In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Kevin Bauder to talk about the place of books in a pastor's life. Dr. Bauder shares how he fell in love with reading and why he has kept a reading log since seminary. He also explains the category rotation that kept him reading a book a week as a pastor, and how he has moved from a print library to Kindle and Logos. Along the way, we discuss how he uses commentaries and systematic theologies in sermon preparation, the books that shaped modern conservative thought, and practical encouragement for pastors and Sunday school teachers who want to grow as readers.

In this episode, we sit down again with Dr. Jon Pratt and Greg Deckert, who spent most of their adult years in different churches: Jon on staff at Eden Baptist in Burnsville for seventeen years, and Greg at Fourth Baptist, building friendships from scratch in each church.

Jon and Greg discuss how friendships are actually built within a local church. We cover the difference between joining a small group and making a friend, why pastors need friends in their own congregations, and what to do if you are new somewhere and feel like you do not know anyone.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Jon Pratt and Greg Deckert, friends for over 50 years, as they take us back to Owatonna, Minnesota, where two faculty families arrived at Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, and their sons met at Vacation Bible School.

Jon and Greg share the fruit of a friendship that ran through the same schools from grade school through Pillsbury, and into an apartment they shared during Jon's first year of seminary and Greg's first year of law school. We talk about accountability that was never scheduled and how the friendship held together through a move to Dallas in the years before email.

Books mentioned in this episode:

A Light on the Hill by Caleb Morell (Crossway, 2025)

The Meaning of Your Life by Arthur C. Brooks (Penguin, 2026)

The Desecration of Man by Carl R. Trueman (Sentinel, 2026)

Not Old, Not Young, Not Done by Christopher Ash (The Good Book Company, 2025)