The Vault Expert with Pastor Rhodes

0:00Broadcasting from deep inside the vault, this is the vault expert. In a world full of noise, this is where real stories break through, where courage meets conversation, and every voice carries power. Here, ordinary people reveal extraordinary strength and resilience, the vault expert. Conversations that unlock power, purpose, and perspective. Welcome to the vault expert. I am Patty, and I have my old, my old young youth pastor. Can you believe it? It was in the 1900s, and Pastor Rhodes was my youth pastor. Yeah, I'm 71 now, I remember you very well. Yeah, I think I sat in your office a lot. It was for me because I was able to get out of school.

1:01So everybody who's listening, you may not know I went to a private school for a while. And Pastor Rhodes was my youth pastor, and his daughter Bonnie was one of my best friends in school. And so we found out this technique that if we went to go talk to the youth pastor, we could miss math class. So I did not pretty often. Yes, so welcome to the show. Thank you. I'm pretty happy about this. You know, I've done a lot of interviews for the last almost 20 years, and I got thinking the other day about who would I really, really want to interview on my show. And it wasn't ever celebrity. That's never been my go-to. It wasn't somebody in political office. It was those closest to me, either when I was growing up or now. And one of the people that really stuck out in my mind was you. Thank you for that. I was good.

2:02Yes, it was excellent. You were one of my core memories. That was very good. So thank you. Yeah. So what I would like you to do is instead of me trying to come up with the words to tell everybody who you are, I'd like you just to kind of tell us a little bit about yourself and where you came from. I was born in Melbourne, Florida in 1954, and I was raised by a great family. My dad owned a couple of businesses, and I worked for him from the time I was 10 years old. I graduated from Melbourne High School, next to me, the 72. Then I spent a year in college, but maybe a little bit like you, I'd rather go and miss out on the classes. So then I joined a Navy military, which I enjoyed very much. I was in there from 1973 until 1981, and probably would have stayed because my house started isn't listed, and my career was born really well, but I started having a family. So I made a decision to leave the Navy in Norfolk, Virginia in 1982 in Minnesota. Then I started a whole business, and went back to Melbourne, started a business, and had

3:07that business for a year and a half, got very involved with working with people, working in churches. Then I took off to Bible College, Bible School, and was in college for a couple of years, 1983, I think, is when I left. I'd already in August, sent me to college, so I had a lot of credits. Then from there, I went to North Michigan, where I met 50 people like you, and I served as youth pastor there for almost eight years, and then I left there. North Michigan went to Melbourne, Florida, to be the senior pastor of the first Baptist church there, South Melbourne, and then I was there until 2023, which brings me to my time today. Being alive. So you know, that's funny, as a teenager, we just never realized that people had a life before they were in our lives. So I'm sitting here thinking about this, and I was like, well, I did not know you were literally from Melbourne, Florida. My parents lived there when they grew older, but I actually didn't know that that's where

4:13you were from. And then the other thing is, it makes so much sense now with our old youth camps. There was one year you did a military theme, and it was so fun. It was my best year at camp ever, and I think we had different branches of the military. You divided the teens up. Do you remember that? I certainly do. Oh, that was so fun. Of course, some of you guys weren't so impressed, but an intake of the day or so, you guys would fit right in, and have a really, really great time. So that was a big part of me being a youth pastor was thinking outside the box and how to help reach kids and do things that they would enjoy while you're mentoring them or encouraging them or preaching to them, those kinds of things. Yeah, I don't remember the details exactly, but I remember that I had a pair of white boots, and I thought it was kind of cool, but I didn't want to tell an adult it was kind of cool,

5:15because we had this military theme on, and I had these cute, well, cowgirl boots, but I was like, oh, kind of like military boots, oh, my goodness. Nice job. It was. That was really great, and you know, I remember when we were getting, I would say quote unquote, trouble. It wasn't really any big trouble for a private school was big trouble, but, you know, now that we're all grown up, and I can see it was not trouble. It was more like we were being guided, and I remember that back in the day, even when you were guiding us, like our punishment wasn't even really like a punishment. I remember being called to this lodge or something, and you were just talking a lot, and I was just like, I'm so tired, because we won't stop talking, because we snuck out at night. But, you know, I thought that the way that you handled the kids was pretty good, because I mean, put somebody in a room full of kids, like you're going to go crazy sometimes.

6:22I think, I think after me started in the military, my dad taught me to work in military was a breeze for me, and working hard, and learning stuff, but I had a lot of people in the military. I was very young, but there seemed to be a lot of people who need help. So, in my office, my rooms, when I would be in Sicily, or kept fit, I slung the wherever I was, tended to be the place where people came, and then they saw the advice for me. I was often the youngest guy, but for some reason, I kind of opened my eyes to the needs of people and individuals, and I think it kind of eventually is what led me into the ministry. Yeah, I was going to ask you about that, because how do you go from the Navy, especially for that long of a period? I mean, it wasn't just, you know, two to four years or something like that. How did you adjust? I'll be honest with you, it was a little difficult at first. I was very involved and engaged, and it was on the audio selection board.

7:23I mean, Eisenhower there, Captain Walden, the CEO of the chip had written me up for that. So, I was very engaged. I started a prison fellowship group on the USS Eisenhower, and I was there, and I liked to come robbery, and that kind of stuff. I got out. I was a little loose, but I think I'd go back to my parents, my dad, my work ethic, started the business, got involved, got engaged, and did not allow myself to be idle. And I think that's the key part. I know a lot of guys, as our church was located next to the earth, not after the earth, but a lot of military people. And a lot of times when they separated, when they come back, certain deployments, there were issues, and keeping engaged and involved and going forward and giving active things became paramount. That's kind of always been my daily work, when I look at people, I look on the inside, and try to determine what's in there, what do they need, how can I help them. And then try to provide a framework that would give them a way to stay busy, because

8:27the military for me was great, transitioning to stuff, but I had that ability to stay busy. Yeah, you sure did, and it kind of explains a lot to me too when you would be so supportive of military. And that was before I realized that you were in the military. And I remember way back when I was starting one military organization, and your church had donated some money towards them. Remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Remember what we did when we did this? But it was for what we needed, and I can't exactly remember what it was we needed, but I can tell you this. I want to say it was $300, which was a lot for a girl who didn't know anything about starting a nonprofit. And it was for Christian military wives, and the funny thing is I've been in communication with them again, because after Ken had retired from the military, I gave the organization over to another organization called Christian Military Fellowship.

9:28So recently I was in communication, and they asked me if I would come back and be one of their leaders. And so I just, I told them only behind the scenes, I'll help them connect with others that will be able to step up, but I am helping with that again. So that donation back then went a very long way, because it's almost 20 years later. Well, the crazy God for that. Yeah, crazy, crazy how time goes, but so you, I remember you had a lot of kids that seem like, you know, I say a lot, but really maybe what, five, six, okay, so you have six kids and grandchildren now. 19, sir. Oh, my word. So what kind of advice would you give, let's say, let's throw it back to military, since a lot of my listeners are military. What would the advice be that you give a military member who has children? I know you didn't go through that, but I'm sure you have some guidance there.

10:32And they're getting ready to transition out of the military. Well, I think that would be difficult. I think that would have to almost be individualized, but I think as a macro sense, I used to always tell, I still believe that often with your kids, you guys start out saying yes, more than no, finding ways to say yes, you know, no, when you're going to transition out of military, they're on the age of the kids. They're going to be some struggles, particularly for teenagers. So if that communication hasn't been established prior to that, you know, time, it's going to be difficult. So my best advice is to establish communication early and maintain it and keep it learned to communicate by saying yes, more than your kids and no, it shocks people. They learn when I raise my kids. I often did not tell them what to do. I just did not. I gave them options and told them what I think, like the Bible would say, well, I think my advice is, and then I would look at them and I would say, you need to do what you think of for it. And I gave them the opportunity to instead of just saying no, you need to do this, no

11:33you need to do that, to try and get them to make decisions personally, not just something that I told them to do. The same way with teeth spec then, although I learned, I think, in the beginning, in the beginning, I was teaching or trying to mentor and help kids get to a place to where I was trained first of all to be, where I believe they should be. And I learned pretty quick when I need to go inside to communicate and find out what they're supposed to be and then try to help them get to where they need to be, not to where I think they should be. And I think it was the same with my kids. Why you should teach and preach to different colleges back in the day? And they would ask me, why don't you send all your kids to this place with that place? That's the way I started doing that in the very beginning. Everyone needs to go. And then I learned that each person is individual. My kids are individuals in any military person that's leaving and ask kids, every one of his children are different and unique. They've got to establish connectivity with them.

12:35So if they transition out of the military, they've got to have the communication in mind. If they feel they're failing, because I've talked to a lot about this and they failed at it, you've got to start now before that time comes. That's true. Looking back, that probably really helped you as a father when you, you know, you will be working with teenagers when they were still really little and some of them were not even born yet. So I look at myself as a little training for you. Well, you know, I think that you've turned out really well. So where is the Lord for that? Christ the Lord, because that was a little iffy. Now I'm just joking. Well, I mean, you know, Kathy, for me, Maddie, I think at the very beginning of my life, I've looked at some on the outside and that picture that I saw determined where they were. And then I learned that you can't judge a person by the snapshot. There's a whole life there behind it, well, even so you can't, you can't, you can't

13:37allow what you see on the outside of it. Sometimes some of your kids are very trying to me. Well, that's absolutely. I wasn't at my best always. But I think that every kid that was pretty much, I think, most of them, well, now we have to say. I might not agree with that, man, but I think you, I loved it, then you, I care about it. You don't do that just measuring somewhat by what you see on the outside. Yeah. I remember I have really good memories of you and looking back, I haven't been able to communicate with all of our old classmates and all of that. But the ones I have been in communication with, we've all turned out really well. And it's pretty amazing to see. I mean, we did have a small school, but considering, you know, all and all and angry all turned out well. So there's a lot of, I have contact a lot of people from the past, whether it be in Michigan

14:39or of course in Florida for the years, particularly the kids and I was, listen, this probably would shock you a lot of my, because our church really grew. I would still be more the team camp when I was a senior faster, even though I had a youth faster, all these help, I would go because I felt, can I give you an illustration of what I'm from, say, yeah, I don't know if you're a youth group, the light was really coming on for me. We were two certain people Michigan, and I was doing the thing that everyone does, taking kids into places and I went to this one and I had a big group of kids I thought, they wanted all the youth faster to sit up on this tent table around this fireplace. You know, I was doing my best to try and warm up the kids. So I went to the director. So I want to sit with the kids in my youth group, I don't want to sit up all pedestrian with them at every one, so I want to go down there and cut up with, you know, be crazy with them. They said, well, I said, it's not how we do it. Well, I did my own thing. I did it anyway. So that was the last time I went to that camp, I started doing my own.

15:41I think that the one thing that I could probably tell you, if you're going to engage, engage not from a distance from close up, it takes a lot more time, but it's well worth the effort. Investment is well worth the effort and lots of people. Absolutely. And I do feel like you were pretty, pretty lenient when it came to, I wouldn't even say lenient. It was more like, yeah, you're right, you don't want to be up on that pedestal. You were one of the guys that you hung out with the kids. You did the dirty stuff. You would call around in the mud, you know, like, you know, I think I learned that from my father, and of course, there's nothing new, it's not new with him, but if you're not willing to do this stuff, you're not willing to take out, when I was in the military one time, I looked out the window, and I also felt like I was in five staff, and the admiral there was a guy named Shugart, and he gave me money, and I think he was the one that gave me the time, I guess, and I looked at him with a tarmac one day.

16:45There comes an admiral Shugart with two of his eights, all of a sudden some trash blows across the tarmac area in the plane, and his struck me, the person that ran, got the trash, the two guards are too busy trying to stay focused on the persona, and to me, that's an illustration of someone you can follow, he's willing to do whatever it needs to be done at the moment, because it's necessary. He doesn't require others to do it for all the time, so I think leadership on a large is really lacking in that, and I would say, I don't hurt what it would be political, but I would say politically speaking, many of them were engaged in a transit system, and got completely out of touch, the rank and file, plums or whole families, kids, and so on, I think they could learn a lesson by beginning a little deeper than just going through the motions of administration. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you don't understand the people that you're trying to lead, you can't possibly be a good leader. So what is one story I need to ask this before we finish?

17:49We've got about 10 minutes or so, maybe a little bit more. One thing that you can think of that's drawn you to where you are today, and I know we kind of go through this on a lot of my shows and we talk about how there's a series of events sometimes, but is there one pivotal moment that you can really, really think about that's like, okay, this has brought me to where I'm at today, and this is why I feel happy, sad, indifferent, whatever it is, whatever you want to talk about. I would have to, I'm trying to get this abroad. Yeah, it can be personal, professional, whatever you want. I think for me personally, there was a time in my young life, who would be an even son of the military, even in my own business that I was in, which was successful in a short time. I had a great desire to achieve the life that I thought achieved to succeed, but there was some point in my life during that period where I recognized that it is a Christian principle.

18:50And I think as a Christian God working in my life, I begin to realize that I just redefine my definition of what we call success. I endude investments and whether it be work, whether it be money, whether it be time, I begin to view those things as they relate to people, not to things, not to accumulation of things. And even in Bridgeport days, like people, no, I was spending doing camps that were costing $30,000, $4,000 for a week. Well, the church didn't have any budget for you if I had to find that money. Wow, I didn't know that. It did not come from kids because I tried to keep as cheap as I could. So I developed personalities, I've developed work with people, a lot of people, I want mission names that have helped through the years and they were, they were finance. To a large degree, it probably would be 25 to 50% sometimes for those camps. They would write the checks and buy the things and do the thing. Now, I could have used that energy for my success, that I began to believe firmly.

19:55The greatest joy in life is seeing that your investments matter in the lives of others. They'll come at time. If I invested in my life as a portions life at all about themselves, they'll come at time, inevitably, they're going to wake up and realize I'm really kind of living empty life. I mean, I've passed your million years to pop up. That principle applies, no matter where you live. Yeah, it does. I was just having a conversational couple of days ago with somebody. You know, I think that the way I was raised, whether it was from the time I was a small grandchild to my grandma or a daughter or a student at school or in the youth group, whatever, one common theme that I was raised with was, it doesn't matter what you have at the end of the day, you can't take it with you. That always stuck with me. And so, I mean, I believe you definitely had to have been born with a servant's heart because here you join the military, you served our country. You went on to become a youth pastor to work

20:57with kids, which I know was not easy. I know what... You'd be a visual poignant. Yeah. So it was pretty interesting to see your servant's heart. So I have to go back and ask you, what did you want to do when you were in high school? Did you know? One time I was on a show, the Green Gene, you know, a Walt Disney TV show. They asked me what did you want to be? So I want to be an army man. So I even heard a young age, I think I want to be engaged. But then I became, things became important to me. Money became important to me. And so even in high school, I had the fast cars and I was able to work and make money and you know, even in the beginning of the military time, I think I wanted to be successful. I wanted to be somebody that makes it, he says, which most kids. And that was a pretty short lived for me. If your ego gets in the way, you're a total failure. And the era of the hippie

21:58area, the era that I grew up in, you wouldn't recognize me for those days. And we're all about self moving ahead. I wanted to become someone. I wanted to be, there's no reason that I couldn't be successful. I wanted to be somebody that people looked at and said, that guy's success. That was my young, and then last very long, did last very long at all. Well, especially coming from a military, well, we know you don't get rich by joining the military when you're young at least. Maybe if you, you know, stick with it all the way to general or something. But in the beginning, I was doing stuff inside the tribe. I was pretty good at connecting and selling. Yeah, I could see that. I could definitely see that. So, yeah, you go from having this military career and even the finances of it to becoming a youth pastor and bridge port Michigan. You must have learned very quickly that finance is really not that important.

22:59Well, I had to resign myself to that because, you know, honestly, I'm all at the start of the bridge port in the beginning. But I had people that you thought you would notice, but the cars that I drove, I never bought one. They were all given to me by people. The house that I bought provided down payment for that. Because I had extended everything that I had it, trying to lit it, you know, and I had somebody say, your bridge port was not a financially fruitful personally financial endeavor. That's okay. I learned a lot. No, it wasn't. I do remember you telling us though when we were a little, maybe like a little bit older, not quite high school. But I remember hearing the story somewhere. Maybe it was when I visited your church in Florida or something. But I remember you talking about how, you know, people had given you cars and had blessed you in different ways like that. So it's funny because I've met many people in my life as well from the very poorest of ports, the richest of richest and no matter what, like, and I tell

24:04you right before the show, it's not a religious show, but I will say no matter what, the most giving people that I've ever met, they always have their needs provided and I'll just leave it at that. That's for sure. So we're getting ready to end this show, but is there anything that you would really like to say because you now have a platform with a lot of listeners just hanging on. So if there is anything, speak your piece. I don't know. I think I might have a lot of like rancid. So this time in my life, I'm trying to help. And I think that helping me mentoring or calling it influencing has not changed. I think the medium of the way that teenagers communicate is changing. So we have to work hard at breaking the bridging the gap. It's a very dangerous and precarious. So even though teenagers can look very rough on the outside and very difficult, there's more to them than meets the eye. You have to go beyond the surface. You have to learn to

25:08talk to them and get to know them from the inside out. Not where they can affect the change. A lot of things you don't see from outside. There are a lot of things we don't like. I tell people to live or look for something good and everybody. Major on that, look from there. That's beautiful. And you know, I think that kids always have a special spot in their hearts for grandparents anyway. So you have the prime opportunity right now. Kids are different. They're a whole different breed, but when you have grandkids, then... It's got a hard getting used to what they call me. They call me poppy. I've never used to, but you know, I've used to abuse them. Oh, I love it. Love it. I won't even tell you what my granddaughter calls me on the air. I'll tell you in my words. Why not? I love the year. Okay. It is crazy though, because I'm still not sure about it, but she's six now. And at the beginning of her life, I said, I'm not going to tell her what to call me. Nobody tell her what to call me. She's just going to come up with the name one day all by herself. And she did. So she calls me out of all names. She could call me granny. She could

26:14call me glamour. I don't know, grandma, whatever. No, she calls me granny. Well, it's first and like that's all this lady's name. That's the great grandma's name. It's like a granny, but it's really cute how she says it. Her little voice shakes and everything like granny. So she's really cute. You don't look like a granny. I don't feel like it. I'm trying not to feel like it, so I can keep up with her. Yeah, but oh my goodness, we're out of time. But thank you so much for being on the show. I'm so happy that you joined me. And thank you for every part that you gave of yourself to help raise me and hundreds of kids. So just thank you. Thank you. Love you too. Thank you. You too. You've been listening to The Vault Expert, Broadcasting Strength, Truth, and Perspective, from inside the vault. If you're ready to go deeper,

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