Welcome to After the Fact and Knowing Faith mini episode where we look to take a big question

and address it in just a few minutes. Our After the Fact episodes this season are brought to you

by our season sponsor Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. We love Midwestern's

motto, which is for the church. That resonates so deeply with the goal of knowing faith,

to see a theological movement that is from and for the church. Joining us today is Dr. Jason Allen.

Dr. Allen is the president of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, the author of a number of books,

including discerning your call to ministry and the host of the weekly podcast, Preaching and Preachers. Dr. Allen,

welcome to After the Fact. Thanks for joining me.

Hey, Kyle, I am thrilled to be with you. So grateful for the ministry partnership we have

and for the many good things happening through you and Jen and JT and all you guys are doing. Yeah, well, we are as well.

Here's the question, Dr. Allen.

Here's your big question.

Why is community crucial for ministry formation?

Like, why is that such a huge part of what it means to be prepared for gospel ministry?

Yeah, that's a great question. And look, I always want to be careful about not layering on extra or supra biblical expectations for life, for ministry,

and indeed, for ministry preparation.

I do think we can make some very clear arguments for prudence, some arguments from practice, and we can draw some lines from scripture that certainly informed this answer.

The first thing I would say is,

look, the Christian life is a life meant to be lived in community, right? We see in the New Testament,

the Christian life is all about the local church. Christ promised to build the church in the gospels.

The church is birthed in Acts. It explodes throughout the book of Acts. Then we see all these letters

written about what the

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