The journey of church leadership can be filled with challenges, as
Tim Niekerk shares his experiences navigating change, trust, and moral crises at Salem Lutheran Church. His story illustrates the importance of communication and understanding in fostering a healthy church community while also addressing the unique complexities of leading a long-standing congregation.
• Tim Niekerk's journey in ministry and leadership challenges
• The historic significance of Salem Lutheran Church and its unique story
• Understanding the complexities of leadership transitions
• Navigating the emotional aftermath of change within a congregation
• The importance of truth and trust in church communities
• Managing moral failures and ensuring transparency
• Maintaining identity amidst external turmoil and accusations
• Embracing diversity in ministry for broader outreach
Through meaningful interviews and heartfelt conversations, Friar Time, hosted by Fr....
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack
Kauberg, we pray.
The joy of the Lord is yourstrength.
We pray that hope and optimismfor your life, your ministry,
your church's life, your missionto bring the gospel to as many
people as possible, yourdiscipleship, your evangelism.
(00:24):
We just pray you're in lovewith Jesus and wanting to join
him where he's at work by theSpirit's power in your local
context.
We pray all of theseconversations fuel you toward
that end.
Jack, how are you doing man?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm doing fantastic.
It is a beautiful time here inArizona.
It's a beautiful time to bepart of the church.
You know, I just feel blessedin everything right now.
It's a great time to be part ofthe church.
You know, I just feel blessedin everything right now.
It's a great time.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, likewise, I feel blessed that I get to hang
out with one of my favorite Timson planet Earth.
It's a great day when I get tohang out.
We get to hang out with TimNiekerk.
Let me tell you just a littlebit about Tim.
Been a pastor now, how manyyears since your ordination, tim
?
Ordained in 97, so I'm comingup on 28 years 28 years and he
(01:08):
is the longtime now lead pastorat Salem Lutheran Church and
School in Tomball, Texas.
And Tim, how did Tomball getits name?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
So it sounds like it's this really great story
some tumbleweed, big Texas townbut the reality is our town got
its name from a guy by the nameof Tom Ball.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Very original.
It's a great name.
Let's combine both of thosenames Tom Ball.
So there it is.
He's been at Salem Lutheran, acongregation that is almost 175
years.
1851, salem Lutheran wasfounded and if any of you have
been there, it's kind of out inthe middle of nowhere.
I think.
(01:53):
Do you have your own cemeteryconnected to the church?
It's like its own little world,out in the midst of it seems
like a rural area, though you'revery much kind of in the heart
of Houston.
It's such a rural area thoughyou're very much kind of in the
heart of Houston.
It's such a unique ministry.
It's been a larger ministry inthe LCMS for a number of years.
Tell kind of Salem's story justa little bit, tim.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah, salem's kind of a.
It's a really great story inmany ways.
It is out in the outer ring ofthe Houston area.
Houston has three rings ring ofthe Houston area, houston has
three rings and now, within thelast few years, the third ring
of Houston is Highway 99.
To put that in perspective,it's 180 miles around.
So it would take you threehours to circle our city if you
(02:35):
could go 60 miles an hour.
It's just kind of nuts.
So that's starting to changesome things.
Things are growing.
But our joke around here formany, many years has been that
you'll pass more cows thanpeople on your way to our church
.
Our address is on LutheranChurch Road.
I don't know that too manychurches have their road named
after that.
So Lutheran Church Road thendead ends at Lutheran School
(02:57):
Road, which dead ends atLutheran Cemetery Road, and you
can imagine what's at the end ofthat.
So if you wind up on that roadyou kind of know where you're
headed.
So our cemetery actually hassome pre-Civil War graves.
I mean, the history andheritage around here is amazing.
We don't joke about fires muchhere at Salem.
We've had two worship centersburned to the ground, one in the
(03:19):
60s and one in 1995.
So anyway, we take fires veryseriously around here.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And, as you talk about what's defined, what's
been the driving why for Salem?
I'm sure it's evolved almost175 years, but is there a
through thread?
That's kind of been the drivingwhy for Salem from your
perspective, tim kind of beenthe driving why for Salem from
your perspective, tim?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yeah, I think Salem's always had this real kind of
this heartbeat to push theenvelope and be a little bit
different.
We were always the churchoutside of town.
So there's another LCMS churchthat's in town, zion Lutheran,
and Zion has always been kind ofthe city church.
And I think Tomball in Salem,outside of Tomball, in many ways
, has found its history and itsheritage and maybe its identity
(04:11):
in being this country church.
That wasn't going to be thecountry church.
So when it burned down, whatwas fascinating was the church
that burned down was about a 200seat building and they turned
around and built a 400 seatbuilding even though they had
nowhere near that many people.
Then, when the church burneddown in 1995, they put up the
current worship center that weworship in which seats about
(04:33):
1500.
And we weren't worshipinganywhere near that at that time.
So it's always been a churchthat thinks big.
There's always the joke ofeverything's bigger in Texas,
but I think Salem always likesto just kind of push things and
wants to.
I think there's always adangerous delicate balance to
him on making sure that thereason why you do things isn't
(04:55):
to draw attention to yourself,and so I think Salem, over the
years, has had to work reallyhard to we're incredibly blessed
, we're well-resourced churchand just making sure that the
reason why we do everything thatwe do is to bring glory to God,
not bring glory to ourselves,and I just think that's a
delicate balance to walksometimes.
We do have a school thatstarted in 1853.
(05:18):
So one of our claims to fame iswe've had a continuously
running school since 1853.
Is we've had a continuouslyrunning school since 1853.
So we are the longest runningprivate parochial school in the
state of Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So that's a pretty cool deal.
That's really cool.
Yeah, that's amazing.
What led you to Salem Tell alittle bit of your ministry
story, tim.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, ministry story was I came out of seminary in
1997, got called to northwestsuburbs of Milwaukee, planted a
church in a funeral home and wasthere for about nine years.
Things were at a spot in thatministry where we had built an
early childhood center.
We had added on to the earlychildhood center.
So we kind of went with themodel of building early
(06:03):
childhood center and thenworshiping in that building,
being able to meet a felt needwithin the community.
And then we were also a part ofbuilding a high school on the
northwest side of Milwaukee.
So that was very exciting.
I actually just in the last fewweeks flew up to Milwaukee for
the 25th anniversary of thatministry.
So kind of that was life giving.
Really kind of cool to see whatGod continues to do in that
(06:24):
area.
Then a guy by the name of WayneGrauman reached out to me in
2005 and started a conversationwith me and just asked if I
would be willing to considertalking to him about what's
happening at Salem.
And then I just really felt atthat point in time, tim, that
God was, that it was the time inwhich God was calling me to
(06:45):
maybe have influence in adifferent place, to be able to
have an opportunity to be ableto grow.
I think we've gotten thingskicked off at Living Word up in
the Milwaukee area and so Godopened the store and I came down
here as the connections guy,which in essence was a
simulation small group, and Ijoke with people that I was on a
four-year interview.
(07:06):
I didn't realize I was on andI'll never forget the day that
Wayne brought me into his office.
I'm a pretty structured guy, asyou know, and Wayne kind of
enjoyed poking at me a littlebit with that because he's not
quite as structured as I am.
And anyway, he pulled me intohis office and it was a meeting
that wasn't on my calendar and Iwalked in and it was Wayne and
Doug Dahmer, who was Wayne'slongtime associate, and then our
(07:30):
chairman of our directors andchairman of our elders.
And I'm serious man, like Iwalked into that room and the
door got shut behind me and theyasked me to take a seat and
they were all looking at me likesuper serious.
And I'm telling you like in mymind every part of me thought to
myself I don't know what youpeople think I did, but I didn't
do it.
Um, so they just let that thingplay out for a little while, uh,
(07:53):
cause they were absolutely, uh,they were pretty good jokesters
, and so they, um, they let mesweat for just a little bit and
kind of um, pressured that.
And then, finally, um, theBruce was up and they said Tim,
we would like you to pray aboutthe possibility of being the guy
that follows Wayne.
So so then it was in 2013 thatI followed Wayne, who had been
(08:15):
the senior pastor here for 36years.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's.
That's something else.
Yeah, that's something else.
Yeah.
So following a longtime pastorlike that, especially in a
church like Salem large churchand school, that can be a
difficult thing.
Oftentimes pastors can be theunintentional interim I know a
few of those over the years,especially following someone
(08:41):
like a Wayne.
So what did you, what did youdo to kind of survive, just
survive the transition, becauseI'm sure it wasn't rainbows and
butterflies.
As you're obviously differentin many respects, you bring more
structure, the way you lead isdifferent.
Just what are the primarythings that the Lord did to
(09:02):
allow you to stick and stay overthat transition?
I'm saying all that, tim, asI've told you this privately,
just applauding how Jesus madeyou and the fact that you are
still there and leading with joyand hope and a vision for the
future at Salem is a is aTestament to the work of the
Holy spirit.
So how did that transition go?
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Yeah, Holy smokes, Tim, that's a.
That is a loaded question, so Iwill um.
I'll answer a little bit of itand then I'll let you ask
additional questions if you wantto do that.
I think what was interesting is, in many ways I probably was
too naive to know what I wasgetting myself into, which might
have been helpful.
(09:43):
That I was naive Because my guttells me right now, tim, that
if there was a long historicchurch with somebody who had
decades of service to the churchand asked me to follow them, on
the one hand I would be farmore prepared, but on the other
(10:05):
hand I think I'd probably say no, and that's not right or wrong.
I think it's just my experience.
Who knows, who knows what Godwould call me to do?
I think God's called me to behere right now.
So at any rate, it was kind ofan interesting deal, right.
So I'm following this guy whohad been there for 36 years.
He had an associate who hadbeen there since the day he
graduated from seminary.
(10:26):
So by the time Doug Dahmerretired he had been at Salem for
just shy of 40 years.
And then when I followed WayneI obviously I inherited his team
and I think that that was justkind of this interesting thing
that when I look back on it nowTim and Jack like I don't find
(10:47):
myself, I got blindsided by somethings that I now wouldn't get
blindsided by.
So here's the thing I inheritedthis team that had over 200
years of service to Salem not tothe church, but to Salem.
There were a number of peopleon our executive team who had
been on staff at Salem foranywhere from 25 to 40 years,
(11:09):
had been on staff at Salem foranywhere from 25 to 40 years,
and I was by far at that point,the youngest guy around the
table.
So I had the title but I didn'thave the chips and you know,
when I moved into that role,everybody knew it was coming.
I think Wayne did about as greatof a job of doing a handoff as
(11:30):
he possibly could.
He.
He worked it through with ourteam, he worked it through with
our leadership.
You know, I think everybody wastotally on board with the fact
that Timney Kirk was going to bethe guy that was going to
follow Wayne, and we're evengenuinely excited about it.
I think Salem is a church thatdeals with change reasonably
well, but at the end of the day,everybody struggles with change
and sometimes you don't knowhow you're going to deal with
(11:52):
change until the change hits you, and I think what ended up
happening at Salem is we had adelayed reaction, so I followed
Wayne.
Wayne disappeared for the betterpart of a year.
He and his wife, kathy, wentand traveled Europe, gave me all
the room in the world to beable to lead.
He wasn't even available.
He wasn't even accessible forpeople to be able to run to and
talk to.
I mean, like he just did aremarkable job.
(12:14):
To this day, wayne and Kathyare still at our church and it
works great.
We just Kristen and I had themover for dinner within the last
couple of weeks.
Like we've still got a greatrelationship with Wayne and
Kathy.
I really respect that guy agreat deal.
So then things were runningpretty smoothly, but what I
began to realize was in my mindI expected that the people that
(12:36):
had been long tenured on ourstaff and that were older than
me would be the people that, atthe end of the day, would be
able to handle this transitionbetter than anybody.
They were the ones on theinside.
They were the people that werepart of the decision-making
process.
They were the ones that knewmore than anybody else.
They were the ones that got tospeak into it more than anybody
else.
But this is one of thosemoments where the concept is one
(13:01):
thing, the reality of itbecomes another, and there's
just some realities that takeplace when your position shifts
within an organization,particularly at the top, and
when you follow a long tenuredleader and inherit a long
tenured team.
So what started to happen was Iyou know, I was smart enough,
(13:21):
I'd heard from enough people andread enough books to talk to.
People have gone down thisriver before me who basically
said Tim, don't make anysignificant changes in the first
year.
So I just didn't talk witheverybody, spent a lot of time
with people.
I think one of the things thatstarts to happen when you bring
in a new leader is I startedpoking my head in corners and
looking in closets not literalclosets, but you know what I
(13:43):
mean.
Like you're just you're askingpeople a little more directly
what they're up to.
So help me understand this.
Help me understand that I mean,I'm in a new role, so I'm just
being curious.
I'd like to understand whatpeople are up to.
I feel responsible for how westeward our resources here,
which includes our people, sojust start asking questions.
Well, what I found was the moreI would start asking questions,
the more people would startpulling their cards back.
(14:06):
I think there was.
I think people had gotten veryused to doing things the way
they did them over decades.
And again, I don't think it'sanybody's fault, tim.
I think it's totally normal nowthat I can look back.
The age old hindsight is 2020.
Look, people were all.
(14:27):
Everybody that I'm going totalk about loves Jesus, loves
Salem wants to do the rightthing, right.
I mean, I don't think anybody'strying to create a problem, but
there's just a reality thatwhen you start asking questions
and start wanting to do things alittle bit differently, people
start to react.
So then, my expectation oflong-tenured people being able
(14:48):
to handle this the best.
Now that I look back, I godoesn't it make sense that those
would be the people that wouldhave the hardest time with the
change, because they're thepeople who are most entrenched
in the way we're currently doingthings.
Well now, that makes sense tome, but I never expected that
walking into this.
So I just started to getblindsided by some things, and
then I don't know whether I didthings right or wrong, tim.
(15:09):
At this point, I think it'simmaterial.
What I can tell you is justlike I'll give every person in
this deal.
Eighth Commandment bestconstruction on things that they
love Jesus, love Salem and wantto do the right thing.
I'd argue I was doing the same,but what really started to get
interesting was because Iinherited this team and then,
(15:31):
just as life happens, we're allgetting older and at some point
there has to come an end.
And so when I would starthaving conversations, I'll tell
you what I tried to approachretirement with people from
about every possible angle thatI could figure out how to do it.
People from about everypossible angle that I could
(15:52):
figure out how to do it.
You know I would sit down withyou and go hey, tim, I know
you're, you're turning 63 thisyear, would love to just start
having a conversation with youabout what's next, so that you
and I can make sure that we'reon the same page.
I want to be able to honor you.
I want to be able to make surethat Salem has some kind of
succession plan going on,Because when you inherit that
long tenure to the team right, Imean, I don't think it works
(16:14):
really well to have, like your40 year associate pastor put in
his two weeks notice and thentry to replace him.
You know I mean like there's toomuch emotional relational
capital there to just kind ofsay, well, let's just wait until
somebody finally retires andthen we'll figure it out.
So I'm a planner, I'mrelatively strategic in the way
I approach life and so I kepttrying to have these
conversations.
But I found that when I wouldstart talking to you about that
(16:36):
you would react no matter how Iapproached it.
It was like the minute I wouldbring up that conversation it
suddenly caused you somehowinternally to simply draw the
conclusion that I wanted you out.
And, man, you can imagine thatwhen somebody starts to get to a
(16:58):
spot where they're prettyconvinced that you want them out
sooner rather than later, evenif that's not what I said,
that's clearly what people wouldhear the minute I would start
this conversation.
So initially it seemed likethings were going OK.
So for the first few years ofbeing senior pastor at Salem
everything was really prettygreat, tim.
I mean I would have told you itwas going well.
(17:20):
So the delayed reaction, Ibelieve, started to happen when
our long term associate finallyretired, and you know he was
well loved by our congregation.
He'd been there for fourdecades.
He's married, buried, confirmed, I mean just in the life of our
congregation.
He made the decision when heretired that he wasn't going to
(17:44):
come back here.
He felt like he just needed tohave a really, really clean
break, and I respect thatdecision.
It wasn't what I asked him todo.
I would have been happy to havehim still involved in some
different ways if it would haveworked out, but that was the
decision that was made.
Well then, people are peopleand this is where I will just
tell you you can't predict howpeople are going to respond to
(18:05):
change.
So then what started to happenwas this was in 2019.
We all know that the worldchanged in 2020.
So navigating, the change ofthe guard started in 2019.
So long-term associates started.
He retired in early 2019.
(18:26):
Then we were in the process ofour head of school for well over
a decade and a half, maybepushing 20 years.
She was moving towardretirement.
We, our director, so basicallyour entire executive team turned
over.
Oh goodness, tim, probably intwo to three years, and this was
(18:49):
a very well-planned deal.
I mean, I put it in front ofour directors, put it in front
of our elders, put it in frontof our executive team, had great
conversations.
I thought this thing waswell-planned.
I thought it was verytransparent in front of people,
like we even did a campaigncalled A thousand generations
and raised over a milliondollars in order to be able to
(19:13):
have basically doubled upsalaries for the better part of
a year and a half to two years.
So that, look at think about itthis way, tim, so if I came to
you and you're a couple of yearsfrom retirement, what I wanted
to do was be able to bring insomebody behind you so that you
could pour into that person, sothat by the time you're heading
(19:33):
out, we're not just thenstarting to look for somebody,
but we would have somebodyalready in place who you were
able to kind of bless sort of anElijah Elisha kind of concept
be able to give some of yourchips and relational capital to
introduce to people, all thatkind of stuff.
So I thought it was a greatplan.
I thought it was, I thought itwas going along swimmingly.
(19:54):
It was in front of ourcongregation, our congregation
was generous.
I mean, think about that, thefact that they were willing to
provide resources for a stepdoubled up salaries for a period
of time.
So things in motion, going,going gangbusters.
I would have told you it wasgoing great, things in motion,
going gangbusters I would havetold you it was going great.
(20:22):
But then what ended up happeningwas so associate retires and
then six months later he ends uptaking one of our churches
that's about 30 minutes fromSalem.
Their pastor had cancer andended up dying while still
actively in ministry.
So they were in a crisis momentand so our associate, who had
retired six months earlier, wentand just was trying to help out
for a little bit.
Well, in the process of thatthere were just some wonky
(20:47):
things that happened.
We don't have to go intodetails with all of that, but
you can just imagine what storylines can start, right or wrong
again, not anybody specificallytrying to create a problem, but
it created lots of problems.
So imagine having a guy that'sbeen at a church for 40 years
pops up 30 minutes down thestreet and when our associate
(21:09):
retired, there were some folksthat were kind of like well,
what does he need to retire for?
He's still spry and young andwe like him, he's been around
for a long time, all that kindof stuff.
So there were a few people atthat time that already kind of
felt like maybe Tim Niekerk wasforcing him out, or that there
was some something going on andTim wanted him out, kind of
(21:30):
thing.
So people are people, right?
They're always looking for thestory.
So he retired.
But then when he pops up sixmonths later, you can imagine
that reinvigorates for people.
See, he wasn't done.
If he was done then he wouldn'tbe popping up over here.
But since he's popping up overhere, why didn't he just stay at
Salem, right?
(21:51):
So then it just starts this.
I don't know, tim, I just thinkpeople love the conspiracy
they're always looking for.
Oh, this is the real story,right?
So all you need is a couple ofpeople to determine that this is
the real story.
And that starts a little thingover here.
Right?
So I have this little thingover here.
Then have the fact that ourexecutive team is all turning
(22:14):
over within a relatively shortperiod of time.
But keep in mind, wayne built ateam that was all pretty much
the same age.
So word to the wise, anybodywho's watching this like, if you
have a team, don't have themall be the same age, because
then they all retire at the sametime and that's bad.
Okay, you can do what you want,I'm just telling you it's bad.
So, anyway.
So it turns over right.
(22:35):
So then you've already got thislittle conspiracy over here.
So then this little conspiracyover here is Tim's cleaning
house.
Well, tim's not cleaning house.
Tim has had this plan in frontof our congregation for three
years.
Like, this is no conspiracy,it's wide open.
We go back and check tape.
This is not that hard, so, atany rate.
So all these little things aregoing on.
(22:55):
But you know, when you're inleadership you don't get the
privilege of being able to writeall of those conspiracy stories
.
And I'm kind of an anti-socialmedia guy, so I'm not promoting
myself anywhere, so I'm justkind of quiet and doing my,
doing my stuff and assuming allthis stuff will just kind of
settle down, right.
Well, it didn't settle down aton, and then the doggone
(23:19):
pandemic hit.
So now I'm dealing with whatall of us were dealing with,
which is people, you know,running around the most
polarized leadership stuff I'veever dealt with.
And when I throw a school ontop of that, tim, you know this
right, I mean, we had parentswho were everything from.
All of our kids need to wearmasks.
Because you're trying to killour children to you don't have
(23:41):
enough faith because you wearmasks and it's like, oh for the
love of all, that is good andgreen, this is.
Can you just everybody settledown?
It's going to be OK, that isgood and green, this is geez.
Can you just everybody settledown?
It's going to be okay, so, atany rate.
So now you've got the pandemic,so you got people already all
squirreled up, and then I've gotthese little conspiracy stories
going on.
So I'm thinking, okay, thiswill all blow over and we'll
(24:06):
finally be okay, right, I mean,we just got to get through this.
Well, so if I didn't haveenough going on already, then I
knew I had a situation going onin my staff that I couldn't
quite put my finger on, but Iwas getting closer and closer to
it, tim.
So I finally had to addresssomebody on our staff in just an
(24:31):
icky, icky situation with amoral failure and moral failures
are bad, no matter who you are.
Moral failures within thechurch are just devastating.
And when somebody is stuck intheir own sin and are trying to
(25:02):
cover it up, it was amazing howmuch effort this particular
individual was willing to put into attempt to get the spotlight
off of himself or herself,right, I mean.
So you find yourself in a spotwhere, again, from a leadership
perspective, these are HR issues.
I can't talk about this.
So now you've got thisconspiracy going on over here,
this conspiracy going on overhere and this one's not a
conspiracy, but I can't sayanything about this one either.
So imagine for just a momentyou've already got an executive
(25:26):
team that's turning over, you'vegot a pandemic, and now I've
got a moral failure and a personwho's doing everything in his
or her power to make my lifemiserable, so that it takes any
pressure off of them.
Then you put me in a spot whereour, our leadership just got
(25:50):
way, way, way, way out of theirlane.
Tim and I want to be reallygracious here because again,
putting best construction onthings, I'm able to see things
much more clearly now, now thatI've made it through the season.
But it was a really crummy time.
(26:10):
The stuff I was being accusedof at one point I was the guy
having the affair.
So you can imagine for my wifehaving to live.
I mean, to this day there'speople who are still saying that
I'm the guy that had the affair.
And what am I going to do?
Stand up in front of our wholechurch and announce that I'm not
the guy that had the affair andthen point out the person who
(26:31):
did.
And it's unhelpful, it'sunhealthy, it's all of that, but
it's.
It is a.
I feel like we were a scienceexperiment on what happens when
people choose to talk aboutthings that they don't know what
they're talking about and thenjust being in this quandary of
what do I say and not say so, Iwas so grateful for some
(26:52):
brothers who were able to helpme walk through this and simply
kept telling me Tim, your job isto keep leading.
Well, and for the most part Ijust sort of remained silent, to
remain silent.
And there were times, tim,where, goodness, remaining
(27:13):
silent was really, reallychallenging, because I knew
things were being said and Iknew all these little conspiracy
theories were going on and youwanted to address them all.
But it's like whack-a-mole.
I mean, you go and try toaddress one and it just makes
you look I guess a leadershipprinciple would be you try to
chase all those things down Atsome point.
(27:34):
It almost makes you look I don'tknow what the word would be
almost like you've got somethingto hide because you're working
so hard to try to push back oneverything.
So I just decided I was goingto move forward and let my, at
(27:57):
that time, 26 years of ministryspeak for itself and ultimately,
that's what ended up prevailing.
In many ways.
There were some really criticalmoments that I would be able to
talk about, but we don't.
We don't have that kind of timefor me to put in those kinds of
specific stems.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Wow, Tim, thank you for sharing the story.
This is an unusual thing, for avariety of perspective is
because you're still in thecongregation Most of the time.
Guys tell that story and forone reason or another they've
not survived in that context andI'm going to use this word
because it's a systems word andit's not a directive toward any
(28:32):
one group or one group of peoplebut when leaders differentiate
themselves, when they say hey,I'm not so-and-so and or this is
the way we're going to dothings now, here's the strategy
toward leadership transitions,all which seems very, very
reasonable if reason is the onlything we're considering.
When systems are changing, weget to emotion.
(28:55):
We get to unreasonableperspectives like that People
don't speak out of their,they're speaking from their
amygdala, their fight flight,freeze, fawn perspectives, and
(29:28):
you are dealing with all sortsof various you know and I
so-and-so is saying about me orothers in that environment what
you've experienced.
Now I'd love to get yourperspective on this the whole
organization kind of rises up.
If the leader can remaindifferentiated and relationally
connected enough, you survivethe sabotage over time, the
(29:49):
systemic sabotage that takesplace.
Most leaders can't make itthrough that sort of a sabotage.
Most are going to run away.
Most are going to fight of asabotage.
Most are going to run away.
Most are going to fight, defend, hold resentment.
So what does it look like nowfor you, in your context, to say
(30:13):
I love and I love when I get tothis point, being at 11 years
now in my congregation?
I love, for there have beenseasons of relationships even
here.
I have not walked throughanything close to what you
walked through, but people don'tlike this decision or that
decision.
One of the most liberatingexperiences is when that person
comes back, not to the churchnecessarily, but just comes back
(30:36):
I've had this happen a numberof times and say you know what?
I held you responsible for myown.
I was displacing my anxiety inthis season upon you.
It was unfair.
Will you please forgive me?
And then I can say, hey, I kindof made you.
You know the bad guy.
Human beings want to make what'scomplex very, very simple and
(30:56):
we want to go at differentpeople that say if they only
were removed, then everythingwould change.
Well, it's not that simple.
So I always have contributionto whatever the struggle is that
I can confess and then we uniteas brothers and sisters in
Christ, under the confession ofJesus as Lord and King.
And if confession andabsolution took place, like
obviously has taken place, atSalem and will continue to take
(31:17):
place.
And it's like if confession andabsolution took place, like
obviously has taken place, atSalem, and will continue to take
place, If it happens, in ourlocal congregations and then out
to our districts and Senate, oh, my goodness, what a wonderful
world it would be.
But unfortunately we developlabels and caricatures one to
another to keep people in theirrespective, you know, siloed
(31:39):
perspectives of ministry, andit's just as very, very
unhelpful.
How did you survive thesabotage and am I articulating
what you walk through in anaccurate way from a system
perspective, Tim?
Any more observation there?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah, I think you've identified really well the
systemic issue.
I think you've identifiedreally well the systemic issue.
And, tim, what was reallyhelpful for me in many ways was
to get to a spot where I didn'tsee the people as the and man.
I'll tell you to your pointlike it took a long time for me
not to feel like Salem did thisto me or these, these terrible
(32:19):
people did this to me orwhatever, to be able to rise
above that and go with.
There was a systemic problemthat we needed to address.
Man, yeah, I would say that theway that we were able to get
through it was to finally sometruth had to come out.
Some truth had to come out, andthat's always hard Because
(32:41):
sometimes what was amazing to mewas sometimes people didn't
want to hear the truth.
Even when the truth came out,it's almost like people needed
Then there was embarrassmentover realizing, you know, I
hitched my wagon to the wronghorse, kind of thing.
Those are always hard moments.
I think pride is always achallenge for all of us, and so
(33:02):
I consistently had to checkmyself on that.
I'm sure you've heard theterminology right fighting, that
I had to work really hard tonot want to just right, fight,
but to keep saying, for the sakeof the ministry, I need to
stand through this.
And I still remember a reallysignificant moment where my wife
(33:24):
, with tears, just said, tim,yeah, tim, can we just, can you
just stop, please, let's move on.
I mean we lost friendshipsthrough this, relationships.
There was just carnage all overthe place, and so that's just
painful, tim, when you look backat that.
(33:45):
And so I've had a few peoplecome back now and we've been
able to reconcile some thingsand some pretty hard ones.
Some of this, I would say, say,is irreparable, not beyond God's
(34:05):
ability to breathe, grace, butI mean it's sort of like that.
Think of it in terms of if youbreak your leg in 14 spots, I
mean we can put the leg backtogether and I might still be
able to walk, but the leg'snever going to be quite the same
again.
I might still be able to walk,but the legs never going to be
quite the same again.
So I think one of thechallenges of trying to stay at
(34:27):
Salem I really had to wrestlethrough Do I still love this
church, do I still love Jesusand his church and do I still
feel called to be in this placeand I think I was able to get to
a resounding place of this iswhere I need to be in this work.
That's called me to be.
But yeah, painful moments,painful conversations, but a
willingness to be able to riseabove making it any one person,
(34:51):
any one thing.
And it is interesting thefurther you get removed from it,
tim how you're able to just seethings a bit more clearly.
Does that help?
I don't know if I'm answeringthe question.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Distance definitely helps.
Life is suffer, survive andthrive.
Over and over again, rinse andrepeat.
In this world you will havetrial and trouble, and it will
come from individuals and fromgroups of individuals.
And how well do we offer themand all things to Jesus, who
holds us in the palm of his handand he's not going to let go.
I'm just proud of yourperseverance in that story and
(35:26):
it's a beautiful story thatneeds to be told and that's why
I thank you for going into thedepth of it, Jack.
Any observations before we?
pivot a bit Well.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm just reflecting a little bit on my story, your
story also, tim.
Here.
Christ Greenfield's gonethrough a story of transition
and leadership and we had anintentional interim pastor from
which I personally I thoughtthat was a great plan Having
somebody who served in a verylong you know very, very long
tenured role in a senior pastorposition.
(35:56):
Having an interim in there wasreally good for our organization
psychologically to kind ofcreate that intentional
psychological bridge from oneera to another era of the church
and then bringing Tim on board.
I've seen this where storiesform, narratives form about, hey
(36:17):
, we're filling in the gap,something happened and, like you
said, tim, these are HR issuesthat you can't talk about.
But people fill in the gaps,they have a construction on it
and you're kind of stuck becauseI can't sit there and say, well
, I did this and this and this,but like, no, these are private
HR conversations.
I can't bring this up in acongregational thing.
(36:38):
These are very, very difficultwhen you've had, let's say,
maybe moral failings with staffor performance issues with staff
where you're trying to be verysensitive about it.
But there's factions andloyalty to certain people and
I'm just kind of curious fromboth of your perspectives.
You know, how do you?
What is the healthiest way toenter into conversations where
(37:02):
people are forming wrongnarratives about what's going on
Like this is this is somethingthat every leader you know.
If they're sending in theirleadership and if they're
progressing in leadership,you're going to deal with this
someday, right?
What is the healthiest way todeal with that in your
perspective, because I thinkpeople need to hear that
(37:24):
specifically.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my identity is not found in the
approval of men or women, right?
I think that has to be thestarting point, and so if you
are upset with me or us, my doorremains open, and I'm not
surprised if you come in and saythat we did or said something
(37:49):
that was inappropriate, or maybeit's even a gray area and
you've got a difference ofopinion.
That just is the way it is, andI have to have that identity
statement going through my headall the time, because if I don't
, I probably will end up eitherbending right toward the, toward
the person to say, yeah, you'reright, jack's a mess, or
(38:11):
whoever they come in to be it'sall Jack's fault, whatever, or
or.
I'm going to be like pullingback Right, and this is it's the
fight or flight tendency,consistently.
And so can I listen, keep mymind about me to ask the good
questions, and then the firstone to confession and absolution
(38:31):
wins, and I'm actually indifficult conversations.
I'm looking for the opportunityfor me to take responsibility.
Where in this struggle can Itake responsibility?
And the quicker in the momentJack I'm thinking of a
conversation, you're thinking ofthe same one the quicker I can
get to say we could have donebetter there.
(38:54):
That levels them, for them tokind of move back, take some
distance actually in the spaceto say, oh wow, I didn't see
that.
I didn't see that coming, I wasready for a fight.
I was thinking they were comingin, they were going to justify
themselves.
So, since my identity is inChrist and I don't need anybody,
I'm justified by him.
I then can get to an honestunderstanding of and in our
(39:16):
governance.
Jack right, it's Jesus is atthe center, but then I cause or
allow everything to happen.
So I mean, if something's goingon like there's an element, I
brought that person into thatrole right and I've allowed
maybe some bad behavior to takeplace.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Even if it's the process of delegation that's
happened, you still have to ownit right.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I got responsibility right.
So the quicker I can get to theresponsibility-centered
confessing conversation, thebetter chance.
It doesn't always work great,but the better chance we have at
the at that leader and then intheir position it filtering down
.
At least Tim is open for aconversation, like if the worst
thing that can happen is Timwill not hear me or this group
(39:57):
of people, however small it isin our perspective.
So that's the way I guess I tryto survive the inevitable
sabotages up to this point.
Tim, what would you add orexclude in what I just said?
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, I know we've got only a couple of minutes
left.
Tim, maybe a futureconversation between you and me
might be some staffingconversations.
You and me might be somestaffing conversations.
I think I've looked.
I just found I love the phrasethat says a reasonable person
doesn't need to have their way,but a reasonable person needs to
have their way.
Heard and considered my deal.
Where I find some frustrationis when somebody wants me to
(40:34):
hear their idea for the 12thtime and I'm looking at them
saying heard, considered.
The answer remains no, right.
I remember having to have alunch with a guy at one point
where I finally said this is thelast time we're going to have
this conversation and the nexttime we go out to lunch if you
bring this up again I will leavethe table, like I just finally
had to put some.
It was like you've got to put aboundary on so.
(40:56):
Sometimes, jack, you've got tobe pretty firm with people.
When I was going through theworst of what I was going
through just total insurrection,mutiny, and you've got people
coming at you with pitchforksand torches One of the things
that you said, tim, just caughtmy attention and I know we're
wrapping up.
I had to get to the spot ofbecoming settled on who I am.
(41:18):
So your identity conversationof I'm a child of God first, and
then what are the unique waysin which God has wired me.
What started to happen a littlebit was I basically got painted
as really a not nice person,like I mean I love all these
phrases and terms again.
So if toxic, you know all thisand I'm just like OK.
(41:39):
So last time I checked if youreceive a paycheck that says
Salem Lutheran Church in the topleft hand corner, I think it's
totally appropriate that thereare expectations of your time
and your behavior.
And if you make the top guys inthe organization whether it's a
church or business or non, Idon't care what it is If you
make the top guys life miserable, you're probably not going to
(42:02):
last super long in thatorganization.
I mean it's just not thatdifficult.
And if the top guy sets north,whatever north is, as long as in
our context, tim Jack, thatit's not immoral, illegal, that
kind of stuff.
Right Then, if I declare northand you keep rowing east, you're
not going to stay here, it'sjust it doesn't work, which is
(42:23):
totally fair.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I mean 100 fair, but people have a hard time dealing
with that right because it's adifferent vision right and it
upsets like again 40, howevermany years of shared experience
that people had serving there.
That's a really tough, painfulthing to do and sometimes the
right answer is a new staff.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Unfortunately it is, and here's the interesting thing
, jack just in a closing thought, tim is this always sort of
blindsided me, and this justmight catch somebody who's
listening and help them hearsomething slightly different
Like I was always amazed when Iwould make even the smallest
change, like changing, make itas simple as changing the carpet
or paint color.
What I found was people wouldreact and it was like, instead
(43:10):
of being able to go, we've hadthat same paint color and carpet
for 20 years.
Okay, it's just, it's just timeto freshen it up.
What?
What the person?
Because we had people that werehere for a long time.
For some reason, their identitywas tied up in that, and so
then it was like, because we'rechanging the color or changing
the carpet, what they heard waswhat they did was wrong, and I'm
(43:33):
like nobody's saying that whatyou did was wrong, we're just
saying my mom picked that colorright.
Yes, it's orange shag carpet.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
It's time to go.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Orange shag carpet was fantastic 20 years ago,
Right?
So it's just interesting howpeople get tied into things and
so then trying to have thosekinds of conversations where you
try to pull the emotion out.
But I would say, Tim, lastcomment is to get that identity
right.
And I had to get confident inwho I was.
That when people were tellingme, trying to tell me over and
(44:04):
over who I was, you're this,you're that and man, you have
enough people tell you somethingfor a long period of time and I
remember telling you this, Tim,like I got to the point of
going am I Maybe I am?
So finally having to getsettled with?
No, I'm not.
I love Jesus, I love this church.
(44:25):
I'm a focus driven son of a gunat moments and I have to be
careful because I can run peopleover and when I do that then I
have to go.
Man, I'm really sorry, I neverintended to do that, and so I
got to back up every once in awhile and I think I've become a
more seasoned leader throughthis.
So sometime, Tim, we can talkabout maybe what I've learned
through the process.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Well, yeah, we'll have you back for sure.
You said last, my littlemeeting can wait a couple
minutes.
I got one more thing I need totalk to you about.
You're now the leader of theLarge Church Network and we've
got a lot of listeners in avariety of contexts that listen
to this, and some of them may bein larger churches and many of
(45:07):
them are in smaller churches.
Is there a caricature of thelarge church pastor that you
would like to see kind ofdismissed in the hopes that we
can walk together all differenttypes of churches, all different
sizes and contexts?
What is one or more of thosecaricatures that you would like
(45:27):
to see set right, tim?
Speaker 4 (45:31):
I think maybe the biggest one is I'm amazed
sometimes by the conclusionsthat people draw about who I am
based upon the position that Icarry, and maybe the way I carry
myself, or that just sort ofcreates a caricature.
(45:52):
That simply isn't true, becauseyou don't know what drives me.
Um, I find that, to a certaindegree, when you're leading an
organization so just basic stats, tim, I mean our, our church is
about a $10 million a yearorganization.
We have about 130 employees.
Um, I mean, goodness sakes,that's that's not what I
(46:14):
originally got trained to do.
So there's a part of my rolethat is very different than what
I originally.
When you think about I startedwith 14 people in a funeral home
back in Milwaukee, and now thisis where God has put me.
There is a side, in the lowestof lows of this season that I
walked through.
I remember one guy looking atme and saying you act way more
(46:37):
like a CEO than you do a pastor,and I thought to myself well, I
guess that depends upon whatyou.
You clearly have someexpectation as to what the word
pastor means to you when you saythat, and so I think it was the
fact that I'm in a positionwhere, um, at least at the time,
(47:02):
we've we've adjusted ourstructure at this point, tim, so
I don't deal with HR stuffanymore, which is fantastic,
it's absolutely beautiful.
But I mean, when you're havingto deal with HR issues, you're
having to deal with financeissues, you're having to deal
with all of that kind of stuff,I can't be Santa Claus all the
time, all of that kind of stuffthat I can't be Santa Claus all
the time.
And I think there was a side, atleast for this person, that
(47:24):
because all of my decisionsweren't always, from his
perspective, loving and gracefilled, because if I would let
somebody go or make a harddecision, in this person's mind
that wasn't pastoral, it was awillingness to be able to step
back and say, no, I think mydecision was grace filled.
(47:46):
But there are there areexpectations that go with
leading an organization withthat many employees and you
can't possibly know what's goingon, and so you have to be able
to trust me.
So, tim, the caricature that'sprobably hard is sometimes
people see me only as the guythat leads a large organization
(48:09):
and I think sometimes thinks orforgets that the reason I do
what I do is because I loveJesus and I believe he's the
only thing that changes people'slives, the only thing that has
eternal significance.
The only reason I do what I dois because I want to see more
(48:30):
people in heaven, but sometimesI'm sitting in budget meetings,
sometimes I'm having to dealwith significant HR issues,
sometimes I'm dealing peoplehaving affairs, so I can't
always be Santa Claus, and so Ithink it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Does that help?
Speaker 2 (48:53):
It does, it does.
We're different.
You know the caricature islarge church bad, small church
good or vice versa, small churchit's like no, no, we're all
just different manifestations ofthe church and that church is
made up of a variety ofdifferent types of leaders with
different types of gifts.
(49:14):
You have more executivefunction gifting.
That's nothing you should like,argue or have to explain away.
That's how Jesus made you andyou get to be in different
conversations than a pastor of asmaller congregation gets to be
in, and we need all types ofpastors to reach all types of
(49:34):
people.
Can we just recognize thatdifferent and maybe this is a
good way that different, diverse, this is a gift from Jesus
rather than something to befought against?
If I could just pray for oneprayer, it's that we would see
our differences as a gift in theLCMS rather than something that
(49:57):
divides us.
And I'm not talking theology atall, I'm basically just talking
sociology and the way we'vekind of organized ourself.
Can we resist the fight orflight, you know black or white
kind of assumption about aperson and actually get to know
that person?
Because I'm sure there's been,there's a lot of you know labels
on us and I just don't unless Ihave a relationship with you,
(50:20):
unless I see you and talk to youand we're actual humans in in a
space I'm not going to.
I'm not going to lose sleepover a caricature that someone
else has of me.
Until we get to know oneanother and we, we pray for one
another and see one another.
Brothers and sisters in Christ,it sounds like Kumbaya.
It's not kumbaya.
It's simply what Jesus prayedfor in John, chapter 17.
(50:42):
I desire that they would be oneas we are one, and I think
we're still more Holy Spiritinspired work for us to do
across the continuum in the LCMSwhen the average church, 45% of
our congregations worship lessthan 50 people a week.
So obviously that entity of themanifestation of the local
church is very different thanthe two contexts that we find
(51:03):
ourselves.
Not better, not worse.
Any closing comments there,jack?
Speaker 3 (51:10):
No, I don't have anything to add to it.
I think we've hit so manytopics here it's hard to nail it
all down to it.
I mean, the key thing here isconflict.
How are we dealing healthy withconflict?
here, and you know, I think thekey thing is our faith,
ultimately, is what gives us thestrength to deal with conflict,
(51:32):
to be humble in conflict, tocontinue to be missional in
conflict.
And you know our faith again,our knowledge of being saint and
sinner at the same time, letsus know that conflict is
inevitable, it's going to happen, it's messy and it's 100%,
totally worth it for the sake ofthe kingdom.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Amen, amen.
Tim, if people want to connectwith you and your work at Salem,
how can they do so?
Speaker 4 (51:57):
My email is first, initial, last name, so tneekirk
at Salem, the number four, theletter Ucom.
Happy to chat with anybodyHappy to follow up.
I think my last comment wouldjust be the reminder.
I love your diversity comment,but I think all ministry is
contextual and I think if wecould be far more trusting of
one another, that you trust thatI love Jesus, I love our
(52:18):
sacramental theology, I doministry a little bit different
than the next guy, but it'scontextual, and so I'm reaching
people that you're probably notgoing to reach and you're
reaching people I'm probably notgoing to reach, kind of thing.
And through it all, through thediversity of our church, we
reach a very diverse worldthat's in desperate need of
Jesus.
So that's it.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
That is it.
This is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is.
You take in this podcast yourcomments and liking the podcasts
on YouTube and are following usthere.
That goes an awful long way tohaving conversations that
hopefully lead us toward health.
In the Lutheran Church,missouri Synod.
You're a gift buddy.
I love you as a partner in thegospel, Tim, praying for you and
(53:00):
your ministry, and thank youfor being so kind of, honest,
authentic and vulnerable insharing your story today.
You blessed us and I'm proud ofyou surviving that hard season
by the grace of God, and we needleaders like you in the
Lutheran Church, missouri Synod.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
Wonderful work, tim.
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Jack.
Thanks, tiki, good to see you,jack.
You've been listening to LeadTime, a podcast of the Unite
Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
Lutheran doctrine and innovativemethods To partner with us in
(53:41):
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
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Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack
Kauberg, we pray.
The joy of the Lord is yourstrength.
We pray that hope and optimismfor your life, your ministry,
your church's life, your missionto bring the gospel to as many
people as possible, yourdiscipleship, your evangelism.
(00:24):
We just pray you're in lovewith Jesus and wanting to join
him where he's at work by theSpirit's power in your local
context.
We pray all of theseconversations fuel you toward
that end.
Jack, how are you doing man?
Speaker 3 (00:36):
I'm doing fantastic.
It is a beautiful time here inArizona.
It's a beautiful time to bepart of the church.
You know, I just feel blessedin everything right now.
It's a great time to be part ofthe church.
You know, I just feel blessedin everything right now.
It's a great time.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yeah, likewise, I feel blessed that I get to hang
out with one of my favorite Timson planet Earth.
It's a great day when I get tohang out.
We get to hang out with TimNiekerk.
Let me tell you just a littlebit about Tim.
Been a pastor now, how manyyears since your ordination, tim
?
Ordained in 97, so I'm comingup on 28 years 28 years and he
(01:08):
is the longtime now lead pastorat Salem Lutheran Church and
School in Tomball, Texas.
And Tim, how did Tomball getits name?
Speaker 4 (01:24):
So it sounds like it's this really great story
some tumbleweed, big Texas townbut the reality is our town got
its name from a guy by the nameof Tom Ball.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Very original.
It's a great name.
Let's combine both of thosenames Tom Ball.
So there it is.
He's been at Salem Lutheran, acongregation that is almost 175
years.
1851, salem Lutheran wasfounded and if any of you have
been there, it's kind of out inthe middle of nowhere.
I think.
(01:53):
Do you have your own cemeteryconnected to the church?
It's like its own little world,out in the midst of it seems
like a rural area, though you'revery much kind of in the heart
of Houston.
It's such a rural area thoughyou're very much kind of in the
heart of Houston.
It's such a unique ministry.
It's been a larger ministry inthe LCMS for a number of years.
Tell kind of Salem's story justa little bit, tim.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Yeah, salem's kind of a.
It's a really great story inmany ways.
It is out in the outer ring ofthe Houston area.
Houston has three rings ring ofthe Houston area, houston has
three rings and now, within thelast few years, the third ring
of Houston is Highway 99.
To put that in perspective,it's 180 miles around.
So it would take you threehours to circle our city if you
(02:35):
could go 60 miles an hour.
It's just kind of nuts.
So that's starting to changesome things.
Things are growing.
But our joke around here formany, many years has been that
you'll pass more cows thanpeople on your way to our church
.
Our address is on LutheranChurch Road.
I don't know that too manychurches have their road named
after that.
So Lutheran Church Road thendead ends at Lutheran School
(02:57):
Road, which dead ends atLutheran Cemetery Road, and you
can imagine what's at the end ofthat.
So if you wind up on that roadyou kind of know where you're
headed.
So our cemetery actually hassome pre-Civil War graves.
I mean, the history andheritage around here is amazing.
We don't joke about fires muchhere at Salem.
We've had two worship centersburned to the ground, one in the
(03:19):
60s and one in 1995.
So anyway, we take fires veryseriously around here.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
And, as you talk about what's defined, what's
been the driving why for Salem?
I'm sure it's evolved almost175 years, but is there a
through thread?
That's kind of been the drivingwhy for Salem from your
perspective, tim kind of beenthe driving why for Salem from
your perspective, tim?
Speaker 4 (03:47):
Yeah, I think Salem's always had this real kind of
this heartbeat to push theenvelope and be a little bit
different.
We were always the churchoutside of town.
So there's another LCMS churchthat's in town, zion Lutheran,
and Zion has always been kind ofthe city church.
And I think Tomball in Salem,outside of Tomball, in many ways
, has found its history and itsheritage and maybe its identity
(04:11):
in being this country church.
That wasn't going to be thecountry church.
So when it burned down, whatwas fascinating was the church
that burned down was about a 200seat building and they turned
around and built a 400 seatbuilding even though they had
nowhere near that many people.
Then, when the church burneddown in 1995, they put up the
current worship center that weworship in which seats about
(04:33):
1500.
And we weren't worshipinganywhere near that at that time.
So it's always been a churchthat thinks big.
There's always the joke ofeverything's bigger in Texas,
but I think Salem always likesto just kind of push things and
wants to.
I think there's always adangerous delicate balance to
him on making sure that thereason why you do things isn't
(04:55):
to draw attention to yourself,and so I think Salem, over the
years, has had to work reallyhard to we're incredibly blessed
, we're well-resourced churchand just making sure that the
reason why we do everything thatwe do is to bring glory to God,
not bring glory to ourselves,and I just think that's a
delicate balance to walksometimes.
We do have a school thatstarted in 1853.
(05:18):
So one of our claims to fame iswe've had a continuously
running school since 1853.
Is we've had a continuouslyrunning school since 1853.
So we are the longest runningprivate parochial school in the
state of Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
So that's a pretty cool deal.
That's really cool.
Yeah, that's amazing.
What led you to Salem Tell alittle bit of your ministry
story, tim.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
Yeah, ministry story was I came out of seminary in
1997, got called to northwestsuburbs of Milwaukee, planted a
church in a funeral home and wasthere for about nine years.
Things were at a spot in thatministry where we had built an
early childhood center.
We had added on to the earlychildhood center.
So we kind of went with themodel of building early
(06:03):
childhood center and thenworshiping in that building,
being able to meet a felt needwithin the community.
And then we were also a part ofbuilding a high school on the
northwest side of Milwaukee.
So that was very exciting.
I actually just in the last fewweeks flew up to Milwaukee for
the 25th anniversary of thatministry.
So kind of that was life giving.
Really kind of cool to see whatGod continues to do in that
(06:24):
area.
Then a guy by the name of WayneGrauman reached out to me in
2005 and started a conversationwith me and just asked if I
would be willing to considertalking to him about what's
happening at Salem.
And then I just really felt atthat point in time, tim, that
God was, that it was the time inwhich God was calling me to
(06:45):
maybe have influence in adifferent place, to be able to
have an opportunity to be ableto grow.
I think we've gotten thingskicked off at Living Word up in
the Milwaukee area and so Godopened the store and I came down
here as the connections guy,which in essence was a
simulation small group, and Ijoke with people that I was on a
four-year interview.
(07:06):
I didn't realize I was on andI'll never forget the day that
Wayne brought me into his office.
I'm a pretty structured guy, asyou know, and Wayne kind of
enjoyed poking at me a littlebit with that because he's not
quite as structured as I am.
And anyway, he pulled me intohis office and it was a meeting
that wasn't on my calendar and Iwalked in and it was Wayne and
Doug Dahmer, who was Wayne'slongtime associate, and then our
(07:30):
chairman of our directors andchairman of our elders.
And I'm serious man, like Iwalked into that room and the
door got shut behind me and theyasked me to take a seat and
they were all looking at me likesuper serious.
And I'm telling you like in mymind every part of me thought to
myself I don't know what youpeople think I did, but I didn't
do it.
Um, so they just let that thingplay out for a little while, uh,
(07:53):
cause they were absolutely, uh,they were pretty good jokesters
, and so they, um, they let mesweat for just a little bit and
kind of um, pressured that.
And then, finally, um, theBruce was up and they said Tim,
we would like you to pray aboutthe possibility of being the guy
that follows Wayne.
So so then it was in 2013 thatI followed Wayne, who had been
(08:15):
the senior pastor here for 36years.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
That's.
That's something else.
Yeah, that's something else.
Yeah.
So following a longtime pastorlike that, especially in a
church like Salem large churchand school, that can be a
difficult thing.
Oftentimes pastors can be theunintentional interim I know a
few of those over the years,especially following someone
(08:41):
like a Wayne.
So what did you, what did youdo to kind of survive, just
survive the transition, becauseI'm sure it wasn't rainbows and
butterflies.
As you're obviously differentin many respects, you bring more
structure, the way you lead isdifferent.
Just what are the primarythings that the Lord did to
(09:02):
allow you to stick and stay overthat transition?
I'm saying all that, tim, asI've told you this privately,
just applauding how Jesus madeyou and the fact that you are
still there and leading with joyand hope and a vision for the
future at Salem is a is aTestament to the work of the
Holy spirit.
So how did that transition go?
Speaker 4 (09:22):
Yeah, Holy smokes, Tim, that's a.
That is a loaded question, so Iwill um.
I'll answer a little bit of itand then I'll let you ask
additional questions if you wantto do that.
I think what was interesting is, in many ways I probably was
too naive to know what I wasgetting myself into, which might
have been helpful.
(09:43):
That I was naive Because my guttells me right now, tim, that
if there was a long historicchurch with somebody who had
decades of service to the churchand asked me to follow them, on
the one hand I would be farmore prepared, but on the other
(10:05):
hand I think I'd probably say no, and that's not right or wrong.
I think it's just my experience.
Who knows, who knows what Godwould call me to do?
I think God's called me to behere right now.
So at any rate, it was kind ofan interesting deal, right.
So I'm following this guy whohad been there for 36 years.
He had an associate who hadbeen there since the day he
graduated from seminary.
(10:26):
So by the time Doug Dahmerretired he had been at Salem for
just shy of 40 years.
And then when I followed WayneI obviously I inherited his team
and I think that that was justkind of this interesting thing
that when I look back on it nowTim and Jack like I don't find
(10:47):
myself, I got blindsided by somethings that I now wouldn't get
blindsided by.
So here's the thing I inheritedthis team that had over 200
years of service to Salem not tothe church, but to Salem.
There were a number of peopleon our executive team who had
been on staff at Salem foranywhere from 25 to 40 years,
(11:09):
had been on staff at Salem foranywhere from 25 to 40 years,
and I was by far at that point,the youngest guy around the
table.
So I had the title but I didn'thave the chips and you know,
when I moved into that role,everybody knew it was coming.
I think Wayne did about as greatof a job of doing a handoff as
(11:30):
he possibly could.
He.
He worked it through with ourteam, he worked it through with
our leadership.
You know, I think everybody wastotally on board with the fact
that Timney Kirk was going to bethe guy that was going to
follow Wayne, and we're evengenuinely excited about it.
I think Salem is a church thatdeals with change reasonably
well, but at the end of the day,everybody struggles with change
and sometimes you don't knowhow you're going to deal with
(11:52):
change until the change hits you, and I think what ended up
happening at Salem is we had adelayed reaction, so I followed
Wayne.
Wayne disappeared for the betterpart of a year.
He and his wife, kathy, wentand traveled Europe, gave me all
the room in the world to beable to lead.
He wasn't even available.
He wasn't even accessible forpeople to be able to run to and
talk to.
I mean, like he just did aremarkable job.
(12:14):
To this day, wayne and Kathyare still at our church and it
works great.
We just Kristen and I had themover for dinner within the last
couple of weeks.
Like we've still got a greatrelationship with Wayne and
Kathy.
I really respect that guy agreat deal.
So then things were runningpretty smoothly, but what I
began to realize was in my mindI expected that the people that
(12:36):
had been long tenured on ourstaff and that were older than
me would be the people that, atthe end of the day, would be
able to handle this transitionbetter than anybody.
They were the ones on theinside.
They were the people that werepart of the decision-making
process.
They were the ones that knewmore than anybody else.
They were the ones that got tospeak into it more than anybody
else.
But this is one of thosemoments where the concept is one
(13:01):
thing, the reality of itbecomes another, and there's
just some realities that takeplace when your position shifts
within an organization,particularly at the top, and
when you follow a long tenuredleader and inherit a long
tenured team.
So what started to happen was Iyou know, I was smart enough,
(13:21):
I'd heard from enough people andread enough books to talk to.
People have gone down thisriver before me who basically
said Tim, don't make anysignificant changes in the first
year.
So I just didn't talk witheverybody, spent a lot of time
with people.
I think one of the things thatstarts to happen when you bring
in a new leader is I startedpoking my head in corners and
looking in closets not literalclosets, but you know what I
(13:43):
mean.
Like you're just you're askingpeople a little more directly
what they're up to.
So help me understand this.
Help me understand that I mean,I'm in a new role, so I'm just
being curious.
I'd like to understand whatpeople are up to.
I feel responsible for how westeward our resources here,
which includes our people, sojust start asking questions.
Well, what I found was the moreI would start asking questions,
the more people would startpulling their cards back.
(14:06):
I think there was.
I think people had gotten veryused to doing things the way
they did them over decades.
And again, I don't think it'sanybody's fault, tim.
I think it's totally normal nowthat I can look back.
The age old hindsight is 2020.
Look, people were all.
(14:27):
Everybody that I'm going totalk about loves Jesus, loves
Salem wants to do the rightthing, right.
I mean, I don't think anybody'strying to create a problem, but
there's just a reality thatwhen you start asking questions
and start wanting to do things alittle bit differently, people
start to react.
So then, my expectation oflong-tenured people being able
(14:48):
to handle this the best.
Now that I look back, I godoesn't it make sense that those
would be the people that wouldhave the hardest time with the
change, because they're thepeople who are most entrenched
in the way we're currently doingthings.
Well now, that makes sense tome, but I never expected that
walking into this.
So I just started to getblindsided by some things, and
then I don't know whether I didthings right or wrong, tim.
(15:09):
At this point, I think it'simmaterial.
What I can tell you is justlike I'll give every person in
this deal.
Eighth Commandment bestconstruction on things that they
love Jesus, love Salem and wantto do the right thing.
I'd argue I was doing the same,but what really started to get
interesting was because Iinherited this team and then,
(15:31):
just as life happens, we're allgetting older and at some point
there has to come an end.
And so when I would starthaving conversations, I'll tell
you what I tried to approachretirement with people from
about every possible angle thatI could figure out how to do it.
People from about everypossible angle that I could
(15:52):
figure out how to do it.
You know I would sit down withyou and go hey, tim, I know
you're, you're turning 63 thisyear, would love to just start
having a conversation with youabout what's next, so that you
and I can make sure that we'reon the same page.
I want to be able to honor you.
I want to be able to make surethat Salem has some kind of
succession plan going on,Because when you inherit that
long tenure to the team right, Imean, I don't think it works
(16:14):
really well to have, like your40 year associate pastor put in
his two weeks notice and thentry to replace him.
You know I mean like there's toomuch emotional relational
capital there to just kind ofsay, well, let's just wait until
somebody finally retires andthen we'll figure it out.
So I'm a planner, I'mrelatively strategic in the way
I approach life and so I kepttrying to have these
conversations.
But I found that when I wouldstart talking to you about that
(16:36):
you would react no matter how Iapproached it.
It was like the minute I wouldbring up that conversation it
suddenly caused you somehowinternally to simply draw the
conclusion that I wanted you out.
And, man, you can imagine thatwhen somebody starts to get to a
(16:58):
spot where they're prettyconvinced that you want them out
sooner rather than later, evenif that's not what I said,
that's clearly what people wouldhear the minute I would start
this conversation.
So initially it seemed likethings were going OK.
So for the first few years ofbeing senior pastor at Salem
everything was really prettygreat, tim.
I mean I would have told you itwas going well.
(17:20):
So the delayed reaction, Ibelieve, started to happen when
our long term associate finallyretired, and you know he was
well loved by our congregation.
He'd been there for fourdecades.
He's married, buried, confirmed, I mean just in the life of our
congregation.
He made the decision when heretired that he wasn't going to
(17:44):
come back here.
He felt like he just needed tohave a really, really clean
break, and I respect thatdecision.
It wasn't what I asked him todo.
I would have been happy to havehim still involved in some
different ways if it would haveworked out, but that was the
decision that was made.
Well then, people are peopleand this is where I will just
tell you you can't predict howpeople are going to respond to
(18:05):
change.
So then what started to happenwas this was in 2019.
We all know that the worldchanged in 2020.
So navigating, the change ofthe guard started in 2019.
So long-term associates started.
He retired in early 2019.
(18:26):
Then we were in the process ofour head of school for well over
a decade and a half, maybepushing 20 years.
She was moving towardretirement.
We, our director, so basicallyour entire executive team turned
over.
Oh goodness, tim, probably intwo to three years, and this was
(18:49):
a very well-planned deal.
I mean, I put it in front ofour directors, put it in front
of our elders, put it in frontof our executive team, had great
conversations.
I thought this thing waswell-planned.
I thought it was verytransparent in front of people,
like we even did a campaigncalled A thousand generations
and raised over a milliondollars in order to be able to
(19:13):
have basically doubled upsalaries for the better part of
a year and a half to two years.
So that, look at think about itthis way, tim, so if I came to
you and you're a couple of yearsfrom retirement, what I wanted
to do was be able to bring insomebody behind you so that you
could pour into that person, sothat by the time you're heading
(19:33):
out, we're not just thenstarting to look for somebody,
but we would have somebodyalready in place who you were
able to kind of bless sort of anElijah Elisha kind of concept
be able to give some of yourchips and relational capital to
introduce to people, all thatkind of stuff.
So I thought it was a greatplan.
I thought it was, I thought itwas going along swimmingly.
(19:54):
It was in front of ourcongregation, our congregation
was generous.
I mean, think about that, thefact that they were willing to
provide resources for a stepdoubled up salaries for a period
of time.
So things in motion, going,going gangbusters.
I would have told you it wasgoing great, things in motion,
going gangbusters I would havetold you it was going great.
(20:22):
But then what ended up happeningwas so associate retires and
then six months later he ends uptaking one of our churches
that's about 30 minutes fromSalem.
Their pastor had cancer andended up dying while still
actively in ministry.
So they were in a crisis momentand so our associate, who had
retired six months earlier, wentand just was trying to help out
for a little bit.
Well, in the process of thatthere were just some wonky
(20:47):
things that happened.
We don't have to go intodetails with all of that, but
you can just imagine what storylines can start, right or wrong
again, not anybody specificallytrying to create a problem, but
it created lots of problems.
So imagine having a guy that'sbeen at a church for 40 years
pops up 30 minutes down thestreet and when our associate
(21:09):
retired, there were some folksthat were kind of like well,
what does he need to retire for?
He's still spry and young andwe like him, he's been around
for a long time, all that kindof stuff.
So there were a few people atthat time that already kind of
felt like maybe Tim Niekerk wasforcing him out, or that there
was some something going on andTim wanted him out, kind of
(21:30):
thing.
So people are people, right?
They're always looking for thestory.
So he retired.
But then when he pops up sixmonths later, you can imagine
that reinvigorates for people.
See, he wasn't done.
If he was done then he wouldn'tbe popping up over here.
But since he's popping up overhere, why didn't he just stay at
Salem, right?
(21:51):
So then it just starts this.
I don't know, tim, I just thinkpeople love the conspiracy
they're always looking for.
Oh, this is the real story,right?
So all you need is a couple ofpeople to determine that this is
the real story.
And that starts a little thingover here.
Right?
So I have this little thingover here.
Then have the fact that ourexecutive team is all turning
(22:14):
over within a relatively shortperiod of time.
But keep in mind, wayne built ateam that was all pretty much
the same age.
So word to the wise, anybodywho's watching this like, if you
have a team, don't have themall be the same age, because
then they all retire at the sametime and that's bad.
Okay, you can do what you want,I'm just telling you it's bad.
So, anyway.
So it turns over right.
(22:35):
So then you've already got thislittle conspiracy over here.
So then this little conspiracyover here is Tim's cleaning
house.
Well, tim's not cleaning house.
Tim has had this plan in frontof our congregation for three
years.
Like, this is no conspiracy,it's wide open.
We go back and check tape.
This is not that hard, so, atany rate.
So all these little things aregoing on.
(22:55):
But you know, when you're inleadership you don't get the
privilege of being able to writeall of those conspiracy stories
.
And I'm kind of an anti-socialmedia guy, so I'm not promoting
myself anywhere, so I'm justkind of quiet and doing my,
doing my stuff and assuming allthis stuff will just kind of
settle down, right.
Well, it didn't settle down aton, and then the doggone
(23:19):
pandemic hit.
So now I'm dealing with whatall of us were dealing with,
which is people, you know,running around the most
polarized leadership stuff I'veever dealt with.
And when I throw a school ontop of that, tim, you know this
right, I mean, we had parentswho were everything from.
All of our kids need to wearmasks.
Because you're trying to killour children to you don't have
(23:41):
enough faith because you wearmasks and it's like, oh for the
love of all, that is good andgreen, this is.
Can you just everybody settledown?
It's going to be OK, that isgood and green, this is geez.
Can you just everybody settledown?
It's going to be okay, so, atany rate.
So now you've got the pandemic,so you got people already all
squirreled up, and then I've gotthese little conspiracy stories
going on.
So I'm thinking, okay, thiswill all blow over and we'll
(24:06):
finally be okay, right, I mean,we just got to get through this.
Well, so if I didn't haveenough going on already, then I
knew I had a situation going onin my staff that I couldn't
quite put my finger on, but Iwas getting closer and closer to
it, tim.
So I finally had to addresssomebody on our staff in just an
(24:31):
icky, icky situation with amoral failure and moral failures
are bad, no matter who you are.
Moral failures within thechurch are just devastating.
And when somebody is stuck intheir own sin and are trying to
(25:02):
cover it up, it was amazing howmuch effort this particular
individual was willing to put into attempt to get the spotlight
off of himself or herself,right, I mean.
So you find yourself in a spotwhere, again, from a leadership
perspective, these are HR issues.
I can't talk about this.
So now you've got thisconspiracy going on over here,
this conspiracy going on overhere and this one's not a
conspiracy, but I can't sayanything about this one either.
So imagine for just a momentyou've already got an executive
(25:26):
team that's turning over, you'vegot a pandemic, and now I've
got a moral failure and a personwho's doing everything in his
or her power to make my lifemiserable, so that it takes any
pressure off of them.
Then you put me in a spot whereour, our leadership just got
(25:50):
way, way, way, way out of theirlane.
Tim and I want to be reallygracious here because again,
putting best construction onthings, I'm able to see things
much more clearly now, now thatI've made it through the season.
But it was a really crummy time.
(26:10):
The stuff I was being accusedof at one point I was the guy
having the affair.
So you can imagine for my wifehaving to live.
I mean, to this day there'speople who are still saying that
I'm the guy that had the affair.
And what am I going to do?
Stand up in front of our wholechurch and announce that I'm not
the guy that had the affair andthen point out the person who
(26:31):
did.
And it's unhelpful, it'sunhealthy, it's all of that, but
it's.
It is a.
I feel like we were a scienceexperiment on what happens when
people choose to talk aboutthings that they don't know what
they're talking about and thenjust being in this quandary of
what do I say and not say so, Iwas so grateful for some
(26:52):
brothers who were able to helpme walk through this and simply
kept telling me Tim, your job isto keep leading.
Well, and for the most part Ijust sort of remained silent, to
remain silent.
And there were times, tim,where, goodness, remaining
(27:13):
silent was really, reallychallenging, because I knew
things were being said and Iknew all these little conspiracy
theories were going on and youwanted to address them all.
But it's like whack-a-mole.
I mean, you go and try toaddress one and it just makes
you look I guess a leadershipprinciple would be you try to
chase all those things down Atsome point.
(27:34):
It almost makes you look I don'tknow what the word would be
almost like you've got somethingto hide because you're working
so hard to try to push back oneverything.
So I just decided I was goingto move forward and let my, at
(27:57):
that time, 26 years of ministryspeak for itself and ultimately,
that's what ended up prevailing.
In many ways.
There were some really criticalmoments that I would be able to
talk about, but we don't.
We don't have that kind of timefor me to put in those kinds of
specific stems.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Wow, Tim, thank you for sharing the story.
This is an unusual thing, for avariety of perspective is
because you're still in thecongregation Most of the time.
Guys tell that story and forone reason or another they've
not survived in that context andI'm going to use this word
because it's a systems word andit's not a directive toward any
(28:32):
one group or one group of peoplebut when leaders differentiate
themselves, when they say hey,I'm not so-and-so and or this is
the way we're going to dothings now, here's the strategy
toward leadership transitions,all which seems very, very
reasonable if reason is the onlything we're considering.
When systems are changing, weget to emotion.
(28:55):
We get to unreasonableperspectives like that People
don't speak out of their,they're speaking from their
amygdala, their fight flight,freeze, fawn perspectives, and
(29:28):
you are dealing with all sortsof various you know and I
so-and-so is saying about me orothers in that environment what
you've experienced.
Now I'd love to get yourperspective on this the whole
organization kind of rises up.
If the leader can remaindifferentiated and relationally
connected enough, you survivethe sabotage over time, the
(29:49):
systemic sabotage that takesplace.
Most leaders can't make itthrough that sort of a sabotage.
Most are going to run away.
Most are going to fight of asabotage.
Most are going to run away.
Most are going to fight, defend, hold resentment.
So what does it look like nowfor you, in your context, to say
(30:13):
I love and I love when I get tothis point, being at 11 years
now in my congregation?
I love, for there have beenseasons of relationships even
here.
I have not walked throughanything close to what you
walked through, but people don'tlike this decision or that
decision.
One of the most liberatingexperiences is when that person
comes back, not to the churchnecessarily, but just comes back
(30:36):
I've had this happen a numberof times and say you know what?
I held you responsible for myown.
I was displacing my anxiety inthis season upon you.
It was unfair.
Will you please forgive me?
And then I can say, hey, I kindof made you.
You know the bad guy.
Human beings want to make what'scomplex very, very simple and
(30:56):
we want to go at differentpeople that say if they only
were removed, then everythingwould change.
Well, it's not that simple.
So I always have contributionto whatever the struggle is that
I can confess and then we uniteas brothers and sisters in
Christ, under the confession ofJesus as Lord and King.
And if confession andabsolution took place, like
obviously has taken place, atSalem and will continue to take
(31:17):
place.
And it's like if confession andabsolution took place, like
obviously has taken place, atSalem, and will continue to take
place, If it happens, in ourlocal congregations and then out
to our districts and Senate, oh, my goodness, what a wonderful
world it would be.
But unfortunately we developlabels and caricatures one to
another to keep people in theirrespective, you know, siloed
(31:39):
perspectives of ministry, andit's just as very, very
unhelpful.
How did you survive thesabotage and am I articulating
what you walk through in anaccurate way from a system
perspective, Tim?
Any more observation there?
Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah, I think you've identified really well the
systemic issue.
I think you've identifiedreally well the systemic issue.
And, tim, what was reallyhelpful for me in many ways was
to get to a spot where I didn'tsee the people as the and man.
I'll tell you to your pointlike it took a long time for me
not to feel like Salem did thisto me or these, these terrible
(32:19):
people did this to me orwhatever, to be able to rise
above that and go with.
There was a systemic problemthat we needed to address.
Man, yeah, I would say that theway that we were able to get
through it was to finally sometruth had to come out.
Some truth had to come out, andthat's always hard Because
(32:41):
sometimes what was amazing to mewas sometimes people didn't
want to hear the truth.
Even when the truth came out,it's almost like people needed
Then there was embarrassmentover realizing, you know, I
hitched my wagon to the wronghorse, kind of thing.
Those are always hard moments.
I think pride is always achallenge for all of us, and so
(33:02):
I consistently had to checkmyself on that.
I'm sure you've heard theterminology right fighting, that
I had to work really hard tonot want to just right, fight,
but to keep saying, for the sakeof the ministry, I need to
stand through this.
And I still remember a reallysignificant moment where my wife
(33:24):
, with tears, just said, tim,yeah, tim, can we just, can you
just stop, please, let's move on.
I mean we lost friendshipsthrough this, relationships.
There was just carnage all overthe place, and so that's just
painful, tim, when you look backat that.
(33:45):
And so I've had a few peoplecome back now and we've been
able to reconcile some thingsand some pretty hard ones.
Some of this, I would say, say,is irreparable, not beyond God's
(34:05):
ability to breathe, grace, butI mean it's sort of like that.
Think of it in terms of if youbreak your leg in 14 spots, I
mean we can put the leg backtogether and I might still be
able to walk, but the leg'snever going to be quite the same
again.
I might still be able to walk,but the legs never going to be
quite the same again.
So I think one of thechallenges of trying to stay at
(34:27):
Salem I really had to wrestlethrough Do I still love this
church, do I still love Jesusand his church and do I still
feel called to be in this placeand I think I was able to get to
a resounding place of this iswhere I need to be in this work.
That's called me to be.
But yeah, painful moments,painful conversations, but a
willingness to be able to riseabove making it any one person,
(34:51):
any one thing.
And it is interesting thefurther you get removed from it,
tim how you're able to just seethings a bit more clearly.
Does that help?
I don't know if I'm answeringthe question.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Distance definitely helps.
Life is suffer, survive andthrive.
Over and over again, rinse andrepeat.
In this world you will havetrial and trouble, and it will
come from individuals and fromgroups of individuals.
And how well do we offer themand all things to Jesus, who
holds us in the palm of his handand he's not going to let go.
I'm just proud of yourperseverance in that story and
(35:26):
it's a beautiful story thatneeds to be told and that's why
I thank you for going into thedepth of it, Jack.
Any observations before we?
pivot a bit Well.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
I'm just reflecting a little bit on my story, your
story also, tim.
Here.
Christ Greenfield's gonethrough a story of transition
and leadership and we had anintentional interim pastor from
which I personally I thoughtthat was a great plan Having
somebody who served in a verylong you know very, very long
tenured role in a senior pastorposition.
(35:56):
Having an interim in there wasreally good for our organization
psychologically to kind ofcreate that intentional
psychological bridge from oneera to another era of the church
and then bringing Tim on board.
I've seen this where storiesform, narratives form about, hey
(36:17):
, we're filling in the gap,something happened and, like you
said, tim, these are HR issuesthat you can't talk about.
But people fill in the gaps,they have a construction on it
and you're kind of stuck becauseI can't sit there and say, well
, I did this and this and this,but like, no, these are private
HR conversations.
I can't bring this up in acongregational thing.
(36:38):
These are very, very difficultwhen you've had, let's say,
maybe moral failings with staffor performance issues with staff
where you're trying to be verysensitive about it.
But there's factions andloyalty to certain people and
I'm just kind of curious fromboth of your perspectives.
You know, how do you?
What is the healthiest way toenter into conversations where
(37:02):
people are forming wrongnarratives about what's going on
Like this is this is somethingthat every leader you know.
If they're sending in theirleadership and if they're
progressing in leadership,you're going to deal with this
someday, right?
What is the healthiest way todeal with that in your
perspective, because I thinkpeople need to hear that
(37:24):
specifically.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my identity is not found in the
approval of men or women, right?
I think that has to be thestarting point, and so if you
are upset with me or us, my doorremains open, and I'm not
surprised if you come in and saythat we did or said something
(37:49):
that was inappropriate, or maybeit's even a gray area and
you've got a difference ofopinion.
That just is the way it is, andI have to have that identity
statement going through my headall the time, because if I don't
, I probably will end up eitherbending right toward the, toward
the person to say, yeah, you'reright, jack's a mess, or
(38:11):
whoever they come in to be it'sall Jack's fault, whatever, or
or.
I'm going to be like pullingback Right, and this is it's the
fight or flight tendency,consistently.
And so can I listen, keep mymind about me to ask the good
questions, and then the firstone to confession and absolution
(38:31):
wins, and I'm actually indifficult conversations.
I'm looking for the opportunityfor me to take responsibility.
Where in this struggle can Itake responsibility?
And the quicker in the momentJack I'm thinking of a
conversation, you're thinking ofthe same one the quicker I can
get to say we could have donebetter there.
(38:54):
That levels them, for them tokind of move back, take some
distance actually in the spaceto say, oh wow, I didn't see
that.
I didn't see that coming, I wasready for a fight.
I was thinking they were comingin, they were going to justify
themselves.
So, since my identity is inChrist and I don't need anybody,
I'm justified by him.
I then can get to an honestunderstanding of and in our
(39:16):
governance.
Jack right, it's Jesus is atthe center, but then I cause or
allow everything to happen.
So I mean, if something's goingon like there's an element, I
brought that person into thatrole right and I've allowed
maybe some bad behavior to takeplace.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
Even if it's the process of delegation that's
happened, you still have to ownit right.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
I got responsibility right.
So the quicker I can get to theresponsibility-centered
confessing conversation, thebetter chance.
It doesn't always work great,but the better chance we have at
the at that leader and then intheir position it filtering down
.
At least Tim is open for aconversation, like if the worst
thing that can happen is Timwill not hear me or this group
(39:57):
of people, however small it isin our perspective.
So that's the way I guess I tryto survive the inevitable
sabotages up to this point.
Tim, what would you add orexclude in what I just said?
Speaker 4 (40:12):
Yeah, I know we've got only a couple of minutes
left.
Tim, maybe a futureconversation between you and me
might be some staffingconversations.
You and me might be somestaffing conversations.
I think I've looked.
I just found I love the phrasethat says a reasonable person
doesn't need to have their way,but a reasonable person needs to
have their way.
Heard and considered my deal.
Where I find some frustrationis when somebody wants me to
(40:34):
hear their idea for the 12thtime and I'm looking at them
saying heard, considered.
The answer remains no, right.
I remember having to have alunch with a guy at one point
where I finally said this is thelast time we're going to have
this conversation and the nexttime we go out to lunch if you
bring this up again I will leavethe table, like I just finally
had to put some.
It was like you've got to put aboundary on so.
(40:56):
Sometimes, jack, you've got tobe pretty firm with people.
When I was going through theworst of what I was going
through just total insurrection,mutiny, and you've got people
coming at you with pitchforksand torches One of the things
that you said, tim, just caughtmy attention and I know we're
wrapping up.
I had to get to the spot ofbecoming settled on who I am.
(41:18):
So your identity conversationof I'm a child of God first, and
then what are the unique waysin which God has wired me.
What started to happen a littlebit was I basically got painted
as really a not nice person,like I mean I love all these
phrases and terms again.
So if toxic, you know all thisand I'm just like OK.
(41:39):
So last time I checked if youreceive a paycheck that says
Salem Lutheran Church in the topleft hand corner, I think it's
totally appropriate that thereare expectations of your time
and your behavior.
And if you make the top guys inthe organization whether it's a
church or business or non, Idon't care what it is If you
make the top guys life miserable, you're probably not going to
(42:02):
last super long in thatorganization.
I mean it's just not thatdifficult.
And if the top guy sets north,whatever north is, as long as in
our context, tim Jack, thatit's not immoral, illegal, that
kind of stuff.
Right Then, if I declare northand you keep rowing east, you're
not going to stay here, it'sjust it doesn't work, which is
(42:23):
totally fair.
Speaker 3 (42:24):
I mean 100 fair, but people have a hard time dealing
with that right because it's adifferent vision right and it
upsets like again 40, howevermany years of shared experience
that people had serving there.
That's a really tough, painfulthing to do and sometimes the
right answer is a new staff.
Speaker 4 (42:46):
Unfortunately it is, and here's the interesting thing
, jack just in a closing thought, tim is this always sort of
blindsided me, and this justmight catch somebody who's
listening and help them hearsomething slightly different
Like I was always amazed when Iwould make even the smallest
change, like changing, make itas simple as changing the carpet
or paint color.
What I found was people wouldreact and it was like, instead
(43:10):
of being able to go, we've hadthat same paint color and carpet
for 20 years.
Okay, it's just, it's just timeto freshen it up.
What?
What the person?
Because we had people that werehere for a long time.
For some reason, their identitywas tied up in that, and so
then it was like, because we'rechanging the color or changing
the carpet, what they heard waswhat they did was wrong, and I'm
(43:33):
like nobody's saying that whatyou did was wrong, we're just
saying my mom picked that colorright.
Yes, it's orange shag carpet.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
It's time to go.
Speaker 4 (43:44):
Orange shag carpet was fantastic 20 years ago,
Right?
So it's just interesting howpeople get tied into things and
so then trying to have thosekinds of conversations where you
try to pull the emotion out.
But I would say, Tim, lastcomment is to get that identity
right.
And I had to get confident inwho I was.
That when people were tellingme, trying to tell me over and
(44:04):
over who I was, you're this,you're that and man, you have
enough people tell you somethingfor a long period of time and I
remember telling you this, Tim,like I got to the point of
going am I Maybe I am?
So finally having to getsettled with?
No, I'm not.
I love Jesus, I love this church.
(44:25):
I'm a focus driven son of a gunat moments and I have to be
careful because I can run peopleover and when I do that then I
have to go.
Man, I'm really sorry, I neverintended to do that, and so I
got to back up every once in awhile and I think I've become a
more seasoned leader throughthis.
So sometime, Tim, we can talkabout maybe what I've learned
through the process.
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Well, yeah, we'll have you back for sure.
You said last, my littlemeeting can wait a couple
minutes.
I got one more thing I need totalk to you about.
You're now the leader of theLarge Church Network and we've
got a lot of listeners in avariety of contexts that listen
to this, and some of them may bein larger churches and many of
(45:07):
them are in smaller churches.
Is there a caricature of thelarge church pastor that you
would like to see kind ofdismissed in the hopes that we
can walk together all differenttypes of churches, all different
sizes and contexts?
What is one or more of thosecaricatures that you would like
(45:27):
to see set right, tim?
Speaker 4 (45:31):
I think maybe the biggest one is I'm amazed
sometimes by the conclusionsthat people draw about who I am
based upon the position that Icarry, and maybe the way I carry
myself, or that just sort ofcreates a caricature.
(45:52):
That simply isn't true, becauseyou don't know what drives me.
Um, I find that, to a certaindegree, when you're leading an
organization so just basic stats, tim, I mean our, our church is
about a $10 million a yearorganization.
We have about 130 employees.
Um, I mean, goodness sakes,that's that's not what I
(46:14):
originally got trained to do.
So there's a part of my rolethat is very different than what
I originally.
When you think about I startedwith 14 people in a funeral home
back in Milwaukee, and now thisis where God has put me.
There is a side, in the lowestof lows of this season that I
walked through.
I remember one guy looking atme and saying you act way more
(46:37):
like a CEO than you do a pastor,and I thought to myself well, I
guess that depends upon whatyou.
You clearly have someexpectation as to what the word
pastor means to you when you saythat, and so I think it was the
fact that I'm in a positionwhere, um, at least at the time,
(47:02):
we've we've adjusted ourstructure at this point, tim, so
I don't deal with HR stuffanymore, which is fantastic,
it's absolutely beautiful.
But I mean, when you're havingto deal with HR issues, you're
having to deal with financeissues, you're having to deal
with all of that kind of stuff,I can't be Santa Claus all the
time, all of that kind of stuffthat I can't be Santa Claus all
the time.
And I think there was a side, atleast for this person, that
(47:24):
because all of my decisionsweren't always, from his
perspective, loving and gracefilled, because if I would let
somebody go or make a harddecision, in this person's mind
that wasn't pastoral, it was awillingness to be able to step
back and say, no, I think mydecision was grace filled.
(47:46):
But there are there areexpectations that go with
leading an organization withthat many employees and you
can't possibly know what's goingon, and so you have to be able
to trust me.
So, tim, the caricature that'sprobably hard is sometimes
people see me only as the guythat leads a large organization
(48:09):
and I think sometimes thinks orforgets that the reason I do
what I do is because I loveJesus and I believe he's the
only thing that changes people'slives, the only thing that has
eternal significance.
The only reason I do what I dois because I want to see more
(48:30):
people in heaven, but sometimesI'm sitting in budget meetings,
sometimes I'm having to dealwith significant HR issues,
sometimes I'm dealing peoplehaving affairs, so I can't
always be Santa Claus, and so Ithink it's yeah.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
Does that help?
Speaker 2 (48:53):
It does, it does.
We're different.
You know the caricature islarge church bad, small church
good or vice versa, small churchit's like no, no, we're all
just different manifestations ofthe church and that church is
made up of a variety ofdifferent types of leaders with
different types of gifts.
(49:14):
You have more executivefunction gifting.
That's nothing you should like,argue or have to explain away.
That's how Jesus made you andyou get to be in different
conversations than a pastor of asmaller congregation gets to be
in, and we need all types ofpastors to reach all types of
(49:34):
people.
Can we just recognize thatdifferent and maybe this is a
good way that different, diverse, this is a gift from Jesus
rather than something to befought against?
If I could just pray for oneprayer, it's that we would see
our differences as a gift in theLCMS rather than something that
(49:57):
divides us.
And I'm not talking theology atall, I'm basically just talking
sociology and the way we'vekind of organized ourself.
Can we resist the fight orflight, you know black or white
kind of assumption about aperson and actually get to know
that person?
Because I'm sure there's been,there's a lot of you know labels
on us and I just don't unless Ihave a relationship with you,
(50:20):
unless I see you and talk to youand we're actual humans in in a
space I'm not going to.
I'm not going to lose sleepover a caricature that someone
else has of me.
Until we get to know oneanother and we, we pray for one
another and see one another.
Brothers and sisters in Christ,it sounds like Kumbaya.
It's not kumbaya.
It's simply what Jesus prayedfor in John, chapter 17.
(50:42):
I desire that they would be oneas we are one, and I think
we're still more Holy Spiritinspired work for us to do
across the continuum in the LCMSwhen the average church, 45% of
our congregations worship lessthan 50 people a week.
So obviously that entity of themanifestation of the local
church is very different thanthe two contexts that we find
(51:03):
ourselves.
Not better, not worse.
Any closing comments there,jack?
Speaker 3 (51:10):
No, I don't have anything to add to it.
I think we've hit so manytopics here it's hard to nail it
all down to it.
I mean, the key thing here isconflict.
How are we dealing healthy withconflict?
here, and you know, I think thekey thing is our faith,
ultimately, is what gives us thestrength to deal with conflict,
(51:32):
to be humble in conflict, tocontinue to be missional in
conflict.
And you know our faith again,our knowledge of being saint and
sinner at the same time, letsus know that conflict is
inevitable, it's going to happen, it's messy and it's 100%,
totally worth it for the sake ofthe kingdom.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
Amen, amen.
Tim, if people want to connectwith you and your work at Salem,
how can they do so?
Speaker 4 (51:57):
My email is first, initial, last name, so tneekirk
at Salem, the number four, theletter Ucom.
Happy to chat with anybodyHappy to follow up.
I think my last comment wouldjust be the reminder.
I love your diversity comment,but I think all ministry is
contextual and I think if wecould be far more trusting of
one another, that you trust thatI love Jesus, I love our
(52:18):
sacramental theology, I doministry a little bit different
than the next guy, but it'scontextual, and so I'm reaching
people that you're probably notgoing to reach and you're
reaching people I'm probably notgoing to reach, kind of thing.
And through it all, through thediversity of our church, we
reach a very diverse worldthat's in desperate need of
Jesus.
So that's it.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
That is it.
This is lead time.
Please like, subscribe, commentwherever it is.
You take in this podcast yourcomments and liking the podcasts
on YouTube and are following usthere.
That goes an awful long way tohaving conversations that
hopefully lead us toward health.
In the Lutheran Church,missouri Synod.
You're a gift buddy.
I love you as a partner in thegospel, Tim, praying for you and
(53:00):
your ministry, and thank youfor being so kind of, honest,
authentic and vulnerable insharing your story today.
You blessed us and I'm proud ofyou surviving that hard season
by the grace of God, and we needleaders like you in the
Lutheran Church, missouri Synod.
It's a good day.
Go make it a great day.
Wonderful work, tim.
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (53:19):
Jack.
Thanks, tiki, good to see you,jack.
You've been listening to LeadTime, a podcast of the Unite
Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
Lutheran doctrine and innovativemethods To partner with us in
(53:41):
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
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