E204: Jonathan (2) and B Chris (7) Part II - Enneagram and Ministry

0:00Today on a brand new episode of the Indian Graham journey. So talk about that where you were when you were called what Denomination what you what the setup was where you knew and Then I want to talk about I'm just telling you where I'm gonna go I'm gonna go from there into and then when did the church disappoint you when didn't let you down and how did you heal? When you said that were you just said You gave your spiel and an intro and like it talk about your calling and where did it disappoint you? The feeling your press didn't move a budge these two both Reshifted Yeah

1:03Welcome back to the any Graham journey for part you of our conversation with Jonathan any Graham to and be Chris Any Graham seven and this half the Reverend joins the crew to talk about life and ministry the full spectrum of it goods and the Beds the last episode was more any Graham this part of it is gonna be more journey and This plug is to tell you to visit life in the Trinity ministry dot com to see what is coming up We've got the contemplative any Graham summit the any Graham know your number live with Suzanne just outside of Boston or join online And the re-planted conference in Chicago The 2027 any Graham cohort application deadline is approaching quickly and then there's so much more Visit life in the Trinity ministry dot com for all of the important details and all the links Now let's get back to the mic a center with Suzanne the Reverend be Chris and Jonathan

2:04It occurred to me as we were talking That your point of reference so frequently is ministry and I know that that's in part because you've done ministry together My guess however is no matter where You each are in the world your point of reference is ministry Agreed sometimes it's clear to me that people chose to go into ministry and Sometimes it's clear to me that there are people in ministry who had no choice Only because it was such a strong thing in them that they just had to do it I think that's the two of you and that also includes chose to be And he happened to be in his office here at the Micah Center and Thought I'm not gonna miss this opportunity So thank you darling for coming when I call Always Not always but enough So now we've added a nine

3:05Which is fascinating because now with the three of you that's right. Yeah, we've got all three Stances that too too like we've got gold right now With drawing is in a with drawing posture Interestingly enough The relationship or feeling stances at the mic We could embrace everybody and just give us a chance And the thinking The thinking Aggressive number is on the mic like I'm here and I'm ready So it's fascinating to me that when church leadership changes It's a big shake up for the church. Oh, yes a big shake up and I used to think it was all emotional And it's not it's all three

4:06Also, I think the perfect staff A perfect staff if we add a woman and I'm here to be a volunteer on the staff a perfect staff is A staff that rep that has leadership that is thinking dominant feeling dominant and doing dominant If you leave out one you leave out one third of the people They will not respond The other reality is that sometimes people have no idea How traumatic Ministry can be And how hard it can be better preach and how hard it can be on a family I want to go to a place first Where I'd like for each of you to talk for just a minute about your call I want to then wait into that because I don't know about that for you be Chris and for you Jonathan I know you're a call story and I want to point out that

5:09We're not talking about the same background in terms of church membership or Denomination or any of that so talk about that where you were when you were called what? Denomination what you what the setup was where you knew and Then I want to talk about I'm just telling you where I'm gonna go I'm gonna go from there into and then when did the church disappoint you? When did it let you down and how did you heal? When you said that were you just said You gave the you spiel and intro and like it talked about your calling and where did it disappoint you? The feeling your press didn't move a budge these two both Re-shifted Yeah

6:12Yeah, I hear that shifted Whatever yeah, and look Jonathan's face is beat red Yeah, and it started when I said disappoint you. Yeah, so you're wearing your pain. Yes, man definitely wearing it is man and With drawing over here is hiding his You who have it all together? Reverence to be ill talk about your call We'll go all the way around for call before we go all the way around for disappointment and I could reverse or change order at any time So be prepared. Yes, ma'am I think a lot of people have at one time or another heard my call story I was raised Roman Catholic and Italian Catholic background had wanted to be a priest I can remember as far back as six years old

7:13wanting to imitate and Copy the priest that I knew in churches and parishes that we belong to and The opportunity came to me in 7th and 8th grade With priests visiting our church and recruiting Young men for high school seminaries for their religious orders So I was being recruited by the Mary and old fathers who are foreign missionaries and by the Vincentian fathers whose main work was seminary education I ended up choosing to join the Vincentians and entered seminary at the age of 14 I was in seminary and till I was 27 and I was ordained Catholic priest and I Loved it. I loved everything about the religious order. I loved everything about ministry. I

8:15loved everything about being a Catholic priest Thought that was what I would be My entire life never dreamed or thought I would be doing anything else. I had unique opportunity because I was in a religious order unique opportunity to be a seminary professor and to be a vocation director recruiting Young men for the priesthood and the hospital chaplain and the parish priest So I covered lots of different aspects of church ministry Catholic church ministry and then ultimately Started life in the turning ministries with you in the Catholic church which was adding one more facet of Church ministry because we were doing what was called in the Catholic church parish missions

9:20What we in the Protestant church would say are revivals Where we went into the church for a week at a time to teach together? Yes As far as calling for me I Don't I don't think that this was my family's intention at all based on what I'm about to say But I am third generation of my family to go to the school that we went to of Harding University And I'm also the third generation of my family My grandfather didn't major in ministry, but that's what he did majoring in history my father majored in Bible he did not do that full time, but I majored in Bible and Did ministry after that so three generations of my family, you know, having Bible knowledge using ministry in some capacity Whether out in the world or in the church I Feel like I was groomed for ministry my aunt made that comment to me once that we were groomed my I was groomed from very young age

10:29for it Bible stories morning and night Family devotionals was very apparent in our household When the doors were open we were in church. It was it was never not an option I said this to the Reverend When we were at any grand boot camp. I was like man What a blessing that it was to be in a school for ministry at 14 to be Hands on and getting trained. I'm like what that would do for us You know in our denomination and by where we have grown up church of Christ all our lives both of us I Was mesmerized by that because I feel like I missed out. I really wanted would have loved to have had that Type of exposure. I think we could learn a lot from from that But I would say that when I was around 14 that was when I

11:33Kind of felt called part of it had to do with my mother bringing up What had happened in my life trauma for me which we mentioned we have talked about trauma a little bit my father was tragically killed when I was 12 and my mother at one point I was Talking with her what I was feeling and all of that and she was like think about the impact The influence maybe the you could make on somebody's life later And that was kind of my initial Grab on I mean my only parent remaining who you know is one of my main church influences telling me Something I could do as a difference maker to be a difference maker in that way And then I talked with you know like a chaplain of The high school team that I was a manager of and he said that he had always wanted to do ministry since he was in the 10th grade So he was one year ahead of me, you know when he started and then talking with my current youth minister and I was like

12:38I always wanted to as even young get up and talk About the Bible. I wanted to learn the Bible. It was just ingrained in me and I always wanted to share it and even recently is be Chris and I was talking last week He said, you know Jonathan the phrase that I always hear in you is a fire in your bones It's the Jeremiah reference, you know and that's That's who I feel like I always am. It's the heart is there always and I've always had that Burning passion to want to be sharing God's words especially young people So I think that's why God put me in the context that he did As I dove into the harder things of ministry Meaning like actually having to write research papers and actually having to think and having to process different perspectives and why different People feel different ways about scriptures and why they why there's so much criticism and voice around certain passages and

13:43I'm just going can we just you know get out there and present the gospel you know and I'm not understanding why it's so necessary to have all this training When I'm in it, but I kept you know, that's one of the other gifts here is There were people like be Chris saying hey, stay in it Well, what you gonna tell these people when you minister to them? Oh, so you're gonna hug do you gonna hug the micron with them? Right so I'll have you know We can we can do just fine with feeling and doing Studying ministry we just want to do it. That's right get out there. Let's have some emotions. Yeah, busy right But it was so necessary and that was the that was the fine tuning of calling for me was let me Put you in school and let me put you in grad school and let me give you Some hard things to think about when it comes to what ministry really is and that is bless me in more ways than I could ever imagine

14:44That's why I'll stop for now as far as just the calling piece Just know that while you weren't wanting to think yes Joe knew that he was committing to celibacy for the rest of his right so you know Thank you not to compare this is uncomfortable. So you're saying while he didn't want to think Joe didn't want to do Boy He went there did my I bet this happens very rarely be Chris when you feel like this might be hard for me to follow No, no, I love it Yeah, yeah, yeah, awesome so In a way I kind of I've always been like a felt call to teach and to share information and to share good things with people my father was

15:49He would always play with us since we were like four five six seven But I get down on the floor and create these scenarios with us my brother and I and we're very close in AIDS and very close in relationship And we always play by pretend all through the house Army where he would like fight and we be shooting and then we would play school church these were the three scenarios that we would play and You know my brother he was he most was like army like let's shoot things But I was always always chose either school where I could be a teacher or church where I could be a preacher and His father, I mean my dad was a deacon in the Baptist church My grandfather was a Reverend I really Simpson senior and he had planted churches along with my grandmother So in a way that that was always the case But a lot of it too was how my father brought us up because my brother is actually in the ministry as well So he always played Bobby a random person that appeared in each scenario and

16:53Bobby Would get killed in the army scenario every single time and me my brother we could sense this coming that We haven't found and we're shooting all these imaginary people but Bobby's limping like daddy's on his knees limping on his knees and then he would eventually get shot and he would tell us go on go on without me But we would be like daddy don't do this like we break in character like stop this come with us Bobby daddy and And He would like say no going without me all these things are happening. You're not safe But we would fall on him and my brother night like five and six years old drag him through the house and My father being a master teacher. It was his way of teaching us whatever you do don't leave people behind. Oh my gosh Bobby whenever we played school Bobby was the bully and He would and I was the teacher and he would bully like

17:56my student my brother and And David would have to end up torment and I would have to get the classroom under control and that was daddy teaching us Never let someone be bullied Always stand. What what a brilliant man. He was out of all the PhD People I've known I don't all of the Tile qualified beautiful resume people I've known my father to this day is still the greatest teacher I've ever had So that's what I grew up in from a very young age and then of course because of my trauma I went and did the very thing he taught me not to do as a seven how many regrets I believe people so that I could not be bullied it was a way of Coping with my own Experience of being bullied like if I bully first or if I make the right connections in the group and bully then that maybe that's care for me Of course granted I'm growing up in a dangerous environment, so we have to get along somehow

18:58And then of course I left everybody like I would leave people at a moment's notice but then the trauma and different traumatic things stacked up one on the other and I somehow Do my childhood remembers seeing and feeling this happened comparing myself to other people my brother my cousins my Friends of church girls guys, and I'm just like man I'm increasingly becoming uncomfortable in the world and having to fake more and more and more and Like getting in trouble at school. They were trying to put me in an alternative school when I was in the eighth grade I barely made it to high school. It was strange was depressed by the time I got to high school And so the way I sort of always frame it is You know everybody else was running through life, but I had been injured and I just felt that Since my trauma at age seven I Because of that injury was injured again by other things stacking on top of that injury and

20:00I am running slower and slower and the people I'm with the cohort I'm with they are Outpacing me so in a way I was always close to older people because my parents were older But when it came to my group and my School and my people it just seemed like I was behind in almost every way just behind socially behind We want to do with who I am people knew things I did it and I was faking a lot and I was Good at faking but I knew man. When is this gonna end? I just always felt injured I'm running life and I'm getting slower the group that I'm with they're moving ahead and I'm slowly Moving behind but luckily I had these people in my life who taught me how to run injured and Then they sort of patched me up men women teachers at my school Ministers youth ministers youth councils at my church

21:00I just could ring off a list of angels that got brought into my life over the course of years that taught me like how to run How to hop when the leg hurts how to ice it how to get back on the road of life and just keep running and so it happened that number one I felt that it was my Number one penance to the world in a way which has been both good and bad But also it was my way of giving what was given to me it was exciting and it was fulfilling For me to say no, I want to help people who were injured like I was injured Because when I was ministered to and like These angels healed me and these people came alongside me and taught me how to run It made me better and I want to give that to someone else as As I went on the Lord revealed to me who he wanted me to give it to in what context Because I was so behind running my own race injured that the cohort I came up with they went off and left me

22:05But I was so behind them That the next cohort that was coming behind mine it happened that I was at the front of them And so then they started to ask me questions and that's what led me To what I thought was youth ministry then what I thought was College of adult ministry, but since the Lord has revealed to me It's ministry to the uninitiated the new group of runners whatever that is whether you know whether they're 20 of 60 I found myself being called to minister to people who are new at this like new to the Christian thing What is this y'all are we're new to the marriage thing? This is weird to me bro like you're not even having sex or New to life like kids and children and so Because I've been injured in that way and people are coming up in the new cohort trying to run It's like yeah, bro. I actually was injured and I know where all the pit stops are I once tripped over that rock. I once was trampled by an alternative

23:07cohort coming from the other direction So it's easier for me and I feel very deeply moved and called and fulfilled by sharing With other people in their uninitiated state how they can run especially once they've been injured and so that's been my story It's interesting to me that each of you was called in your context Mm-hmm in the context of your life you felt called What would you ask one another at this point? Like if I had to go get myself a glass of tea What would you all be saying to one another? Well me and Jonathan always be like if we can just talk to this man right here like what is going on over here? No, no, Joe and I'm pointing at the good reverend because I'm like this is wild like and I ask you this question because you told me this this Call story from the Catholic church into the Methodist church and with my Catholic friends and my Methodist friends I'm just like wow what experiences that like the type of thing that you have to

24:11face Get over He'll tell from type of rejection Disappointment because well because what I'm thinking is like now of course you are a father figure and I get that energy from you But I'm thinking yeah, but like what about the 14 year old just that be like the little homie It's like yeah his parents He went there and now after being called there and being what I assume to be like the pride and joy of your whole family now It's like he ain't doing that no more and now he getting married like thing It's just because I've been there in my own ministry where you have to make some hard decisions and it's like yeah I'm gonna be changing what I'm doing not who I am but the people that you are with are like now you changing who you are and they can't always get the The you know saying The reasoning behind it and it's a lot to navigate trying to follow God and trying to not Just expect the people you love and not also trying to go off on the people you love like if you don't leave me alone

25:15It's like a follow-up guy we gone box, but you can't box the people you love so it's just like that's a question I have Before you answer Online and I'm grabbing the Instagram handle of little homie Giuseppe The 14-year-old Intention yeah, you're not gonna have another podcast participant who says something like that by the way That's not happening you're not gonna find another one You don't need to worry about Joel and I using that too much You know that conference she told you to come up with you know when you do your interview You do this and you go and say then I gave him that Oh, yeah, and now coming to the stage Let's go I think the

26:16the best Answer I can give to you About all of that I New Absolutely knew that I was being called to be a Catholic priest. I had no doubt about that my parents were very supportive of that and very aware that the process of education in the religious order that I chose Was going to be at at least 13 years By the time you do high school and two years no vision and college and theology school and So they were very very supportive that they were very supportive of my years as a Catholic priest because Some of those years were right here in Dallas where they lived and

27:17They got to experience me as a parish priest in a very progressive very large Catholic church here in the city The disappointment I think that they experienced was in my Choosing to leave the priesthood coming from a strict Catholic background Leaving the priesthood meant you were going to be breaking your vows excommunicated from the Catholic church all of those kinds of things It was a Much bigger problem for them than it was for me Probably because of any Graham wisdom And knowing as a nine that there are times in your life when You do right action Because you know that this is absolutely the right thing for you to do to be clear you didn't know the any around then

28:22You just know you just knew that as a nine as a nine. I knew that what I was doing and I think I would not have known this had it not been for 26 years of very intense strict formal long-term spiritual formation in the religious order if I had not had that foundation that background that to hold on to So I knew that when I chose to leave the priesthood I knew as surely as I was called to the priesthood I knew God was calling me out of the priesthood I didn't know for what and I didn't know for where but I knew God was calling me out of the priesthood at that particular time so my strength was I'm doing what God called me to do And I'm sorry that y'all don't support that or like that or are not happy with that

29:24But I'm 40 years old and I know that I know that I know I'm doing what God called and that's more important To me than what you all want or think and As surely as I knew God called me out of the priesthood I knew God was leading and calling me to Mary Suzanne and Then still not knowing where the journey was gonna go Ultimately that God called me back into ministering the United Methodist Church. I think the the underlying element of all that for me is There's not a single moment in my life that God has not been faithful to me How do I strive to be faithful to God and to God's call in my life? So Every single day of my life is waking up and saying what do I need to do today to be faithful?

30:28What is the next right thing that I have to do? To be faithful to God who has always been faithful to me And I think that was what gave me the strength to make the changes I have no regrets. I loved being a Catholic priest. I was a really really good Catholic priest um, I have no regrets. I love being a United Methodist pastor and I think I'm a really good United Methodist Pastor as well. I I get to live with my feet in two different denominations So I know what's great about Catholicism and what's bad about Catholicism. Yes. What's great about Protestantism and where we fail as Protestants So it's it's done nothing but had a layer of um understanding and wisdom

31:29to my years of of ministry Beautiful. I just like to add to that one of the things that we Got from Richard Roer is the best protection from the next word of God is the last word of God If you're hanging onto the last thing God called you to do you may miss the next thing. Wow God is leading you too I'm speaking to me for sure. Lord have mercy. Oh absolutely. I'm not ordained. I'm not a minister and I do a lot of good ministry. Yes, but I and I I think we We everybody right now here right now the the five of us are doing what God called us to do right now And I learned from Joe and from Joe's experience That there's a call on your life And it gets lived out in different ways. There's not an end to the call

32:30Right right. There's not There's okay. How's God going to use me next And how can I be available to that? Yeah, and faithfulness I think lies in the I'm here and I'm available That's right not I have to figure this out And you'll Show me what to do tell me what to do God's with us no matter what and my only place where I haven't felt it as a pastor's wife Is when we've experienced how mean people can be in a church I don't want to skip over that Because we are all happy We've had a happy joy-filled podcast And life isn't perfect for anybody And ministry isn't perfect for anybody And I I think the podcast lacks integrity if I don't set the table for the three of you to talk about that

33:36I don't know about in the church Christ But there's a tendency in our denomination For the hard parts of ministry to be a secret Oh, I'm so sad that you're going through that. Yeah, as if they have never gone through it That's just not a real thing. That's not real I had an amazing education preparing me for ministry and after 53 years of ministry I have Lots and lots of experience um The joys of ministry and the heart breaks of ministry and You enter into life circumstances and situations and you're going to have both Nobody gets through life Just all joy or all that

34:40You guys in for talking about some of the heart breaks sure Sure, before we go to that and I'm going to go there very quickly, but before we go to that I would just like to say that I agree with you Joe that you have had an incredible education and you know how I feel about your wisdom and your knowledge and all that and I'm telling you If we were playing a Bible game There's a good chance. Oh, yeah, these guys have got you I know about that hands down um Yeah, we Joe's very first vacation Bible school as a united Methodist pastor was at our very first appointment And there was a song that they taught all the kids in vacation Bible school So they could remember the books of the Bible in the order that they came in and we still know it And I still sing it on Sunday mornings when I'm looking for the

35:41Yeah, the reading it's like Oh, yeah, yeah, right Yeah, we came out the womb saying those things There's the difference With his guitar. He has a beautiful voice and he's with his guitar and he's you know doing this with the kids And wait in this town It was a little town in Texas. That means every denomination goes to every vacation Bible school Like that's daycare for the summer for kids, right? Sure So we've got every denomination there and Joe has taught the kids a song and then they've sung it three once And this little kid on the front row looks at him probably church Christ don't you think I've got to be most definitely Look at him and said Bet you can't do that with your eyes closed Here it goes Well, and Joe didn't even bite because he knew he could

36:45So I'm just saying there's a lot of wisdom at the table right and yeah and There is no greater gift for a young people in ministry To have a person with some years in ministry and some integrity And the integrity comes in being willing to say There are some really hard years Yeah Yeah And I tell you one of the refrigerator magnets That I stomped on a torrent half I tried to flush it it wouldn't flush so I had to put it in the trash which felt incomplete to me Said God will not take you where God will not keep you Okay Maybe but right now I'm not absolutely sure that's true was my response when I was so violent in my response to the refrigerator And the thing I'm telling those two stories for is to say that

37:49You're not prepared for that nothing prepares you for that and I I've watched and I have observed it to feel For younger clergy that we know and for Joe like the loneliest place in the world And I want you all to have the freedom to talk about that Because who knows who you could offer a hand by saying yeah, I've been there I'm on a back out and Joe maybe you can I'm gonna stay right here But you can do whatever needs leading and if you don't jump on it This one will get you and this one will agree that's that's okay. You define that so well Just wait right you hit it right on the head I gladly let them jump in and lead it

38:49Happily you know you haven't been in here the whole time. I wouldn't do that Thank you. Thank you I've had all sorts of disappointments at different times in all these years of ministry probably the the biggest Overall disappointment for me was the excitement as a Catholic that Pope John the 23rd called the Second Vatican Council to invigorate Open the doors and windows of the Catholic Church and allow the Holy Spirit to blow it and make significant changes within the Catholic Church and it did and it was followed up by Popes after him that continued to open those doors and windows

39:51And it was exciting for those of us at the time who were young priests looking forward for those orders and windows to stay open and I pastored a large Catholic church in the Panhandle of Texas and In my 9ness of doing I had this great idea of doing something different with our elementary school that was going to Allow us in that particular church to do much more religious education for our youth and our children in a much larger context that I thought was really good and most helpful and the bishop in that diocese

40:52uh squelched that and had me transferred out of the diocese because his idea was he was never going to close a Catholic school as long as he was bishop and I was trying to close a very small Catholic school to create a very large youth children religious education program and you found out you were fired in the newspaper I found out in the newspaper that I was being removed yeah I'm sorry brother So I heard there's been a lot jocelyn up there of how I might start this I will say going back to you know the fire and the bones thing um I had a professor well I actually never had him in class I just knew him and had discussions with him and things one thing he said um about his experience was he

41:57he would say as I've heard him say publicly that he has never had a preaching job or never had a job that wasn't preaching since he was 14 so that you know kind of relate and he talked about like his dad was fired on the spot for reading from a certain translation one time um and but he also said that his dad said if you can do something else as a career and enjoy doing it do it and I thought about that you know when I was in school and I would be struggling you know with some class or struggling with decisions I was making or even sending my life or something and still feeling like I couldn't do anything else you know there was no yeah there were you might could be involved in education you might could be involved um in some type of PR setting working with kids in a different way but I was like you know what I really want to do

43:00this I feel a call to do this um however I would say the first time that I ever saw anybody get when I when I first got a glimpse and that didn't come out honestly come up until we've had this conversation around this table a glimpse of darkness in ministry if you will or when hurt happens or how the loneliness is actually there because I always vision envisioned as a kid and as a teen when I was thinking about doing ministry ministry to me look fun a youth ministry just looked fun to me I didn't see any other way to describe it you know big it to be a big kid all day you you hanging with with teenagers you're talking about God what what's better than that right um yeah no idea and you have no idea really until you're in it what what things happen behind closed doors and so I remember one time one of my mentors um his name getting announced publicly that he was getting

44:01terminated in our church and I remember punching the pew in front of me because I was so mad didn't have a clue as to what happened didn't know why I just knew that was a mentor he was a minister how dare you know that kind of thing um in my own experience most of the time I had heard the stories of how somebody got put out a ministry because of a bad choice sin in their life so they had to go you know that kind of thing whether it be money or something involved in sex or anything like that and it was a church terminating them for for a reason that seemed just and fair but when you are in ministry and you encounter um something like a an elder looking you across the table and keeping in mind this is coming from an anyogram too um when you've put your heart into this you really you really worked hard

45:06and it wasn't all about you you were giving to people you gave and gave you gave you walked around with your chest caved in because you were carrying all this weight that teens threw on you and you know you you walked around hearing people say appreciative things of you and and then they look across the table that you after three and a half years or so and then they say when people ask me what you do as a minister I don't know what to tell them and then you get grilled on how much time that you spend in the office or how much grad work you you know and so then you go from hey look you know I was doing graduate work that y'all were helping me with financially and I thought since it's ministerial I could work on it in the office and all and then they tell you can't and now you've been told in graduate school don't neglect your family whatsoever but you just told me I can't work on my graduate studies anymore in a place of ministry that was very hurtful to me that was one of the biggest experiences I had with church hurt

46:10if you will because I will say in a lot of church hurt situations that I've known about that I experienced myself you don't see it coming it just it comes on you like a whirlwind in the storm and you just wind up in it and you wonder how you got there and in those places it's not your own doing it's and and the thing is it's like people are supposed to be in the church a place that is a place of healing a place of welcoming a place of fellowship a place where everybody can can belong and you know we can sing of it as you know just come as you are when do we not hear that in church and people are supposed to have maturity about them that is better but we forget too they're broken too sure can't forget that and hurt people hurt people it's it's a common phrase and it is a very well-known truth but yeah when you get when you feel like you're being pushed out and you didn't see that coming and you don't understand why that happened that can really take

47:15its toll that can really be painful so I'll say I've seen I've seen an experienced hurt like that and it you know it could be just from you triggered something in somebody unintentionally they don't talk to you about it they just put your name out there blast you or times when seeing your wife struggle uh it's the worst seeing your wife struggle um I got to I got to speak on that um when the church hurts a minister when it happens when uh you don't know what that does to you your support and it's uh been difficult as she has walked with me through ministry it does seem at times that each location has its own version of loneliness yeah it just looks different

48:17I want to be clear too for listeners out there not every place that I went hurt me um and not every place that I've been to has just been a tragedy you know but I will say that they do exist and there's a lot of loneliness in ministry a lot of um pain in ministry that we just don't know about but at the same time we really shouldn't be surprised when we really dive into the scriptures and we see what people of ministry endured I mean it's part of ministry is sacrificial and suffering and we just don't suffer well sometimes so I don't think it's possible to have a heart for ministry and not have a heart for your the an equally big heart for your family and an equally big heart for the community and I'm on the side of pulling against the church to have more of Joe you know the competitive side that I feel of what do you mean

49:21like no today's our day no this is our weekend no we're on vacation no but I need you right now this many years out I don't know how y'all do it I don't know how Joe did it does it I don't know how you do it when you have a church that's expecting this from you and you have a wife and children that are expecting this from you or a partner that's expecting this from you or I don't know how you do that and I don't know how we could support you better than we do because we need you to and I don't know how we could not be jealous of the church because there are times when we need you and the church gets you I don't think it's fair for people to go into ministry not knowing how hard it is and I don't think it's fair for people to go into ministry and for families to agree to that without knowing how hard it is and it doesn't mean people aren't going to do it it just means people are going to know what they're getting into and it's hard to

50:27see that from the pew. Every single church that you go to pastor expects the perfect administrator the perfect preacher the perfect congregational care pastor the perfect's teaching pastor they expect that of the one who comes to take the position as senior minister senior pastor there is no in my years no minister who has all of those gifts at the same time I would agree with that my point has always been in churches particularly in denominations where pastors are changed by a bishop or so not so much in the church across I understand that but if you stay long enough in the

51:28church in the same church you will ultimately get the pastor who's a really great administrator or the pastor who's a really great preacher or the pastor who does really great congregational care that congregations believe that you are there to serve them in whatever the capacity is that you have and that automatically I think sets up expectations that are not going to be met or can't be met by any one person totally completely yeah going back to my analogy of how being called into ministry felt whenever I was injured people minister to me they patched up my injury taught me how to run so then naturally that's something that I wanted to do and felt called to do it was very fulfilled in doing for others in the ministry it just really threw me off that now that I'm running

52:30whereas some have patched up injury now others are causing it that really threw me I've actually had leaders and members actually seek to injure me yeah to say something to cut me down to communicate something to other people to reduce me in no few times sometimes very subtle and other times very aggressive sometimes in private other times very publicly both me and my wife who was an enneagram for and our dream was to do ministry together but both of us having been injured that's something that we each really struggled with that injury is happening by the doctors

53:39and the nurses like malpractice that's a really good analogy I like that thank you for saying that that's powerful go on Joel do make sure to include that in the recording thank you but yeah I just feel like that threw me off I mean I've ministered to like five churches and four different locations throughout the country a minister to black churches and biracial churches and I've done like tenor ministry throughout the whole country public speaking on every coast and everywhere in between with black folk and white churches and the thing I've noticed in each of those different ministry context I was a campus minister at a Christian school it is weird when you're injured even the small ones I was preaching once and I had somebody in sort of a very large crowd

54:48of about four thousand people a year later I was insecure because I had I think I had gotten a little fatter and and and whereas I'm a public speaker and I feel called to do that work it gives me especially then before I was in my counseling to this effect and on my medication okay I was real anxious and it took a lot for me to get up there and to speak on it a man came to me laughing a year later and he said in the midst of someone else who had said wow that message you gave was so good I remember this about it put it up put it up put it up and I started listening to out the other man he said my daughter and I counted how many times you adjusted your glasses oh gosh and he gave me the number it was something like 82 because it's a tick I was experiencing from the nerves actually

55:54knows because he wasn't listening well well yeah yeah yeah but I'm saying small injuries like that there's not a small injury that's not when you're that vulnerable that's true you have to hurt worse yeah you know you pour in your heart out trying to and I've always had a a minute of high conflict not always but in many places minute of high conflict and God has put me into very conflicting areas and my because I was full-time ministry for many years and then I went by vocation or I still did work with churches and then I was also a teacher I worked in administration and in all of that high conflict but in high conflict areas when you're trying to pour your heart out and be vulnerable because that's what you really feel that Jesus is calling you to do and you know you read about it in the scripture you know how Jesus was afflicted and the people

56:54he came to love yeah cut him down like that and but it's different when you feel it in your own experience yeah and just the injury was wild it was it was wild that's a different man women children young oh it's a difference in reading it studying it teaching the people about it and living and living in it or experiencing it yourself yeah it's and you don't even then you got to learn or in that moment it's like now everything I've taught now I have to really relive it and I have to try to live the principles which I engaged these people in like not retaliating and things like that that's really difficult to do so you all probably never heard of archipitian used to have a television show when I was a kid growing up the Catholic church is just about

57:55to be out of fire him hearing the United States oh sorry what does that mean the first step before becoming a saint okay consider the saint got you in the Catholic church he had this television show and we watched it faithfully every every week when he was on television as kids growing up and unbeknownst to me he was on a branaf air line where my sister was the flight attendant and she said my brother is about to be ordained a priest he said can you get me a piece of paper and he hand wrote me this letter on branaf stationary that I still have talking about priesthood and the joy of ministry and serving others and at the same time

58:59awareness of that you like Christ are going to be a victim and I have held that through all of my years of ministry that there is extraordinary joy in ministry and there are those times of victimhood in ministry and I have experienced and I think every minister has whether they're honest enough to say it experienced an antagonist in every ministerial setting that they find themselves in and we are at fault in seminary education Protestant or Catholic if we don't teach young people going into ministry that they're going to encounter an antagonist somewhere sometime in their ministry life and they're going to get you usually are including

1:00:04the place that you it would hurt you the most which is your family. I have discovered in all of my work up my other work and this work and living and all of that I've tried for a long time to figure out why all of a sudden a group of people go after somebody that they loved a month ago I believe that we are to a place where we have been before where we can't go here we are divided in every way that it's possible to be divided and we're getting energy from that and we're distracted and tired so we're looking for energy so to be over against disenergizing and so we're just dividing and dividing and dividing and dividing and a long time ago I taught U.S. history and I believe the last time that we were able to cohere as a country was World War Two.

1:01:16It's the last time that we were all involved and all working for the same thing and for the right thing. I do think that the way people have intuitively figured out to get a group of people to cohere is if they have a common enemy like we did in World War Two and in churches when a group starts to splinter a church congregation starts to splinter and this one's not happy and this one doesn't like this then the best way that you can get them to cohere is to have everybody turn on the pastor and it works when when y'all are gone when we're gone it's a reset for the church it's like okay well now we got a new pastor and why don't you come sit over here on our our pew then everybody's friends that weren't they weren't friends it's like a reset for them

1:02:18and it's devastating for the pastor and the pastor's family and what I've experienced also it would be rare to find three pastors who are willing to share their pain with each other because usually one or two share their pain and the other one says gosh I'm sorry y'all have had that experience so you've had it but it's hard for you to talk about it any a gram helps any gram wisdom helps and the any gram helps every number has their reason for going along with what's happening absolutely I can't I can't like I really like him or her but I can't stand up for that these are my friends yeah I can't do that I've been in this Sunday school class for all these years I can't do that and and what happens is when we come in to serve a church then we're supposed to be part of

1:03:26everybody y'all are supposed to be ministering to everybody you're supposed to be long to every group that's not doable that's not even doable so all I want to say to you is the expectations are high and the expectation as Joe shared you're supposed to be good at everything that it would take to run a church no human being is and for some reason in my observation for now my whole life because I grew up in the church for some reason when a minister or a pastor is in excruciating pain the solution is always to move the pastor rather than to have the congregation make the adjustment among themselves yes and so you start out as the victim and you forget that you're the victim during the season while they think you're the best thing that's ever happened and the best

1:04:31pastor that they've ever had and there'll never be anybody like you again yeah I don't think I've ever heard he put like that before yeah that was really good thank you for being ministers thank you for being in ministry and as I look at the three of you and I know one of you inside now I know every single part of this human being who I love so much oh it's Joe every single part what I know from knowing the two of you through and through but for the time that we've had I know that God will never be through using you as God's ministers thank you and I think the only question you ask is not whether you're in ministry but where are you in ministry yeah yeah that's the only question yeah and when you know where you're in ministry then you get to write the ending

1:05:35of the story yeah yeah yes now and other people do not and I have unending respect for the four men that I got to spend the morning with and afternoon with today I I can't I can't say enough how privileged I feel to have been present to all of you talking to one another about ministry or about tunis and sevenness or about friendship or about relationship and I am so looking forward to what will be and only God knows what that is but I just want you to know I'm in thank you my brother is beautiful you