BTE4.14 Fostering Restoration with Tim Hester

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When conflict arises in your ministry, how do you respond? Tim Hester, Executive Pastor at Southeast Christian Church, offers a biblical framework for restoration that focuses on healing rather than punishment.

Drawing from decades of experience shepherding both church staff and congregation members, Tim walks us through the delicate process of addressing sin and repairing broken relationships. The conversation provides practical wisdom on preparing your heart before difficult conversations, creating balanced environments where truth can emerge, and recognizing genuine transformation in those seeking restoration.

Tim explains how youth ministers can discern when to handle situations themselves versus when to involve church leadership, always maintaining the goal of bringing people back into right relationship with God and others.

Unlike harsh discipline approaches that often leave people damaged, true restoration recognizes the image of God in each person while still holding appropriate boundaries. Tim shares personal experiences that illustrate both the challenges and beauty of this process, including how one youth pastor's commitment to biblical discipleship transformed all twelve of his children's lives.

For youth ministers navigating the inevitable conflicts that arise in ministry, this conversation offers hope that with prayer, biblical wisdom, and gentle persistence, restoration is possible. What's at stake isn't just resolving immediate problems, but teaching the next generation how to handle conflict in ways that honor God and preserve relationships.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
uh, michael, I have a confession.
I lied on the last episode.
I was just listening to it and,uh, at the very end of the
episode, I said I don't rememberexactly what I said, but I was
like, yeah, we're definitely 100sure, gonna do one of these two
things next week, and we're notdoing one of those two things,

(00:21):
so I'm a I don't know what to do.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Own up to it.
I typically, I think owning upto it is the best way.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
No one listens to outro.
No one listens to the outro.
We don't need to bring it up.
We're not going to bring it up.
Okay Onward.
Hi, I'm Brad Warren.
This is beyond the event, ayouth ministry podcast presented
by Christ in Youth, where wehelp you maintain momentum
between the mountaintops.
Very excited for today.

(00:54):
Today we have a professionallythough honestly, tim is not a
nepo baby here okay, he is superduper qualified to talk about

(01:16):
what we're talking about today.
We're going to be talking aboutrestoration and what to do when
people that are part of ourflock fall into sin or have
conflict with one another, andTim is a really incredible
person to engage in thisconversation.
When he was first married, wasa youth pastor, was involved in

(01:37):
youth ministry, so he knows whatit's like to be in the position
that you are currently in.
He owned his own business forseveral years and then he sold
his business to become a pastorat Southeast Christian Church in
Louisville, kentucky, and hasbeen there for over a decade.
Now he is an executive pastor.

(02:00):
They have several, but hereferred to himself as the staff
elder, so a lot of what he doesis take their elders and their
deacons and their staff andshepherd those people really
well and in doing that, hasgained a lot of really valuable
experience in what it looks liketo resolve conflict and to

(02:20):
restore people in a way that isbiblical, in a way that
recognizes the image of God inthose people and in a way that
is gentle, as scripture calls us, to, which you'll hear Tim say
here in a little bit.
So that's going to be a reallyfun conversation.
I'm sorry, but I do not have aco-host today, sad.

(02:42):
So, michael, you're my co-host.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Great Got lots to add .

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Well, that's a joke I don't have.
But I do have some questions,because I was just like kind of
introducing your dad and I don'tknow.
So he owned his own business,yep, was it in a construction of
some kind?
No, it was a staffing firm.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, very Temporary andpermanent, temporary and
permanent staffing solutions.
And he owned that business forhow long?

(03:10):
I think it was 22 years, 20.
So, owned a business for 22years, sold the business to go
work at Southeast, right?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Sort of he.
Actually there was an overlapfor a few years.
Oh okay, so he got hired on andthen he was an absentee owner
and then at a certain point justrealized that he couldn't do
both.
Yeah, too much, and he neededto be fully committed to one or
the other and the obvious choicewas the staffing firm, and then

(03:40):
that just fell apart completely.
That's not true.
He committed to being on staffat Southeast.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
I thought you were going to say he committed fraud.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
No, tim, great dude, really really excited to have
him.
Michael, I have an update aboutsomething.
Okay, the past several episodesof this podcast we've talked a
bit about Nebraska, uh-huh, andI have some information about
nebraska.
Oh boy, uh, backstory, I, I, Itrashed nebraska, yes, on this

(04:14):
podcast.
Me and and caitlin, we did that.
Um, the the fine people ofNebraska caused an uproar.
Frankly, it was a mutiny,saying like oh no, nebraska is a
great place to live.
I'm sure Nebraska is a greatplace to live.

(04:36):
Sure, yeah, in the non-islandportion of North America, so
just Mexico, canada, unitedstates, canada and alaska, okay,
in that little section, allright, there are like a whole.
I want you to imagine in yourmind there are a whole bunch of

(04:56):
states that border the ocean,okay, yeah, states and provinces
yeah, if you're canadian, uh,there's a bunch of states that
border the ocean, right, andthen there are like a lot of
states that border a state thatborders the ocean, okay.
And then there's another littlelayer of states we're getting
smaller as we get toward themiddle here.

(05:17):
There's another layer of statesthat border a state or province
that borders a state orprovince that borders the ocean.
There is one state that doesnot fall into any of those
categories.
Can you guess what it is,michael?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
the state of isolation the state of isolation
.
Nebraska oh, you're so far froman ocean so so okay, let me
make sure I was trackingcorrectly.
Correctly, nebraska borders astate that borders a state that
borders a state connected to theocean.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Yeah, I think its quickest path is Kansas,
oklahoma, texas ocean.
That's crazy, looking at a mapright now.
Yeah, it could also do likeColorado, idaho, oregon Ocean.
Uh-huh or no, that's notColorado, yes, it is.
No, it's not.

Speaker 2 (06:12):
What state is that it might be?

Speaker 1 (06:14):
Wyoming, wyoming, wyoming, idaho, oregon, ocean.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Dang.
Are there mountains like in thewestern part of Nebraska?
No, or is it really just likeit looks?

Speaker 1 (06:30):
like a scene from Dune Part 2.
You expect a sandworm to justcome cruising along and sweep
you away If you're?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
listening and you're from Nebraska.
I'd love to hear from you Beachor mountains?
Neither, Because you don't haveeither one.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Neither, oh.
But you know what they do haveOscars pizza and wings.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Which I like.
Yeah, so anyway, they also haveMatt Stevens, which I like.
They also have StonebridgeChristian Church.
Yeah, we were just thereChristy.
Babermeyer, which I likeWonderful people.
But, boy, the setting is notgood.
It's tough and that's you know.
If you want to respond to that,you can, mhester at cioycom,

(07:18):
you can let us know what youthink about all of that.
But here's what we're going todo right now.
We're not going to have amailbag, because you don't want
to hear, believe me, you don'twant to know what I have to say
about the mailbag, and I don'thave a co-host here, and we do
have a kind of long and greatinterview with Tim Hester.
So what we're going to do iswe're just going to stop right

(07:40):
here and we're going to go aheadand jump right over to that.
Well, going to stop right hereand we're going to go ahead and
jump right over to that.
Well, tim, I really appreciateyou being here as we dive into
this conversation.
I was thinking through some ofthe conversations that you have
to have, or get to have, Ishould say, probably as part of
your job, conversations aroundrestoring people who have fallen

(08:02):
into sin and reconcilingrelationships that are broken,
and those types of conversationsmake me, brad Warren, nervous.
I don't like them.
I don't think that most peopleenjoy having those conversations
, so I am curious why you arepassionate about them.

(08:25):
How did you get to a placewhere you became at southeast
kind of the guy to have theseconversations?

Speaker 3 (08:33):
well, I, that's a great question.
I mean, first of all, I don'tknow that anybody's really
passionate about these things.
They're just a necessary partof you know leading.
Uh, no matter what level thatyou're in and I am one of those
guys I do get a lot of thereally tough ones when it comes
to whether they'recongregational issues or they're
staff issues or, you know,whatever level we're at, I get a

(08:57):
lot of them because I've done alot of them over the years.
I think that the reason thatit's an area that I kind of
gravitate toward is because it'sgoing to sound kind of weird,
brad, but you know, I lovepeople, I absolutely just love
people, and the one thing that Iknow from even personal
experience is that people get inconflict, you know, all the

(09:20):
time, and when they do, usuallysomebody is damaged.
When they walk away from aconflict or that's what we fear
we think that, oh man, if Idon't do this, well, we don't
even.
Some people don't even thinkabout it.
They just enter into theseconflict conversations and when
they do, somebody's damaged andleft on the floor, and that has
a tendency to be another one ofthose stories in someone's life

(09:43):
that makes them back away fromwhat God created them to do, so
they leave somewhat damaged, andwhen I see people that are in
conflict or when I see peoplethat have been not treated very
well or something you know, Iimmediately start asking myself
some questions about.

(10:04):
You know not what happened.
That's obvious.
There was a conflict, there wassomething and somebody got
damaged.
But my question is why?
Why did that occur?
Why are we even here in thefirst place?
And I think, rather than justgetting over the pain of having
a difficult situation, I'drather walk through the pain
with somebody and then get onthe other side, having
understood at least why itoccurred, and that can bring

(10:24):
long-term, lasting results andreconciliation as opposed, and
growth as opposed to we just gotover the situation and moved on
.
So I think that's why,ultimately, I end up getting
involved in more of these than Icare to, because the truth of
the matter is I'm no differentthan you.
These, almost every single time, these things scare me to death
.
In fact, as we sit here rightnow at two o'clock today, I've

(10:50):
got one of those conversationsscheduled, uh, between me and
another person here on staff.
That's going to be a very, veryhard conversation, but it's
necessary if we're going to grow.

Speaker 1 (10:55):
Yeah, so I think that's why okay, um, I mean, I
that that is all reallyinteresting and convicting in a
lot of ways.
You are.
So you were telling me off,mike, of some of the just like
demographic information aboutwhat your role is at Southeast.
I'm going to have you kind ofrepeat them.
You mentioned that you have howmany elders and deacons.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, we have 105 deacons and we have 38 elders
currently.
And what is your staff?
Yeah, we have somewhere around600 staff members, which is
equivalent of about I don't know450 full-timers, because we
have a lot of part-timers.

Speaker 1 (11:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:33):
And we have 14 locations and a Christian camp.
By the way, I always hatesharing those statistics
depending on who the audience is, because it feels somewhat
unrelatable at some point.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
Well, no, I, I'm asking.
Yeah, I know that you wouldnever just like volunteer that
information and be like this ismy credentials is, but I am um
soliciting that information fromyou because I think that it
actually helps people understandjust the scope of how often you
are involved in this type ofthing Because we're ultimately

(12:05):
talking about 700 people thatare trying to work together to
accomplish a mission that Godhas placed on the hearts of the
fine folks at SoutheastChristian Church, and every
single one of them is a sinner,and people are going to fall
along the way and people aregoing to hurt one another on the
way, and so you have kind of apastoral role in many of these

(12:30):
relationships like you'retalking about, and I want you to
talk from your experience.
But also I just want to kind ofacknowledge something here too,
which is that you are speakingfrom that perspective.
Uh, I am asking the youthpastors who are listening to
this to kind of take a mentalstep, uh, to kind of forward a

(12:56):
stream here, um, and apply someof the things that you're going
to say to a youth ministrycontext.
So you're saying I have a staffmember who we're not going to
get into specifics on any ofthat, but this is how we would
address this with our staff,knowing that the listener is
going to take that and say, okay, I have students who engage in

(13:18):
a similar type of thing and thisis a principle that could help
me with that.
So in that sense, I think itbecomes a little bit more
relatable, uh, but the therethere are two, and all of this
another context piece for thelistener.
All of this is based on aconversation that I had with you
, tim uh, about a year ago inyour living room.

(13:40):
We just got started talking andI had thought my gosh, more
people need to hear thisconversation.
So if I'm remembering correctlyand you can correct me if I'm
wrong there were kind of twodifferent things that we talked
a little bit about.
We talked about aboutrestoration of somebody who's

(14:03):
been caught in sin and we talkedabout reconciliation of
relationships that have beenbroken.
So those are the two thingsthat I want to kind of hit on
Dealer's choice.
What do you want to do first?

Speaker 3 (14:22):
Yeah, let's start with that whole concept of
restoration.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Oh, okay, great, I love it.
Why'd you pick that one first?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Well, because I think that, especially from my role
as an elder and to back up, I'min my 18th year as an elder at
Southeast Christian Church andall of our elders at Southeast
get involved in what we callrestoration cases.
A lot of churches call thosediscipline cases, but we learned
a long time ago that whensomebody picks up the phone and
calls them and says, hey, brad,this is Tim, I'm one of the

(14:53):
elders at Southeast, I'm callingyou about a discipline case,
you know not many people wantthat phone call or voicemail
with that.
But when you put yourself inthe posture of what is the
purpose of biblical discipline,if you will, well, you know it's
restoration.
Ultimately we pull that out ofGalatians 6.1, you know, if

(15:14):
there are any fallen among you,let those among you who are
spiritual restore them gentlyand be careful, unless you fall
into the same trap.
So you know, paul gives us inGalatians this sort of outline
that says, hey, you can be aheavy-handed person and bring
discipline if you want, or youcan restore someone back to a
rightful relationship at avariety of levels in a gentle

(15:37):
manner but gets them to become afully functioning member of the
body of Christ again.
And also.
I want to be careful, brad.
There are so many subtletieshere, one of which is that if
somebody violates somethingpretty egregiously but they go
through a restoration process,they may not be able to be
restored back to a position thatthey left when they were

(15:58):
violated, but they can certainlybe restored back to a proper
relationship with the Lord,obviously, and then, secondly,
in a right relationship withpeople and with the church or
whatever.
That doesn't necessarily meanthat they get to be restored
back to a volunteer levelposition or even a staff level
position, that when theyviolated something that required

(16:18):
restoration, they may not getto return back to that position.
So there are nuances to thiswhole thing, but that's why I
like to talk about it from arestoration standpoint, because
when you stop and think aboutthis, if two people inside of
the church organization are inconflict with one another, we've
got something that's broken.
You know, we were called tolive in community with one

(16:41):
another, and we were called tolive in community from a variety
of levels, you know.
I think, first of all, we allknow that we were not created to
be isolated.
It's not good for man to bealone.
And God himself there's threeof them, you know, and all those
types of things.
So we know that we're supposedto be living in a community and
we know that, inevitably, thiswhole 1 Corinthians 12 body of

(17:01):
Christ thing is is pretty bigdeal.
Um so, uh, everybody has toplay their role and everybody,
everybody is playing their rolewithout jealousy, envy, strife,
all the things that scripturetells us not to have.
Then this body works prettywell and when it does, it's a
force to be dealt with for thecause of bringing glory to god,
which is ultimately what we wereall created for.

(17:23):
Yeah, so when you talk aboutdoing these restoration issues,
man, that's what we're restoringback to.
We're trying to restore back tosomething that God wants to use
as a force for his own glory,and he wants to use us as people
.
So that's why it's an importantissue.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
Totally, there's a lot of really interesting stuff
there, because I feel like a lotof people in the church there
are issues that are I think youuse the word egregious that it's
.
It's like hey, listen, youcan't work with with students
anymore because you've crossedthis line and that's just not

(18:04):
going to be allowed anymore.
And I feel like a lot of peoplefeel like what they would need
to do in that situation is justdo kind of like a cut and run
and you know say, hey, we got tomove on, we got to act in the
best interest of these students,and you know you can't, you
can't be here anymore, kind ofthing.
And I love that you're saying,yes, we are going to act in the

(18:27):
best interest of the students.
Of course we're not going tonecessarily restore this person
to that position, but also wecan't just neglect this person
and leave them out on the street.
That's a person created in theimage of God, that's part of our
flock and we're going to takethe steps needed to kind of
restore that person.
So I'm curious just from yourand I know that you're you do

(18:48):
this a lot, so I'm sure you havekind of a process that I'm
interested to know about when aperson at Southeast Christian
Church maybe they confesssomething to you, maybe you're
made aware of a situation, I'msure both of those happen with
some frequency what does thislook like at southeast, what
happens?

(19:09):
And I'm sure it depends on thenuances of the situation or
whatever.
But I'm kind of asking 30 000feet, you know, yeah, what would
be the process that they wouldkind of enter into?

Speaker 3 (19:21):
yeah, yeah, great question.
And you're right, you know itdepends on what the issue is.
It depends on you know who theaggrieved are and all those
types of things.
But let me just answer that ingeneral terms.
You know, first of all, youalways want to set up the
parameters where you can havewhat you hope is a really honest
meeting with someone and reallyget down to what the root

(19:45):
issues are.
And the other thing is, too, isthat one of the things we have
to recognize is that everysingle one of us brings in
inherent biases to thesecircumstances, and usually those
biases are based on past hurtsor how you've overcome your own
sin issues and that kind ofthing.
And I remember one time youknow I was taught that
oftentimes, if somebody hasovercome a certain one time, you

(20:05):
know I was taught thatoftentimes, if somebody has
overcome a certain sin issue,then you're either going to be
way too soft on people that havethat same issue or way too hard
.
There's very little middleground in there, and so you have
to be really honest withyourself when you're entering
into these situations.
Number one am I the rightperson to really even handle
this situation?
Is it too close to me where I'mgoing to lose some level of

(20:26):
biblical objectivity.
So be honest with yourself andassess okay, am I the right?
And I hand off these types ofthings all the time to other
people because of that verysituation.
Also, do I have too muchrelational equity?
Because I'm always going to erron the side of people that I
just love.
I want them to win, I want themto be right, that kind of thing

(20:48):
.
Personality differences, by theway, also come into play,
because I'm a very relationalperson and what that does
oftentimes is that puts me in aposition of being even a people
pleaser.
So you can see, on some cases,somebody like me would might not
be the right person to walkinto a real tough situation.

(21:11):
So I need to make sure that I'meither partnered with someone
or handing it off to someonethat has a little bit better of
a perspective of how to dealwith those things.
Um, without needing feeling theneed to have the feel, the good
feels, by the time you're atthe end of that meeting.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Which I have two questions about that.
I told you I was going to dothis, that's totally good.
You talked about beingpartnered up with somebody who
might balance you out a littlebit in that.
Are these the type of thingsthat you wouldn't normally enter
into, as like hey, someone hascome into this meeting with some
leaders at Southeast and it'sgoing to be two or three of us,

(21:49):
or are these things that youkind of handle on a case by case
basis on your own?
That's question one.
Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Yeah, let me do question one right down.
Question two you always want tolet them know what they're
walking into, because usuallywhen people are having to walk
into a circumstance where therehas to be a very serious
conversation, number one,they're afraid.
Number two, they're defensive.
You know there are all theseemotions that are kind of
running through them, and to beable to do this appropriately,

(22:18):
you've got to be able toappreciate everybody that's
involved and where they'recoming from, and so you always
want to make sure you're settingthe table appropriately when
it's, you know, as elders, oneof the things that we do.
We never do a restoration casealone, we always do in twos.
And here's the other piece youknow, and some of your youth

(22:39):
pastors might have to do this orbe involved with it, with some
of their volunteers who might bemarried, as an example, and so
you have a married couple that'sgoing through something that
might be leading down thedivorce pathway, and of course
we want to get in the middle ofthose types of things.
And if that's the case,oftentimes you bring in two men
as elders into a room and you'redoing some fact-finding and you

(23:03):
got a wife sitting there andnow she's got all these men and
she's the only woman sitting inthe room.
That creates what feels to belike an unfair balance and she
doesn't know if she can trust usas men, and so on.
And so we always try our very,very best to balance that and
actually bring in somebody thatcan understand who that person
is.

(23:23):
In this particular example Igave you, it might be another
woman.
In another case it might be abusiness dispute or something
like that.
We might bring in somebodythat's got a little bit more
acumen in business so that theycan understand that business
person's perspective.
So you always but you alwayswant to let them know, hey, and
we always tell them here'swhat's going to happen.

(23:45):
You know there's, by by the way,brad, usually these things come
to us.
There's some sort of a of a um,um, an accusation.
Somebody's coming saying, hey,I was wronged by someone.
Our first question typically isum, you know, first of all you
got to empathize right away andand you got to say I am so sorry
you were wronged.
And you ask to say I am sosorry you were wronged, and you
ask them what the situation is.
And then the next question isbecause, remember, these are two

(24:07):
members that probably are inthe same area of ministry,
service in some form or another,at least at the same church,
and the first thing we want toask them is have you gone to
them and asked them or appealedto them about what they did
wrong to you?
Sort of the Matthew 18 outline,right, somebody's sinned
against me.
I got to go to them and say,hey, you know you violated this.

(24:30):
And oftentimes the answer is no.
And then you have to ask somepretty serious questions about
that, you know, because they'rereally uncomfortable I don't
want to accuse anybody and thensometimes they want to walk away
from that situation as opposedto actually diving into it.
But those are important issuesbecause, remember, we're
discipling people.
You know, it's one thing Jesustold us to do go and teach them

(24:51):
everything I've commanded.
And so that means that when youget in conflict with somebody,
how would Jesus have handledthis from a biblical perspective
?
How are we taught?
And so you want to lead them todo as much of the work as they
can on their own as believers.
And, by the way, that usuallyuncovers someone's understanding
of scriptural principles.
You know, I didn't know thatwas a thing.

(25:13):
Or you know, I didn't know thatfear was running into this, so,
um, but we tell them when theycome, we ask those questions and
then we'll let them know.
Okay, so we're going to go onsome fact finding.
So we want you to come into ameeting with us.
That meeting will last forabout an hour at the most.
We don't want to go anythingbeyond that and we're just going

(25:33):
to listen to you.
We want to hear your heart, wewant to know what happened to
you, we want to know all thecircumstances.
And then we're going to do thesame with the person one-on-one
that you're talking to.
We're going to invite them intoa meeting and we're going to do
the very same thing with them,and then we're going to compare
those stories and then,hopefully, work toward bringing
you all into the same room inanother context and then begin

(26:00):
to work on that together,prayerfully, biblically, and see
if we can't bring about somerestoration.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
So that's kind of a general setup of how we do that
and I I really admire theeldership model that southeast
kind of has and philosophy thatthey have.
Um, I remember reading a bookby bob rus Russell about
eldership in college.
I was like man, there aren't alot of books about being an
elder and you know, this isreally important.
So I love how deep rooted thatis in your guys' history as well

(26:25):
.
But I think so for youth pastorlistening to this and thinking
through like oh, I have avolunteer that you know we need
to confront some sin issue intheir life.
I have a student we need toconfront some sin issue in their
life.
I have a student that we needto confront some sin issue in
their life.
And I think a lot of studentpastors feel like oh, the buck
kind of stops with me, like I'mthe person that's supposed to

(26:47):
have this conversation and Idon't want to put words in your
mouth.
So I'm posing this as aquestion.
I think Southeast would say,well, that's what elders are for
.
Like, invite those people intothe room because they want to be
part of that restorationprocess.
Is that accurate?

Speaker 3 (27:06):
It's accurate too, depending on the level of the
problem, if you will, becauseone of the things that we really
try to do here is at Southeast,is that we want our ministers
to be ministers, and oftentimeswhat happens is, if they think
that they can take some conflictthat's going on inside of their
ministry area and they can justget an elder to jump in, well,

(27:28):
that removes them from theequation and they're able to say
, yeah, those guys will handlethat.
I'm going to go on and dowhatever, fill in the blank,
your ministry is, but the truthof the matter is is that we're
all shepherds, and shepherdshave to deal with sheep that are
sometimes hard to deal with.
So you can't shy away from this.
So what we try to do is get ourpastoral staff, our ministry

(27:51):
staff, to step into thosesituations as deeply as they
possibly can before they engagean elder.
Now, an elder may be on theoutside coaching them, but we
want them to take it as far asthey can.
And then in that relationship,or in that, you know, mentoring,
mentee sort of relationship, itbecomes really obvious when it

(28:12):
needs to really rise to a wholedifferent level, if that makes
sense.
And so in doing so then we'rereally hopeful that we're
helping our pastors and ministryleaders to be shepherds,
because that's ultimately whatthey answered the call for.
So then it gets put into theelders.

(28:33):
But, to be sure, the eldersoversee all of that.
So when we know that it's notunusual, there's not hardly a
week that goes by that I don'tget a call from a staffer and
say hey, I got a situation.
I'm you know.
Here's how I think I'm going tohandle it.
What do you think about that?
That's kind of what part of mystaff role is now is being
executive pastor on the leadteam and is my job.

(28:55):
Is job is to try to help, uh,you know, coach them through
those situations.
I get those calls all the time.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah.
So it's funny, I, I feel likewe're not even in the room yet.
We're just, you know, we're,we're, we're not even there yet.
We've just made a couple ofphone calls and we're trying to
get things set up, which isgreat, um, and I, I have one
more question before we can kindof like move into the room, so
to speak, which is you call.

(29:22):
So somebody comes to you, tim,and says, hey, uh, there's
another guy in a leadershipposition here at at at Southeast
, and he's flirting with my wife, he's being inappropriate with
my wife, it's offensive to me,it shouldn't happen at the
church.
Uh, we need to, we need to talkabout this.

(29:44):
Um, so you're going to do yourfact finding thing with with
that man, or with that couple,maybe even, and then you're also
going to, at point, confrontthis, this other guy, and do
kind of a fact-finding.
Hey, what's your side of thestory?
Tell me what's going on whenyou call that person, the, the

(30:09):
person who has been accused ofwhatever, whatever it may be, um
, how do you, how do you addressthat situation in a way that
doesn't just cause them to gookay, I'm going to leave, I'm
going to go find another churchin town.
You know what I mean.
If they don't want to have thatconversation, I feel like a lot

(30:32):
of people might just go.
I'm not going to deal with this.
There's a church right down theroad I can go to, yeah, and it
go to, yeah, and it does happen,absolutely, that happens.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Can't control that all the time, that's for sure.
Because you got to, you got toremember.
Well, this is when it reallygets gets really hard.
This, this man, this gets intoso many of your different church
philosophies and all those.
You know.
Types of things for sure, typesof things for sure.
But I can speak specifically aselders.

(31:00):
Part of our job is to guardthis flock from wolves.
It's okay.
It's okay If somebody isactually being a predator and I
use that word, it's probably toostrong of a word but if
somebody even is just beginningto put pressure on people to do
something that might lead theminto sin, our job as elders is

(31:23):
to ensure that we're keeping asafe environment where people
can be free to flourish in theLord within the context of our
church.
And that means occasionally thatpeople will come in and they
will not submit to the eldershipand therefore they, either by
their choosing or in rare, rarecases, we ask them not to come
back now.

(31:44):
I think another thing that'sreally important here is is that
this is where membership in thebody of christ really becomes
important, like it's an examplethe elders really only have
quote you know, some form ofspiritual authority over those
that have chosen to make thistheir place of their spiritual

(32:05):
worship, and you know we callthat membership.
When they become members ofchurch, then they even in our
statement of faith, they evensay they recognize that the
elders are the authorities ofthis church, because we're an
independent Christian church,non-denominational, and so that
being the case, then whatthey're saying is that we will
submit to the leadership of theauthority of this local body.

(32:28):
That's what gives us theability to call someone and say
hey, you know, you're a memberof this church and you've got
this.
Somebody has lodged a littlebit of a grievance against you,
so we want to talk to you aboutthat and find out what your side
of that story is.
The way you start thoseconversations is really
important.
But yes, brad, get back to theoriginal point.

(32:48):
There are times that they sayyeah, no, I'm not into that, I'm
out, you know, okay.
Well, if they're a member, wetry our very best to figure out
how to keep that from happeningor to find out what's really
going on.
But if they're not a member,then there's really a limited
amount of responsibility that wehave to go do that.
Our job is to protect thosethat are part of our church.

(33:11):
If you will and, by the way, Irecognize the danger of that
statement you can tear thatapart any way you want to, and
all that, but I'm prayerful thatpeople will be keeping it in
the context of the local body.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Sure Well, I think it's actually really interesting
because a lot of churches aremoving away from the idea of
membership altogether.
Altogether, I'm very, veryinvolved at my church and I
don't know that I've ever, youknow, done anything to like

(33:47):
officially become a member inany kind of formal or informal
way.
Besides that, I serve there andif somebody you know I have a
good relationship with my church.
If one of my elders called meand said, hey, somebody, you
made somebody uncomfortable andwe need to talk, I would talk to
them.
You know I'm I trust them andand you know there's that, but I
I wonder how much harder yourjob would become if Southeast

(34:11):
didn't have any kind of likeformal membership process.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, and I'm very familiar with churches that that
you know, do not have formalmembership, but they do have
what I would call informalmembership.
Whether they call that or not,you know, whether it's just, I
identify with this church, it'swhere I worship and in doing so
they still take them throughdiscipleship classes that teach
them how the church runs andthey do all those things and let
them know.
If you call this your churchhome, then we're going to treat

(34:36):
you, you know, as a, you know asa member of our body and
therefore here's how we're goingto treat you.
So you know again, I appreciateyou saying that because it
takes away the legalism side ofthis thing.
Oh, just because I signed apiece of paper means that I have
to do this Now.
These are heart issues.
So whether you or not sign upfor membership is not really
really the point, so much as howyou identify with our body, you

(34:57):
know.
So I think that is a reallyimportant thing that we have to
delineate.
It's a hard posture.
You said that, well, that's yoursituation, so we would still,
you would willingly submit tothe authority of our church
because you recognize, as elders, this is our responsibility to
this local flock.
So, yeah, as a believingChristian that's a disciple and

(35:19):
wanting to grow in the faith andunderstand how God sets up
authority for protection and forproliferation, then yeah, you
would submit to that.
So that's really really goodand a great example.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
This is just a point of sheer curiosity, and I don't
even know if you'll have anumber on the top of your head,
but what do you know like whatpercentage of people you would
say are versus are not willingto kind of engage in this
process when you do make thatphone call?

Speaker 3 (35:47):
It's a pretty high percentage that are yeah, so
that's been.
That is really reallyencouraging.
Now what happens when you getin the process is is oftentimes
where there can be some fallout.
But the people that when wecall them, make that initial
call and we tell them what we'reafter and say would you be
willing to meet with us?
That percentage is really high.

Speaker 1 (36:07):
Okay, well, that's good, that's great.

Speaker 3 (36:10):
And, by the way, before an elder makes that phone
call, we try our very best tofind out where that person is
plugged in and we try to findthat leader.
That helps soften the phonecall.
Like, as an example, if we knewsomething was going on in a
youth ministry someplace.
We're going to call one of ourhigh school ministry leaders or
middle school ministry leadersand we're going to say, hey, do
you know so-and-so?
Oh, yeah, a great volunteer inour ministry.

(36:30):
Okay, listen, I need to have aconfidential conversation with
you because that person has beenaccused of something that we're
going to have to talk about.
So you kind of walk through itand then find out were you aware
of that?
And you know that ministryleader might say yes or no, and
oftentimes they say yes becauseour ministry leaders do it.
And this is an insight that Iwould give to any of these youth

(36:53):
pastors Relational connectivity, long before any problem is
caused, absolutely makes thisprocess work.
So you can never take forgranted the relational equity
you build every time you sitdown with one of your leaders or
one of the people involved inyour ministry.
You're actually you know,you're actually building toward
a better future when conflictinevitably occurs and you're

(37:14):
building trust.
So that's a real importantpiece.
So we go to that ministryleader and say you know, hey,
are you aware?
And they might say, yes, I'maware of that and here's what
we've done so far.
Oh great, didn't know you wereinvolved, hey.
So it's gotten to this levelnow Would you mind calling that
person and say, hey, listen, theelders are now aware of that

(37:41):
and a couple of them would loveto sit down.
They want to hear your story,because without hearing your
story, somebody else is outthere telling the story and it
could be end up getting worse.
And our goal and our role hereis is that we want to restore,
we want you guys to be able towalk in fellowship together.

Speaker 1 (37:48):
Would you be willing to sit down with me and with the
elders and and man that reallyhelps sure, rather than getting
a phone call from some guy who'syou don't know them at all and
you know, and kind of going,yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
I also think it's really important.
It's real easy to sit there andsort of put yourself in this
position and think, well, yeah,man, these elders, they're
sitting there as judge and juryand that kind of thing.
That is not.
That's why we call itrestoration.
That's not what we're after.

Speaker 1 (38:19):
Well, I kind of was wondering like how often you
personally, or Southeast as anorganization, just gets kind of
accused of being nosy and andturning over rocks that they
shouldn't be turning over andand that kind of thing, because
I'm sure that there are thingsthat are needing to be addressed

(38:40):
that you perceive need to beaddressed, because they do need
to be addressed, but the personinvolved is saying why in the
heck is the church bothering meabout this?
You know that kind of thing.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Yeah, that happens all the time, brad, and why?
You know?
Because when you're talkingwith somebody, it's usually in a
situation that they don't wantanybody to know.
It's private, it's personal,it's something that would you go
put it on a billboard someplace.
Hey look, I've been accused.
No, and they think thatsomebody else is painting them
in a terrible light within theirown church.

(39:15):
I've got a situation that'sgoing on right now that I'm one
step removed, because I knowboth parties that are involved
in this thing and one of theparties is absolutely convinced
that the other party aggrievedthem greatly and has gone to
elders and has pleaded his case,and now all the elders are
against this other personbecause the other person has
relational equity and, frankly,nothing could be further from

(39:38):
the truth than that.
But that narrative is alreadydeeply embedded in that
brother's head.
So it happens all the time.
But you know what, as leaders inthe church, I don't care what
your role is as a leader, butyou are a leader in the church.
It is part of yourresponsibility.
We are trying to be asbiblically accurate and as

(40:00):
biblically obedient as we can,because it's the Lord's
reputation that we're upholdinghere.
It's not mine, right, it's notmine.
Now, what that requires is theability for me as an elder, when
I step into these cases, or asa Christian leader, is the
ability to say oh man, I waswrong about that.
And because you know we caneasily be drawn into that,

(40:23):
Remember, let those among youwho are spiritual restore them
generally, but be careful unlessyou fall into the same trap.
So this whole thing is donewith a tremendous amount of
caution that we are checking ourhearts all the time too, and as
soon as we realize, oh, we werea little harsh Like, as an
example, I had one not too longago where it was a dispute
between a man and a woman andthe man was abusive to the woman
and as part of what we weretrying to do to bring peace and

(40:46):
safety and all of those things,we asked the man to not attend a
particular campus.
We told him you can attend anyother campus but don't attend
this one, because if you do, shemight come and she's afraid of
you and we don't want her to beafraid.
Well, one day he called andsaid hey, I've got a friend that
has asked me to come and be apart of a class you know, to do

(41:08):
some special presentation, can Icome?
And we said, absolutely you cancome.
For just that class, that onetime blah, blah, blah.
Well, for just that class, thatone time.
Blah, blah, blah.
Well, that created a really badsituation with the woman who
felt afraid.
I mean really bad.
So she texted me and said Ican't believe you did that,
because now I don't even feelsafe to come to church with my

(41:29):
family and all these things.
And, brother, she was right.
She was right.
I did not uphold what I feltlike you know in retrospect I
should have upheld as an elderto protect a member of my flock,
and so that led to a couple ofother meetings and I think we're
good, but I felt awful.
But that's the point is to beable to have enough humility to

(41:50):
even recognize when we makemistakes, which then I think
also helps them to see oursincerity with wanting to bring
restoration is holistic.
You know, all of us need towalk in harmony with one another
as best as possible.
In Romans 12, where it says inas much as is possible, live at
peace with everyone all the time.
And that's in the middle of ahorrible conflicting situation,

(42:13):
right?
So that's a big piece of thepuzzle as well Be humble.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
Gosh, I feel like everything you say.
I want to dive off on a tangent, but I've got to.
I've got to keep myself focusedhere.
We got to.
I just realized we've alreadybeen talking for like 40 minutes
.
So you know, we got, we gotstuff, we got to get through
here.

Speaker 3 (42:35):
I'll try to keep it.

Speaker 1 (42:37):
No, no, no, it's not you, it's.
I keep asking questions, umwhich?
So let's say that you're kindof in this process with somebody
and this person maybe they're astaff member and I don't know
what your guys process is there.

(42:57):
Maybe there is there some typeof like administrative leave
that a person can be put onwhile we kind of like figure
this out.
Is that a thing that you guyswould do?
Or yeah, it is.
And the reason I ask is becauseI do feel like youth pastor

(43:18):
might have a young lady in hisyouth group who sings on stage
and is involved in whatever way,and okay, we've learned that
this thing is going on and weneed to probably not have you
singing on stage leading worshipuntil we get this figured out.
And I want to know at whatpoint maybe everything is going

(43:45):
great.
Obviously, restoration rarelyis a straight line.
There are ups and downs, weknow that, but maybe generally
this is moving up and to theright and we feel good about it.
At what point do you, as aneldership, start to say, okay,
maybe this person can begin towork their way back into some of
the service opportunities or,if they're a staff person, maybe

(44:09):
this person can go back to workduring the week and that kind
of thing.
What do you need to see inorder for that to happen?

Speaker 3 (44:16):
No case to case dependent.
That is a very difficultquestion, and it is one that we
wrestle with all the time?
Not at all, you know, becauseone of the things that man, this
relationship business, brad,it's tough, isn't it?
Yeah, I mean it's hard.
So because one of the thingsthat we all want as Christians
is would somebody please justtell me the boxes to check so I

(44:39):
can see what progress that I'mmaking.
And the fact of the matter is,I'm sorry, it just doesn't work
that way, and it's very muchHoly Spirit driven by prayer.
You know, I think I failed tosay early on, man this whole
process starts and ends withprayer in between.
And when I say prayer, you gotto remember in James 5, when

(45:00):
we're talking about prayer, it'sthe fervent prayer of righteous
men and women that avails much,that causes things to happen.
Fervency is a big deal, man.
It's not an arrow prayer thatsays oh God, I'm walking into
this meeting, help me, give mewisdom.
Do that if you don't doanything for sure.
But the truth is, you wrestlewith it in your prayer time.

(45:21):
You search the scriptures inthese situations, because that's
kind of what we're called to,if you will.
Now, having said that, we can govery deep on all of these
topics, like you just said.
So where are they on thatlinear progression of oh,
everything's great, now it's notlinear?
Never is.
You said that and it'sabsolutely true.

(45:41):
There's so many things that youhave to take into account.
You know what was the issue inthe first place?
How widespread was that issue?
But I'm going to tell you thenumber one issue Are they humble
If it's a person that's singingon the stage and let's just use
that as an example, becauseit's a really, really good one
If the stage isn't there, whereis that person's heart with the

(46:03):
Lord?
If the stage isn't there, whereis that person's heart with the
Lord?
Where are they in relationshipwith their youth ministry?
Stage isn't there.
Where are they in relationshipwith their church?
Because if they feel like that,their stage has been robbed and
now that ruins all of theirrelationships.
I just wonder what the motiveis.
Now, I know who I'm talking to,yeah, but we're talking about

(46:26):
teenagers.
I mean, come on, do they evenknow?
I mean, we all know as guys,the frontal lobe isn't even
connected or whatever.
Until you're what?
62 years old now, I think, isthe latest.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
You're almost there.
I got a long way to go.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
Yeah, but you know how that goes, so I don't know.
So there's a certain amount ofthat.
To where you go, yeah, they aregoing to be prideful and all
those types of things.
Well, these opportunities areopportunities for us to be able
to deepen them without accusingthem.
It's really a question of theirheart.
I recently read a great bookthat we, as elders, now are

(47:03):
starting to figure out how toincorporate.
To answer the very question youjust asked, the book is called
Trust by Dr Henry Cloud, andmost people that know Dr Cloud
know that this guy is justbrilliant when it comes to these
types of things.
Well, one of the things that hedoes is he walks through this
entire book.
In fact, we as elders arestudying it together right now.

(47:23):
We just had our firstdiscussion on it yesterday
morning.
We'll have a second one nextweek, and the reason is because,
when you have to walk intothese restoration cases, trust
has been breached.
At the end of the day, that'skind of one of the fundamental
issues that causes the need forrestoration.
So this book walks you all theway through the process of how
is trust gained, how is it lost,how do people perceive, what

(47:43):
are all the different nuancesand what's happening deep inside
of you when that happens.
At the end of the book, drCloud gives in fact, he gives
these many steps of regainingtrust, and at the end of the
book, he gives like 11 stepsthat show that someone's making
progress.
So when we saw this and we sawit in the book, we went oh my
goodness.

(48:04):
In fact, one of the subheadings is 11 indicators of
true change.
Is somebody really changing?
And that's what you're lookingfor.
I'm looking for trajectory, I'mnot looking for perfection.
And so the question is how arethey doing?
Coming alongside, are theycontinuing to meet with me?
Oftentimes, I'll tell somebodyhey, before we restore you, like
, I've done this a couple ofcases I've said hey, you know

(48:25):
what?
Here's what I want to do.
I want to take two years beforewe put you back in your
position.
Well, it sounds like ashockingly long amount of time.
It could be, I don't know.
And, by the way, I've only donethis a couple of times.
I've done it shorter at othertimes.
And what I'll tell them is I'llmake a commitment.
I'll say to them and duringthose two years, here's what I
want to do I'm going to meetwith you at least quarterly,

(48:47):
just me and you, and I want tofind out how you're doing and
let's have a conversation aboutthat.
And I have found that really ishelpful to people.
And the people that are reallyserious about wanting to be
right before the Lord, rightwith the person that they maybe
have been in conflict with, andright with the church, they'll
do it, they'll absolutely do it.

(49:09):
And the people that are like,ah, it seems unfair and that
kind of thing, well, great, okay, well, maybe, and I'll tell,
well, maybe it won't take twoyears, so why don't we just
start?
Let's just start meeting on aregular and and and when I
demonstrate to them that I lovethem.
You may have even done somethingterribly wrong, but that has no
bearing in terms of whether ornot I should love you now.

(49:31):
It may have bearing us in termsof whether or not I should love
you now.
It may have bearing us in termsof whether or not I get to we
get to play in the same sandboxany together but it doesn't have
any bearing on what myresponsibility as a christian is
to love someone.
You know, brad, most of thetime we live in the fields,
right, like when we say I loveyou.
We're expecting that to be someemotional reaction, what we all

(49:52):
know as Christians, that's notwhat love is.
Love is defined in 1Corinthians 13 for us, and the
very first attribute of love isit's patient.
That doesn't feel any good tome at all, so I'm already taken
out of my feels.
Love's not easily angered.
Now, that's an emotion, butit's an anti-emotion.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Right.

Speaker 3 (50:13):
Right.
So you kind of walk throughthat and when I show a level of
commitment and, by the way, Ihave to pray through these
things, sometimes I'm not veryhappy with these folks, but you
got to pray through it and say,god, I want to love them the way
that you want to love them, howwould I do that?
Well, be patient to them, bekind to them, that that's really

(50:33):
what I'm in it for.
Then God does the work.
Right, and you said this aminute ago I'm not the one that
I'm not even the one that reallybrings about restoration.
I hope I'm an agent ofrestoration, but it's their
heart, interacting with Godthrough the Holy Spirit, through
the power of his word, thatactually brings about
restoration, which brings up.

(50:54):
The ultimate point of this isyou can't restore someone if
you're not acting in accordancewith the word of God.
So before you even enter intoone of these relationships, you
got to ask yourself a questionDo I know God's word well enough
to be able to help walk someonethrough from where they are to

(51:15):
where they need to be?
Can I do that with somebiblical guidelines, right?
So that's a really, reallyimportant piece as well.
So when do they ultimately getput back in their position.
What's their trajectory?
How are they doing withhumility?
Have they demonstrated awillingness to understand and
sit in the seat of the one thatthey might've wronged and
empathize with them?
Or have they actually startedto say, man, I wish I'd have

(51:35):
done this different?
Here's how.
Whatever those things are, butanyway, in Dr Cloud's book,
those 11 steps really have beenhelpful in giving us some
guidelines on what to look forbefore we put someone back into
a position.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, that's really good stuff.
I had to read, got to read acouple of his books in college
and it's, yeah, incredible stuff, incredible guy.
I'm glad to hear that you guysare reading through that.
I haven't not read that one,but I've seen it and I think
you've inspired.
Start to wind down here.

(52:09):
I got to begin to tie up someof the loose ends of my own
brain.
So I want to talk really quickabout the longer term follow-up.
If everything goes swimmingly,you know if this has been just a
really good situation, if theperson you know is willing to

(52:35):
meet with you is demonstratinghumility, if they've begun the
process of reconciling arelationship that they may have
hurt, things are going reallywell.
Is there an end of this journey?
It would be kind of my firstquestion.
And then how does that eitherwrap up or how does it continue

(52:58):
to move on from there?

Speaker 3 (53:11):
be honest with you.
I don't, I don't know how youdraw a hard line on that.
We've got some that are.
I've got one with a family thatis, um, estranged from their
daughter that is now four yearsold, and we've we've moved the
needle, but barely, but we'rehanging in there, um, so it
depends.
And there are others like, uh,if somebody comes and says, well
, this person wronged me and, uh, owes me money, and then

(53:32):
there's restitution made and,okay, end of the matter.
And then when there is an endof the matter and it's easy,
because it's somewhat measurable, if you will, and the
relationship has been restoredand they've hugged it out, or
whatever the case may be, thenbut yeah, you know, as the
people that are leading itthrough restoration, you do have
to kind of let them know.
Hey, guys, man, thanks, youguys have done a great job.
And so I think we're finished.

(53:52):
You know, I think we'refinished, but I want you to know
we're available if anything,you know, kind of pops up.
So, yes, there can be an end.
And then sometimes there's not.
And again, you know, brad, oneof the things and this is one of
the things that again weobviously not only do we not
have time to go into it, but itwouldn't be appropriate.
We're not lawyers, we're notlegal people, but youth

(54:22):
ministers get involved in somethings that are pretty dicey
when it comes to the legalitiesand what are the reporting
requirements and all thosethings.
And, man, once you start tobring in legalities, it really
messes up the relationships bigtime, because now we've just
transferred, rightfully by theway, under certain circumstances
, transferred rightfully by theway, under certain circumstances
, but sometimes, you know, youstart to transfer the authority
and responsibility over to thelegal system to the degree that
we have to do.
That is the degree that we'rewalking away from some spiritual
authority that we might have inthat situation, if that makes

(54:44):
sense.
So, but again, let me be very,very clear in certain cases you
have to report and you have totransfer that.
That is the right thing to do.
Someone has violated the law ofthe land and it must be for the
protection of all to do that.
But as you do that, you realize,of course, that you can't
always have a kumbaya finishwhen it comes to that kind of a

(55:06):
thing.
So and those things becomeongoing and some people just get
tired and they quit even coming, yeah, and and those things
become ongoing and boy, and someof them, people just get tired
and they quit even coming.
Yeah, no, we've had enoughmeetings, we're done.
And then some of them justdon't end well.
And when they don't end well,our responsibility is to say
okay, then how do I keep thesheep of the flock, uh, moving

(55:26):
in the same direction, even ifthese two sheep can't
matriculate together anymore?

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Sure, you know, even if these two sheep can't
matriculate together anymore.
Sure, you know?
Yeah, all right, I want to.
I want to wrap up.
I want to give you a chance to,to kind of encourage our
listeners for a second, and theencouragement that I or maybe I
should say the way that you'vechallenged me is I think

(55:52):
everybody has a threshold thatis somewhere for what they are
willing to address when it comesto sin and broken relationships
, like things can get bad enoughfor anybody to feel like they
have to get involved in acertain situation.

(56:13):
I feel like for most youthpastors that threshold is
probably too high, based on someof the things that I'm hearing
you say.
So I kind of want to just giveyou a chance to encourage youth
pastors to have a plan in placefor this and you started off at

(56:36):
the beginning of ourconversation talking about it
beautifully, but I want to giveyou a chance to kind of wrap up
in the same way with what's atstake here and why is it
important for us to have a planin place to address some of
these issues, even if it's notsomething that maybe we perceive
would be worth our time toengage in.

Speaker 3 (56:57):
Yeah, Thanks for that man I'm going to tell you.
Look, Brad, I was called intothe ministry 25 years before I
ever drew a paycheck from achurch.
Okay, the rest of it waslearning.
The rest of it was just lifeand figuring out how do I live
my life biblically.
My wife and I actually started,when we first got married, as
very high-level youth workers inour church and we did that

(57:20):
youth ministry for six and ahalf years.
And I'm going to tell you one ofthe things that really excites
me about youth pastors is thisyou have to recognize what's at
stake is we all know this from ageneral sense generations to
come.
It's real simple to me, Becauseone of the things that I learned
when I was doing youth ministrywas we would have these
wonderful spiritual events andkids would take these giant

(57:42):
leaps of faith and then he wouldgo home to parents that didn't
believe quite as deeply and asstrongly as they did and parents
that were beat down by theworld, didn't know how to
biblically interact theyprobably didn't even have a
prayer life and those parentswould come to church on the
weekends and they would act holyand then they would cuss their
kids out on the way home, orwhatever the case may be.
I was so frustrated by thatbecause I didn't understand why

(58:03):
everybody couldn't be justtotally committed to the Lord
and just live that way.
But my mentor was a youthpastor who was just amazing to
me, and one of the things that Ilearned through him and through
his wife and my wife did aswell was this was that man,
guess what, If we can rescue thenext generation before they get
into, before they get marriedand start having kids themselves

(58:25):
, and we can start training themup to love God with their whole
heart before they're encumberedby a relationship that's going
to try to take them off thecourse and then start having
kids, and those rascally kids,man, they will take you off.
Anyway, I don't want to get offon that.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
So you had 12 of them .

Speaker 3 (58:48):
Yeah, but if you're seeking the Lord wholeheartedly
yourself, then you can set upthe next generation to be able
to enter into that same type ofrelationship with the Lord.
And then, when they marrysomeone who has that same
passion, look at what happens tothat next generation.
Conflict is inevitable and theenemy is always trying to steal
us away.
And what these youth ministersare doing is they're entering
into the lives of these kids atvolatile points who, most of

(59:10):
which, don't have homes that wewould hope that they would have,
and they have the opportunityto set that trajectory in motion
so that the gospel can go outinto all the ends of the earth.
I believe it that strongly.
Here at Southeast, our visionstatement is that we want to

(59:30):
unleash the full force of thechurch to love people one at a
time.
And I want to circle this oneat a time thing okay, because
it's real easy to look at youryouth group and count sheep oh,
how many sheep are in your herd?
We all do that kind of thing,right?
But the truth is, is the wayyou grow your herd is one sheep
at a time?
Grow your herd as one sheep ata time and as a youth minister

(59:58):
to be able to dive into the lifeof a child who's confused and
hurting and being bombarded byall these things, and to be able
to shine the light of thegospel so that it can do its
work inside of someone's heart.
It's like an atomic bomb thatcan be set off, that can spread.
You know, wherever the workthat our youth people are doing,
our next-gen leaders are doing,cannot have a value placed on
it enough, right?
But I will say this First ofall, conflict's inevitable.

(01:00:20):
Just measure your own life.
We all know that right, and tothe degree that you have learned
biblically how to handleconflict within your own heart,
between you and the Lord, youknow, when David was accused,
accused, was confronted byNathan, you know, and, and
because of what happened withBathsheba and Uriah, and what
did, what was David's firstresponse?
He went face down before theLord.

(01:00:42):
He said God, against you andyou alone, have I sinned?
He didn't even talk aboutBathsheba or Uriah.
He talked about he had violatedthe ways of God.
So, hey, youth pastors, that'sus man, you know.
Are we standing before God tobe able to say God, these sinful
things that are in my own heartagainst you have I sinned?
Because once we're able to cometo grips with that and then

(01:01:04):
live in the grace of the LordJesus Christ and the power of
the Holy Spirit.
We get to give that to otherpeople and we do it from a basis
of experience and knowledge andwisdom that can only come from
god in the work.
And once we're able to do that,man, and we can really spread
it.
So my encouragement is conflictis inevitable.
How are you doing with it?
Because to the degree thatyou're dealing with it okay in
your heart and with others, youcan be able to pass that on to

(01:01:27):
other people.
You asked me to the verybeginning of this why is this
kind of a passion point for me?
Because I believe God's taughtme by being drugged through so
many high-level conflictspersonally in my life.
Brother, on the other side ofthis thing is beauty, is beauty
in relationship.
Now, you know it's still hard,but there's still beauty in that

(01:01:48):
relationship.
So I don't know if I was ableto articulate that in a concise
enough way for you.
But, man, but I'm telling you,you've been called.
You have been called by GodAlmighty to lead a generation,
and that is not a small thingand I'm not making it bigger
than it is, but it is what it is.
So that's why we're doing this.
Man, let's go, let's take them.

(01:02:09):
By the way, last thing I'll sayis you said I've got 12
children and I was veryskeptical to send my children to
youth group because most youthministers back in the day were
in it for themselves and whatthey were really trying to do is
they were trying to say, lookat my youth group, and they were
trying to grab these kids tocome into their youth group so
they could be known as a greatyouth minister Until.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
I met Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
Reagan, and Matt Reagan was our youth leader here
at this church and, man, I getemotional about this because I'm
telling you that brotherchanged the trajectory of my
children's lives.
I thought I was doing a prettygood job as a dad but, brother,
you need other people speakinginto the lives of your children
and brought matt reagan over tomy house when he first came on

(01:02:56):
staff here at southeast and Isaid, man, I don't want to send
my kids to some toothpasteswallowing, fun youth group
thing to where all they do iscome and have a party and do
gross things.
I'm sorry to put it down to thebasis thing, but that's kind of
what we talked about.
Matt reagan looked at me and hesaid man, creation waits, I'm
trying to unleash lions on thisworld.

(01:03:16):
And I fell in love with him andhe was true to his word and I
have.
I think all 12 of my childrenhave been impacted by that one
youth leader's life and if wehad time, brad, I'd take you
through every single one of mykids, all 12 of them.
My youngest is 16, my oldest is36.
Every single one of my kids.

(01:03:38):
At this point in time they hada great mama.
Let me just say that isinvolved in one way or the other
in the ministry today, and I amforever grateful to my friend
Matt Reagan, because he haschanged the trajectory of my
children's lives.
He partnered with me and mywife to do that.
By the way, we've had conflicts.

(01:03:59):
Matt and I have had conflicts.
We're good friends, but wenavigate through those.
Why, for the greater glory ofGod, I've got to stop there, bro
?
Because I can go on all dayabout that.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
No, I mean, we love Matt.
I'm thankful for Matt that Iget to do ministry with one of
your 12 children, with 8% ofyour children, but he is a
really, really good dude andyeah, I mean I couldn't say it

(01:04:31):
any better if if I wanted to.
You know, that is the stakes isthat every youth pastor gets
the opportunity to do that.
Um, if they'll step into it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:40):
So that's what I think.
I think we could reasonably saythat Matt Reagan is ultimately
the reason why we're having thisepisode right now.
Um, cause you know, I probably,uh, wouldn't be here for Brad
to say, hey, let's have your dadon the podcast that's for sure,
man isn't that?

Speaker 3 (01:05:00):
amazing.
One guy, one guy that'sincredible anyway.
So one young lady it can be aman says let's go.
I think I'm going to go backinto youth ministry after this.

Speaker 1 (01:05:11):
Let's go you could do it.
You'd be the best of the best.
Let's go.
I think I'm going to go backinto youth ministry after this.
Let's go, you can do it.
You'd be the best of the best.
Tim, I am very, very gratefulfor this conversation, really
appreciate your wisdom.
Yeah, it was really cool havingyou on and you gave me a lot to
chew on, so I'm hopeful andprayerful that it gave our
listeners a lot to chew on aswell.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
We appreciate you, man.
Yeah, and I love that beardedguy you got sitting there with
you.
By the way, I can't help it,but you know.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
I hope you're encouraged by that conversation,
even if only right at the endthere, just knowing the impact
that a student pastor can havein the lives of students.
Tim was describing his, hiskid's journey and the role that
a youth pastor played in thatjourney.
Similar to my story, I wouldsay, and hopefully similar to

(01:06:01):
the stories of some of the youthwho come in and out of the
doors of your church every weekas well.
So, but also, man, what a greatchallenge to just be willing to
biblically and gently restorepeople.
Maybe we're tempted to be tooharsh in those situations, maybe

(01:06:22):
we're tempted to ignore thosesituations.
But Tim's challenge to me wasto do the hard work of finding
where the Spirit is leading inthose situations and bring about
the restoration that is leadingin those situations and bring
about the restoration that Goddesires in their lives and
that's going to be best for themand their relationship with
Jesus and with his church.
So I'm going to go ahead andread our blessing and then not

(01:06:43):
make any promises about what'shappening in two weeks.
May God show you grace andbless you.
May he make his face shine onyou.
May you experience the love ofChrist, through whom God gives
you fullness of life.
May you be strengthened by hispower.
May Christ himself make hishome in your heart, that you
would be full of his love andgrace and that those you serve
would see Jesus in you.

(01:07:04):
Today's episode was produced byMichael Hester, lauren Bryan
and myself.
I want to give a huge shout outand thank you to Tim Hester
from Southeast Christian Church,tim Hester, sire of Michael
Hester, for being here today andsharing from his wisdom of

(01:07:25):
years of experience.
We're going to be back in acouple weeks.
I don't know what we're doingin a couple weeks, not going to
make any promises, like I said,but we'll be here.
So be sure to subscribe to ourshow wherever you listen to
podcasts or on YouTube.
In the meantime, you can reachout to us on the CYY community
Facebook group or by email atpodcastcyycom.
We'll see you next time.
Thank you.