What I Wish They'd Told Me

New Geneva Academy
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Christianity

What if the most important things about pastoral ministry are the things nobody tells you? What I Wish They'd Told Me is a podcast from New Geneva Academy hosted by Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock, with conversations from pastors, church planters, theologians, and Christian leaders tackling the unfiltered questions every man in the pew has wondered about — and every pastor wishes he'd heard sooner.

Episodes

  1. Michael Clary - On Christian Courage

    Jun 16

    Michael Clary - On Christian Courage

    In our seventh episode, Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock sit down with Michael Clary to talk about the lesson eighteen years of ministry kept pressing on him: courage. The courage to preach Genesis 19 as it stands. The courage to father a congregation and preach the sharp truths of God's word rather than simply befriend it. The courage to keep a clean conscience while half his church walked out. They talk about the winsomeness he built a ministry on and later repented of, the liberalism that signs every formal confession but fights for the heartbeat of none of it, and why conscientious men bury their gifts for fear of a God they take to be a harsh taskmaster." Pastor Clary will be speaking at the Frontier Shepherds conference. Learn more at newgenevaacademy.com 00:08 — Introductions: Michael Clary, Cincinnati, and the Frontier Shepherds Conference00:58 — Planting in 2010: inner-city Cincinnati to a building in Northern Kentucky03:30 — Seminary at Southern, and a love for the Old Testament05:37 — Crew, parachurch ministry, and learning the church is plan A09:00 — Why Cincinnati, and meeting Michael Foster12:42 — Three eras of ministry, and the turn from a neutral world to a negative one16:16 — Preaching Genesis 19, and the backlash that followed17:41 — Sitting with Tim Bayly: be the father of this congregation19:20 — The 2022 split that cut the church in half22:06 — Holding the church together with a clean conscience24:58 — Courage as the one indispensable lesson27:09 — The new liberalism: ethical, not doctrinal28:57 — What Young, Restless, Reformed got right, and where it went off the rails31:22 — Intellectual respectability, and Iain Murray's Evangelicalism Divided36:56 — The September conference, and the problem of fragmentation41:23 — Loser Theology: piety shrunk to inner-heart religion47:00 — The parable of the talents and the buried gold53:34 — The fear of a slave versus the fear of a son

    56 min
  2. Andy Constable - Ministry In The Schemes

    Jun 11

    Andy Constable - Ministry In The Schemes

    In our sixth episode, Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock sit down with Andy Constable, pastor of Niddrie Community Church in Edinburgh and a Frontier Shepherds speaker, to talk about the schemes, Scotland's poorest communities. Scotland has healthy churches in its richer areas, but in the schemes the churches are dead or dying, and Christians are too comfortable to move. Andy tells how a London student ended up under Mez McConnell at a church with, from a student's perspective, nothing to offer, and how Niddrie holds word and deed together without sliding into pietism or the social gospel. Fruit comes slowly there: a woman thrown out of the kids' club came back twenty years later and was saved. A line from Andy's new book on addiction surfaces near the end: behind every single smile is a story of wicked rebellion. Learn more about the Frontier Shepherds conference at newgenevaacademy.com 00:00 - Introducing Andy Constable00:46 - Ministry this time of year: the church weekend away02:05 - Niddrie Community Church: a century of gospel presence in a scheme03:11 - The UK class system and working-class ministry06:43 - From London to Edinburgh07:16 - Meeting Mez McConnell and a church with nothing to offer12:21 - Word and deed: avoiding pietism and the social gospel17:28 - The long game: a conversion twenty years in the making19:55 - From intern to pastor: Mez's training model22:45 - A training church: indigenous converts, three plants26:50 - Christians too comfortable to move27:46 - 20 Schemes: 18 churches in 13 years31:30 - Whole-life discipleship at Niddrie36:29 - Loving people, not just books39:24 - Addiction and the Local Church43:57 - "Behind every single smile": respectable and unrespectable sins48:14 - The Ragged School of Theology52:09 - Frontier Shepherds this September

    53 min
  3. Jake Mentzel - Church Planting & Godly Ambition

    Jun 2

    Jake Mentzel - Church Planting & Godly Ambition

    In our fifth episode, Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock sit down with Jake Menzel of Church of the King in Evansville to talk about the word Reformed men are afraid of: ambition.  Ambition they've been trained to distrust. Ambition that draws on the Father's pleasure instead of earning it. Ambition for a man's sons and grandsons, and the church he's been given. Jake, Stephen, and Aaron talk through why a man who won't believe his sanctification has not believed his justification, why Reformed devotion becomes a contest over who feels worst about himself, and why feeling bad is not the same as repenting. Or, as Jake puts it: before you die, let the world see the best you that you knew how to become. 00:00 — Meet Jake Menzel and the Frontier Shepherds conference01:46 — Why Evansville is a hard place to plant a church07:10 — Why plant here at all: "God was calling me home to my people"09:24 — Coming back to the Lord at 17, then off to IU12:04 — Trial by fire at a secular university; charisma that outruns character14:55 — Three years at NGA and seven years of campus ministry16:51 — Godly ambition and how young men have changed in twenty years22:24 — Bloomington vs. Evansville; when a church never grows past campus ministry28:46 — A hard demographic shift and the cost of defining who you are32:46 — How do you fuel ambition without burning out?34:32 — The baptism of Jesus: the Father pleased before the Son has done a thing36:22 — Haddon and the center-field fence39:39 — If you don't believe in sanctification, you don't believe in justification42:03 — The feedback loop of self-loathing — and why it isn't the gospel45:39 — Godly ambition rooted in the fatherhood of God49:43 — The little-league coach who can't let his son fail53:47 — Better or bitter56:41 — The smallest, most fearless kid on the team1:00:36 — Ambition for growth, not greatness

    1h 2m
  4. Books That Shaped Us

    May 26

    Books That Shaped Us

    In our fourth episode, Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock take turns naming the five books each of them would call life-changing.  Books worn through. Books read more than once. Books given away, replaced, and underlined cover to cover. Aaron and Stephen talk about why the relationship between justification and sanctification keeps surfacing in the books that mattered most to them, why good fiction belongs on a pastor's nightstand, and why the man who only reads what was assigned to him in seminary has already stopped growing. Reading is good for the soul. 0:00 — Introduction2:50 — The format: five books each3:00 — Aaron: Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor7:10 — Stephen: John Piper, Desiring God11:30 — Aaron: Mark Dever and Paul Alexander, The Deliberate Church16:30 — Stephen: Richard Lovelace, Dynamics of Spiritual Life22:30 — Stephen: Horatius Bonar, God's Way of Peace and God's Way of Holiness25:30 — A cheat: Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment27:30 — Stephen: C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength34:45 — Aaron: J.C. Ryle, Holiness38:30 — Stephen: Ian Murray, Revival and Revivalism and Evangelicalism Divided46:10 — Aaron: Edward Fisher and Thomas Boston, The Marrow of Modern Divinity49:00 — Stephen: Edith Schaeffer, L'Abri56:30 — Aaron: Harold Senkbeil, The Care of Souls1:00:00 — An exhortation to read1:02:30 — Refuge or retreat

    1h 4m
  5. The Mess

    May 19

    The Mess

    In our third episode, Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock sit down to talk about the part of ministry that many traditional seminary programs simply cannot simulate: the mess. Theological mess. Historical mess. The mess of sinners and the mess we ourselves bring to the work. Aaron and Stephen talk about why so many young men set out to be the pastor whose church will not have these problems, why preaching and pastoral care cannot be split apart, and why the "clean machine" expectation — that Christians do not sin and good pastors do not either — quietly shuts down the work of sanctification it claims to protect. An old line surfaces near the end: a pastor should smell like his sheep. 0:00 — Introduction1:30 — What do we mean by "the mess"?4:15 — Church history is not historical reenactment7:00 — The young pastor with stars in his eyes10:45 — Theoretical theology vs. practical theology13:30 — Leviticus 16 and the linen robe17:00 — Hospital waiting rooms and Job's counselors22:00 — Preaching is pastoral care27:30 — Over-correcting and damned with faint praise33:00 — Where do you go when you realize you need to grow?37:00 — Owen, self-knowledge, and the wounded healer41:30 — The expectation that Christians do not sin46:00 — Sexual sin, abuse, and the "clean machine" church51:00 — The hazmat suit: justification before sanctification56:00 — A pastor should smell like his sheep1:00:00 — Hospitality, marriage, and the witness of small mercies

    56 min
  6. Meet Stephen Baker

    May 12

    Meet Stephen Baker

    In our second episode, Aaron Prelock turns the tables on Stephen Baker, Dean of New Geneva Academy and associate pastor at Trinity Reformed Church in Bloomington, Indiana. Stephen shares how he went from a small-town Indiana home to a dramatic high school conversion, from a teepee in the woods to a pastors college in Bloomington. Along the way: marriage, ministry under Ted Tripp, a failed church plant in Milwaukee, a closed door to the mission field, and what led him to Trinity Reformed Church. This conversation covers how he got here, what shaped him, and what he wishes someone had told him before he ever stepped into pastoring. 0:00 — Introduction1:24 — Growing up in Indiana4:24 — Conversion in high school11:26 — Becoming Reformed14:53 — Bible college16:55 — Meeting Sebra18:49 — Pennsylvania and Ted Tripp24:36 — Marriage and early family life28:15 — Seminary30:47 — The Milwaukee church plant36:54 — A closed door to the mission field39:13 — The move to Bloomington43:48 — New Geneva Academy is born46:33 — Reconciliation54:35 — On being Dean1:01:27 — What I wish they'd told me

    1h 7m
  7. Meet Aaron Prelock

    May 5

    Meet Aaron Prelock

    In our first episode, Stephen Baker sits down with Aaron Prelock, pastor of Bloomington Bible Church and the new president of New Geneva Academy.  Aaron shares how he went from a big dispensational Baptist church to studying John Owen under a Norwegian Lutheran, from a Subaru factory floor to ten years of pastoral ministry in central London, and back to Bloomington, Indiana.   This conversation covers how he got here, what shaped him, and what he wishes someone had told him before he ever stepped into a pastorate — especially about what it means for a pastor to be a shepherd and not just a counselor. https://www.newgenevaacademy.com/ 0:00 — Introduction2:30 — Growing up in Lafayette, early faith5:45 — The biblical counseling world: Adams, Powlison, Tripp10:00 — Bible college and the church in Cedar Rapids14:30 — Seminary and the shift toward Reformed theology18:00 — The factory year22:00 — Discovering John Owen25:00 — Westminster London, PhD in Norway30:00 — Ten years pastoring in London35:00 — Coming back to Indiana, his father's death38:00 — Becoming senior pastor at Bloomington Bible Church42:00 — What brings joy in pastoral ministry48:00 — What I wish they'd told me: shepherding vs. crisis counseling55:00 — Getting involved with New Geneva Academy

    54 min
  • 7 Episodes

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

What if the most important things about pastoral ministry are the things nobody tells you? What I Wish They'd Told Me is a podcast from New Geneva Academy hosted by Stephen Baker and Aaron Prelock, with conversations from pastors, church planters, theologians, and Christian leaders tackling the unfiltered questions every man in the pew has wondered about — and every pastor wishes he'd heard sooner.

Information

  • Creator
    New Geneva Academy
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    7
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © 2026 New Geneva Academy
  • Show Website
    What I Wish They'd Told Me

You Might Also Like