Latest / Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza / Ep.90 - Father of 9 Opens Door Every Wednesday to Transform Neighborhoods | Delray Collective | Family Dinner Movement | Love Your Actual Neighbors

Transcript

Ep.90 - Father of 9 Opens Door Every Wednesday to Transform Neighborhoods | Delray Collective | Family Dinner Movement | Love Your Actual Neighbors · Virtuous Leaders with Dr. Johann D'Souza

• 0:00
  And we're sitting there eating pancakes and my son says, Daddy,
• 0:03
  I want to, I want to meet our neighbors.
• 0:07
  And, you know, I said, why? I'm clueless.
• 0:10
  I'm like, why? Why do we need to meet our
• 0:12
  neighbors? Are we selling something?
• 0:14
  What's happening? You know, And he says, well, my
• 0:19
  teacher at church said Jesus commanded us to love our
• 0:25
  neighbors. And so I think we should meet
• 0:28
  them. This is Virtuous Leaders, the
• 0:31
  podcast for based Catholics who will speak truth, do good, or
• 0:34
  die trying. Here's the show.
• 0:41
  You say you're raw. I wonder.
• 0:43
  If you are more raw than myself, yeah, I don't appreciate that.
• 0:47
  That's great. That's what that's what this is
• 0:49
  about. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
• 0:51
  For sure, for sure. Now you you do enjoy a lot of
• 0:56
  things. You're vice president of
• 0:57
  advancement at Saint Constantine.
• 0:59
  If you help Steven Bill. With the Dora Ministries and
• 1:01
  founded Delray. Collective with your wife.
• 1:03
  Along with raising 9 kids. Yeah, thanks man.
• 1:06
  It's a it's a total blessing. I mean, all of it, all of it.
• 1:10
  2024 years married, 9 kids, oldest is 23, youngest is 2.
• 1:16
  And we are, yeah, we, we have a lot of fun.
• 1:20
  We have a lot of fun, you know, following the Lord into, you
• 1:26
  know, into mission and nonprofit and big family and the whole
• 1:29
  thing. It's anything but easy.
• 1:32
  But Simply put, trusting the Lord, you know, it's, it's been,
• 1:37
  it's been a great adventure. I want to hear about.
• 1:40
  Delray. Collective.
• 1:41
  That's a personal initiative. You found it.
• 1:43
  For wife. Tell us about that.
• 1:45
  Great, great question. Delray is definitely our our
• 1:49
  heart project. I think that we, you know,
• 1:53
  spending time in mission fields, domestic abroad, you know, full
• 2:00
  time church work, youth evangelization, young adult
• 2:04
  evangelistic family, you name it.
• 2:07
  My wife and I have been sort of on every level of ministry,
• 2:11
  catechesis, evangelization, whatever you want to call it.
• 2:15
  And we were living in Arizona at the time.
• 2:22
  I was, I was the youth minister at the birth place of Life team,
• 2:26
  which is Saint Timothy's in Mesa, AZ Beautiful church
• 2:31
  community, amazing people that put that thing together.
• 2:34
  Of course, Life team, you know, international movement now came
• 2:38
  out of this place. And so, you know, I was the
• 2:40
  youth minister there and you know, it's, it's, it was a big
• 2:44
  job. It was a an honorable position,
• 2:48
  something that I took very seriously and the
• 2:50
  responsibilities that go along with that.
• 2:52
  At the same time, being asked to travel and and speak on big
• 2:56
  stages. It, it, it came to the point
• 2:58
  where my, my daughter, who I think maybe was 4 at the time,
• 3:06
  believed that the airport was my, was where I worked, you
• 3:10
  know, So it was this, you know, it was this, this real tension
• 3:14
  of life work balance. But it gets really tricky when
• 3:17
  it's ministry, right? More or even when it's just a, a
• 3:21
  noble 'cause, right? Like I think of men and women
• 3:25
  who hold very high executive positions and, you know, there's
• 3:30
  a, there's a salary that yes, of course I'm serving my family
• 3:35
  because I, you know, this is my job and this is what we're
• 3:37
  doing. And so, you know, in life, you
• 3:39
  find that it's never a good and a bad that, you know, it's
• 3:43
  usually 2 goods that you're trying to discern which is the
• 3:46
  better route. And so this life ministry
• 3:49
  balance is always and you talk to anybody who's, you know, in
• 3:55
  nonprofit specifically, you know, something with like, you
• 3:57
  know, a great mission at the end of it, it does get a little Gray
• 4:02
  where, you know, where you can say, look, I, you know, I love
• 4:06
  you guys, You're going to be fine.
• 4:08
  You have a mommy. I'm going to go talk to some
• 4:11
  people that don't have a mommy or a daddy or, or only have a
• 4:14
  dad. You know, they're, they're, you
• 4:16
  know, you're able to sort of, I don't know, justify some of
• 4:20
  those things. And so flying all over the
• 4:22
  place, my daughter believes that I'm, you know, I work at the
• 4:25
  airport and it was beginning to be pretty sad for me thinking
• 4:29
  it's got to be, got to be a way to integrate all of this and a
• 4:34
  more authentic way. Also places you speak and places
• 4:39
  you're on stages. They're paying, you know, Full
• 4:44
  disclosure, I do get paid, you know, you get paid for things
• 4:46
  like this and they're paying for a product.
• 4:49
  And, you know, and I'm going, I'd love to bring my family
• 4:51
  along and this kind of thing. And, and often times venues
• 4:54
  would say, you know what, like that baby wakes up in the middle
• 4:58
  of the night and, and keeping you up all night, you're we're
• 5:01
  not going to get the product we're paying for in the morning.
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  And so we really need you to be rested.
• 5:06
  And so we'd rather you not bring your family.
• 5:09
  OK, you can handle that one or two times, but at a certain
• 5:12
  point I'm like, I'm actually more myself.
• 5:15
  I'm a little tired in the morning because that's me.
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  That's the reality of being a dad with small children,
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  etcetera. And so this tension was growing
• 5:25
  almost like a collision course, like my life and ministry was on
• 5:28
  this sort of collision course. And we coming home from Mass one
• 5:34
  day and I hear my wife and my son, who was probably 6 or so 7
• 5:42
  at the time, he, she said something like, we'll talk to
• 5:46
  daddy when we get home about that.
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  And it's like, OK, there's like one thing going on.
• 5:51
  And we get to breakfast and we're sitting there eating
• 5:55
  pancakes and my, and my son says, Daddy, I want to, I want
• 6:00
  to meet our neighbors. And you know, just being kind of
• 6:05
  like I said, why? I'm clueless.
• 6:08
  I'm like, why, why do we need to meet our neighbors or we selling
• 6:11
  something or you know what, what's what's happening?
• 6:14
  You know, And he says, well, my, my teacher at church said Jesus
• 6:24
  commanded us to love our neighbors and so I think we
• 6:28
  should meet them. And my, of course, my jaw drops
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  and I'm going from the mouth of babes.
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  I'm going, OK, say that again, because it was at that moment
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  that I realized, you know, that this word neighbor had become so
• 6:50
  metaphorical in my, in my life. That, that, the, that the
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  reality that, that when Jesus said, look, you know, love, love
• 6:58
  me with everything you have or your heart, mind, soul, strength
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  and love your neighbor as yourself, that he somehow didn't
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  mean my neighbor, neighbor, you know, somehow he meant the
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  neighbor in most need or the neighbor in Haiti or the
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  neighbor, you know, that doesn't have a family structure or the
• 7:15
  neighbor that needs evangelization.
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  That, that, that my neighbor, neighbor Bill, you know, or
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  Susan, you know, the people who live right next door.
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  Jesus meant them too. And maybe more, maybe most
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  especially because neighbors, we really can't hide from
• 7:36
  neighbors. And we're, we're doing life with
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  neighbors. And we live in a world where,
• 7:43
  you know, we, we fear and we're skeptical of our neighbors and
• 7:47
  we're not sure what their agenda is.
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  And they probably don't agree with us and they probably don't
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  vote like us and they don't go to church like us.
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  And so we're just going to kind of keep our distance.
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  We lived in a neighborhood that you know at the time that you
• 8:01
  pulled into your garage and shut the garage door behind you so
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  that you didn't have to look at anybody.
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  You could just get back and get into your house and get into
• 8:09
  your spa tub or go into the backyard with your privacy
• 8:12
  fence, etcetera. We live in a world that is very
• 8:16
  disconnected and divided and, and most especially right right
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  around us. And So what we found out is that
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  we didn't much less were we not, we, we weren't, you know, we
• 8:28
  weren't loving them or we weren't, you know, we were
• 8:30
  loving them in our heart, I guess.
• 8:32
  You know, I love my neighbors. Of course I love my neighbors,
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  but I don't want to talk to them.
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  I don't want to meet with them. I don't want to hang out with
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  them for sure. What we realized that we didn't
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  even know their names. What we realized is we we didn't
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  really have any interest or any curiosity towards our neighbors.
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  And so Delray Collective is a response to that.
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  And so it was at that, that time that we began to open our home
• 9:00
  every Wednesday. And to this day, this is
• 9:03
  something we, you know, we, we still practice.
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  And of course, Delray Collective is built to empower families and
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  individuals, people in neighborhoods to do this as well
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  as regularly or, you know, irregular as you want.
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  Not everybody does it like us, but the idea is that we're
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  opening our homes for a no agenda meal once a week to
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  simply encounter our neighbors and to and to love them.
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  You know, nothing better than feeding them and let God do the
• 9:36
  rest of it. And so it, you know, so we, we
• 9:39
  can talk about the chicken or the egg, the youth ministry, you
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  know, it's youth ministry, although it's empowering
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  families are empowering, you know, married couples or giving
• 9:49
  them the tools or catechizing this person or this, you know,
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  or schools, whatever it might be.
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  But the thought occurred to us. And if every, you know,
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  believing virtuous, Catholic, Christian, whatever, wherever,
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  just if we obeyed that command and we just were called to love
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  that cul-de-sac or those two neighbors, right, that scaled
• 10:16
  where we're all doing that, that actually could work.
• 10:20
  You know, we, we wring our hands and wonder how, you know, how
• 10:25
  this society will move back to sort of traditional, whatever,
• 10:29
  whatever the case may be. We, we, we wonder and then we
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  realize the genius of Jesus was that he gave us something.
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  Not only that was, you know, simple, not easy, but something
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  as simple as that, that could also work.
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  That could also if we all, if we all actually did it, that it
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  would be something that could transform culture.
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  Because what we have found in our simple meals is, is an
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  openness or a desire. People look at our family, 9
• 11:02
  kids. How do you do that?
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  Well, you know, we, we love, we keep the important things
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  important people pay attention to the way we discipline our
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  kids. People pay attention to the way
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  we love each other as spouses, etcetera.
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  And so it has really been not surprising that God has used the
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  sort of simple setting the table, you know, for for good
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  and transformation and conversions.
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  You know, even though that's not the the point of the thing many
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  people come to face just by simply, you know, hanging out
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  and, you know, so I can tell you stories and stories and stories
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  about our neighbors through the years of how God has used Delray
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  collective and, you know, are specific, but and, and, and
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  there are, you know, hundreds, if not close to 1000 homes,
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  families that are doing this across the country and even a
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  few internationally as well. And so, and I say hard work
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  because this isn't something that helps the bottom line at
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  all. Think people have said things
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  like, Oh, you, you know, really we could monetize this.
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  Like this is something and, and I don't, I don't believe we've
• 12:16
  invented anything. I think what we're doing is
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  calling back, calling people back to a space that maybe their
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  grandparents, maybe their great grandparents remember when
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  neighbors were neighborly and we knew each other's names and we
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  did life together. And so it's very encouraging to
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  see many people returning to that, to that idea and and yeah,
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  it's, it's effective. So that's, that's Delray, that's
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  our, that's our beautiful heart project that my wife and I.
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  And then there are many more, there are many more little
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  projects that we do. We're kind of serial starters,
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  if that's a word. There's the serial entrepreneur.
• 12:57
  We like starting things and watching, you know, watching
• 13:00
  them go so spin up. Yeah, it's a beautiful project.
• 13:06
  Yeah, it is beautiful. I'm feeling convinced that for a
• 13:09
  big family, one of the best witnesses they can give is just
• 13:12
  inviting people over to see their loving family.
• 13:15
  Oh yeah, there's. There's science that they've
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  shown that, that, you know, just seeing kids, just seeing kids,
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  like you see kids walking down the street, you know, as a as a
• 13:24
  person who might feel lonely, that even that can can trigger,
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  you know, happiness. Kids, kids make us happy.
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  They also annoy us. But, you know, most of the time
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  it's something that brings joy to people.
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  And and yeah, so a, you know, many, many evenings are, are,
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  are winsome. They're beautifully cheerful
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  and, and pleasant. And it's not a talk, You know,
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  it's not like any gets. OK, everybody come together and
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  we're going to pray the rosary or we're going to talk about
• 13:59
  this or that. It's very natural and organic
• 14:02
  the way that it goes. It, it, you know, that the
• 14:05
  conversations come about and yeah, it's, it's absolutely
• 14:10
  beautiful. You're a starter. 2 questions on
• 14:15
  that. One is once you start something,
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  how do you ensure that it continues to grow?
• 14:21
  With or without you. And then do just curious to hear
• 14:23
  more about the things that you're even excited to start in
• 14:26
  the past. So that's a great question.
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  How do you ensure its growth? I think there's probably two
• 14:35
  ways to look at, you know took to look at growth or even
• 14:38
  forward progress. In my experience, starting,
• 14:43
  starting something should, especially when you are doing
• 14:50
  good, like if your intent to start something is to accomplish
• 14:55
  some good in the world, which you know, you know, we, we, we
• 14:59
  hope to do with all of our nonprofits.
• 15:03
  There is a sense that you're, you're actually not inventing
• 15:08
  something. You're actually coming into the
• 15:12
  flow of something that already exists, right?
• 15:15
  What you're doing is bringing attention and advocacy to to
• 15:20
  whatever it is that is, you know, in is in existence.
• 15:24
  See, you know, we we on the cul-de-sac, we call it family
• 15:28
  dinner, right, and that's that's part of the Delray.
• 15:30
  So it's it's family dinner, something that people go family
• 15:33
  dinner. That's something I like
• 15:35
  something that seems good. Are we a family?
• 15:38
  We are a family. We are a neighborhood family.
• 15:40
  This is this is something that we're you know, we're sort of
• 15:43
  entering in so progress. So I'm.
• 15:46
  Sorry, I don't understand what is, what is?
• 15:48
  Family dinner is what we call it colloquially, you know, on Mike
• 15:52
  when I when I invite people, when we invite people over to
• 15:54
  our house, we would say, hey, family dinner on Wednesday
• 15:58
  night's family dinner, right. That's something that is yeah,
• 16:01
  yeah, we're we're we're entering into a flow of something exists
• 16:04
  that is good right. Family dinner that's good.
• 16:08
  And so to, so I, so I would say looking at that particular
• 16:16
  outreach or that particular thing that we started, we
• 16:19
  actually didn't start anything. We are a part of something that
• 16:23
  is existing and we're bringing more advocacy to it, right.
• 16:27
  And so I think that progress, especially when you're doing
• 16:32
  good is not always the goal is not the same as making sure
• 16:39
  shareholders are happy or making sure that we're scaling the
• 16:44
  business according to the strategy forward progress in a
• 16:49
  in a nonprofit, whether big or small, is continually asking the
• 16:56
  question, are we doing the greatest good?
• 16:58
  And that might be remain that might that the answer might come
• 17:01
  in remaining small. Actually, you know, we talked
• 17:05
  about this a lot in in in ministry, right?
• 17:08
  Is, you know, this, this idea of, you know, the quantitative
• 17:12
  like being something that somehow qualifies a ministry.
• 17:19
  Well, we had 7 million people that came to a thing.
• 17:23
  Well, how many of those people went forth from there
• 17:27
  understanding the, the value of the talk that was given or how
• 17:32
  many of people applied that to their life?
• 17:34
  Well, and sometimes when you're talking, when you're talking
• 17:37
  about a big scale, you lose, it gets dissolved.
• 17:40
  It's it's sort of in the water, maybe two or three, right.
• 17:43
  And so when we look at something like an another one of our
• 17:47
  initiatives, Amigos de Plas is a is a mission and outreach in
• 17:52
  Santiago Sola, Guatemala. My wife grew up there.
• 17:56
  She was a foreign missionary. We've been doing a mission there
• 17:58
  for many, many years. And of course, you're familiar
• 18:01
  with Santiago. You might know the story of
• 18:03
  lesson Stanley Rhoder, who gave his life as a martyr in 1981
• 18:08
  during the Guatemalan civil war Beautiful story.
• 18:12
  Probably don't have time to go into it now, but it's it's a
• 18:16
  beautiful indigenous people that he was working with who are
• 18:20
  still living on, you know, 2 to $3.00 a day, very impoverished
• 18:25
  place. Well, we could go in there with
• 18:30
  60 people to like hammer a house together and make a big ruckus
• 18:37
  and then move out. We could do that every week and
• 18:40
  make a big ruckus. But if we're not intentionally
• 18:43
  listening to the people and understanding the true need or
• 18:47
  really getting down to the nitty gritty of why, why people are
• 18:50
  dying from starvation or unclean water, we're, we're doing a
• 18:56
  disservice if we're just sort of busy with the quantity of the
• 18:59
  quantity of people that we bring there on mission.
• 19:02
  Instead, we've chosen 28 families that are the poorest of
• 19:07
  the poor and positioned 2 missionaries on the ground to
• 19:13
  weekly and monthly stay updated on their lives, making sure that
• 19:18
  that we understand their needs and then doing it in a very
• 19:22
  quiet way, a very small way. 28 families and a lot of people go,
• 19:26
  man, well, there's 300 that need help.
• 19:28
  Yes, that's, that's true. But we wouldn't be able to do
• 19:32
  the same quality of work that we do with the, with the, with the
• 19:35
  28. And the hope is of course, that
• 19:37
  once you end the cycle and we're, you know, we're getting
• 19:44
  dignified work for them or figuring out their situation
• 19:48
  that, you know, obviously there's, there's more we can
• 19:51
  take on. So starting a thing, I would say
• 19:57
  includes do these two things. I keep it this quote handy from
• 20:00
  Pope St. John the 23rd and he says this
• 20:04
  is the what the Lord wants from us only to begin.
• 20:09
  Then it is his task to carry it out with power and with calm to
• 20:14
  multiply, to finish. And this is this is the part,
• 20:18
  the measure of God's effective involvement in our work
• 20:21
  corresponds to the spirit of simplicity.
• 20:24
  In humility with which we begin them I, I, I love that because
• 20:31
  the idea is that especially when working in, you know, in, in
• 20:35
  ministry or nonprofit, what have you.
• 20:38
  Like I said, we're entering into a bigger story here.
• 20:42
  And if we begin with complex and we begin with this all is about
• 20:51
  me and it's all it's all up to me.
• 20:54
  I have found that, you know, that is that's its distraction
• 20:58
  and usually destruction. If we want God's effective
• 21:04
  power, especially, you know, again, a nonprofit like it, is
• 21:09
  it it, it is truly impossible to do without starting with
• 21:14
  simplicity and, and, and humility that those are the two
• 21:18
  those are the two corresponding measurements that go along with
• 21:22
  effective God's effective work in our in our in our ministry.
• 21:27
  And so I think that to start something is one thing,
• 21:31
  obviously to start with simplicity, to start with
• 21:33
  humility, knowing that this is bigger than us.
• 21:37
  But to keep it going is to continually ask, are we still
• 21:45
  doing the best good that we possibly can and not being
• 21:51
  distracted by qualifying our work by the quantity of of
• 22:00
  people that are involved or the number of units sold.
• 22:06
  In my experience, staying effective involves, you know,
• 22:12
  growing when it's necessary and remaining, you know, remaining
• 22:16
  focused on doing good, remaining focused on the mission as
• 22:20
  opposed to getting distracted by, you know, trying to qualify
• 22:23
  it. So, yeah, but I just love the
• 22:25
  idea of John the 23rd saying this.
• 22:27
  Obviously he opened the doors to Vatican 2, you know, like this
• 22:32
  is he called for an ecumenical council that of course, we are
• 22:37
  still, you know, we, we haven't seen the end of the fruits.
• 22:42
  We just sort of begun to see the, the birth of some things,
• 22:47
  you know, after it, you know, post post consicular, the post
• 22:50
  consicular time of the church is a time of, of, of deepening our
• 22:53
  understanding of what was actually said.
• 22:55
  But so for John the 23rd to say, you know, we, we have to begin
• 23:01
  with simplicity, getting back to the basics and humility, knowing
• 23:05
  that God is God is, you know, he's, he, he's got this, he, he
• 23:13
  started the thing. He's accomplishing what he wants
• 23:20
  to accomplish with or without us.
• 23:23
  You know, sorry if that hurts anybody's egos, but God doesn't
• 23:26
  need you. He, he desires us to, to go to
• 23:31
  work with him, but he's not, he's not worried about whether
• 23:37
  or not he will get his way. He's way bigger than that.
• 23:40
  And so understanding in the beginning that that he, he's got
• 23:45
  it, that it's his mission. He's accomplishing whatever he's
• 23:49
  going to accomplish with or without you.
• 23:51
  We are called to do our part. And I love the story of Abraham.
• 23:57
  When I think about this, like Abraham, we just had it in the
• 23:59
  reading just a few weeks ago where, you know, the Angel says
• 24:06
  to to Abraham, Sarah, you know, you're going to you're going to
• 24:09
  be pregnant, like you're going to be pregnant with the with a
• 24:12
  child. Next time I come through here,
• 24:13
  you're going to be pregnant. And and Sarah, you know, you
• 24:20
  know, famously laughs. This is impossible.
• 24:24
  How are we going to do this right?
• 24:27
  And, and, and I think about the departure there, and I think
• 24:31
  about that, didn't it? It wasn't a virgin birth.
• 24:34
  It wasn't something that was miraculous that happened.
• 24:36
  Actually, Sarah and Abraham in their old age did their part,
• 24:42
  right? They had to go, OK, That's
• 24:46
  that's the prophecy. We're going to have a child.
• 24:49
  What do we do now? Well, what do you think they
• 24:51
  did? They went to their tent and they
• 24:55
  did their part, right. It wasn't something where they
• 24:58
  just said, oh, God said this and it's going to miraculously
• 25:00
  happen. They actually did their part.
• 25:02
  So in humility, we understand that God's got the miraculous
• 25:06
  part down. We have to do our part and that
• 25:09
  he's going to finish and accomplish what he's going to
• 25:11
  finish and accomplish through us because he's got, and he's the
• 25:17
  primary missionary here. We are a part of his thing.
• 25:21
  And so the ridiculous of me waking up and saying got to have
• 25:25
  an idea for a nonprofit or I have an idea for you know what,
• 25:28
  we're going to do some good in the world and asking him to help
• 25:33
  me. That's ridiculous.
• 25:36
  We should be saying, God, you're doing something in the world.
• 25:41
  You are you. You are moving in, in and among
• 25:44
  your people, you, you, you love. Can I be a part of that in some
• 25:48
  way? And then discerning what my part
• 25:51
  is, what is my role in God's mission and, and what God is
• 25:56
  doing in the world? And so I look like I, I like
• 26:00
  looking at it that way. It also takes the pressure off
• 26:03
  like, thank God you're in charge of these things.
• 26:07
  And so, but then there's a lot of our part right there there we
• 26:12
  can get into sort of, we can get into that as far as how we
• 26:16
  respond to his mission and what we do.
• 26:19
  But but, but but starting involves, yeah, simplicity and
• 26:25
  humility. Your bio says that you're on
• 26:30
  several boards. What is the purpose of being on
• 26:32
  board? Purpose of being on boards.
• 26:34
  Wow, that's a great question. I, I do, I, I, I get, I am
• 26:40
  honored to be to be on a few boards.
• 26:44
  One in particular that I've been on for a while in my third, my
• 26:50
  third term with the Pines Catholic camp.
• 26:53
  It's a beautiful camp ministry. Yeah.
• 26:56
  In the the Tyler Diocese up in Big Sandy, TX, we see probably
• 27:01
  about four or 5000 campers through, throughout the summer
• 27:06
  age 7 to 17 and then throughout the year hosting retreats,
• 27:10
  etcetera. My role I take very seriously as
• 27:14
  a board member. I believe that there are three
• 27:17
  things that a board should feel responsible for primarily
• 27:23
  raising money for the mission. I think that, you know, we have
• 27:27
  a term, you know, or that I have heard before we, we talked about
• 27:31
  it. It's, it's give, get, which is,
• 27:34
  you know, go find the money or get off.
• 27:37
  You've got, you've got those, you've got those three options,
• 27:40
  give, get or get off. Secondarily, I think that my
• 27:45
  role there is to is the fiduciary responsibility to make
• 27:50
  sure that we're, we are stewarding all of the funds
• 27:56
  correctly that you know, not getting into the nitty gritty,
• 28:00
  but making sure that we're honoring and that we're
• 28:03
  stewarding all dollars donated, even those that are coming in
• 28:06
  through fees etcetera. Are we doing our best to steward
• 28:10
  those dollars and make sure that it's again, pointing to the
• 28:12
  mission? And then thirdly, it's it's,
• 28:16
  it's the personnel only one, right?
• 28:19
  I think that, you know, as a board member, I am, I am
• 28:23
  particularly, you know, discerning about who's leading,
• 28:29
  who is, who is the leader. So, so, you know, raising money,
• 28:35
  approving the budget and hiring and firing the executive
• 28:38
  director, I think those are the three roles that I take most
• 28:41
  seriously on boards. And thank God, like I said,
• 28:45
  being asked to be on that side of things is a great honor and
• 28:48
  privilege, especially and, and, you know, really believing in
• 28:52
  these missions. This is yeah, this is something
• 28:55
  that's that's very important boards in in most, in most
• 29:01
  nonprofits that I have seen that have gone awry.
• 29:06
  It's been the board perhaps overstepping some of those those
• 29:12
  really fundamental 3 roles or vice versa, where a, you know,
• 29:17
  where administrators or executive staff are, are more or
• 29:22
  less working the board and not being as as transparent as they
• 29:28
  as they should be. So I think that I think that the
• 29:31
  board executive relationship is paramount, especially, you know,
• 29:35
  in in nonprofit ministry, making sure that yeah, that everybody
• 29:40
  is, is on the same page, understanding the mission
• 29:45
  stewardship of the money and an increasing revenue so that so
• 29:50
  that the mission can continue. Yeah, these are, and these are
• 29:56
  nonprofit boards, so you're not getting paid for it.
• 29:58
  So how do you find time for all this?
• 30:00
  This is again, that life the the the life ministry balance is, is
• 30:08
  a is always going to be attention.
• 30:12
  I think it's always going to be at an, you know, something that
• 30:16
  we have to pay attention to year to year.
• 30:19
  I have to pay attention to this year to year.
• 30:22
  You know, I have 9 kids and that brings about a lot of activity
• 30:27
  and a lot of, you know, fun stuff, but also just some
• 30:31
  busyness. And so making sure that, you
• 30:36
  know, like here's a, here's a great example.
• 30:38
  I'm driving my daughter to, to Franciscan University.
• 30:42
  She's going to be a freshman there.
• 30:44
  My fourth daughter, she's going to be a freshman there.
• 30:46
  It's the same exact weekend as the, as, as a board retreat that
• 30:52
  I'm that I'm supposed to be on. Well, you know, it's not a
• 30:56
  matter of which is, you know, discerning which is more
• 30:59
  important. I kissing my daughter goodbye in
• 31:04
  her dorm room. This is going to happen one
• 31:07
  time. Yeah.
• 31:07
  She's a freshman. Do I, do I grieve having to miss
• 31:12
  the in person Porter treat? Yes, I do.
• 31:16
  But I will do what I can, Right. And so I think as I'm driving
• 31:20
  back, I will have my headphones and I will be as present as
• 31:23
  possible to the to the board and then paying attention obviously
• 31:27
  to the the board bylaws, making sure that I'm doing all that I'm
• 31:32
  supposed to be doing. You know, it's a certain amount
• 31:35
  of meetings I have to make a year and you know, and that sort
• 31:40
  of thing. But finding time, you know, the
• 31:45
  things I sacrifice are this is a bad thing.
• 31:51
  This is not, I'm not recommending this, but I think I
• 31:57
  put my put myself last. Often times I put myself in that
• 32:02
  last spot. I'm not saying that as like a
• 32:05
  false humility because I probably do need to have more
• 32:09
  hobbies. I probably need to take more
• 32:12
  time for myself, for my mental health, for my physical health.
• 32:16
  But but, you know, again, having having the amount of kids,
• 32:21
  making sure that that my that my marriage is, it is, is healthy
• 32:26
  and intact. Those are the those are the two
• 32:29
  top priorities. Beyond that, my neighbors get my
• 32:33
  attention. And then whatever else happens
• 32:35
  outside of that, that's going to become third.
• 32:38
  So whether that's my day job here at school or, you know,
• 32:44
  running one of our other nonprofits or serving on a
• 32:46
  board, those things are always going to, you know, come at the
• 32:49
  end. And if they, you know, if they
• 32:53
  ever come into conflict, I'm, I'm not going back, I'm not
• 32:57
  going back to that. They'll just have to, they'll
• 32:58
  just have to drop off. I mean, it comes into conflict
• 33:02
  with, you know, the primary vocation stuff, but it is
• 33:05
  attention every day. Every day is attention every
• 33:10
  day. That in the budget as well.
• 33:12
  That is, that's another, that's another tension point.
• 33:15
  Like you said, these are not most of these are not paid
• 33:17
  positions. I've always been inspired by
• 33:21
  those Saints who have a sense of detachment from the world and I
• 33:28
  like Saint Francis. You know, I, I feel Franciscan
• 33:32
  in my heart where you know, if it if it comes to it, Lord, I,
• 33:37
  I, I want nothing I, I, I just want to be completely yours.
• 33:41
  And so from a very young age was inspired in that way.
• 33:44
  And so I tend to go all out if, if I have anything at the end of
• 33:50
  my days, I, you know, I would love to give it all away.
• 33:57
  I think, I think in the end, I would just love to give it all
• 33:59
  away. And, and, and, and die poor.
• 34:03
  So now my kids didn't choose that.
• 34:08
  So there, there's that tension there.
• 34:10
  My kids haven't chosen that lifestyle.
• 34:13
  My wife and I are are fine being missionary and you know, and,
• 34:19
  and spending at all. But you know, my kids are going
• 34:23
  to choose their own path. We we hope that, you know, they
• 34:26
  might choose something in ministry or mission driven
• 34:30
  occupations, but that, you know, who knows that's how it's going
• 34:34
  to turn out. But yeah, it's a good question.
• 34:36
  Keeping that balance, finding the time very important.
• 34:43
  Amazing. Well, thanks for what you should
• 34:45
  do any and thanks for sharing with our audience.
• 34:46
  Yeah, I know it's great. I, I, like I said, I feel really
• 34:50
  honored you asked me to come on and yeah, hopefully we can.
• 34:54
  It's called the Virtuous Leaders podcast.
• 34:57
  And yeah, strive to be that. I, I definitely would love that
• 35:01
  title of Virtuous Leaders. I think that it's a yeah, it's a
• 35:05
  beautiful thing that you're doing getting, you know,
• 35:08
  getting, getting people on. Hopefully I I, you know, shared
• 35:12
  some wisdom today and yeah, I really appreciate it.
• 35:15
  Thanks. Thanks for listening.
• 35:17
  Please like, subscribe and share with your friends.
• 35:19
  See you next time.