(upbeat music) - Welcome to a Shot of Ag.

My name is Rob Sharkey.

I'm a fifth generation farmer from just outside of Bradford, Illinois.

I started a podcast which led into an XM radio show, which led into a national television show, which led into me being right here today.

But today is not about me.

Today is about Pastor Ritch Boerckel.

How you doing, Rich?

- Hey, thanks Rob, thanks for inviting me.

Good to be with ya.

- I feel like I gotta behave myself.

- (laughs) Just relax, be yourself.

- I don't wanna say anything wrong.

You are the pastor at Bethany Baptist here in well, it's just outside of Peoria.

- Right, it's in Edwards, just a mile past the Grand Prairie Mall there.

- And how long you been doing that?

- Yeah, so been at Bethany for 29 years this summer.

And you know, we had been out on a building on North Knoxville.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Just off Pioneer Park.

And about 12 years ago, we moved out to Edwards there.

- Yeah, and just so everybody knows, it's a church that my family attends.

- Right.

- So you're my pastor.

So I, yeah, this is, I'm nervous.

- Just don't be nervous at all.

I'm the one who should be nervous on this show here.

- Well, the show is a Shot of Ag, so, you know, I'm a farmer and we do talk a lot of agriculture, but I, you know, I thought having you on because we just got done with seeding planting season, right.

And it's very difficult because it's very time sensitive.

- Yeah.

- And sometimes the best day to do field work is on a Sunday.

And of course that that's not being the best Christian.

So I was wondering, if maybe you would be interested in signing that, and you can read that out loud.

- So Dr. Ritch Boerckel, I, Dr. Ritch Boerckel, give permission for Rob Sharkey to work on Sundays during planting and harvest.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Well there's, that's above my pay grade, Rob, to sign a paper like this.

There's there's someone else you're gonna have to get to sign off on that.

- It couldn't hurt though, I guess is my thing.

- You know, it's interesting.

When I was at a student at Moody Bible Institute, I lived with a farmer in Iowa.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- So Kanawha, Iowa population 200 and he was late seventies and he was really my best friend because he was the only guy.

There was no people in the town that were my age.

And so this guy, Stauffer Gelder and Stauffer was this amazing gem of a man.

But one of the things he would say is, what you gain on Sunday, you're gonna lose on Monday.

He says, that's what I always tell my friends.

- Well, unless maybe you have a written note.

- Right, unless you written note for your pastor.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting 'cause I actually would not, would not say that it's a sin to work on Sunday, you know.

Jesus told the parables about, you know, not the parable, but the principle about Sabbath work that, hey, if you have an animal who that's in a, that gets stuck in a pit, you're gonna pull it out on Sabbath.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And of course, Jesus was constantly criticized by the Pharisees for healing people on the Sabbath, 'cause that was work.

And his point was, well, if you, if you help an animal, can't we help a help a person that's in need?

So however we work that out, you know, we wanna honor the Lord for sure though, don't we?

- See you're so good at that, right.

You're so good at like explaining stuff like this because obviously this is a joke, kind of.

Right, right.

But you're so good at explaining that.

Does it just come with experience?

- Well, you know, a little bit, you know, over time as you, as you study the scriptures and sort of desire for the word of God to kind of be implanted in your heart so that it becomes not just something outside of you, but something that's part of the way we think as followers of Christ.

So ideally for everybody, the more we're in the word and having the word in us that becomes part of our natural way of thinking about everything, you know, Jesus, couldn't pass a field without talking about the glory of God and you know, Jesus often used a shot of ag to teach.

- [Rob] Oh yeah.

- About spiritual principles.

So much, many of his parables were exactly about agriculture.

- Where did you grow up?

- So I grew up in this area.

- Okay.

- And grew up in a home that loved the Lord and loved us kids, so I feel like I was, I'm one of the most privileged, you know, people on the planet to grow up in a home where mom and dad loved Jesus, loved each other and loved us as kids.

And, you know, spent a lot time in conversations and you know, oftentimes my friends would come over for dinner and they would just really enjoy the kind of conversations we had.

So my mom grew up on a farm, born in Canton, graduated from Farmington high s and then they had a little farm in Trivoli area.

- [Rob] Gotcha.

- So a lot of those values that related to family, you know, she was able to actually teach my dad 'cause my dad came from a broken home and you know, he didn't know what a real family was to be like.

And so it was kind of cool to see how, you know, this rural family.

That my mom grew up in established some real health and relationship that my mom could influence my dad and my dad grabbed hold of both the gospel as well as, you know, what God's designed for family.

And it really influenced my life, you know.

- Then going off to college, where'd you go?

- Yeah, so when I was in high school, I went to Limestone High School and I guess I ultimately went to Moody Bible Institute, which is up in Chicago, which is very.

- [Rob] It's famous.

- Yeah, and it's not rural.

It's right in the heart of the city.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- It was kind of a culture shock for me.

But you know, when I was in high school, how I end up going to Moody, 'cause I was super interested in sciences and math.

I thought about maybe medicine or engineering or something along that line.

But some friends of mine turned their life to Christ.

And then they came to me as a sophomore in high school and hey said, Ritch you're the only person we know who knows the Bible and we need to know the Bible.

Would you teach us?

And if you knew me, I was the last person on earth that would teach a Bible study 'cause I was really so awkward and shy.

I literally could barely raise my hand to ask a question without stammering and stuttering.

- [Rob] You?

- Absolutely.

- Okay.

- A public speech class was the worst class for me.

- People that have never seen him preach.

I mean, I look at speech, right.

I watch someone speak, you know, because it's what we do, right.

You're one of the best speakers that I've watched.

And a part of it is, because you're not polished to where, you know, it's every word is perfect.

When I watch you preach the person up there, I feel like is the real person, there's no filter in that.

That's I don't know if it's a talent.

I don't know if it's just natural ability, but yeah.

I guess I'm kind of shocked that you ever had a problem communicating.

- No, again, public speaking, I would shake literally my voice would stammer, stutter constantly.

But my friends, you know, who I had wanted since I was younger to have the life of God in their soul, when they asked me that question, I couldn't say no.

And I didn't really know what to do other than, you know, open up the Bible and start teaching what the Bible says.

So we would literally spend about 40, 45 minutes of me just kind of lecturing or sitting around our living room and talking, and then we'd pray for a half hour.

And God used that in a really dynamic way.

In all of my weakness, there was much weakness in that, God used the word of God to create life and more kids.

My friends started coming and seeing some changes in life were really positive.

And it was through that experience over time, probably nine to 10 months that God communicated to me by the time I was a senior that he wanted me to be involved in ministry.

- [Rob] Really?

- Because of how I saw the word of God and a gift that I would've never known was there to teach the Bible.

That was sort of in this incubator of friends who were, you know, first kind to me, love me and were really interested in the scriptures.

- So when you went to Moody, it wasn't to become a preacher?

- Well, by my senior in high school, that's where this change had happened of a direction of my life.

- [Rob] Oh, okay, I gotcha.

- I did go to Moody with a view to seeking what the Lord would have for me in reference to teaching the scripture.

- Okay.

You've been how at Bethany how long?

- Yeah, nearly 20, it's 29 years this summer.

- Yeah.

- It's a long time, yeah.

- Maybe that's, I don't know, you know, there's different churches, different religions have different views on, you know, preachers moving around and that.

But that seems like a long haul on a successful church.

- Yeah, well we're super thankful for the opportunity God gave me.

I was a pretty young man too with no experience.

When I came, I had been a youth pastor in Texas and, but God graciously opened the door for us to come to Bethany.

And, you know, I was in a church that had gone through a division, you know, a conflict and division.

And I saw the tear and weight that placed upon the pastor.

And I had just simply asked Lord of, if you'd send me anywhere, please send me to a church that was at peace.

And Bethany really was a church that really was at peace or some precious, you know, older saints as well as some younger families.

And so it was really a great context for me to learn ministry 'cause I, you know, looking back, especially at the time I felt like I didn't know exactly what to do to be a pastor.

- [Rob] Yeah, yeah.

You're just trying to try to learn how to shepherd people and be involved in the community and the families in a way that's fruitful for 'em.

And so yeah, over time though, the church has changed a lot.

While I've been at the same church for 29 years, it's really been about five different churches because of the stages that God's brought the church through.

- I hear people talk about Bethany, you know, Grace, that they're megachurches.

Is that negative to you?

- Well, it certainly can be.

You know, it's a negative if the church becomes a business, not a family.

And if the church loses its family quality, the number one metaphor in the scripture to describe what a church is, is family.

In fact, God tells us, call him father and call one another brothers and sisters with the same kinda love, in fact, even a deeper love that the physical family has for itself.

And so if a church loses that sort of essential quality of being a family, then it's really lost its biblical sort of way or vision.

And so we work really hard to foster a family environment.

Sometimes successfully, sometimes not.

You know, it's a hard thing, but that's our desire.

Not just, it's not to get bigger, it's to, grow deeper with the Lord and with each other.

- [Rob] Yeah.

And if you grow bigger as a result of that, then that's the Lord's, what the Lord's ordained, but that's not the goal.

The goal is actually to be a kind of church that glorifies God, which, you know, you can have a church of 20 people that glorify God or a church of 20,000 people.

But the issue is not the size of the church.

God's not impressed by how many people come to church.

You know, that's the ultimate thing.

He's impressed, he desires people to really worship him.

- Emily and I, she had some friends that were going to Bethany and we were in a position where we were looking at changing, not just churches, but religions.

And I didn't want to go to Bethany because I looked at it as a megachurch and we came from a very small church, but you know how wives are, yeah?

- (laughing) Very influential.

- Yes, and so we went there and you actually, you were not even preaching that first Sunday, but it was just out of the Bible.

And I'd never experienced that before.

And I was so impressed that, well, we're still going there today.

- Well, and that, you know, from my early experience that I just described, I became convinced that my opinions have zero impact.

What has impact is God's word.

You know, and that's what Jesus even said in scripture about the Bible.

He says, man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

And so my heart's desire is not that people would come and hear what Ritch Boerckel thinks about any matter, you know, but that the people would hear what God has already said, spoken his word and explained, and then it applied in a way that's relevant to life.

'Cause the Bible is relevant.

- Yeah, but so many preachers, it seems like, and so many.

I say that, the ones you see, right, because the bad ones always get the attention.

As a farmer, I see sometimes what other farmers are doing and it's bad, you know, like drawing mud out onto a road or something as simple like that.

I'm thinking in my head, hate that they're doing this because this is gonna bring regulations on me.

And this is not gonna be good for ag in general.

There's some bad preachers out there.

- Yeah.

- Some preachers that are just out for themselves.

Do you look at them, and you think that, are you sad that they're actually leading people away?

- Yeah, absolutely.

And, and yet, Jesus taught us to expect that to happen.

That's part of the world, which we're in that, you know, our heart's sinful without Christ redeeming us then we're all going to act in a way that's very self focused.

But Jesus said, you know, beware of false teachers, you know, they're gonna come.

And in fact, you know, he uses an agricultural parable by talking about how a landowner planted a field, you know, filled with good seed.

But then an enemy came at night and sowed some weeds into the field.

And, and as the, both the wheat and the weed started growing up, the workers started identifying, hey, these are, they're two different crops sown in the same field.

Should we go out and start pulling up the weeds?

And the farmer says, no, no, no.

Because in pulling out the weeds, you're gonna pull out some wheat.

Just let it all grow until harvest.

And then the landowner will separate out the wheat from the tears, from the weeds.

And that parable really teaches us that Satan will always sow false teachers, false believers into the church to disrupt the disrupt the life of the church.

But we shouldn't say, hey, I don't think you're, I'm gonna pull you out.

Because then you're gonna gonna injure.

- That's just a natural reaction.

- Right, we gotta do something.

- Get them outta there.

- And in the moment we start getting on that kind of war path where we're gonna injure some real wheat.

- Yeah.

- That may young or immature or whatever, and it's okay, let's wait and trust the Lord at the end of time, he's gonna sort everything out.

So those who are false teachers are gonna be find out at the end of time for sure.

And those that are true will be found also.

And you know, the desire for every Christian is to hear God say, well done, good and faithful servant.

- Yeah.

- That's our desire.

- I always thought it would be hard to do your job for one main reason, right.

You're speaking to a congregation every Sunday.

And in that crowd, there could be a person for the very first time.

That's trying to decide whether they wanna be Christian or believe in God.

And you've got people that have been there for 40 years and know scripture and know it all.

I always thought it would be very hard to balance that out.

- Yeah.

- Where you've got to try to draw in the new people, but at the same time, you know, not skip over, not make it too fluffy for the people that have been there.

- Right.

Yeah, that's a great question, Rob.

There, there's a, the first sort of way I think about that is again, going back to my early experience with teaching the Bible, I knew I was the weakest vessel perhaps ever in teaching a Bible study.

And yet God used the word to bring life.

It wasn't me that brought life.

It was the word that brought life.

And so the work of a pastor, as we set the seed of the word in front of people, is the belief that God will bring fruitful harvest.

God will bring fruit from it.

You know, Paul would say again, I love all the, you know, agricultural an analogies that scripture uses.

He says some plant and some water, but God's the one that gives the increase.

And you think about a farmer who sows in the spring and he sows something that's valuable that has actually cash value, sowing seed into the ground, seed that could be used in other ways for food or for whatever.

He's sowing it right in the soil.

Why in faith that that seed will actually produce something.

And, you know, thankfully, you know, God's allowed, you know, technology to allow that to be true most of the time.

But as you know, sometimes there's drought, sometimes there's storms.

Sometimes there's things that happen that, oh man, all that seed that was sown was sown without any fruit.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- But you still get up the next season, you plant it because you have faith that God will, God will work to bring fruit.

And that's the work really.

The pastor's like, okay, I know sometimes seed that sowed won't produce the fruit that I hope for, but that's on God.

I'm just gonna keep sowing in faith.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- And then God does a miracle often, you know.

- I could talk about this.

See Jasmine gives me time signals, right.

So that I don't run over.

- Yes.

- Might be a little something you'd wanna use it.

- Sunday mornings.

- Sunday mornings, just saying.

My point is, before we run out of time tell me about this.

- Yes, so this, I keep on my desk.

It's a picture.

The person kneeling here represents Jesus.

The person sitting on the bench represents a disciple.

I think of Peter.

It's goes back to that night before Jesus was betrayed when he gathered his disciples in an upper room.

And the first thing he did was to take a towel and begin to wash the disciples feet.

And I received this carving.

I purchased this carving on a trip that Kim and I took to Israel.

So it's important for that sense of just a memorabilia of a really sweet trip of being able to be in the land where all these stories that God reveals himself in scripture through.

But it also reminds me as a pastor, as I look at it of a couple things, you know, Peter was the one that said, no, you know, I don't want you to do the servant's work toward me.

I don't want you to wash my feet.

And Jesus said, hey, unless you let me wash your feet, you can't have any part.

There's no fellowship with me.

And it reminds me of my daily need for Christ cleansing.

You know, that I need Christ to serve me by cleansing me so that I can be in right relationship with the Lord.

And I need Christ every day.

You know, I need that daily cleansing.

As a Christian, I believe that once a person comes to faith in Christ, we're clean from head to toe, but we still, as we walk through this world of sin, our heart still has a proneness to sin, we need Christ.

The other thing that reminds me of is to be Christ in being willing to be humble, to serve other people that Christ showed us the path of spiritual leadership.

And it's not the path of command, it's the path of service where we're looking for ways, how can I benefit other people's life by humbly serving them, whatever, whatever task that might be.

And here Jesus has showed that by taking the servant's cloth and said, I'm willing to be, I'm the master here, but I want to be your servant.

That's what it means, spiritual leadership means, you know.

- I remember as a kid listening to this story and finding it just, I couldn't get it right, because this was Jesus.

It's the son of God.

- Right.

- You know, it's like the most powerful person on earth and he's putting himself into such a low position because this act.

- Yes.

- Was more of a servant's act.

- Yes.

- He was like putting himself so low, but he was doing that for the love.

It was very hard for a kid to understand that why he would do this.

- Yes, yeah.

Well, it's hard, I think, for an adult too, you know, I mean, it's not the way leadership in the world typically works.

You know, leadership in the world typically is I'm the top, and I, that means I get to direct or even command those who are under, under my authority.

And he's really saying, you know, that authority for a believer is flipped on its head.

It's the authority to be able to serve not the authority to be able to be served.

You know, so he, Jesus had that famous statement, you know, son of man didn't come into the world to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many, So, this statue kind of reminds me of my role in God's kingdom as a pastor and also of my need for Christ.

- I like the way you just said that because the role of a pastor.

I cannot imagine like the things you have to deal with, right?

Because you probably have, you know, some members of the church that come to you and they say, you know what, you need to focus on this.

Or you need to go this way or you need to talk about politics or something like that.

- Yep.

- That's gotta be hard to navigate because even if you have a bunch of people telling you, is it maybe necessarily what you and your heart, you feel like you should be talking about.

- Yep.

And I, you know, I think of this, this story as well, Jesus served because his father asked him to serve.

He didn't serve because the disciples were demanding it.

He served because his father was leading him and he submitted himself under the father.

And it really relieves me of a thousand pressures to keep in mind that I really have an audience of one that I need to care about pleasing, you know, and, you know, we're humans.

So we hope that everybody else is pleased by our labors.

But what we really desire is Lord, if you're smiling and everybody else is frowning or angry, I'm okay with that.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- You know, and if everybody else is clapping and cheering, but the Lord is, looks with a look of sadness or displeasure, then we shouldn't be happy with that.

And so, so, you know, that's, at least what I hope and strive to think about with those kind of pressures that you just mentioned, right.

- I bet you got some real stories.

- Absolutely.

- If people want to ask you a question, get a hold of you.

- Yes.

- Is there social media, website, email?

- Yeah, email, you know, ritch@bethanycentral.org You can go on our website and email me through that.

Connect with me through that.

The phone numbers, of the church is there as well.

You can call and ask to talk with me at Bethany Baptist and it's bethanycentral.org.

- And you are approachable.

- I hope to be.

You know, I mean, that's what Jesus certainly was you was approachable by children.

You know, children came up to, 'em.

- See what they're doing.

- Yeah.

- They give you the one and then they'll do that.

That's like 30 seconds.

- Okay.

- And then this is, you're over time.

- Okay, it is done.

- So maybe, this is something that you should look at, you know, as Bethany.

- Well, we've tried different things.

And nothing's worked on me so far.

(laughter) - Well, Pastor Ritch Boerckel , Dr. Ritch Boerckel , thank you so much for being on really.

- Oh, I really enjoyed talking with you, Rob.

Appreciate it.

- It's been a pleasure and everybody else we'll catch you next week.

(upbeat music)