Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to among the Lampstands is St. Louis Metro podcast, where pastors equip pastors at Metro, our mission is to connect churches so leaders can be developed and deployed for gospel mission. Because the greatest problem in our city is losses, and the greatest hope is Christ.
Join us as we talk ministry, leadership, and the movement of God among The lampstands in St. Louis.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Well, thank you for joining us today on among the Lampstands, a podcast by Metro pastors. For Metro pastors, I am Chad Hodges and I'm your host. And today we have in studio with us three of our amazing Metro pastors. We have Pastor Michael Bird, Pastor Daniel Carr, and Pastor Sam Tennell. And beginning with this episode, we're jumping into a series of podcasts that look into various aspects of pastoral health.
And so with this episode, we're going to be talking about the spiritual health of a pastor. And kind of the overwhelming thought we're going to be talking about is simply this. Before God calls us to shepherd his people, he calls us to abide in himself.
Ultimately, what we know is healthy ministry flows from a healthy soul, not really the other way around. And so we want to spend some time in this episode talking about Jesus, just spiritual health. How do you maintain it? What are the struggles you've dealt with? How can we help each other realize that before we're shepherds, we're followers of Christ first. That's the most important thing. And so just to kind of jump into the conversation, I want to just throw this out there. When you first sense God's call into ministry, what did you imagine your spiritual life would be like 20 years into that call?
Michael, I'll start with you.
[00:01:57] Speaker C: Honestly, I didn't think that far.
I had no framework for what the next year would look like. I just wanted to run to see what the end was going to be, which I paid for later because, I mean, you've heard it said if you don't playing, you playing to fail, right? And I end up probably hitting a wall a couple of times that I broke through and just ignored different unhealthy signs that was in front of me because I never thought ahead. I only thought about right now. Yeah.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Sam. Daniel yeah.
[00:02:35] Speaker D: So 20 years. When I was young, looking ahead 20 years, definitely, you know, to my, in my young ministry days, we planted a church in Nashville, Tennessee. And so I was around a lot of Nashville area pastors and Tennessee pastors quite a bit just through associational work, convention work, whatever.
And so I, I would say back then, if I was thinking 20 years down the road, I was, I was looking to some particular guys in my association that I got to spend that time with a lot. I was like, man, I was always really impressed, might not be the right word, but really encouraged, inspired maybe by their example, their kindness. And even though they had pastored a long time and had a great reputation, great track record in ministry, they just were so humble and so gracious. Harold Allen is one name that I will never forget. He was just such a kind man. He'd planted a church in Florida, he'd gone great. He planned to start a church in Gallatin, Tennessee. It went great. He was just, you know, yet he was the most humble guy. And he was always there when you were talking to him.
You felt like he was, he just had this direct connection to Jesus to speak into your life, you know. And so I, my, my goal, my, I guess my inspiration was I want to be kind of like that guy. Like in, in, like In Hebrews, Hebrews 11 talks about all the hall of Faith, then gets into chapter 12 a little bit and talks about dimensions. Imitate those who also follow. Follow, you know. And so that's a guy I would love to imitate. Like Paul says, imitate me as I imitate Christ kind of a thing. And so I just for me, if I'd answered that question, then 20 years later I'd say, I want to be like that guy.
[00:04:15] Speaker C: Okay, yeah.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: Sam, what about you?
[00:04:17] Speaker E: Honestly, I would give an amalgamation of those two answers. I began to discern my call to ministry right after I graduated high school. And just think about an 18 year old guy right in the insecurities and the junk that the average 18 year old dude is carrying.
I didn't have enough wisdom, I didn't have enough forethought. I was a little too punk rock to be thinking about like, what do I want my spiritual life to look like in 20 years. But I knew that when I looked at Trey, when I looked at Eric, when I looked at Ted, like these three men God had put in my life, that they were men who had joy, they were men who seemed to have peace, and they were men who were centered on Christ. And I literally just like a similar thing of just going, I just, I want to be like them. I want my life to look like these guys.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: So with that thought in mind, just thinking about, okay, I want to be like these guys. Now, some years into that calling, what surprised you the most about maybe where you are now versus where you thought you should be, then
[00:05:21] Speaker D: I definitely have not arrived.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:24] Speaker D: I. I'm. I'm nowhere close to what I thought those guys and think those guys are, you know.
Yeah, I just continue to journey with the Lord, just continue to battle sinful temptations and continue to struggle to learn scripture. And, you know, it just goes back to a fundamental truth of Christianity. We continue to preach the gospel to ourselves. You know, you never outgrow the gospel, the Gospels, every day. And so I, I don't think I realized that in my young days.
I thought, there's going to be a time where I arrive and it's all going to be easy street. And, you know, that's just not the case. And if anything gets harder, right. I have to be discouraging to the, to the listeners, you know, but it's.
Temptation doesn't go away.
The battles are continuously real.
Um, but the Word is continuously alive and powerful. Yeah, Right on.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Yeah, man, I'll tell you, I've, at this point in my life, man, I'm about to be 43 at the end of the month and been in ministry literally half of my Life for over 20 years.
And I'll tell you, while I started off just running hard, not knowing what each day would look like.
One of the things that I've learned that I wish I would have known back then is that you can preach from a full notebook while living with an empty soul.
Right? Because we thought, I mean, that ministry was all about the sermon.
Just take it home, just preach.
Only to realize that preaching is probably less than 5% of what we do as a pastor.
[00:07:11] Speaker E: Come on.
[00:07:11] Speaker C: But all of the energy and doing effective ministry is put behind how well we can preach.
You know, even the courses that we take, there's like, I don't know. I didn't know if there were courses then about how to remain spiritually healthy as a pastor, even thinking about seminary and all of that. There are several classes about how to preach, how to prepare a sermon, books out there, how to prepare a faithful sermon, all those different things.
But I think that it's easy to get into the rhythm of doing the work of ministry and forget that as a pastor, you need ministry to as well.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: I want to piggyback on that for a second, and you can circle back around to it, Sam, since you didn't have a chance to answer that specific question.
But I know when I was pastoring, one of the biggest struggles that I had was studying the Bible professionally versus personally. You know, I'm sitting down every week, spending hours and hours and hours preparing these messages, and I. I became a professional Bible studyer.
And it doesn't always reflect back into your personal experience. So how do you guys. And Sam, I'll start with you and you can circle back however you want to. But how do you keep God's word from becoming simply just a weekly assignment instead of daily bread?
[00:08:40] Speaker E: I'm going to give like a super short version of what I was about to answer because it. Cause it leads me into my answer for this question. I heard an interview this week with a Catholic priest who's a spiritual director named Ronald Rolheiser. And he may be famous. I'm naive, I don't know famous people or whatever, but he had this line in the interview where he said, seminary teaches you how to do ministry, but it doesn't teach you what ministry will do to you.
And in the 20 years I've been doing ministry, I'm still in my 30s, but barely, but I'm in there.
In the 20 years, I've actually gotten to know those early mentors as friends and as peers. And the thing I've discovered is they're all just as anxious and sinful and afraid and struggling and hurting as I am.
And even though I had this view of them As a young 18 year old, no, no, no, no. We're all just people. We're all in this together. And there is this reality that ministry does beat you up, it does drain you. And I say all that to set up, to say in my spiritual life, if I am, when I get to a place where the Bible exists in my life for the purpose of doing my job, I am spiritually dead. That is my lifeline.
And part of that is because scripture reading and scripture meditation, those are the spiritual disciplines that probably come to me most easily. Most naturally, I struggle with other ones we're going to even talk about in this podcast, I think. But for me, time to sit in the Word that is totally separate from anything that I'm going to be talking to other people about is a baseline. Like I am dead in my faith if I don't have that.
And one of the primary ways I have locked into that is I have an older brother who is an absolutely avid reader, reads everything, and is very prolific. And when I was in grad school, he encouraged me to read for fun, that you get less out of your nonfiction, your study reading, if you're not also reading things just to enjoy them. And that really opened a door for me in Bible reading to sit down and say, the Bible is the most beautiful, beautiful, powerful, important, life changing, foundational story ever written. And sometimes I need to get down and do my Greek word study so I can write cool sermons and make people think I'm intelligent and know all the stuff. Sometimes I just need to read 1st Samuel because the stories are brilliant, you
[00:11:01] Speaker B: know what I mean?
[00:11:02] Speaker E: And giving myself to the freedom to engage the scripture as one of the most beautiful life giving stories is one of the things that draws me out of my sermon prep study and into intimate connection with the Lord.
[00:11:16] Speaker C: You know what comes to mind for me, Sam, even as you talk about that is just how our ministry for God should never replace our life with God.
[00:11:26] Speaker E: Absolutely.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: And I think about, I think it was Jesus in Mark 3 where he just told his disciples, just be with me.
I think that we have unintentionally replaced doing with being that we think that how well I chuck the corn determines how anointed I am.
And so we aim for the feeling of sermon.
So I think Hatton Robinson in a book, I think it's biblical preaching is the name of the book. Hatton Robinson says that hot water heats up the pipe first.
So if that's the case, then like, and hopefully pastors don't feel that, don't like they feel freed here. Your sermon that you're preparing should push you to the throne, but it shouldn't be the only thing pushing you to the throne.
Sometimes there's gonna be times where life lifes and whatever you preach at might be your devotional for that week, but it shouldn't stay that way.
[00:12:35] Speaker E: Yep.
[00:12:35] Speaker C: Ebbs and flows of life calls for different things. And just like the people need fresh bread, we need fresh bread.
[00:12:42] Speaker D: It's good. That's funny, you said shucking the corn. I thought that was a southern term, man.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Hey, that's been on my mind a lot lately. I don't know why, but I just figured I would use it here.
[00:12:51] Speaker D: There you go. That's a good place. I love it. Yeah. I mean those are great comments.
Yeah. You can't replace the professional aspect of studying scripture with the relationship with Jesus, you know, and it's a real issue though. I mean, it is. So it's so easy to fall into just studying the word and feeling like, okay, I've read my Bible for today.
It's. It's a discipline. It's called discipline for a reason. You know, most of the time it's a delight for me. I stay on a Bible reading plan. I've read Jeremiah chapter two today. That's where I met in my Bible reading. But, um, and it's just you know, I don't like approach it to dissect it. It's just, just reading, like you said, just going back and reading the beauty of the historical account of God and his people and his continued revelation of his love and his grace and his long suffering with them.
It's a beautiful thing and it enriches my relationship with Jesus.
Yeah. So it's, it's, it's understanding the relationship and the job.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:54] Speaker D: And that's. The relationship should fuel the job.
But really if you do the job right, it fills the relationship, you know, but not to, not to overly segregate those two.
[00:14:04] Speaker E: Right.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So that maybe that's the follow up conversation is because I've said it, you know, preaching through hard text sometimes, you know, I've said to the people, listen, if this is eating your lunch today, mine first, you know, because you're dealing with that text, is there a difference? And if there is a difference, what is the difference between preparing a sermon and, and feeding your own soul between the professional and the personal? And I do think there's a very fine line and sometimes it's very blurred. But just in Yalls perspective when it comes to just scripture reading and dealing with that, what's the, what's the balance, the difference, if there is one.
[00:14:45] Speaker E: I got a thought on that. Some of this I think depends on your philosophy of preaching and what kind of sermons you're preparing for your church.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:14:53] Speaker E: Butter to manual.
We preach exegetically and generally we're preaching verse by verse through books of the Bible. We do other stuff too, but always exegetical and usually verse by verse through books of the Bible. And what I have found is when I am studying to present that sermon, there is a lot of the academic side of study going into that. I'm trying to figure out what's the author's original and message to the original audience. And then I'm pulling out theological principles and I'm recontextualizing them culturally. All those sorts of things we learned in our homiletics classes and those things.
[00:15:22] Speaker D: Right.
[00:15:24] Speaker E: I'm not trying to do that when I get in the Word with the
[00:15:27] Speaker A: Lord in the morning.
[00:15:28] Speaker E: And what I have found is that in my devotional reading that is much more prayer driven, much more Holy Spirit seeking. I don't have my commentaries open in those things.
Oftentimes the thing the Spirit leads me to that morning in my prayer in the Word is not the thing I would preach if I was preaching the text. It may not be the author's original Intent to the original audience. It's just what the Holy Spirit was telling me that morning.
And I think that's a really, really for me, at least in the way I preach and those things. It's a pretty key difference.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: Yeah, I think. Yeah, I agree with you, Sam. I even think using the term that Chad talked about peeling back the onion.
Right. Even being more simplistic to say that when I'm preparing a sermon, I have on my mind the audience that'll listen. But when I'm studying the Word for devotion, I have myself on my mind. Right. God, how do you want to speak to me versus how do you want to speak to them?
Right.
That tends to help. You know, or even utilizing our calendar to say from 2 to 4, I'm preparing a sermon, from 7 to 8, I'm in devotion.
You know, like that. Simple ways like that to. To cut our mind off, to know where we are.
[00:16:51] Speaker D: Yeah, and I will. I would say I do. I think it's important to keep a separate personal reading from a sermon. Preparation time in the Word, but also thinking the. In the time of the Word for the preparation for the sermon. I had a mono Professors at Southern Tim Booker. He would do this visual. And I know people can't see us right now, but he would do this visual where he would. Would have his Bible open and he would say, instead of preaching like this, as he took his hand and. And rubbed it across the scriptures out toward the congregation, he said, instead of preaching like that first, preach it like this as he would take his hand and bring it from the top of the scripture into his mouth and then out. Right. So the. Again, it's pictures worth a thousand words there. But the. The. The point was clear is that even as we prepare a sermon first, what is. What is God preaching to us personally through that text before we deliver that to the people? So kind of like what you said, Chad, earlier, especially if it's a tough text, hey, this. This preached to me before it preached to you. That really. That really should be the case every week.
[00:17:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:53] Speaker D: You know, we. We're not just preaching that we're preaching with. You know, we're. We are walking with Jesus, with our congregation, which means the text has to impact us first. And, you know, like the old adage of most teachers, the teacher gets more out of the message than anyone else. That. That should always be true for sermons, too.
[00:18:11] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:18:12] Speaker C: When I was.
[00:18:13] Speaker B: Well, I would say when I was a young pastor, but even now, I think even the beginning of this year, I put out on the Metro Facebook group or whatever. One of my favorite things to ask other pastors is what's your devotional life? What is your reading plan? What does your devotional life look like? How do you maintain it?
And I'm not so worried about, okay, I do it at this time in the morning or I do it at this time in the evening. But when it comes to your own personal engaging in scripture, what does that look like for you?
Daniel, I'll start with you mostly because you're my pastor and I want that information.
But I think we can learn from each other in that regard. How do other guys maintain that abiding in Christ relationship?
[00:18:54] Speaker D: Yeah, thanks. It's a great question. So important. Um, so Bible reading plan. I kind of bounce around on plans right now. I'm just reading different books at a time. So I'm in Jeremiah right now. Just started that this week and just love to just delve into the text not only to understand what happened then, but also how does, how's God speaking that to me now? What's the application? You know, and you know, just today in Jeremiah chapter two is just all about how the people had committed repetitive adultery against God and had chosen for the they'd done two evils, they'd forsaken God and chosen the broken empty cisterns instead of the, the fountain of living water. And just so convicted on how many times do I run to entertainment when I have some. A few minutes extra, you know, and one of the things I quickly run to where I should be running to Jesus more, you know, it's just kind of convicting kind of a thing.
So yeah, that's, that's part of just, just a systematic approach to reading the scripture because that encourages you to get up and read versus hey, I'm going to read today, you know, so having a plan is important, but then just taking the time not just to read it for reading it sake, but how the goal of, is to meet with the person of Jesus, you know, and that's the goal every. Every time. And when, when you meet with Jesus, you, you walk away a little different. And you know, I think when we're doing that regularly it shows and when we don't do it regularly, it shows. And I will testimony to that on both sides of that coin.
[00:20:24] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
So what comes to mind for me is Galatians 5, right? Paul, man, Paul is so dope. Is this okay to say dope on this?
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Okay, it's not okay to do dope,
[00:20:37] Speaker C: but you know, so Paul, hey, the you know, the works of the flesh are evident.
Then he gives this list. But then he.
He experienced. We experienced a paradigm shift in the text where he says, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace. Gives the list.
Guess what he didn't mention there?
Devotional life.
Am I saying that devotional life is bad? I'm not.
What I'm saying is we get into the habit of thinking that because we don't check this box that the Lord is upset with us or that because we don't keep this schedule, that, like, we beat ourselves up because we miss devotion.
But the reality of it is, is that man, like, we have to free ourselves from the pressure of I just got to read the Bible in a year.
Why do you have to read the Bible in a year?
This Bible plan is seven days and I have to complete it succinctly. Well, why do you need to do it? Because the plan says it.
Those things are in place to help us aim for something. Because, I mean, we've heard it said, if you aim for nothing, you going to hit it every time.
But like, so I started the beginning of this year in Proverbs and I'm like, how long is it going to take?
[00:22:11] Speaker D: Who cares, right?
[00:22:13] Speaker C: If I'm in Proverbs, like, like, think about it.
Bishop Sam says, our church, we preach through books of the Bible. We preach exegetically. There's no way you can preach exegetically through John in six months.
Right? There's no way. I mean, but if we just say, you know what? I just, like, as a. Long before I see myself as a pastor, ought to see myself as a son of God, as a disciple, right? So I want to sit exegetically in the scriptures and allow it to talk to me. So if we go. So if it's going to take us three years to preach through John, why would I want to study John or read John and apply it to my life in two weeks?
We have to remove that weight off of our shoulders to complete something in a time that man has given to us. But just rest in who we know the Lord to be and let him speak to us where we are.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:23:09] Speaker C: That's good.
[00:23:09] Speaker E: I wish I had this resource off the top of my head. I'll see if I can find it and send it to you, Chad, for the show notes. But the parent organization that runs Daily Bread, those devos that we all have in the lobby of our church, they did some actual extended, funded research on Bible reading and devotional life and how it actually affects the outcomes we look for in Christian maturity.
And it's really interesting to look at the research. The primary takeaway from it is that essentially if someone is engaging the word four times a week or more, they have a ludicrous increase in positive outcomes that we would associate with spiritual maturity. And if it's less than four times, it drops down to functionally identical to people that never read the Bible and what they took out of that. I mean, you can look at research data all different ways, but what they took out of that was if you are engaging the word more days than you're not, engaging the word four days a week means you do it more days than you don't do it. Not that you're religious, not that you're perfect, not that you're checking every box, but more days than not, you're engaging the word in some meaningful way. And that could mean reading whole chapters, that could mean a reading plan, that could mean conveniently using the daily bread devotional. Right. But whatever that is, if there's meaningful biblical engagement, more often than not, it has incredible returns on actual spiritual maturity outcomes. And I think we all just intuit that, right? As pastors, if I'm engaging the word regularly, I'm probably going to have good outcomes in my spiritual maturity.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:24:52] Speaker E: But, but it is, I think what's so freeing about that is it's easy to slip into a box checking mode. I think even more so as pastors because we're ones going, I gotta get up and preach on Sunday. I've had a really hard week and I've been spiritually drained and I haven't gotten the word and now I gotta get up there and preach. And it's like, yeah, yeah, you do, man, you do.
And I think being freed in that way to go, look, it's not about being perfect.
But are you engaging the word regularly? Is it habitual enough that in a given month you're engaging it more than you're not? I think that is really, really freeing. And it still, you know, brings about the maturity outcomes we're looking for.
[00:25:30] Speaker B: How do we, how do we move through duty into relationship? Yes, you know, because we all, we all have those moments where we experience that dryness in our duty. And so how do we move into that? And go ahead.
[00:25:43] Speaker D: Yeah, And I really, like we mentioned that, Sam, the non legalistic, be it healthy metric. Have I simply been in the word more than I haven't? Yep, that's a, that's a good non legalistic metric.
[00:25:56] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: I struggle with through the Bible in a year programs because I am a, I gotta check that box. Then I get behind like 10 boxes. I'm like. Because I get, I get drawn into something or I, I will kind of move into the professional aspect. Oh, I don't remember reading it that way before. I get to dig into this. And really now I'm studying it because I'm not going to preach it. I'm studying because I want to learn about it.
But another aspect of that, beyond just like the Bible reading stuff, is prayer. You know, we all from our pulpits, we tell our people to pray.
But let's just be honest, sometimes prayer itself can just become another task of ministry. We, we pray professionally. So how do you guys move, Move beyond praying for ministry to simply just enjoying the presence of God, which is what prayer ought to be.
I'm just going to throw that bomb out there and let you guys. Whoever goes first goes first.
[00:26:49] Speaker C: Man. That's, that's really good. Really good. I will tell you something, man. I've learned that public prayer can impress people, right? But private prayer reveals our dependence on God, right?
And what I found out about myself is that I think better and write better than I talk, right? So what I've done with my prayers, I go through seasons where I don't talk. I just turn everything off and just write a letter to God.
And next thing I know, I have seven, eight pages long prayer where I'm just like, I can say what's on my mind because if I'm talking out loud, I stumble over my words, I mispronounce something, distracted by the phone ringing or the vibrating watch or whatever. Like there's all of these distractions.
But if I'm just writing, it helps, you know, I mean, we tend to think about prayer. Like when you think about prayer, prayer is simply communicating with God. But again, peel back the onion. Communication is a conversation between two or more people, right? So I've learned that when I pray, either verbally or writing, not only do I want to talk to God, but I also want to allow God to talk to me.
Therefore, as I pray, I pray with my Bible open. Because you cannot. Like, like, we can't divorce prayer from scripture reading. So, so, so even leaning into the first topic, like, I don't think that we can divorce one from the other. It has to go together.
[00:28:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's good.
[00:28:42] Speaker D: Totally agree with that.
Yeah. I would say on my prayer time is initiated with scripture and then saturated with scripture and followed up by scripture, you know what I mean? So, and I found that my prayer time, I have tried a lot of different things. I've tried a lot of very structured approach to prayer, where one time I had like an index card box. I mean, it's old school, before all the apps and whatnot, but an index card with all these different prayer requests on it, I would keep it, I'd have it organized. But then like you said earlier, prayer became a task, it became a job.
I much more feel fueled and enriched in my relationship with Jesus when I just have a conversation with Him. I'll go on the other morning, go on a walk, and I'll just talk to him out loud and have my Bible app open, believe, listening to my Bible passage for the day, pause it, and just talk about it. I mean, it's just.
Yeah, it's. That's a great point, Michael. It's just the. The interwovenness of scripture with prayer.
Yeah. That also helps us not to slip into overly being overly mystical, you know, because God speaks to us primarily through His Word. Yeah.
[00:29:56] Speaker E: I have found that my tendency, and I think my spiritual gifting is to move toward the intellectual side of things. And so the disciplines around scripture reading and study and meditation, those are ones that come more naturally to me. Prayer is a discipline, a spiritual experience that I find a ton of life in, but it is not one that I am naturally strong in.
And so it's something where that takes more intentionality in my own personal spiritual walk. And I think the couple things I landed on that really helped me is that one is I take my institutional regular prayers, the prayers for my church members, the prayers for my pastors, the prayer like those prayer. And I actually separate those from my devotional time and connection with the Lord. I have those as part of my work schedule, where in the middle of work, I have a time where I stop and I engage the Lord and I ask him for all the things I want to ask him for and to be with all the people I want to be with regarding my church and strategy and those things. And my time in the Word in the morning or in the evening with the Lord. That's where my prayers are more just.
More just relational.
Praying Scripture is huge for me. But I will say one thing that has been a breakthrough in my own spiritual life around prayer is again about. I needed to be freed away from my legalistic tendencies. I knew prayer was something that was hard for me, and so I wanted to get it right. I wanted to check that box. I wanted to be the person who was mature in Prayer and those things. And I would beat myself up because I would start praying, and it didn't matter if I was praying out loud, praying in my head, writing it down.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: I would just.
[00:31:40] Speaker E: My mind would wander. I would be distracted. I'd be thinking about 15 other things, and then I'd stop and go, oh, man, the line is still open. I forgot to hang up. You know, like, God's been listening to me think about my to do list or whatever it is.
Like he isn't doing that anyway. Right. But.
But I would have these moments of just realizing how distracted I was, and I felt a lot of guilt and shame around that. It really was a barrier in my prayer life until I became a parent.
And I have two people in my house who have raging adhd. And one of the things I have found is that I have a child who will, in complete love and genuine desire for connection, start a conversation with me, whether we're on a walk or hanging out at the house or whatever, and just wander in and out of the conversation. Their mind will wander. They'll start talking about something else, talking to someone else, doing something else, and then pick right back up with me, not even realizing they did it. And as a father, in that moment, it doesn't annoy me. I delight in it. I love that my kid wants to talk to me, wants to hang out with me. And it was this moment of freedom for me where I was like, God knows I'm a human. He knows I'm distracted. He knows I'm weak. He knows I'm bad at this.
And I think he's okay with me being bad at praying and wandering in and out and getting distracted, you know, and it just.
[00:32:54] Speaker B: It just brought a lot.
[00:32:54] Speaker E: A lot of freedom to those times of prayer.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: I think one of the reasons I like this conversation and there's several other things on my list that we're probably not going to get to. But I think these are the important things. Because truth, for me, as just a man of God, from my early teen years, even to this day, one of the things I've struggled with the most in my spiritual walk is that, particularly since going into vocational ministry, is that daily connection with the Lord. Bible study, you know, Bible reading, prayer. I'm like you, Michael. When I sit down to pray, my mind just blows up about all the other things. And so the way I. I type, I write my prayers to God. They're very personal, they're very thoughtful.
But I've struggled, which is one of the reasons I ask other pastors that question.
And I think it's important that guys listening and guys that were mentoring and spending time with, that we help them understand that sometimes that struggle is very natural. It's. It's very normal for us to want to do things on our own and be independent rather than be dependent.
So let's kind of wrap up because we got just a handful of minutes. I want to. We're going to skip a whole section of stuff, but I think this conversation
[00:34:02] Speaker C: that's just for the remix. We do that at the remix episode.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: That's right. We'll. We'll cut off the stuff, we'll talk about later and we'll put it out on something special. Yeah, but, but let me just ask around the table this question.
One spiritual habit that you have that is super meaningful to you, that you wish you would have started earlier in your life.
[00:34:23] Speaker E: That's easy. Sabbath rest.
Sabbath rest, period. I mean, I'm in my 30s and again, barely, but still there. I've got four kids, all school age. My wife works. We have a young church that is coming up on its fifth birthday.
You don't do the kind of thing we do as pastors unless you find a lot of life and joy in running and working hard for the glory of God.
It is easy to drown myself in work and to enjoy it and to run myself ragged and to run my tank dry, all the while convincing myself I am honoring God. And I spent the entirety of my twenties thinking the solution to every problem was work harder, do more. Because that glorifies God and that helps the people who need you to help them. And I am increasingly the older I get finding life and joy and freedom in just ceasing work and resting in the Lord and resting in his accomplished work. And I wish I could wring 22 year old me's neck and tell him that, yeah, that's good.
[00:35:30] Speaker D: That's it for me. It's kind of something we already talked about and that was just having a designated time of just reading the scripture for me. This is not tied to sermon prep or seminary or anything like that. Just having that dedicated time. I know it's kind of boring, but that's for real. That's. That was huge for me and it continues to be huge for me.
[00:35:51] Speaker B: That's big.
[00:35:52] Speaker C: Yeah. So two quick things that I'll say. The first thing I'll say is having a place where I don't have to be a pastor.
Like just knowing I can go here and let my hair down. I say what I want. I can express where I am. And it's just. And not feel judged because I just said it, right?
I know, Chad, you like Mike. You already say what you want. Oh, man, if you knew half the stuff that came to my brain.
So having that safe space, I've heard somebody say, everybody needs a place where they can be a heretic, right?
And he said that in pun, right? But the reality that we should have a place where we can just be free, that's one thing. Another thing that I'll say is one of the things that have freed me spiritually is not feeling like I have to plan a year in advance. Living my life 90 days at a time, right, has been so freeing. And every 90 days, taking at least 24 hours to just simply spend time with the Lord, finding some time where you've been, spending time with the Lord within that window, seeing what your goals were and seeing what you need to accomplish in the next 90 days, that. That's something that has been very, very, very helpful for me.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: That's good. I. I'm quickly realizing that we should make a two hour podcast format. We're almost 35 minutes in, and I have one final question I think might be the, the one that we'll spend whatever time and if we, we go a little bit longer, hopefully guys will stay tuned in. And it's this.
[00:37:25] Speaker E: If.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: If a young pastor were sitting at this table with us here in this room and asked the question, what's the most important thing I can do to protect my spiritual health for the next 30 years, what would you tell them?
[00:37:38] Speaker D: I would say do whatever you need to do to stay humble.
Humility is, is so critical. I mean, from the Beatitudes, the first several ones Jesus mentions had to do with humility.
He gives grace to the humble, resist the proud. And if don't be like me, have to learn the hard way to be humble, you know, or to find humility and just fight to fight to hold on to humility because it's just by the grace of God, there go I. You know, there's so many things that. Because if you don't humble yourself, God will humble you.
And it's a good place to be.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: That's good, Sam.
[00:38:16] Speaker E: I would say treat isolation in your life like it is a coiled rattlesnake ready to bite you.
Isolation kills pastors. You need people in your life who know your sin, who know your junk, where you can confess, where you can be real.
That is the number one piece I would give. If you want to have long term health, you have to Have a place, a context where you are confessional, where you are known.
Yeah, that's good.
[00:38:46] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:38:48] Speaker C: Rest is not a reward for finishing ministry. Rest is a part of faithful ministry.
[00:38:56] Speaker E: Woo.
[00:38:56] Speaker B: That's good.
[00:38:57] Speaker E: We don't write that one down.
[00:38:59] Speaker C: And that's something that I'm still learning, but if I would have did it earlier, I wouldn't have to learn it now. Right. But just like, taking that time because, like, even in that, like, I'll take it a step further. Don't sacrifice your family on the altar of ministry. You know, ministry makes a bad mistress.
Right. Just pausing. Taking that time to spend time with the Lord. Spend time with your family. Because, I mean, ministry still going to be there when you wake up the next day. Yeah. But your family, they lose interest.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: Yeah. This is such a valuable conversation. I think we need to circle back and revisit this again because we've just barely scratched the surface.
But I think what's important for us all to acknowledge, and we've got, I don't know, 30, almost 35 years here, Daniel. 30 years in ministry. You're 20 years over 20.
There's a lot of ministry experience sitting here at this table, and we're all still learning how to be followers of Jesus, but that's the most important thing. So, you know, if you're listening and even for us in this room, before we prepare another sermon, and I know we're in the middle of that, it's Wednesday this week, man. Just spend time with Jesus. I remember an old song and I'm a weirdo. I lived in the Southern gospel realm. I like Southern gospel music. Larna Harris. Anybody remember that name?
Had a song where he just talked about Jesus kind of speaking to us, where he says, I miss my time with you.
[00:40:29] Speaker C: Can you sing the song for me?
[00:40:31] Speaker B: I know that would tune everybody out of this podcast, but he said, I missed my time with you. This is Jesus speaking to us. Those moments together where we just communicate and spend time with Jesus because he's worthy.
Not because Sunday's coming, not because it's our job, but because he loved us and gave himself for us first.
Your church, our church. My church needs more than a gifted preacher. It needs a pastor whose soul is abiding in Christ. And so, guys, I want to thank you for. For showing up, for being here, for just speaking into the lives of our pastors and pastors. If you're listening, I can tell you for sure the four of us around this table are here for you. We'd love to talk to you. If there are books mentioned in here, we'll try to get them in the show notes at some point. But we thank you for tuning in. We thank you for joining us on among the Lampstands. And we do want to remind you, no one pastors alone.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: This has been among the lampstands. Let's stay connected, keep developing leaders and keep pursuing the mission, because lostness is the greatest problem in our city and the greatest hope is Christmas.
