trying to help people think and put on missionary glasses.

Right.

And that's not always together easy because I think what we've noticed, and I'd be really interested to know your thoughts, is that some people don't like to think of themselves as missionaries. They get uncomfortable very quickly, I think, when you see the benefit of what God is doing.

I mean, how has your vision of God grown since you've connected to the Spanish church plant?

Yeah, it's interesting because as I think about being in the midst of some of their church services, I am then the odd man out. Yeah, it's. I get to experience a little bit of what people who come to predominantly white church come to.

You know, when they come, I get to experience what they experience and see that these people are speaking in a language I don't understand. It's a culture. I don't know. I don't know if I will offend them. I'm pretty sure that I will. Those kinds of things.

And so it goes back to that idea of, I think the great community that you all talk about with the idea of what is it that I have to sacrifice to be there with them and what do they have to sacrifice. And so learning a little bit of that has been very helpful. One of the other things that.

And this really goes back to Pastor Larry, something that he started. We have a. An African American church that we meet with on every fifth Sunday. And that has been going on since before I came here.

And so when Pastor Larry retired and the pastor from the African American church retired, people kind of thought it was going to go away. But I was able to connect with, or I connected with the. The new pastor of that church.

And so we have kind of re established or we're in the process of reinvigorating that. That friendship between the two churches. And so there's also that influence. But that one really goes back to Pastor Larry.

He went to Promise Keepers many, many years ago, and when it was, as he said, going and blowing. Yeah. But they challenged people to break down those racial walls. And so he came back and connected with that pastor.

And they said, I've been here 17 years, and it was way before I came that they were doing that. And so those are just things that God has built into this congregation.

And I'm blessed to be able to step into it so really have seen a little bit of that from each perspective, as in the Latino perspective and the African American perspective. Not claiming to understand. Understand either one of them.

But it has caused me to be aware of even the sacrifice that folks who come to River Cities, the English church, what they have to sacrifice in order to be here.

I ran an episode right before this one and was on the Great Community. And Irwin Ince mentions that he interviews people. If you know Irwin Ent.

He wrote the book the Beautiful Community and he works with the Presbyterian Church in America. And he does a lot with racial issues.

And one of the things he talked about is when ethnic minorities go to majority world churches or majority culture churches, he says they have to pay a price to do so that we often don't think about. He goes. But he goes, I'd love to interview them to find out what did you actually have to give up? And I think we don't think that way.

But when you start to see those through those lenses, I think your vision of God grows, don't you?

Yeah, absolutely. It forces us to recognize that none of us are perfect. None of us have it all together. Yeah.

Theologically, I would like to say that I am right 100 of the time.

Yeah, we all want to say that.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's why we all go to different churches. Right.

But being influenced by some folks that aren't from the majority culture has been helpful for me to begin to take steps to think again. I'm not claiming to have that figured out by any stretch, but helping me consider the fact that I was not raised the way that they were raised.

I don't know the things that they have gone through. Now, any of that can go to an extreme, obviously.

But ultimately my hope is, is that we can come together and as First John says, our fellowship is Christ. But I can theologically say that. But what does that look like practically? And so those are the things that I'm wrestling with.

You know, what are the things that these folks don't eat meat because it's offered to idols. But I'm okay with eating meat. How do I deal with that? Because they're. I think that that fits to some degree with that same mindset of.

I don't understand why they're offended by this word or that word or this action or that action when it makes no sense to me. But I'm learning sometimes the hard way about those things. So as a matter of fact, with the pastor of the.

The African American church, I told him in our discussion the Other day it said, I'm going to say ignorant things, so please give me grace. And so far he has.

What I love about what you're doing in your heart and I didn't know about some of the issues that you've told me about. So this is kind of a very eye opening conversation for me because I'm excited to hear about what God is doing in your church.

And I think he's doing it all.

Over the place where people are starting to see the church is a whole lot bigger than they realize. And the plan of God is even bigger than they realize. And yes, it does take in personal salvation. I mean, no question on that.

Christ died for our sins, but there's so many different layers to what that entails for us as a body and what God is doing in the culture. You mentioned something about engaging people in this conversation.

I used to end our services at my last church where we had gone from 95% Caucasian to 45% majority world culture.

And it became part of our DNA where I would do this benediction at the end and I would, you know, I would bless them and I would say awkward is, you know, I said, have some conversation with someone you don't know and even if they're from a different culture, put yourself out there, it's going to be awkward. And then I would say awkward is. And the whole congregation would finish it and say, awesome.

And it was a cool little ending that became part of our DNA over time. But why do you think our people have such a hard time in our churches today to have conversations not just with people that look and sound like them?

I mean, that's hard enough. How do we help them to see the benefit of having conversations with people.

Who don't look, act, sound, smell like them?

Yeah. And our entire culture is moving the opposite direction of that, whether it's political or cultural or whatever the case may be.

And so, so people already come washed in that. And that's, that's what they are carrying in. That's what I mean. We have to wrestle with it. Everything is, well, Spotify. I have my playlist.

It's not your playlist, it's my playlist. I picked all of that. Yeah, if I want to listen to yours, I'll let you know. But I have mine. I have my theology, I have my tv.

You know, I've got however many channels. I can do Amazon prime and pick the things I want to watch.

I can even filter out the cuss words that I don't want to hear and leave the ones I want to hear. Yeah, yeah, but. But those are all things that we come in culturally prepared with.

But I also think it's that idea we have been prepared or what's the word I want challenged to not offend anyone. And I think that it's something that we're all a bit afraid to hurt people's feelings. And. And there's.

Again, we can go to extremes on either of those things. Yeah, but I think the idea of saying Jesus is the son of God, he is the only way to heaven, we know that's offensive to people.

And so we don't want to hurt their feelings, because then they say, well, that's not nice. Well, I want to be nice. And I was challenged the other day, don't be nice. Be kind. And I thought, what's the difference?

Nice is you roll over and play dead. Basically. Kind is you can still say something pointed but not be a jerk. Okay, that makes sense.

I would have to think through the definitions a little bit, but I get the idea. But I also think it goes back to some of the biblical illiteracy.

And I don't mean that we don't have deep theology or we don't understand how we take the story of someone in the scriptures and connect it to today. I think in one of your last podcasts, you all were talking about maybe the Good Samaritan, and we don't know what to do with that.

We think of the Good Samaritan as a good. Yeah, we think of Franklin Graham and Samaritan's Purse and all of that.

But in reality, like I think somebody had mentioned, when we think of the good person from Al Qaeda, that's shocking to us. I remember somebody saying, you know, the Apostle Paul would be like Osama bin Laden.

And so if he comes up to your church, well, here, what are you going to think? But I think that all of those things go together because we are afraid, because we don't want to hurt people's feelings.

We're afraid because we don't have confidence in what we say that we believe. And we're afraid because the community that we worship with is scattered. And so I think that all of those things really go back.

And to be honest, that kind of goes to what you all talk about with what the. The GC3. Is that what it. What you call it?

Yeah, we call Blueprint GC3. We. We initially called it GC3, but now we're calling it Blueprint. But same thing, same thing.

But. But it's that idea because The Great Commission.

And we're afraid to go out and share the Gospel, you know, then you have what, the Great Commandment where we're to love one another? Well, we think loving one another is being nice rather than being kind.

And then the what is the Great Commandment, Great Commission and the Great Community. Community, yeah. And so our community is scattered and we're all listening to our own things, doing our own things.

So we're not coming together in that fellowship. So I think that those are some of the things that cause us to not be as open with talking about Jesus and how he is restoring his kingdom.

So I think those are things that play into that.

If you're feeling stuck, longing for community, encouragement and spiritual depth and you're looking for a new way forward.

That's why I wrote Blueprint Kingdom Living in the Modern World to offer a practical guide for church leaders longing to reconnect the church to the kingdom story and engage the world with the love and truth of Christ. And it's why Apollos Watered exists, to refresh, equip and empower leaders like Scott and like you.

We're also launching the Blueprint Pastor Cohort, a space for pastors to process prayer, pray and grow together as we apply Kingdom principles and blueprint to real life ministry challenges. We'd love to have you join us. The cohort begins May 28 and runs for five weeks via Zoom. We're doing this completely free, but space is limited.

So sign up today. You'll find details and the link to sign up in the show notes.

Out of the GC3 or that blueprint idea, which is the one that you find that you, your church does well, and which one of those do you think that the church needs the most work on today?

So I would think that just thinking about our congregation, we tend to lean into the Great Commission, at least in theory, because one of the things that causes our congregation to respond even on Sunday, like verbally or applause or whatever, is when somebody trusts Christ. Whenever we talk about that, there is spontaneous response. There are other things that it's not as much so.

So definitely that I think that we are working through the idea of the body itself, the community itself. But the. The adjustment that I have to make personally is probably on the Great Commandment side, honestly, because the way that I grew up, it was.

Maybe I should say it this way, what I perceived growing up. It's probably a fairer way to say it, is the way I show that I love you is I tell you that you're going to hell. And you need Jesus.

And there's an aspect of that that's true.

Yeah.

But if I'm not giving you a cup of cold water or whatever that might be in this day and time, then I'm saying, yeah, good luck. Go and be warm and filled. But I'm not doing it for you. So learning to be compassionate in that way, learning to love my neighbor as myself.

Even in our Appalachian community, it's not unusual for folks to pull up to their house, pull in their garage, go in the house, and never see their neighbors.

And my wife's grandparents, who grew up in, I think it was eastern Kentucky, they had a gigantic front porch and they would all sit on the front porch and they would wave at the neighbors and talk to the neighbors and share apple butter and vegetables and all of that stuff. We sit on our back porch and try to figure out, can I get hedges high enough to where they can't see?

And so those are things that I am trying to work on so that I'm showing compassion to my neighbors, literal neighbors, not just people that I run into.

What do you see as some of the things that you've learned as you've interacted with Apollos Watered, the ministries that are there? What are the things that you feel like have been really helpful to you as a pastor?

As I've engaged with polished water with you, One has been the importance of interacting with folks. And you've always been good to interact with my questions. And I'm sure that I'm not the only one, but I've appreciated that.

One of the things that I have learned is to really give room to people so that they can think of and they can wrestle with things that you can have conversations with people that you don't necessarily theologically agree with, and they may even get a little bristly with you at times.

And.

But you can still have those conversations and realize that those folks are important. My theology is important. And there are things that are inflexible, there are things that are the. The bedrock.

But there are other things that we can talk about that are second and third tier issues. Theologically speaking, whether they know any of that or not, we can wrestle with.

And so I've appreciated and learned just kind of from following along with you guys and listening to the podcast and seeing some other things, I learned to appreciate that discussion with folks that you don't necessarily agree with and that it can be healthy and safe, because in the past it was. You avoid those people. We're not even sure Those people are going to heaven. Yeah. And.

And so realizing that I can learn from folks that I don't agree with, I may learn something that I still don't agree with, but I still learn.

Yeah.

And, you know, one of the things that I have learned is that there are theological perceptions that I've had in the past. And this not only is a. Is connected to Apollo's water, but just life in general.

There are things that I thought that as I have listened and studied, I have shifted a bit now.

There are other things that I have gone all the way around the mulberry bush, as they say, and I've come right back where I was glad I'm more firm in that. And so in listening to some of the discussions that you have carried on in the podcast or on the podcast, I can see that.

Why do you think that's so important right now though? To engage in those kind of conversations with people that we may not agree with and not just surround ourselves with our own tribe?

I think one of the reasons to engage in those conversations is because if we're not engaging in them, we just go down the wormhole, as they say, and our churches and our community turn in on each other and eventually we get so tight that we really can't think.

And if we're not repeating the same words to the same people the same way, and we don't look in a uniform, not unity, but uniformity, if we're not all exactly the same, then you're probably not a Christian and eventually that whole situation dies. And so I think what happens is that even our gospel witness begins to. To draw in and we begin to defend things that aren't primary.

And we get to the point where we're defending the color of the paint on the walls. Yeah, we begin to defend carpet, we defend music styles, we defend translations, and we begin to attack other believers at that point.

And if we're attacking each other, then there are people who need to hear the gospel and need to experience gospel communities that will not. And so I think when we don't have those discussions even outside the church, then we are going to become very close minded.

And I think that it actually is detrimental to the city. And so that's off the top of my head. What kind of comes to mind?

How do we become discerning then? Like, how do we know what voices to listen to and what voices not to listen to?

I can speak for me.

Okay.

I don't know that I can speak for other folks the way that I am learning to be more discerning is I've got to have those conversations. I've got to listen a little broader than what I'm comfortable with theologically.

Doesn't mean that I have to agree with them, but I need to hear what it is they're saying and not listen to. Like a straw man argument. But what do they call it?

The Steel man, I think, is what they call it, maybe where it's the strong argument so I can think about what it is that I believe so that I can interact with them.

Because if I'm not having those discussions, then what I find is when I think my thoughts after myself, they get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until they consume me. And so if we're not in those discussions, then I'm going to think what I think and it's going to become. What do they call it?

Like a folk theology, almost.

That's it. That's exactly it, a folk theology. And so then I only believe what my grandfather taught or his grandfather taught or my grandmother or whoever.

And I just keep thinking those things and I bear down on them and I began to get into arguments with folks. My grandfather used to say, those kinds of arguments, there's more heat than there is light in those arguments.

I think that when I'm just thinking after myself and I'm not having conversations with other folks, I end up in those heated discussions rather than sharing a light of Jesus.

Any concluding thoughts for our audience and encouragement for them so that they can hold on to. I mean, you've heard the podcast many different times. Sometimes we like to give a water bottle to them.

What would be a water bottle that we could encourage our. Our people with?

So the thing that comes to my mind is several years ago, I was preaching through First Corinthians, I believe, and was talking about Christ is our foundation. And as I was preaching that or studying that to preach, it occurred to me that we tend to think of Jesus is your foundation.

And my foundation and their foundation, like it's a subdivision, is our foundation. It's one temple, it's one community, it's one mission.

And so realizing that we have one foundation and we've got to be careful how we build on it, as the scriptures say. But it all goes back down to Jesus is our. Is our foundation. No other foundation can be laid. But again, it's a community foundation.

We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Not just I am.

I think that's the thing that if we can chew on that, meditate on that from Scripture, then I think that that can begin to change the way that we approach both the folks within our congregations, within our community of faith, and also that will then begin to spill out into the community at large. So that would be, I think the thing that I would say is he's our, our foundation, not just mine.

Scott, God bless you as you continue to pastor, as you continue to lead and thank you for being a guest on those who Serve the Lord.

It's a great honor. I appreciate the opportunity to share with everybody and to continue to encourage you guys.

That was Dr. Scott Duncan serving in the heart of Appalachia on the front lines of a new kind of mission field in America.

His story reminds us that the challenges we face biblical illiteracy, cultural confusion, spiritual apathy, growing diversity and pluralism aren't just statistics. They're people. They're our neighbors, our children, our churches. And they're in our communities. And they need pastors like Dr.

Scott Duncan, leaders deeply rooted in the Gospel and ready to shepherd with with clarity and conviction.

That's why I wrote Blueprint Kingdom Living in the Modern World to offer a practical guide for church leaders longing to reconnect the church to the kingdom story and engage the world with the love and truth of Christ. And it's why Apollos Watered exists.

To refresh, equip and empower leaders like Scott and like you, we're also launching the Blueprint Pastor Cohort, a space for pastors to practice, process, pray and grow together as we apply Kingdom principles and blueprint to real life ministry challenges.

If you're feeling stuck longing for community, encouragement and spiritual depth and you're looking for a new way forward, we'd love to have you join us. The cohort begins May 28 and runs for five weeks via Zoom. We're doing this completely free, but space is limited, so sign up today.

You'll find details and the link to sign up in the show notes and if you haven't already, subscribe to our newsletter and receive Our free resource 10 Signs yous're a Holy Discontented Leader if you're feeling a tension between what is and what could be, if you sense that there's more to ministry than what you've been handed, you're not alone. That tension might just be the Spirit stirring you towards something deeper. At Apollo's Water.

We're here for leaders like you, those longing for for renewal, hungry for depth and ready to lead with both truth and grace in today's world. So stay connected, be encouraged, and don't miss what God is doing in and through Apollos Watered and learn how you can be part of it.

Until next time, stay rooted, stay faithful, and keep watering your world.

Thank you for joining us on today's episode of those who Serve the Lord, a podcast of Apollo's Water the Center for Discipleship and Cultural Apologetics. We trust that what you've heard has inspired and encouraged you in your walk of faith. Remember, serving the Lord isn't just about what we do.

It's about who we are becoming in Him. Whether in the small moments or the grand gestures, each step of service brings us closer to his heart.

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Until next time, may you continue to serve the Lord with joy, humility, and a heart full of his love. God bless you. This is Travis Michael Fleming signing off. Stay watered, everybody.