Welcome to Ask the Pastor with J.D. Greer. I'm your host, Matt Love. I am without Pastor J.D.

Greer today because we are spending some time in a special series called Gospel and Politics.

This series features some really great conversations between Pastor J.D.

and other incredible guests who are just leaders and leading thinkers in various fields

that we think are going to be really helpful for all of us who are trying to process

and move through this election season.

So this week shows an interview between Pastor J.D. and Ed Stetzer. So

Ed Stetzer is a PhD. We're just locking in the PhDs right now. So Ed Stetzer is a PhD, and he's the

dean of Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. And he's also the scholar in residence and teaching pastor at

Mariners Church. And I didn't know this until I read his bio, but my new life goal is to be a

scholar in residence. So that's what I'm now trying to work on. We'll see if this podcast

helps me move towards that at all. But he has planted, revitalized, and pastored numerous

churches. He has trained pastors and

church planters on six continents, and he's earned two master's degrees and two doctorates. So the

dude's smart. I train church planners. That's my day job. And some of the stuff that Ed Stetzer

has written has been some of the most foundational elements of the training that we do. So today,

you're going to hear a conversation between J.D. and Ed, centering primarily on the election itself

and how we can engage politically with people that we may disagree with. So this is going to be a great

episode. And we'll go ahead and dive in right now.

We are a church, and that means that our central role is to make disciples.

We say to make disciples in Riley Durham, where our church is located and then around the world.

And we are not a political organization, and so we always say that we're neither called nor competent to get into the finer details of policy.

...