March 28, 2025 • 59 mins
Pastor Robert Balduc shares his journey from corporate life at Ford to planting St. Peter Lutheran Church and becoming an intentionally co-vocational pastor maintaining his role at Volkswagen alongside ministry leadership.
• Coming from a corporate background before entering seminary and founding St. Peter in 2006
• Transitioning to a co-vocational model not from financial necessity but strategic choice
• Reducing staff expenses to just 22% of church budget, freeing resources for church planting
• Integrating workplace presence with pastoral ministry creates connections with unchurched people
• Focusing pastoral energy on three key areas: casting vision, preaching/teaching, and connecting with new people
• Creating an innovative men's ministry featuring "Beast Feast" events that draw non-church members
• Using masculine language and military metaphors to engage men in church life
• Developing a church multiplication model where growth leads to planting rather than expanding services
• Approaching co-vocational ministry from abundance rather than scarcity mindset
• Recognizing spiritual warfare intensifies during periods of significant ministry expansion
Find peace, clarity, and companionship for your spiritual journey.
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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.
Jack, are you enjoying life,dude?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I am enjoying life.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's not boring Life is not boring these days, is it?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
No, we've had a really busy day today.
Lots of meetings, Lots of.
We had some beautifulconversations with people today
Met with some students, met witha really influential lay member
of our church here that gave ussome really beautiful
encouraging words, and so it'sbeen a great day, lovely day.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It has been.
It has been, and today is madeeven more lovely because we get
to hang out with Pastor RobertBaldu and let me tell you a
little bit about him.
He's a pastor, founding pastor,planting pastor at St Peter in
North Lake, texas, which is asuburb of Fort Worth, and he
planted that church in 2006.
(00:52):
He was full-time to start with,but then he became an
intentional co-vocational pastorand we're going to hear more of
this story.
He worked before going to theseminary and graduating from
Concordia Seminary in St Louisin 2005, he worked for Ford and
since now, 2014, he's worked asa training performance manager
(01:13):
at Volkswagen.
So this is the one and onlyRobert Baldu.
How are you doing, brother?
Good.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Thank you, real excited to be a part of this.
My friend nominated me so I'mgoing to get him later, but
that's okay, ron.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Bendick if you're watching.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Shout out to you my man.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Everybody's got a story to tell, and I'm glad we
get to hear yours today.
So tell us your ministry storyand how you were led to be a
co-vocational pastor there,Robert.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah, so I grew up in Detroit.
I was baptized Catholic.
My mom and dad got divorcedwhen I was two and we didn't go
to church.
My mom remarried, my dadremarried, my dad remarried a
woman who was Missouri Senate,who had three kids from a
previous marriage, and I wasgoing to an elementary school a
(01:57):
couple blocks from my house andmy dad's wife's kids were going
to a Lutheran school and infourth grade this was in the 70s
they started to dodesegregation and I was going to
get bused into downtown Detroitand so my mom and my dad didn't
want to see that happen.
So not because of racialreasons, because of safety.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You, know security reasons.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So my dad said well, why don't you put Robert my mom
put Robert in this Lutheranschool where my new wife's kids
go.
So in fourth grade I startedgoing to Lutheran school and, as
a result, started going to theLutheran church.
And then in eighth gradeconfirmation, as the story is
often told my pastor pulled meand another boy aside, said you
should think about becoming apastor.
So planted the seeds, graduatedfrom Michigan State with a
(02:44):
marketing degree.
We had a big win last nightYou've got to watch it on
YouTube over Maryland.
Last second half-court shot wonthe game actually.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No way, that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Three-quarter shot actually, Come on.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Were they down when the shot was made or was it tied
?
It was tied.
It was tied, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Scott Van Pelt who's a Maryland grad from ESPN.
He was there and he had toreport on it afterwards but it
was good.
So anyway, went to MichiganState, got hired by Ford Motor
Company.
Out of college got reloaded toCarrollton, texas, became part
of Prince of Peace in Carrollton.
Steve Wagner learned tremendousamount about ministry from him.
In fact he married.
I met my wife there at church.
(03:20):
He married us and has been agreat mentor.
We're there six years, had ourfirst son.
Then Ford reload us to Atlanta,became part of a church there
with Kevin Ellsrold.
Open Arms was the first openarms church plant in the country
, the Dr Scuderi model ofstarting with daycares with a
great room plant churchesLearned a lot there.
(03:41):
Got involved actually as alayman in preaching and just
developing more.
And then after four years theregot involved actually as a
layman in preaching and justdeveloping more.
And then after four years theregot reload back to headquarters
with Ford and was at St Luke'sin Ann Arbor Incredible ministry
there.
But actually as a layman workedwith the Michigan district to
plant a open arms church plantafter I'd just seen it in
(04:01):
Georgia with CEF, michigan CEF,and that thing got going and at
that point we're looking atcalling a pastor and we were
getting the magazine to theseminary in St Louis because I
think I was serving with theMichigan district.
And in March of 2002, my wifecame to me because we had four
(04:21):
little kids.
At this point she's astay-at-home mom and I always
said, well, god wants to dosomething, he'll speak to her.
Because he wouldn't call me tosomething he wasn't calling her
to.
I just thought I'd work at Fordfor 30 years and then maybe do
something in the church.
But God had other plans.
So in March of 02, she broughtme the magazine from Concordia,
(04:47):
st Louis and at this time abouthalf the men going to seminary
we're second career, so theseminary was doing a great job
administering the wives andchildren so the men can do their
studies.
She's like, hey, they're havingthis open house, if we're going
to do this, let's do this whilethe kids are little.
So ended up going to seminary.
Got blown away over thatweekend.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
What year was this?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
2002, march of 02.
And came away, thought, okay,march of 02, maybe fall of 03,
get our ducks in a row, we'llmake the move.
Well, two weeks back at work Iwas mentally checked out because
I'm kind of an all in all outperson.
So I went to my boss at Fordand said, hey, I'm going to
leave the company after 14 years.
And he was like, are youserious?
And I'm like, yes, he's likewell, I'm glad you told me I'm
(05:15):
getting ready to submit a listof names to HR for voluntary
separation packages.
I'll put your name on the list,which he didn't have to because
I'd already told him I wasleaving.
So got a buyout from Ford, putour house on the market.
It sold for full list in twoweeks, right before the housing
market crashed in Detroit.
We were at seminary in August of02, five months later Didn't
work.
For that time period Godprovided all the resources,
(05:36):
which is a great Hudson Taylorquote.
Missionary to China, says God'swork done God's way will not
lack God's resources.
And God provided for us.
And I'd been at some greatchurches and you know you go
into a church that's existingand they're not doing anything
wrong.
But if it doesn't fit yourleadership style.
There's a lot of pain in tryingto affect change and so, as
(05:56):
hard as it is to start a church,you start with a clean sheet of
paper and that's the beauty ofit.
So ended up wanting to plant achurch and got called back down
to Texas and planted St Peter.
In September of 06 is when welaunched.
We were portable for four yearsin a rec center, set up on
Saturday night, tear down afterchurch on Sunday morning before
(06:17):
they opened the doors, kind ofthe wilderness experience
tabernacle.
And then in 2010, we built our.
We bought eight acres, builtour first building, started our
preschool with four classroomsand I'm and I'm all this is all
with me being a fully funded youknow pastor at this point.
And then in 2012, we plantedour first church in grapevine,
(06:38):
texas.
And uh, and then about that time, um, really where, where I was
at was I was kind of suffocatingin the church bubble.
I also wanted to free upresources because we had just
gone through that churchplanting experience and it was.
I should have been rejoicing init.
But you know, you kind of getin the scarcity mindset instead
of an abundance mindset,especially if your personal
(07:00):
financial situation is tied tothe church.
And then we had those fourlittle kids getting ready to go
to college.
So I didn't want them to beburied in student debt.
So I went to my leadership wehave a policy-based governance
model and basically I took themto the scriptures which we'll
talk about here, I think, in alittle bit and just showed them
that this is not really.
It's an old concept.
(07:21):
I mean, it's a new concept, butit's really not.
And so in 2013, I kind of dustedmyself off, went back out into
the automotive space and thebiggest thing I had to do was to
say because I was busy but youknow, busyness and effectiveness
are two different things Ifilled my day and I said what
are the things that I can onlyhold on to and I can't release
(07:41):
to anybody else?
And what I came down to wasthree things and I said it's
casting vision, it's preaching,teaching and it's connecting
with new people.
Those are the things.
Everything else gets offloaded.
Now we had full-time staff, dceand full-time administrator and
so forth.
So I did that for a year,because I always think leaders
should do something first beforethey ask other people to do it.
(08:03):
So I did it for a year andpeople were freaking out a
little like, well, what aboutbaptisms, what about weddings,
what about funerals?
And I'm like, look, I'm notsitting in the church with my
bad phone and if you've got asmartphone and you're organized,
and people began to see therewas no effect on my pastoring of
the church and in fact, it mademe a better preacher and I was
(08:27):
living the life they were livingand put me out in the real
world and connecting with peopleI never would have connected
with.
So I did it for a year and thenin 2014, we did a staffing
strategy shift where we madeeverybody co-vocational and, of
course, you move some people'scheese.
That was a little bit rocky,but the end result and we can
talk about that here too alittle bit incredible benefits.
(08:50):
And then at that point, we gotrid of the office space and we
created a fifth preschoolclassroom.
So we monetized the facilityfor another classroom space.
We then planted a church in2020, and we're getting ready to
plant another church this yearand at the same time, we're
getting ready to build a new24,000 square foot education
building to expand our preschool.
(09:12):
But what I'm really excitedabout is we're starting a K-5
elementary school, becauseschool choice is coming to Texas
starting in the 26-27 schoolyear and you guys I'm so jealous
of you guys in Arizona becauseyou've had school choice since,
like the early 90s, you're inthe early 90s.
Yes, the promised land here, yes, yeah, so.
But I really believe that'swhere the battlefield is now is
in the classroom, and theschools really can drive so much
(09:36):
in terms of advancing thekingdom of God.
And so I planted St Peter.
I've been involved now in two,now three, church plants.
Planting a school is incrediblyharder than planting a church.
I'm just going to tell you thatmuch.
But it, but I think it's goingto be even more powerfully
effective for the kingdom.
So that's my story, man.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Wow man, there is so much there.
Yeah, I'm so glad you're in theLCMS.
A couple, a couple of followupthings.
You mentioned the RobertScuderi model of church planting
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And for people that don't know,robert Scuderi not necessarily
(10:10):
in open arms, it's now you cancorrect me but it's like tied to
him is like the largest churchplanting network that we've seen
, multiplying movement in theentire world Like this he's like
the most.
I've listened to him speak.
He's kind of like the mostunassuming guy, but he's been
going on the multiplicationjourney.
(10:31):
So sometimes people say, well,it's impossible for us to raise
up X amount of leaders over Xamount of years Like this guy.
And you can give me thespecifics he has thousands of
churches that have their originback to his kind of leadership
development.
Isn't that right, robert?
Tell that story a little bit.
It's incredible.
He's the godfather.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
He's the godfather, he's Italian, he's the godfather
.
No, I mean, and you know, Ijust know him from the open arms
piece but, like you said, hewrote so much foundational
teaching and theology aroundmission multiplication
foundational teaching andtheology around mission
multiplication from which wasthe bedrock to build upon this
(11:09):
open arms model, which wasreally, you know, in some ways
it's a high risk deal becauseyou're investing all this money
up front to build a building.
You got to run it properly tomake the money and then you
build it with a great room andthen you worship in the great
room and then you fish for thefamilies that come to the
daycare.
But you start with the building.
And you know what?
I know people like the conceptof house churches and so forth,
(11:29):
but the North American,especially the American model of
church, is still heavily tiedto space and place and you can
holler at the moon.
All you want and say the churchis the person, not the building
.
Well, you know what?
But people still, the realitywas when we were portable church
for four years, we were in amuch better financial position
than we were when we built thebuilding.
But people felt more securewhen we got into a building
(11:52):
because they thought, well, youknow, the circus could leave
town at any moment here.
But now we got roots and we'vegot the foundation.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So how many churches?
I mean, am I right, Thousandsof churches?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Oh yeah, no yeah, Like you say, he's the godfather
.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, well, let's be about that, jack.
We definitely have potential tolaunch more schools here.
That's definitely in our future.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
That's the next thing , I think is starting schools.
That's our vision, yeah,starting schools, yeah, and
that's one thing we're actuallygood at.
We're not good at a lot, butwe're actually good at that we
excel at it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
It's uh, you know it's.
It's interesting if we talkabout, you know, um, the uh, was
it good to great?
And he talks about thattriangle, right, the things that
you're passionate about, thethings that you're best about,
the things that can be aneconomic engine for your
ministry like, well, within atypical, you know, lutheranism.
We are passionate and really,really good about education.
(12:42):
I don't know that.
We always leverage that interms of ministry and it pays,
especially if you can get into astate.
That's school choice.
It has the potential.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And a lot more potential with the current
administration.
But I will say that I can saythis as a pastor I've always
been and I'm not throwing barbshere but I've always been way
more impressed with theeducators in our church body
than with pastors in our churchbody in terms of their skills,
their drive, their leadership,their abilities, because they
have to compete, you know, Imean they're competing in a way
(13:16):
that in some ways we're not onthe church side and I really
think I mean the level of talentwe have on the education side
of personnel wise is amazing tome.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Savvy business people who also have a personal heart.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Absolutely.
And our principal right nowshout out to AJ Amling he just
came, Don't put him on a list,please.
He's very committed, thank you.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Not you, robert.
We're homegrown, we do ourshomegrown here.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Let's do it, let's do it.
Well, that is the ideal, praiseGod.
So what would you say tosomebody who says this whole
co-vocational mumbo jumbo, likethe church is meant to have
full-time workers, like Paulsaid, the labor is worthy of his
or her hire and so if you'renot full-time, package benefits,
et cetera, compensating, you'resomehow being disobedient to
(14:05):
the mission of God.
And we've heard thisconversation.
I don't know.
For me it's kind of likeeverywhere For the church of the
grassroots to get going earlyon Paul Tentmaker, et cetera.
You can't tell me that in theeconomic engine of the early
church in Corinth, with 50believers and 150,000 people,
(14:26):
that there was a right up fronteconomic model that's going to
full time support, benefitsupport Like this is all.
So I'm already answering myquestion, Robert, I'll let you.
But this is all a Western movetoward monetizing ministry.
Money is not bad and takingcare of people is not bad.
Like Jack, you and I arefull-time supported, but to
(14:48):
think that we're somehow morefaithful because we're full-time
supported by the church thanyou are, Robert, like this, is
ridiculous.
I don't know where thisargumentation comes from.
I don't think it comes from theearly church model.
So anything more to say on that, Robert?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Well, I think there's a key word that once you flip
the word, it may unlock people'sparadigm and mindset.
Because this isn't about time,it's not about being a part-time
pastor or a full-time pastor.
It's like I'm a dad, I'm ahusband.
I don't measure that based onhow much time I spend.
Now, obviously you got to spendtime and all that, but I'm not
(15:25):
a part-time dad or part-time,I'm not a part-time pastor.
Replace the word time withfunding.
That's all this discussion'sabout.
Are you fully funded by yourministry or are you partially
funded?
But you're the pastor of thechurch.
But going to your point about, Imean, I'm not a historian so
I'm not sure there are otherpeople.
(15:45):
But look at, yeah, paulobviously was a tent maker.
We use that example often.
And then I did pull, I did havea quote that I pulled from a
church father to Tullian aroundthe early third century, where
I'm just going to read onemoment of it, one piece of it
here.
He says for we ourselves,besides our attention to the
(16:06):
word of the gospel, do notneglect our inferior employments
, for some of us are fishermen,tent makers and farmers, so that
we may never be idle.
So I mean, the history of thiswas in the early church until
Constantine.
You know, early fourth centurystopped the persecution of the
church, which was good, and thenat the end of the fourth
century really made Christianitythe state religion of Rome.
And that's probably when theprofessional clergy really
(16:27):
started to take root and whathappened was a separating of
sacred and secular, which Luthertried to kind of bring back
together in the Reformationpriesthood of all believers.
Right, but he couldn't closethe Grand Canyon gap that had
been now in place for a thousandyears.
But really it's just coming backto this and I think there's
(16:48):
some pitfalls.
And again to your point,workers worth their wage.
So everyone's got to do.
But I think this is going tobecome more the norm for a lot
of reasons, especially in ourchurch body.
The latest stats I looked atwe've got about 5,800
congregations in our church body.
11% of those right now areclassified with part-time
(17:10):
pastors.
We know the other stats 75% ofthe churches worship less than
100, 50% of the churches worshipless than 50.
If you're worshiping 50 peopleand you're expecting a fully
funded Concordia plan benefit atsix figure plus, I mean I don't
know, unless you got reallyrich people, I don't know how
that's.
So this is going to happenregardless.
(17:30):
It's happening and the key withvision is being able you can't
see everything, but if you're aleader and vision's seeing a
little bit further out thaneveryone else, so that you can
proactively, in a very calm,deliberative manner, make the
moves before the moves have tobe made, because now you're in
crisis mode and the FebruaryLutheran Witness just came out
(17:53):
this is so timely about smallcongregations and one of the
brothers wrote an article andI'm not disparaging him, but he
talked about he called itbivocational ministry, but I
like the word co-vocational forseveral reasons.
In fact, I am co-vocationalbecause I'm Volkswagen, I'm
pastor at St Peter and I'm alsoa stipend mission strategist for
(18:15):
Church Extension Fund in Texas,so I'm actually doing three
things.
But he wrote in there a verynice article and I appreciate it
and he tried to frame it in theend of his article about you
know what God can bless this?
It's a cross you carry.
But I just felt like themindset of it was this is a it's
kind of a sad reality that wejust need to do versus like in
(18:36):
my case, my church could affordme.
We were not under any financialstress at all.
The church absolutely couldafford me.
This was an intentional decisionfor expanding ministry and I
think there's pitfalls and I wasfalling into some of these.
I think there's some pitfallsin professional ministry when
you're in there, I think.
First is martyrdom mindset, Ithink, where we think our job is
(18:59):
harder than anyone else's.
Well, I'm sorry If someone's aborder agent, I think their
job's a little bit.
I'm not worried about gettingkilled every day, you know.
And again, you know, I thinkthere's a martyr.
I think we get kind of a woe isme attitude and my job's harder
?
And then what happens isthere's a shift where now the
sheep are taking care of theshepherd more than the
shepherd's taking care of theship.
And again, pastors should behonored, pastors should be cared
(19:22):
for.
So let's have a complexconversation, not a simplistic
one here.
But people fall into that trapof martyrdom mindset and I think
also you can get compromised Ifyou.
You know, if Jack's the biggestgiver in my church and I got to
have a law conversation withhim, but I don't really want him
(19:42):
to leave the church becausethat could impact.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I just have to add here I met a pastor at the BPM
who was he had a successfulbusiness and so he took no money
at all whatsoever from hisministry, and actually what that
meant is a large amount of thatmoney was being given away to
impact the community, and hesaid this is so freeing.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
It is freeing it's freedom.
I don't need.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I don't have to worry about a paycheck dictating any
of my decisions as a pastor andhow I'm pastoring people.
Right, it was.
It was fascinating.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, carla and I are one of the biggest giving
families in our church and we'renot at 100% yet in terms of.
I mean, I do draw a partialsalary, but our giving covers
about 80% of what I'm receivingright now and our goal is to
cover 100% of it.
But I also think it just getsto, you know, when you're full
(20:35):
time and you're in the boat ofthat, that you rise or fall with
the finances of the church.
I think that you can get afinancial focus, cause the
reality is, if you can't takecare of your own family, you
know you're you're going to befocused there, which you rightly
should, more so than the familyof God.
So I think there's somepitfalls and this frees you from
all of those things.
You know, I read a stat thatsaid that staff expense should a
(20:59):
guide would be, maybe if you'reat 50% of your budget.
So now maybe it's higher orlower, I don't know, and then
maybe you have 35% debt that yougot, and then the other 15% is
mission and ministry At St Peter.
Right now we're at our staffexpense.
Uh, and I'd encourage thepeople listening to the podcast
go back and do the numbers foryour own church, you know, but,
(21:21):
um, we're at 22%.
Our staff expense is 22% of ourbudget, which means we can
plant with with joy.
We can plant churches, whichmeans investing people, which
means offerings are going outthe door.
But if you're going to plantchurches, you got to have mature
Christians to do that.
You can't do it with peoplethat are flaky, and so you know
it is freeing, and I think thisis going to be an inevitability.
(21:43):
And what it also does is,besides having that abundance
mindset, it also opens upincredible doors for staff
selection, and what I mean bythat is I may have a really
gifted lay person who can't,it's not going to leave their
job to do something at thechurch.
But if I say, hey, I've createda position that's 10 hours a
(22:04):
week, maybe they can do that,and you stipend them and, plus,
they're going to stick becauseyou know what, if you're a
called worker let's face itthere's more open, there's
supply and demand here, and youknow what, if your principal Tim
you heard his feelings orsomething and he knows he's
(22:26):
talented and he knows the grasscan be greener elsewhere, he can
put his name on a call list.
I mean, I'm just getting realhere about, let's just be real
about all this stuff.
And then priesthood of allbelievers which we espouse this
really encourages that no onecan tell me they're too busy,
you know and we get greaterengagement of laity, I think,
through this.
And actually we had a man, hiswife came, we baptized him, but
(22:51):
one of the things he shared withme when he found out I was
co-vocational, he, he, he camefrom a big box church and and,
uh, and he really saw the churchas a big business and then when
he found out I wasco-vocational, it really lowered
his defenses because he waslike, oh okay, it's not a it's.
I mean, it is a business, butyou know he was wrapped up in
(23:11):
that mindset of the money andthat's all it's about and so
forth.
So you know there's a lot ofbenefits proactive benefits to
being co-vocational and again,we can do both.
I mean there's callings forboth.
But I think more and more ofour churches are going to
seriously need to look atco-vocational based upon just
(23:32):
the numbers upon just thenumbers.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Well, yeah, so yeah, let's go down this path To come
at this from a place ofabundance rather than scarcity,
from a place of opportunityrather than loss.
And I'm not trying to put wordsin your mouth and I haven't
read the article, but I wouldfrom the Lutheran Witness, but I
would from the Lutheran Witnessand I will read it.
But was it from yourperspective framed and kind of
it's just, it's a hard day to bethe church and we're just
(24:03):
walking through a lot of thesedifficult things, and I guess we
got to do what we got to do,you know, and rather than no,
this is a great opportunity forus to identify men who are out
in their community, who haveestablished themselves, who are
great leaders, who are elders,and let's find ways to raise
them up into pastoral ministry.
That seems like a veryreasonable, hope-filled thing to
(24:24):
do.
And then you get away from theloyalty.
You get the loyalty strugglesor the martyrdom mindset, or the
extra.
Oh my gosh, we got to doeverything because, nah, they're
there, they understand thetimes, and we can start with the
30 to 40 to 50 people and growfrom there.
He's going to need sometheological training, to be sure
, but he's in, this guy is allin, and I don't know right now
(24:46):
that we're recognizing theamazing opportunity.
Right now, at least, in theformation space, I think we're
struggling to see this as not amajor gap but a major
opportunity.
I don't know how else to lookat it, because our God is a God
of abundance, not fear andcontrol.
He wants to release us, to seethings in a new way.
So anything more to add there,robert?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean, again in the article it kind of
creates, it tells a fictionalstory about the pastor's meeting
with his board of elders churchcouncil.
They're going through thebudget and then the sad reality
is like we're not going to makeit next year and then the pastor
says, well, maybe I'll have toget another job.
I mean it's a defeatist.
And again the author reallybrings it to the end about
(25:31):
that's a cross and it can stillbe meaningful and a blessing,
but it kind of is a defeatistattitude.
You know, like this is a.
This isn't the norm, this, infact I'm.
I'm going to be talking with theHispanic church planters in
Texas through the district laterthis year because a lot of them
have that same mindset Likewell, I've got to be fully
funded.
You know it's like no, no, youdon't have to be fully funded.
(26:11):
In fact you really it's notgonna be healthy for you to be
fully funded and so but but toseminary, and they're like, well
, yeah, robert, but you weresecond career.
I'm like, okay, time out.
You're educated, presumably youhave emotional intelligence,
presumably you're a goodcommunicator.
You're telling me you can'tmonetize that.
(26:32):
I'm not even sayingco-vocational doesn't mean you
have to get a full-timecorporate job like what I have.
You could go deliver pizzas 20hours a week, I don't know.
But you get something else.
There's a family in our churchthat's in our church because
he's a colleague of mine atVolkswagen.
It's like you going outco-vocational in that sphere
(26:53):
isn't like somehow you're notdoing ministry.
It gives you a greater platformto do ministry and it also
financially brings a lot ofbenefit to you and to the church
as well, and bringing thesacred and the secular back
together is what we're reallytalking about here.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
How many pastors actually have a network of
people that they know that areunbelievers and unchurched?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
right I mean, and it's not because people don't
have a network of people thatthey know that are unbelievers
and unchurched.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Right, I mean, and it's not because people don't
have a heart for that, it's justyou get caught up in the bubble
.
You're in the office, you'redoing visitations, right, so you
know what you're not doing isyou're not visiting with
unbelievers.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And I think it's really made me a better preacher
.
It's made me a sharper preacher, a better preacher, a more
believable preacher, because I'msharing the stories, I'm living
the life.
This isn't theory, so there'sso many benefits to it.
And co-vocational doesn't againmean you have to go out and get
a full-time corporate job.
(27:49):
It just means you go dosomething else, though, and you
monetize that.
But you're also talking withdifferent group of people than
you were before.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, I mean.
This points out how importantreally it is to equip the
priesthood of all believers.
Even in a context where, hey,we're committed, we're going to
have full-time pastors here,well, you know people that they
don't know, and in order forthis church to be effective,
this church has to leverage therelationships that you have.
Every single person, everysingle believer who comes to
(28:20):
church has relationships withpeople outside the church and we
have to be equipping themembership to really be entering
into authentic faithconversations that invite people
to come and know Jesus.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And again, I would just strike the word time from
the.
It's not time, it's notfull-time, part-time, it's just
fully funded or partially funded.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, I mean, another way to think about it is that
seems to unlock people's brainsa little bit.
Yeah, another way to thinkabout it is you're a pastor
going into a workplace andbringing that pastoring with you
.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Oh my gosh, yeah, and I mean everyone in Volkswagen
knew I was a pastor.
You know they didn't treat meweird.
You know they just talk with meand you know we, you know it's,
it was, it was, it waseyeopening, it was, it was
awesome.
It's been awesome Well.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I just have one question Does Volkswagen have a
job for me here in Gilbert Cause?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
maybe well, you know, it's's funny.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
You know what's funny , tim is?
I pastor a Lutheran church, aGerman church, and I work for a
German automaker and I'm noteven German.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, yeah, very German.
That's so good.
Anyhow, let's shift.
You guys are known a lot foryour men's ministry.
Tell us about what God's doingin your men's ministry, I know,
and it really piggybacks becauseyou get to identify men and
call them up as the priesthoodin their respective vocations.
(29:44):
But how are you guys doing thatin creative ways to reach men?
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah, I mean, look at , everyone has the men's
breakfast and you know, whateverit's evening events and so
forth we call our men's ministrygatekeepers.
You know you're standing in thegate, you're guarding that
Satan's got to come through youto get to your family, your
church family, your community,so forth.
So you know we use that kind ofthe masculine.
But I would say the one thingI'd share with you is you know,
(30:09):
a lot of churches will have amen's dinner, steak dinner night
or whatever.
And we started out, I seen thatat churches we would do it,
we'd have an event, we'd pay fora big name speaker to come in
and we'd all steak.
Now, one of the things we do atour church, we do brew beer and
we do have a tap wall in ourbarn, love it.
So there's a little bit moregoing on for us.
(30:29):
But what I saw with that modelis and I saw at churches where
their men's dinner, their bigonce a year event, it would kind
of it would go this and then itwould kind of and I'm all about
sustainability Like what I wantto do things that are
sustainable.
I don't want to do things thatwe can't continue.
(30:51):
You know, now we are into birthand bury and all that.
What we learned was don't makethe event about the speaker.
You're going to get a goodspeaker, but find a local
speaker.
Find someone who's a local,like a high school football
coach or someone in the militaryor in law enforcement or an
entrepreneur or restaurateur.
Have them come and they'll do atalk and share their life
(31:13):
experience and some principles,and then it's not a sermon.
Then you can come underneaththat.
But what you make it about ismen connecting together.
That's the draw is men, becausemen isolate so much.
And you know, we got the musicgoing, we got funny commercial,
we got sports going on.
It's like a big sports bar Got,you know, a pig roast
beforehand shrimp oil.
Then we bar got a pig roastbeforehand shrimp oil, then
(31:35):
we'll do the steaks and it'sjust high energy.
And the other key is that don'tgo hand-to-hand combat.
Don't sell individual tickets.
Get your guys to buy a table, atable of six, table of eight,
and they can go in with some ofthe other guys at church, say,
look, this is an invite event,hey, you want to eat, you want
to drink, you're going to hear agood message, and then have
(31:57):
them fill their table withpeople outside the church.
So now you're selling tables,you're not selling seats.
And to me, the two big things,if you're looking at doing a
men's event once a year or youhave one, the two big things is
don't make it about the speaker,don't spend all that extra
money.
Make it about the camaraderie.
Find some local talent, likethis coming beast.
(32:20):
We call it Beast Feast.
It's coming up always lastFriday in April because Easter
can't be any later than that.
We got a guy this year who is aretired DEA border agent who's
going to be speaking aboutfentanyl and all that's come
across the border.
And I mean so we've done again.
You find a local person butthen you make it and sell the
tables.
Those are the two big insights Ican give on, you know, on men's
(32:44):
ministry.
And then we talk a lot aboutchurch militant and within the
church.
You know I've read about this,the feminization of the church,
(33:04):
and you know we're not here tobe cavemen, we're not putting
camo and a deer's head on thealtar, but what I've read at
least is that women arecomfortable in masculine or
feminine environments.
I mean, whether they go intoHome Depot or Bed, bath and
Beyond.
Men do not do well in feminineenvironments and the church has
in some ways.
You can just look at yourarchitecture, look at what you
got hanging around, look at thesongs that are being selected,
(33:26):
and thankfully, the songs.
I think contemporary music'sgotten better, but if you can
replace the name Jesus with agirl and then song makes total
sense.
You know, singing love songs,singing love songs to another
dude, is not something that menare comfortable.
So language and so you kind ofwant to create that masculine
(33:47):
environment.
And we talk about deploying.
You know that the church islike a forward operating base.
It's not a hospital, becausethe hospital is too limiting of
a metaphor, you know, becausethen it's just dealing with
brokenness and weeping and hey,you got to get, you get hurt,
you get healed.
But a forward operating baseand, jack, you speak more of
this to me because you're in themilitary but like, like a
forward operating base, it'slike you're right outside the
(34:08):
battle lines, you're right out,you're in enemy territory and
while there is a hospital,there's a mess hall, there's
training, but the whole point isthen you get deployed out onto
the battlefield and I thinkthat's the more holistic,
comprehensive way to look at thechurch.
We're the church militant and Italk a lot about the spiritual
battlefield.
You got to talk a lot aboutSatan, especially like during
(34:30):
COVID.
I said guys, this is aspiritual attack first and
foremost.
What is it?
Satan is pouring insecurity orfear into people about this
virus.
He's also isolating people andthen he's creating idolatry.
Go to the government.
The government can save you,and so we can't engage on the
battlefield if we don't firstunderstand the schemes of Satan
(34:53):
and looking at things in thatlens.
So we talk a lot about that andyou know, let's face it, adam
was the first passive male.
Right he's standing right nextto Eve.
He didn't protect his wife.
God gave the command to Adam,not to Eve.
Satan went to the weak link andAdam just sat by.
I always say every church I'msure your church is the same
(35:13):
You've got more women andchildren in your church than you
do.
So then you say, well, why isthat?
Are men less spiritual?
Well, look at the religion ofIslam.
Which gender dominates that?
Because Satan knows if the mencoalesce, the church becomes
even stronger, and so he'strying to keep men on the
(35:34):
sideline.
That's kind of been our mindsetall along, about men.
If you get the man.
Here's the thing If you get theman, you get the whole family.
How often do you see a dad andhis kids at church without the
mom?
Hardly ever.
How often do you see the momand the kids at church without
the dad?
But see, satan also knows thatsame thing.
If you get the man, you get thewhole family, because at some
(35:57):
point the mom gets tired, wornout, she can't keep getting the
kids.
The kids are going.
Why don't dad go?
I don't want to go, dad, I mean.
So we got to raise up these men.
And you know I know you'regoing to talk to me a little
about this too, maybe but Ithink men are needing community
because men isolate.
Men need to connect withanother man.
So many men don't even have abuddy, you know, and when men
(36:18):
isolate, they get themselves introuble in a lot of ways, and
with social media it's evenescalated.
Yes, right, that's not community.
I mean we're incarnational,like we stream our services but
we celebrate the Lord's Supperevery Sunday.
I tell people, the stream thingis not church really, it's you
got to be here, plus, you'regoing to see people, people are
(36:39):
going to see you.
You take the Lord's Supper.
I think also, men we're allposing.
Men lack confidence in theiridentity and their worth and
their value and their posing,and what that does is it makes
them passive and it sidelinesthem because they don't feel
like they can step out onto thebattlefield.
And I think what men reallyneed is to be challenged.
That's what gets their juicesflowing.
(37:00):
I mean, you know, like being ona sports team or being in the
military, it's that band ofbrothers and then men lose that.
So I think, going on that faithadventure and being challenged
in their callings of life, youknow men like that here's the
thing.
Does Jesus want a personalrelationship with each person?
Of course he does the vine andthe branches, but he doesn't say
(37:20):
in the gospels Of course hedoes the vine and the branches,
but he doesn't say in theGospels hey, peter, come have a
personal relationship with me.
A guy is going to be like Iwant a personal relationship
with another dude.
But Jesus, he doesn't say thathe uses masculine language.
He says come follow me, yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
That's masculine, that's what we say in the
military follow me right.
That's a soldierly term rightnow.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Right and, as a dude, I'm only going to follow
someone who I perceive isstronger than me.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
You know, and look at who runs most Sunday school
programs, which we don't evenhave Sunday school anymore, but
it's generally women, whichthat's fine.
So these publishers, theycreate these curriculums to sell
to these people who are makingthe buy decision.
And so Jesus turns into thiscamp counselor.
You know that's not who he is.
You know he's the.
(38:10):
He's the, the most masculineman that ever walked the earth.
So I think now you know, andthen of course the culture went
down, toxic masculinity and it'skind of coming back.
So back, and when a man'sreally living out their role, I
mean women love it, and so Ithink those are just some of the
insights.
As you're thinking about yourown men's ministry, how you're
(38:32):
calling men not to be broken andcrying and all that, I mean
that's a part, but ultimately,hey, now we got to go.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Robert, I love it.
Trey Cox, Dr Trey Cox callingTrey Cox.
I need a beast feast now, let'sbring.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And a beer tap.
I want a beer tap, oh my gosh,in the Life Center right over
there.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
And we probably so.
Our guys get tables right overthere and we probably so we get
with our, so our guys get tables.
We have.
We have way.
Probably 70 of the guys theredon't even go to our church and
a lot of guys don't even go tochurch and they come and their
minds blown because they're like, oh, this is what I thought
church was could be right, yeah,and it looks and this is what
christian community looks likelike the greatest.
The best way to live your lifeis following jesus.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It's the most fulfilling way, it's a fun way
you know and we got, yeah, no,we got to what you want.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
to finish the thought no, we got to portray it that
way.
We got to invite people intothat experience.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, no, jack, I was curious.
Do you know our male to femaledemographic day?
I think we're pretty.
I mean, I'm just doing the eyetest on a respective Sunday.
Now the thing that'scomplicated is we are a
multi-generational church and wehave a lot of widows right now
in our traditional service andso traditional may skew slightly
(39:55):
more female for that reason andmaybe others, but I think our
contemporary or modern worshipservice is pretty down the
middle and you can always dothings to get better.
But I think there's arevitalization of men's ministry
taking place right now acrossAmerica and hopefully in our
LCMS congregations.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Anything more to say about yeah, not to interrupt you
but the young men?
Yeah, but young men inparticular are gravitating to
the more liturgical churchesbecause they want something
ancient, they want somethingthat's rooted.
They don't want this show, theywant something that's
mysterious, which goes right toour wheelhouse.
And you're beginning to seethat that men are wanting to
(40:37):
gravitate towards something ofsubstance.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Amen.
How is men's ministry evolving,though?
What are some other things youtalk about?
You do a one is that once ayear kind of gathering for the
big event once a year, once a?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
year and then we'll, then we'll have a gatekeeper.
We'll have gatekeepergatherings, usually in the
evening, like a Monday night,Like we'll.
We'll look around footballseason too, but because we'll
put the game on after but we'llcook it's.
You know it's a much smallergathering, it's not the big
event, and then we'll do time.
We'll do time in the word.
We'll have some beers, we'lleat and we'll do that.
(41:10):
You know the men's breakfast aswell, but also just again in
worship that we're reallythinking about.
You know the language and theenvironment that we're creating
for men to feel comfortablebeing in service.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, say more about that.
What are you doing in yourworship space to make it more
inviting to men?
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Yeah.
So again, I think the musicselections are important and we
have a band, you know, and so wenow we'll rework hyns too and
then we use contemporary music.
So you know, thinking aboutthinking about the song
selection.
You know, at the end of service, of course, we say deploy
advance, and then thecongregation says serve the Lord
(41:52):
.
You know talking about in themessages.
You know you can pretty muchtalk every Sunday about how
Satan's at work in some form orfashion and the spiritual battle
.
We talk a lot about thespiritual battlefield and one of
the things we talk about inthat respect is, I always say
look, if you're at a resort withyour buddy sitting by the pool
drinking a Mai Tai and he keelsover, you're going to be shocked
(42:16):
, saddened, but shocked.
Now, if me and Jack are inAfghanistan taking incoming and
Jack gets clipped, I'm going tobe sad, but I'm not going to be
shocked because I know myenvironment and what the devil
does is he tries to frame yourunderstanding of where you're at
as this should be a resort.
(42:37):
And so then, when something badhappens in your life, blame God
.
Right, god's not taking care ofyou, god's not watching over
you.
But I mean, the church hasalways said we're the church
militant.
I mean, that is the definitionof who we are.
Right now we're on thebattlefield and so we should
expect the attacks.
Storming the gates of hell.
Yes, right, we're on theoffense.
(42:58):
We're on the offense, thoughGates are stationary.
We're storming the gates underthe leadership of Jesus.
We're the ones depopulatinghell, we're the ones taking
ground.
So I think you know my, mydegrees in marketing.
I think words matter.
Like we never use the word needin church.
God doesn't need anything.
Now, maybe you now use the wordneed and like you need to do
(43:18):
because for your own soul.
But you know it's opportunities.
But we always, we never talkabout like.
Like when we do a men's or awomen's event, we don't say it's
a men's retreat.
No, you never I always say Ialways say it's.
I always say it's a men, Ialways say it's a men's advance.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
We're always.
We're always advancing, we'realways advancing, we're always
taking ground.
Of course, the greatest way todo that, I think, is in church
planting or school planting orministry multiplication, because
you're taking ground, you'reestablishing a new beachhead, a
new demarcation of where thechurch is now present.
And so using that advancedlanguage, not retreat, and so,
(43:57):
yeah, using those militarymetaphors really resonates with
people.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Robert, I love your passion.
I would love that I am in.
I want to be a part of yourchurch man.
This is so good, you're goingto be fired up.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
You don't want to be part of my church.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
trust me, we got all the other stuff too that's
present in church.
Trust me, oh dude.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Well, let's talk a little bit more about spiritual
warfare and maybe how Satan iscoming after Maybe we'll kind of
close it with this how Satan iscoming after individual leaders
.
I didn't put this on thequestion sheet.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, it's fine, but how Satan is coming to
individual leaders and then howSatan is coming at us kind of as
a church body, because we gotroom for growth in both
individually and collectively, Ithink, in our beloved church
body.
So anything personally, likewhat leaders should be aware of
who are in the trenches and Ihear you going back to your
(44:59):
co-vocational conversation Idon't have any kind of shame
because I'm full time I thinkyou should be open.
You should be open Like whatdoes the church need in this
season?
That's all I hear you saying.
And there could be multipleways for us to go about
advancing the gospel, andco-vocational pastorship and
just leadership in general couldbe one of those ways that we
(45:19):
could explore so that we haveand this is what I'm taking from
it so that we have moreresources to create other
beachheads, to create otherministries, right.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
That's right here, or the church is closed, which is
what's happening Churches arejust closing.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
So if 50%.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
If we have 11% of our churches now with part-time I'm
using their language part-timepastors and we have 50% of our
churches with worshiping 50 orless and declining, I mean I
could easily argue we shouldhave 50% co-vocational pastors
out there at a minimum.
But the problem is, if you goto seminary, your mindset and
(45:53):
what you've been told is youshould expect when you get out
you're going to get a fullyfunded Concordia plant.
I mean for me to call a guy atseminary and say, hey, you're
going to be co-vocational.
That's why you got to raiseguys up in your culture, because
you can't.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
You can pick and choose Exactly.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Supply and demand.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
So I just have to unpack this here, because if we
had a system that opened that up, that somebody local let's say
it's a small church with 30people in it hey, one of you
guys could be called to be thepastor and we've got a system in
place to train you and you'renot going to have to move and
it's affordable and, yeah,you're going to end up pastoring
a tiny little church and youmay have to continue to work.
(46:31):
A lot of guys would do that.
A lot of guys would do thatbecause a community of 25 people
is not an intimidating ask ontop of what they're already
doing, even if there's like,especially if they're an
established leader in thecommunity and some of those are
going to blow up, some of thosein a really good way, meaning
because there's somebody theretaking leadership, doing word
(46:53):
and sacrament, bringing peoplein the community, because it's
staffed.
We may see some of those growand revitalize and become larger
churches again, but right nowthat opportunity is not
happening.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
And I appreciate you guys have not once asked me like
, okay, well, how big a churchyou know, cause sometimes we're
like, well, yeah, but how manypeople are you worshiping?
So you know, pre-covid we wereworshiping over 200 and we
planted a church.
That of course your numbers godown.
Post-covid we're at about 160.
Right now we're getting readyto plant another church and
people go, but the numbers areirrelevant in terms of whether I
(47:25):
preach to 10 people or 1,000people.
It's the same amount of effortyou're putting into the ministry
.
Right, and casting vision iscasting vision Connecting with
new people.
Of course more people come inthat, but we've just you know
we've got.
If you look at the back of ourbulletin, we probably got about
15 people listed as staff.
Some of those don't receiveanything, some receive stipends,
(47:45):
but all of their positions havebeen instead of having it this
wide.
You know they're specialists,not generalists, which means
that if they leave I don't haveas big a hole to fill and it's
easier to find people to plugand play.
In those ways I got biggeraudience to recruit and I'd
rather do it from within mychurch, because they already
(48:07):
have the DNA and the culture.
Let's face it you interview allyou want, but it's a crap shoot
bringing someone in from theoutside.
You're never going to hit 100%1000% in HR.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I love that so much.
I mean so often inconversations with.
We get in these conversationsquite a bit with people that are
reaching out to us right Tohave a model that says you can
raise up every different leaderand you can build a team, but so
often it goes to money.
But so often it goes to money.
(48:40):
It goes to money Like I don'thave.
Like there are people on yourteam that want to be in the
trenches helping with spiritualcare, ministry, with leadership
development, with strategy, allthat kind of stuff.
Like Jack, if we actually putall of our like coaches and
leaders and people like ourstaff page would be you know way
down, because we're aleadership development.
(49:00):
About 85 volunteer leaders 85people would be on that list,
right.
Maybe we should put that that'sour staff right.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
When you have the professional, it's tough.
What I say for staff is thatstaff is not about being funded,
it's about the level ofaccountability.
If I say you're a staff personand you accept that role, that
means I'm holding youaccountable in a way that I'm
not going to hold youaccountable if you're not on
staff.
It's about ownership, right?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
And commitment.
How amazing if we had thismindset for the congregation
worshiping 50 people with a partfunded.
I love that.
I'm going to change my language.
Yeah, no time.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Don't use time.
Time is irrelevant.
You could be spending eighthours, in fact, like when I
manage people atVolkswagenkswagen.
If they, if they tell me, oh mygosh, I had to work 80 hours
this last week, like they'rethinking, like they're kissing
up to me like it's a badge ofhonor.
All I'm thinking is, you don'tknow how to do your job.
Yeah, because you're just,you're just, you're just.
You're just shooting ateverything, hoping you hit some,
(49:55):
hit the target somewhere.
You know, I'd rather you tellme I spent 20 hours this week
working.
I don't don't people confuseactivity with results.
Yeah, it's not about activity,it's about results.
That's all it is.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Now you're speaking like one of those corporate
mumbo jumbo leaders Results.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
First article.
First article truth, right,yeah Well that's it.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
And Jesus was after results.
He's still after results.
He's still after results.
And churches need to be moreaccountable toward reaching
people and multiplyingministries.
I love in your story because,yeah, who cares how big churches
are, it really doesn't matterbut that you had that mindset
hey, we get to 150, 200, 250,whatever we're launching, we're
sending, we got to go New things, reach new people.
(50:39):
Is that kind of in the DNA?
Yes, so when?
Speaker 4 (50:43):
we planted the church in 06, you know you're just
looking for bodies you got tohave critical mass, just if you
can fog a mirror, I want you.
So we had.
We came out of a church, agreat church, great planting
church, in Hearst, texas, peaceLutheran and I took a core group
out of there.
We planted St Peter.
So we started with two services.
We had our traditional musicand then our contemporary, and
(51:06):
it was so often.
And then we got in the buildingso often happens.
You know, the later service wasmore highly attended for various
reasons, and we just weren'tdoing the first service that
well.
And so we made a decision thatwe were going to unplug the
first service and we were goingto go to one service.
And that was a big decisionbecause even though the
(51:26):
attendance was smaller, thegiving was disproportionately
greater coming out of the firstservice, and we knew there were
other churches in the area coulddo this a lot better.
And so we, hey, we want you togo somewhere.
So we took a little bit of astep back when we did that.
But since we've gone to oneworship service, the unity of
our church has gone off thecharts, because I believe
(51:47):
worship is what creates theunity.
And we can't create the unity,but we can defend it and we can
guard it.
And I think I grew up in theeight, nine, 30, 11 o'clock
model.
I mean all this.
And again, I'm not here judgingor despairing.
I think you're kind of settingyourself up a little bit for
division, because if you havethree services, you got three
churches with different valuesand different focuses and you
(52:08):
could be going to the samechurch 20 years and if you never
go to another service, youwouldn't know if that person was
new or not.
So what we've done to yourquestion, tim, is we have
committed to we're only doingone worship service and when we
outgrow our space which we couldprobably get up, we have a 300
seat worship center right now.
Now this new building will havea gym so we could migrate there
.
But all we're going to do is,when we get where we can't do
(52:32):
more than one service and we canonly do one service, we're
going to multiply.
We're just going to plant.
That's our and we've said thatwe're just going to keep
planting churches.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
That's our, and we've said that we're just going to
keep planting churches, newchurches, yep.
And how are you raising upleaders for those plants?
Speaker 4 (52:44):
Well, thankfully, we've got a great church planter
in our area, travis Harchin.
Oh yeah, travis is great and hehas planted three churches in
10 years and we've partneredwith him.
We did bring a vicar in 2012,john David Mull and he lived
with us for a year and then tooka core group out to Grapevine.
But it's a combination ofeither raising up guys within
(53:09):
our own church or if someone'sin the area that we can support,
and then we freely say, hey, ifGod taps you on the shoulder,
you need to go, which is hard inthe flesh to do that, but you
can't out give God and it's agreat experience to try to do
that.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Hey Robert, what a joy to get to meet you.
This has been so much fun andchallenging.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
I will say one thing real quick, I will wrap in here.
Tim, you asked about thespiritual battlefield.
Here's the thing Satan is notGod.
He doesn't have unlimitedresources, doesn't have
unlimited ammo, so he's going towait until the opportune time
to set the trap.
So when I always tell newministry leaders, don't be
surprised if you get attackednow because you've stepped up on
the battlefield in a greaterway, but as a ministry for the
(53:55):
ministry leaders who arelistening to this, as you're
preparing for something big inyour ministry, like planning a
church or like us building abuilding too, that's when the
attack's going to happen.
Just know it.
And in the 18 years I've beendoing this, it's like clockwork.
Whenever we're getting ready toplan a church or we're getting
ready to build a building or dosomething significant, an attack
(54:15):
happens.
But then the good news is Satancan't I mean he, he can't
sustain it indefinitely.
He runs out of ammo.
Then he'll regroup and thenhe'll figure out another way of
attacking.
But but to me now, obviously,if you're being attacked because
you're being stupid and sinful,that's one thing.
But I always tell people tobeing attacks a badge of honor,
that means you're doingsomething that Satan is taking
(54:36):
notice of and it's messing withhis kingdom notice of and it's
messing with his kingdom, andall that does is drive you
closer to Christ.
All that does is drive youcloser to Christ, so it all
backfires on them.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
That's it.
If people want to follow you,Robert, how can they do so?
Speaker 4 (54:50):
I'm not on any social media so I am completely off
the grid, but my email rbalducB-A-L-D-U-C at stpeterfworg.
I love it or yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
This has been an invigorating conversation today.
We pray you found a lot ofvalue.
If you did, please comment likesubscribe and all of that.
That really helps get the wordout.
Jack, any kind of closingcomments on the chat today with
our brother Robert?
It's been great.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
No, I love this approach and it's been a
fascinating conversation talkingabout what's possible when we
open our minds and don't thinktoo narrowly about what it would
look like to fund people inministry, and think about what
it looks like to plant people inministry and actually give
resource allocation for that.
So we need this type ofinnovative thinking.
I'm really thankful for you,robert.
(55:39):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
Amen, it's a good day .
Go make it a good day.
What?
Speaker 4 (55:42):
you're doing too training up for ministry in
alternate ways, and it's goingto take root, in fact.
Tim, I'll just share real quick.
I nominated you for the GuidoMerkens Award at BPM, but you
didn't get it, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
You know, the funny thing is about that award.
I've been going to bestpractices since I was a pastor
in Colorado and the first yearthat that award came out I won
it about 14 years ago.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
Oh well, that's why you didn't.
I nominated you this year,that's why you already won.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
So well, I don't, geez, who cares?
Winning an award in ministry islike, yeah, it's kind of, it's
kind of sad.
People should be honored andthank you for that, that's very
kind.
But yeah, that's probably oneof the reasons why and that was
for actually the table which isstill going in Colorado.
I'm really grateful for that,and La Mesa is its kind of
(56:34):
sister ministry partner downhere in Phoenix.
But man, so much life hasoccurred since since the Guido
Merkin experience, uh, butthat's, that's, I think.
Uh, who did win it this year?
It?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
was a songwriter Someone.
Yeah, yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, for his songwriter stuff.
So yeah, shout out to Kip Foxin the Following them and the
new, wonderful Lutheran biblicalnew songs that are being
written.
You're really missing out.
It's the Songwriter Initiative.
And why am I doing a blank onthe name of the group?
(57:11):
If you look on where you getthe songs at, jack, don't you
know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Yeah, I know I'm drawing a blank on the name too,
but it's all stationed out ofConcordia, irvine, where they're
doing that work.
Come on, man.
Well, this is going to.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
This is going to I don't know.
Well, it's called.
It's called the SongwritersInitiative.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Songwriters.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
Initiative.
I don't know why.
There's so many differentacronyms, the WALL-E like
worship arts, so sometimes I getit.
Yeah, it's a good day.
I pray.
The joy of Jesus is yourstrength as we're bumbling to
the finish line.
But you were not bumbling atall, robert.
It was fantastic.
Thanks for blessing ourlisteners and we'll be back next
week with another episode ofLead Time.
Thanks so much, jack.
(57:48):
Wonderful work, robert.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the
Unite Leadership Collective.
The ULC's mission is tocollaborate with the local
church to discover, develop anddeploy leaders through biblical
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Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
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(58:12):
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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.
Jack, are you enjoying life,dude?
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I am enjoying life.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
It's not boring Life is not boring these days, is it?
Speaker 3 (00:13):
No, we've had a really busy day today.
Lots of meetings, Lots of.
We had some beautifulconversations with people today
Met with some students, met witha really influential lay member
of our church here that gave ussome really beautiful
encouraging words, and so it'sbeen a great day, lovely day.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It has been.
It has been, and today is madeeven more lovely because we get
to hang out with Pastor RobertBaldu and let me tell you a
little bit about him.
He's a pastor, founding pastor,planting pastor at St Peter in
North Lake, texas, which is asuburb of Fort Worth, and he
planted that church in 2006.
(00:52):
He was full-time to start with,but then he became an
intentional co-vocational pastorand we're going to hear more of
this story.
He worked before going to theseminary and graduating from
Concordia Seminary in St Louisin 2005, he worked for Ford and
since now, 2014, he's worked asa training performance manager
(01:13):
at Volkswagen.
So this is the one and onlyRobert Baldu.
How are you doing, brother?
Good.
Speaker 4 (01:19):
Thank you, real excited to be a part of this.
My friend nominated me so I'mgoing to get him later, but
that's okay, ron.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Bendick if you're watching.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Shout out to you my man.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Everybody's got a story to tell, and I'm glad we
get to hear yours today.
So tell us your ministry storyand how you were led to be a
co-vocational pastor there,Robert.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah, so I grew up in Detroit.
I was baptized Catholic.
My mom and dad got divorcedwhen I was two and we didn't go
to church.
My mom remarried, my dadremarried, my dad remarried a
woman who was Missouri Senate,who had three kids from a
previous marriage, and I wasgoing to an elementary school a
(01:57):
couple blocks from my house andmy dad's wife's kids were going
to a Lutheran school and infourth grade this was in the 70s
they started to dodesegregation and I was going to
get bused into downtown Detroitand so my mom and my dad didn't
want to see that happen.
So not because of racialreasons, because of safety.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
You, know security reasons.
Speaker 4 (02:21):
So my dad said well, why don't you put Robert my mom
put Robert in this Lutheranschool where my new wife's kids
go.
So in fourth grade I startedgoing to Lutheran school and, as
a result, started going to theLutheran church.
And then in eighth gradeconfirmation, as the story is
often told my pastor pulled meand another boy aside, said you
should think about becoming apastor.
So planted the seeds, graduatedfrom Michigan State with a
(02:44):
marketing degree.
We had a big win last nightYou've got to watch it on
YouTube over Maryland.
Last second half-court shot wonthe game actually.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No way, that's awesome.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Three-quarter shot actually, Come on.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Were they down when the shot was made or was it tied
?
It was tied.
It was tied, yeah, and.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
Scott Van Pelt who's a Maryland grad from ESPN.
He was there and he had toreport on it afterwards but it
was good.
So anyway, went to MichiganState, got hired by Ford Motor
Company.
Out of college got reloaded toCarrollton, texas, became part
of Prince of Peace in Carrollton.
Steve Wagner learned tremendousamount about ministry from him.
In fact he married.
I met my wife there at church.
(03:20):
He married us and has been agreat mentor.
We're there six years, had ourfirst son.
Then Ford reload us to Atlanta,became part of a church there
with Kevin Ellsrold.
Open Arms was the first openarms church plant in the country
, the Dr Scuderi model ofstarting with daycares with a
great room plant churchesLearned a lot there.
(03:41):
Got involved actually as alayman in preaching and just
developing more.
And then after four years theregot involved actually as a
layman in preaching and justdeveloping more.
And then after four years theregot reload back to headquarters
with Ford and was at St Luke'sin Ann Arbor Incredible ministry
there.
But actually as a layman workedwith the Michigan district to
plant a open arms church plantafter I'd just seen it in
(04:01):
Georgia with CEF, michigan CEF,and that thing got going and at
that point we're looking atcalling a pastor and we were
getting the magazine to theseminary in St Louis because I
think I was serving with theMichigan district.
And in March of 2002, my wifecame to me because we had four
(04:21):
little kids.
At this point she's astay-at-home mom and I always
said, well, god wants to dosomething, he'll speak to her.
Because he wouldn't call me tosomething he wasn't calling her
to.
I just thought I'd work at Fordfor 30 years and then maybe do
something in the church.
But God had other plans.
So in March of 02, she broughtme the magazine from Concordia,
(04:47):
st Louis and at this time abouthalf the men going to seminary
we're second career, so theseminary was doing a great job
administering the wives andchildren so the men can do their
studies.
She's like, hey, they're havingthis open house, if we're going
to do this, let's do this whilethe kids are little.
So ended up going to seminary.
Got blown away over thatweekend.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
What year was this?
Speaker 4 (04:54):
2002, march of 02.
And came away, thought, okay,march of 02, maybe fall of 03,
get our ducks in a row, we'llmake the move.
Well, two weeks back at work Iwas mentally checked out because
I'm kind of an all in all outperson.
So I went to my boss at Fordand said, hey, I'm going to
leave the company after 14 years.
And he was like, are youserious?
And I'm like, yes, he's likewell, I'm glad you told me I'm
(05:15):
getting ready to submit a listof names to HR for voluntary
separation packages.
I'll put your name on the list,which he didn't have to because
I'd already told him I wasleaving.
So got a buyout from Ford, putour house on the market.
It sold for full list in twoweeks, right before the housing
market crashed in Detroit.
We were at seminary in August of02, five months later Didn't
work.
For that time period Godprovided all the resources,
(05:36):
which is a great Hudson Taylorquote.
Missionary to China, says God'swork done God's way will not
lack God's resources.
And God provided for us.
And I'd been at some greatchurches and you know you go
into a church that's existingand they're not doing anything
wrong.
But if it doesn't fit yourleadership style.
There's a lot of pain in tryingto affect change and so, as
(05:56):
hard as it is to start a church,you start with a clean sheet of
paper and that's the beauty ofit.
So ended up wanting to plant achurch and got called back down
to Texas and planted St Peter.
In September of 06 is when welaunched.
We were portable for four yearsin a rec center, set up on
Saturday night, tear down afterchurch on Sunday morning before
(06:17):
they opened the doors, kind ofthe wilderness experience
tabernacle.
And then in 2010, we built our.
We bought eight acres, builtour first building, started our
preschool with four classroomsand I'm and I'm all this is all
with me being a fully funded youknow pastor at this point.
And then in 2012, we plantedour first church in grapevine,
(06:38):
texas.
And uh, and then about that time, um, really where, where I was
at was I was kind of suffocatingin the church bubble.
I also wanted to free upresources because we had just
gone through that churchplanting experience and it was.
I should have been rejoicing init.
But you know, you kind of getin the scarcity mindset instead
of an abundance mindset,especially if your personal
(07:00):
financial situation is tied tothe church.
And then we had those fourlittle kids getting ready to go
to college.
So I didn't want them to beburied in student debt.
So I went to my leadership wehave a policy-based governance
model and basically I took themto the scriptures which we'll
talk about here, I think, in alittle bit and just showed them
that this is not really.
It's an old concept.
(07:21):
I mean, it's a new concept, butit's really not.
And so in 2013, I kind of dustedmyself off, went back out into
the automotive space and thebiggest thing I had to do was to
say because I was busy but youknow, busyness and effectiveness
are two different things Ifilled my day and I said what
are the things that I can onlyhold on to and I can't release
(07:41):
to anybody else?
And what I came down to wasthree things and I said it's
casting vision, it's preaching,teaching and it's connecting
with new people.
Those are the things.
Everything else gets offloaded.
Now we had full-time staff, dceand full-time administrator and
so forth.
So I did that for a year,because I always think leaders
should do something first beforethey ask other people to do it.
(08:03):
So I did it for a year andpeople were freaking out a
little like, well, what aboutbaptisms, what about weddings,
what about funerals?
And I'm like, look, I'm notsitting in the church with my
bad phone and if you've got asmartphone and you're organized,
and people began to see therewas no effect on my pastoring of
the church and in fact, it mademe a better preacher and I was
(08:27):
living the life they were livingand put me out in the real
world and connecting with peopleI never would have connected
with.
So I did it for a year and thenin 2014, we did a staffing
strategy shift where we madeeverybody co-vocational and, of
course, you move some people'scheese.
That was a little bit rocky,but the end result and we can
talk about that here too alittle bit incredible benefits.
(08:50):
And then at that point, we gotrid of the office space and we
created a fifth preschoolclassroom.
So we monetized the facilityfor another classroom space.
We then planted a church in2020, and we're getting ready to
plant another church this yearand at the same time, we're
getting ready to build a new24,000 square foot education
building to expand our preschool.
(09:12):
But what I'm really excitedabout is we're starting a K-5
elementary school, becauseschool choice is coming to Texas
starting in the 26-27 schoolyear and you guys I'm so jealous
of you guys in Arizona becauseyou've had school choice since,
like the early 90s, you're inthe early 90s.
Yes, the promised land here, yes, yeah, so.
But I really believe that'swhere the battlefield is now is
in the classroom, and theschools really can drive so much
(09:36):
in terms of advancing thekingdom of God.
And so I planted St Peter.
I've been involved now in two,now three, church plants.
Planting a school is incrediblyharder than planting a church.
I'm just going to tell you thatmuch.
But it, but I think it's goingto be even more powerfully
effective for the kingdom.
So that's my story, man.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Wow man, there is so much there.
Yeah, I'm so glad you're in theLCMS.
A couple, a couple of followupthings.
You mentioned the RobertScuderi model of church planting
.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And for people that don't know,robert Scuderi not necessarily
(10:10):
in open arms, it's now you cancorrect me but it's like tied to
him is like the largest churchplanting network that we've seen
, multiplying movement in theentire world Like this he's like
the most.
I've listened to him speak.
He's kind of like the mostunassuming guy, but he's been
going on the multiplicationjourney.
(10:31):
So sometimes people say, well,it's impossible for us to raise
up X amount of leaders over Xamount of years Like this guy.
And you can give me thespecifics he has thousands of
churches that have their originback to his kind of leadership
development.
Isn't that right, robert?
Tell that story a little bit.
It's incredible.
He's the godfather.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
He's the godfather, he's Italian, he's the godfather
.
No, I mean, and you know, Ijust know him from the open arms
piece but, like you said, hewrote so much foundational
teaching and theology aroundmission multiplication
foundational teaching andtheology around mission
multiplication from which wasthe bedrock to build upon this
(11:09):
open arms model, which wasreally, you know, in some ways
it's a high risk deal becauseyou're investing all this money
up front to build a building.
You got to run it properly tomake the money and then you
build it with a great room andthen you worship in the great
room and then you fish for thefamilies that come to the
daycare.
But you start with the building.
And you know what?
I know people like the conceptof house churches and so forth,
(11:29):
but the North American,especially the American model of
church, is still heavily tiedto space and place and you can
holler at the moon.
All you want and say the churchis the person, not the building
.
Well, you know what?
But people still, the realitywas when we were portable church
for four years, we were in amuch better financial position
than we were when we built thebuilding.
But people felt more securewhen we got into a building
(11:52):
because they thought, well, youknow, the circus could leave
town at any moment here.
But now we got roots and we'vegot the foundation.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
So how many churches?
I mean, am I right, Thousandsof churches?
Speaker 4 (12:02):
Oh yeah, no yeah, Like you say, he's the godfather
.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Yeah, well, let's be about that, jack.
We definitely have potential tolaunch more schools here.
That's definitely in our future.
Speaker 4 (12:13):
That's the next thing , I think is starting schools.
That's our vision, yeah,starting schools, yeah, and
that's one thing we're actuallygood at.
We're not good at a lot, butwe're actually good at that we
excel at it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
It's uh, you know it's.
It's interesting if we talkabout, you know, um, the uh, was
it good to great?
And he talks about thattriangle, right, the things that
you're passionate about, thethings that you're best about,
the things that can be aneconomic engine for your
ministry like, well, within atypical, you know, lutheranism.
We are passionate and really,really good about education.
(12:42):
I don't know that.
We always leverage that interms of ministry and it pays,
especially if you can get into astate.
That's school choice.
It has the potential.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
And a lot more potential with the current
administration.
But I will say that I can saythis as a pastor I've always
been and I'm not throwing barbshere but I've always been way
more impressed with theeducators in our church body
than with pastors in our churchbody in terms of their skills,
their drive, their leadership,their abilities, because they
have to compete, you know, Imean they're competing in a way
(13:16):
that in some ways we're not onthe church side and I really
think I mean the level of talentwe have on the education side
of personnel wise is amazing tome.
Speaker 3 (13:27):
Savvy business people who also have a personal heart.
Speaker 2 (13:30):
Absolutely.
And our principal right nowshout out to AJ Amling he just
came, Don't put him on a list,please.
He's very committed, thank you.
Speaker 4 (13:39):
Not you, robert.
We're homegrown, we do ourshomegrown here.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Let's do it, let's do it.
Well, that is the ideal, praiseGod.
So what would you say tosomebody who says this whole
co-vocational mumbo jumbo, likethe church is meant to have
full-time workers, like Paulsaid, the labor is worthy of his
or her hire and so if you'renot full-time, package benefits,
et cetera, compensating, you'resomehow being disobedient to
(14:05):
the mission of God.
And we've heard thisconversation.
I don't know.
For me it's kind of likeeverywhere For the church of the
grassroots to get going earlyon Paul Tentmaker, et cetera.
You can't tell me that in theeconomic engine of the early
church in Corinth, with 50believers and 150,000 people,
(14:26):
that there was a right up fronteconomic model that's going to
full time support, benefitsupport Like this is all.
So I'm already answering myquestion, Robert, I'll let you.
But this is all a Western movetoward monetizing ministry.
Money is not bad and takingcare of people is not bad.
Like Jack, you and I arefull-time supported, but to
(14:48):
think that we're somehow morefaithful because we're full-time
supported by the church thanyou are, Robert, like this, is
ridiculous.
I don't know where thisargumentation comes from.
I don't think it comes from theearly church model.
So anything more to say on that, Robert?
Speaker 4 (15:04):
Well, I think there's a key word that once you flip
the word, it may unlock people'sparadigm and mindset.
Because this isn't about time,it's not about being a part-time
pastor or a full-time pastor.
It's like I'm a dad, I'm ahusband.
I don't measure that based onhow much time I spend.
Now, obviously you got to spendtime and all that, but I'm not
(15:25):
a part-time dad or part-time,I'm not a part-time pastor.
Replace the word time withfunding.
That's all this discussion'sabout.
Are you fully funded by yourministry or are you partially
funded?
But you're the pastor of thechurch.
But going to your point about, Imean, I'm not a historian so
I'm not sure there are otherpeople.
(15:45):
But look at, yeah, paulobviously was a tent maker.
We use that example often.
And then I did pull, I did havea quote that I pulled from a
church father to Tullian aroundthe early third century, where
I'm just going to read onemoment of it, one piece of it
here.
He says for we ourselves,besides our attention to the
(16:06):
word of the gospel, do notneglect our inferior employments
, for some of us are fishermen,tent makers and farmers, so that
we may never be idle.
So I mean, the history of thiswas in the early church until
Constantine.
You know, early fourth centurystopped the persecution of the
church, which was good, and thenat the end of the fourth
century really made Christianitythe state religion of Rome.
And that's probably when theprofessional clergy really
(16:27):
started to take root and whathappened was a separating of
sacred and secular, which Luthertried to kind of bring back
together in the Reformationpriesthood of all believers.
Right, but he couldn't closethe Grand Canyon gap that had
been now in place for a thousandyears.
But really it's just coming backto this and I think there's
(16:48):
some pitfalls.
And again to your point,workers worth their wage.
So everyone's got to do.
But I think this is going tobecome more the norm for a lot
of reasons, especially in ourchurch body.
The latest stats I looked atwe've got about 5,800
congregations in our church body.
11% of those right now areclassified with part-time
(17:10):
pastors.
We know the other stats 75% ofthe churches worship less than
100, 50% of the churches worshipless than 50.
If you're worshiping 50 peopleand you're expecting a fully
funded Concordia plan benefit atsix figure plus, I mean I don't
know, unless you got reallyrich people, I don't know how
that's.
So this is going to happenregardless.
(17:30):
It's happening and the key withvision is being able you can't
see everything, but if you're aleader and vision's seeing a
little bit further out thaneveryone else, so that you can
proactively, in a very calm,deliberative manner, make the
moves before the moves have tobe made, because now you're in
crisis mode and the FebruaryLutheran Witness just came out
(17:53):
this is so timely about smallcongregations and one of the
brothers wrote an article andI'm not disparaging him, but he
talked about he called itbivocational ministry, but I
like the word co-vocational forseveral reasons.
In fact, I am co-vocationalbecause I'm Volkswagen, I'm
pastor at St Peter and I'm alsoa stipend mission strategist for
(18:15):
Church Extension Fund in Texas,so I'm actually doing three
things.
But he wrote in there a verynice article and I appreciate it
and he tried to frame it in theend of his article about you
know what God can bless this?
It's a cross you carry.
But I just felt like themindset of it was this is a it's
kind of a sad reality that wejust need to do versus like in
(18:36):
my case, my church could affordme.
We were not under any financialstress at all.
The church absolutely couldafford me.
This was an intentional decisionfor expanding ministry and I
think there's pitfalls and I wasfalling into some of these.
I think there's some pitfallsin professional ministry when
you're in there, I think.
First is martyrdom mindset, Ithink, where we think our job is
(18:59):
harder than anyone else's.
Well, I'm sorry If someone's aborder agent, I think their
job's a little bit.
I'm not worried about gettingkilled every day, you know.
And again, you know, I thinkthere's a martyr.
I think we get kind of a woe isme attitude and my job's harder
?
And then what happens isthere's a shift where now the
sheep are taking care of theshepherd more than the
shepherd's taking care of theship.
And again, pastors should behonored, pastors should be cared
(19:22):
for.
So let's have a complexconversation, not a simplistic
one here.
But people fall into that trapof martyrdom mindset and I think
also you can get compromised Ifyou.
You know, if Jack's the biggestgiver in my church and I got to
have a law conversation withhim, but I don't really want him
(19:42):
to leave the church becausethat could impact.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I just have to add here I met a pastor at the BPM
who was he had a successfulbusiness and so he took no money
at all whatsoever from hisministry, and actually what that
meant is a large amount of thatmoney was being given away to
impact the community, and hesaid this is so freeing.
Speaker 4 (20:03):
It is freeing it's freedom.
I don't need.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I don't have to worry about a paycheck dictating any
of my decisions as a pastor andhow I'm pastoring people.
Right, it was.
It was fascinating.
Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah, carla and I are one of the biggest giving
families in our church and we'renot at 100% yet in terms of.
I mean, I do draw a partialsalary, but our giving covers
about 80% of what I'm receivingright now and our goal is to
cover 100% of it.
But I also think it just getsto, you know, when you're full
(20:35):
time and you're in the boat ofthat, that you rise or fall with
the finances of the church.
I think that you can get afinancial focus, cause the
reality is, if you can't takecare of your own family, you
know you're you're going to befocused there, which you rightly
should, more so than the familyof God.
So I think there's somepitfalls and this frees you from
all of those things.
You know, I read a stat thatsaid that staff expense should a
(20:59):
guide would be, maybe if you'reat 50% of your budget.
So now maybe it's higher orlower, I don't know, and then
maybe you have 35% debt that yougot, and then the other 15% is
mission and ministry At St Peter.
Right now we're at our staffexpense.
Uh, and I'd encourage thepeople listening to the podcast
go back and do the numbers foryour own church, you know, but,
(21:21):
um, we're at 22%.
Our staff expense is 22% of ourbudget, which means we can
plant with with joy.
We can plant churches, whichmeans investing people, which
means offerings are going outthe door.
But if you're going to plantchurches, you got to have mature
Christians to do that.
You can't do it with peoplethat are flaky, and so you know
it is freeing, and I think thisis going to be an inevitability.
(21:43):
And what it also does is,besides having that abundance
mindset, it also opens upincredible doors for staff
selection, and what I mean bythat is I may have a really
gifted lay person who can't,it's not going to leave their
job to do something at thechurch.
But if I say, hey, I've createda position that's 10 hours a
(22:04):
week, maybe they can do that,and you stipend them and, plus,
they're going to stick becauseyou know what, if you're a
called worker let's face itthere's more open, there's
supply and demand here, and youknow what, if your principal Tim
you heard his feelings orsomething and he knows he's
(22:26):
talented and he knows the grasscan be greener elsewhere, he can
put his name on a call list.
I mean, I'm just getting realhere about, let's just be real
about all this stuff.
And then priesthood of allbelievers which we espouse this
really encourages that no onecan tell me they're too busy,
you know and we get greaterengagement of laity, I think,
through this.
And actually we had a man, hiswife came, we baptized him, but
(22:51):
one of the things he shared withme when he found out I was
co-vocational, he, he, he camefrom a big box church and and,
uh, and he really saw the churchas a big business and then when
he found out I wasco-vocational, it really lowered
his defenses because he waslike, oh okay, it's not a it's.
I mean, it is a business, butyou know he was wrapped up in
(23:11):
that mindset of the money andthat's all it's about and so
forth.
So you know there's a lot ofbenefits proactive benefits to
being co-vocational and again,we can do both.
I mean there's callings forboth.
But I think more and more ofour churches are going to
seriously need to look atco-vocational based upon just
(23:32):
the numbers upon just thenumbers.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
Well, yeah, so yeah, let's go down this path To come
at this from a place ofabundance rather than scarcity,
from a place of opportunityrather than loss.
And I'm not trying to put wordsin your mouth and I haven't
read the article, but I wouldfrom the Lutheran Witness, but I
would from the Lutheran Witnessand I will read it.
But was it from yourperspective framed and kind of
it's just, it's a hard day to bethe church and we're just
(24:03):
walking through a lot of thesedifficult things, and I guess we
got to do what we got to do,you know, and rather than no,
this is a great opportunity forus to identify men who are out
in their community, who haveestablished themselves, who are
great leaders, who are elders,and let's find ways to raise
them up into pastoral ministry.
That seems like a veryreasonable, hope-filled thing to
(24:24):
do.
And then you get away from theloyalty.
You get the loyalty strugglesor the martyrdom mindset, or the
extra.
Oh my gosh, we got to doeverything because, nah, they're
there, they understand thetimes, and we can start with the
30 to 40 to 50 people and growfrom there.
He's going to need sometheological training, to be sure
, but he's in, this guy is allin, and I don't know right now
(24:46):
that we're recognizing theamazing opportunity.
Right now, at least, in theformation space, I think we're
struggling to see this as not amajor gap but a major
opportunity.
I don't know how else to lookat it, because our God is a God
of abundance, not fear andcontrol.
He wants to release us, to seethings in a new way.
So anything more to add there,robert?
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean, again in the article it kind of
creates, it tells a fictionalstory about the pastor's meeting
with his board of elders churchcouncil.
They're going through thebudget and then the sad reality
is like we're not going to makeit next year and then the pastor
says, well, maybe I'll have toget another job.
I mean it's a defeatist.
And again the author reallybrings it to the end about
(25:31):
that's a cross and it can stillbe meaningful and a blessing,
but it kind of is a defeatistattitude.
You know, like this is a.
This isn't the norm, this, infact I'm.
I'm going to be talking with theHispanic church planters in
Texas through the district laterthis year because a lot of them
have that same mindset Likewell, I've got to be fully
funded.
You know it's like no, no, youdon't have to be fully funded.
(26:11):
In fact you really it's notgonna be healthy for you to be
fully funded and so but but toseminary, and they're like, well
, yeah, robert, but you weresecond career.
I'm like, okay, time out.
You're educated, presumably youhave emotional intelligence,
presumably you're a goodcommunicator.
You're telling me you can'tmonetize that.
(26:32):
I'm not even sayingco-vocational doesn't mean you
have to get a full-timecorporate job like what I have.
You could go deliver pizzas 20hours a week, I don't know.
But you get something else.
There's a family in our churchthat's in our church because
he's a colleague of mine atVolkswagen.
It's like you going outco-vocational in that sphere
(26:53):
isn't like somehow you're notdoing ministry.
It gives you a greater platformto do ministry and it also
financially brings a lot ofbenefit to you and to the church
as well, and bringing thesacred and the secular back
together is what we're reallytalking about here.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
How many pastors actually have a network of
people that they know that areunbelievers and unchurched?
Speaker 4 (27:16):
right I mean, and it's not because people don't
have a network of people thatthey know that are unbelievers
and unchurched.
Speaker 3 (27:20):
Right, I mean, and it's not because people don't
have a heart for that, it's justyou get caught up in the bubble
.
You're in the office, you'redoing visitations, right, so you
know what you're not doing isyou're not visiting with
unbelievers.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And I think it's really made me a better preacher
.
It's made me a sharper preacher, a better preacher, a more
believable preacher, because I'msharing the stories, I'm living
the life.
This isn't theory, so there'sso many benefits to it.
And co-vocational doesn't againmean you have to go out and get
a full-time corporate job.
(27:49):
It just means you go dosomething else, though, and you
monetize that.
But you're also talking withdifferent group of people than
you were before.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, I mean.
This points out how importantreally it is to equip the
priesthood of all believers.
Even in a context where, hey,we're committed, we're going to
have full-time pastors here,well, you know people that they
don't know, and in order forthis church to be effective,
this church has to leverage therelationships that you have.
Every single person, everysingle believer who comes to
(28:20):
church has relationships withpeople outside the church and we
have to be equipping themembership to really be entering
into authentic faithconversations that invite people
to come and know Jesus.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
And again, I would just strike the word time from
the.
It's not time, it's notfull-time, part-time, it's just
fully funded or partially funded.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
Yeah, I mean, another way to think about it is that
seems to unlock people's brainsa little bit.
Yeah, another way to thinkabout it is you're a pastor
going into a workplace andbringing that pastoring with you
.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
Oh my gosh, yeah, and I mean everyone in Volkswagen
knew I was a pastor.
You know they didn't treat meweird.
You know they just talk with meand you know we, you know it's,
it was, it was, it waseyeopening, it was, it was
awesome.
It's been awesome Well.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
I just have one question Does Volkswagen have a
job for me here in Gilbert Cause?
Speaker 1 (29:13):
maybe well, you know, it's's funny.
Speaker 4 (29:14):
You know what's funny , tim is?
I pastor a Lutheran church, aGerman church, and I work for a
German automaker and I'm noteven German.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Yeah, yeah, very German.
That's so good.
Anyhow, let's shift.
You guys are known a lot foryour men's ministry.
Tell us about what God's doingin your men's ministry, I know,
and it really piggybacks becauseyou get to identify men and
call them up as the priesthoodin their respective vocations.
(29:44):
But how are you guys doing thatin creative ways to reach men?
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Yeah, I mean, look at , everyone has the men's
breakfast and you know, whateverit's evening events and so
forth we call our men's ministrygatekeepers.
You know you're standing in thegate, you're guarding that
Satan's got to come through youto get to your family, your
church family, your community,so forth.
So you know we use that kind ofthe masculine.
But I would say the one thingI'd share with you is you know,
(30:09):
a lot of churches will have amen's dinner, steak dinner night
or whatever.
And we started out, I seen thatat churches we would do it,
we'd have an event, we'd pay fora big name speaker to come in
and we'd all steak.
Now, one of the things we do atour church, we do brew beer and
we do have a tap wall in ourbarn, love it.
So there's a little bit moregoing on for us.
(30:29):
But what I saw with that modelis and I saw at churches where
their men's dinner, their bigonce a year event, it would kind
of it would go this and then itwould kind of and I'm all about
sustainability Like what I wantto do things that are
sustainable.
I don't want to do things thatwe can't continue.
(30:51):
You know, now we are into birthand bury and all that.
What we learned was don't makethe event about the speaker.
You're going to get a goodspeaker, but find a local
speaker.
Find someone who's a local,like a high school football
coach or someone in the militaryor in law enforcement or an
entrepreneur or restaurateur.
Have them come and they'll do atalk and share their life
(31:13):
experience and some principles,and then it's not a sermon.
Then you can come underneaththat.
But what you make it about ismen connecting together.
That's the draw is men, becausemen isolate so much.
And you know, we got the musicgoing, we got funny commercial,
we got sports going on.
It's like a big sports bar Got,you know, a pig roast
beforehand shrimp oil.
Then we bar got a pig roastbeforehand shrimp oil, then
(31:35):
we'll do the steaks and it'sjust high energy.
And the other key is that don'tgo hand-to-hand combat.
Don't sell individual tickets.
Get your guys to buy a table, atable of six, table of eight,
and they can go in with some ofthe other guys at church, say,
look, this is an invite event,hey, you want to eat, you want
to drink, you're going to hear agood message, and then have
(31:57):
them fill their table withpeople outside the church.
So now you're selling tables,you're not selling seats.
And to me, the two big things,if you're looking at doing a
men's event once a year or youhave one, the two big things is
don't make it about the speaker,don't spend all that extra
money.
Make it about the camaraderie.
Find some local talent, likethis coming beast.
(32:20):
We call it Beast Feast.
It's coming up always lastFriday in April because Easter
can't be any later than that.
We got a guy this year who is aretired DEA border agent who's
going to be speaking aboutfentanyl and all that's come
across the border.
And I mean so we've done again.
You find a local person butthen you make it and sell the
tables.
Those are the two big insights Ican give on, you know, on men's
(32:44):
ministry.
And then we talk a lot aboutchurch militant and within the
church.
You know I've read about this,the feminization of the church,
(33:04):
and you know we're not here tobe cavemen, we're not putting
camo and a deer's head on thealtar, but what I've read at
least is that women arecomfortable in masculine or
feminine environments.
I mean, whether they go intoHome Depot or Bed, bath and
Beyond.
Men do not do well in feminineenvironments and the church has
in some ways.
You can just look at yourarchitecture, look at what you
got hanging around, look at thesongs that are being selected,
(33:26):
and thankfully, the songs.
I think contemporary music'sgotten better, but if you can
replace the name Jesus with agirl and then song makes total
sense.
You know, singing love songs,singing love songs to another
dude, is not something that menare comfortable.
So language and so you kind ofwant to create that masculine
(33:47):
environment.
And we talk about deploying.
You know that the church islike a forward operating base.
It's not a hospital, becausethe hospital is too limiting of
a metaphor, you know, becausethen it's just dealing with
brokenness and weeping and hey,you got to get, you get hurt,
you get healed.
But a forward operating baseand, jack, you speak more of
this to me because you're in themilitary but like, like a
forward operating base, it'slike you're right outside the
(34:08):
battle lines, you're right out,you're in enemy territory and
while there is a hospital,there's a mess hall, there's
training, but the whole point isthen you get deployed out onto
the battlefield and I thinkthat's the more holistic,
comprehensive way to look at thechurch.
We're the church militant and Italk a lot about the spiritual
battlefield.
You got to talk a lot aboutSatan, especially like during
(34:30):
COVID.
I said guys, this is aspiritual attack first and
foremost.
What is it?
Satan is pouring insecurity orfear into people about this
virus.
He's also isolating people andthen he's creating idolatry.
Go to the government.
The government can save you,and so we can't engage on the
battlefield if we don't firstunderstand the schemes of Satan
(34:53):
and looking at things in thatlens.
So we talk a lot about that andyou know, let's face it, adam
was the first passive male.
Right he's standing right nextto Eve.
He didn't protect his wife.
God gave the command to Adam,not to Eve.
Satan went to the weak link andAdam just sat by.
I always say every church I'msure your church is the same
(35:13):
You've got more women andchildren in your church than you
do.
So then you say, well, why isthat?
Are men less spiritual?
Well, look at the religion ofIslam.
Which gender dominates that?
Because Satan knows if the mencoalesce, the church becomes
even stronger, and so he'strying to keep men on the
(35:34):
sideline.
That's kind of been our mindsetall along, about men.
If you get the man.
Here's the thing If you get theman, you get the whole family.
How often do you see a dad andhis kids at church without the
mom?
Hardly ever.
How often do you see the momand the kids at church without
the dad?
But see, satan also knows thatsame thing.
If you get the man, you get thewhole family, because at some
(35:57):
point the mom gets tired, wornout, she can't keep getting the
kids.
The kids are going.
Why don't dad go?
I don't want to go, dad, I mean.
So we got to raise up these men.
And you know I know you'regoing to talk to me a little
about this too, maybe but Ithink men are needing community
because men isolate.
Men need to connect withanother man.
So many men don't even have abuddy, you know, and when men
(36:18):
isolate, they get themselves introuble in a lot of ways, and
with social media it's evenescalated.
Yes, right, that's not community.
I mean we're incarnational,like we stream our services but
we celebrate the Lord's Supperevery Sunday.
I tell people, the stream thingis not church really, it's you
got to be here, plus, you'regoing to see people, people are
(36:39):
going to see you.
You take the Lord's Supper.
I think also, men we're allposing.
Men lack confidence in theiridentity and their worth and
their value and their posing,and what that does is it makes
them passive and it sidelinesthem because they don't feel
like they can step out onto thebattlefield.
And I think what men reallyneed is to be challenged.
That's what gets their juicesflowing.
(37:00):
I mean, you know, like being ona sports team or being in the
military, it's that band ofbrothers and then men lose that.
So I think, going on that faithadventure and being challenged
in their callings of life, youknow men like that here's the
thing.
Does Jesus want a personalrelationship with each person?
Of course he does the vine andthe branches, but he doesn't say
(37:20):
in the gospels Of course hedoes the vine and the branches,
but he doesn't say in theGospels hey, peter, come have a
personal relationship with me.
A guy is going to be like Iwant a personal relationship
with another dude.
But Jesus, he doesn't say thathe uses masculine language.
He says come follow me, yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:37):
That's masculine, that's what we say in the
military follow me right.
That's a soldierly term rightnow.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Right and, as a dude, I'm only going to follow
someone who I perceive isstronger than me.
Speaker 3 (37:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
You know, and look at who runs most Sunday school
programs, which we don't evenhave Sunday school anymore, but
it's generally women, whichthat's fine.
So these publishers, theycreate these curriculums to sell
to these people who are makingthe buy decision.
And so Jesus turns into thiscamp counselor.
You know that's not who he is.
You know he's the.
(38:10):
He's the, the most masculineman that ever walked the earth.
So I think now you know, andthen of course the culture went
down, toxic masculinity and it'skind of coming back.
So back, and when a man'sreally living out their role, I
mean women love it, and so Ithink those are just some of the
insights.
As you're thinking about yourown men's ministry, how you're
(38:32):
calling men not to be broken andcrying and all that, I mean
that's a part, but ultimately,hey, now we got to go.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Robert, I love it.
Trey Cox, Dr Trey Cox callingTrey Cox.
I need a beast feast now, let'sbring.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
And a beer tap.
I want a beer tap, oh my gosh,in the Life Center right over
there.
Speaker 4 (38:59):
And we probably so.
Our guys get tables right overthere and we probably so we get
with our, so our guys get tables.
We have.
We have way.
Probably 70 of the guys theredon't even go to our church and
a lot of guys don't even go tochurch and they come and their
minds blown because they're like, oh, this is what I thought
church was could be right, yeah,and it looks and this is what
christian community looks likelike the greatest.
The best way to live your lifeis following jesus.
Speaker 2 (39:20):
It's the most fulfilling way, it's a fun way
you know and we got, yeah, no,we got to what you want.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
to finish the thought no, we got to portray it that
way.
We got to invite people intothat experience.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Yeah, no, jack, I was curious.
Do you know our male to femaledemographic day?
I think we're pretty.
I mean, I'm just doing the eyetest on a respective Sunday.
Now the thing that'scomplicated is we are a
multi-generational church and wehave a lot of widows right now
in our traditional service andso traditional may skew slightly
(39:55):
more female for that reason andmaybe others, but I think our
contemporary or modern worshipservice is pretty down the
middle and you can always dothings to get better.
But I think there's arevitalization of men's ministry
taking place right now acrossAmerica and hopefully in our
LCMS congregations.
Speaker 4 (40:15):
Anything more to say about yeah, not to interrupt you
but the young men?
Yeah, but young men inparticular are gravitating to
the more liturgical churchesbecause they want something
ancient, they want somethingthat's rooted.
They don't want this show, theywant something that's
mysterious, which goes right toour wheelhouse.
And you're beginning to seethat that men are wanting to
(40:37):
gravitate towards something ofsubstance.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Amen.
How is men's ministry evolving,though?
What are some other things youtalk about?
You do a one is that once ayear kind of gathering for the
big event once a year, once a?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
year and then we'll, then we'll have a gatekeeper.
We'll have gatekeepergatherings, usually in the
evening, like a Monday night,Like we'll.
We'll look around footballseason too, but because we'll
put the game on after but we'llcook it's.
You know it's a much smallergathering, it's not the big
event, and then we'll do time.
We'll do time in the word.
We'll have some beers, we'lleat and we'll do that.
(41:10):
You know the men's breakfast aswell, but also just again in
worship that we're reallythinking about.
You know the language and theenvironment that we're creating
for men to feel comfortablebeing in service.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, say more about that.
What are you doing in yourworship space to make it more
inviting to men?
Speaker 4 (41:30):
Yeah.
So again, I think the musicselections are important and we
have a band, you know, and so wenow we'll rework hyns too and
then we use contemporary music.
So you know, thinking aboutthinking about the song
selection.
You know, at the end of service, of course, we say deploy
advance, and then thecongregation says serve the Lord
(41:52):
.
You know talking about in themessages.
You know you can pretty muchtalk every Sunday about how
Satan's at work in some form orfashion and the spiritual battle
.
We talk a lot about thespiritual battlefield and one of
the things we talk about inthat respect is, I always say
look, if you're at a resort withyour buddy sitting by the pool
drinking a Mai Tai and he keelsover, you're going to be shocked
(42:16):
, saddened, but shocked.
Now, if me and Jack are inAfghanistan taking incoming and
Jack gets clipped, I'm going tobe sad, but I'm not going to be
shocked because I know myenvironment and what the devil
does is he tries to frame yourunderstanding of where you're at
as this should be a resort.
(42:37):
And so then, when something badhappens in your life, blame God
.
Right, god's not taking care ofyou, god's not watching over
you.
But I mean, the church hasalways said we're the church
militant.
I mean, that is the definitionof who we are.
Right now we're on thebattlefield and so we should
expect the attacks.
Storming the gates of hell.
Yes, right, we're on theoffense.
(42:58):
We're on the offense, thoughGates are stationary.
We're storming the gates underthe leadership of Jesus.
We're the ones depopulatinghell, we're the ones taking
ground.
So I think you know my, mydegrees in marketing.
I think words matter.
Like we never use the word needin church.
God doesn't need anything.
Now, maybe you now use the wordneed and like you need to do
(43:18):
because for your own soul.
But you know it's opportunities.
But we always, we never talkabout like.
Like when we do a men's or awomen's event, we don't say it's
a men's retreat.
No, you never I always say Ialways say it's.
I always say it's a men, Ialways say it's a men's advance.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
We're always.
We're always advancing, we'realways advancing, we're always
taking ground.
Of course, the greatest way todo that, I think, is in church
planting or school planting orministry multiplication, because
you're taking ground, you'reestablishing a new beachhead, a
new demarcation of where thechurch is now present.
And so using that advancedlanguage, not retreat, and so,
(43:57):
yeah, using those militarymetaphors really resonates with
people.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
Robert, I love your passion.
I would love that I am in.
I want to be a part of yourchurch man.
This is so good, you're goingto be fired up.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
You don't want to be part of my church.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
trust me, we got all the other stuff too that's
present in church.
Trust me, oh dude.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Well, let's talk a little bit more about spiritual
warfare and maybe how Satan iscoming after Maybe we'll kind of
close it with this how Satan iscoming after individual leaders
.
I didn't put this on thequestion sheet.
Speaker 4 (44:36):
Sorry about that.
Speaker 2 (44:37):
Yeah, it's fine, but how Satan is coming to
individual leaders and then howSatan is coming at us kind of as
a church body, because we gotroom for growth in both
individually and collectively, Ithink, in our beloved church
body.
So anything personally, likewhat leaders should be aware of
who are in the trenches and Ihear you going back to your
(44:59):
co-vocational conversation Idon't have any kind of shame
because I'm full time I thinkyou should be open.
You should be open Like whatdoes the church need in this
season?
That's all I hear you saying.
And there could be multipleways for us to go about
advancing the gospel, andco-vocational pastorship and
just leadership in general couldbe one of those ways that we
(45:19):
could explore so that we haveand this is what I'm taking from
it so that we have moreresources to create other
beachheads, to create otherministries, right.
Speaker 4 (45:27):
That's right here, or the church is closed, which is
what's happening Churches arejust closing.
Speaker 2 (45:31):
So if 50%.
Speaker 4 (45:32):
If we have 11% of our churches now with part-time I'm
using their language part-timepastors and we have 50% of our
churches with worshiping 50 orless and declining, I mean I
could easily argue we shouldhave 50% co-vocational pastors
out there at a minimum.
But the problem is, if you goto seminary, your mindset and
(45:53):
what you've been told is youshould expect when you get out
you're going to get a fullyfunded Concordia plant.
I mean for me to call a guy atseminary and say, hey, you're
going to be co-vocational.
That's why you got to raiseguys up in your culture, because
you can't.
Speaker 3 (46:07):
You can pick and choose Exactly.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Supply and demand.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
So I just have to unpack this here, because if we
had a system that opened that up, that somebody local let's say
it's a small church with 30people in it hey, one of you
guys could be called to be thepastor and we've got a system in
place to train you and you'renot going to have to move and
it's affordable and, yeah,you're going to end up pastoring
a tiny little church and youmay have to continue to work.
(46:31):
A lot of guys would do that.
A lot of guys would do thatbecause a community of 25 people
is not an intimidating ask ontop of what they're already
doing, even if there's like,especially if they're an
established leader in thecommunity and some of those are
going to blow up, some of thosein a really good way, meaning
because there's somebody theretaking leadership, doing word
(46:53):
and sacrament, bringing peoplein the community, because it's
staffed.
We may see some of those growand revitalize and become larger
churches again, but right nowthat opportunity is not
happening.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
And I appreciate you guys have not once asked me like
, okay, well, how big a churchyou know, cause sometimes we're
like, well, yeah, but how manypeople are you worshiping?
So you know, pre-covid we wereworshiping over 200 and we
planted a church.
That of course your numbers godown.
Post-covid we're at about 160.
Right now we're getting readyto plant another church and
people go, but the numbers areirrelevant in terms of whether I
(47:25):
preach to 10 people or 1,000people.
It's the same amount of effortyou're putting into the ministry
.
Right, and casting vision iscasting vision Connecting with
new people.
Of course more people come inthat, but we've just you know
we've got.
If you look at the back of ourbulletin, we probably got about
15 people listed as staff.
Some of those don't receiveanything, some receive stipends,
(47:45):
but all of their positions havebeen instead of having it this
wide.
You know they're specialists,not generalists, which means
that if they leave I don't haveas big a hole to fill and it's
easier to find people to plugand play.
In those ways I got biggeraudience to recruit and I'd
rather do it from within mychurch, because they already
(48:07):
have the DNA and the culture.
Let's face it you interview allyou want, but it's a crap shoot
bringing someone in from theoutside.
You're never going to hit 100%1000% in HR.
Speaker 2 (48:19):
I love that so much.
I mean so often inconversations with.
We get in these conversationsquite a bit with people that are
reaching out to us right Tohave a model that says you can
raise up every different leaderand you can build a team, but so
often it goes to money.
But so often it goes to money.
(48:40):
It goes to money Like I don'thave.
Like there are people on yourteam that want to be in the
trenches helping with spiritualcare, ministry, with leadership
development, with strategy, allthat kind of stuff.
Like Jack, if we actually putall of our like coaches and
leaders and people like ourstaff page would be you know way
down, because we're aleadership development.
(49:00):
About 85 volunteer leaders 85people would be on that list,
right.
Maybe we should put that that'sour staff right.
Speaker 4 (49:07):
When you have the professional, it's tough.
What I say for staff is thatstaff is not about being funded,
it's about the level ofaccountability.
If I say you're a staff personand you accept that role, that
means I'm holding youaccountable in a way that I'm
not going to hold youaccountable if you're not on
staff.
It's about ownership, right?
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
And commitment.
How amazing if we had thismindset for the congregation
worshiping 50 people with a partfunded.
I love that.
I'm going to change my language.
Yeah, no time.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Don't use time.
Time is irrelevant.
You could be spending eighthours, in fact, like when I
manage people atVolkswagenkswagen.
If they, if they tell me, oh mygosh, I had to work 80 hours
this last week, like they'rethinking, like they're kissing
up to me like it's a badge ofhonor.
All I'm thinking is, you don'tknow how to do your job.
Yeah, because you're just,you're just, you're just.
You're just shooting ateverything, hoping you hit some,
(49:55):
hit the target somewhere.
You know, I'd rather you tellme I spent 20 hours this week
working.
I don't don't people confuseactivity with results.
Yeah, it's not about activity,it's about results.
That's all it is.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
Now you're speaking like one of those corporate
mumbo jumbo leaders Results.
Speaker 4 (50:13):
First article.
First article truth, right,yeah Well that's it.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
And Jesus was after results.
He's still after results.
He's still after results.
And churches need to be moreaccountable toward reaching
people and multiplyingministries.
I love in your story because,yeah, who cares how big churches
are, it really doesn't matterbut that you had that mindset
hey, we get to 150, 200, 250,whatever we're launching, we're
sending, we got to go New things, reach new people.
(50:39):
Is that kind of in the DNA?
Yes, so when?
Speaker 4 (50:43):
we planted the church in 06, you know you're just
looking for bodies you got tohave critical mass, just if you
can fog a mirror, I want you.
So we had.
We came out of a church, agreat church, great planting
church, in Hearst, texas, peaceLutheran and I took a core group
out of there.
We planted St Peter.
So we started with two services.
We had our traditional musicand then our contemporary, and
(51:06):
it was so often.
And then we got in the buildingso often happens.
You know, the later service wasmore highly attended for various
reasons, and we just weren'tdoing the first service that
well.
And so we made a decision thatwe were going to unplug the
first service and we were goingto go to one service.
And that was a big decisionbecause even though the
(51:26):
attendance was smaller, thegiving was disproportionately
greater coming out of the firstservice, and we knew there were
other churches in the area coulddo this a lot better.
And so we, hey, we want you togo somewhere.
So we took a little bit of astep back when we did that.
But since we've gone to oneworship service, the unity of
our church has gone off thecharts, because I believe
(51:47):
worship is what creates theunity.
And we can't create the unity,but we can defend it and we can
guard it.
And I think I grew up in theeight, nine, 30, 11 o'clock
model.
I mean all this.
And again, I'm not here judgingor despairing.
I think you're kind of settingyourself up a little bit for
division, because if you havethree services, you got three
churches with different valuesand different focuses and you
(52:08):
could be going to the samechurch 20 years and if you never
go to another service, youwouldn't know if that person was
new or not.
So what we've done to yourquestion, tim, is we have
committed to we're only doingone worship service and when we
outgrow our space which we couldprobably get up, we have a 300
seat worship center right now.
Now this new building will havea gym so we could migrate there
.
But all we're going to do is,when we get where we can't do
(52:32):
more than one service and we canonly do one service, we're
going to multiply.
We're just going to plant.
That's our and we've said thatwe're just going to keep
planting churches.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
That's our, and we've said that we're just going to
keep planting churches, newchurches, yep.
And how are you raising upleaders for those plants?
Speaker 4 (52:44):
Well, thankfully, we've got a great church planter
in our area, travis Harchin.
Oh yeah, travis is great and hehas planted three churches in
10 years and we've partneredwith him.
We did bring a vicar in 2012,john David Mull and he lived
with us for a year and then tooka core group out to Grapevine.
But it's a combination ofeither raising up guys within
(53:09):
our own church or if someone'sin the area that we can support,
and then we freely say, hey, ifGod taps you on the shoulder,
you need to go, which is hard inthe flesh to do that, but you
can't out give God and it's agreat experience to try to do
that.
Speaker 2 (53:29):
Hey Robert, what a joy to get to meet you.
This has been so much fun andchallenging.
Speaker 4 (53:35):
I will say one thing real quick, I will wrap in here.
Tim, you asked about thespiritual battlefield.
Here's the thing Satan is notGod.
He doesn't have unlimitedresources, doesn't have
unlimited ammo, so he's going towait until the opportune time
to set the trap.
So when I always tell newministry leaders, don't be
surprised if you get attackednow because you've stepped up on
the battlefield in a greaterway, but as a ministry for the
(53:55):
ministry leaders who arelistening to this, as you're
preparing for something big inyour ministry, like planning a
church or like us building abuilding too, that's when the
attack's going to happen.
Just know it.
And in the 18 years I've beendoing this, it's like clockwork.
Whenever we're getting ready toplan a church or we're getting
ready to build a building or dosomething significant, an attack
(54:15):
happens.
But then the good news is Satancan't I mean he, he can't
sustain it indefinitely.
He runs out of ammo.
Then he'll regroup and thenhe'll figure out another way of
attacking.
But but to me now, obviously,if you're being attacked because
you're being stupid and sinful,that's one thing.
But I always tell people tobeing attacks a badge of honor,
that means you're doingsomething that Satan is taking
(54:36):
notice of and it's messing withhis kingdom notice of and it's
messing with his kingdom, andall that does is drive you
closer to Christ.
All that does is drive youcloser to Christ, so it all
backfires on them.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
That's it.
If people want to follow you,Robert, how can they do so?
Speaker 4 (54:50):
I'm not on any social media so I am completely off
the grid, but my email rbalducB-A-L-D-U-C at stpeterfworg.
I love it or yeah.
Speaker 2 (55:03):
This has been an invigorating conversation today.
We pray you found a lot ofvalue.
If you did, please comment likesubscribe and all of that.
That really helps get the wordout.
Jack, any kind of closingcomments on the chat today with
our brother Robert?
It's been great.
Speaker 3 (55:18):
No, I love this approach and it's been a
fascinating conversation talkingabout what's possible when we
open our minds and don't thinktoo narrowly about what it would
look like to fund people inministry, and think about what
it looks like to plant people inministry and actually give
resource allocation for that.
So we need this type ofinnovative thinking.
I'm really thankful for you,robert.
(55:39):
Amen.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
Amen, it's a good day .
Go make it a good day.
What?
Speaker 4 (55:42):
you're doing too training up for ministry in
alternate ways, and it's goingto take root, in fact.
Tim, I'll just share real quick.
I nominated you for the GuidoMerkens Award at BPM, but you
didn't get it, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
You know, the funny thing is about that award.
I've been going to bestpractices since I was a pastor
in Colorado and the first yearthat that award came out I won
it about 14 years ago.
Speaker 4 (56:08):
Oh well, that's why you didn't.
I nominated you this year,that's why you already won.
Speaker 2 (56:13):
So well, I don't, geez, who cares?
Winning an award in ministry islike, yeah, it's kind of, it's
kind of sad.
People should be honored andthank you for that, that's very
kind.
But yeah, that's probably oneof the reasons why and that was
for actually the table which isstill going in Colorado.
I'm really grateful for that,and La Mesa is its kind of
(56:34):
sister ministry partner downhere in Phoenix.
But man, so much life hasoccurred since since the Guido
Merkin experience, uh, butthat's, that's, I think.
Uh, who did win it this year?
It?
Speaker 4 (56:46):
was a songwriter Someone.
Yeah, yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 3 (56:49):
Yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Yeah, for his songwriter stuff.
So yeah, shout out to Kip Foxin the Following them and the
new, wonderful Lutheran biblicalnew songs that are being
written.
You're really missing out.
It's the Songwriter Initiative.
And why am I doing a blank onthe name of the group?
(57:11):
If you look on where you getthe songs at, jack, don't you
know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3 (57:15):
Yeah, I know I'm drawing a blank on the name too,
but it's all stationed out ofConcordia, irvine, where they're
doing that work.
Come on, man.
Well, this is going to.
Speaker 2 (57:23):
This is going to I don't know.
Well, it's called.
It's called the SongwritersInitiative.
Speaker 3 (57:27):
Songwriters.
Speaker 2 (57:28):
Initiative.
I don't know why.
There's so many differentacronyms, the WALL-E like
worship arts, so sometimes I getit.
Yeah, it's a good day.
I pray.
The joy of Jesus is yourstrength as we're bumbling to
the finish line.
But you were not bumbling atall, robert.
It was fantastic.
Thanks for blessing ourlisteners and we'll be back next
week with another episode ofLead Time.
Thanks so much, jack.
(57:48):
Wonderful work, robert.
Speaker 1 (57:49):
You've been listening to Lead Time, 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
this gospel message.
Subscribe to our channel, thengo to theuniteleadershiporg to
create your free login forexclusive material and resources
(58:12):
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.
Thanks for listening and staytuned for next week's episode.
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