OPC Ruling Elder Podcast

In this episode of the Ruling Elder Podcast we review a new book by Christopher Ash, Not Old, Not Young, Not Done. Following Jesus in Your 50’s and 60’s. (The Good Book Company, 2025, 192 pages). Available in paperback and Ebook.

Also recommended:
Derek Prime, A Good Old Age. An A to Z of Loving and Following the Lord Jesus in Later Years. (10Publishing, 2017)
J. I. Packer, Finishing our Course with Joy. Guidance from God for Engaging with Our Aging. (Crossway, 2014)

In this episode of the ruling elder podcast John Fikkert draws attention to the excellent Pastoral Compensation Tool made available by the OPC Committee on Ministerial Care. 
The Pastoral Compensation Tool is available here.

John’s recommended reading
Ordained Servant
2026 Tax Prep Guide for Churches and Clergy (Downloadable PDF) by Richard R. Hammar and Elaine Sommerville.  Expected release date is Jan 1st 2026. Available here.
The Politics of Ministry: Navigating Power Dynamics and Negotiating Interests by Bob Burns, Tasha D. Chapman, Donald C. Guthrie,, IVP, 2019.
The Clay Pot Conspiracy: God’s Plan to Use Weakness in Leaders, by Dave Harvey, New Growth Press,  2025.
Quotes on Experience in the Christian Ministry
From Alexander Whyte, Bunyan Characters 
“…pastors who are indeed to be pastors after God's own heart have all to pass into their pastorate through the school of experience.”
“Preaching after God's own heart, and pastoral work of the same divine pattern, cannot be taught in any other school than the school of experience.”
“Whenever I hear a single unconventional, immediate, penetrating, overawing petition or confession in a minister's pulpit prayer or in his family worship, I do not need to be told out of what prayer-book he took that. I know without his telling me that my minister has been, all unknown to me till now, at that same school of prayer to which his Master was put in the days of His flesh…”
“What a quantity and what a quality of experience is needed to take a raw, light-minded, ignorant, and self-satisfied youth and transform him into the pastor, the tried and trusted friend of the tempted, the sorrow-laden, and the shipwrecked hearts and lives in his congregation! What years and years of the selectest experiences are needed to teach the average divinity student to know himself, to track out and run to earth his own heart, and thus to lay open and read other men's hearts to their self-deceived owners in the light of his own.”
“Let no minister, then, lose heart when he is sent back to the school of experience. He knows in theory that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, but it is not theory, but experience, that makes a minister after God's own heart.”

Craig Troxel talks about how ruling elders can help men consider a call to pastoral ministry.
A call to pastoral ministry has several parts, one is the internal sense of call, another is the recognition of the church, the actual call to a congregation or mission work. Ruling elders help shepherd men in both and in this podcast we discuss the early stages of recognizing a call, or even encouraging men to consider if they are called.
Discussion centers around Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry: With an Inquiry into the Causes of its Inefficiency, (Banner of Truth Trust). See especially Chapter VI, The Qualifications of the Christian Ministry, pp. 24-31.
Craig quotes John Newton, "Beware, my friend, of mistaking the ready exercise of gifts for the exercise of grace." (Letter #5 - "On the Snares and Difficulties attending the Ministry of the Gospel") Works of John Newton, vol.1 (Banner of Truth Trust, 2015) p. 108. 
See also Newton's letter Marks of a Call to the Ministry.
We highly recommend Craig's own book,
A. Craig Troxel, With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ, (Crossway, 2020).
Craig's Recommended Reading
John Calvin, Institutes Of The Christian Religion, translated from the first French edition of 1541 by Robert White, Banner of Truth Trust. (Especially Chapter 17, The Christian Life)
Campegius Vitringa, The Spiritual Life, trans. and ed. by Charles K. Tefler, Reformation Heritage Books. 
John Flavel, The Fountain of Life: A Display of Christ in His Essential and Mediatorial Glory, Vol. 1 of the Works of John Flavel, Banner of Truth Trust.
John Flavel, The Method of Grace In the Gospel Redemption, Vol 2 of the Works of John Flavel, Banner of Truth Trust.

Pastor Shane Lems talks about his recent Ordained Servant review of John Swinton’s book Finding Jesus in the Storm: the Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges. (Eerdmans, 2020). Shane is pastor of Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC) in Hammond, Wisconsin.
Read the review and read the book. The review can be found here.
The Ruling Elder Podcast on Prescription Medication with Jason Poquette (Season 2, Episode 6, June 2024) is available here.
Shane’s book recommendations
Lost Connections by Johann Hari (Bloomsbury USA, 2018)
The Wonderful Works of God by Herman Bavinck (Westminster Seminary Press, 2020)
Rediscovering the Holy Spirit: God’s Perfecting Presence in Creation, Redemption, and Everyday Life by Michael Horton (Zondervan, 2017)

Ruling Elder Mike Cloy talks about how ruling elders and churches can support and shepherd military families. Mike served in a career of 27 years that included combat commands at the battalion and brigade level, and having served and retired in the rank of full colonel.
Mike speaks of the dedication to service and the pressures it places upon those serving, and their families. He speaks of the deep bonds formed in combat and of the importance of elders and churches reaching out to those in military service with the good news of Jesus and the power of the gospel.
To read more about Mike (and a pair of night-vision goggles) see Christopher H. Wisdom’s article, “A Chaplain in the Lord’s Service” in New Horizons, (Feb, 2020).

Mike’s recommended reading…
A. Craig Troxel, With All Your Heart: Orienting Your Mind, Desires, and Will toward Christ, Crossway, 2020.
Nick Thompson, Growing Downward: The Path of Christ-exalting Humility, Reformation Heritage Books, 2022.
Nick Thompson, Restless Devotion: An Urgent Call to Godward Discontentment, Reformation Heritage Books, 2025
If you would like to contact Mike his email address is [email protected]