Thank you for joining us for this conversation today. I'm the sword and the trial. Today, Pastor Tom and I talk about some of the chaos that's happening in Minneapolis right now, along with the issue of immigration and some political and cultural issues as well. And why it is that pastors need to think about these issues and talk about these issues. Should these issues come into the pulpit or not? So I hope it's a helpful conversation for you. Take a listen.

Welcome to The Sword and the Trial.

The Sword in the Trial is a podcast of Founders Ministries

and Founders Exist for the Recovery of the Gospel

and the Reformation of local churches.

I'm Graham Gundin.

I'm Tom Askell.

This episode is brought to you by Lake Yale Baptist Conference Center. And if you own an HVAC company or a space heater company, we would love to sponsor you on this program as well, because it is freezing here today. It is very cold. We're grateful that the cold held off until after the founders conference. So we had beautiful weather for the conference, but we're making up for it now. And it's actually not bad weather. It's just cold. Yeah. Well, guanas are suffering. The guanas are suffering. And, well, for southwest Florida, it's cold. I think it's probably in the 50s right now. Yeah, maybe so. But it was in the 30s this morning when I woke up and supposed to be cold for the next few days as well. But it's beautiful weather, but my blood is thin. So yeah. So if you have a

heating company or you have spaces. for the next few days as well. But it's beautiful weather, but my blood is thin.

So, yeah.

So if you have a heating company or you have space heaters that you would like to make people

wear up, give us a call.

Speaking of cold and speaking of chaos, we want to talk today about what's going on in

Minneapolis and the chaos that is unfolding there with ice and immigration

and the storming of churches and the shooting of protesters and all those things.

So I don't know how much we're going to get to today, but there's a lot to think about from a

pastoral perspective.

Yeah, and we can't afford not to think about it.

We have prayed for Minneapolis and the city's church and the things that have happened there over the last

several weeks in our gathered times of worship. We think that's appropriate to do to not close

our eyes to those realities. But we also have had to talk to our congregation in a member's

meeting about these things and the fact that we're not immune to that and

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