Episode 11: Grappling with Grief and Helping The Grieving, Friendships in the Church Part 2, and Fruity Pebbles Soda?! With Dr. Michael Stewart, Pastor Grant Combs, and Dr. Chris Smith.

"They don't need you to bandaid their gaping wound; they need you to be present in their grief." Dr. Michael Stewart, the head of California's Great Commission Association of Churches, and podcast host Dr. Chase Thompson interview Dr. Chris Smith, a former missionary and current leader of the Great Commission Training Institution, an online ministry training school, and Pastor Grant Combs, the pastor of Lighthouse Baptist Church in Seaside, California. We are talking about relationships in the church. How can pastors and leaders cultivate deep friendships inside the church, and how can pastors protect their families well inside the church?  The advantage of having great deacons. How can introverts in the church manage over-peopling? How can pastors and church leaders make deep friends that are safe to confide in?  Dr. Chris Smith: "If I'm not in a good place, if I'm not serving and ministering from the overflow of what God is doing in my life, and that includes the community of others and the love that I have for others, then it's not going to be real. And it's not going to be a place where we can truly see God work in a miraculous way that we have that genuine community that's around us." Podcast by the Great Commission Association. GCASBC.Net - NEW WEBSITE.  If you are a pastor looking for a team - a family - we want to hear from you!  In the second half of the podcast, we talk deeply about grief, and how to help those who are grieving.  Liquid Death Cereal Criminal Fruity Pebbles flavor. Upcoming: Cheerwine and Irn-Bru, the soda "Made in Scotland from Girders". But not tonight because caffeine. "You think you're about to be in Heaven, but then the aftertaste kicks in, and you realize you are in soda purgatory."  "They don't need you to bandaid their gaping wound; they need you to be present in their grief."