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Rev. Erin Wetzel Interview · What You Have Seen and Heard

0:00
SPEAKER_01: Hello, everyone,
0:01
SPEAKER_01: and welcome back to another episode of What You Have Seen and Heard,
0:05
SPEAKER_01: coming from a reference that Jesus makes to go and tell John
0:07
SPEAKER_01: the Baptist what they've seen and heard.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: And so this is just a very unofficial kind of video podcast where I am trying
0:13
SPEAKER_01: to talk to various folks across the Upper Midwest Annual Conference of
0:16
SPEAKER_01: the Global Methodist Church to get to know some folks,
0:18
SPEAKER_01: hear some stories being told,
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SPEAKER_01: be encouraged and inspired by what God is doing in the lives of other people,
0:23
SPEAKER_01: and to practice this idea of sharing our story so we all know more of what's going
0:27
SPEAKER_01: on.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: My name is Travis Stevick.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm a pastor here.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: In Northwest Iowa, in Marcus.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: And today,
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SPEAKER_01: our special guest that we're talking to is Erin Wetzel,
0:35
SPEAKER_01: who is a pastor in Corning,
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Iowa, at a new church plant for the Global Methodist Church.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: So welcome, Reverend Erin.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for being here.
0:45
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: So the first question I always start off when I ask folks is,
0:51
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a bit of your story about how it is you became a Christian?
0:54
SPEAKER_01: And if you've been a Christian for as long as you can remember,
0:57
SPEAKER_01: can you tell us about a time in your life when you started
0:59
SPEAKER_01: to really take this faith more seriously and really kind of take ownership of it?
1:04
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember a conversion experience necessarily.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: I know my grandmother gave me my first Bible, and I remember reading a chapter a day.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: From fifth grade on.
1:20
SPEAKER_00: And I know that I prayed every single night.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: My prayers were very rote.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: They were the same thing over and over, but I was very consistent with that.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: We started going to church when I was in sixth grade, went through confirmation, was confirmed.
1:36
SPEAKER_00: But I can always remember being a person that wants people to know about Jesus.
1:42
SPEAKER_00: I can remember...
1:45
SPEAKER_00: I have an older sister and I can remember setting up her upper room daily devotions
1:49
SPEAKER_00: for her on her pillow so that when she would get home late at night
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SPEAKER_00: from whatever it was she was doing, she wouldn't forget to spend time with God.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: I think I preached my first sermon on the day I graduated high school.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: I went to youth group, very active in the church growing up.
2:11
SPEAKER_00: So I have always felt, I always remember feeling the Lord's presence.
2:17
SPEAKER_00: And then,
2:17
SPEAKER_00: you know,
2:18
SPEAKER_00: have seasons of dry,
2:20
SPEAKER_00: seasons of,
2:21
SPEAKER_00: you know, closer to God, further away from God, just a variety of things.
2:26
SPEAKER_00: I've always gone to church.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: I've always taught Sunday school.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: It's just something that you're supposed to do.
2:31
SPEAKER_00: It's something that I enjoy doing.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I did that for many, many years.
2:37
SPEAKER_00: And interestingly enough, it wasn't until...
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Last summer that I felt my heart really change in a different way.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: It just really became incredibly tender.
2:51
SPEAKER_00: I would weep for things and cry for things.
2:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm very strong.
2:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm pretty tough.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: I don't let a lot of things bother me.
2:59
SPEAKER_00: And all of a sudden I find myself in this place with this super tender heart.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
3:06
SPEAKER_00: as I have been studying Wesley and,
3:08
SPEAKER_00: you know,
3:08
SPEAKER_00: his Aldersgate transformation, and it's like he felt his heart strangely warmed.
3:12
SPEAKER_00: And so then there was all those questions about, well, what is that?
3:16
SPEAKER_00: And I just, it wasn't my born again conversion because I know, I know that I accepted Christ.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: I know that I've been filled with the Holy Spirit for a very long time.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: But it's just that awakening that,
3:28
SPEAKER_00: I guess I don't really know what Theological word you would use for it,
3:32
SPEAKER_00: but it was just that awakening and drawing near and coming alive.
3:36
SPEAKER_00: And wow, it has been an amazing journey.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: So you are a relatively recent person who's been put into the pastorate.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: Can you tell us a bit of the story about how you found yourself as a pastor?
3:52
SPEAKER_01: Because I imagine that was not your original plan.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: It was not my original plan.
3:56
SPEAKER_00: I've done many, many jobs.
3:58
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has been preparing me all these years for this role.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: But Lori Greenlee,
4:05
SPEAKER_00: who was pastor at Rising Methodist in Lenox,
4:09
SPEAKER_00: would ask me to fill in for her when she would be gone.
4:12
SPEAKER_00: And I loved putting together the different scriptures to see what the lectionary had
4:19
SPEAKER_00: and To just study those and see how those scriptures would just intertwine together.
4:23
SPEAKER_00: And so I filled her pulpit a couple years in a row, a couple times a year.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: Did some preaching at my own church every so often, not very often.
4:32
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, my husband and I got into bees about nine years ago.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: And I know that this is going to sound really stupid, but it also explains how my brain works.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm very budget oriented, very...
4:44
SPEAKER_00: Financial, like I have a degree in accounting.
4:48
SPEAKER_00: So that's a little bit about a little bit about how my brain works.
4:50
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, all of a sudden I started getting these thoughts, huh?
4:55
SPEAKER_00: I wonder because I knew my husband wanted to.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: I knew both my husband and I wanted to quit our full time jobs at some point.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I wonder if I could be a part time pastor and get insurance through the church.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that's great.
5:09
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't know if that's great for my initial thought.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Didn't say a word about that, but I already mentioned I loved teaching.
5:18
SPEAKER_00: I love teaching scripture.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I love just reading scripture and having the Lord reveal
5:22
SPEAKER_00: to people what he's got hidden in there for them.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: I had that thought two or three different times about,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: okay, maybe I should be, maybe God is calling me to be a part-time pastor.
5:33
SPEAKER_00: Well, then Pastor Andy,
5:35
SPEAKER_00: who is, he was the pastor that took me from spiritual milk to solid food.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Had not been my pastor for probably 15 years.
5:45
SPEAKER_00: Lives in my town, but I hadn't seen him for a couple years.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: He was walking out of the Hy-Vee when I was walking in or vice versa, one of the two.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, one of us was entering and one of us was leaving.
5:55
SPEAKER_00: And he says to me out of the blue,
5:57
SPEAKER_00: well, hello, have you ever thought about being a part-time pastor?
6:01
SPEAKER_00: I was like, you've got to be kidding me.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: And again,
6:04
SPEAKER_00: I had not mentioned that to anyone,
6:06
SPEAKER_00: hadn't seen Andy for a couple of years, hadn't talked to him for a long time.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And so that was like God opening the window shade saying,
6:15
SPEAKER_00: okay, yes, I truly am placing this on your heart.
6:19
SPEAKER_00: And then I took a couple of,
6:21
SPEAKER_00: so that spring,
6:22
SPEAKER_00: I took a couple of Lay ministry classes through the old denomination.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And I was not impressed with the information I was getting.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: And that spring was when things were,
6:36
SPEAKER_00: we were very quickly approaching the deadline,
6:39
SPEAKER_00: that magic date that everybody had to decide by.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: People in my church were for answers, answers that I didn't have.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: So I started exploring.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: I reached out to Mike.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: I asked...
6:53
SPEAKER_00: You know,
6:54
SPEAKER_00: just for some guidance,
6:55
SPEAKER_00: he led me in the direction of some resources that I could find.
6:58
SPEAKER_00: And then anyway, we had our vote.
7:02
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, our vote did not go the way that, you know, several of us wanted it to go.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And so there was a group of people that were bounded.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: They were done.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: They were like this.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: We're not OK with this.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: We we want scripture to be truth.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: We want to hear scripture being preached as truth.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: And so that group of people had been gathering in people's homes for a while,
7:29
SPEAKER_00: probably four or five different months.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't aware of it.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't part of that at that time.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: But then after the vote,
7:35
SPEAKER_00: I was going to go back to church and I was going to just kind
7:39
SPEAKER_00: of see how things played out.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord very clearly the morning after the vote said,
7:44
SPEAKER_00: no, you're not stepping foot back to that sanctuary.
7:47
SPEAKER_00: And so then we gathered.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: We gathered in Central Park as a group and we met to worship and read scripture and
7:53
SPEAKER_00: and and praise God.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: And they were looking for a leader.
7:58
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, I'll do it.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: So and that was you know, that was that was through the prayer and guidance.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord just was laying that very heavily on my heart that it was time
8:11
SPEAKER_00: that was time to step into that role.
8:12
SPEAKER_00: And and as I said, he has been He has been honing my skills.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: I'm a school counselor.
8:18
SPEAKER_00: I was an accountant.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: I did daycare, so I worked with kids.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: He has been honing my pastoral skills, preparing me for a long time for this role.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: So you are the first woman that I've interviewed for this series.
8:40
SPEAKER_01: Something I hope to fix more and more,
8:41
SPEAKER_01: to have more and more women on here,
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SPEAKER_01: because I think it's vitally important that we hear from women,
8:45
SPEAKER_01: because I can only share the point of view that I've got.
8:48
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm curious, I hope,
8:52
SPEAKER_01: I think in a perfect world,
8:53
SPEAKER_01: the answer to my question just now is going to be,
8:54
SPEAKER_01: no, I never had a problem with this at all.
8:56
SPEAKER_01: But I suspect since we live in a broken world, have you felt any...
9:00
SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, sometimes I have the grace of things just go right over the top of my head.
9:04
SPEAKER_01: It didn't, it didn't really land,
9:06
SPEAKER_00: but I will say I wrestled, um,
9:30
SPEAKER_00: You read scripture and there is scripture.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And if, if,
9:34
SPEAKER_00: if you aren't reading deeply, I mean, I,
9:37
SPEAKER_00: there was some work to do for me to make sure
9:39
SPEAKER_00: that I was following what scripture said and that was okay for women to be pastors.
9:45
SPEAKER_00: So I had some work to do.
9:46
SPEAKER_00: Um, I did some studying, I did some praying.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, I, I, um, Andy helped me through that.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: My mentor pastor, Andy Rubenking, helped me through that.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And that was like in the very beginning as I'm praying about this.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
10:01
SPEAKER_00: as I said,
10:02
SPEAKER_00: I could feel the Lord's calling and the Lord is not going to call you to something.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And there was confirmation.
10:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's asking me questions.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Where's the confirmation for the Lord calling you into this?
10:12
SPEAKER_00: He's not going to call us into something that we're not supposed to be doing.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: If it's scriptural, if it's aligned, if there's confirmation, you know, all the things.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: So yes, I have,
10:23
SPEAKER_00: and I have some people now that struggle with that concept a little bit,
10:30
SPEAKER_00: but because I preach truth,
10:33
SPEAKER_00: because
10:37
SPEAKER_00: they're beginning to trust what comes from a woman.
10:42
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm
10:44
SPEAKER_00: preaching scripture.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, we in the Golden Methodist Church, we affirm and ordain women.
10:50
SPEAKER_01: We have female bishops.
10:51
SPEAKER_01: It's very much part of something that really matters to the point where
10:54
SPEAKER_01: if somebody is 100% not on board with having women in leadership,
10:57
SPEAKER_01: even at the highest levels,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: the Golden Methodist Church is probably not a place for them.
11:01
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time,
11:02
SPEAKER_01: I think that sometimes you talk to some folks who say,
11:05
SPEAKER_01: well, anybody who would think otherwise is just crazy.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, they're not crazy.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: There are some passages,
11:08
SPEAKER_01: like you said,
11:09
SPEAKER_01: that if you're not reading deeply, seem at first glance to be a problem.
11:13
SPEAKER_01: And this is not a place to kind of hash out all of that.
11:15
SPEAKER_01: But I think it's important that we also realize that the scripture,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: it does bear witness to women in leadership.
11:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's vitally important.
11:20
SPEAKER_01: And I want to lift that up,
11:21
SPEAKER_01: especially because I think there are some women You said,
11:25
SPEAKER_01: actually,
11:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not surprised that the person who came up to you to express concerns was
11:29
SPEAKER_01: a woman.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: In some ways,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: I have heard stories from other female pastors that say that in some ways,
11:33
SPEAKER_01: actually, the women have been harder on them than the men in their life.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: And so I just want to affirm any women who are watching this that if you are feeling
11:40
SPEAKER_01: a call from God to maybe consider pastoral ministry,
11:43
SPEAKER_01: don't run away from that because you're a woman.
11:45
SPEAKER_01: Continue to pray and continue to discern.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: If God is not calling you, then for goodness sake, don't go into the pulpit.
11:50
SPEAKER_01: But if he is calling you, you need to be able to listen to that call.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: So I hate to kind of make you speak for your whole gender,
11:56
SPEAKER_01: but I also think it's important to hear about the experiences of people
11:59
SPEAKER_01: who are facing things differently than I do.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: Because I've not ever had anybody suggest that because I'm a man, I shouldn't be a pastor.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: And I know that's a unique struggle of our sisters in ministry.
12:10
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: So you are, I guess, you know, just recently you become pastor, right?
12:14
SPEAKER_01: Not, not planning the pastor.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: You shared that story.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I'm curious about,
12:18
SPEAKER_01: so as somebody who's just recently been not a pastor, um,
12:21
SPEAKER_01: how has life been different,
12:23
SPEAKER_01: um, for you from being a lay person to being a clergy person?
12:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, Sundays come around awfully quick.
12:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that message has to be ready to go every single week.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, And that's just silly.
12:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was heavy for a little bit the first month or so.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, whoa,
12:42
SPEAKER_00: of course,
12:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm working other jobs and there's all the other responsibilities on top of that.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: But it just.
12:53
SPEAKER_00: As a lay person coming in,
12:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm incredibly thankful for the education that I have am receiving,
12:58
SPEAKER_00: have received and am receiving from Wesley Biblical.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm incredibly grateful for the mentorship that I have from the people who have gone before me.
13:08
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not afraid to ask.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I guess one of the gifts I think that the Lord has poured out upon me is
13:16
SPEAKER_00: to be smart enough to ask and not just plow ahead when you don't know.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: And I feel the weight of
13:28
SPEAKER_00: being a preacher and a teacher very heavily.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: I always felt that.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the questions and maybe I shouldn't get into this, but it's truth.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: One of the questions that I asked our DS when we were talking about some of
13:42
SPEAKER_00: the things that were going to be coming into the UMC denomination was I am not going
13:47
SPEAKER_00: to have a millstone tied around my neck because I am teaching these youth
13:50
SPEAKER_00: because I taught high school classes.
13:53
SPEAKER_00: I can't like that has always weighed heavily on my heart, but even more so as a pastor.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I feel like I have to read more.
14:07
SPEAKER_00: I spend a lot more time in prayer.
14:10
SPEAKER_00: Those are all good things.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: We're all supposed to be doing that as often as we can.
14:15
SPEAKER_00: So I guess, you know, I knew the need at one time.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: So I have a master's in professional school counseling.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: And when I after I got that, I thought, yeah, I'm done.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: I'm never going back to school again.
14:28
SPEAKER_00: And so I really did not want I was not really looking forward to The coursework,
14:34
SPEAKER_00: just because I know that I am a type of person that if I'm going to do it,
14:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to do it well.
14:40
SPEAKER_00: I need to put energy and effort into it.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: But I've been incredibly grateful for that guidance,
14:45
SPEAKER_00: the things that I've learned through that,
14:47
SPEAKER_00: and then also the mentorship of those around me, those that have gone before me.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not afraid to ask.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: I've never been afraid to ask what somebody might think is a dumb question.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure that comes from my teaching background,
15:00
SPEAKER_00: because if a person has a question, Somebody else probably has that same question.
15:04
SPEAKER_00: And so I and then and then I kind of had to not that I've lived a crazy life, but,
15:14
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:15
SPEAKER_00: then there were some things that's like,
15:17
SPEAKER_00: oh, as a pastor, should you really be doing that?
15:20
SPEAKER_00: I've I've told my congregation many times I used to cuss like a sailor.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Struggled with that for many,
15:26
SPEAKER_00: many years was had difficulty getting over that or getting through that.
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And then the Holy Spirit just kind of took care of that for me,
15:34
SPEAKER_00: with the exception of the few little substitute words that go in there.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: And again, mentor says, Aaron, you can't use that word.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: What do you say when you're,
15:44
SPEAKER_00: you know,
15:45
SPEAKER_00: and so just that guidance of,
15:48
SPEAKER_00: you know, people, people aren't going to listen to what you have to say.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: If you're not walking that walk or walking the talk or whatever, I mean,
15:57
SPEAKER_00: they're going to look at your actions and then comes with that the heaviness
16:01
SPEAKER_00: of I'm not worthy.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: I am not worthy.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm not any different, any better, any whatever than anybody else that is in God's kingdom.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: We're all just doing the best that we can.
16:15
SPEAKER_00: So the grace of the Lord has just been amazing.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: And it's easy.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've seen it more in these past.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: It'll be it'll be three years in July.
16:26
SPEAKER_00: But I have seen the Lord's grace more in these three years than I have ever experienced.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: He is doing a deeper work in my heart.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: Things that he is requiring me to rely on him for.
16:41
SPEAKER_00: So and it's good.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Somebody can look at that and think, why would you want to do that?
16:45
SPEAKER_00: But it's this call of pastoral ministry is.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: It's one of the best things that anybody could ever do.
16:55
SPEAKER_00: And I found myself a little bit frustrated at first because I spent some years
16:59
SPEAKER_00: under I spent some years under a pastor who every time he would talk about it,
17:05
SPEAKER_00: would talk about it in the negative.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, I would, you know, and and it's like, wow.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: There's a completely different side to this that it's glorious.
17:14
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
17:15
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: But anything worthwhile is going to be hard.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:21
SPEAKER_01: I have kids and I tell them once in a while, I said,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: if you said,
17:27
SPEAKER_01: I kind of almost hope they don't become pastors,
17:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:30
SPEAKER_01: but I always try to tell them, I said,
17:31
SPEAKER_01: you know, if God is calling you to it, you probably shouldn't try to fight it.
17:34
SPEAKER_01: But if God's not calling you to it, it's a terrible job.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you are called to it, it's the best job in the world.
17:39
SPEAKER_01: You know,
17:40
SPEAKER_01: and I think that it's so interesting,
17:42
SPEAKER_01: I think,
17:42
SPEAKER_01: and I think part we need to hear from people who are recent,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: you know, clergy,
17:47
SPEAKER_01: people who become pastors recently,
17:49
SPEAKER_01: because you guys have a perspective that I think lay people can't possibly have.
17:54
SPEAKER_01: And some people who have been pastors for a long time, I think, can sometimes lose sight of.
17:58
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's one of those things where when you first become a pastor, it's exactly that.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: You feel a burden,
18:02
SPEAKER_01: not necessarily like a fatiguing burden,
18:05
SPEAKER_01: but a seriousness where you all of a sudden,
18:07
SPEAKER_01: like if you're a layperson and you preach every once in a while,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:10
SPEAKER_01: a couple of times a year,
18:11
SPEAKER_01: you know, you go, okay, I'm going to go in and I'm going to preach.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: I want to do the best that I can.
18:14
SPEAKER_01: But if I mess up, you know, nobody's really expecting that much of me.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: And so you kind of have relatively low pressure.
18:18
SPEAKER_01: But now all of a sudden you're the pastor.
18:19
SPEAKER_01: You have a responsibility of not even just sharing And that can feel very heavy.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: Again, this is not bad necessarily, but heavy.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: And I think I worry sometimes,
18:34
SPEAKER_01: People who have been pastors for a long time can lose sight of that burden,
18:37
SPEAKER_01: can lose sight of, well, this is just a job now.
18:39
SPEAKER_01: I do this.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: This is the kind of thing that I do.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: And we stop asking those dumb questions.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: We stop asking for advice.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: We stop trying to pay attention in ways to better our craft and our calling.
18:51
SPEAKER_01: So I think it's really important to hear as people go through that process.
18:56
SPEAKER_01: Kind of transition from from laity to clergy,
18:59
SPEAKER_01: because I think there's a lot of wisdom there that people need to hear about and
19:04
SPEAKER_01: that pastors need to be reminded of.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: So thank you for sharing some of that.
19:08
SPEAKER_01: You are a student.
19:09
SPEAKER_01: And so the other interview I had with somebody who's in
19:12
SPEAKER_01: the process right now is also a student at WBS.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: I just want to put it out there that there are a couple of different perspectives.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: A couple of different programs out there.
19:23
SPEAKER_01: So WBS is one of them and a lot of people are doing, have a great job there.
19:25
SPEAKER_01: There's some others as well.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: But will you share a little bit about what your educational experience has been like for you?
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Like how has it shaped as a person and how has it shaped your approach to ministry?
19:36
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
19:42
SPEAKER_00: Aside from the annoyance of having an assignment to do or books to read or that have
19:47
SPEAKER_00: to, there's a deadline.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: It has been by far one of the best things that I have experienced.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: Every single class that I take,
19:58
SPEAKER_00: not every class is life-changing,
20:01
SPEAKER_00: but man, there have been a couple of incredibly life-changing classes.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: And then just the New Testament and the Old Testament coursework,
20:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Again, they're helping to lay that foundation of and it's like, wow.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And every time I take a class,
20:16
SPEAKER_00: I think I always feel like I'm drinking from the fire hose and I always wish
20:20
SPEAKER_00: that I had more time to slow down and just absorb.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: And there will be a time at some point where I will be able to go back and do that.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: But.
20:31
SPEAKER_00: Phenomenal.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: So I've been in education.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I've been in education since 2009.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
20:39
SPEAKER_00: one of the so I had a degree in accounting,
20:40
SPEAKER_00: then I went back and got my teaching degree.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that you get
20:44
SPEAKER_00: when you're taking classes regularly is you get I don't want to say the latest and
20:48
SPEAKER_00: the greatest because I am not a person for trend changing.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: I get on the bandwagon way after people have I like to sit back and see what happens.
20:57
SPEAKER_00: But Just the learning things and the passion and the excitement and the things
21:03
SPEAKER_00: that you can get from classes.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to say this,
21:06
SPEAKER_00: and maybe there will be people who listen to this that think,
21:09
SPEAKER_00: Erin, shut your mouth and stop talking.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: I think pastors should be required to have continuing education.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that looks like, and maybe there is.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: I haven't gotten into that portion of the book of discipline for us yet because I'm
21:28
SPEAKER_00: in the first part of the book of discipline and I don't have to worry
21:31
SPEAKER_00: about I am continually getting education.
21:34
SPEAKER_00: But my hope is that people would go back and and and get classes because it's just it's good.
21:40
SPEAKER_00: It's learning from a different standpoint.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: It's a different thing has been revealed to me.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I think I've taken nine nine classes or I think somewhere along nine classes in
21:51
SPEAKER_00: the last two and a half years.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: A different thing has been revealed every single time.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I don't know where I would be without the education.
22:01
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
22:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting master's level work,
22:05
SPEAKER_00: master's level teaching through the course of study,
22:09
SPEAKER_00: which again, on one aspect can be a little bit heavy and daunting.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: But on the other side, I'm incredibly grateful.
22:17
SPEAKER_00: This last term I I had a course on the Holy Spirit.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
22:24
SPEAKER_00: I had no idea.
22:25
SPEAKER_00: There's so much learning that happened with the Holy Spirit and just how
22:29
SPEAKER_00: that affects us in our daily lives if we would even realize.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And there's a significant portion of that teaching that has been absent for a very,
22:39
SPEAKER_00: very, very long time.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: Not always.
22:42
SPEAKER_00: I have had some pastors that have talked about it, but it's just been absent.
22:45
SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we focus on.
22:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I just feel like the Lord is filling in some of these holes and
22:53
SPEAKER_00: then also just developing new desire and passion to learn more and
23:00
SPEAKER_00: to just dive deeper into some of these things.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: It's like, whoa, this is cool.
23:06
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't really know if I answered that question or not, but there you go.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: So you mentioned about continuing education,
23:11
SPEAKER_01: and I think we're going to be an interesting situation.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: We have a general conference coming up,
23:15
SPEAKER_01: and I know that there is a difference of perspective in different parts of
23:19
SPEAKER_01: the Globe Methodist Church about what should be the educational standard.
23:23
SPEAKER_01: And I know that there is a group that really wants to push for requiring
23:26
SPEAKER_01: for ordination,
23:28
SPEAKER_01: certainly for elders ordination, a master's divinity, like other denominations have.
23:33
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that we've been doing so far is we've said,
23:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:36
SPEAKER_01: you can also do what they call an approved alternative educational pathway of which
23:39
SPEAKER_01: a course of study at WBS is one of those.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple of certificate programs.
23:43
SPEAKER_01: Asbury's got one.
23:44
SPEAKER_01: United Theological Seminary's got one.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: And I want this is what I want to.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: At least shout out to anybody who's considering education.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Each of those programs,
23:52
SPEAKER_01: and I'm sure there's others as well, do their structure a bit differently.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: So on the one hand, if you hear about one all the time, consider it.
24:00
SPEAKER_01: But also realize if you dig into how one school does something and you say, boy,
24:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's going to work for me,
24:06
SPEAKER_01: look at some others too because everyone does it a bit differently.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: But one of the things I love about that is we are a very rural annual conference.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: If we were to say to somebody,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: You know,
24:15
SPEAKER_01: before you become your very part-time pastor, you're a part-time pastor in Corning.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: And if someone were to say,
24:20
SPEAKER_01: before you can really do that,
24:22
SPEAKER_01: you have to have a bachelor's degree and a master's degree and all the expense
24:26
SPEAKER_01: and time that goes along with that,
24:28
SPEAKER_01: you know, then especially, and then you're going to serve as a part-time pastor.
24:32
SPEAKER_01: It'll be very difficult, you know, to find.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, pastors to do that.
24:36
SPEAKER_01: And one thing I'm trying to advocate within our annual conference is to say,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: I think that one of the things we have to do then is as an annual conference,
24:44
SPEAKER_01: be much more proactive about theological education,
24:47
SPEAKER_01: about the continued education,
24:48
SPEAKER_01: to create a culture of education for everyone, especially our clergy.
24:54
SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: I've met people in other denominations who have,
24:58
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:58
SPEAKER_01: like they went to the seminary in the 70s and they seem to be almost giddy and proud
25:02
SPEAKER_01: of the fact that they haven't really read a book since.
25:04
SPEAKER_01: And should we be that excited about that?
25:08
SPEAKER_01: So how do we inculcate this idea of we need to continue learning for everybody?
25:15
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time,
25:16
SPEAKER_01: I also know that in other denominations,
25:18
SPEAKER_01: they've had continuing education requirements that were almost a joke.
25:22
SPEAKER_01: So how do we have something that is gonna be actually helpful for the thriving of the church?
25:27
SPEAKER_01: So I think that we need to still have that conversation.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: But I think the experience that you're having is very much true for a lot of people,
25:35
SPEAKER_01: that they had the education.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: And in that educational experience,
25:37
SPEAKER_01: they had profound growth and even spiritual awakening during that time.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think we need to remember that that is something that we should continue to pursue.
25:49
SPEAKER_01: You talked about being really busy and having these books that you had to read.
25:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you,
25:53
SPEAKER_01: but I know in my experience,
25:54
SPEAKER_01: I had so much to read You know,
25:56
SPEAKER_01: for the fall semester and the spring semester,
25:57
SPEAKER_01: you just, you didn't have hardly, I won't even think about it.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: And then during the summers, I had a bit of a break, you know, from my classes.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: And I know that some of the biggest leaps forward in my understanding and
26:07
SPEAKER_01: in my spiritual life happened during those breaks because I,
26:11
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:11
SPEAKER_01: the intensity pulled back enough that I could kind of start to not just,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:16
SPEAKER_01: cram it in my mind,
26:17
SPEAKER_01: but also be able to, you know, manifest it in my life and in ministry.
26:21
SPEAKER_01: Um, So I think that that's hugely significant.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: And I hope that we will continue as a denomination to be able to have the kind
26:28
SPEAKER_01: of flexibility that people can be called into ministry
26:32
SPEAKER_01: and they can do their education where they are rather than have to get up and go.
26:37
SPEAKER_01: Um, so, um,
27:01
SPEAKER_01: You've mentioned a few different pastors who have played a role in kind
27:04
SPEAKER_01: of shaping you and been resources for you.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: You mentioned a Mike earlier,
27:08
SPEAKER_01: which I believe is Mike Morgan, who's already shown up on one of these interviews.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: Can you share a bit more about how pastors or non-pastors who have also been mentors
27:17
SPEAKER_01: and have shaped your understanding of your call and life,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: how have they impacted you?
27:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, as I said, I'm not afraid to ask questions.
27:35
SPEAKER_00: I pick up the phone and I call, or I say, we need to meet, or we, I don't know.
27:41
SPEAKER_00: Just every step of the way, even in the Upper Midwest Conference.
27:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember my first call with Valerie in June or July.
27:51
SPEAKER_01: That's the chair of our board of ministry at the moment.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
27:55
SPEAKER_00: Um, and she, you know, she was, she was a volunteer.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: She's, you know,
27:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm, I'm saying, I'm calling her to say, how do I even get into this and do this?
28:03
SPEAKER_00: Um, and very helpful.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: Um, I, I will say,
28:09
SPEAKER_00: you know, as,
28:10
SPEAKER_00: as the denomination that is building the plane,
28:12
SPEAKER_00: as we're flying it, there have been some bumps in the road.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: There have been, you know, but we gotta have grace.
28:17
SPEAKER_00: We gotta have, you know, all the things I, I just have felt incredibly supported.
28:21
SPEAKER_00: I love that I can call up, um,
28:25
SPEAKER_00: These people that that I have had relationships with or that God has put I mean,
28:30
SPEAKER_00: I called up Mike out of the blue one day.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: I was I had a pretty significant decision to make and I needed an incredibly unbiased opinion.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: And so and he he laid it to me straight.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Aaron, come on.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: I cannot tell you how how much I appreciated his his words of wisdom and truth and
28:54
SPEAKER_00: And then,
28:54
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: with Andy,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: anytime I as as a school counselor,
29:01
SPEAKER_00: I have always approached things as time and space, time and space.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: And you ask other professionals to make sure like you don't just got shot,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: make a decision, make a reaction and go with it.
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the bigger things.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: And so those those mentors have have been the people that I can call and say,
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, how do I approach this?
29:21
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in the beginning it was,
29:23
SPEAKER_00: okay, Andy, how do you do your services and what do these things mean?
29:26
SPEAKER_00: And I remember pulling out my,
29:28
SPEAKER_00: I have a 1964 hymnal from, it wouldn't have been United Methodist.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: It was before they went United Methodist.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what they were before that,
29:36
SPEAKER_00: right off the top of my head, but I was looking at their, yeah, Methodist Church.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: I was looking at their, their order of worship, trying to figure out, okay, how do I do this?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: And, and then, you know,
29:50
SPEAKER_00: Steve McElroy helped me with my first Christmas Eve service.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: You know, how do you just not not that?
29:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've been to Christmas Eve services all my life, so I know what they contain.
30:01
SPEAKER_00: But it's that deeper thing of why are we doing what we're doing?
30:04
SPEAKER_00: You know, why?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: Why do we what components do we want to have in there to make sure
30:08
SPEAKER_00: that we are worshiping the Lord in an honoring way?
30:12
SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean, I would be completely lost.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: And then even lay people.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: I remember having an incredibly frustrating conversation with one of the people
30:23
SPEAKER_00: in my church who was just kind of laying it out there.
30:28
SPEAKER_00: It was a truth I needed to hear.
30:30
SPEAKER_00: It was a truth I did not want to.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: It was a truth that I did not want to accept very much.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: And it was kind of about the concept that the pastor is not the church.
30:41
SPEAKER_00: Because pastors,
30:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, speaking, we know that every three or four years, pastors would move on.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, Um,
30:51
SPEAKER_00: as, as a person who was coming out and building up this, I'm like, this is my baby.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: Right.
30:55
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, it's not your baby.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: It's our baby.
31:00
SPEAKER_00: And, um, and I was, oh, that one was a hard one for me to sit with for a while.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: And, um,
31:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:07
SPEAKER_00: after again,
31:08
SPEAKER_00: prayer and reflection and,
31:10
SPEAKER_00: uh, dying to my prideful self at that point, um, he was right.
31:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, and, and so, um,
31:19
SPEAKER_00: It just has been,
31:21
SPEAKER_00: I have been blessed with the most amazing congregation of people
31:25
SPEAKER_00: who are incredibly graceful.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: They know that there are times I stumble along and they will do whatever they can to help.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: They don't expect me, they do not expect me to do absolutely everything.
31:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it would be like to be appointed to another,
31:45
SPEAKER_00: I've never, I mean, I am appointed as a supply pastor right now.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: I ordained it as a deacon in June.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So then I'm assuming that changes from supply pastor to regular pastor or whatever.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Deacon, yeah.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: So I don't have that experience of what that's like to go in to a people
32:04
SPEAKER_00: that didn't build it up from the beginning, but just amazing.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: I could not do this without the support of the laity and the pastors and all the people.
32:17
SPEAKER_01: Couldn't do it.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: So you are in an interesting situation that a couple of our folks are in,
32:21
SPEAKER_01: especially some of our folks who are still in school,
32:23
SPEAKER_01: and that is you're serving churches that are kind of started from scratch.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: And every church has its own set of blessings and own sets of liabilities.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that you have that is a blessing is that everybody knows that
32:37
SPEAKER_01: That it's a new season and a new day and new opportunities as well and a new time
32:42
SPEAKER_01: to listen to the Lord and go where God calls.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the dangers that churches that haven't had to start over
32:49
SPEAKER_01: from scratch face is that they say,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: well, great, we're able to maintain what we have, we're able to maintain who we are.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: And then the concern that sometimes happens is that then they don't realize
33:00
SPEAKER_01: that there is still a new call for a new thing.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: And so they kind of want to say, well, this is just the way things have always been.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: We're maintaining that.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: We didn't have to change.
33:08
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that great?
33:09
SPEAKER_01: And one of the blessings that a new church has is that nobody can think that way
33:14
SPEAKER_01: because everyone knows it has to be new.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: And so it's a reminder,
33:17
SPEAKER_01: you know,
33:18
SPEAKER_01: I think for all of us who are serving in churches that have not had
33:21
SPEAKER_01: to start completely from scratch to realize like this is a,
33:24
SPEAKER_01: you know, this is still a new day.
33:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, we still do need to be listening to the Holy Spirit.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: And God is still calling us to new mission and ministry.
33:32
SPEAKER_01: I want to also articulate that what a blessing it is to have a layperson remind you
33:36
SPEAKER_01: of that you are not the church.
33:40
SPEAKER_01: It is a huge blessing.
33:41
SPEAKER_01: Again, even though it may hurt in the moment.
33:43
SPEAKER_01: Because part of the problem, again,
33:45
SPEAKER_01: that I think a lot of pastors who have been pastors for a long time,
33:49
SPEAKER_01: we have a tendency,
33:50
SPEAKER_01: and I am guilty of this too,
33:51
SPEAKER_01: I have to deliberately fight it,
33:53
SPEAKER_01: is we have a tendency to say, well, something needs doing.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: Well, nobody else has jumped up to do it.
33:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, I guess I'll do it.
33:58
SPEAKER_01: Well, then before too long, you're doing everything or much more than you probably should be.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, you're training the people to not do it.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: But the truth is that every pastor that a church has is temporary.
34:12
SPEAKER_01: Now, in the Golden Methodist Church, we hope to have people be there for longer periods of time.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, Aaron, someday you will not be the pastor of this church.
34:19
SPEAKER_01: You will either move to somewhere else.
34:21
SPEAKER_01: You might retire or you'll die.
34:23
SPEAKER_01: One of those things will happen eventually.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And so at some point, they will not have you as their pastor.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: And if they don't know who they are in Christ...
34:31
SPEAKER_01: That's going to be a problem for them.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: And so it is a blessing so early on for people to realize,
34:35
SPEAKER_01: oh, we have to have ownership of this as well.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: And there are some churches who,
34:40
SPEAKER_01: if they've had pastors for decades who have kind of allowed themselves to become
34:45
SPEAKER_01: the focal point,
34:46
SPEAKER_01: then they have a lot of struggle coming up if they ever have a pastoral change.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: So this is your first church that you served, right?
34:53
SPEAKER_01: So this is a question I'm asking of everybody.
34:55
SPEAKER_01: And I made a comment that when I first started asking it, I was a little worried.
35:00
SPEAKER_01: It felt like it was the right language, but it felt antagonistic.
35:03
SPEAKER_01: And I realize now that it's not actually.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: And that is,
35:06
SPEAKER_01: I'm curious about if in churches you've seen,
35:09
SPEAKER_01: Churches you've been in, churches you've heard about.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: So I want to be clear.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying tell me about the church in Corning.
35:17
SPEAKER_01: Are there sicknesses that you've seen in churches that need healing?
35:21
SPEAKER_01: And the reason why I'm sticking with this term of sickness is because...
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Have you seen any kind of sicknesses in churches that you've seen in more than one that...
35:52
SPEAKER_01: That needs addressing so we can be thinking about what might that look like in our lives?
35:59
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has opened my eyes to two of them and it's not just these two sicknesses.
36:07
SPEAKER_00: There's not any one church that is immune from these two sicknesses.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: The first one is The tendency to just look inward on ourselves.
36:18
SPEAKER_00: So we should have an outward focus.
36:20
SPEAKER_00: So many times we think, well, how do we get people to come into the church?
36:23
SPEAKER_00: No, we are supposed to go out and run to the cry of the pain.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: We are supposed to go outside.
36:29
SPEAKER_00: We have to give a significant amount of time and resources to disciple the people
36:34
SPEAKER_00: within our church, within our walls.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: But we also should be spending more time and resources going out to the lost,
36:42
SPEAKER_00: finding who they are, figuring that out.
36:44
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think that that's on the radar.
36:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't want that to sound bad.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it's on the radar.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: I guess one of the classes that I took recently,
37:00
SPEAKER_00: the professor talked about the death of a church.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, we're brand new.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to think about our death.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't even want to consider that.
37:08
SPEAKER_00: But his point was, it's a living organism, everything Um, is birthed.
37:15
SPEAKER_00: And if you're not paying close attention, it eventually will die.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: And if you are only ministering to those people that are in within the walls
37:22
SPEAKER_00: of your church,
37:23
SPEAKER_00: number one,
37:23
SPEAKER_00: we're not following the mission of,
37:25
SPEAKER_00: you know, Jesus says, go out and make disciples of all nations.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also, um,
37:30
SPEAKER_00: eventually that those people are going to die off and the church is going
37:34
SPEAKER_00: to end up suffering.
37:37
SPEAKER_00: Um, so, so that,
37:38
SPEAKER_00: that first one,
37:39
SPEAKER_00: that concept of, um,
37:44
SPEAKER_00: I think the sickness is that it's not a natural gut shot reaction to look outside
37:51
SPEAKER_00: the walls of the church.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: It's a natural reaction to take care of our own.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: The second sickness,
37:59
SPEAKER_00: I think,
37:59
SPEAKER_00: is the lack of
38:04
SPEAKER_00: the lack of accountability that happens in small groups,
38:07
SPEAKER_00: the lack of relationship,
38:09
SPEAKER_00: the lack of depth,
38:10
SPEAKER_00: the lack of All of the amazing things that come when you're in a small group.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Call them small group, call them bands, call them accountability, whatever it is.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: I don't really, couldn't tell you the difference between a band and a class meeting.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: But that concept of meeting together with other brothers and sisters in Christ,
38:30
SPEAKER_00: number one,
38:30
SPEAKER_00: to focus on the Lord,
38:31
SPEAKER_00: number two, to see how is, what is the Lord saying to you through scripture?
38:36
SPEAKER_00: What changes or confession do you have?
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Like, where are you, Your life and what are you gonna do about it?
38:42
SPEAKER_00: And how can we help hold you accountable to that?
38:45
SPEAKER_00: That's powerful stuff.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's a very Wesley thing, obviously.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: But it's something that has been lost and it's got to come back.
38:58
SPEAKER_00: And I have said, I actually am, I have actually served for almost three years.
39:05
SPEAKER_00: And over the past two and a half years,
39:07
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many times I've talked about bands and classes or bands
39:11
SPEAKER_00: and accountability groups, small groups, whatever the importance of them.
39:14
SPEAKER_00: And it just takes a long time to get that concept in.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: And then of course, people may think, Well, yeah, I have the desire to do it.
39:22
SPEAKER_00: But now how do I how do I change my daily routine or my weekly schedule to make that happen?
39:29
SPEAKER_00: I am I am now officially our youngest daughter just graduated from high school.
39:34
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm in a different era.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't doing small groups necessarily,
39:41
SPEAKER_00: not on a consistent basis when my kids were little.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like when you're juggling all of those things?
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And so I think we have to be really careful of those two things.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's not just churches that I've seen in the past.
39:56
SPEAKER_00: It's every church is susceptible to both of those things falling off or not being on
40:03
SPEAKER_00: the radar, not being priority.
40:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: So I have a question that came to my mind.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: So where is Corning relative to the next, like a bigger city?
40:17
SPEAKER_01: Like how close are you?
40:19
SPEAKER_00: We're about 90 minutes southwest of Des Moines and 90 minutes southeast of Omaha.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: About 90 miles.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
40:29
SPEAKER_01: So are there any other towns near Corning, closer to Corning that are bigger than Corning?
40:35
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: We have, yeah,
40:37
SPEAKER_00: we have like every 20 minutes,
40:39
SPEAKER_00: every 20 minutes there's another,
40:41
SPEAKER_00: you know, there's another town about the size of Corning.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, at every 30 minutes or so there's a,
40:45
SPEAKER_00: there's a town that's, you know, Corning has about 1500 people in it.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Um, question is 20 minutes away.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: It's probably got, I don't know.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it has 8,000 people.
40:55
SPEAKER_00: Red Oak is 30 minutes the other way.
40:56
SPEAKER_00: It's, it's significantly bigger.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, So here's a question.
41:00
SPEAKER_01: So as somebody who lives in a town of about that size,
41:02
SPEAKER_01: you know, that is, you know, about that far away from towns larger than it.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: One of the things that I have found that is not the case in the town where I live,
41:12
SPEAKER_01: but I've seen it be the case in other towns about that size is there's a tendency to
41:16
SPEAKER_01: that idea of being inward focused is not just characteristic of churches,
41:19
SPEAKER_01: but sometimes it's true of communities to say,
41:21
SPEAKER_01: we're going to hold on to what we have.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: We're not going to try to build anything new because we're just trying to maintain.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: If we maintain, it's a success.
41:28
SPEAKER_01: But what ends up happening over time is when you maintain,
41:30
SPEAKER_01: you actually end up losing what you've got.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: And I was just curious if the location,
41:35
SPEAKER_01: you know, how do you think the location of being about that size?
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Because I think all about rural ministry,
41:43
SPEAKER_01: and I didn't prime you for this question at all,
41:44
SPEAKER_01: but just,
41:44
SPEAKER_01: you know,
41:45
SPEAKER_01: what do you think that the location and has to,
41:49
SPEAKER_01: like, how does that influence people's attitudes and, you know, the congregation?
41:53
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you don't see anything in particular about that.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: No, that's an incredibly valid question.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And it's one that I,
42:01
SPEAKER_00: so for the past,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: since August,
42:03
SPEAKER_00: the two classes that I,
42:04
SPEAKER_00: two of the classes that I have taken,
42:06
SPEAKER_00: the professor has required for our grade for us to go out and serve someone outside
42:12
SPEAKER_00: of the walls of our, whether it's, you know, whatever.
42:15
SPEAKER_00: And so all these people are like, oh yeah, we've got homeless shelters.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: We've got all this stuff.
42:19
SPEAKER_00: It's super easy.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: And I've asked him over and over, how do we find in rural communities?
42:24
SPEAKER_00: How do we find?
42:26
SPEAKER_00: They're there.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: It just takes it just takes more effort.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: It just takes more effort to get to get to know people.
42:34
SPEAKER_00: The other thing that that I have learned as a school counselor, I mean,
42:37
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:37
SPEAKER_00: our graduating class had maybe 40 kids in it and two two different communities.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: So we're pretty small.
42:44
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that I you know,
42:45
SPEAKER_00: as I have talked to counselors from larger school districts, it's the same.
42:49
SPEAKER_00: They're dealing with the same problems we're dealing with.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: It's just there's might be on a Obviously, there's more because there's more people there.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: And so one of the challenges is, I think, is it's easier for people to hide, kind of.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: And maybe this is the same in a city, I don't know.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: But I don't drive down my street and see homeless people.
43:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: You know,
43:17
SPEAKER_00: I don't,
43:17
SPEAKER_00: there aren't,
43:21
SPEAKER_00: some of the ministries like,
43:23
SPEAKER_00: Food pantry,
43:24
SPEAKER_00: not food, we have food pantries, but where you serve the meals to people.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: You go and you serve the meals and people come in and you serve them.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how often those happen in the city,
43:35
SPEAKER_00: but we don't have that happening on a regular basis here.
43:38
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we do meals and people can come in and eat for free,
43:44
SPEAKER_00: but it's different in that I think you have to work a little bit harder to find.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: That's not really true.
43:50
SPEAKER_00: They're there.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: It's just, it's a different approach, I think, to hearing the sound of the pain.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: You have to ask questions.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: You have to interact.
44:01
SPEAKER_00: You have to,
44:01
SPEAKER_00: you know,
44:02
SPEAKER_00: you have to be willing to engage in a conversation with somebody at the gas station
44:06
SPEAKER_00: or, I don't know.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that makes sense or not, but.
44:11
SPEAKER_00: I think this is in a
44:13
SPEAKER_01: small town.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Sorry, I'll just finish.
44:15
SPEAKER_00: No, that's, yeah, I'm done.
44:17
SPEAKER_01: I think sometimes also in smaller towns,
44:19
SPEAKER_01: there is a tendency to see our own communities through rose-colored glasses.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: When I first moved to this area, there were a string of thefts.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: People were stealing copper out of these new wind turbines that were going up.
44:33
SPEAKER_01: And the hypothesis from the police was that people were stealing it
44:38
SPEAKER_01: so they could sell that to get money to support drugs.
44:42
SPEAKER_01: And the general attitude across the community was, well,
44:44
SPEAKER_01: it couldn't possibly be someone local because we don't have a drug problem
44:49
SPEAKER_01: in our community.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: And if you talk to the counselors and you talk to the police officers and you talk
44:54
SPEAKER_01: to other folks, they go, oh, yeah, we do.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: You just don't see it.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: I think there's a certain practice almost in small communities.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: I know the people that I know,
45:03
SPEAKER_01: and I think I know everybody,
45:05
SPEAKER_01: but I don't really because there are people who are living in places
45:09
SPEAKER_01: that I've trained myself not to look.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think in a way you see that in the cities as well.
45:14
SPEAKER_01: But you're right,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: I think it's the same,
45:15
SPEAKER_01: but it's also different in as much as,
45:18
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:18
SPEAKER_01: there are some ways we might look in cities to find that pain
45:23
SPEAKER_01: that we wouldn't necessarily think to look because we don't have homeless shelters
45:26
SPEAKER_01: in small towns in the same way.
45:28
SPEAKER_01: You know, we don't have the same infrastructure, but the pain's still there.
45:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: It's there.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: It is absolutely there.
45:36
SPEAKER_00: It just maybe presents itself a little bit differently.
45:39
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: Are there,
45:42
SPEAKER_01: as we kind of start to wind down,
45:43
SPEAKER_01: are there any questions you wish I had asked you that I didn't?
45:46
SPEAKER_01: Or do you have anything that you would just like to share either from your heart
45:50
SPEAKER_01: or just about anything?
45:55
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I was prepared.
46:01
SPEAKER_00: I just, something that I have been experiencing.
46:05
SPEAKER_00: So Through these two classes that I've taken with a specific professor,
46:09
SPEAKER_00: I already told you that he said, okay, you have to go out and you have to serve.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: He also said, you will be in prayer for an hour a day.
46:19
SPEAKER_00: You will be in prayer and scripture for an hour a day.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: And your grade depends on it.
46:22
SPEAKER_00: And so for the last almost year, I have been in this practice of spending an hour a day.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, not 59 and a half minutes, an hour.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: And he spends way more than an hour.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, he's living it.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: It's been incredibly, it's been amazing.
46:42
SPEAKER_00: And on the one hand, people can look at that and think, that is so legalistic.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: Why would you?
46:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to track how many minutes I spend in prayer.
46:52
SPEAKER_00: But the shift that has happened, the shift that I hear, I hear the Lord better.
47:03
SPEAKER_00: That practice of spending time,
47:05
SPEAKER_00: significant time,
47:06
SPEAKER_00: I think many of us,
47:07
SPEAKER_00: and I can even fall,
47:09
SPEAKER_00: I even find myself sometimes falling back into the,
47:12
SPEAKER_00: yeah, I said my prayer before I fell asleep.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: But carving out the time to be incredibly intentional in spending time in prayer
47:23
SPEAKER_00: or scripture positions yourself.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is gonna do what the Holy Spirit's gonna do on
47:28
SPEAKER_00: the Holy Spirit's timeline,
47:29
SPEAKER_00: but it positions yourself to better be able to hear From the Lord and to learn about
47:35
SPEAKER_00: who he is.
47:37
SPEAKER_00: And so that, again, that's another heavy thing.
47:40
SPEAKER_00: That's hard.
47:41
SPEAKER_00: Although my goodness,
47:42
SPEAKER_00: if we tracked time that we spent scrolling on our phones or playing games,
47:47
SPEAKER_00: it's nothing.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Or binge watching TV or whatever.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: It's nothing.
47:52
SPEAKER_00: But I just have been in awe of the difference spiritually.
48:00
SPEAKER_00: Since that practice has been put into place.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: And I, there are times I don't want to do it.
48:04
SPEAKER_00: I don't feel like it.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't, I don't, um, but I do it anyway.
48:08
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and I,
48:08
SPEAKER_00: and I ask the Lord for forgiveness for my heart,
48:10
SPEAKER_00: not being perhaps in,
48:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
48:14
SPEAKER_00: but the discipline of creating that discipline of spending significant amount,
48:19
SPEAKER_00: amount of time with enough,
48:20
SPEAKER_00: enough time during the day with the Lord, that it hurts your schedule.
48:24
SPEAKER_00: What I mean, whatever that time is for each person is going to be different.
48:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, But it just has been – you asked earlier what's been – how have these classes
48:33
SPEAKER_00: changed my life?
48:34
SPEAKER_00: That is definitely one of the things that has changed.
48:38
SPEAKER_00: And now that I don't have to, I still am trying to track, okay, am I spending an hour a day?
48:45
SPEAKER_00: And then the other – I have turned into a Wesley geek.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not super, super studied up on him.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: But, man, he just – And I tell my congregation often, I am not putting Wesley on the pedestal.
48:59
SPEAKER_00: All of the things that he preached and taught were scriptural.
49:01
SPEAKER_00: It's all based on scripture.
49:03
SPEAKER_00: But I feel like Wesley teaches us how to live the day-to-day stuff
49:09
SPEAKER_00: that Jesus taught us to do in scripture.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: And they're not easy things, fasting and praying in scripture.
49:18
SPEAKER_00: And I would have loved to have listened to Wesley preach.
49:24
SPEAKER_00: He was a smack you upside the head by the two before he did not.
49:29
SPEAKER_00: He did not care.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: He said what he he said needed to be said and he did not care.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think sometimes we I think sometimes we miss that.
49:38
SPEAKER_00: I think we we worry too much about how is this going to be received?
49:44
SPEAKER_00: But on the side,
49:45
SPEAKER_00: as a counselor,
49:46
SPEAKER_00: I know that sometimes things go down a little bit easier with sugar than they do.
49:51
SPEAKER_00: With vinegar.
49:52
SPEAKER_00: So whatever that old saying is, or old proverb is, but.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: I think that one of the things that you mentioned,
49:57
SPEAKER_01: and I think that this is what you're finding,
49:59
SPEAKER_01: and Wesley was very big on this as well,
50:01
SPEAKER_01: is the idea of the kind of day in, day out of life.
50:05
SPEAKER_01: And I think that we live in a culture where we love the idea of a big dramatic gesture.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: Which is fine,
50:11
SPEAKER_01: except for if you have a big dramatic gesture and then it's not followed up
50:14
SPEAKER_01: with real life, then it doesn't really matter much.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: And so that idea of whether it's an hour or even 15 minutes,
50:19
SPEAKER_01: I tell folks,
50:20
SPEAKER_01: if you were to spend consistently every day 15 minutes in the scriptures,
50:24
SPEAKER_01: you would read the whole Bible in a year.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: And it's really not.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: I mean, on the one hand, it's an intimidating book because it seems so big.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand, it's really not that long.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: Not really.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: And the difficulty is we almost approach like scripture
50:36
SPEAKER_01: and spiritual disciplines like we do like we do like diet culture where I'm going
50:40
SPEAKER_01: to do a big crash diet.
50:41
SPEAKER_01: Something that's big and dramatic.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: I can do for two weeks really hard and then I can go back to my normal life.
50:45
SPEAKER_01: But the real call is to weave together.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: So, Erin, would you be willing to close us out in prayer?
50:51
SPEAKER_01: Yes, absolutely.
51:17
SPEAKER_00: Holy God,
51:17
SPEAKER_00: we come to you this day and we just praise you,
51:20
SPEAKER_00: Lord, for the opportunity to have these conversations.
51:22
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we praise you for the work that you are doing in the lives of all of those who seek you.
51:29
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we just ask that you go before us.
51:31
SPEAKER_00: We ask for eyes that can see and ears that can hear and hearts that are turned to you, Lord.
51:37
SPEAKER_00: Show us where we need to repent.
51:39
SPEAKER_00: Show us what we need to give up control on and just Increase that desire.
51:45
SPEAKER_00: We're not robots, Lord,
51:47
SPEAKER_00: but increase that desire and then help us to act on that desire to know you more,
51:52
SPEAKER_00: to do your work,
51:53
SPEAKER_00: to make disciples, to go out and reach the lost, the lonely, and the hurting.
51:57
SPEAKER_00: We thank you and we praise you.
51:59
SPEAKER_00: We exalt your name on high.
52:00
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus's name we pray.
52:02
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
52:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you again.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: This has been What You Have Seen and Heard.
52:06
SPEAKER_01: My name is Travis Stevick.
52:07
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking to Reverend Aaron Wetzel.
52:09
SPEAKER_01: So thanks so much for watching and we'll see you next time.