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Rev. Ben Wedeking Interview · What You Have Seen and Heard

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, hello again, and welcome back to another episode of What You Have Seen and Heard.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: It's a very unofficial, again,
0:06
SPEAKER_00: I can't stress enough how unofficial this is,
0:09
SPEAKER_00: podcast interview series where I talk to people from around
0:11
SPEAKER_00: the Upper Midwest Annual Conference to hear some of their stories,
0:15
SPEAKER_00: find out what God's doing in their midst.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: My name is Travis Stevick.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm a pastor in Marcus, Iowa, in the Global Methodist Church, and I'm just busy with folks.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: And so today, our special guest is Ben Wedeking.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: So Ben, you are serving at Prairie Creek, is that correct, in Grimes?
0:29
SPEAKER_01: That is correct.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: All right.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: So so welcome, Ben.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: And so but the first question I ask everybody is,
0:35
SPEAKER_00: can you tell me a bit of the story about how it is you became a Christian in
0:39
SPEAKER_00: the first place?
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Or if you've always been a Christian,
0:40
SPEAKER_00: you can talk about how you came to really take your faith seriously.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would say for me, it's like, you know, kind of fill that imprint from from birth.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: My dad would say like when I was born, I had a birthmark.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: I have a birthmark right here.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Now it's covered by a hairy chest, so you can't really see it.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: But back in the day, you could see it.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: It was very prevalent.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: And my dad would say I was marked by God from birth,
1:04
SPEAKER_01: which is kind of cool,
1:06
SPEAKER_01: you know, whatever you want to think about the birthmark thing.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: But then as I grew up,
1:09
SPEAKER_01: I went to VBS at a Presbyterian church with my grandma Arlene
1:13
SPEAKER_01: and my grandma Doris talked to me about hell.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: And that didn't sound too cool to me.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: So I prayed a prayer at that time.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: But it was really in fourth grade.
1:22
SPEAKER_01: I went to a church camp with a Grace Brethren Church.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: And one of the days there was like a chapel.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: And in this chapel,
1:31
SPEAKER_01: they were singing this song,
1:31
SPEAKER_01: the blood flowed and cover me and wash me white as snow.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And Travis, it just clicked, man.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: I went outside.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: I sat on a picnic bench or table, actually.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: And I remember just saying, Jesus, I'm in.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: I understand this now.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I know you died for me and I want to give you my life.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: And that's really where it began for me is in that moment.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: From that point on,
1:55
SPEAKER_01: it was like middle school and broken home and challenges and stuff like that.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: And then into high school,
2:02
SPEAKER_01: I lived across the street from
2:04
SPEAKER_01: a Wesleyan church named Cedar Valley Community Church.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: And my mom- Wait, wait, wait.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Is this in Waterloo?
2:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: I just, I know where that is.
2:13
SPEAKER_00: I didn't realize, I guess for some reason I thought you grew up outside of Iowa.
2:15
SPEAKER_01: How do you know about Cedar Valley?
2:17
SPEAKER_00: I went, I went to UNI, you know, and I had a friend of mine who led music there for some time.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: This was an after the fact.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
2:21
SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to interrupt you.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: No, you're good.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: No, that's fine.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: My kid's going to UNI in the fall.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: She's graduating.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: So she's going to be going there.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: So, so yeah,
2:29
SPEAKER_01: so I went,
2:30
SPEAKER_01: I remember like being in eighth grade and my mom was like,
2:33
SPEAKER_01: you need to go to church, go to youth group on Wednesday night.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: And I did.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And like,
2:37
SPEAKER_01: I met My best friends that are still my best friends to this day and met
2:43
SPEAKER_01: the youth pastor,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: felt welcomed, felt like very much embraced when I walked in the doors.
2:48
SPEAKER_01: And then it was just like, you know, no turning back.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: Went Wednesday nights, started going on Sundays, Monday night Bible study.
2:56
SPEAKER_01: And before I knew it, I was just being brought into this thing, just full bore.
3:01
SPEAKER_01: And I remember I joined Bible quizzing and I remember doing Bible quizzing and
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And going on trips in the summer with Pastor Rick,
3:09
SPEAKER_01: who was my youth pastor in places like North Carolina.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: This trip to North Carolina,
3:13
SPEAKER_01: I remember it very well because,
3:15
SPEAKER_01: you know, someone brought up like, you know, the scripture really well.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: And I really didn't, but it motivated me to do that.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: I was like, I didn't know better.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, I was like, yeah.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: So I did more and I did.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: Bible studies,
3:27
SPEAKER_01: like with,
3:28
SPEAKER_01: I think it was Kay Arthur's thing where you talk like preceptive,
3:32
SPEAKER_01: precept Bible study or something.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: And I did that with First Timothy, learned how to do the process that I did with Philippians.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: And then I remember just getting more and more into it throughout my course of high school.
3:44
SPEAKER_01: By my junior year, I was being asked by my youth pastor to To teach on study school.
3:49
SPEAKER_01: So there was like a senior in high school and I was a junior.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: I was teaching with this guy, Ryan Weidman.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: And then the next year I was the head teacher.
3:59
SPEAKER_01: So my youth pastor was really good at empowering and equipping.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: And so during that time, it was very much like that just started to flow.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: But that ties into my call.
4:07
SPEAKER_01: But I know that's going to be a question you're going to talk about.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: But as far as like my life with Jesus,
4:11
SPEAKER_01: fourth grade and then high school really Solidified it for me.
4:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's why I have such a passion,
4:17
SPEAKER_01: why I did youth ministry for a number of years before I became a senior pastor
4:20
SPEAKER_00: or lead pastor.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: So you mentioned a youth pastor in there,
4:24
SPEAKER_00: but what I'm struck by,
4:25
SPEAKER_00: by some of your story, and part of this is I have a few ulterior motives for this.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
4:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right on.
4:57
SPEAKER_01: So like the people that I was with,
5:01
SPEAKER_01: like loved me, made me feel welcomed and supported and talked about Jesus.
5:06
SPEAKER_01: And so it was the people at the church camp.
5:08
SPEAKER_01: It was the people in the youth ministry in particular was these two guys,
5:13
SPEAKER_01: Tim and Josh,
5:14
SPEAKER_01: who came and welcomed me to the vineyard,
5:16
SPEAKER_01: which what the youth ministry was called at the time.
5:18
SPEAKER_01: And then over the course of high school to like their families.
5:22
SPEAKER_01: Their mom and dad, their siblings made me feel like a part of the family.
5:27
SPEAKER_01: And that really, really helped me in my life because my mom was a single parent.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: And so there's a lot of challenges that go with that.
5:35
SPEAKER_01: And she did the best she could.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: Like it's tough when you don't have a tag teamer to do it with.
5:41
SPEAKER_01: But it was very much like having that.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: Experience of a family around some of the things I was experiencing and going
5:49
SPEAKER_01: through, you know, was really just so helpful and showed me Jesus.
5:54
SPEAKER_01: I remember one person,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: one family,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:56
SPEAKER_01: all the families in the church,
5:57
SPEAKER_01: you know, Paul talks about having 10,000 guardians in Christ.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I had that.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: I think my family was truly blessed in that.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: My mom, I'm sure she prayed for that, that there would be people for me.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: And there was tons of people for me that walked alongside of me.
6:11
SPEAKER_01: But one in particular was the Stevens family.
6:14
SPEAKER_01: And I remember we didn't have a lot of a lot of money.
6:17
SPEAKER_01: We're just kind of, you know, like a little bit underneath the middle class.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: And this family, they saw me and she saw potential in me even as a junior.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: And she took me out to I think it was her burgers.
6:30
SPEAKER_01: And she and her husband fitted me for a suit and bought me a suit.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: And that was a really neat moment.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: And I had I've had moments like that throughout my time at Cedar Valley,
6:39
SPEAKER_01: like Travis,
6:40
SPEAKER_01: people just investing in me like My friends buying me a Bible that I,
6:45
SPEAKER_01: you know, NIV study Bible, which I just devoured.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: And just things like that over time that God just brought community around me
6:52
SPEAKER_01: that made me just aware of like, this is just a, this is a movement, right?
6:56
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just based on clergy,
6:58
SPEAKER_01: it's based on clergy and laity,
6:59
SPEAKER_01: which is why our mission and vision here is Acts 2 42.
7:03
SPEAKER_01: And then 47, like we want to see the Lord add to our number daily, those things saved.
7:06
SPEAKER_01: So I get just that all is the way the church can work and it's beautiful when it happens.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's interesting.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: So we had a men's group here at the church where I serve,
7:16
SPEAKER_00: and we had a theme for almost a whole year was mentors.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And they would be talking about the mentors over their lives.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I tried to keep pointing out to them,
7:24
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't leading the men's group, so I'm just kind of being this guy.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: Raised the question.
7:27
SPEAKER_00: And I said,
7:28
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:28
SPEAKER_00: I noticed that at no point did you guys tell the story of how you went searching for
7:31
SPEAKER_00: a mentor,
7:32
SPEAKER_00: that your mentors kind of found you and scooped you up,
7:35
SPEAKER_00: you know, and poured into your life.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: You didn't even realize what they were doing at the time.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: And I always try to say, this is this is look at how important it was for you.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And I would try to go out and do that with other people.
7:45
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know that it's always heard as clearly as you want it to be.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: But I just I hear that you had a bunch of people who poured into you.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: I've had that conversation myself as a pastor, Trav, with people.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Can I call you Trav?
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I should have asked you
7:59
SPEAKER_00: for permission.
8:01
SPEAKER_01: I've had that conversation about mentoring.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Well, if they come to me, then I'm ready.
8:07
SPEAKER_01: They're not going to come to you.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: They're looking for someone to say,
8:11
SPEAKER_01: I see something in you,
8:13
SPEAKER_01: potential, and I want to meet with you and spend time with you.
8:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
8:16
SPEAKER_01: And that's the people that really have been impactful in my life and
8:19
SPEAKER_01: the ways I've been able to be able to impact other people.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: Like I see this in you.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I think you can do what I do.
8:26
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's Jesus' model, right?
8:27
SPEAKER_01: Right.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: That's the master plan of evangelism.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: Jesus saw people come follow me.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: I think we need to have that same mentality as mature believers to do the same thing
8:35
SPEAKER_01: and not be focused on our navel, but actually what can we do to bring others along?
8:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: So you grew up, you grew up in the Wesleyan church and you got called into ministry.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: And I met you when you joined the Iowa conference, you know, sometime back.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: So what, what, how did you feel God's call to ministry and what did that look like for you?
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:55
SPEAKER_01: So, so, you know, I go,
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to the high school youth ministry and there's a trip that freshman year,
9:02
SPEAKER_01: my freshman year to Cincinnati to something called impact 90.
9:05
SPEAKER_01: Now I know those things as Wesleyan conferences, you know, Wesleyan youth conference.
9:09
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't know that then.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, it's Cincinnati.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: It's called Impact 90.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: But on that trip, there was a night where they preached on Here Am I Send Me.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: And Travis, I was locked in.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: I was like, that was it.
9:20
SPEAKER_01: I was like, this is what I'm supposed to do.
9:23
SPEAKER_01: And they gave a call and I went forward and I prayed and I said, God, I gave you my life.
9:28
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm like, I'll serve you.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that looks like, but I'll do it.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: So then I don't know what that looks like.
9:35
SPEAKER_01: I think it means I'm going to be a missionary.
9:37
SPEAKER_01: I remember talking to the Lux's who are a couple that worked in their family,
9:41
SPEAKER_01: worked in Cameroon.
9:42
SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm going with you when I graduate.
9:44
SPEAKER_01: And the best advice Dave Lux said to me was like,
9:46
SPEAKER_01: why don't you go to college first and decide if you really want to do this?
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, no, no, I don't need college.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: I just want to go on the mission field because God said, here am I.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Here am I send me.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: That's what I said.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: So anyways, I didn't go, but I did go to college, went to UNI and went to Wheaton.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: And during Wheaton, I had a chance to go overseas and do eight weeks in Zimbabwe.
10:08
SPEAKER_01: Loved it, but wasn't feeling called to do it full time.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: Like this is not Dave's right.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a missionary.
10:15
SPEAKER_01: I miss Mountain Dew.
10:16
SPEAKER_01: I miss the Dairy Queen blizzards.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: I miss my friends.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: I like doing it short term,
10:21
SPEAKER_01: but being long term, at least this point in my life, I don't want to do that.
10:24
SPEAKER_01: So when I came back, I finished up my degree in Christian education.
10:28
SPEAKER_01: I went to Wheaton because I wanted to be the next Billy Graham.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: There's good motives in that and bad motives, but I wanted to do that.
10:36
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to preach.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to see millions come to Christ while I'm there.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: Jesus just overhauls my life and breaks me apart,
10:46
SPEAKER_01: builds my faith up from step one again,
10:48
SPEAKER_01: like showing me like you can only believe because I buy to you like this,
10:52
SPEAKER_01: like you have to work with me, all this kind of stuff.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: So then I get done with Wheaton.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what I want to do.
11:00
SPEAKER_01: So what do you do when you don't want to do?
11:02
SPEAKER_01: You go on to get your master's.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: You're not ready for more school, which is what I did.
11:08
SPEAKER_01: I went back to Wheaton.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: I worked construction for a summer.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: I went to Wheaton the next fall, did a master's in evangelism.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: I was dealing with some addiction to sin, did not go well.
11:21
SPEAKER_01: I was not showing up for class.
11:23
SPEAKER_01: I was kind of lost in the moment.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: I should have taken a break.
11:26
SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: By the end of 1999,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: I was like dropping out and I moved back to take care of my sister
11:34
SPEAKER_01: who she had tried living with her dad and then live with my mom
11:37
SPEAKER_01: and just things hadn't worked out.
11:38
SPEAKER_01: So I became her guardian.
11:40
SPEAKER_01: During that time, became a security guard,
11:42
SPEAKER_01: was working third shift,
11:44
SPEAKER_01: was miserable, gaining weight, big old beard, not like my cool beard now.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: And like just going through the motions.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: And I started helping out at Cedar Valley again, the church where I was invested in.
11:57
SPEAKER_01: And I was helping out in youth and doing the welcoming ministry.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: And then by May of 2000,
12:02
SPEAKER_01: my buddy John West said, hey, have you ever thought about applying for the position?
12:06
SPEAKER_01: I need someone to help me.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, no, I don't think I'm ready for that.
12:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm a good fit.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: He's like, well, let us decide.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: So I interviewed, I got the job, and I became a youth minister in May of 2000.
12:17
SPEAKER_01: And it's like I almost fell backwards into ministry.
12:19
SPEAKER_01: Like, you know, like I was just like, I wasn't really ready.
12:22
SPEAKER_01: I was still dealing with my sin.
12:23
SPEAKER_01: I was still dealing with my struggles.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: But here I was, and God was like, I'm going to work it out.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to work it out with you.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: So over the course of the first couple of years,
12:31
SPEAKER_01: a lot of monkey business,
12:33
SPEAKER_01: a lot of things I'm not proud of and how I lived as a minister and how I lived out
12:39
SPEAKER_01: the call.
12:40
SPEAKER_01: But then things started to click on for me.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: I started working through my struggles.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: I started to get on point.
12:46
SPEAKER_01: And then the next two years were amazing.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: I saw great productivity in the youth ministry.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: And then as our senior pastor left,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: long story short, I became the associate to another pastor that came in.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: And I did that for a few more years.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: And then I wanted to get my seminary done.
13:05
SPEAKER_01: So I went to Fuller and there was a campus in Colorado Springs.
13:09
SPEAKER_01: Did a master's in theology,
13:10
SPEAKER_01: still thought, probably wasn't a pastor, was going to be a professor.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, I was like, I'm not really a pastor.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: But throughout that process, ran a house church.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: And then when we were done with school, we're looking for a job and applied everywhere.
13:27
SPEAKER_01: And then there was a position open in Omaha at St. Andrew's United Methodist Church.
13:32
SPEAKER_01: So that's where I was exposed to United Methodist.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: Now, I only knew Methodist from the fact that I was Wesleyan.
13:37
SPEAKER_01: I was ordained to the Wesleyan Church in 2005.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: So I was like, OK, that's cool.
13:41
SPEAKER_01: That seems like a good fit.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Didn't know all the things,
13:45
SPEAKER_01: all the challenges and all the things that were going on and the contentions
13:48
SPEAKER_01: between sides.
13:48
SPEAKER_01: And I just was coming in oblivious and I got hired for youth director.
13:53
SPEAKER_01: I did that within a couple of years of doing that.
13:57
SPEAKER_01: It was it was a co-pastor run church by Bruce and Nancy Davis.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Nancy took another appointment.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: Bruce knew I was ordained already and said, hey, will you step up my associate?
14:08
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm like, well, that's a.
14:10
SPEAKER_01: A big, a big jump.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: And this is a big church, but I prayed about it and it was the right thing.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: The only thing that was I lament about that time was not accepting the invitation
14:21
SPEAKER_01: and from Bruce,
14:23
SPEAKER_01: but just that there was such a desire for me to return to Iowa
14:26
SPEAKER_01: because I was in Omaha and I'm from Iowa.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:29
SPEAKER_01: And as I was going through the first year of my appointment,
14:33
SPEAKER_01: As an associate, I was getting this hunger to go home.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: And so I was meeting the spiritual director and before I knew it,
14:41
SPEAKER_01: he was like, you say Iowa a lot.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, really?
14:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, he shouldn't have said that because then I had to have conversation with Bruce
14:47
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure we can laugh about it now,
14:49
SPEAKER_01: but it wasn't pleasant for either of us then.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: That just like, I need to go back to Iowa.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Can I get in the Iowa conference?
14:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I applied.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: Had a great interview.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: I remember feeling like, oh, this was a great date.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: I feel like, you know, she's going to call kind of thing.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: And then I got nothing.
15:04
SPEAKER_01: Nothing happened.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Nothing was going on.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: I didn't hear from anything.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: And by the way,
15:09
SPEAKER_01: Mike Morgan was integral to me in that whole process because I first learned about
15:13
SPEAKER_01: the Iowa Conference because Craig Venestead told me about Mike.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: Julie and I came and visit, my wife and I came and visited Mike at Marion.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: We talked to him and then we applied for the whole thing.
15:24
SPEAKER_01: So It was like, it took a while, but we didn't know what we were doing.
15:29
SPEAKER_01: But by May,
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Dave Wiesner,
15:31
SPEAKER_01: who was the DS at the time for our district,
15:34
SPEAKER_01: he called and said, there's a church in Grimes.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: I came and I met with the SPRC.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: Again, I didn't know how any of this worked.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: I was oblivious and green to all of it.
15:43
SPEAKER_01: So I'm sitting at this meeting thinking it's a done deal.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, when do I start?
15:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, well, we got to vote on you first.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: Like, oh, okay, my bad.
15:50
SPEAKER_01: And so they voted and I've been here for 11 years now.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm in the right spot and enjoy it so much.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: Love Prairie Creek so much.
16:01
SPEAKER_00: So you and I would have been in Cedar Valley about the same time because I got there.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: I started in 03 at UNI.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: But I was never really involved with Cedar Valley.
16:11
SPEAKER_00: I just knew of it.
16:12
SPEAKER_00: I knew a guy who eventually became the music director there at some point, Adam Mello.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Who was that?
16:18
SPEAKER_00: I worked with Adam.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he and I were involved in the praise band at Basic at UNI and had connections
16:24
SPEAKER_00: through other folks.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: So I'm sure we know some of the same folks.
16:27
SPEAKER_00: I love Adam.
16:28
SPEAKER_01: He was our worship pastor for a while.
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he was great.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Sometime I'll tell you the story of what he told us about when he first got there.
16:35
SPEAKER_00: I think it says very well about that church,
16:37
SPEAKER_00: but I don't want to put it out here because somebody else might not interpret it
16:39
SPEAKER_00: the same way.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: I saw it as a positive, but I'll tell you that later.
16:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Off camera.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: Tell me that one.
16:45
SPEAKER_00: No, just because I don't want someone to misunderstand, you know?
16:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:48
SPEAKER_00: No, I got you.
16:49
SPEAKER_00: I got you.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
16:50
SPEAKER_00: Small world.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: Small world.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Because yeah, I was at UNI when I got my call to ministry, but that's not the purpose of this.
16:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: Boy, you know, it's, I'm trying to think about what other questions I normally ask folks.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so what,
17:02
SPEAKER_00: so what has,
17:02
SPEAKER_00: what have you learned in,
17:04
SPEAKER_00: so you didn't necessarily start off trying to be,
17:06
SPEAKER_00: you know, a lead pastor, but presumably, so you found something in there.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: In what ways do you find being a lead pastor different than, than being in youth ministry?
17:16
SPEAKER_01: Ooh, let's see.
17:17
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, it's, uh, it's a bigger landscape with a lot more variety.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's, it's, uh,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: And it's not like a vision for a bigger net because you got to cover youth,
17:34
SPEAKER_01: children, family, singles, all that kind of stuff.
17:37
SPEAKER_01: So I'd say that's one difference.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I think some of the same concepts I learned in youth ministry, I apply here.
17:44
SPEAKER_01: My driving forces in scripture are Acts 2, 42 through 47 and Ephesians 4, 1 through 16.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:50
SPEAKER_01: One of them talks about how to be,
17:52
SPEAKER_01: how we are meant to be community and how that leads to all the things we see in
17:56
SPEAKER_01: that text about signs and wonders and being relevant and seeing and,
18:00
SPEAKER_01: and people are paying attention.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: And then the Lord add to our number daily, those being saved.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: Right.
18:04
SPEAKER_01: And Ephesians four is about equipping like apostles,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: pastors,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: prophets,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: evangelists,
18:09
SPEAKER_01: and teachers to do the works,
18:11
SPEAKER_01: to equip people to the ministry,
18:13
SPEAKER_01: to do the works of service, the people in the church.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: Right.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: So I use that concept in youth ministry.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: I had a student leadership team.
18:21
SPEAKER_01: I have that deep belief that people have the ability to do more
18:24
SPEAKER_01: than they think they can because of the Holy Spirit who wants to work through them.
18:27
SPEAKER_01: And that we're incomplete until the body of Christ is all working in their gifts,
18:32
SPEAKER_01: which is why we just spent since January with a little break at Lent on
18:37
SPEAKER_01: the spiritual gifts.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: Like we spent a lot of time on those because we wanted to now have a bank of
18:43
SPEAKER_01: who has what gift
18:44
SPEAKER_01: so we can use them in different areas.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't mean that pastors can't.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Be something beyond shepherds because I'm not a shepherd.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: I don't have that gift.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: I know how to do it and I've learned how to do it.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: But my gift is leadership.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: My gift is leadership and prophecy, tongues, ironically, even though I'm a Methodist, and faith.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: So those are the gifts that drive me.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you what, one thing I've also learned is you've got to be you in the ministry.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: If you try to do it a different way, it won't work.
19:13
SPEAKER_01: And I know that whether it was like self-imposed or imposed from outside,
19:17
SPEAKER_01: I think some of my My tensions in my first few years at Prairie Creek was
19:22
SPEAKER_01: because I was trying to be a shepherd in a shepherding way versus being a shepherd
19:26
SPEAKER_01: in the Benway, based on the gifts that God gave me.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: And so it led to a lot of disappointment for myself and for others at times,
19:32
SPEAKER_01: not a lot, but at times.
19:33
SPEAKER_01: And now that I know that now I can be honest with people and say,
19:36
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I don't have the greatest gift of that.
19:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'll come visit you,
19:42
SPEAKER_01: but I won't see you for every Everything that you go through is surgery.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you're having a heart issue, you're going to see me.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: But but like,
19:49
SPEAKER_01: that's what we need each other to do this,
19:51
SPEAKER_01: which is why I need to identify shepherds and identify people with the gift
19:55
SPEAKER_01: of mercy, the gift of helps giving.
19:58
SPEAKER_01: So all these things work together.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: And like I said,
20:01
SPEAKER_01: I think that first composite I had of a student leadership team when I was
20:05
SPEAKER_01: at Cedar Valley really drove me in how I try to do things now,
20:09
SPEAKER_01: like having a multi staff team,
20:13
SPEAKER_01: You know,
20:13
SPEAKER_01: trying to see,
20:14
SPEAKER_01: you know,
20:14
SPEAKER_01: trust people to do what they're what they're empowered to do,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: equipped to do, then also inviting others into that.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: I don't really do well if you want to just be a spectator.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: I want you to be engaged because I don't feel like there's any there's no chance for
20:29
SPEAKER_01: a spirit filled life if you're just sitting in the pews or sitting in the stands,
20:33
SPEAKER_01: so to speak.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: So I've carried those same things over.
20:35
SPEAKER_01: Like when I was with the youth ministry, we had people that did videos.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: There were teenagers,
20:42
SPEAKER_01: we had people that did the announcements,
20:44
SPEAKER_01: games, because I wanted them to know this is their thing.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: And that's still something I believe to this day that whatever church I'm serving
20:50
SPEAKER_01: at,
20:50
SPEAKER_01: and I love serving at Prairie Creek,
20:52
SPEAKER_01: and I love doing that here is like, this is your church.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: You know, right now we're doing a phase two of our vision 2025 and beyond.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's including like wanting to create a prayer house inside of our inside
21:04
SPEAKER_01: of our church 24 seven that people have access to doing some renovations.
21:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, some you know, we want to we want to hire another youth director at some point.
21:14
SPEAKER_01: And but when I talk about these things,
21:17
SPEAKER_01: in particular,
21:18
SPEAKER_01: the first year,
21:18
SPEAKER_01: the prayer house and the church renovations,
21:22
SPEAKER_01: I'm not bringing my, my preferences to the table, Travis.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Like I'm just facilitating a conversation of lay people because I want them to own it.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: I want them to have it.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: And I want them to have what they want,
21:35
SPEAKER_01: not in a consumer way, but just to like in a, this is who we are.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: This is our identity.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Acts 2 42.
21:42
SPEAKER_01: That's who we are.
21:43
SPEAKER_01: We're going after it together.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: We're here to worship Jesus,
21:45
SPEAKER_01: connect with each other,
21:46
SPEAKER_01: grow in spirit and word and love each other so we can love the world.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: I want that to ring out and I want it to sing out until it just catches everywhere you go.
21:53
SPEAKER_01: Like the book of Thessalonians, that it rings out everywhere.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: And in this case, rings out everywhere from Prairie Creek and into our community.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's one of the things I think I tell my people this sometimes too,
22:04
SPEAKER_00: you know, that they said, you know, someday, someday I won't be your pastor.
22:07
SPEAKER_00: Because someday I will either move or I will retire or I will die.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: Someday I will not be the pastor here.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: And in that,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: you need to know who you are and you need to be following Jesus yourself so that
22:18
SPEAKER_00: when that day comes, you're not dependent on who your leader is.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: You were talking about some of the things going on, but I'm curious.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: One of my motives here is to try to draw attention to what God is doing
22:31
SPEAKER_00: in different pockets all over the place.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: So you've kind of hinted at some of the things that are going on,
22:35
SPEAKER_00: but can you say some more about what is God doing at Prairie Creek?
22:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
22:40
SPEAKER_01: I would say one of the biggest things I'm sensing here,
22:44
SPEAKER_01: and this is all just God, is that there is a sense of his presence consistently.
22:52
SPEAKER_01: There's a sense of him working, him moving.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: We are very much want to fall where the Holy Spirit leads.
22:59
SPEAKER_01: And I think, you know, we pray for people to be healed.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: We see that from time to time.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: You know, other times we don't because there's different ways that God heals.
23:09
SPEAKER_01: We can get the whole theology of that, but we don't need to do that right now.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: So just noticing how the Holy Spirit is guiding us and leading us and just walking into that.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: The opposite side of that is that I sense a lot of spiritual warfare.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: For my people.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: They're all good people.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: They're flesh and blood.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: We don't fight against flesh and blood.
23:27
SPEAKER_01: But I think because we are so intent on knocking down the gates of hell and trying
23:33
SPEAKER_01: to do that more and more by giving ourselves to the Holy One and to the Holy Spirit
23:38
SPEAKER_01: and following Him and getting the gospel out,
23:41
SPEAKER_01: that it brings challenges supernaturally,
23:44
SPEAKER_01: spiritual warfare in different ways for the people I serve.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why it's so important to To shore up ourselves and to be together
23:53
SPEAKER_01: to keep short accounts,
23:54
SPEAKER_01: all the things we learn in management,
23:56
SPEAKER_01: for one, and also the things we learn And how we care and tend for each other.
24:01
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's one of the major things I see at Prairie Creek is
24:04
SPEAKER_01: that there's just a sense of his presence and that the worship is sweet,
24:10
SPEAKER_01: that people are responsive and desiring to grow.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: There's always work in that area.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have four groups in any church.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm learning from this guy named Daniel M. You got sleeper seekers, Consumers and disciples.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, we all want to get to disciples.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: But we have to acknowledge that people are in different places.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: So what can I do and what can we do as a community to speak into those different areas?
24:37
SPEAKER_01: But I think, like I said, just very receptive.
24:40
SPEAKER_01: We just hired a director of evangelism.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It was a strategic hire by faith, really.
24:45
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've heard about that in the marketplace,
24:47
SPEAKER_01: but we actually did that here and said, you know what?
24:49
SPEAKER_01: We're going to hire this because we know it's a missing piece.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: We did a focus group thing a while back.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that showed us is that we were not as known in the community.
24:59
SPEAKER_01: We were not as relevant.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And that's like a stark, honest comment, but we needed to hear it.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: And so we've tried to work towards, okay,
25:08
SPEAKER_01: we're going to hire someone,
25:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:10
SPEAKER_01: to help us move towards that and hire someone that has a gift for this
25:15
SPEAKER_01: and just see what God might do.
25:17
SPEAKER_01: We've never had that on our staff.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: Hired by faith.
25:19
SPEAKER_01: And so we're also in a time of like taking risks,
25:23
SPEAKER_01: you know,
25:24
SPEAKER_01: trying things,
25:24
SPEAKER_01: doing things and just be willing to see what God might do and kind of
25:31
SPEAKER_01: that growth process.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah,
25:32
SPEAKER_01: I'd say those are a couple of things like just now really starting to lean
25:36
SPEAKER_01: a little bit more into evangelism.
25:38
SPEAKER_01: Definitely desirous of the gifts and the character and the fruit of the Holy Spirit,
25:44
SPEAKER_01: like all three working together.
25:46
SPEAKER_01: So you see a lot of that.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: You see definitely a sense of family here and community where people want
25:52
SPEAKER_01: to know each other and welcome well.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Warm welcome is another big value of ours,
25:58
SPEAKER_01: you know, that people are welcome when they come in and when they leave.
26:02
SPEAKER_01: We say hello to them, say goodbye to them.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: So we have our careers and ushers like there for both.
26:05
SPEAKER_01: We've got a coffee area,
26:07
SPEAKER_01: not like a Starbucks,
26:08
SPEAKER_01: but just like a coffee area where there's two baristas standing there with aprons
26:12
SPEAKER_01: with fun little signs on them, just pieces like that.
26:16
SPEAKER_01: Allowing us to do that.
26:17
SPEAKER_01: And then again, like there's a big emphasis on prayer.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: I noticed it right away.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: They have altar time in their service and it's not, it just, it is.
26:29
SPEAKER_01: Travis, it's real.
26:31
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Like people responsive, coming and praying, you know, responding to the messages.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: We have a prayer team.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: We do prayer ministry at the end of most services.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: Right now we're doing a lot of impartation.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: But that's what the team is doing with me.
26:46
SPEAKER_01: I'm just kind of leading the way with that based on what I see in scripture.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: I feel like the elder needs to lead the way, but have the group around.
26:53
SPEAKER_01: So just that kind of stuff is really cool.
26:55
SPEAKER_01: Prayer, worship, connection, and that sense of God's presence.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: So you've been there for 11 years, right?
27:02
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm seven years in my context here.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things is 11 years in a different denomination would have been just
27:09
SPEAKER_00: an outrageous amount of time.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: And so we are in a tradition now that is trying to at least allow
27:14
SPEAKER_00: for longer term pastorates where someone can stay for a longer period of time.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: How do you think your leadership and ministry has changed
27:21
SPEAKER_00: at Prairie Creek now compared to what it was 11 years ago
27:25
SPEAKER_00: when you first started here?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Because you'd had some experience in ministry,
27:28
SPEAKER_00: so you weren't completely fresh, but you were fresh there.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Oh, man.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: So many things, dude.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: How long we got?
27:36
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you what,
27:37
SPEAKER_01: like one of the biggest thing I want to start with
27:40
SPEAKER_01: the most important lesson I've learned.
27:43
SPEAKER_01: The most important lesson I've learned in ministry and leadership is if I don't do
27:47
SPEAKER_01: the personal work, it'll show up on stage.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: It'll show up in meetings.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: It'll show up in one on ones.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: It'll show up in other places and it won't be pretty.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
27:56
SPEAKER_01: And so I had a lot of gunk.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: I had trauma.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: I had church trauma.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: I had my own stuff that I knew that if I didn't work through things,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: I was not going to be able to be an effective leader to the way I wanted to be.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: And so like that was a major thing for me.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: That's been a process.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't pretty.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot of challenges when you're leading a staff,
28:19
SPEAKER_01: when you're leading from this this this chair.
28:22
SPEAKER_01: I remember thinking when I was an associate, I just knew better than my senior pastors.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: And that's like, man,
28:29
SPEAKER_01: if there's one less,
28:30
SPEAKER_01: it's like when your kids grow up and your parents are telling you, enjoy it.
28:36
SPEAKER_01: They're growing up fast.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: You're like, I don't believe you.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: But now my kids graduate.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, enjoy it.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: You know,
28:40
SPEAKER_01: so like the same thing,
28:41
SPEAKER_01: like with that whole thing of associates,
28:43
SPEAKER_01: if only I could help people in the second chair say, you know what?
28:48
SPEAKER_01: Your senior pastor is doing the best, your lead pastor is doing the same, the best they can.
28:52
SPEAKER_01: Support them, walk beside them.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Believe the best.
28:56
SPEAKER_01: Most of them have great integrity and great character.
28:59
SPEAKER_01: Walk alongside them.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't know the whole story, be okay with that.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
29:06
SPEAKER_01: And again, I failed in that as well.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you had that experience, but I definitely did.
29:10
SPEAKER_01: So coming in here,
29:11
SPEAKER_01: learning to be the head guy,
29:13
SPEAKER_01: learning to understand different people's perspectives,
29:16
SPEAKER_01: learning to guide through big decisions, big visions.
29:20
SPEAKER_01: It's all a learning curve.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: the preaching was always there,
29:26
SPEAKER_01: but coming back online with the gifts of the Holy Spirit was a process.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Leading meetings, one board meetings, which is what we now do.
29:37
SPEAKER_01: But back in the day, it was how many teams do you have?
29:40
SPEAKER_01: You got SBRC meetings, trustee meetings, finance meetings, outreach meetings, prayer meetings.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: All for committees.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: We did a lot of committee work, but now it's like more shored up.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: So learning how to make things better.
29:52
SPEAKER_01: And then also, I'd say another big lesson for me is being willing to receive feedback.
29:57
SPEAKER_01: You know,
29:58
SPEAKER_01: when you're criticized from different angles throughout your life,
30:02
SPEAKER_01: you start to get, what's the word I'm looking for?
30:06
SPEAKER_01: Almost like armored up and just too tender.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And you won't receive good feedback.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: And so one thing I've really tried to work more on is like to receive feedback,
30:16
SPEAKER_01: to take it all,
30:17
SPEAKER_01: know that it's not all true,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: but that doesn't really matter because people have the right to their perspective.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: So those are the kind of things I think that help to make us better leaders is
30:26
SPEAKER_01: if we can understand, okay, receive feedback, listen to other people's perspective.
30:31
SPEAKER_01: It's not about you.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: Do your best to slow down, process, do things the right way.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And another thing I think that's changed for me is I get too far ahead.
30:41
SPEAKER_01: And I'd have too many visions.
30:43
SPEAKER_01: It's not that I'm not a good visionary.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: I just would like, oh, let's go after this.
30:46
SPEAKER_01: And after this, I have ADHD.
30:48
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a seven on the Enneagram and I'm an extrovert and I'm an external processor.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: So what I've had to learn is don't lose who I am,
30:58
SPEAKER_01: but be disciplined and self-control to when you're talking about something,
31:02
SPEAKER_01: keep it to two things.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And that's been a really good change for me.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: So I've been asking a question of everybody so far.
31:12
SPEAKER_00: And just the last conversation I had, I was realizing that actually the language is apt.
31:17
SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to kind of introduce it a little bit.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I told you I would probably ask this question.
31:21
SPEAKER_00: So you've been in a variety of churches.
31:23
SPEAKER_00: The church right now is not the only one that you've ever seen.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And so I don't want anybody who's watching it to think we're picking
31:28
SPEAKER_00: on any particular group of people or any particular people.
31:31
SPEAKER_00: But one of the things that I feel like clergy, there's things that we notice.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: And we don't always notice the same things.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: We don't have the same perspective.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: But...
31:39
SPEAKER_00: What I'm going to ask you about is,
31:40
SPEAKER_00: is there a sickness that you've seen in churches that needs to be dealt with?
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And I want to be really clear about why I'm using the word sickness.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: Because when somebody is sick, the response, it can feel like judgment.
31:50
SPEAKER_00: But if someone's sick, they don't need judgment.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: They need diagnosis and they need healing.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: So I want to be clear about that.
31:56
SPEAKER_00: When I'm asking these leaders to talk about sicknesses they see in the church,
32:01
SPEAKER_00: the question is not intending to try to say...
32:03
SPEAKER_00: Those churches out there are messed up.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: What I'm trying to say is,
32:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:06
SPEAKER_00: what are things like chronic conditions that we face that we need help for
32:10
SPEAKER_00: and we need to be able to break out of to really be all that God's called us to be?
32:14
SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious if you've seen anything in your experience that you think is a kind
32:17
SPEAKER_00: of common sickness.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we're across the board.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: We're churches without healers.
32:23
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is people get hurt.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: They have church hurt.
32:26
SPEAKER_01: And instead of being able to process that in a way that allows them to To grow
32:31
SPEAKER_01: and be changed, it gets gangrene and it becomes rock.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: And when that happens,
32:36
SPEAKER_01: then if that doesn't get dealt with,
32:39
SPEAKER_01: I think that's something that will carry on with them wherever they go.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: One thing I think we have a problem with,
32:44
SPEAKER_01: and I think I've seen it from every level of church,
32:48
SPEAKER_01: is if we don't like what's being said,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: we're just going to leave and go somewhere else.
32:54
SPEAKER_01: And that doesn't allow for maturity, right?
33:00
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't allow for health to grow.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: And it also speaks to another thing I think that's a sickness is that back
33:07
SPEAKER_01: to those four categories from Daniel M,
33:09
SPEAKER_01: like people are asleep,
33:11
SPEAKER_01: people are consumers,
33:14
SPEAKER_01: but there are also seekers and there are people who are disciples.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: But if you're asleep, you need to wake up.
33:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's because things have put you to sleep.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: That means there's...
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Part of that sickness is that busyness and that never any time to slow down.
33:29
SPEAKER_01: If you're a consumer,
33:30
SPEAKER_01: it's because you've been taught that when you walk into church,
33:33
SPEAKER_01: it's like any other place that you're going to be served,
33:38
SPEAKER_01: but you're not going to be called to serve.
33:39
SPEAKER_01: But then again,
33:40
SPEAKER_01: the other part of that is,
33:42
SPEAKER_01: and this speaks to the sickness that's just nasty with that,
33:44
SPEAKER_01: like I said,
33:45
SPEAKER_01: we're churches without healers, that pastors, we can then go way too hard.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And like you're not serving and get grumpy in a way that we're not appreciative.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: We're not pleasant.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: So I think underneath it all is this.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: We're not seeing each other and we're not and we're not ministering healing,
34:06
SPEAKER_01: which means we're not slowing down enough.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: If we could slow down, Travis, we could really pay attention and be OK with who we are.
34:16
SPEAKER_01: And stay connected to the person next to us.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: I think we'd see much more maturity across the whole body because everybody's great.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I serve a great church.
34:25
SPEAKER_01: I serve great people.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: You serve great people.
34:27
SPEAKER_01: It's not the people.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: It's just that that stuff can get in there and it just gets locked.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: And then there's that freedom.
34:34
SPEAKER_01: And so a lack of freedom that,
34:36
SPEAKER_01: that again, that sickness is like you speak, what is that sickness?
34:40
SPEAKER_01: I think it's, it's across a long range of stuff.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: The issue is not the sickness.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: We're going to deal with sickness.
34:46
SPEAKER_01: The issue is not having healings and not having a place to heal.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's interesting.
34:52
SPEAKER_00: So you had a different Methodist background up until the time we met.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: But I remember being in seminary and one of our Methodist history courses,
35:00
SPEAKER_00: we were talking about the Methodist Episcopal Church and then how it formed
35:03
SPEAKER_00: and various things.
35:03
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that our professor would talk about is that – You know,
35:08
SPEAKER_00: from like the 30s to the 60s,
35:10
SPEAKER_00: Methodism in America just grew, just grew and grew and grew.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: And like no one had to do anything.
35:14
SPEAKER_00: Just everyone wanted to be part of it.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: Everyone just it was the cool thing to do socially and all the rest.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
35:19
SPEAKER_00: and then so I mean, I remember when I first heard that going, oh, I don't like that.
35:21
SPEAKER_00: That's not a gospel reason to be part of the church.
35:23
SPEAKER_00: But actually,
35:24
SPEAKER_00: years later,
35:25
SPEAKER_00: it came back to me because it helped me have more compassion on some of the people
35:28
SPEAKER_00: that I was serving at the time, because I was just so frustrated.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, why do they think the answer to everything is That person out there just needs
35:36
SPEAKER_00: to wake up and figure out they need to be here.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: And I started realizing their formative experience in the church.
35:41
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to do anything and people came.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I realized maybe that's a bad attitude,
35:45
SPEAKER_00: but they learned it from somewhere and it made some kind of sense at the time.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: And so those kinds of things remind me of it's not good, but it's not their fault.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Being angry at them doesn't help.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't.
35:59
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, finish your thought.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the kind of thing you're talking about,
36:04
SPEAKER_00: which is that people are in the situation that they're in.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: And so rather,
36:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: and it's easy,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: I think,
36:08
SPEAKER_00: as a pastor,
36:09
SPEAKER_00: as a leader to be like, well, why aren't they seeing things the way I see them?
36:12
SPEAKER_00: But the answer might just be because at some point in history,
36:15
SPEAKER_00: somebody taught them not to, you know?
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Right.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: So the socialist education and compassion.
36:20
SPEAKER_01: I think also speaks to something that I think is a desperate need.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: And another part of that sickness is prayerlessness.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:26
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking about like intense prayer.
36:27
SPEAKER_01: I was, I just preached on intercession, the gift of intercession on Sunday.
36:32
SPEAKER_01: And I, Um, uh, people will say I yelled a lot that sermon and I think they'd be right on.
36:37
SPEAKER_01: I think they'd be spot on about that.
36:39
SPEAKER_01: Um, I felt this,
36:40
SPEAKER_01: this deep unction and pain inside of me that we just don't cry out like
36:45
SPEAKER_01: the George Whitfield's of the past or the David Brainerd's or
36:48
SPEAKER_01: the John Hyde's give me souls or I die.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: We don't have this intensity anymore to our prayer life.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: And I think that is one of the most systemic things of our sickness.
36:57
SPEAKER_01: If we were like desperate again and to recognize God,
37:01
SPEAKER_01: they're not here,
37:02
SPEAKER_01: but If we go to our knees and humble ourselves and pray,
37:07
SPEAKER_01: perhaps something will happen.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: And I think that comes back to as well, letting go of entitlement and crying out in mercy.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a bit of entitlement in myself included that can come across that
37:20
SPEAKER_01: if we can recognize I need to humble myself.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: And if I don't know what that means,
37:24
SPEAKER_01: help me figure it out, God, because I know that is the secret.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to throw a different question at you because it is occurring to me that
37:31
SPEAKER_00: since you've been in the church that you've been at for as long as you have,
37:33
SPEAKER_00: that means you're the first person I've talked to who is serving at a church
37:36
SPEAKER_00: that was also where you were serving during COVID and the things that came after
37:41
SPEAKER_00: that.
37:42
SPEAKER_00: How has that shaped your perspective?
37:45
SPEAKER_00: It's like, what did you learn in that bizarre time that shapes how you do ministry today?
37:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:51
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'd say, first of all, what not to do.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, sure.
37:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, like, you know, I'd never been through a pandemic.
37:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: And you'd never,
37:59
SPEAKER_01: no one had ever been through a pandemic unless you were around with the Spanish flu.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
38:03
SPEAKER_01: And there was only a very small few.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: So like figuring that whole thing out, you know, I learned so many lessons from it.
38:09
SPEAKER_01: But I think the thing that I took away from most about it was that we were not ready
38:13
SPEAKER_01: as Christians.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: I don't believe we were, I don't believe I was ready.
38:17
SPEAKER_01: You know,
38:19
SPEAKER_01: I look back on the lesson I learned,
38:21
SPEAKER_01: if a catastrophe happened again, I think I would say it this way.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: I would say, and I'd do it in a gentle way.
38:29
SPEAKER_01: Hey, we're going to stay open.
38:31
SPEAKER_01: We're going to stay, for example, just the practicality.
38:33
SPEAKER_01: We're going to stay open.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be here.
38:36
SPEAKER_01: You come if you feel comfortable.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: If you're sick, stay home, whatever.
38:38
SPEAKER_01: But we're not going to overdo it.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Just come, be a part of things.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: And also, like, if someone's got the disease, we're going to risk it and go be in their house.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: You know, like, I'm talking radical stuff, man.
38:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, if we were the ones known as...
38:54
SPEAKER_01: And the early church going to lepers, then what business do I have trying to play it safe?
38:59
SPEAKER_01: I think that's another thing that's gone away from me is like, okay, I'm never going to be safe.
39:04
SPEAKER_01: And I want to respect people at what they need in safety.
39:08
SPEAKER_01: But as a leader,
39:10
SPEAKER_01: I want to at least try to inspire us to go out there and try
39:12
SPEAKER_01: to do something
39:13
SPEAKER_00: different.
39:14
SPEAKER_01: People can decide how they respond.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: But I think that's one of the big things.
39:17
SPEAKER_01: And just being more kind.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: You know,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: every day I do Lectio 365 and The part of the prayer is like,
39:24
SPEAKER_01: help me be kind to everyone I meet.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: And that is hitting me so much.
39:28
SPEAKER_01: Like, I just want to be kind.
39:30
SPEAKER_01: I can be such a jerk and just be in a rush.
39:35
SPEAKER_01: Restaurants or coffee shops.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: And I just want to be kind.
39:39
SPEAKER_01: If I die,
39:41
SPEAKER_01: I want the baristas at the different local coffee shops to show up at my funeral
39:46
SPEAKER_01: and say, man, I didn't know him.
39:49
SPEAKER_01: But he was really he asked how my how I was.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's I think what we were we were missing during the pandemic.
39:56
SPEAKER_01: We just became us versus them not helpful.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: And of course,
40:00
SPEAKER_01: then we were also going through all the challenges were in
40:01
SPEAKER_01: the United Methodist Church with disaffiliation.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: We're dealing with all these things all at once.
40:07
SPEAKER_01: It was too much.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I took us about we took a sabbatical after we disaffiliated.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: And had a year together because I didn't want to do it right away.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: But then the next year we took a sabbatical and that was one of
40:21
SPEAKER_01: the best things I could have done.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: Because by the point of my sabbatical,
40:25
SPEAKER_01: I shared with my church, I need to rest, but also I don't have a vision anymore.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: And that's weird to me.
40:30
SPEAKER_01: I always have a vision of where we're going.
40:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm going to do.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: So Jules, my wife and I, Julie and I and the kids, we took 40 days off.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: And during that time, God restored, renewed, refreshed.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: And I think there has to be a way To allow not just clergy,
40:44
SPEAKER_01: but lady to find those spaces to not go on vacation to get out of their life,
40:50
SPEAKER_01: but to give them practices so they can stand firm in it.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Like, how do you practice silence?
40:56
SPEAKER_01: How do you practice solitude?
40:58
SPEAKER_01: How do you practice service and all these things that will keep us Shored up
41:04
SPEAKER_01: and strong and to be able to stand firm.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: That's the biggest lessons I learned.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: I just feel like we weren't ready.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: And so because of that, we just fell apart.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying everybody.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm just going to, I'll say, I must have a mouse in my pocket.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: I'll say I was not ready.
41:18
SPEAKER_01: There may have been many people in my church that were in it to win it.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: But as a leader, I wasn't ready.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: And I felt like if there were people like me in that same predicament,
41:28
SPEAKER_01: then hopefully we can learn moving forward to be better next time.
41:33
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things I'm realizing,
41:34
SPEAKER_00: so it's funny because I've only done a couple of these so far.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of learning as I go.
41:39
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things is that you are,
41:42
SPEAKER_00: so how many, about what's the population of Grimes ballpark, would you say?
41:45
SPEAKER_00: We just had a census get done.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: It was like 18,000 and some change.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And
41:50
SPEAKER_00: you are, if you want to get from where you are to like downtown Des Moines, how long is that?
41:56
SPEAKER_00: 15-20 minutes.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: 15-20 minutes.
41:58
SPEAKER_00: I bring that up because you are,
42:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if Grimes as a community sees itself this way,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: but compared to a great deal of Iowa as a whole and the upper Midwest as general,
42:08
SPEAKER_00: you are a super urban environment.
42:11
SPEAKER_00: And most of our churches are not in those environments.
42:14
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm definitely not.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious,
42:16
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:16
SPEAKER_00: now it also sounds like,
42:17
SPEAKER_00: so the stories you've said so far involved you being in Waterloo,
42:21
SPEAKER_00: which is considerably larger than like where I am,
42:24
SPEAKER_00: and then Omaha, and I think you said Colorado.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: Colorado Springs, you said?
42:27
SPEAKER_00: Top Springs, yeah.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: So your experience is going to be very different from mine.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: And so you may not know how to compare these things.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: So I realize this is a question that may not be fair.
42:36
SPEAKER_00: But what do you think is distinctive about a more urban situation that is different?
42:42
SPEAKER_00: What do you think are the strengths and the weaknesses of living in an urban area
42:46
SPEAKER_00: that might be different than in a rural environment?
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Ooh.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: So the strengths and weaknesses of here versus urban?
42:54
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
42:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, no, no.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: You are in urban, whether you define it that way or not.
42:57
SPEAKER_00: Oh, right, right, right.
42:58
SPEAKER_01: It's not urban, but yeah, yeah.
43:00
SPEAKER_01: Urban for sure.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: Versus
43:02
SPEAKER_00: which type?
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, I said like compared to rural.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: And you may not know because if you've never been in a rural environment, you may not know.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: I mean, my grandparents went to a rural church.
43:11
SPEAKER_01: I'd say –
43:14
SPEAKER_01: Smaller base of people from what I saw.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's not all rural churches, but that was the case with Presbyterian Church.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: I would say farmers.
43:25
SPEAKER_01: I would say, again, I'm painting some really broad strokes.
43:31
SPEAKER_01: I may be way off.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: I feel like sometimes in rural areas, it might be more conservative.
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's always the case,
43:39
SPEAKER_01: but I think that can be a case politically I'm talking about.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:43
SPEAKER_01: Whereas like in my base, you've got people that are both across the range of political party.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: So there's like diversity in that political aspect of it.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: I'd say depending on where you're at and what things are around,
43:59
SPEAKER_01: if there's not – A meatpacking plant or something like that,
44:02
SPEAKER_01: you may not see as much diversity, at least in Iowa.
44:07
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about our Greater Upper Midwest Conference, but I'd say that'd be the case.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, again, my perspective, very limited.
44:15
SPEAKER_01: My grandparents' church was predominantly white.
44:17
SPEAKER_01: Whereas now, even in our church, we've got some Haitians.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: We've got a person from Togo.
44:24
SPEAKER_01: We got some color, which is great because it looks like I want to look like the kingdom.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Not that a rural church can't.
44:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying you got to go with what you have around you.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: Opportunities, I'd say if you're a rural church, everyone's going to know what everyone's doing.
44:40
SPEAKER_01: And until recently, that was Grimes.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: If we were 9,000 people like in 15 years ago or whatever, that's like not much time.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: But there can still be that mentality like everybody knows what everybody's doing.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: Everybody knows the Auto Guy Jr. by name.
44:55
SPEAKER_01: There's all that kind of stuff that is both a plus.
44:59
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a great plus.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: Like we know people and where to go and we can trust.
45:03
SPEAKER_01: But then does it also create some gossip?
45:06
SPEAKER_01: Does it create some, you know, like everybody's in each other's business?
45:09
SPEAKER_01: Probably a little bit.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: Whereas in a suburban thing,
45:12
SPEAKER_01: you know, because we're so spread out, not everybody knows what's going on.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: And you can show up on Sunday.
45:18
SPEAKER_01: And we've got people at Prairie Creek that come from Dallas Center Grimes.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: Granger, Perry, Johnston, Urbandale, whatever.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Winterset, and I'm forgetting some, but they come for the experience of Prairie Creek.
45:34
SPEAKER_01: So that's another thing where I think a rural church might be more regional.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: So those are some thoughts I have.
45:42
SPEAKER_01: I definitely think there's pros and cons to both.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: I'd say another thing that's unique about urban is just the more opportunities.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're talking about just practically restaurants,
45:53
SPEAKER_01: places to go, attractions, parks, that kind of thing.
45:56
SPEAKER_01: There's this opportunity to connect to the nations,
46:00
SPEAKER_01: connect to the world, even in your backyard.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: Like on my street right now, Across from us, there's a family that is from a nation in Africa.
46:09
SPEAKER_01: Three houses down,
46:11
SPEAKER_01: there's a person,
46:12
SPEAKER_01: I think it's from the Philippines, and then a person from a nation in Africa.
46:17
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know them well because we haven't done the work we should probably do,
46:21
SPEAKER_01: but also there's a Lost in Translation thing going on as well.
46:26
SPEAKER_01: And that,
46:27
SPEAKER_01: in my environment,
46:28
SPEAKER_01: right here on my street, Has changed rapidly in the last five years.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: So folks are moving in from other nations, buying the houses.
46:36
SPEAKER_01: So that's changing too.
46:38
SPEAKER_01: As we grow and more opportunities, there's more, more diversity.
46:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we've talked about is so,
46:45
SPEAKER_00: so in our context,
46:46
SPEAKER_00: we've been growing a bit and we're hoping to,
46:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:48
SPEAKER_00: maybe hire someone to help work with our,
46:49
SPEAKER_00: with our youth, you know, have to be a focus.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: And one of these is like the kind of
46:52
SPEAKER_00: the ideal candidate would be someone who's young and starting out in ministry.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Cause we're not, we're not that big with it yet.
46:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, But the problem,
46:58
SPEAKER_00: of course, is,
46:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
46:59
SPEAKER_00: if you say to someone,
47:00
SPEAKER_00: hey, we'd love for you to come to Marcus and work, they go, where?
47:04
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh, and how, you know, where is it?
47:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's,
47:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
47:08
SPEAKER_00: it's how long from,
47:09
SPEAKER_00: you know, places where I've heard of, you know, and so I kind of wondered that.
47:14
SPEAKER_00: I think that there is some of an advantage of the urban situation
47:17
SPEAKER_00: because I know why someone would want to live in a town like where I live.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: But you don't, you know, because you've never been out here, right?
47:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I think that there's,
47:25
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if to one degree, you know, recruitment is somewhat aided by that.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know that.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: I just know that we have our own difficulties with that.
47:33
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a good point.
47:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:36
SPEAKER_00: Can you tell me about anything that you've learned?
47:38
SPEAKER_00: So you did seminary, you went to school, you did the formal training.
47:42
SPEAKER_00: I think there's a value to formal training.
47:43
SPEAKER_00: You'll probably not find anybody who will speak as strongly
47:46
SPEAKER_00: about formal education being a good thing as me.
47:48
SPEAKER_00: But I also know that there's nothing quite like being in the ministry to teach you things.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you learned that was either surprising
47:57
SPEAKER_00: or certainly not what you learned in school by doing the ministry?
48:03
Oh, man.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: I got to come back to one of the majors is just leading other people, leading staffs.
48:09
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: There was not much management in seminary.
48:12
SPEAKER_01: Of course, I did a master's of arts and theology, so I didn't do a master's of divinity.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: And there might have been more of that in that.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: Probably not.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: But definitely that's been the biggest learning curve.
48:21
SPEAKER_01: Leading volunteers, empowering volunteers, training volunteers, coaching volunteers.
48:28
SPEAKER_01: Rebuking volunteers.
48:29
SPEAKER_01: How do you correct people that are just doing it out of the goodness of their heart
48:34
SPEAKER_01: in appropriate ways?
48:36
SPEAKER_01: How do you correct the staff?
48:37
SPEAKER_01: How do you encourage the staff?
48:39
SPEAKER_01: How do you say things in a way that they don't go home upset?
48:44
SPEAKER_01: It's just all of that.
48:47
SPEAKER_01: And also just to give them what they need because each person is different.
48:51
SPEAKER_01: So managing and then creating an alignment Is another thing that's been
48:57
SPEAKER_01: a learning curve for me,
48:58
SPEAKER_01: creating alignment across the system so that we're all going in the same direction.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: That takes time and it takes a lot of work.
49:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to try to connect dots for some people here.
49:09
SPEAKER_00: So so people who might be watching this from the Midwest,
49:13
SPEAKER_00: you may not know anything about Grimes.
49:14
SPEAKER_00: You may not know anything about Pastor Ben here,
49:16
SPEAKER_00: but I believe it was it was the musicians from your church that played at
49:19
SPEAKER_00: a new conference last year in twenty twenty five.
49:21
SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
49:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Upper Midwest Conference.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: So if you were at the Upper Midwest Conference in 2025 in Sioux City,
49:27
SPEAKER_00: the musicians who led us were from Prairie Creek at Ben's Church.
49:31
SPEAKER_00: So just trying to make some connections there so people can know who we're talking about.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you have anything else that you want to make sure you share before we wrap up
49:41
SPEAKER_00: the conversation?
49:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would just say if you're watching this and you have people in the area
49:48
SPEAKER_01: or people you love in the area, there's room for you.
49:51
SPEAKER_01: And please come.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Come join us.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: Be a part of this great experiment.
49:55
SPEAKER_01: I call it a great experiment because we're trying to do church a different way.
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Again, nothing's new.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: But this idea of doing it,
50:03
SPEAKER_01: having it happen in community,
50:05
SPEAKER_01: returning to things like how is your life in God is a question that we ask
50:09
SPEAKER_01: in groups.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: And that's how our home group is shaped.
50:12
SPEAKER_01: We have one on Sunday.
50:14
SPEAKER_01: We just want to do it in a way that I believe that what Wesley did is what we in
50:21
SPEAKER_01: the Global Methodist Church are trying to, we're returning to.
50:24
SPEAKER_01: And so we're seeing things that coming back online, including the gifts.
50:26
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean,
50:27
SPEAKER_01: I've been blown away by I've been talking about it,
50:30
SPEAKER_01: like the power gifts of like discernment,
50:32
SPEAKER_01: prophecy,
50:33
SPEAKER_01: things like that are coming back online across not just in charismatic circles,
50:38
SPEAKER_01: but across Presbyterian and Lutheran and Methodist.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Like it's just incredible what God is doing.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: So God is doing something.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: If you're watching this and you've never given Jesus a thought, check him out.
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Like that's I think that's what Travis I want most for you is
50:53
SPEAKER_01: that you would like Experience what we've experienced and come to know Christ.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: And if you need a church home,
51:00
SPEAKER_01: join us,
51:00
SPEAKER_01: join Travis's church, join one of the churches in the Global Methodist Church.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't really like that denomination,
51:06
SPEAKER_01: if holiness isn't your thing,
51:07
SPEAKER_01: because that's our jam,
51:08
SPEAKER_01: we want to grow and move on to perfection and love, then find one that fits you.
51:12
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, I just think everything that matters most is Jesus and living for him together.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
51:20
SPEAKER_00: So that's a blanket invitation for anybody in the Des Moines metro area.
51:24
SPEAKER_00: You have a place at Prairie Creek.
51:26
SPEAKER_00: So I will make sure I put in the description down below,
51:30
SPEAKER_00: I'll make sure I put your church's website,
51:32
SPEAKER_00: maybe your Facebook page,
51:33
SPEAKER_00: if I can find that,
51:34
SPEAKER_00: so you guys can go check it out,
51:35
SPEAKER_00: see what they're doing,
51:36
SPEAKER_00: see if you need any inspiration,
51:38
SPEAKER_00: just another person to kind of,
51:40
SPEAKER_00: or sometimes it's seeing other things and how people do things is inspiring.
51:43
SPEAKER_00: And also one of the things I want to be clear,
51:45
SPEAKER_00: I'm really, this is such an outrageously unofficial thing.
51:49
SPEAKER_00: Nobody in the whole structure is responsible for this.
51:53
SPEAKER_00: And so what that means is I'm a little bit free to kind of interview people the way I want to.
51:58
SPEAKER_00: And so like nothing against our official leadership,
52:02
SPEAKER_00: conference superintendents,
52:03
SPEAKER_00: presiding elders, but I'm mostly interested in the people who...
52:06
SPEAKER_00: You know, aren't necessarily serving in those like high profile positions.
52:10
SPEAKER_00: So if you are watching this and you know somebody who is doing really good work,
52:14
SPEAKER_00: where God is moving,
52:15
SPEAKER_00: maybe into somewhere that no one's thought to look,
52:18
SPEAKER_00: or you might feel like it's being ignored, please let me know.
52:20
SPEAKER_00: You can reach me at pastortravisatmarcusgrace.com.
52:23
SPEAKER_00: And I want to hear from folks.
52:25
SPEAKER_00: I want to have an opportunity to make some connections,
52:27
SPEAKER_00: shine a spotlight on things God's doing in our midst and some of the people and
52:31
SPEAKER_00: the leadership that is at every level of our lives together.
52:35
SPEAKER_00: So I want to thank you again, Ben, for being with me.
52:38
SPEAKER_00: Would you be willing to close this out in prayer?
52:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I would.
52:41
SPEAKER_00: I'd love to.
52:42
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus,
52:43
SPEAKER_01: we come to you and just want to pause,
52:46
SPEAKER_01: invite the Holy Spirit, come Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray in this moment.
52:51
SPEAKER_01: God, you are so good and you're so kind and you're so loving.
52:57
SPEAKER_01: And there's still,
53:00
SPEAKER_01: just to think about the book of Jonah,
53:03
SPEAKER_01: Metaphorically,
53:03
SPEAKER_01: there's still 120,000 people that don't know they're right from their left.
53:07
SPEAKER_01: People that are at risk in many different ways who need you, Jesus.
53:15
SPEAKER_01: And I do pray, give us souls or we die.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: May the same fire that burnt in early Methodist burn in us.
53:25
SPEAKER_01: And may our churches see a mighty harvest.
53:29
SPEAKER_01: Lord, may we see an awakening.
53:31
SPEAKER_01: Like what has happened in America from time to time.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: And whether it be the last awakening before you return or just another awakening in
53:39
SPEAKER_01: the process, God, revive us, O Lord.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: Set us on fire and bring people to yourself in your mercy.
53:46
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name, amen.
53:48
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: So again, this has been what you have seen and heard.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: And our guest this time has been Pastor Ben Wedeking.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: So thank you once again for being here from Grimes,
53:57
SPEAKER_00: from Prairie Creek, the Global Methodist Church.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: Glad to hear from you and hope you guys can come back for our next one.