Beeson Podcast, Episode #054 Name Date >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama. Now your host, Timothy George. >>Timothy George: Welcome to today's Beeson podcast. I have here in the studio Dr. Harry Reeder. He is the pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, a wonderful man of God, a colleague in the ministry, and it's a joy to have you with us on the Beeson podcast today, Harry. >>Reeder: Yeah, Timothy, it's great to be with you, and it's just a joy to be laboring alongside of you in the Birmingham area. >>Timothy George: Thank you so much. You know, I preached at your church some time ago. You invited me to do that, and they put me in your office as we were getting ready for the service, and I always kind of look at people's books. It may not be the most polite thing, but I just have a habit. So, I was looking at your books, and there, to my surprise, I saw a complete set of John Gill's commentaries on the Bible. Now for those listeners who may not know, John Gill was a Baptist, a Reformed Baptist, back in the 18th century. Why were his commentaries on your shelves, Harry? >>Reeder: Well, I even made the pilgrimage to his gravesite. But why his commentaries there, of course, I guess he would have fallen into the category of the strict Baptist in England. And I actually began my ministry, my student years and pastoral development and then as a pastor, in the Reformed Baptist Association. And most of us that were there, we cut our teeth on John Bunyan and John Gill. >>Timothy George: Wonderful. Two of my favorites. Now, tell us a little bit about that pilgrimage, how you became a Christian, and then how you were led from being a Baptist to a Presbyterian. >>Reeder: Well, I always tell people I got saved out of a drug problem. My dad and mom drug me to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night. My granddaddy and grandmother were wonderful believers, my dad's mom and dad. In fact, my granddaddy was on the original Billy Graham team from 48 to 52 while he was a scout for the Washington Senators. He had played ball earlier. And then it was actually Billy's first crusade in Charlotte that my dad became a believer. And I was actually in my mother's arms when they went forward in 1948. And I grew up in the Christian Missionary Alliance Church, but I was not a believer. I was just, let me succinctly say, I was an immoral, ungodly, profane, self-centered sinner that properly functioned within my dad and mom's eyesight, but had a whole other life. When I went away to college it came to fruition, and I've actually flunked out. I went away to play ball, and I didn't work in the classroom work. And so, I actually flunked out of East Carolina my sophomore year, which that takes a, that's a challenge because, I mean, if you can fog a mirror, you can graduate from East Carolina. And the dean of students, who was also the assistant baseball coach, informed me that I was no longer allowed there. I went home on my way to the Marine Corps. Into the Marine Corps, actually I was going to go into the recon, and I met my future wife, and God actually intervened because of some athletic injuries. I wasn't acceptable unless Vietnam became a declared war, and it never was, so they never called me up. And I started going to church because she was a Christian. To date her, I had to go to church. Well, I wouldn't take her to my church. I'd blow my cover. And I didn't want to go to her church. She was Southern Baptist. I heard they ate people over there, so I was scared of that. So, I picked a little Presbyterian church in Charlotte and went there. And the Lord used that. I didn't know there was, I kind of figured maybe they’re Presbyterians, they don't believe much, you know, that's what I was thinking. And I said, wow, I didn't realize there was this whole group of Presbyterians that loved Jesus and loved the word, and everybody had a Bible, and they were challenging me. And a guy that used to play ball with my daddy was there and he kind of became God's bloodhound from heaven, tracked me down. I became a believer. Cindy and I were married and then I went back to East Carolina. And I actually surrendered to a call to the ministry in the tobacco field at one o'clock in the morning. We lived in some apartments of a guy that owned hundreds of acres of tobacco and to put myself through school, I worked for him. And I was walking through some of those tobacco fields, by the way, he was a rather rich man, and he was a believer, actually started other businesses to help college students. And one of the businesses he started as a tax write-off was a hamburger place. His name was Wilbur Hardy. >>Timothy George: Ah, Hardees. >>Reeder: And that's where Hardy's Hamburgers began. >>Timothy George: How about that? >>Reeder: Right there. But anyway, I became a believer. I had a call to the ministry, surrendered. And I told my wife, I said, you know, I don't know that you bought into this or not. She said, well, I did. She said, when I was 11, I surrendered to being a missionary or pastor’s wife. So, she was just kind of waiting on me to catch up. >>Timothy George: I want to ask you about your wife, Cindy. On a few occasions when I've just been visiting Briarwood, I have seen at the end of the service, the two of you kind of clasp hands and walk out. I don't know if you still do that. >>Reeder: Oh, yeah. >>Timothy George: But that's such a powerful symbol. >>Reeder: You know, we've been told that, but we actually didn't start it that way. >>Timothy George: Oh, really? >>Reeder: Yeah, I would, when I first came to, when I would first go to the back, I always went to the back because I felt people needed to be accessible and they needed to have access to you. And Cindy wanted to be with me, and I wanted her with me, but the crowds wouldn't let us. So, I said, honey, why don't you just go back with me? Well, the first time we did it, people come back in tears saying, boy, that is great, that is making a statement. And I wish I could tell you I thought of it, but I didn't. And so, we've done it all our lives. >>Timothy George: But you all have really worked as a team in ministry. >>Reeder: Absolutely. >>Timothy George: She makes a great contribution to your life and to the life of the church. >>Reeder: Yeah. Like I said, she was called to the ministry before I was. And she's just extraordinary. So, I left East Carolina, went to Covenant College. I call that the third best decision of my life. One was Jesus, two was Cindy, and three was Covenant. Really challenging. While I was there, I came under the discipleship of a fellow by the name of Al Martin. And Al discipled me, and that's how I became the Reformed Baptist. Working through some issues on the sacraments and church government, I ended up coming into the PCA in 1980 upon finishing Westminster Seminary. >>Timothy George: Now those Presbyterians back in North Carolina that were preaching the gospel, were they a part of the Southern Presbyterian Church? >>Reeder: No, they were not. You know, I just assumed they were, but they were a part of what back then was called the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, which kind of came out of the Northern Presbyterian Church along with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Bible Presbyterian Church. I didn't know that. They just said Faith Presbyterian, and I went there. I was just actually looking for a place to take my future wife. She was a Christian. She said, I'm only going to marry a Christian. So, I said, well, I got to go to church if I'm going to fool her. I always tell people the bad news was I wasn't a Christian. The good news was I wasn't a Christian. I didn't mind lying. So, I told her I was one. Like I said, I was raised in the Christian Missionary Alliance Church. And so, you know, every year, I mean, you know, I mean, Sunday nights, we knew unless one of us in the young youth group went forward, we'd be there. I'd been forward two or three times, and she was Southern Baptist, so if you went forward, that was kind of like absolution. So, she said, oh, well, he must be a Christian. But anyway, God used all of that, and through her witness and testimony and life, I was drawn back to church, and then I was drawn to Christ through the testimony of the gospel in that church. >>Timothy George: And you were a pastor in Charlotte, I think when I first got acquainted with you, of a large Presbyterian church, PCA church there, and then from there you came to Briarwood. >>Reeder: Right. When I went into the PCA and finished seminary, my first PCA church was in Miami, Florida. And it was a church that was on its last legs. And God just called me there, and I went there, and God turned the thing around and blessed it and used it. It became a multiracial, multiethnic church. It's still there doing wonderful. It's got a great African American pastor who's doing a great job, Kevin Smith. And then Briarwood Presbyterian called me and asked me, they said, you know, the PCA doesn't have churches in key cities because they were so Southern Presbyterian. There's even a city in the south, we don't have a single church. And we want you to go plant a church that will plant a Presbytery. And so, in 1983 I went to Charlotte as a church planter and planted Christ's Covenant. And from that actually we have been able to plant two Presbyteries now, in the Central Carolina Presbytery and the Sandhills Presbytery. And then I was there, it was great, the Lord is blessing. I led my dad and mom back to the Lord, they remarried. My sisters came to Christ. It was a wonderful ministry, was engaged in the public square. And then I got a phone call from Frank Barker, and he said, “You know I'm retiring. Would you consider coming here?” And I said, “Absolutely not.” He said, “Would you pray about it?” And I said, “No, I'm not going to pray about it. Man, that's Alabama, you're a 40-year legend, and I see what they do to people in Alabama following legends.” I had followed the Paul Bear Bryant story, you know. So after about seven times no, and then finally praying about it, God made it pretty clear that I was supposed to, that was pretty comfortable and enjoyable, but the Lord was calling me to come here. So, we came here 12 years ago. >>Timothy George: And that ministry of Briarwood is one of the great congregations in our country, maybe in the world today, not just for what it does on a local level, which is tremendous, but also your vision for the world and the great focus you have on missions and calling people out. It's in discipleship, evangelism. It's just tremendous, and we've been blessed in Birmingham to have Briarwood here. You have a ministry that reaches into nearly every nook and corner of our city, and that's just tremendous. >>Reeder: Well, it's just a blessing to be a part of it, and to take what God planted for 40 years, and we've been building on it, and asked the Lord to take it to another level and use it for His Kingdom. And of course, Frank is still there as the pastor. I tell people he's the pastor emeritus, I'm the pastor demeritus, and we have a great time serving the Lord. >>Timothy George: Oh, wonderful man of God, Frank Barker. Now there's so many things I would love to talk to you about, and I don’t have that much time. So, I’m just going to hit a few, and you can respond, we can go anyway. One is your preaching. There is something unusual about your preaching. I don't know exactly what it is. It's biblical, number one, that's not necessarily unusual, it shouldn't be. But you preach with what I would call a canonical sense of the scriptures. You're trying to show how salvation history has been at play in the ups and downs, the Old Testament, the New Testament. Where did you learn that? >>Reeder: Well actually, just as a plug, I praise the Lord for Beeson and have actually recommended people here. But of course, my alma mater was Westminster Cemetery. And to be under the next generation tutelage of John Murray in systematic theology, of Machen, New Testament, E.J. Young, Old Testament, Van Til, Apologetics. >>Timothy George: Now you're not saying you were their students, you studied with their students. >>Reeder: Right, I'm the next generation. I was underneath the guys that they taught. I actually had access to some of them on occasions, Dr. Knudsen in church history, and then of course Dr. Clowney. Dr. Clowney in challenging us in redemptive historical preaching, how do you not allegorize the scripture to put Christ into the Old Testament, but how does the trajectory of the Old Testament go to the new, and how does the new use the old? So, what Brian Chappell calls Christ-centered preaching, that is historical, you do the historical grammatical work, and then you see how does the trajectory point to Christ, biblically rooting that. Not allegorizing, not reading Christ into the text, but exegeting Christ from the text as it is used in the context of scriptures. I love to go to a passage of scripture in the Old Testament, and I get to the end, and I say, now folks, you know Jesus has said he explained himself in all the scriptures beginning with Moses and the prophets. Now how do we find Jesus here? And bring them into the quandary of this. And then without misusing the historical grammatical context, how does it land in Christ? And just to see the joy of people seeing that. >>Timothy George: And that's Dr. Edmund Clowney- >>Reeder: Dr. Edmund Clowney. >>Timothy George: Who is now with the Lord. >>Reeder: Yeah, amen. >>Timothy Georger: But a powerful witness for Christ. He was the president, was he not, of Westminster for a period of time? I met him once in my life and was so impressed not only with his brilliance and his ability to weave the Christ center of scripture, but also his humility. He was a very humble man, walked with God, and it's great to see his life and witness living out in your ministry. >>Reeder: Well, I not only had access to him, I used to take him out to play golf and would talk with him, and I actually took his classes. But two of his best students were Dr. James Hurley and Dr. Bill Link, and both of those men discipled me. And so, it was just great. In the meantime, I came under the influence of Al Martin also in those days, and Al was just a tremendous expositor of the scripture. Now I wished he had been exposed to Dr. Clowney. I always tell people, I was under Al Martin and here's God, then Al, and then you in a line. And you know, God speaks through Al to you. Dr. Clowney, here's God, here's you, Dr. Clowney's beside you and he's tapping you on the shoulder pointing you back to God. So, I really felt the best of both worlds of the prophetic and priestly ministry of these two men. >>Timothy George: Now one of the things you've done, you're an author of several books, and I want to ask you to say just a little bit about one of them, which has had a great impact, From Embers to a Flame, How God Can Revitalize Your Church. What does revitalize mean in that title? >>Reeder: Well, you know, Timothy, I'm trying to be very careful because I do not believe in mechanistic revivalism. I don't believe that. I believe revival is the work of the Lord. You can preach for it, you can pray for it, you just can't bring it. I'm all for revival. But if my congregation that is plateaued, stagnant, or declining, while I'm preaching and praying for revival, I believe that leadership can lead the church back to spiritual vitality. Now I know it's a fine line here that we're walking, but so, what happened is, I'm in Pinelands, the average age is 69. One good flu season, I don't have a church. There was no children. My three kids were the only kids in the church. I mean, the Presbyterian was asking us to close it. And God, how can you bring this church back to life? Well, I went to the book of Acts. I did the case study of Ephesus all the way through the book of Revelation, the revitalization projects that were there, and the basic paradigm of remember from where you've fallen, repent of your sins, and then recover the basics, and that the leadership can lead the church back to spiritual health and vitality. And at the time in the 1980s, the big deal was church growth. And I loved what the guys were saying in church growth, it just wasn't setting well with me. It seemed to be more sociologically, psychologically, and demographically driven than it was theologically. So, what I said is, you know, look, church growth, statistic growth is not the objective. That's the consequence. The objective is church health. And just like your body, if it's healthy, will grow when you're raising children, and by the way, the health of my children is in the hands of the Lord, right? But I don't just sit around and say, well, God, I hope you make them healthy. I pray for their health just like I pray for the revival of my church. But I can lead my church back to vitality and the things, we call it the ordinary means of grace. Recover the basics. Get back to preaching and fellowship and the sacraments and evangelism and missions and mercy and deeds of love, mercy and justice. And those things begin to bring health and vitality back into the congregation. >>Timothy George: Now you've several times used this word lead, and of course it's a word, it's a mantra on everybody's lips today, lots and lots of books. You've written a book on leadership. Let me ask you a question I've been asked maybe a hundred times. What is leadership? >>Reeder: My basic definitions when I teach, it is that what a leader does is influences others to achieve a defined mission together. That's just a basic definition. But what leadership is is modeling, mentoring, and I call it ministry by encouragement and inspiration that people learn by imitation, instruction, and because of inspiration. A leader provides all of those things. That's why God uses leaders. Now God does it, but God ordains it. God wants to take him out of Egypt. What does he do? He raises up Moses. God wants to put him into Egypt. What does he do? He raises up Joseph. God wants to sustain his people in Babylonian captivity, he puts a Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for five dynasties and two empires. Right now, I'm doing through Nehemiah. God wants his people to get back to where he wants them to, so he puts his Zerubbabel, then he follows with an Ezra, then he follows with a Nehemiah. Well I believe God uses leadership. I don't think, by and large, a church does not go beyond its leadership. And so, I believe if I want a church to come back to health, then we need to help leaders be healthy. Healthy leaders produce healthy churches. >>Timothy George: I would strongly recommend our listeners get a copy of your book, The Leadership Dynamic, as well as the other one we mentioned, From Embers to a Flame, which is about the church revitalization, because I think both of those give insight into your heart for ministry, and in a way, into the way you do ministry. They're in a sense autobiographical books. >>Reeder: Very much so. And you know, Timothy, in The Leadership Dynamic, the modest proposal, I call it, is that the church quit taking the world's defined leaders, and with six officer training classes, think you're going to make them a Christian leader. No, what we need to do is raise up the next generation of leaders from the church into the world, into the public square, into Wall Street, Main Street, Schoolhouse Lane, Courthouse Square. We need to put the leaders there in society. That's what our forebears did in the 18th century. >>Timothy George: One of the things I've admired about you is the fact that as a pastor, a preacher of God's Word, a leader of God's people, you have not been hesitant to speak out publicly on matters of moral concern in our society today. Now I would like to ask you to reflect with me about what that involves. Why do you do that? Why do you think, as you obviously do, that's an important part of a pastoral calling? There are dangers with it, and if you see any of those, maybe you could share some of that as well. But it seems to me that's one of the real contributions you make as a man of God, that you've had courage, or maybe foolhardiness, I don't know what it is. But you've stuck your neck out on some things for the sake of the people of God in the public arena. Talk about that. >>Reeder: First of all, whether it's those oppressed, those being led away to death, whether it's active euthanasia, abortion, infanticide, the oppression of non-confronted greed, whatever it might be, if we don't speak prophetically and then minister priestly, then I think we've given up what God's called us to do in terms of being salt and light. I don't want to just speak to the issues, I want to disciple people who can go out and affect those issues. >>Timothy George: Yeah, that’s good. >>Reeder: But I do think I need to speak to this because my people watch the way I do it. Now, if you're going to take on social moral issues, then we need to be very careful. The only time the church has ever gotten in trouble is when the church looked to the state to extend its influence, or when the state co-opted the church. We want to make sure that, I'm not talking about a separation of church and state in the way many people talk about it, but what I am saying is this, is that as a minister, I can't, I want to speak to the public square, which means I need to be very careful that I don't become a puppet of the court, anybody's court. So, I take great pains not to identify with politicians or parties in terms of promotion. You listen to me preach or teach or speak to something, you could pretty well say, you know, I think you'd probably vote for that guy. But I don't do that. In fact, I've got statesmen in my church that I've tried to train the difference between a politician and a statesman. I've tried to disciple. But I've told them, when you run, I got one just came to me the other day, of course he knew it, he just said, I'm here to tell you I'm running and asking for your prayers because I know you're not going to take my bumper sticker out there. I think I have a right actually to do that and I would not argue with a preacher that did it. I would just say I have to realize that when I do that, I tie myself to that party and that man for good or bad and I need to be careful because I represent not only the call of Christ, but I represent my church. And I may have churchmen that disagree with me politically about how to carry this thing out that we're committed to. Well, I don't want to, I don't want, you know, because when people see that, they don't say, you know, let’s say Harry Reeder joined the tea Party. I'll use something like that. They don't say Harry Reeder joined the tea party. They say pastor of Briarwood joined the tea party. Now, I just carried Briarwood with me, and that's not fair to my people. Then I don't know what that party, or whatever it is, is going to do out in the future. So, I know what the kingdom of God is going to ultimately be and do, so I want to stay identified with that. >>Timothy George: Now about almost two years ago, we issued a document called the Manhattan Declaration. I was involved in helping to draft it. You were one of the first signatories. You received a lot of criticism from all over the map, you know, from the usual suspects kind of who are against Christians speaking to these issues at all, but also from some of our dear friends and people who are very committed to the scriptures and who felt this was not the way to go. You actually preached a sermon on why I signed the Manhattan Declaration. Tell us about that decision and the response you received to making that kind of public commitment. >>Reeder: Well, first of all, you need to know I signed it because I think such declarations are appropriate. Now, I think they're somewhat oversold. We all think that's going to turn the tide. No, it's just another piece of the instruments that Lord might use when God's people make their declarations in appropriate ways. Secondly, and I'm not saying it just because you were part of it, it was well thought out. It was well thought out biblically, and it was well presented structurally, grammatically, and it had a way of making the presentations and doing what I call knowledge by negation. Well, I don't call it that. That's what it's called. And that you made the statement and then you said we're not doing this and we're not saying that, and you knocked off the error on both sides as you made the presentation. So, I felt comfortable in the balance that was presented with the boldness of the propositional truths. And then thirdly, it had the opportunity for proper co-belligerence, which was not where I had to dumb down my confessional commitments in the context of the church, but I could join with other people, even though I might disagree with them on a church confession, at Christianity 101, Apostles' Creed Christianity, we could agree and that this is an issue that we could fight through and work through. I did it in the context of that. Now of course I preach a sermon, like you, well not like you, you much more than me. I got a lot of, I got pushback from various schools. But most of all, a lot of my elders just said, Pastor, we think other people ought to sign, and we think if you will give a public statement of why you signed, it might help other people sign. >>Timothy George: So, your church was essentially supportive. >>Reeder: Oh yes, I would not have done that. Now let me say, I can come to a time I'll sign something that my elders would say, don't sign. But that would then become a big theological issue for me. No, I brought it to them, I presented it to them, why I felt I ought to sign it, because I'm the pastor of Briarwood, and their names are going to be along with it. And they unanimously voted. There was only one abstention for me to go ahead of 75 elders. >>Timothy George: Well, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for signing it and thank you for being articulate about why you did it, and for really clarifying some misunderstanding, I think, that a lot of our friends had about it. And it continues to go on. We have almost a half million signatories now, two years later. It's not just a matter of numbers because this isn't a matter of making a public declaration for the sake of opinion, expressing opinion. It's a question of conscience before God. We must stand here because we can do no else at this moment in our society. And in case anybody's listening who's never heard of the Manhattan Declaration, let me tell you that it deals with three of the most pressing moral issues of the day, and they are the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death, the dignity of marriage as an institution ordained by God, a lifelong covenantal union of one man and one woman, and religious freedom for all people. Those shouldn't be controversial, it seems to me, in a culture that is rooted in the biblical faith and Judeo-Christian values, but it's necessary, I think, with urgency to speak to those things today. And you were a courageous leader in doing that, and I'm grateful for your willingness to take that stand. >>Reeder: Well, let me just make two more statements about that, if I can, very quickly, Timothy. One is that I think today there's a lot of pastors, particularly our younger pastors, that are willing to speak out on the moral and social issues, but unfortunately, we're being selective. We're only speaking out on the ones that the culture says we ought to speak out on. And yes, we ought to speak and must speak against oppression, injustice, racism, and all of the things that the culture says, yeah, those are wrong. But the sanctity of life, I know it's not popular. The dignity of marriage, covenantal, heterosexual, monogamous marriage, I know it's a, but it is a creation law. It's not a good idea. And if you're not willing to speak to it, what you're basically telling your culture is I don't care about you because in God's common grace, this needs to be a part of our culture. If it doesn't, there's no way the culture can stand without the solid foundation of the covenantal, monogamous, heterosexual family. It just can't do it. It will be destroyed. So, you're telling your great-grandchildren, I don't care about you. And then you're telling other people you don't care about them. I think that those kind of things, even though it's not popular to speak to them, and they need to be careful in how we speak to them, they must be spoken to. And then my other reason is this, we have a great, you know, we're willing to speak out all over the world for the kingdom of God, but what are we saying to our country? I don't think there's anything untoward about having a, not an exclusive concern, but a primacy of concern for your own nation if you want to reach the nations. Our churches can't be donut churches where we're doing all of this work out here, but we're not doing the work. There's a reason that when Calvin trained Knox and he went to Scotland, he said, give me Scotland or I die. And then now we're blessed in America because he gave him Scotland. And so, I think we've got to have that commitment to reach our nation to reach the nations. >>Timothy George: Now, we're almost out of time, Harry, but I wish you would just speak to this listening group today about the mood in our country and in the world. This is a difficult time in many, many ways, politically, economically, socially. There are a lot of storm clouds on the horizon. And one of the things I sense as I go about and talk with people is this almost sense of despair, this sense of malaise that’s there. As a Christian minister, as a pastor, as a preacher of God's Word, would you speak to our folks who are listening who may be burdened by some of those kinds of thoughts? >>Reeder: I think what's happened is the Christian community for years, because of some theological imbalances, became disengaged from the culture. You know, why polish the brass on the Titanic? It's going down. Then we decide to get re-engaged, but when we re-engage, we re-engage with political machinations and sociological techniques instead of just what our forebears did, which was the means of grace, preaching, teaching the gospel, evangelizing and discipling Christ's followers. And so now, when we found out that our new engagement is not working with political coercion or being a power broker that doesn't work for the sake of the kingdom, there is now kind of a withdrawal and okay, we're kind of almost back to an isolation mentality in the church. We'll evangelize and disciple and we'll do deeds of love, mercy and justice, all of those wonderful things that we need to do, but we have quit saying and seeing our need to penetrate the culture, not because we're culture warriors, but because we're training people who change cultures. We're training Christians, and a discipled Christian becomes a thermostat in the culture, not a thermometer. Instead of reflecting it, it's in the world but not of the world. And so, I would say take great heart. Just come back to the basics of how we do this. Do your work well in your ministry. Evangelize, disciple, and then deploy people into their passions and responsibilities of life. And when people change, transformed by the gospel, not only headed to heaven, but changed on the way, new creations in Christ, and I know how to be a husband, I know how to be a father, I'm learning how to be a Christian businessman or woman, I'm learning how to function in society in a way that honors Christ, that changes families, marriages, that changes families, that changes cities, that changes nations, and that gives us an opportunity to freely work with the gospel in ways that we've never done before. And it brings the kingdom, the kingdom to bear the rule and reign of the grace of the Lord Jesus in the hearts and lives of men throughout society. And then we will see those wonderful things that happened and Timothy, I believe we desperately need this, we need a gospel awakening. That's what we need. And I don't think we're going to get a gospel awakening until we get a revived church. And I don't think we're going to get a revived and revitalized church until we have a reformation in the leadership of the church that really has confidence in being Christ-centered, Gospel-driven, and Spirit-filled. >>Timothy George: Harry, could you say just a word about how people could find out more about Briarwood, your ministry here in Birmingham and around the world? >>Reeder: Yeah, just go to the website and start right there, Briarwood.org. We've got our campus outreach ministry, we've got young business leaders, Christian medical ministry, our missions ministry, our pulpit ministry, discipling ministry, our shepherding ministry, all of those things are there, what we're doing. And you can just kind of pursue and look through what it is you ever want to see about our In Perspective ministry, our conversations, those radio ministries we have. Just go check them out. >>Timothy George: Check it out at Briarwood.org. My guest today on the Beeson Podcast has been Dr. Harry Reeder. He is the pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Thank you, Harry, for this conversation today. >>Reeder: What a great privilege to be here and to serve the Lord with you here, Timothy. >>Announcer: You've been listening to the Beeson podcast with host Timothy George. You can subscribe to the Beeson podcast at our website Beesondivinity.com. Beeson Divinity School is an interdenominational evangelical divinity school training men and women in the service of Jesus Christ. We pray that this podcast will aid and encourage your work, and we hope this podcast will aid and encourage your work and we hope you will listen to each upcoming edition of the Beeson podcast.