Ministry Mentorship: Why Leaders Must Stay Teachable

with Bryan Stupar

In this episode of the Expositors Collective podcast, Bryan Stupar reflects on pastoral and ministry mentorship, not as a leadership technique or growth strategy, but as a deeply biblical, historical, and relational pattern of discipleship.

Drawing from Scripture, church history, and decades of pastoral experience, Bryan argues that formation in ministry requires proximity, humility, and a posture of lifelong learning. Mentorship, he suggests, is not optional for Christian leaders because even Jesus, in His humanity, learned obedience through suffering. If growth and formation marked the life of Christ, how much more must leaders remain teachable.

Bryan begins by rooting mentorship in the Great Commission, showing that discipleship necessarily involves teaching, modelling, and replication. He then explores the relationship between Paul and Timothy as an example of life-on-life formation that extends far beyond content delivery to include conduct, character, faith, and endurance.

The episode also addresses the cultural challenges facing leaders today, particularly the pull of expressive individualism and self-centred leadership. Bryan contrasts this with the way of Jesus, which calls leaders to humility, service, and continual growth rather than performance and self-promotion.

Along the way, he traces the historical roots of mentorship, from Homer’s Odyssey to pivotal Christian relationships such as Ambrose and Augustine, showing how faithful investment in others has shaped the church across generations. He then turns practical, highlighting the benefits of mentorship: growth through feedback, grace-filled support, and guidance through modelling.

Bryan closes with personal reflections from his own pastoral journey, sharing how mentors shaped him through honest conversations, observation, and lived example. His encouragement is simple but challenging: none of us grow alone, and faithful ministry requires inviting trusted voices to speak into our lives.

This conversation is a reminder that Christian leadership is formed over time, in community, and always with Jesus as the aim.

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At our Longmont training event, Pastor Nate Morris explores the heart behind preaching and the practical movements that help us communicate Scripture faithfully. Opening with a story about waiting tables, Nate reminds us that preachers do not invent the meal. We carry what God has already prepared and deliver it with care. This session combines pastoral insight, clear structure, and encouragement for anyone who wants to handle God’s word well.

About Pastor Nate Morris

Nate Morris is the lead pastor of Mountain Life Calvary Chapel, a multi location church serving Vail, Gypsum, and Glenwood Springs, Colorado. He and his wife Jen live in the Colorado mountains with their children Caleb, Zoe, and Josiah. Having grown up in the mountains himself, Nate has a deep passion to see mountain communities reached and transformed by the gospel.

He hosts Truth and Love with Nate and Jen Morris and is a regular contributor to Mountain Life Church’s Unscripted podcast. You can learn more at mountainlife.church, follow @natemorris1, or visit pastorn8.com.

Speaking with the Weight of Scripture

1 Peter 4:11 calls those who speak to speak as those delivering God’s words. Nate anchors the room in this reminder: preaching is a sacred trust. Our role is not to improve the message but to carry it faithfully, just as a good waiter brings a prepared meal without dropping the plate.

Two Questions That Shape Every Sermon

1. Where am I taking them?
   Preaching needs a clear destination shaped by the passage itself.
2. How do we get there?Listeners need a guided path. Structure is one of the ways we serve them well.

Caring for Souls Through the Word

Nate highlights the preacher’s pastoral task: understanding people’s real needs and showing how the gospel addresses them. As Samuel Brengle observed, the truth in Jesus brings healing to every kind of spiritual condition. Preaching becomes an act of care as we discern and apply Scripture wisely.

Five Movements That Help People Follow the Message

1. Introduction

Help listeners orient themselves to the theme and direction of the passage.

2. Necessitation

Show why the message matters and surface the tension the text resolves.

3. Exposition

Open the Scriptures carefully. Let the text drive the content.

4. Application

Invite people to respond. Show what trust, obedience, or repentance looks like in daily life.

5. Inspiration

Leave listeners with hope in Christ, not pressure to perform.

Tools That Support Clear and Helpful Delivery

Humour, illustrations, vulnerability, inflection, and physical movement can all help the message connect, provided they serve the text rather than distract from it.

Working Heartily, Depending Fully

Nate ends by reminding us that preaching is both labour and reliance.
Colossians 3:23 calls us to work heartily for the Lord, while Augustine’s well known line captures the balance: pray as though everything depends on God, work as though everything depends on you.

For information about our upcoming training events visit ExpositorsCollective.com

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How to Build Cohesive, Faithful, Application Driven Sermons

Matt Brown shows how every biblical passage has a built in structure and how recognising that structure can transform the clarity, focus, and impact of your sermons. Recorded at our Longmont, Colorado training event.

Matt explains that a passage works like a bridge. Every bridge has intentional direction, interconnected sections, and an intended destination. Scripture is the same. When you trace the flow of thought the biblical author has crafted, you begin to preach with greater confidence and sharper purpose.

You will learn how to:

• identify the major movements of a passage
• follow the progression of ideas that reveal the author’s intent
• turn the structure of the text into the structure of your sermon
• develop application that grows naturally from the passage
• preach cohesive, clear, and compelling messages

Using Acts 11 as a worked example, Matt models how to observe the text, divide it into meaningful units, see how each section contributes to the whole, and discover the central idea your sermon should advance.

Matt has been married for almost 20 years and has 4 amazing kids. He has been serving in vocational ministry for 15 years, preaching expositional sermons in a variety of contexts from college ministry to lead church planter. He loves pastoring pastors and coaching church planters to see the Great Commission advance through healthy multiplying churches. He is a part of the Crossway Church Planting Network (crosswaynetwork.org) and has been involved in leading multiple Simeon Trust preaching workshops. He loves Christ, coffee, and Chipotle (and alliteration). They are currently in process of planting a church in Golden Co, called Golden City Church, which is the forth church plant they have been directly been a part of.

goldencitychurch.com

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In this episode Mike talks with Benni Rothe, pastor of Calvary Herborn, about his preaching journey and the practical habits that help him prepare well. Benni reflects on the lessons he picked up about time management while working full time as a banker and how those insights now help him structure his study week and keep a sustainable rhythm.
The conversation touches on the relationship between personal devotions and sermon prep, the importance of finding your own working style rather than copying the approach of other preachers, and the surprising way God often uses us most in the moments when we feel least strong. Benni also shares how music plays a part in his process. As he finalises a sermon, he often uses music to stay focused, prayerful, and ready to communicate the message with a clear heart.

About Benni Rothe

Benni is married to Laura. They have two daughters and live together in Germany. In fall 2017, Benni gave up his job as a banker and has been employed by the church ever since. He was the youth pastor for seven years and has been the senior pastor of our church since October 2024.

It is important to him that people get to know Jesus in their lives and grow in their relationship with him. He roasts his own coffee and enjoys everything to do with coffee. Benni likes to spend time with his family and good friends, enjoys traveling, and is active in sports.

For information about our upcoming training events visit ExpositorsCollective.com

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Recorded live at the Expositors Collective training event at White Fields Church in Longmont, Colorado, this session features Shaun Sells teaching the core principles and habits of inductive Bible study. Designed to equip Bible teachers to handle Scripture with accuracy and integrity, Shaun’s message lays out the essential path of observing the text carefully, interpreting it responsibly, and applying it faithfully.

Shaun shows why the message must come from the passage rather than the personality of the preacher, how poor observation leads to poor interpretation, and why interpretation is the stage where most problems arise. He introduces practical tools like the 7-Letter Rule, demonstrates how to use word studies without drifting off course, and urges teachers to read widely so they grow in wisdom and depth. Throughout the session, Shaun emphasises that the way we study the Bible shapes who we become, warning teachers to guard their hearts from becoming more like the Pharisees than like Christ.

The training concludes with a reminder that patient, honest inductive study fuels clear and confident proclamation of the Word, serving both the teacher and the church.

About Shaun Sells
Shaun has served in ministry for nearly thirty years, including twenty four at Calvary Chapel Cheyenne, where he was youth pastor, assistant pastor, and senior pastor for eighteen years. His leadership began in the unexpected transition after the founding pastor stepped away, forcing him to learn the breadth of pastoral ministry firsthand. That experience produced a long standing desire to help pastors grow without facing those same burdens alone. Shaun now serves with Poimen Ministries, investing in the health and strength of pastors and churches around the world.

Listen to an interview with Shaun Sells here: https://cgnmedia.org/podcast/expositors-collective/episode/ministry-in-motion-guest-preaching-mentorship-and-sermon-application-with-shaun-sells

For information about our upcoming training events visit ExpositorsCollective.com

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In this conversation, Lance Ralston reflects on more than forty years of pastoral ministry and Bible teaching. He describes how he began by leading a small group of men through Scripture, and how those early days shaped the habits and convictions that still guide him today. Lance shares lessons learned over decades in the pulpit, including what has changed, what has stayed the same, and what younger preachers often need to hear.

A major part of the episode focuses on the emotional lives of preachers and congregations. Lance explains how the fall affects human emotions, how the new birth begins to renew them, and why understanding this matters for anyone who teaches the Bible. He and Mike discuss how emotions can support faithful preaching, how they can get in the way, and how both preachers and hearers can grow healthier patterns of emotional life.

Lance also speaks about one of his great passions: church history. As the host of Communio Sanctorum: History of the Christian Church, he offers a wide view of the story of Christianity and highlights a few of his own preaching heroes from across the centuries. His love for leadership, historical context, and clear Bible teaching comes through in every part of the conversation.

About Lance Ralston

Lance Ralston is the founding pastor of Calvary Chapel Oxnard in Ventura County, California, a fellowship he and others began in 1982. The church has met in several locations over the years and moved to its current Eastman Avenue facility in 1998. Lance and his wife Lynn have been married for more than thirty years and have three adult children and a growing number of grandchildren.

Lance teaches the Bible expositionally, working systematically through both Old and New Testaments. He has taken his congregation through the entire Bible four times and is currently partway through a fifth. His teaching often includes historical background that helps listeners understand how Scripture speaks to life today.

He is the author of Marriage: As It Was Meant To Be. He also has a long-standing interest in leadership and enjoys training younger pastors and ministry leaders.

Lance hosts Communio Sanctorum – History of the Christian Church, a multi-season podcast designed to make church history accessible and engaging. Season 1 contains 150 episodes covering the story of the church from the first century to the eighteenth. Season 2 explores selected eras and themes in more detail.

For information about our upcoming training events visit ExpositorsCollective.com

The Expositors Collective podcast is part of the CGNMedia, Working together to proclaim the Gospel, make disciples, and plant churches. For more content like this, visit https://cgnmedia.org/

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In this session from our Longmont, Colorado preacher training weekend, Shane Angland walks through the heart of expository preaching and explains why faithful handling of Scripture is vital for every pastor, teacher, and communicator of God’s word.

Shane gives a clear and practical framework for understanding what expository preaching really is, why the Bible itself models this approach, and how we can move from careful study to Christ centred proclamation. He highlights the importance of establishing the text, understanding context, tracing themes, and applying Scripture honestly and courageously.

Drawing from passages like Deuteronomy 31, Nehemiah 8, Luke 4, and Acts 8, Shane shows that expository preaching is not a modern invention but a biblical pattern. He also discusses the character and posture required of preachers, reminding us that humility, diligence, and dependence on the Spirit are essential to handling God’s word faithfully.

Whether you preach weekly or occasionally, or simply want to grow in your understanding of Scripture, this conversation will help sharpen your approach and strengthen your confidence in the Bible.

Topics covered:

• What expository preaching actually is
• Why explanation and application belong together
• How the Bible models exposition
• The movement from exegesis to theology to preaching
• Why preaching must be text centred and audience aware
• The benefits of preaching through books of the Bible
• How expository preaching shapes the church and the preacher
• The character traits needed for faithful exposition
• William Tyndale’s historic prayer for true expounders

About Shane Angland

Shane is currently a teaching elder at Ennis Evangelical Church in Ireland. He has served as a missionary in Ukraine and is a Th.M. graduate from Dallas Theological Seminary with an emphasis in historical theology.

For information about our upcoming training events visit ExpositorsCollective.com

The Expositors Collective podcast is part of the CGNMedia, Working together to proclaim the Gospel, make disciples, and plant churches. For more content like this, visit https://cgnmedia.org/

Join our private Facebook group to continue the conversation: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ExpositorsCollective

Donate to support the work of Expositors Collective, in person training events and a free weekly podcast: https://cgn.churchcenter.com/giving/to/expositors-collective