June 17, 2025 • 32 mins
Cory Thrall grew up in Bismarck before moving to McPherson, Kansas to pursue an undergraduate degree in Pastoral Ministry. After graduating from Central Christian College, Cory and his wife moved to Olathe, KS, where he attended Nazarene Theological Seminary. While living in Olathe, he was the resident manager of the Salvation Army Family Shelter, a homeless shelter that kept families together. In 2002,they moved back to ND, moving to Grand Forks, where his wife worked on her PHD in AstroPhysics. In order to help aging parents, they moved back to Bismarck. They started attending Legacy UMC around 2008 and in 2010, Cory came on staff. In 2014, he was appointed to Washburn, Turtle Lake and Center UMC churches and in 2016 Hazen and Beulah were added.
After COVID, he was appointed back to Bismarck as a church planter. Cory planted a church called Mission Bismarck. The focus of Mission Bismarck was to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those in the community who had little interest in church or the church had little interest in them. Mission Bismarck met at Comic Realms, a comic book store. Where there was a need in the community, Mission Bismarck and those who believe in showing Jesus’ love rather than talking about it, were there. In 2024, due to a quick change in the Dakota’s Conference staffing, Cory was appointed to Legacy UMC. His appointment to Legacy brings with it the connections and workings of Mission Bismarck. Legacy has embraced the immigrant and refugee population of our community. Legacy UMC has included creative ways to worship that are unconventional. Legacy is a place of welcome for all humans. Cory believes that God loves all humans and he hopes to lead Legacy to love like God loves.
After COVID, he was appointed back to Bismarck as a church planter. Cory planted a church called Mission Bismarck. The focus of Mission Bismarck was to be the hands and feet of Jesus to those in the community who had little interest in church or the church had little interest in them. Mission Bismarck met at Comic Realms, a comic book store. Where there was a need in the community, Mission Bismarck and those who believe in showing Jesus’ love rather than talking about it, were there. In 2024, due to a quick change in the Dakota’s Conference staffing, Cory was appointed to Legacy UMC. His appointment to Legacy brings with it the connections and workings of Mission Bismarck. Legacy has embraced the immigrant and refugee population of our community. Legacy UMC has included creative ways to worship that are unconventional. Legacy is a place of welcome for all humans. Cory believes that God loves all humans and he hopes to lead Legacy to love like God loves.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
Tia Jorgensen and Sergeana Woodski, both members of the City
of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us
as we highlight the individuals driving positive change in making
a lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress
and shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Our guest today is Corey Thurl. Corey grew up in Bismarck,
graduating from Century High School. Corey went to Bismarck Cday
College before moving to Kansas to pursue an undergraduate and
pastoral ministry. After graduating from Central Christian College, Corey and
his wife, Becky, moved to Canada, where he attended Nazarene
and Theological Seminary. While living there, he was a resident
(01:05):
manager at the Salvation Army Family Shelter, a homeless shelter
that kept families together. In two thousand and two, he
moved back to North Dakota, moving to Grand Forks where
his wife worked on her PhD. In astrophysics. In order
to help aging parents, they moved back to Bismarck. They
started attending Legacy UMC in two thousand and eight, and
(01:26):
in twenty ten Cory qemons staff. In twenty fourteen he
was appointed to Washburn, Turtle Lake, and Center UMC churches,
and in twenty sixteen Hazen and Beulah were added. After COVID,
he was appointed back to Bismarck as a church planter.
Corey planted a church called Mission Bismarck. The focus of
Mission Bismarck was to be the hands and feet of
(01:48):
Jesus to those in the community who had a little
interest in church or the church had little interest in them.
Mission Bismarck met at Comic Realms, a comic bookstore where
there was need in the community. Mission Bismarck and those
who believe in showing Jesus love rather than talking about it,
We're there. In twenty twenty four, due to a quick
(02:08):
change in Dakota conferencing staffing, Corey was appointed to Legacy UMC.
His appointment to Legacy brings with it the connections and
workings of Mission Bismarck. Legacy has embraced the immigrant and
refugee population of our community. Legacy has included creative ways
to worship that are unconventional. Legacy is a place of
(02:29):
welcome for all humans. Corey believes that God loves all
humans and he hopes to lead Legacy to love like
God loves. Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Corey, Thank you glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So Bismarck's been home to you for a while. What
are some of your favorite things about living in this area?
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Of the beauty of the area, the river. I'm always
attracted to water, so I love going down the river
and watch it flow, going for walks along the river.
It's just a beautiful area to be in to live.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
What are some of the things you like about doing
in Bismarck besides going by the river.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Oh, there is a lot of different cultural movements within Bismarck.
There's a great subculture of music and art within Bismarck,
and I love I'm always attracted to things that are
that are beautiful, so I'd love to go to the
Downtown Our Association and walk through the gallery and see
what's being created. I'd love to go to Rhythm Records
(03:25):
and listen to the different bands and concerts that happened there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Whether it's open.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Mic night where it's just people testing out their music,
or if it's longtime bands that have got some polished
to them. I enjoyed listening and hearing the breath of
creativity within Bismarck.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Great. What made you want to go then into the
study of pastoral ministry?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
It's a call gets Pastoral ministry is hard. It's I
can't remember what the author was, but an author had
once said that the role of a pastor and the
job of the pastor has the same stress level as
the president of the United States. So it's not anything
that you just want to get into because you have
an interest in it. It's something you have to be
called to, and I feel called to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was there some specific thing that happened that made you
feel like you were called.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Just in trying to find direction in life what to do?
Early on you graduate from high school. You have this
idea when you're a kid that you want to do something.
You want to be an astronaut, you want to drive
a garbage truck. Then as you get older, you're like,
what do I really want to do?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And just the.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
God's love through me made me want to share that
love with everybody and to reach out in love and
grace to everybody, and so that was part of what
drove me into ministry.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And how long did that take for you to get
the pastoral ministrat or gear degree or.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Oh the degree? So we go, we go to school
as long as medical doctors. So you've got undergraduate four
years and then seminary is between four and six years,
depending on the school you go to. So we go
a long time and get paid a fifth as much.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
What you're doing God's works.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So you just mentioned that that you had to go
for your undergrad and then you went into seminary, Like,
can you explain kind of that process? I think we
all kind of know what it takes to get an undergrad,
but then what is seminary like when you're attending that?
Speaker 5 (05:34):
So the seminary I went to was very focused on
theological concepts and understanding, so we spend a lot of
time understanding different scholars ideas of God. And explaining trying
to explain the best they can God, because it's actually
very difficult. We have faith, and we understand we have
(05:57):
faith in God, but that understanding is expanded when we
get into the minutia of the details of who God is.
And so you really do a deep dive. You drop
the plow deep and furrow deep to understand. And so
you spend a lot of time studying Bart and Moltmont
and all these other theologians that actually have no practical
(06:21):
use once you're in the ministry, but it gives you
an education and a solid foundation to draw from when
people ask questions.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So this might be a very dumb question. But then
is seminary, like does it matter if you are Lutheran Methodist?
Is seminary you just kind of for all areas of
that or are they individual?
Speaker 5 (06:44):
That's a great question depending on your theological background and
how you believe. So my background is Wesleyan and the
founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, the method of
Wesleyan movement. So Nazarene, United Methodist and other denominations have
that Wesleyan theological background. But if you have a different background,
(07:08):
say Calvin, then you want to go to a Baptist seminary.
You can if you have Wesleyan you go to a Baptist,
you're going to end up. You're going to learn a
lot about different beliefs, different belief systems. But it may
be uncomfortable if you're not secure in what you know.
So it's best to go and what the strain that
(07:28):
you believe in and build up your knowledge through that.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So when I was talking in your bio, it talked
about that your wife and you were the resident managers
at the Salvation Army. So that was a homeless shelter
where you guys live there.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So what were your general responsibilities as people who ran
the homeless shelter.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
The job when I first took it was just to
manage the facility at night, in other words, to make
sure that everybody was safe, nobody got riled up, and
to make sure that everyone had food and clothing and.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So on and so forth.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Because of God's call in my life, I transformed that
into a ministry. And actually after we left, they changed
the job from resident manager to on staff pastor, and
so I made friendships with each of the families that
were there, helped them to show God's love even though
they're in the situation that they're in, there's still value
(08:30):
as human beings that other people see them and that
God sees them and then walked through them with them
through the toughest time in their life. Some of them
had just come out of living out of cars, or
some of them have just one of the parents had
just gotten out of prison, and things were very difficult,
especially for the kids, and they responded to someone who
(08:54):
actually wanted to listen and care about them.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So was it like, was it just like you come
in that, you know, day or night, knowing you need
a place, or were they more like a little bit
more long term For the.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Families, there were more long term because it was part
of a program where they would help getting jobs set
up with.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
A new apartment.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
The goal was to move them from to help them
get from where they were and move them out of
homelessness if we could.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
It didn't always happen that way, but that was the goal.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So I forgot what I was going to ask about that. Now, Oh,
how many families or individuals did you guys have staying
there on a typical you know, typical week.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Sure, so you're familiar with the old school hotels along
the road. That was an L shaped and the resident
manager lived in the corner. That's exactly what that was.
It was an old hotel. We just fenced it off.
So I think there were fifteen rooms and we had
(10:00):
fifteen families in at a time in that corner where
the manager would live.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
That's where I lived, okay, And so.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
That each had their own like rooms. It wasn't like
all in the same big area or anything.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Individual individual rooms with their own bathrooms, so that families
could stay a solid unit without if they didn't want
to interact with the others, they didn't have to.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
How did did they get referred to the homeless shelter
like case managers or how did they end up living
in the homeless shelter?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Always to referral and we had on site during the day,
We had on site caseworkers who helped them through all
those different processes to come out of homelessness.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
What was the typical amount of time that someone would
live there?
Speaker 5 (10:41):
So I worked there quite a while and we had
very little turnover.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
It was difficult.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
It's difficult to move people from that because it's a
whole family. It's not just one person, it's a whole family.
You're trying to get into a stable situation. When we
did have turnover, it was u because of something negative.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So then what was it like living in the shelter
with the families and kind of what are some of
the things you took away from it?
Speaker 5 (11:12):
It was Some days were hard because you're dealing. You're
constantly walking into people's lives and all of the stuff
that's with it, and you volunteerive would voluntarily wade in
into that.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So that was difficult.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
But there are days when you see breakthroughs and you
see change and true joy in that.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
There was a young.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Boy who whose father was imprisoned, and he and his
mother were in the shelter and he was not responding
to anybody. The first day there, I walked out onto
the deck and they were introduced me to the.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Residence and he looked at me.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
The caseworker introduced me, He looked at me, and then
he bit my leg and that's how it started. But
as time went on, I learned some tricks from a
nurse on how to handle him, and I had to
restrain him, so I would have to grab his wrists
and pull him and hold him like this, sometimes for hours,
(12:17):
and that whole time I would talk in his ear,
I love you, God loves you, It's okay. By the
time that his time was done there, he was sad
to go because he didn't want to leave an adult
who actually listened to him and held him and cared
about him.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Do you think, you know, by by actually living there
and kind of being a part of that community, do
you think the individuals maybe saw that more as a
benefit than say, where it's just staff, you know, coming
and going for their shift. Like, I don't know, I guess,
(12:58):
like what would be some of the benefit it's for
that or do you think the families maybe felt a
little bit more comfortable because of it.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Agreed because I was there with them, I was choosing
to be there with them. They saw me as part
of their community to a certain extent because they knew
that I worked there and I wasn't truly homeless, but
I was there with them. I shared the same facility,
shared the same laundry facility, same we ate together, So
(13:25):
that gained more trust than someone who has just come
in for their job, punch out, go home, and then
maybe come back the next day.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So did you guys provide the meals to them or
was it like how did that work?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Then?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
For food, there were many kitchens in there, but on
Sundays the shelter, the shelter itself was in the parking
lot of the Salvation Army church. A lot of people
don't know that, but the Salvation Army is a church,
and so on Sundays we would all eat together in
the main in the main hall, and so there was
a chance to connect.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So can you we're going to switch topics a little bit.
Can you talk to us then about what it means
to be a church planter?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
That is a that is a broad ject, so that
in a in a nutshell, it means that you're given
the task of going to community and start being something
new and fresh.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
And there's a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
You can you can find there's the disgruntled way, I
call it. So what you do is you find a
bunch of people who are disgruntled with their current church
and start a new one. The problem is when you
do that, you've got a church full of disgruntled people.
Then that's how you start. The approach that I took,
was I because I was from Bismarck I had.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
I had a different view of it. I know the people,
I know the culture.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
So I went to the subcultures that that are within Bismarck,
to those areas where I knew was full of people
who are spiritual, who who see the community and want
to change it for the positive, but would never darken
the door of a church for whatever reason, for whatever reason,
And so that's where I went. That's the people that
(15:12):
I approached, and that's who I made friends with and
made connections and networking.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
And it made a difference because it didn't look anything
like a church.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Because it was held in a comic book story, a
comic book story. So how did that come about? What
moves like?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Did people get distracted and read comics?
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
What was that experience?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
So I became friends with Leslie, the owner of the
comic romes, and we just started. I would stop by,
we'd start a relationship and talk and tell her about
the mission of Mission Bismark and the why and the
how of it, and she said, I want to make
an impact for the community.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Just meet here.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
And she had a separate space off the side where
they would play games or have a book discussions. So
it became a natural spot to have this to have church, and.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So people would people would come to this the.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Time for worship, but more so it became as relationships grew.
When people got into trouble or they needed to talk,
or something tragic happened in their life, they didn't know
where to go and they're not going to go to
a church. But then they're, oh, well talk to Corey
because he'll listen and and he'll share. And so it
(16:32):
ended up a lot of people would come through the
door just from that because the group that was meeting
cared about others and loved others as they were.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So what was people's first reaction when you were telling
them were meeting in a comic bookstore?
Speaker 5 (16:50):
So because I gathered, because the group that was meeting
was organically from that fringe group, It's like, it's cool
and we're all in.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
They were all in.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
So what are some of your main responsibilities now as
the lead pastor at Legacy?
Speaker 5 (17:07):
So as a lead pastor now Legacy, it is to
it's a lot to guide direction with the church, to
make sure that the building is maintained. To I think,
more than anything, what I want my job to be.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Let's go with that.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I want the job to be is to angle Legacy
in its next phase of growth and development, which is
to turn it into something like com Mission Bismark. So
our culture has changed quite a bit, especially.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Since COVID a lot.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Most churches have lost thirty percent of their of the
people who go to church, and the.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Church needs to stop looking in all the time.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
And turn out and look at the community and work
within and love in the community. And so Legacy does
a really good job of that, but I want to
help them take the next step and really become a
part of the community. When I look at a church
like Legacy or any other church, the administration a church
needs to ask this question, who would it affect if
(18:17):
our door is closed? And if the answer is nobody,
then you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So then I had another question. It's just out of
my head again, but I've actually been up to Legacy
for a couple of events, and one of the ones is,
we know how supportive you are of the immigrant and
New American communities. How have you embraced them.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
It has been my philosophy from the very beginning that
the first people to welcome immigrants' refugees or in the
case of the Ukrainians prolleys, it should be the church.
Jesus set that example that we are to love everyone.
Jesus himself was a refugee when he was a child.
(19:07):
When Herod was after wanted to kill every child of
that age they went to Egypt.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
He was a refugee.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
He was fleeing for Indian his family fleeing for their life.
So we are called as Christians to embrace refugees and immigrants.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And I also think it really provides them that sense
of community that a lot of times if they just
moved in, whether it's to the United States or in
North Dakota, you know, they don't really have that sense
of community. So that's great that you guys really have
a focus on that.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
One of the other things that T and I when
we were researching read about was about the cooking classes
that you do. Can you talk about those cooking classes
and then how the items are purchased for those needed
classes as well.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
So the cooking class started specifically focusing on Ukraine community,
but it has been opened up to others to come to.
And what we were seeing was as the the Ukrainians
were coming to the Bismarck area. What we carry in
our grocery stores, especially seasonally in vegetables isn't the same
than what they're used to, so they were struggling with
(20:17):
what dishes to make, what could be when, what's popular locally.
So we have this two step plan in classes. One month,
we teach a class that the Ukrainian community can learn
a dish that's made here traditionally, so we're teaching traditional
dishes that any North Dakota normally makes. The next month,
(20:40):
they teach us the community a traditional dish from Ukraine.
On the months when the Ukrainian community when we teach
the Ukrainian community, I received a grant from our denomination
that allows me to purchase all of their cooking supplies.
(21:01):
So when they would come over. When Ukrainians came over
on the PROLI program, if there's three people in the family,
they're given three bowls, three spoons, three knives, three forks.
It's bare minimum, so they don't have all of the
cooking utexils. This allows me to help them gain a
broader spectrum for cooking more pots, crock pots, blenders, knives,
(21:24):
cutting boards, whatever, So that they can have a deeper
kitchen and cook more and they've enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It's been such a it's been such.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A blessing to cook and have little non competitive competitions
who can make the best whatever it is making that day.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So like someone like myself, who if it can't be
made in a microwave, you know, I don't so like
for me cooking classes, I'd be like, eh, I'll meet
some cool people. But there are studies that show that,
you know, having meals together and food bringing people to
get other can really have an impact again on sense
of belonging community. So have you noticed kind of any
(22:06):
changes with that in the people you're working with.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Yes, especially at first when we first started this, that
the community came together and they would and they started
coming to church too, which wasn't necessarily the goal, but
they did. They started coming to church and set the
table and they would talk. They were the last ones
to leave, and it was it was amazing and it
(22:31):
was fun to see the community of Bismarck come around
and sit and talk with them as much as they
could through Google Translate or even those who spoke English
and Ukrainian would translate for them.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That would grow.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I have seen a change lately in the community and
how that has changed. The President had hinted that that
he might end the parolely process and send Ukrainians back.
That made an immediate effect in the community. Ukrainian community,
I've not seen them out in about as much as
(23:05):
in the past.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, there's that a little bit of fear and uncertainty
and everything right now. Yeah, I'm seeing that quite a bit,
you know, with some of the organizations I volunteer with.
And I don't know. Oh, I remember my question I
had for you for a while back. You mentioned that
attendance was down in churches since COVID. Why do you
(23:28):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5 (23:31):
There's a lot of reasons, but I think the number
one reason is is that it takes it takes how
many weeks to start a habit? Scientifically it's like six weeks, right,
But if things have been closed down for a year,
the habit has gone.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
You have to restart those habits.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
And as we went back into the season of coming
back together and going to church, I think that a
lot of some of those people just didn't want to
restart that habit because they liked that. Oh morning, I
can now just do whatever and that became the new habit, or.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The other thing would be they're used to maybe watching
it over live stream for a long time, and then
they just keep that as their habit. Hey, I can
stay at home and watch on live steam rather than
having to take the process of getting ready and going
into church too.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
That is so true because we track our online watching
numbers if we have a way way of doing that,
and that did dip a little, but not as much
as it was before COVID.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Absolutely, So you were offering those virtual prior to COVID
as well.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Absolutely, just because our congregations so large that they travel
for snowbirds, for people who aren't feeling well or just
shut ins. Had we've offered that long before COVID happened.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So now we'll get back on track. I apologize, did
I I don't know if I read somewhere, But you
guys help with teaching conversational English. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then like how does that? How do you guys
do that?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
So it's really casual.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
If you sit in one of those sessions, they just
sit around the table and they ask questions and they
converse and then after they converse, they say the Ukrainian's okay,
how was that? Should I have said something differently? And
they'll ask about words, but word I should have used?
There A lot of them know proper English, but they
(25:23):
struggle with slang words or words that have different meanings,
like love that could have so many different meanings and
you can use it so many ways, so it becomes
an interesting conversation to figure out the depth of what
you mean by love or by any other word.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, it's teaching English to a non native speaker. You
think you know the language, and then when you try
to explain like rules, then you just contradict yourself. So
that's awesome. I think that's great that you guys do that.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Another thing that we had read is have the idea
of live Ukrainian translation? Can you talk about that and
what was the process of getting that all implemented?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Sure, the.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Success of the Ukrainian cooking class was so great that,
as I mentioned before, they were starting to come to
church on Sundays, but they were struggling with understanding the
service and Google's translate only works so well, it's not perfect.
So we put in a call to Bismark Global Neighbors
and we put feelers out for a translator. While we
(26:35):
were advertising for that, we looked into systems that we
could put into the church. Some churches, when a group
comes in and say the Ghineans come in and they
want to start, they want to be part of the church,
what churches will sometimes do is they'll start a separate service.
They'll have their service at nine and the Ghanaian service
(26:56):
at eleven. That's not how we wanted a function to
functions one body. So we bought a system that if
you've seen the pictures of like the UN meetings where
they're all wearing headphones, it's the same thing. So it's
a unit that we can connect up to twelve different languages,
have twelve different translators, go out on radio signals that
(27:18):
they wear earpieces in their ear and they can hear
a translated live. So the Ukrainian, our translator stands at
the back, can hear the entire service and she translates
and they can hear to their earpiece live.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That's incredible, amazing. Actually, I've never heard of a church
to do that before. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty incredible. In speaking of kind of
your your Ukrainian congregation. How did you guys? I guess
has the support that you provide kind of shifted now
that the uncertainties there are, how are you supporting them?
(27:58):
Kind of? During this time, I have.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Found that that the response has really closed down. They
are and I can't put a finger on it, it's
to exactly why. But my guess is that there's just fear.
There's fear of anything, anything could happen, and they don't
want to draw attention to themselves on anal on a
(28:23):
national level, my denominational level. They've actually frowned against us
drawing attention to ourselves because we might draw attention to Ice.
And since we've lost our safe sanctuaries status, church's hospital,
schools have lost their safe sanctuary status, we are not
(28:44):
a vulnerable spot.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
And so.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
It's we've seen the amount of Ukrainian shrink.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Because they're scared.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
So changing the top for one last time to more
of a personal question, what is a secret to such
a long marriage? And Tia also wants to know, do
you break that your wife is an astrophysicist?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Because what do you say?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
She got a degree in astrophysics, Like that's just impressive.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
You know, I think the So this in June, my
wife and I'll be married thirty years. And the secret
to that is my wife and are very different. She's
an introvert, she's on the spectrum, and I'm an extrovert,
not all the way out extrovert, but I'm an extrovert.
And I think the key to our success in marriage
(29:38):
has been that I've allowed her to be who she
is and she's allowed me to.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Be who I am.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
And so she for example, vacations and traveling. I love adventure,
I love going out. She is a homebody. So I
take she allows me because she understands me to go
on vacations by myself that are adventurous and fun, sometimes
a little daring that she would never go on, and
she's okay with it. And same I'm okay with her
(30:06):
staying home because that's where she feels comfortable and that's
where she rests. So allowing us to be who we
are within the marriages.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Is it hard for her then to be a pastor's wife?
Speaker 4 (30:19):
No, because that all lands on me.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Okay, So whenever I go into a church, I tell
them you're hiring me, and if you want anything from
my wife, you have to ask her, never ask through me.
That's if you want her to do something, then talk
to her, don't talk to me.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I relate to that very well. My husband hates traveling
and so it's the same thing. He lets me do it,
and I do think that is a great way. But
we are to our last question already, and this is
one that we ask everyone that we have on our show.
How would you encourage others to be a good neighbor?
Speaker 5 (31:01):
That is a huge question and there's so many ways
that you could answer it.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think the best way that.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
We can be a good neighbor is to love everyone
the way that we would want to be loved, To
embrace others the way that we would want to be embraced,
To show respect for others the way that we want
to be showed respect, regardless of how they look, what
(31:30):
they say, or what they do. We may not agree
with it, but there's still human beings. There's still people,
and from my perspective of their God's creation, and so
to treat everyone as we want to be treated will
make us really good neighbors.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's a great answer. Well, thank you everyone for joining
us into tuning in to These Your Neighbors. Thank you
for wanting to get to know your neighbors as we
hold these important and necessary conversations. If you phone this
conversation as important as we do, please make sure to
share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors,
a podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bismarckand
dot gov.
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
the City of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee and produced by
Dakota Media Access. The purpose of the podcast is to
celebrate change makers in Bismarck whose contributions break barriers, build connections,
and redefine what is possible for our community.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Welcome to These Are Your Neighbors, a podcast hosted by
Tia Jorgensen and Sergeana Woodski, both members of the City
of Bismarck's Human Relations Committee. Thank you for joining us
as we highlight the individuals driving positive change in making
a lasting impact on our community. Their stories inspire progress
and shape the future of our city.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
Our guest today is Corey Thurl. Corey grew up in Bismarck,
graduating from Century High School. Corey went to Bismarck Cday
College before moving to Kansas to pursue an undergraduate and
pastoral ministry. After graduating from Central Christian College, Corey and
his wife, Becky, moved to Canada, where he attended Nazarene
and Theological Seminary. While living there, he was a resident
(01:05):
manager at the Salvation Army Family Shelter, a homeless shelter
that kept families together. In two thousand and two, he
moved back to North Dakota, moving to Grand Forks where
his wife worked on her PhD. In astrophysics. In order
to help aging parents, they moved back to Bismarck. They
started attending Legacy UMC in two thousand and eight, and
(01:26):
in twenty ten Cory qemons staff. In twenty fourteen he
was appointed to Washburn, Turtle Lake, and Center UMC churches,
and in twenty sixteen Hazen and Beulah were added. After COVID,
he was appointed back to Bismarck as a church planter.
Corey planted a church called Mission Bismarck. The focus of
Mission Bismarck was to be the hands and feet of
(01:48):
Jesus to those in the community who had a little
interest in church or the church had little interest in them.
Mission Bismarck met at Comic Realms, a comic bookstore where
there was need in the community. Mission Bismarck and those
who believe in showing Jesus love rather than talking about it,
We're there. In twenty twenty four, due to a quick
(02:08):
change in Dakota conferencing staffing, Corey was appointed to Legacy UMC.
His appointment to Legacy brings with it the connections and
workings of Mission Bismarck. Legacy has embraced the immigrant and
refugee population of our community. Legacy has included creative ways
to worship that are unconventional. Legacy is a place of
(02:29):
welcome for all humans. Corey believes that God loves all
humans and he hopes to lead Legacy to love like
God loves. Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
Corey, Thank you glad to be here.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
So Bismarck's been home to you for a while. What
are some of your favorite things about living in this area?
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Of the beauty of the area, the river. I'm always
attracted to water, so I love going down the river
and watch it flow, going for walks along the river.
It's just a beautiful area to be in to live.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
What are some of the things you like about doing
in Bismarck besides going by the river.
Speaker 5 (03:03):
Oh, there is a lot of different cultural movements within Bismarck.
There's a great subculture of music and art within Bismarck,
and I love I'm always attracted to things that are
that are beautiful, so I'd love to go to the
Downtown Our Association and walk through the gallery and see
what's being created. I'd love to go to Rhythm Records
(03:25):
and listen to the different bands and concerts that happened there.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
Whether it's open.
Speaker 5 (03:29):
Mic night where it's just people testing out their music,
or if it's longtime bands that have got some polished
to them. I enjoyed listening and hearing the breath of
creativity within Bismarck.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Great. What made you want to go then into the
study of pastoral ministry?
Speaker 5 (03:46):
It's a call gets Pastoral ministry is hard. It's I
can't remember what the author was, but an author had
once said that the role of a pastor and the
job of the pastor has the same stress level as
the president of the United States. So it's not anything
that you just want to get into because you have
an interest in it. It's something you have to be
called to, and I feel called to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Was there some specific thing that happened that made you
feel like you were called.
Speaker 5 (04:14):
Just in trying to find direction in life what to do?
Early on you graduate from high school. You have this
idea when you're a kid that you want to do something.
You want to be an astronaut, you want to drive
a garbage truck. Then as you get older, you're like,
what do I really want to do?
Speaker 4 (04:30):
And just the.
Speaker 5 (04:33):
God's love through me made me want to share that
love with everybody and to reach out in love and
grace to everybody, and so that was part of what
drove me into ministry.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
And how long did that take for you to get
the pastoral ministrat or gear degree or.
Speaker 5 (04:53):
Oh the degree? So we go, we go to school
as long as medical doctors. So you've got undergraduate four
years and then seminary is between four and six years,
depending on the school you go to. So we go
a long time and get paid a fifth as much.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
What you're doing God's works.
Speaker 4 (05:14):
That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
So you just mentioned that that you had to go
for your undergrad and then you went into seminary, Like,
can you explain kind of that process? I think we
all kind of know what it takes to get an undergrad,
but then what is seminary like when you're attending that?
Speaker 5 (05:34):
So the seminary I went to was very focused on
theological concepts and understanding, so we spend a lot of
time understanding different scholars ideas of God. And explaining trying
to explain the best they can God, because it's actually
very difficult. We have faith, and we understand we have
(05:57):
faith in God, but that understanding is expanded when we
get into the minutia of the details of who God is.
And so you really do a deep dive. You drop
the plow deep and furrow deep to understand. And so
you spend a lot of time studying Bart and Moltmont
and all these other theologians that actually have no practical
(06:21):
use once you're in the ministry, but it gives you
an education and a solid foundation to draw from when
people ask questions.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
So this might be a very dumb question. But then
is seminary, like does it matter if you are Lutheran Methodist?
Is seminary you just kind of for all areas of
that or are they individual?
Speaker 5 (06:44):
That's a great question depending on your theological background and
how you believe. So my background is Wesleyan and the
founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, the method of
Wesleyan movement. So Nazarene, United Methodist and other denominations have
that Wesleyan theological background. But if you have a different background,
(07:08):
say Calvin, then you want to go to a Baptist seminary.
You can if you have Wesleyan you go to a Baptist,
you're going to end up. You're going to learn a
lot about different beliefs, different belief systems. But it may
be uncomfortable if you're not secure in what you know.
So it's best to go and what the strain that
(07:28):
you believe in and build up your knowledge through that.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
So when I was talking in your bio, it talked
about that your wife and you were the resident managers
at the Salvation Army. So that was a homeless shelter
where you guys live there.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
That's correct.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
So what were your general responsibilities as people who ran
the homeless shelter.
Speaker 5 (07:52):
The job when I first took it was just to
manage the facility at night, in other words, to make
sure that everybody was safe, nobody got riled up, and
to make sure that everyone had food and clothing and.
Speaker 4 (08:05):
So on and so forth.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Because of God's call in my life, I transformed that
into a ministry. And actually after we left, they changed
the job from resident manager to on staff pastor, and
so I made friendships with each of the families that
were there, helped them to show God's love even though
they're in the situation that they're in, there's still value
(08:30):
as human beings that other people see them and that
God sees them and then walked through them with them
through the toughest time in their life. Some of them
had just come out of living out of cars, or
some of them have just one of the parents had
just gotten out of prison, and things were very difficult,
especially for the kids, and they responded to someone who
(08:54):
actually wanted to listen and care about them.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
So was it like, was it just like you come
in that, you know, day or night, knowing you need
a place, or were they more like a little bit
more long term For the.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
Families, there were more long term because it was part
of a program where they would help getting jobs set
up with.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
A new apartment.
Speaker 5 (09:18):
The goal was to move them from to help them
get from where they were and move them out of
homelessness if we could.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
It didn't always happen that way, but that was the goal.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
So I forgot what I was going to ask about that. Now, Oh,
how many families or individuals did you guys have staying
there on a typical you know, typical week.
Speaker 5 (09:39):
Sure, so you're familiar with the old school hotels along
the road. That was an L shaped and the resident
manager lived in the corner. That's exactly what that was.
It was an old hotel. We just fenced it off.
So I think there were fifteen rooms and we had
(10:00):
fifteen families in at a time in that corner where
the manager would live.
Speaker 4 (10:03):
That's where I lived, okay, And so.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
That each had their own like rooms. It wasn't like
all in the same big area or anything.
Speaker 5 (10:10):
Individual individual rooms with their own bathrooms, so that families
could stay a solid unit without if they didn't want
to interact with the others, they didn't have to.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
How did did they get referred to the homeless shelter
like case managers or how did they end up living
in the homeless shelter?
Speaker 5 (10:27):
Always to referral and we had on site during the day,
We had on site caseworkers who helped them through all
those different processes to come out of homelessness.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
What was the typical amount of time that someone would
live there?
Speaker 5 (10:41):
So I worked there quite a while and we had
very little turnover.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
It was difficult.
Speaker 5 (10:49):
It's difficult to move people from that because it's a
whole family. It's not just one person, it's a whole family.
You're trying to get into a stable situation. When we
did have turnover, it was u because of something negative.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
So then what was it like living in the shelter
with the families and kind of what are some of
the things you took away from it?
Speaker 5 (11:12):
It was Some days were hard because you're dealing. You're
constantly walking into people's lives and all of the stuff
that's with it, and you volunteerive would voluntarily wade in
into that.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
So that was difficult.
Speaker 5 (11:29):
But there are days when you see breakthroughs and you
see change and true joy in that.
Speaker 4 (11:37):
There was a young.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Boy who whose father was imprisoned, and he and his
mother were in the shelter and he was not responding
to anybody. The first day there, I walked out onto
the deck and they were introduced me to the.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
Residence and he looked at me.
Speaker 5 (11:55):
The caseworker introduced me, He looked at me, and then
he bit my leg and that's how it started. But
as time went on, I learned some tricks from a
nurse on how to handle him, and I had to
restrain him, so I would have to grab his wrists
and pull him and hold him like this, sometimes for hours,
(12:17):
and that whole time I would talk in his ear,
I love you, God loves you, It's okay. By the
time that his time was done there, he was sad
to go because he didn't want to leave an adult
who actually listened to him and held him and cared
about him.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
Do you think, you know, by by actually living there
and kind of being a part of that community, do
you think the individuals maybe saw that more as a
benefit than say, where it's just staff, you know, coming
and going for their shift. Like, I don't know, I guess,
(12:58):
like what would be some of the benefit it's for
that or do you think the families maybe felt a
little bit more comfortable because of it.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
Agreed because I was there with them, I was choosing
to be there with them. They saw me as part
of their community to a certain extent because they knew
that I worked there and I wasn't truly homeless, but
I was there with them. I shared the same facility,
shared the same laundry facility, same we ate together, So
(13:25):
that gained more trust than someone who has just come
in for their job, punch out, go home, and then
maybe come back the next day.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
So did you guys provide the meals to them or
was it like how did that work?
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Then?
Speaker 5 (13:38):
For food, there were many kitchens in there, but on
Sundays the shelter, the shelter itself was in the parking
lot of the Salvation Army church. A lot of people
don't know that, but the Salvation Army is a church,
and so on Sundays we would all eat together in
the main in the main hall, and so there was
a chance to connect.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
So can you we're going to switch topics a little bit.
Can you talk to us then about what it means
to be a church planter?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
That is a that is a broad ject, so that
in a in a nutshell, it means that you're given
the task of going to community and start being something
new and fresh.
Speaker 4 (14:22):
And there's a couple of ways to do that.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
You can you can find there's the disgruntled way, I
call it. So what you do is you find a
bunch of people who are disgruntled with their current church
and start a new one. The problem is when you
do that, you've got a church full of disgruntled people.
Then that's how you start. The approach that I took,
was I because I was from Bismarck I had.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
I had a different view of it. I know the people,
I know the culture.
Speaker 5 (14:49):
So I went to the subcultures that that are within Bismarck,
to those areas where I knew was full of people
who are spiritual, who who see the community and want
to change it for the positive, but would never darken
the door of a church for whatever reason, for whatever reason,
And so that's where I went. That's the people that
(15:12):
I approached, and that's who I made friends with and
made connections and networking.
Speaker 4 (15:17):
And it made a difference because it didn't look anything
like a church.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
Because it was held in a comic book story, a
comic book story. So how did that come about? What
moves like?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:29):
Did people get distracted and read comics?
Speaker 4 (15:31):
Like?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
What was that experience?
Speaker 5 (15:33):
So I became friends with Leslie, the owner of the
comic romes, and we just started. I would stop by,
we'd start a relationship and talk and tell her about
the mission of Mission Bismark and the why and the
how of it, and she said, I want to make
an impact for the community.
Speaker 4 (15:52):
Just meet here.
Speaker 5 (15:53):
And she had a separate space off the side where
they would play games or have a book discussions. So
it became a natural spot to have this to have church, and.
Speaker 4 (16:05):
So people would people would come to this the.
Speaker 5 (16:09):
Time for worship, but more so it became as relationships grew.
When people got into trouble or they needed to talk,
or something tragic happened in their life, they didn't know
where to go and they're not going to go to
a church. But then they're, oh, well talk to Corey
because he'll listen and and he'll share. And so it
(16:32):
ended up a lot of people would come through the
door just from that because the group that was meeting
cared about others and loved others as they were.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
So what was people's first reaction when you were telling
them were meeting in a comic bookstore?
Speaker 5 (16:50):
So because I gathered, because the group that was meeting
was organically from that fringe group, It's like, it's cool
and we're all in.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
They were all in.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
So what are some of your main responsibilities now as
the lead pastor at Legacy?
Speaker 5 (17:07):
So as a lead pastor now Legacy, it is to
it's a lot to guide direction with the church, to
make sure that the building is maintained. To I think,
more than anything, what I want my job to be.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Let's go with that.
Speaker 5 (17:28):
I want the job to be is to angle Legacy
in its next phase of growth and development, which is
to turn it into something like com Mission Bismark. So
our culture has changed quite a bit, especially.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
Since COVID a lot.
Speaker 5 (17:43):
Most churches have lost thirty percent of their of the
people who go to church, and the.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Church needs to stop looking in all the time.
Speaker 5 (17:55):
And turn out and look at the community and work
within and love in the community. And so Legacy does
a really good job of that, but I want to
help them take the next step and really become a
part of the community. When I look at a church
like Legacy or any other church, the administration a church
needs to ask this question, who would it affect if
(18:17):
our door is closed? And if the answer is nobody,
then you're doing it wrong.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
So then I had another question. It's just out of
my head again, but I've actually been up to Legacy
for a couple of events, and one of the ones is,
we know how supportive you are of the immigrant and
New American communities. How have you embraced them.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
It has been my philosophy from the very beginning that
the first people to welcome immigrants' refugees or in the
case of the Ukrainians prolleys, it should be the church.
Jesus set that example that we are to love everyone.
Jesus himself was a refugee when he was a child.
(19:07):
When Herod was after wanted to kill every child of
that age they went to Egypt.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
He was a refugee.
Speaker 5 (19:14):
He was fleeing for Indian his family fleeing for their life.
So we are called as Christians to embrace refugees and immigrants.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
And I also think it really provides them that sense
of community that a lot of times if they just
moved in, whether it's to the United States or in
North Dakota, you know, they don't really have that sense
of community. So that's great that you guys really have
a focus on that.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
One of the other things that T and I when
we were researching read about was about the cooking classes
that you do. Can you talk about those cooking classes
and then how the items are purchased for those needed
classes as well.
Speaker 5 (19:56):
So the cooking class started specifically focusing on Ukraine community,
but it has been opened up to others to come to.
And what we were seeing was as the the Ukrainians
were coming to the Bismarck area. What we carry in
our grocery stores, especially seasonally in vegetables isn't the same
than what they're used to, so they were struggling with
(20:17):
what dishes to make, what could be when, what's popular locally.
So we have this two step plan in classes. One month,
we teach a class that the Ukrainian community can learn
a dish that's made here traditionally, so we're teaching traditional
dishes that any North Dakota normally makes. The next month,
(20:40):
they teach us the community a traditional dish from Ukraine.
On the months when the Ukrainian community when we teach
the Ukrainian community, I received a grant from our denomination
that allows me to purchase all of their cooking supplies.
(21:01):
So when they would come over. When Ukrainians came over
on the PROLI program, if there's three people in the family,
they're given three bowls, three spoons, three knives, three forks.
It's bare minimum, so they don't have all of the
cooking utexils. This allows me to help them gain a
broader spectrum for cooking more pots, crock pots, blenders, knives,
(21:24):
cutting boards, whatever, So that they can have a deeper
kitchen and cook more and they've enjoyed it.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
It's been such a it's been such.
Speaker 5 (21:34):
A blessing to cook and have little non competitive competitions
who can make the best whatever it is making that day.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So like someone like myself, who if it can't be
made in a microwave, you know, I don't so like
for me cooking classes, I'd be like, eh, I'll meet
some cool people. But there are studies that show that,
you know, having meals together and food bringing people to
get other can really have an impact again on sense
of belonging community. So have you noticed kind of any
(22:06):
changes with that in the people you're working with.
Speaker 5 (22:10):
Yes, especially at first when we first started this, that
the community came together and they would and they started
coming to church too, which wasn't necessarily the goal, but
they did. They started coming to church and set the
table and they would talk. They were the last ones
to leave, and it was it was amazing and it
(22:31):
was fun to see the community of Bismarck come around
and sit and talk with them as much as they
could through Google Translate or even those who spoke English
and Ukrainian would translate for them.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That would grow.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
I have seen a change lately in the community and
how that has changed. The President had hinted that that
he might end the parolely process and send Ukrainians back.
That made an immediate effect in the community. Ukrainian community,
I've not seen them out in about as much as
(23:05):
in the past.
Speaker 2 (23:06):
Yeah, there's that a little bit of fear and uncertainty
and everything right now. Yeah, I'm seeing that quite a bit,
you know, with some of the organizations I volunteer with.
And I don't know. Oh, I remember my question I
had for you for a while back. You mentioned that
attendance was down in churches since COVID. Why do you
(23:28):
Why do you think that is?
Speaker 5 (23:31):
There's a lot of reasons, but I think the number
one reason is is that it takes it takes how
many weeks to start a habit? Scientifically it's like six weeks, right,
But if things have been closed down for a year,
the habit has gone.
Speaker 4 (23:46):
You have to restart those habits.
Speaker 5 (23:48):
And as we went back into the season of coming
back together and going to church, I think that a
lot of some of those people just didn't want to
restart that habit because they liked that. Oh morning, I
can now just do whatever and that became the new habit, or.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
The other thing would be they're used to maybe watching
it over live stream for a long time, and then
they just keep that as their habit. Hey, I can
stay at home and watch on live steam rather than
having to take the process of getting ready and going
into church too.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
That is so true because we track our online watching
numbers if we have a way way of doing that,
and that did dip a little, but not as much
as it was before COVID.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
Absolutely, So you were offering those virtual prior to COVID
as well.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
Absolutely, just because our congregations so large that they travel
for snowbirds, for people who aren't feeling well or just
shut ins. Had we've offered that long before COVID happened.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
So now we'll get back on track. I apologize, did
I I don't know if I read somewhere, But you
guys help with teaching conversational English. Is that correct?
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And then like how does that? How do you guys
do that?
Speaker 4 (25:00):
So it's really casual.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
If you sit in one of those sessions, they just
sit around the table and they ask questions and they
converse and then after they converse, they say the Ukrainian's okay,
how was that? Should I have said something differently? And
they'll ask about words, but word I should have used?
There A lot of them know proper English, but they
(25:23):
struggle with slang words or words that have different meanings,
like love that could have so many different meanings and
you can use it so many ways, so it becomes
an interesting conversation to figure out the depth of what
you mean by love or by any other word.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah, it's teaching English to a non native speaker. You
think you know the language, and then when you try
to explain like rules, then you just contradict yourself. So
that's awesome. I think that's great that you guys do that.
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Another thing that we had read is have the idea
of live Ukrainian translation? Can you talk about that and
what was the process of getting that all implemented?
Speaker 4 (26:07):
Sure, the.
Speaker 5 (26:11):
Success of the Ukrainian cooking class was so great that,
as I mentioned before, they were starting to come to
church on Sundays, but they were struggling with understanding the
service and Google's translate only works so well, it's not perfect.
So we put in a call to Bismark Global Neighbors
and we put feelers out for a translator. While we
(26:35):
were advertising for that, we looked into systems that we
could put into the church. Some churches, when a group
comes in and say the Ghineans come in and they
want to start, they want to be part of the church,
what churches will sometimes do is they'll start a separate service.
They'll have their service at nine and the Ghanaian service
(26:56):
at eleven. That's not how we wanted a function to
functions one body. So we bought a system that if
you've seen the pictures of like the UN meetings where
they're all wearing headphones, it's the same thing. So it's
a unit that we can connect up to twelve different languages,
have twelve different translators, go out on radio signals that
(27:18):
they wear earpieces in their ear and they can hear
a translated live. So the Ukrainian, our translator stands at
the back, can hear the entire service and she translates
and they can hear to their earpiece live.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
That's incredible, amazing. Actually, I've never heard of a church
to do that before. That's awesome.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty incredible. In speaking of kind of
your your Ukrainian congregation. How did you guys? I guess
has the support that you provide kind of shifted now
that the uncertainties there are, how are you supporting them?
(27:58):
Kind of? During this time, I have.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
Found that that the response has really closed down. They
are and I can't put a finger on it, it's
to exactly why. But my guess is that there's just fear.
There's fear of anything, anything could happen, and they don't
want to draw attention to themselves on anal on a
(28:23):
national level, my denominational level. They've actually frowned against us
drawing attention to ourselves because we might draw attention to Ice.
And since we've lost our safe sanctuaries status, church's hospital,
schools have lost their safe sanctuary status, we are not
(28:44):
a vulnerable spot.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
And so.
Speaker 5 (28:50):
It's we've seen the amount of Ukrainian shrink.
Speaker 4 (28:55):
Because they're scared.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (28:59):
So changing the top for one last time to more
of a personal question, what is a secret to such
a long marriage? And Tia also wants to know, do
you break that your wife is an astrophysicist?
Speaker 4 (29:12):
Because what do you say?
Speaker 2 (29:13):
She got a degree in astrophysics, Like that's just impressive.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
You know, I think the So this in June, my
wife and I'll be married thirty years. And the secret
to that is my wife and are very different. She's
an introvert, she's on the spectrum, and I'm an extrovert,
not all the way out extrovert, but I'm an extrovert.
And I think the key to our success in marriage
(29:38):
has been that I've allowed her to be who she
is and she's allowed me to.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Be who I am.
Speaker 5 (29:43):
And so she for example, vacations and traveling. I love adventure,
I love going out. She is a homebody. So I
take she allows me because she understands me to go
on vacations by myself that are adventurous and fun, sometimes
a little daring that she would never go on, and
she's okay with it. And same I'm okay with her
(30:06):
staying home because that's where she feels comfortable and that's
where she rests. So allowing us to be who we
are within the marriages.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
Is it hard for her then to be a pastor's wife?
Speaker 4 (30:19):
No, because that all lands on me.
Speaker 5 (30:21):
Okay, So whenever I go into a church, I tell
them you're hiring me, and if you want anything from
my wife, you have to ask her, never ask through me.
That's if you want her to do something, then talk
to her, don't talk to me.
Speaker 2 (30:38):
I relate to that very well. My husband hates traveling
and so it's the same thing. He lets me do it,
and I do think that is a great way. But
we are to our last question already, and this is
one that we ask everyone that we have on our show.
How would you encourage others to be a good neighbor?
Speaker 5 (31:01):
That is a huge question and there's so many ways
that you could answer it.
Speaker 4 (31:06):
I think the best way that.
Speaker 5 (31:09):
We can be a good neighbor is to love everyone
the way that we would want to be loved, To
embrace others the way that we would want to be embraced,
To show respect for others the way that we want
to be showed respect, regardless of how they look, what
(31:30):
they say, or what they do. We may not agree
with it, but there's still human beings. There's still people,
and from my perspective of their God's creation, and so
to treat everyone as we want to be treated will
make us really good neighbors.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
It's awesome.
Speaker 3 (31:46):
That's a great answer. Well, thank you everyone for joining
us into tuning in to These Your Neighbors. Thank you
for wanting to get to know your neighbors as we
hold these important and necessary conversations. If you phone this
conversation as important as we do, please make sure to
share it with your neighbors.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Thank you for tuning in to These Are Your Neighbors,
a podcast hosted by the City of Bismarck's Human Relations
Committee and produced by Dakota Media Access. We hope you
were inspired by the stories of citizens driving meaningful change
in Bismarck. For more info on the HRC, visit bismarckand
dot gov.
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