Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome to the Lead Defend Podcast, a show designed to help you grow in faith and leadership as you navigate the stages of young adulthood. We address important faith topics and provide practical life tips helping you build up your faith as you engage a changing culture.
Now, here are your hosts.
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Well, welcome to the Lead to Fan Podcast. I am Bill.
[00:00:32] Speaker C: And I'm Brock.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: And we are glad to be back for another episode of Lead Defend. As we sit now, we're currently at annual meeting and we have got a list of guests lined up to come. And so we will have some fair amount of podcasts we hope to drop for you on all types of topics. But we have here with us today John Meador, one of our guests here at annual meeting here for the pastors Conference. Glad to have you here with us today.
[00:00:54] Speaker D: Thank you, Bill. Glad to be here.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: So for our listeners that don't know you or know of you, maybe weren't at the pastor's conference or maybe they were, but it's been, it's been a minute between the podcast and they're being here and actually being able to hear this. Tell them a little bit about yourself.
[00:01:09] Speaker D: I've been pastoring in Texas for the last 20 years at the old First Baptist Church, Euless. The name was changed a few years ago. It's called Cross City church, but pastoring 40 years altogether. So I'm in my middle to late 60s and still hanging in there, going strong for a little while and have always been in Baptist life and have loved it, seen a lot of great things that God's done through it.
[00:01:31] Speaker B: Great love that. So tell our listeners, just give them kind of a bullet point of where you have been over the last few years, different places you've served, roles that you've served in those types of things.
[00:01:42] Speaker D: Well, everything was unique to me in every place. I was called. First to pastor a church in Edmond, Oklahoma, north Oklahoma City, and was there seven years, was called to MacArthur Boulevard Baptist Church in Irving, Texas. That's right by the airport. Very diverse city. It was actually the church where my wife grew up. So she went back as a pastor's wife, which I think is amazing, phenomenal. And you better live a good life in the youth group if you're going to go back and do that. And we had a great seven years there. I was called to Shattanooka, Tennessee. Very unusual call. I like to call it my Mission field days when we went to Tennessee on the Mission field, but a phenomenal church. A man named Spiros Zodiades was one of our elders there who was the leading Greek authority in the world. And Kay Arthur was a member of that church. So we had a pretty robust group of people there, a phenomenal seven years and didn't really want to come to Euless, Texas. But God made it really clear that he was calling me to First Baptist Church, Euless in 2006. So we've been there all this time since then and it's been one of those ups and downs and overall, great, but not without its cost. Pastoring is not always easy, but it's been a great 20 years.
[00:02:57] Speaker C: And so, yeah, you're coming right up on the 20 year anniversary.
What have been some leadership lessons maybe that you've learned along the way from where you started 20 years ago to where you are now?
[00:03:07] Speaker D: Well, I think when I came 20 years ago to the church, it had some challenges, it had some financial challenges.
The previous pastor had resigned and they had some financial challenges. Out of that, they had a phenomenal interim pastor named Bill Anderson who got them moving in the right direction.
So the first thing we did was pay off a bunch of debt, about $7 million worth of debt. And I watched God provide in just crazy ways. I mean, I have so many stories about people that were just being faithful to what God led them to do in giving to pay off debt. That's not fun. I mean, it's not like a sweet new building. There's nothing sexy about debt. You got to get rid of it, right?
But I watched that and then I just learned to kind of meet them where they were.
So often in leadership, we think that we know where we're supposed to be going and how to get there. But I really learned a lot about slowing down enough to listen to people and let them inform me, here's where we are and here's why we're afraid or here's why we're confident.
Whatever it is that they're at, wherever place they are in the journey, it's really helpful to hear them. And I was just able to learn to be a better leader as a result of listening to some really great people who had been very committed to the church for many years.
So we really kind of formed a community together and moved together. So it's been very exciting that way.
[00:04:23] Speaker C: That's awesome. So 20 years at your current location, about 40 years total. But let's go back a little bit further. It's fun for us to hear the various guests that we have on how the Lord called different people his servants into ministry. And so what was that call process like for you, as the Lord clarified that he was calling you into some sort of church work or ministry leadership.
[00:04:47] Speaker D: Well, my dad was a pastor in Oklahoma all the time I was growing up and had some really rough pastorates. So as a young man, I was pretty mad about the church that we were in when I was in college, and I thought they mistreated him, and I had plans to take care of that in some way.
I was kind of big, and I kind of used my, you know, kind of used my aggressiveness sometimes on a basketball court or football field. So I thought I could solve that problem for my dad and didn't actually do anything but just to kind of give you the taste of what I thought about the church. When I began to sense that God was calling me to ministry, I said, there's no way I'm going to go back and do that kind of life or ministry.
But at the same time, I was saying that I was starting to grow spiritually and I decided to read through the Bible for the first time, from Genesis to Revelation. By the time I got to the song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes and the poetry aspect of the Bible, the book of Ecclesiastes, began to really convict me about how vain all my plans were and that it was all going to be vain if I just didn't listen to him.
So that was really the turning point where I stopped and said, okay, I've got my plans, but God, what are your plans? That's when he began to work in my heart and began to say, I want you in ministry. I want you to devote yourself to me.
About that time, I became the president of a fellowship of Christian athletes on our campus.
And when I did that, I was just kind of organizing things. You know, I just made sure we had someone to speak, made sure, you know, the students were aware of what we were doing and tried to plan some retreats and so forth. And at the end of my first year doing that, a guy came up to me and said, do you know what you're doing? Don't you?
I said, actually, I don't. He said, you're pastoring these students. That's what you're doing. That's what you are. You're a sheepdog.
And kind of the way he said it made me kind of stop and think about it. And God just began to confirm some of those things through other people, through my own heart. And so eventually, within the year, I said, okay, God, I'm going to go ahead and get my business degree, finish my college Education. I'm going to go to seminary and let you confirm this. And so that's what happened. He just confirmed it all the way through.
[00:06:54] Speaker B: Wow. I've heard Ecclesiastes called many things over the years. A turning point has never been one of those.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: Definitely a turning point in my life.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: That's interesting.
[00:07:02] Speaker D: In my old Bible that I was reading at the time, you know, you have chapter and book subtitles. You know, the translators put it on there, and it's not actually part of scripture, but when you open the book of Ecclesiastes in that old little Bible I had and I was reading through it, says the preacher, that's the title of it. I'd never thought of Solomon as the preacher, but that's what this translator had placed on it. And it got my attention. Attention. And the book itself grabbed me.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Wow, that is amazing. So once you kind of confirm that call or kind of had that leaning toward that, you went to seminary. And so was seminary. Going into seminary. Did you already know for sure or was seminary kind of. I need to confirm this and figure out the direction I'm supposed to go.
[00:07:44] Speaker D: I knew that I was going into ministry. I didn't know what.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:48] Speaker D: So seminary was a time for me to, I think, in a sense, learn how dedicated I was to obeying the God, obeying the Lord.
Seminary was tough.
I married after college and we were just starting to have children and working and letting my wife stay at home with our first child and going to seminary, and it just was a tough time. I know why people call it cemetery, because that's how I felt. Very buried by the whole stress of it all.
I wasn't the best student in the world. I wasn't the worst. But I'm kind of in the middle with all that. Just trying to balance just life and making a living and going to seminary and figuring out, what are you going to do with all this, God?
But I think it was through all that I realized, yes, I just had a deep love for the Scriptures, was really interested in the languages and had some great preaching professors and was in some classrooms with some guys that you would know who have done really well in ministry. And God just slowly, gradually sharpened the focus for me. It took me a few years, but I finally figured out I'm supposed to pastor.
[00:08:55] Speaker C: Well, we're certainly thankful for the churches that you've blessed during those 40 years, but you've also been able to bless those outside of your church through a book that you wrote about two years ago that came out. And it Is called. What was the title? God's not done with you. Yeah, God's not done with you. And so I think people can hear that. And maybe they think, is this a book for people who. Who think they've done everything there is to do, or is this a book for people who maybe think that they've fallen too far to be used by God again? So what's the heart behind your book, God's Not Done with youh?
[00:09:25] Speaker D: Well, it covers all the things you just mentioned, but it really starts with the characters of the Old Testament, largely themselves.
So as I follow the life of Joseph, for example, all the highs and lows of his life, he never disqualified himself, but he felt pretty disqualified. And in prison at the end after being accused falsely of having an affair with Potiphar's wife. And God elevated him to this huge position. So that's a really familiar story that people would know. But David. David disqualified for so much because of his adultery and then just sending the husband of Bathsheba back to battle to die. How can you restart. How can you eventually be called a man after God's own heart after that?
So I'll trace the story of David, the story of Peter as well, denying Christ three times, and on the end of it all, God giving him an incredible position in the kingdom. So it's all about the fact that people often feel like they're unusable through maybe something that's not their fault, maybe it's a handicap they have or just difficult challenges they've been through, or something they actually did that they feel disqualifies them.
It's a story of how God really works in people's lives on the other side of that time of tragedy or heartbreak, or the valley, if you will. So that's what it's about. 11 different chapters on 11 different characters.
And it's been really encouraging for people, as they read it, to realize God does have a plan. For me, it's not over until I'm dead.
[00:10:54] Speaker C: Yeah, I think that's so interesting. I had a woman who was attending our church for the first time yesterday. We're recording this podcast on a Monday, and. And like, she was asking me about the David question. She just. She had a lot of questions, but one of them was, you know, how do you. How do you wrestle with some of these figures in. In the Old Testament? And that was one of the things that I mentioned to her is. Is. Is. I get the tension there. But also, like, God could have authored Scripture any way he wanted to, yet he Left those stories in. Like he could have whitewashed the story of David and not included this massive fall.
But it also is the. The truth of what happened. And it helps us see how to pick up when the pieces begin to fall apart and how God can still use us through that. And so maybe for someone who's listening and maybe they have some. Some difficulties in their past, there's some shame that they're not proud of and. And they're asking themselves that question.
Obviously we would encourage them to check out the book, but. But also, where. Where would you start with a person who came to you like that in your church?
[00:11:52] Speaker D: Well, if you brought up the name of David, super embarrassing details.
[00:11:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:57] Speaker D: Full transparency in the Bible. And I love the fact of that there were some things that David was disqualified from. God wouldn't let him build the temple because he was a man. There were consequences, but he did use him in a big way. Psalm 51 is one of the best depictions of sorrow and regret and repentance that I help people through Psalm 51 all the time. I walk through Psalm 51 myself. So there are some things that God says, okay, what's happened is going to disqualify you from some things, but it won't disqualify you from serving me at this point. It's going to be something that I lead you in, I guide you and direct you in.
Because often the ministry question is what people bring up about David. Can I get back into pastoring? Can I get back into church ministry?
Depending on what the sin was, depending on how wide it was, or. Or what the depth of it was, that answer is going to be given by those in authority over that person or around them. But God can still use a person. Ministry is not all there is to life, even though it's very important.
[00:13:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Yep, that's good. So you kind of branched off into something I was going to ask about. You kind of already touched on it a little bit. But let me just kind of ask to see if you have anything to add, because one of the things that has become somewhat common. I think one of the conversations I've had with some folks lately is why do we see not as many people answering the call to ministry as we used to? And I think there's three or four reasons for that. But one of the things that is often brought up, especially for young men, is the issue of pornography. Guys feeling maybe not qualified because of that particular sin are like the guilt and shame that goes with that. So for some who deal with that, I've got some folks, even the last couple of weeks I've had conversations with in ministry trying to figure out seeking repentance, trying to figure out where to kind of balance that line. Do they step out of ministry? Do they nod over that particular sin?
What would you say based on the things you saw in the book and just your years in the pastorate working with other staff on those issues?
[00:14:02] Speaker D: On the issue of pornography, I think it would be very important for a person to know we can win this war.
I can win this war in my life. You can win it in your life. And you should want to win that war before you get into ministry. If you're in ministry now and you struggle with that, take a pause, fight that battle. It's not a decades long battle. It doesn't have to be.
So I think the importance of ministry and representing the Lord with a good conscience demands that we take it serious and have to face it and deal with it.
So I would say to someone that's considering ministry, win that battle. Be prepared. It's part of your discipline to become either prepared in scripture, be able to teach, or prepared in character to be able to lead. Fight that battle and win it. You're not disqualified from the get go with the issue of pornography. And I think it's very important to help people know they can get beyond it. And there are a lot of ministries that really help people with that.
I'll actually share in a message that I preached later on today that there was a point when I was 23 years old that God warned me about pornography and said, I'll forgive you, but I'll never use you if you keep this in your life.
And I had to lay it down and I haven't looked back and thankful I haven't looked back. But it's true that it is a huge issue so accessible today in contrast to what it was 40 years ago.
[00:15:23] Speaker C: Yeah. And the deviating. I think that's the right word to use.
Opportunities for it were now in even within the last week. ChatGPT releasing that they're opening it up in December, I think for more sexual interactions with this artificial intelligence. That now pornography and that type of perversion is going to be accessible in a whole new way than it even has been before. Whereas it used to require some other form of another person somewhere along the way. And now, um. But I think that's super helpful to hear that, hey, the battle needs to be fought. The battle can be won. There's hope there and God can still use you after the process.
But as you said, he may not use you while he's forgiving you, while you're continuing to live that sin with an unrepentant heart. I think there's another side of this, too. I looked up the verse while you guys were talking in 2nd Corinthians 7:10. It says, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
You know, as you said a minute ago, the battle can be won. And some people are able to win that battle. They experience what Paul talks about there, that godly brief grief that produces repentance leading to salvation. There's freedom in that. There's forgiveness in that. But then there's another subset of people that they theologically, logically understand and know that God has forgiven them.
They really struggle forgiving themselves. And they're living in what I think Paul is talking about here, which is that worldly grief that produces death. It's not leading to freedom, it's not leading to the enjoyment of forgiveness, but they continue to feel shame.
What might you say to that person when you're thinking about this topic of God's not done with you?
[00:17:18] Speaker D: Part of walking with God is believing God.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker D: Not walking in belief, but in belief.
So for a person that's struggling with pornography, they have to have the faith and trust that God can deliver them. We just said that. But they also have to have the same trust in the same God that says, I have forgiven you, and you can forgive yourself. You've set your side yourself, set yourself aside in some ways in the sense of you've embarrassed yourself or you have humiliated yourself in some way that can be overcome as well. All of us, I have some moments of humiliation and embarrassment, but forgiving yourself is very much a part of belief. I believe God's forgiven me, and so I've got to forgive myself because he's called me to. So there's no easy route to it. I think you have to just stand on what God's word says and expect that he means that. So you have to learn to stand on that.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: There's a lady at my church, and she got a little fussy with me the other day because she thought I wasn't responding back to her.
[00:18:17] Speaker D: And.
[00:18:18] Speaker C: And she felt very guilty about that after the fact and has told everybody that she was chastising me and feels terrible about it. And she keeps on forgiving and forgiving and forgiving. And finally this Sunday, she said it one more time. I said, listen, I want you to know you're forgiven and this is the last time. And then she started telling my wife about it and she stopped and goes, oh no, I did it again. And so I think sometimes we treat God the same way and it's a good thing to run back to him for forgiveness over and over again. But there was a moment I had to realize, if God has forgiven me and I'm not willing to forgive myself, do I somehow believe that I am more holy than God is, where I won't forgive myself for something that he's been willing to forgive me for?
[00:18:55] Speaker D: If God forgave David, if God forgave Peter, if God forgave Thomas, we can go on and on all day. Why would he not forgive you?
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Yeah, that was another thing I mentioned, that lady who brought up about David. I was like, how good is it to have examples like that so that we can know, hey, even when we mess up and if God can't forgive him, we're in the book of Acts at our church right now. If God's willing and to forgive, forgive Saul, why should we not believe that he's incapable of forgiving us and using us continually in incredible ways? Though it may be different ways because of the consequences of our sin.
[00:19:30] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely. Well, as we get ready to wrap up, tell our folks how they maybe could interact with you online. You have a website or social media something you can point some folks to, Sir?
[00:19:40] Speaker D: My. My website is john meadow.com as Johan M E A D O R There's a podcast there. We also have Cross City Church and there are several podcasts there. So you can interact with either the podcast or just email. Happy to help anyone with any question they may have. I love interacting. Email is one of my favorite tools. And besides texting, texting and email, we do that well. So reach out to me. I would encourage. I wouldn't. I would be happy to encourage you in your calling or and wherever you are in your life.
We're all in this together and we want to serve the Lord together. So however I can help, that's good.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Well, thank you for your faithful ministry. Thanks for being here with us at the annual meeting. Looking forward to hearing you at the pastors conference. Thanks for taking time out of a busy schedule to record a podcast with us and we look forward to maybe interacting at some point in the future, even beyond annual meeting. So thanks for all your work. Well, thank you. Thank you again for listening to the podcast. Just a reminder that Lead Defend is always around the corner coming up. So you always check lead defend.org have registration and all of our speakers listed there for 2026. And even in coming years, even if you're listening to this a year or two down the road, that website is always active. Well, thanks again for listening and we will see you next time.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: That's it for this episode of Lead Defend. To hear more episodes from the Lead defend crew, visit absc.org podcasts if you liked what you heard, rate and review us on your favorite podcast listening site. Want to learn more information about the next Lead Defend conference? Visit leaddefend.org.
