Good afternoon, brothers. My name is Carlton and I am a sinner saved by grace. I am frankly overwhelmed at this burning of the soul, acutely aware of my sin, how desperately I need Christ's mercy, and what burns in my soul, very similar to some things that I spoke to you last year, in one additional matter, and I'll frame my comments quickly by simply asking you to receive three contexts and the story of three pastors. Context number one. I was sitting in my office last week in our church in Chesapeake, Virginia.

A wonderful African-American pastor was there meeting with me on several matters, just discussing our mutual ministry issues and things. He's not one that has been exposed to a lot of the message of a conference like this, particularly as it relates to family reformation and church reformation. So I begin to talk a little bit about what I've learned and some things that our church has had the honor to implement by the grace of God. And I bring up the issue of fatherlessness in the black community. And again, I know I spoke on this last year, but it's what's burning still in my soul.

And his reply was, man, that sounds great. That sounds fantastic, but how do you preach and live out a message like this when the fathers aren't there? And I was very motivated, and I probably quoted a few of you in my discussions with him. That question really set me back a bit. I think I gave a pretty strong biblical answer, but I thought about it a long time after that.

I don't have the answer. Other than just to preach the gospel and love people really hard. But that's what's burning in my soul. How does a community without fathers or largely, all of a sudden have fathers spurning in my soul. Context number two, I went to a reasonably large African American church in our area to preach on family and family discipleship.

It was about as quiet in there as it is in here. But for different reasons. For they heard him not. And as I looked out and observed, this the typical Preacher and three deacons and the entire rest of the churches, women and children. Came back to me again, that same issue.

How do we fix this? Context number three. Pastor of a large church in our area. Email me just the other day. And I had told him that I've been working on a strategy to roll out some of these Reformation principles along streams that may not have heard of them, may not have been exposed to them.

And brothers, understand my heart. I'm not lifting up one church over the other. I'm just saying that there are things that we have learned by the grace of God that are needful in all communities. And he emailed me and he said, well, what would you think about maybe trying some of that here at our church, since you've had some success at your church. And I said, well, that would be up to you because you might have some consequences on your hands.

It just depends on what happens. And he said, well, and I want you to get this language. He asked me this very directly and I appreciate him for that. He said, well, will this work in a black, primarily Democrat church? And I bring that up not to get into politics, but to just kind of illustrate the difficulty when so much of what we are trying to do is seen a certain way by certain groups of people.

And it's burning in my soul, particularly when the full gospel of Christ and the fruitfulness of that gospel that flows into families and into children and into education and into humility and into service and into holiness and into kind of life that refuses friendship with the world. And that is postured or framed or put forward as belonging to a particular political affiliation or ethnicity that burns in my soul. Burns in my soul. Along these lines, I read a verse last year, and it's still burning. Same verse.

After this, I looked and behold a great multitude that no one could number from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages standing before the throne and before the lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the lamb. And I noted even last year that it was everybody doing this. Gospel of Christ is for every body and the fruit thereof. And I went on to say that my soul burns for the church and for the Kingdom of God and for all nationalities and races to be impacted by the gospel of Christ. And I said in particular that my soul burns for my community and laments and mourns the systematic destruction of the family that has resulted in an unwed birth rate of some 70%.

My soul burns for black fathers and mothers and children to experience the blessings of reformation represented by a room like this and a gathering like this. And my soul burns for a situation in which our God might take the precepts, the principles, the patterns that we've learned, expose them to everyone. But yet there are these very difficult contexts that must be circumnavigated and by the grace of God overcome. I don't have the answers, but I submit them to you as representative of a larger thing that's happening in our nation right now as many pastors of all stripes are coming to see that our cozying up with the world has only reaped our destruction. As we turn again to the sufficiency of scripture and turn again to the word of Christ as our only rule for faith and practice, I guess, brothers, I'm asking for your help, prayers.

There are many of us who are working in streams of churches that, well, let's just say they probably didn't get the NCFIC brochure in the email. So those are the contexts. And then the story of three pastors, the second issue burning in my soul. Pastor A, a dear friend of mine. He was recently literally thrown out of his church for trying to preach the gospel.

And Pastor B. Called me this week and said that he stood up in his church in our area to try to bring reformation and change to his church. And there was a vote this very week to see whether or not this particular church would merge with another or close its doors or vote the pastor out because he would dare bring true Christianity to the church. Pastor C is in the family-integrated church movement and is almost literally managing a controlled church split as we speak, as there has been such harshness and legalism in his church. Every family wanting to know what every other family is doing in their courtships and who's doing what and what is happening over here.

And it's just it's all the stuff you imagine. And he emailed me even before I came to the conference and we hear it in his voice and he said, Carlton, he said I want to go he said but I can't, I've dealt with so much I can't even bring myself to go to the conference but would you bring back a report and tell me how healthy it is if the family integrated church movement is healthy? He said, because I've dealt with so much hurt, and I've dealt with so much pain from legalism and from accusation. He said, I'm ready to quit. Now, bring that up, brothers, because that's that's part two of what's burning in my soul.

I hurt for the black community and I make no I make no apology for that. But I'm hurting also right now And what's burning in my soul right now is I'm hurting for pastors. Guys, I have not seen this level of vitriol. This level of hurt, this level of pain in the lives of so many pastors, so many people wanting to quit. And I'm so encouraged by the exhortations of our brothers right now.

I feel so much better just having heard it. But even as I'm preparing to come up here today, right now, to give you what's burning in my soul, My phone buzzes, and it's another family leaving, someone I've known for 20 years. And I don't know, maybe I just need to go somewhere and find some strength, but that hurts. And I don't know if it's entirely healthy to act like it doesn't hurt. So what's burning in my soul is that we would encourage good men who are trying.

They may not be perfect. Their doctrinal statements may need a little work. Maybe their homiletics is not quite the way it's supposed to be. Maybe they're not the most articulate, but they're trying and they're giving Christ their all. I would ask the men in this room to recognize that if we're not careful, there's something inherent in streams of church like this that take that gift for granted and may not attend to it properly and bring unintentional discouragement when it's not necessary.

For my part, I ask for your prayers as I take my seat, looking at the time. I'm working on a process to take the message of law and gospel, holiness, family reformation, reformation, the area of stewardship along the lines of multigenerational faithfulness and a restoration of trust in church leadership, as well as the inculcation of a biblical worldview into areas of the church that are going to be looking at me like I have three heads. And I ask that you all would pray and that when the doors, if and when doors open to that church down the road that may not have Baptist or Presbyterian in their name, you might think that there might be in fact some real saints in there, and they may be more open than you think. God bless you brothers and thank you.