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Rev. Karl Dallefeld Interview · What You Have Seen and Heard

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Well hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of What You Have Seen and Heard.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: It's a very informal, unofficial podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: And the name comes from when Jesus sent the disciples of John the Baptist back to him.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: He told them to go say what they've seen and heard.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: And so again, it's an unofficial podcast.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: My name is Travis Stevick.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: I'm a pastor in Marcus in Northwest Iowa.
0:20
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just trying to have these conversations with various people
0:24
SPEAKER_00: across our annual conference,
0:25
SPEAKER_00: talk to pastors,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: talk to other church leaders to find out some of their stories and also to hear
0:30
SPEAKER_00: a bit about what God is doing in their midst and hope to make some connections
0:34
SPEAKER_00: and hope to just share so people can be encouraged and inspired
0:37
SPEAKER_00: by what else is going on.
0:39
SPEAKER_00: Today, we have something that's a first for our time together is we have
0:43
SPEAKER_00: a person named Carl Dallefeld who's with us.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: And Carl is interesting compared to the other folks we've had here is that he is
0:51
SPEAKER_00: a pastor of a church, but he is not a full-time pastor.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: He is a relatively recent pastor and he's involved in the educational process.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: So he's gonna provide a very different perspective on life and ministry
1:03
SPEAKER_00: than anybody else we've had so far.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: So I wanna say thank you very much for coming, Carl.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad to have you here.
1:09
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Travis.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: So the first question that I ask everybody all the time is because it's important
1:14
SPEAKER_00: that we are used to answering this kind of question and hearing
1:17
SPEAKER_00: from people's different stories is how is it that you became a Christian in
1:21
SPEAKER_00: the first place?
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Or if you've had faith your whole life,
1:24
SPEAKER_00: as far as you can remember,
1:25
SPEAKER_00: how is it that God kind of grabbed hold of you so you took your faith seriously
1:29
SPEAKER_00: in your life?
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, my story is kind of, in a way, a long one.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: God was always present, but I
1:41
SPEAKER_00: wasn't.
1:45
SPEAKER_01: Dad farmed,
1:45
SPEAKER_01: and we lived in a small rural community,
1:49
SPEAKER_01: and we were very active in the church as a young child.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: So I went through the Sunday school,
1:56
SPEAKER_01: and
1:59
SPEAKER_01: I think I was around 10 years old when Dad moved to another farm.
2:04
SPEAKER_01: So it was in a different town.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: He was more of a crop share.
2:08
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: And when we moved, we still went to another church, but not as frequently.
2:18
SPEAKER_01: And then my going to church pretty well ended by the time I was a teenager.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: I will say, though, that that early church, it must have laid a solid, solid foundation.
2:33
SPEAKER_01: It was a Methodist church to start with and then merged into the United Methodist in
2:39
SPEAKER_01: the late 60s.
2:43
SPEAKER_01: But I was pretty much, when I got into my teens, I was a pretty rebellious young man.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: I did a lot of things that I probably shouldn't have.
2:54
SPEAKER_01: But my dad was a very faithful man,
2:58
SPEAKER_01: and he's actually one that had a huge influence on my belief and
3:05
SPEAKER_01: faith in Christ.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: And one evening, I probably was in my mid-teens, we were watching a Billy Graham crusade.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: And then when Billy Graham does his altar call at the end of it, I prayed along with it.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, I could feel the spirit coming into me.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: The problem was, was I didn't have anything to back it up.
3:29
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
3:31
SPEAKER_01: I did not have, I wasn't going to church.
3:34
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have a lot of, other than my parents, a lot of other influences.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: So I continued to rebel.
3:41
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: And I was around 30 years old,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: actually,
3:45
SPEAKER_01: when we were just before the birth of our third child that we started going back
3:49
SPEAKER_01: to church.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, we became active.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: I always like to share how I got introduced to coming back to church was there was
4:00
SPEAKER_01: a guy that I knew that was not real well.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: He was an acquaintance.
4:05
SPEAKER_01: He was also in the seed business that I was in.
4:08
SPEAKER_01: But he worked for a different company.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: I bumped into him at a gas station.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: And kind of out of the blue,
4:13
SPEAKER_01: he said,
4:16
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:16
SPEAKER_01: it's the man of the household's responsibility to get your family to church.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
4:21
SPEAKER_01: And I go to a good one in Epworth.
4:24
SPEAKER_01: And so that next Sunday I took the family and we started going back to church.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: And at that point embraced it and was very active in it.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: I would say at that time I was probably being called.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: But not sure if it was for ministry or what it was just for a closer relationship.
4:48
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: But with the territory, I was a territory manager for companies.
4:54
SPEAKER_01: And then I eventually started up my own company and always so busy that I would go to church.
4:59
SPEAKER_01: And we did a lot of, spent a lot of time in Bible studies.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And at one point even did the lay ministry school.
5:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
5:10
SPEAKER_01: For just a short period of time.
5:12
SPEAKER_01: And then I just was able to go to church and so to speak, be fed.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't as active as what God was wanting me to be at that point in time.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And then it was,
5:31
SPEAKER_01: I forget how many years ago it was,
5:32
SPEAKER_01: but the calling had become stronger and stronger, but we got a new pastor.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know if I can say his name or not, but Mike Jones.
5:44
SPEAKER_01: It's okay to say Mike.
5:47
SPEAKER_00: We've had a conversation with him already.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: He became the pastor at our local church there in Epworth.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: And he was a young guy.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
5:58
SPEAKER_01: There was something about Mike.
6:00
SPEAKER_01: I like to tease him a little bit now,
6:02
SPEAKER_01: but there's something about Mike that his passion was And in his faithfulness
6:08
SPEAKER_01: and also for at least me is his bluntness in a way that we developed
6:16
SPEAKER_01: a good relationship.
6:19
SPEAKER_01: And that's when, again, the calling or whatever it was became a little bit stronger.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: But ultimately,
6:28
SPEAKER_01: it was a time when at disaffiliation,
6:30
SPEAKER_01: when I answered the call to To become a minister,
6:37
SPEAKER_01: to become pastor for our local church.
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure I highlight something because one of the things
6:43
SPEAKER_00: that whenever I've asked the people so far,
6:46
SPEAKER_00: you know, how is it you became a Christian?
6:49
SPEAKER_00: Whenever people name the folks who were the primary reason of coming to faith in
6:53
SPEAKER_00: the first place, I don't think that anyone so far has named a pastor.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: They've all been, you know, lay people, people in the church.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: And you described a guy who you knew a bit, you know, but, you know, ran into a gas station.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: And just,
7:06
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:06
SPEAKER_00: just drops an invitation and kind of,
7:08
SPEAKER_00: and honestly,
7:09
SPEAKER_00: from one angle,
7:10
SPEAKER_00: you know,
7:10
SPEAKER_00: you could argue that maybe he was even being a little bit rude by some conventions.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: And yet that's what God used to reach you.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: And what I just want to make sure I highlight the fact that once again,
7:20
SPEAKER_00: We have this example of somebody being reached,
7:23
SPEAKER_00: not by who we think of as being the professional Christians,
7:25
SPEAKER_00: but as just the people that God has called to bear witness.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And so the next time you're with somebody who you kind of know,
7:31
SPEAKER_00: who knows whether God might be calling you to invite them to your church.
7:35
SPEAKER_00: So I just, I think that's incredibly powerful.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: The witness of the people.
7:38
SPEAKER_00: I just want to make sure we take a moment and just highlight how significant that is.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: But I say God works in mysterious ways and that guy was mysterious.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: All right.
7:49
SPEAKER_00: So, um, you know, so, so you ended up becoming a pastor.
7:52
SPEAKER_00: So, um, so you are in a situation like,
7:55
SPEAKER_00: how did you get from, um,
7:57
SPEAKER_00: from Mike Jones being your pastor and kind of starting to feel some nudges from God
8:01
SPEAKER_00: and make some connections?
8:02
SPEAKER_00: And how did you find yourself actually being, uh, in the pulpit as one of your responsibilities?
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Um,
8:11
SPEAKER_01: I would say that it probably was when Mike, uh,
8:19
SPEAKER_01: He asked me at multiple times before I became,
8:22
SPEAKER_01: when are you going to become a pastor?
8:24
SPEAKER_01: And every once in a while he teased me and called me that.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: But then he started taking me over and I started attending with him when I could
8:34
SPEAKER_01: the local circuit of pastors.
8:37
SPEAKER_01: So there's a group of us that meet weekly when we can.
8:41
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
8:43
SPEAKER_01: And that introduced me to Phil Rogers and the other pastors that were in that circuit.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: And I guess just the fellowship and the understanding
8:59
SPEAKER_01: and them recognizing
9:01
SPEAKER_01: that I was being called for more than just sitting in the pew watching
9:04
SPEAKER_01: the pastor was probably or might have been what tripped it.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: It's all a little bit, Travis, it's all a little bit of a blur in some ways.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: All right.
9:16
SPEAKER_00: But I think that's important to recognize too,
9:17
SPEAKER_00: because I think that sometimes if you haven't felt the call,
9:21
SPEAKER_00: you don't necessarily know what it feels like.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: And for some people, it's like a bolt out of the blue.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And for some people, it's a long, slow process.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's important that we hear people tell about how God called them,
9:34
SPEAKER_00: even if there's no rhyme or reason to it,
9:36
SPEAKER_00: because I think it helps us to realize that God works in these ways
9:39
SPEAKER_00: that we can't necessarily predict.
9:43
SPEAKER_01: For 25 years, Travis, I would have just some of the strangest encounters with people.
9:49
SPEAKER_01: And even before
9:56
SPEAKER_01: Mike came to the church,
9:58
SPEAKER_01: the conversations I would have at conferences,
10:01
SPEAKER_01: which are agricultural,
10:03
SPEAKER_01: not Christian, turned into questions and conversations about Christ.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
10:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, so he was continually walking through that.
10:18
SPEAKER_01: But it took,
10:21
SPEAKER_01: I'd say,
10:22
SPEAKER_01: a little more intentionality and also being a little bit closer to get me
10:28
SPEAKER_01: to finally realize that maybe I'm just thick-headed.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe other people.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: It's always just fascinating to hear the differences in how God calls different people.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, after the discipline.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: I was going to just say, after the disaffiliation, that's when I said, you know, here I am.
10:48
SPEAKER_01: I felt a strong call at that point because we couldn't,
10:53
SPEAKER_01: after the disaffiliation, we lost the vote.
10:55
SPEAKER_01: So a group of us left,
10:57
SPEAKER_01: started worshiping at the other church that Mike was serving,
11:01
SPEAKER_01: and then started meeting over at Legion Hall.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: As a place to worship.
11:07
SPEAKER_01: And that's when I said here and took over, started leading the Sunday services.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: So one of the things that I find fascinating is, so I've been a pastor for a long time now.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: I've actually, I'm coming up on not quite.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: But another year or two, I'll be a pastor for more than half my life, which is crazy to me.
11:29
SPEAKER_00: So you,
11:29
SPEAKER_00: who have relatively recently made that transition from being a person in the pew
11:33
SPEAKER_00: to being behind the pulpit, I'm curious about how has that change felt to you?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: What are the differences in your experience between being someone who's at
11:44
SPEAKER_00: the church,
11:44
SPEAKER_00: actively involved,
11:45
SPEAKER_00: and then now being someone who's behind the pulpit,
11:48
SPEAKER_00: having a different set of responsibilities?
11:55
SPEAKER_01: The responsibilities are greater.
12:01
SPEAKER_01: It's not that I am trying to be perfect,
12:08
SPEAKER_01: but I do want to give all I can for God's people, for what God's called me to do.
12:16
SPEAKER_01: So that definitely adds a layer of responsibility or heaviness to it.
12:27
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I feel energized and refreshed.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that makes sense.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: He's given me the energy to get everything done that I need to get done.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: Because I am a part-time pastor.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:44
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what part I am because there is no such thing as part-time, I'm finding out.
12:48
SPEAKER_00: Sure, right.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: You're full-time.
12:50
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm a territory manager for the company that I sold my company to.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And I cover about six states.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: And then I have seminary classes on top of that.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right.
13:02
SPEAKER_00: So it's a lot.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to come back to your seminary classes because I think that's going to
13:08
SPEAKER_00: an interesting thing to share as well.
13:10
SPEAKER_00: But I find that people who have been,
13:13
SPEAKER_00: even really people who have been really active in the church,
13:15
SPEAKER_00: don't realize the kind of burden that a lot of pastors feel because there's a sense
13:20
SPEAKER_00: in which,
13:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
13:22
SPEAKER_00: because I think about there's a lot of lay people who it's like, hey,
13:25
SPEAKER_00: if they've got a family obligation or something comes up or whatever and they need
13:28
SPEAKER_00: to be somewhere else, they can go be somewhere else.
13:29
SPEAKER_00: But the pastor can't do that.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: You know,
13:31
SPEAKER_00: sometimes you hear people talk about like,
13:33
SPEAKER_00: oh, they're making their plans for the three-day weekend.
13:35
SPEAKER_00: Well, for the pastor, it's not a three-day weekend.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: They got a responsibility in the middle of most three-day weekends.
13:40
SPEAKER_00: And also just this idea of whether we mean to or not,
13:44
SPEAKER_00: whether it's always right or not,
13:45
SPEAKER_00: pastors often kind of get identified as representing the church to the people
13:50
SPEAKER_00: or representing God to the people even, which is a fairly strong burden to feel.
13:55
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's interesting to hear from those people
13:57
SPEAKER_00: who have Sometimes I worry that pastors who've been pastors for a long time become
14:01
SPEAKER_00: a little cynical about it and don't necessarily connect in the same way.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: So I always like to hear about how people are navigating that transition in their life.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: So I guess one of the things I'm curious about also,
14:15
SPEAKER_00: to share a little bit more, I find, so let me introduce this by sharing what I mean.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: So my question is gonna be, what do you think you've gained by becoming a pastor?
14:25
SPEAKER_00: And also what have you lost?
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And part of what I mean by that is I have some moments in my life
14:29
SPEAKER_00: where I distinctly remember in being in situations where I'm talking to somebody
14:34
SPEAKER_00: and I knew And eventually the question came up,
14:36
SPEAKER_00: someone who I just met, really make a good connection.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And finally they say to me, Travis, what do you do?
14:41
SPEAKER_00: And at the time I had to say, well, I'm a seminary student, I'm a pastor.
14:43
SPEAKER_00: And I could watch as the wall went up because they were fine talking to me as a guy.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: They weren't sure they want to talk to me as a pastor.
14:50
SPEAKER_00: And I find that I have lost some ministry opportunities by being a pastor
14:54
SPEAKER_00: in ways I would never have anticipated.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying you had the same experience that I had,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: but I'm just curious,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: is there anything that you feel like you've gained by stepping
15:00
SPEAKER_00: into pastoral ministry?
15:02
SPEAKER_00: And is there anything that you feel like you've lost by stepping into it?
15:11
SPEAKER_01: I've gained so much and that I think
15:16
SPEAKER_01: that maybe other pastors could explain it better,
15:19
SPEAKER_01: but
15:22
SPEAKER_01: sense of peace and joy and also compassion.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: I look at things from a different perspective than actually what I used to look at it.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: Lisa and I, we did get to watch a little bit of, I forget what it was,
15:44
SPEAKER_01: sports going on TV.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: You can tell how big of a sports fan I am.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: But then I made some comment about the commercials and she looked at me and said,
15:54
SPEAKER_01: you know, you think about that differently than you used to.
15:59
SPEAKER_01: You're looking at it from a different perspective.
16:03
SPEAKER_01: So I think those are things we gain.
16:06
SPEAKER_01: Some of the things that maybe lost are,
16:15
SPEAKER_01: I can't think of a whole lot other than maybe some time.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: And then it is a commitment, like just exactly what you said.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: We work my grandkids' birthday parties around when I can be there and they're not on a Sunday.
16:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Right.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: And, and yeah,
16:37
SPEAKER_01: so we've lost a little bit of the,
16:40
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you'd want to call it other than just freedom to do as you want,
16:43
SPEAKER_01: when you want.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: And, and, but gained, but gained so much.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: I, I just can't express it and I can't express it well enough other than just
16:58
SPEAKER_01: the fullness that, that I feel.
17:01
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's also weighty because you are helping share the burdens.
17:07
SPEAKER_01: Being a pastor and finding your ministry is not just getting up Sunday,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: making sure that you have a sermon prepared.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: It's all the time.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: But there's beauty and there's joy in that as well.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that people who are not pastors don't always realize is
17:27
SPEAKER_00: that a lot of times we're carrying some of the burdens of our congregations
17:30
SPEAKER_00: and our communities when we step into the pulpit.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: We are there to give a good word from God.
17:35
SPEAKER_00: But we also know about some of the brokenness that's in our communities.
17:40
SPEAKER_00: And it's an interesting situation to be in that I think that in some ways people
17:44
SPEAKER_00: who have not had that experience can understand a little bit.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: But I think there's something about experiencing it for yourself that makes it different.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: I think more of an awareness.
17:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm an introvert by nature,
18:03
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:03
SPEAKER_00: and I would,
18:04
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:05
SPEAKER_00: I remember being in my pre-Christian days,
18:07
SPEAKER_00: you know,
18:07
SPEAKER_00: if something terrible happened to somebody, I go, oh, that sounds terrible.
18:11
SPEAKER_00: And I would just go on with my life,
18:12
SPEAKER_00: you know, whereas now, you know, if someone, if I hear Oh, yeah.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: You mentioned you've got seminary work that you're doing while you're in the midst
18:47
SPEAKER_00: of all of your overseeing kind of six states or things.
18:50
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm curious about what has seminary looked like for you so far?
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I'll have a follow up after that.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: How are you attending seminary?
18:59
SPEAKER_00: What does your process look like for education at this point?
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Right now,
19:09
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the course of study,
19:10
SPEAKER_01: obviously, for Deacon, and then would move on toward the elder.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: I am at Wesley Biblical Seminary.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, we're able to do it via Zoom meetings.
19:30
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I realize they can't,
19:32
SPEAKER_01: but they don't realize that a lot of us actually work from one to four.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: Sure, right.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: But they've made, they've done everything.
19:41
SPEAKER_01: I think all the seminaries have done everything they can to accommodate for those
19:46
SPEAKER_01: of us that are tent maker ministries or maybe already busy in the pulpit full-time,
19:53
SPEAKER_01: but that if we miss, we can take the classes.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: The course of study laid out before us
20:04
SPEAKER_01: I feel it's been very, very good.
20:09
SPEAKER_01: I've got a lot of new experiences,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: like trying to figure out how I can fit all this in and time-wise.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: When I said I lack time,
20:18
SPEAKER_01: I made the decision if I'm going to get everything done that I need to get done,
20:22
SPEAKER_01: I might have to get up at 5, 5.30 in the morning.
20:25
SPEAKER_01: I might not get done until 10 o'clock at night.
20:27
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
20:30
SPEAKER_01: But that is a season.
20:31
SPEAKER_01: It's also a season where we're being,
20:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, molded and shaped, however you want to put it, trained, educated.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: But it's more than just training and education.
20:47
SPEAKER_01: It's a spiritual experience, I think, going through seminary.
20:51
SPEAKER_01: So far,
20:53
SPEAKER_01: some of the classes feel more like we're going to church than Into a seminary class,
21:00
SPEAKER_01: which is pretty cool.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: That's what we need.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
21:04
SPEAKER_00: I've learned all kinds of new words, Travis.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I remember my I went I mean, so I was residential.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: I was a residential student at seminary because it was in a different era and different time.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: But I remember I had a couple of professors who,
21:17
SPEAKER_00: you know, it was going was like going to worship.
21:21
SPEAKER_00: They really led you into the presence of God,
21:22
SPEAKER_00: even while they were covering the material they had to cover.
21:24
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a remarkable experience to think about how.
21:29
SPEAKER_00: A seminary,
21:30
SPEAKER_00: at least when it's doing its job really well,
21:31
SPEAKER_00: can be both an academic experience,
21:35
SPEAKER_00: because we do need to grow academically,
21:36
SPEAKER_00: but also be a real spiritual experience so that we really do come to know God better
21:42
SPEAKER_00: and experience God more fully.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I want to comment that there are a couple of institutions that are doing the course of study.
21:49
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to make sure I'm highlighting this because for anybody
21:52
SPEAKER_00: who may end up watching this,
21:53
SPEAKER_00: if they're discerning a call,
21:55
SPEAKER_00: one of the things,
21:56
SPEAKER_00: just your description of how WBS does things, I teach courses everywhere.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: My point is not to say that one's better or that you should go one place versus the other.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: My point is because we do things differently,
22:07
SPEAKER_00: what that makes you want to point out is that if you're feeling the call
22:11
SPEAKER_00: and you're looking to say,
22:12
SPEAKER_00: is God calling me into ministry and part of that looks like education,
22:15
SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to make sure you look at the different schools,
22:17
SPEAKER_00: not just maybe the first one you look at or someone,
22:20
SPEAKER_00: because you may find that a school that's been recommended to you may be great,
22:23
SPEAKER_00: but it might be that their way of teaching is just not going to connect with you.
22:26
SPEAKER_00: And so I just would encourage you to think about that.
22:28
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to get you to change what you're doing,
22:29
SPEAKER_00: but just to realize that there are,
22:31
SPEAKER_00: you know, there's more than one way of doing things.
22:33
SPEAKER_00: We're actually in a very exciting time of theological education where we are kind
22:38
SPEAKER_00: of breaking free of some of the old ways we used to do things.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: And we're seeing different groups be creative in different ways.
22:44
SPEAKER_00: And it's kind of neat to see how different schools approach that.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: So that's my little commercial for higher education generally and,
22:50
SPEAKER_00: you know, what that might look like if you're discerning a call to ministry.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: You know,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: some people,
22:58
SPEAKER_01: I've heard a handful maybe that, you know, we got a lot of classes to do.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: But
23:06
SPEAKER_01: it's brought me so much further along in my understanding and faith by going to a seminary.
23:17
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I think it's a good thing.
23:20
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: Is there any particular class or any particular professor that's really stuck out
23:25
SPEAKER_00: to you that's been really helpful for you in this process?
23:31
SPEAKER_01: Now that's a tough question.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to – I mean, you don't have to – I didn't warn you about that.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to get it because if I had asked that question to Mike,
23:42
SPEAKER_00: he might have said his theology professor is just terrible.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
23:47
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not trying to get anybody on his spot there.
23:50
SPEAKER_01: They've all – No, I couldn't resist.
23:54
SPEAKER_01: They've all been very good.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: And then sometimes names leave me.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm in the name business and names are hard to come by.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: But our Old Testament history and
24:10
SPEAKER_01: class, the professor there,
24:13
SPEAKER_01: Did a very, very good job.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And that was one where it was,
24:17
SPEAKER_01: it was a cross between education and worship that really,
24:23
SPEAKER_01: really, really appreciated.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: And they were willing to take a little time.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I was struggling at the time.
24:28
SPEAKER_01: You got to remember some of us coming in later in life.
24:34
SPEAKER_01: I hadn't written anything much probably for 40 years.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And we need a little guidance.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: I've had students tell me, like I said, I'm in my 70s.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been in school since I was in my 20s.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: And the last,
24:50
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:50
SPEAKER_00: when I was last in school,
24:51
SPEAKER_00: I had to use these,
24:53
SPEAKER_00: you know, card commands for the computer, you know, that was as big as a room.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: And I said, this is a little bit of a learning experience.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And yet, and yet here's the thing though, right?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Because,
25:02
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:04
SPEAKER_00: It used to be that the only way you could get a seminar education is
25:06
SPEAKER_00: to uproot yourself,
25:07
SPEAKER_00: your whole family,
25:09
SPEAKER_00: move somewhere,
25:09
SPEAKER_00: sometimes very, very far away, you know, for several years at the time.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: And because of the advanced technology, which is there's good and bad to all of it.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: You know, you don't ever gain anything without losing something.
25:21
SPEAKER_00: But we have an opportunity for those of us who are in rural areas like in the upper Midwest.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: It's not practical for a lot of folks to physically go to a seminary to get trained
25:31
SPEAKER_00: and to be able to have the opportunities to do remote learning is just
25:35
SPEAKER_00: a huge blessing, I think, for rural conferences.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
25:40
SPEAKER_01: All this writing and reading and looking up every other word that's in the book.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
25:47
SPEAKER_01: It does.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: It has literally helped me on my focus and my ability to be more clear
25:58
SPEAKER_01: when we're preaching.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, the benefits just from that right there have been good, have been great.
26:09
SPEAKER_00: So one of the questions I've been asking,
26:11
SPEAKER_00: and I'm going to clarify a little bit of it because I've been asking people
26:14
SPEAKER_00: if they could identify A sickness that they see in churches.
26:19
SPEAKER_00: And I always worry when I introduce that question, it sounds antagonistic.
26:23
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean it to be antagonistic.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: Any church that you've seen, any church that you've heard about, and all the rest.
26:28
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not asking you to pick on the church that you're serving by any means.
26:32
SPEAKER_00: And I realized,
26:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember if I had this in my mind when I first started using
26:35
SPEAKER_00: the word sickness.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: But increasingly, I'm convinced that sickness is the right word.
26:39
SPEAKER_00: Because...
26:40
SPEAKER_00: When somebody, to name it a sickness, it sounds like it's being judgmental.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: But if somebody's sick, the solution is not judgment, standing in condemnation.
26:48
SPEAKER_00: The solution is diagnosis and treatment and medicine to make someone well again.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So when I ask about if you've seen the sickness in the church,
26:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm not trying to criticize the people.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: I'm simply trying to ask,
27:01
SPEAKER_00: is there something you've seen that is getting in people's ways,
27:03
SPEAKER_00: that's preventing them from living God's life for them to the fullest?
27:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and what might it look like to kind of address that?
27:10
SPEAKER_00: You know,
27:11
SPEAKER_00: and you're going to see things from a different point of view than I am because
27:13
SPEAKER_00: of your different position, but I was just curious if you've seen that anywhere.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: Um, I would say,
27:25
SPEAKER_01: and this would go for maybe all churches and all denominations,
27:33
SPEAKER_01: um, It would be the lady or the congregants, and it would be the clergy.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to think of a good term for it,
27:47
SPEAKER_01: but it's
27:51
SPEAKER_01: maybe the lack of being engaged in a greater church.
27:58
SPEAKER_01: We get a little bit self-focused.
28:00
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
28:01
SPEAKER_01: You know,
28:02
SPEAKER_01: the congregation wants to,
28:07
SPEAKER_01: their immediate concern is growth in their local church or keeping it,
28:13
SPEAKER_01: keeping their local church just as it is.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: Right.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: Because it's scary to follow our commission and go out into the world.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: So maybe that boils down a little bit to mission and evangelism.
28:30
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
28:33
SPEAKER_01: But sharing and unity in the church beyond the congregation into maybe the circuit
28:41
SPEAKER_01: and into the district and into the conference.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: And that could boil over even into
28:50
SPEAKER_01: all denominations, all churches.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: Can't quite see the picture of Christ Church for their local church, if that makes sense.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
29:02
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
29:05
SPEAKER_00: So I think it's really interesting because I think that I wonder sometimes,
29:07
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people have their diagnosis,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: and I think I do this too,
29:10
SPEAKER_00: where when I think of things that are sicknesses in the church,
29:12
SPEAKER_00: I think about things that certainly affected me at one point.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: I think it's easier for me to see things that I'm affected by.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's been interesting to see both how different people have kind
29:22
SPEAKER_00: of had overlapping, but also different perspectives on that.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's great to hear different points of view on all that.
29:27
SPEAKER_00: So can you tell me more about what has God...
29:30
SPEAKER_00: So you said...
29:31
SPEAKER_00: When you were in the United Methodist Church, you had this affiliation vote.
29:34
SPEAKER_00: It didn't pass.
29:35
SPEAKER_00: You guys kind of planted a new church.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: You probably had not planned at some point in your life to be a church planter,
29:40
SPEAKER_00: but here you are planting a church.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: And what has God been up to?
29:46
SPEAKER_00: What's the name of your church that you're serving?
29:49
SPEAKER_01: We are the West Dubuque Methodist Church or Global Methodist Church.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: So what is God doing in the West Dubuque Global Methodist Church?
30:01
SPEAKER_01: At first, when we left, we had to do some grieving and healing.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: And that's something as a pastor, I don't think I recognized off the bat.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: So it's one of those things that I had to learn or acknowledge.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: Because we walked away from a church that was founded, I think, like in 1851.
30:23
SPEAKER_01: And I think it
30:24
SPEAKER_00: might be the
30:28
SPEAKER_01: The other building was built in 1871, so a long history.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: And so we started focusing on the healing a little bit later,
30:43
SPEAKER_01: but also was
30:47
SPEAKER_01: directing worship to be worship and not Not what we had observed years
30:55
SPEAKER_01: before, before Mike was there, but years before.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: So we had some undoing that we needed to do.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: I felt that we needed to do.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: We've been nomads.
31:05
SPEAKER_01: We started out in the Legion and then actually we moved to the back of Locals Bar.
31:11
SPEAKER_01: There was a room back there that we could worship in that was a little bit bigger.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: And then that didn't suit.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: So we moved back to the Legion.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: And finally,
31:20
SPEAKER_01: we've been worshiping the last two years in the basement of the Catholic Church
31:25
SPEAKER_01: in their fellowship hall.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:28
SPEAKER_01: We could, we could use the sanctuary.
31:30
SPEAKER_01: The, the,
31:31
SPEAKER_01: the local priest, um,
31:34
SPEAKER_01: said you can use our,
31:35
SPEAKER_01: you know,
31:36
SPEAKER_01: our church,
31:37
SPEAKER_01: all of it anytime,
31:39
SPEAKER_01: you know, as long as they don't have something that would conflict with it.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
31:42
SPEAKER_01: But, uh,
31:43
SPEAKER_01: because of accessibility,
31:45
SPEAKER_01: we decided to, to worship in the, in the fellowship hall downstairs.
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: So for three years, we've been, we've been setting up and tearing down every church service.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
31:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:56
SPEAKER_01: But in the meantime,
31:57
SPEAKER_01: we've been Again,
31:59
SPEAKER_01: just kind of like those that were out in the wilderness,
32:04
SPEAKER_01: we've been being kind of molded and trained and tested.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: So the Holy Spirit has been changing hearts in our congregation,
32:17
SPEAKER_01: and I can literally see a difference between From three years ago to
32:22
SPEAKER_01: where we are today, preparing us for our move.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: We're going to move hopefully the end of this month to a long-term location
32:29
SPEAKER_01: or permanent location in Farley.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: All right.
32:35
SPEAKER_01: We have a building that they're renovating and that we're renting, that renovated for us.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: All right.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: But in addition to that,
32:43
SPEAKER_01: we've been praying that the Holy Spirit will lay a path, open hearts, soften hearts,
32:51
SPEAKER_01: As we prepare to move.
32:56
SPEAKER_01: And there's been a lot of people in the community that are recognizing who we are.
33:02
SPEAKER_01: A lot of questions.
33:07
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
33:09
SPEAKER_01: When we left,
33:13
SPEAKER_01: I forget exactly how many people we had,
33:15
SPEAKER_01: but some left because we didn't have the ability to do children's services
33:20
SPEAKER_01: or Sunday school.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: So they went,
33:23
SPEAKER_01: at least they went to another Global Methodist Church where they could fulfill
33:27
SPEAKER_01: that need.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: But we're starting to grow again.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: And...
33:34
SPEAKER_01: I've been,
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I haven't,
33:35
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a numbers person,
33:36
SPEAKER_01: but I was sitting there going, okay,
33:40
SPEAKER_01: you know, around the first of the year, we were hovering around 19, 20 every week.
33:44
SPEAKER_01: Now we're hovering around 25 every week.
33:47
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
33:48
SPEAKER_01: And,
33:49
SPEAKER_01: and we've had a lot of people that are asking and asking when we're going to be over
33:53
SPEAKER_01: to barley.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: So we've seen a lot of,
33:56
SPEAKER_01: I, I, um, I'm excited and a little bit scared to see what growth happens.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure, sure.
34:06
SPEAKER_01: As we move over there.
34:07
SPEAKER_00: So I attend a seminar in Dubuque, and so I used to drive past Epworth and Farley all the time.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: But I, for the life of me right now,
34:13
SPEAKER_00: cannot recall how far away they are from each other and which is where.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Could you remind me of how far geographically is this move for you guys?
34:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Epworth is three miles east towards Dubuque, but east of Farley.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Sure, okay.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: But we have...
34:30
SPEAKER_01: We have always been a church that's a little more regional.
34:35
SPEAKER_01: So we have folks that are from Uroville,
34:39
SPEAKER_01: New Vienna, Farley,
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Piasta, Epworth, I'm Worthington, down by Cascade that
34:48
SPEAKER_01: come to worship there.
34:50
SPEAKER_00: Are both Epworth and Farley in the Western Dubuque School district?
34:54
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
34:55
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that,
34:56
SPEAKER_00: I had a friend of mine from college who went to that school and he told me
34:59
SPEAKER_00: at one point that it was the largest,
35:01
SPEAKER_00: the largest physical,
35:03
SPEAKER_00: like geographically the largest school district in the state of Iowa.
35:05
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that is still the case or not,
35:07
SPEAKER_00: but so I'm not surprised you have so many towns that are in that reach.
35:11
SPEAKER_00: I believe it.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And we're a lot of, we're rural, you know, a lot of tiny towns, so to speak.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: And that's, that's where, that's where we fit.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: We're, um,
35:23
SPEAKER_01: About halfway probably between Manchester and Dubuque to give you an idea
35:29
SPEAKER_01: where we're at.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: I think it's fascinating.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: Go ahead.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: No, I was just going to say, so there's been a lot and it's sometimes hard to describe it.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: There's been so much going on and it's
35:44
SPEAKER_01: pretty amazing to watch
35:47
SPEAKER_01: and be a part of.
35:49
SPEAKER_00: So, okay, here's a question to ask you.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: Since your life,
35:51
SPEAKER_00: I imagine right now,
35:52
SPEAKER_00: looks a little different than you expected it would even just a few years ago.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: If you could go and talk to Carl 10 years ago, what would you tell him?
36:03
SPEAKER_01: Quit fighting it.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
36:08
SPEAKER_01: Embrace it.
36:10
SPEAKER_01: That may be a sad statement, but I knew God wanted me to do more than what I was doing.
36:23
SPEAKER_01: But on the other hand,
36:24
SPEAKER_01: because this comes up in some of our seminary classes,
36:27
SPEAKER_01: I'm not the only one that's resisted a calling, so to speak, for so many years.
36:34
SPEAKER_01: In the meantime, he's been using me.
36:36
SPEAKER_01: He's been training me.
36:38
SPEAKER_01: He's been teaching me.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: He's been preparing me for what I'm doing now.
36:44
SPEAKER_01: I'm blessed that That I used to be an introvert.
36:48
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm an extroverted introvert.
36:50
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
36:53
SPEAKER_01: But he's prepared me to be able to get up in front of people and speak,
36:58
SPEAKER_01: you know, through what I did for my career.
37:02
SPEAKER_01: And he's allowed me to get to know and understand how to get to know people.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: So there's been a lot of things that he's been developing in me.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: You know,
37:13
SPEAKER_01: if you would have taken the car off from Uh,
37:17
SPEAKER_01: 1990, you know, I was a pretty good cowboy, not a, not a, uh, bastard.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
37:24
SPEAKER_00: Right.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: So the whole time has just been, been developing, preparing.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: So is there anything else that you would be interested,
37:36
SPEAKER_00: you know, that,
37:37
SPEAKER_00: that you would want to share with, uh,
37:39
SPEAKER_00: so just the conference,
37:40
SPEAKER_00: things that you think the conference should know either about you,
37:42
SPEAKER_00: about the ministry, about your journey, anything along those lines?
37:49
SPEAKER_01: Oh, the conference,
37:50
SPEAKER_01: I go back a little bit maybe to our statement about the connectedness between
37:59
SPEAKER_01: the churches, encourage that.
38:05
SPEAKER_01: I've got,
38:07
SPEAKER_01: as a part-time pastor and as someone,
38:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
38:10
SPEAKER_01: second career,
38:11
SPEAKER_01: whatever you want to call it,
38:12
SPEAKER_01: or anybody actually going into ministry,
38:15
SPEAKER_01: make sure it's just that it's a straightforward, clear path.
38:20
SPEAKER_01: So that we know what we need to do, what steps we need to take to get into ministry.
38:30
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
38:32
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the best way of putting it,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: but I'll use the word political, but there's no room for politicalness in a church.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: Right.
38:45
SPEAKER_01: We have hearts.
38:46
SPEAKER_01: We love Jesus.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
38:48
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we're called to do.
38:52
SPEAKER_01: Just make sure we have a clear path forward.
38:54
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: After you started answering that question,
38:58
SPEAKER_00: I realized I know something that it's possible you don't know,
39:02
SPEAKER_00: and it's possible that people who are watching this don't know,
39:04
SPEAKER_00: and that is you've mentioned a couple times your circuit,
39:08
SPEAKER_00: and that you meet together about every week.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know this, but most areas don't have an active circuit like that.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: My district, the clergy get together once a month...
39:22
SPEAKER_00: But you guys get together every week,
39:24
SPEAKER_00: and you guys have a very distinct way of doing ministry as a circuit.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Can you share a little bit about what your circuit does and how that benefits you?
39:33
SPEAKER_00: My ulterior motive for that is to maybe get people from across our conference
39:36
SPEAKER_00: to be thinking about, what about that can we replicate in various ways?
39:40
SPEAKER_00: Because I know that you guys put a lot of work into that.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: It's, in a way, multifaceted.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: It's...
39:52
SPEAKER_01: We do.
39:52
SPEAKER_01: We get together.
39:53
SPEAKER_01: We fellowship before we sit down.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: We'll go somewhere and have a bite of lunch.
40:00
SPEAKER_01: And then we can visit.
40:02
SPEAKER_01: And then when we sit down as a group, we meet generally at a central location.
40:10
SPEAKER_01: But we share with one another our joys, our concerns, who to pray for.
40:18
SPEAKER_01: And then we pray for those through the week.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
40:24
SPEAKER_01: We will go around and we do quite a few series that we all put together.
40:33
SPEAKER_01: And actually the last two series, each of us as a pastor has contributed to it.
40:39
SPEAKER_01: So these devotionals are coming from all the pastors in the circuit.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: So every church gets to read something from a different pastor.
40:50
SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure I'm, this is all clear.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: So you guys,
40:53
SPEAKER_00: as a circuit,
40:55
SPEAKER_00: will coordinate the sermon series that you're all preaching on together
40:59
SPEAKER_00: and you will kind of team prepare it and team preach it.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: Well, I guess you're preaching in your church and preaching it there,
41:04
SPEAKER_00: but you have prepared,
41:06
SPEAKER_00: you've shared the burden of preparing for those sermons together as a group.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: Is that correct?
41:11
SPEAKER_01: In a way, it's common, common ground.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: What we'll do is we'll go around and talk about the
41:19
SPEAKER_01: What we're going to preach on and when we're doing the series,
41:22
SPEAKER_01: especially, you know, we'll be preaching on that scripture.
41:26
SPEAKER_01: But we don't necessarily, we aren't necessarily preaching the same thing to every church.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
41:31
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
41:32
SPEAKER_01: It's not stamped out.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
41:34
SPEAKER_01: Which is awesome.
41:35
SPEAKER_01: I get to hear perspectives of what somebody else is thinking.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: Somebody else's church has different needs or are in a different situation
41:45
SPEAKER_01: than what my church is.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: So my message may be not totally, but come from a different perspective.
41:55
SPEAKER_01: But I also get to hear their perspective.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: And if I'm having a week where nothing's coming to me, there might be some inspiration there.
42:06
SPEAKER_01: So it's really neat to be a part of.
42:13
SPEAKER_01: And then again,
42:14
SPEAKER_01: we'll spend that time With a little more fellowship,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: but checking on each other, seeing how we're doing.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: And then we also look at, go ahead.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, please.
42:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll follow that to you.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh, and then if there's anything within the circuit or district,
42:35
SPEAKER_01: but the circuit that church activities that others might want to share in.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: You know, so Manchester's having an ice cream social.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: Bring people so people from our congregation can go and meet people from their congregation.
42:54
SPEAKER_01: And again, help try to nurture that connectedness.
42:58
SPEAKER_00: One of the things, again,
43:01
SPEAKER_00: I have never been to one of your circuit meetings,
43:03
SPEAKER_00: but I've heard about them because I've known some folks who used to be in them and
43:05
SPEAKER_00: then moved, because I know Mike would tell me about them.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: And I know Phil Rogers, who I know has put a lot of effort into organizing that for years now.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And I just want to make sure I highlight the fact that that is something And
43:15
SPEAKER_00: so I think that's something that...
43:41
SPEAKER_00: You know,
43:41
SPEAKER_00: they're not circuits and district meetings are not going to look the same
43:44
SPEAKER_00: in every district.
43:45
SPEAKER_00: But I think the more we can be learning from one another
43:48
SPEAKER_00: and just hearing what's going on,
43:49
SPEAKER_00: that we can make the same adjustments from place to place as you guys have to make
43:52
SPEAKER_00: between how one person preaches a passage versus how somebody else does.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's information that is very helpful.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: And for me, it's important because for me, that is is a renewal, refreshing.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like I'm on an island by myself.
44:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
44:14
SPEAKER_01: It's to me, I go if as long as I can, if I'm not traveling, I try to I try to be there.
44:22
SPEAKER_01: And even if I'm not preaching that Sunday,
44:24
SPEAKER_01: that rare occasion,
44:25
SPEAKER_01: but even if I'm not preaching on Sunday, I will go just so that I can.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Have that fellowship time together.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: And that's why it's important if other churches do put together a circuit,
44:36
SPEAKER_01: don't make it just what are you preaching on?
44:39
SPEAKER_01: How are you going to do it?
44:41
SPEAKER_01: Make sure that it is fellowship as well.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really important because one of the things I think
44:48
SPEAKER_00: that we find occasionally is that in the United Methodist Church,
44:53
SPEAKER_00: you were never a pastor in the United Methodist Church,
44:54
SPEAKER_00: but in the United Methodist Church,
44:55
SPEAKER_00: evangelicals oftentimes just said, I'm going to keep my head down.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to try to get noticed.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: I'm just going to focus on ministry in my local church.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to get involved in Correct.
45:03
SPEAKER_00: And the more we can do that, the better.
45:04
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because some of us,
45:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how far the furthest is, but it's over an hour for some to get there.
45:40
SPEAKER_01: I'm fortunate I'm less than a half an hour away,
45:42
SPEAKER_01: but a couple of guys are probably a solid hour away.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: I went to church service.
45:52
SPEAKER_01: Actually, I went to that one I talked about where I went as a kid.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: I went back to that church last Sunday.
46:01
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I were down for a family wedding.
46:03
SPEAKER_01: And where do you want to go worship?
46:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to Avon.
46:07
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: And the pastor there, she's a second career as well.
46:14
SPEAKER_01: The thing was, is I talked to her a little bit and told her about our circuit.
46:18
SPEAKER_01: And she said, man, I wish I had that.
46:20
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm on an island by myself because there's no one within two hours of her.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
46:25
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:27
SPEAKER_01: How can we help those situations?
46:30
SPEAKER_01: We do need to figure something out.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Right.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think our conversation is winding down.
46:38
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you again, Carl,
46:41
SPEAKER_00: for letting me talk to you for a while and ask you some questions
46:43
SPEAKER_00: and have you share some of your story and what God's doing in your midst.
46:47
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put down, do you guys have a church Facebook or church website anywhere?
46:52
SPEAKER_01: We do have a website.
46:53
SPEAKER_01: All right.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: Then I will find it and I will put it in the description.
46:56
SPEAKER_00: So when people watch it, they can go check that out.
46:58
SPEAKER_00: I think I'm also going to put a link to the WBS course of study and kind
47:03
SPEAKER_00: of highlight that since you're going to school there.
47:04
SPEAKER_00: I'll probably also list some of the other ones just so you'll have something else
47:07
SPEAKER_00: in case, you know, but I'll highlight that one because you're in it.
47:10
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
47:11
SPEAKER_00: because I think that's something that you have brought to this conversation
47:14
SPEAKER_00: that my previous conversations have not,
47:16
SPEAKER_00: which is somebody who's in the process right now.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: So I want to thank you for that.
47:20
SPEAKER_00: I want to remind everybody that I only can contact people who I know,
47:24
SPEAKER_00: and I only know so many people.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: And I have had a chance to meet Carl before, but we don't know each other that well.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: And so if you know somebody out there who's doing exciting work,
47:33
SPEAKER_00: if God's doing some mighty things in some corner
47:37
SPEAKER_00: that maybe not everybody's been paying attention to,
47:39
SPEAKER_00: can you send me the information by email at pastortravisatmarcusgrace.com?
47:44
SPEAKER_00: So I can know about it.
47:45
SPEAKER_00: So I can kind of keep a database going of who I can reach out to
47:47
SPEAKER_00: and have these conversations with.
47:49
SPEAKER_00: Because I have been nothing but encouraged by talking to people with all kinds
47:52
SPEAKER_00: of different backgrounds, all kinds of experiences.
47:54
SPEAKER_00: And I would love to be able to hear from people telling stories from across
47:57
SPEAKER_00: the annual conference.
47:59
SPEAKER_00: So Carl, would you be willing to close us out here in prayer?
48:03
SPEAKER_01: Certainly.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's go to Lord in prayer.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: Heavenly Father, Almighty God, we just thank you for this time, this time of sharing.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: Father, we're called to serve, to grow your church.
48:22
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we just ask that everything that we do is used to glorify you, our triune God.
48:31
SPEAKER_01: We just thank you and praise you.
48:33
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for the connectedness amongst all the clergy.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: And just pray that, again, that we can just do your works.
48:42
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
48:43
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
48:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks, everybody, once again.
48:47
SPEAKER_00: This has been What You Have Seen and Heard.
48:48
SPEAKER_00: My name is Travis Stevick, and our guest this week has been Carl Delafeld.
48:51
SPEAKER_00: So thanks for watching, and we'll see you the next time.