In this episode, we tackle the unspoken burdens that weigh on the shoulders of those who lead our faith communities. Discover how pastors can combat the stress and anxiety that often accompany their divine calling, and how Christian's tailored coaching program is forging pathways toward spiritual resilience and a life led from a place of abundance.
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For more on Christian Ray Flores, visit www.christianrayflores.com
For more on Christian's Coaching Program, visit www.xponential.life
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Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at tithely.com
In this episode, we tackle the unspoken burdens that weigh on the shoulders of those who lead our faith communities. Discover how pastors can combat the stress and anxiety that often accompany their divine calling, and how Christian's tailored coaching program is forging pathways toward spiritual resilience and a life led from a place of abundance.
--
For more on Christian Ray Flores, visit www.christianrayflores.com
For more on Christian's Coaching Program, visit www.xponential.life
--
Tithely provides the tools you need to engage with your church online, stay connected, increase generosity, and simplify the lives of your staff.
With tools like text and email messaging, custom church apps and websites, church management software, digital giving, and so much more… it’s no wonder over 37,000 churches in 50 countries trust Tithely to help run their church.
Learn more at tithely.com
Alright, hey guys. Frank here with another episode of Modern Church Leader, here with my good bud who's been on the podcast a few times, christian Ray Flores. What's going on, man? What's?
Speaker 1:up. Frank Barry is in the house.
Speaker 2:It's good to see you, man, good to see you too. I mean, you always seem to be up to something new. So we are talking about something new today, but you're a pastor out there in Texas. You've been at it for a long time. But you also are doing things in the business world and more recently sounds like doing some coaching for business folks, but as well as pastors. So why don't you tell us a little bit about what you're up to?
Speaker 1:I think the most valuable asset we have in any organization is the person who leads the organization, and this may sound a bit, maybe selfish or egotistical, but objectively that is true. Where the leader goes, the congregation goes as well. And precisely because we are sort of trained to die to self, which we have to do obviously if we want to follow Jesus, I think we mistranslate that as not taking care of ourselves in our walk with God, in our optimal condition to serve people and God, and I find that pastors have levels of anxiety that are off the charts. Wow, and even sort of statistically, how many people will lose, that leave the ministry every year, is just crazy to me. So to me, I've always had this passion of serving people out of the overflow of the Holy Spirit rather than on empty, and I find that many of us who are doing ministry, we serve because we serve, but it's more mechanical, it's not this expansive, joyful, transcendent sort of state of being where other people look at you go, I want your life.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I really want more of us to be able to tap into that energy, into the gifts of the Holy Spirit. I mean, that's probably the best way to describe it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, remind us how long have you been a pastor yourself.
Speaker 1:I've been a pastor since 1997.
Speaker 2:And you've been around for a long time it sounds like not that long ago, but it was actually a long time ago, 25 years. I think, it's crazy, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah it's crazy. It's crazy. Why do you think pastors you know, I guess, I don't know like why do you think that like anxiety or stress? Because, right, everybody has anxiety, everybody has stress, it's everywhere. You probably could argue that it's just like more prevalent now in the world than it ever has been, but why do you think, in particular like pastors suffer from that kind of stress, anxiety, burnout and not, you know, living via the Holy Spirit and being somebody that you know people want to follow?
Speaker 1:Well, I think well. First of all, we have a target on our backs, bottom line right. We're trying to help people leave the world and live for Jesus.
Speaker 1:We have a target, that's it. We have an enemy, that's you take out the leader, you take out the congregation. In many ways that's one. The second thing is, I think, because we care so deeply, it's not a job, it's a calling. So you don't get to just go home, you know, at 5 pm and turn it off. You can't turn it off. So you have to be able to process things differently, in a higher level I guess, in a deeper level, if you want to do well long term.
Speaker 1:And the third reason is we just don't love ourselves enough, and I think we are called to love ourselves, otherwise you can't really learn how to love other people. So pastors tend to misinterpret the diatosef dimension of the Christian walk and die to who they are in God's eyes, as image-bearers of God with unsurpassed worth. That aspect of them seems to be diminished over time in my experience, and you can see it. You know, you can see when someone is serving, ministering, preaching, a little bit more mechanically than when they're filled with the Spirit and there's something about them that is beyond just sort of the instructions, right.
Speaker 2:Or the scriptures.
Speaker 1:There's something about them. I think of the apostles when they were in front of the Sanhedrin and they said these guys were with Jesus. They're ordinary men, but there's something about them. We can tell. This is not them, this is something beyond them, and I feel that this is our calling as pastors is to channel the Holy Spirit rather than sort of just show up as us. You know, it's not enough to show up as us, I think.
Speaker 2:We'd be in a bad place if it was just us showing up as us.
Speaker 1:And yet, if you want to be real, that's what happens after Sunday in many places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you just get burned out.
Speaker 1:You burn out, yeah, and then you don't quit because you feel, I think you feel the calling, you're sincere, you want to lay down your life and yet you almost feel trapped, I think, between the calling and how you are as a human being.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right. So this new kind of venture that you're getting into with coaching and training, what do you focus on as it relates to helping pastors? What's the program? Just give us some insight into what is the program and how are you helping.
Speaker 1:Basically it's a program that I developed over 25 years of coaching both pastors because I of course a bunch of pastors, I've appointed a bunch of evangelists to the mission and also coaching entrepreneurs, athletes, basically people who are out there and they face unusual levels of stress, anxiety, uncertainty and depression, and so those are the people that I serve and it's basically the core, offering sort of the entry point. And you can go further than that is an eight week program that is structured around several shifts that need to happen internally and it's basically about sort of providing skills to people to be able to not just mechanically show up but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. There's a scripture in Romans 12 that everybody likes to quote and I think it's such an inspirational scripture and we don't look at it closely enough often, I think, because it basically says look, be transformed by the renewal of your mind and then you will test and approve God's perfect will. And so there's an if and a then in that scripture and we like it and I think we oftentimes think of it as this one time deal Like it maybe applies to the moment where you are saved or baptized or transformed, but I really believe the scripture is about an ongoing process, and not only that, but it's a skill.
Speaker 1:It's a skill to be able to be renewed, and the if and a then points to the amazing upside. The amazing upside is that, look, if you are transformed by the renewal of your mind, you're able to see God's will for you. It's specific to you, not just a broad sort of statement, but it's specific to what does God want me to do. You know, and why am I here? And I think all of us have this desire, this deep yearning to know that, and once we hit that beautiful state of I know what God wants from me, we're unstoppable.
Speaker 2:Love that, love that. Let's spend some time, probably most of the time. There's one concept right that you and I talked about last time we were chatting, but it's all around like winning the day. Now it's stuck with me, it did okay and there's a lot of. You know, there's like lots of people out there. You can go online, you can be on Instagram, you can be on TikTok, whatever, and you can see lots of people talking about like how they start their day, or you know, I get up at 3am and I hit the gym.
Speaker 2:I eat this and then I cold plunge, and then I meditate, and then I right, so I don't want to dismiss that stuff right, because it's all good. But you know I'd love to hear your take on those things. But also, just you know how do you help people win the day? Like, what's that all about?
Speaker 1:Well, I think those things are actually really valuable and important.
Speaker 2:By the way, have you cold plunged before? Let's just pause for a second.
Speaker 1:I have in the past, because I grew up in Eastern Europe where that's a thing the polar bear thing, Okay, and I hate it. I really, really hate it.
Speaker 2:I did it with some buddies from work like months ago.
Speaker 1:Oh, did you. It's fantastic, I get it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the guys was into it and I was like, all right, we were having like a leadership retreat and I was like, all right, let's go. And a couple of us went and did it. It was great.
Speaker 1:You know, what I love as an alternative to that is the sauna and cold, and sauna and cold sort of, yeah, the place we went, had the cold plunge and the sauna in the same, like kind of so you could like. That's what we did, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what we did and I would agree that was pretty nice, If you just do cold plunge.
Speaker 1:It seems to be, I would say, uneven, let's put it that way Like there's something it has to be something on the other side.
Speaker 2:Something to look forward to. Okay, sorry, we digress.
Speaker 1:We do digress, I think. Well, I think morning routines are important, but the deeper question is why? Right, and I would say that is the where the treasure is, in my opinion. So you are fearfully and wonderfully made and your body and your body and your mind are made for a purpose, right? So when you wake up and the first thing you do is look at your phone, where your brain goes is what's going on outside on this world that I'm missing out on, or the things that I need to. You know my calendar, my emails or whatever. My likes on Facebook, whatever, with your mind goes towards scarcity and I'm behind and the things that might happen or the things that I'm missing out on.
Speaker 1:You're immediately sent into a biochemical state that prevents you from doing good work and serving other people, because your brain is now, your system is flooded with anxiety and stress hormones. Right, your whole system is biochemically impeded from imagining a different future. So what you do is you go into this sort of survival mode and you repeat familiar patterns. 90% of everything we do every day is on autopilot. It's basically managed by the subconscious, right? So even me speaking into the mic, I'm not like thinking about the mic or the camera or what button to push. It's all past learned experiences driving a car, even doing like brain surgery. If you've done it long enough, you're an autopilot doing it. That's why you're paid the big bucks because you've done, you have a skill.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So human brains are sort of that's what we do To conserve energy. Most of it is served up from the subconscious, correct? So, which is fantastic, because that makes you a fully functional adult, right? You're not thinking about how you drive your car, you're not thinking about what the red light means, all of those things it means, right? So what happens is that's fantastic. The autopilot is fantastic. It takes, if it takes you, to the right direction. So let's say you're boarding a plane. You know the autopilot is on airplanes that's why we use the term came from airplanes. You board a plane in New York and you're going to Japan. You realize, you know very consciously that the pilots are not piloting the plane for 15 hours all the way to Japan, or 20 hours, whatever the length is. You know that they just take off and then they monitor the autopilot and that's it. They just sit around and probably play video games, for you know they're just basically observing the instruments. That's what they're doing?
Speaker 2:They're playing Fortnite in the air while we're flying.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah. So the uncomfortable truth is that's what's happening. They're just hanging out drinking coffee, whatever, but the software is flying the plane. And the software is fantastic, because no human being can be conscious of all the instruments for whatever 20 hours of flight. It's impossible. That's why. So we function very similarly. We have an autopilot internally, which is a subconscious. So what happens is that's really good for us. We're built like that, and. But the problem is, imagine if the autopilot takes you to North Korea instead of Japan and you land there and the pilot goes whoops, sorry guys, you know that airline probably not survive very long with that kind of software.
Speaker 1:You have to reprogram the software to fix that. How many things do you do that you are frustrated with? And you do it over and, over and over again. Correct? Ask your wife how many things? She's frustrated about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally, I love the better answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when she goes, you always or you never that that, that Hopefully she doesn't say any of those things, but she probably thinks them right. So there's all kinds of things that we, we are limited in and our autopilot or software just keeps running in the background. That's what we do. So the winning the day thing is sort of a set of techniques that helps us understand what software, where the software is off, and I believe Christianity is that the whole process of following Jesus is about that. And then, but you have you're much more intentional about that and you go okay, where's the software off? How do I, how do I fix the software, how do I test it? And get different results.
Speaker 1:And we're talking about marriage, your view of the world, finances, preaching, you name it. Most of us just live life in this autopilot and it's good and it's bad all at the same time, and none of us really want to stay where we are. I don't think there's no, because we're creators, we're image bearers of God, we're not static people, but because of how we're built, we get stuck in the same routine and we don't evolve, and that's how we get mediocre work, plateaued churches, stressed out marriages, kids that don't respect us, don't admire us, and we think we're doing ministry. And then we sort of wake up one day and five years went by and we just don't know why we're doing what we're doing. Or marriage or wife says I'm done with you. You've been serving quote-unquote, serving God's people and you haven't changed.
Speaker 2:So it's, you're saying, like it's, it's this autopilot thing that's driven by, like our subconscious, mm-hmm, that's sort of built up based on past.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, experiences and things like that, you know, totally makes sense, like at a gentlin. You know, in a general way, right, like okay, I can kind of I get what you're saying. How do you win the day then? Like so, if you recognize that, like okay, I, I Live the way I live, or I do the things I do, in large part because of, like my previous 45 years of experience and what that's kind of created me to be, and like so my subconscious is kind of like Auto pilot, operating a certain way, yeah, but some of those things are bad, right, some of those things like, oh, I might like Whatever, like my subconscious says I'm a bad leader, or I'm bad at math, or I'm bad at Parenting or I don't know whatever, like the things that are like you know, yeah, can go wrong in the software. Like how do you win the day? How do you kind of go about correcting those things? He can't just think it one day and all of a sudden it's better.
Speaker 1:No, no, of course not. That's and that's. Yeah. I think what caught your attention is that when I said to you, like that's one of the four shifts that we work on pretty intensely in the, in the coaching program, is that If you, if you live on autopilot, you need to be able to disrupt the autopilot and question what is off.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:And and there's a, there's a few techniques that are very, very, very simple, techniques that people just know and we just don't do them, that help you to disrupt those things. So I can, I can give you just a few. For example, if you, if you wake up in the morning and you don't look at the phone for an hour, that doesn't send you into what am I missing out in what some? What am I behind on right away, right, if you wake up in the morning you drink a glass of water, your brain actually hydrates and starts functioning better. If you get out into the Sun For just, you know, just half an hour and you walk and you look around at God's creation, mm-hmm, and you have a certain pattern of thinking or asking questions or praying or worshiping that changes, that changes how you operate. They really does, you know. Yeah, that's why you see Jesus doing it all the time and we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, when you move there's. God built you to give you actually natural antidepressants in your body Because of contracting muscles. I mean, it's been researched really well. Most of us a sedentary, we just don't move.
Speaker 2:Sitting on zoom calls exactly.
Speaker 1:So we you know. Someone has calculated not I don't know if that's accurate or not that in the active ministry years of Jesus he would walk 20 miles a day on average.
Speaker 2:Yeah, crazy.
Speaker 1:Okay, oh, so we, so our bodies Spy on our minds, our minds spy on our bodies. All of that is God's creation. We're beautifully and wonderfully made. So if we don't dissect that and understand, okay, how do we function, how God intended us to function in the first place, how that happens? So there's a whole series of things that you can do, and the principle behind it that I think caught your attention is this is that If you wake up and you're sort of spit, you're sent into the survival mode of Repeating the past and you're always behind on something. Right, you've lost the day. You haven't created anything new, you haven't evolved, you haven't. You're a creator. Your, that's what you're built to be, but you're not a creator. You're sort of a cog in the machine, your repeat instrument sort of, which is okay, I guess.
Speaker 1:But imagine if you can at will Change that mode in, and being in this shalom place, in this creative place of joy and in a calm mind and a clarity and an intention, and If you can learn to do it at will, meaning whatever life throws at you, within half an hour to an hour, you go from stress to that. Imagine if you can. You know it and you can predict that you can say I know how I can get myself to that place and win that day Within minutes, maybe an hour maximum. Imagine if you know, predictably, reliably, that you can win that day. Imagine how that day goes differently, how you interact with people, how you go about it. An interview that you do, for example, with me. You're gonna be more focused, more thoughtful, more contemplative, more curious, more friendly, more joyful. The interview changes Just because of how you show up.
Speaker 1:When you go to a counseling apartment, when you start writing an appointment, when you start writing a sermon, yes, the sermon comes together differently. When you speak to your wife, to your kids, yeah, everything changes if you change yourself. Yeah, if you win that day. Now imagine, if you can do that, five, six, seven days a week. The compounding effect of who you can be as a human being and how you can serve your church, your company, your business, is transformative. Yeah, and to be true, to be honest, most people don't know how to do that. So the sideways energy, the sort of just rinse and repeat part, the autopilot, without an evolution, without a creation of something new, is a norm, is a baseline of most human beings. So the big, the big aha in what I'm trying to do for the people that I, that I coach, is to help them win one day. If you know how to win one day, you're going to change your life forever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, love it. Are there any just in this kind of zone like books or podcasts or things that you know you've read over the years? Are they you're recommending to folks taking the course?
Speaker 1:You know there's a bunch there's.
Speaker 1:There's a really good, or probably the earliest one that I remember that piqued my, my imagination was Gregory Boyd's seeing as believing. Gregory Boyd is a pastor, I think is in the Pacific Northwest or something like that, somewhere in Seattle maybe, and he talks about experiencing the presence of God as a normal state for follower of Jesus. That I think, probably, that I can probably trace the genesis of where I am as a human being, as a follower of Jesus, to that, when things started accelerating in my life and then I started looking at other other sort of dimensions, other other authors and researchers. So on my podcast, if you go to Headspace by Christian Ray Flores on YouTube or the newsletter, I actually interview some of the top experts in the world when it comes to human flourishing and it's remarkable how some of them, especially the ones who are completely secular, right and you hear them speak on the hard data and the research and then, as a believer, you go oh, I can think of this scripture and this scripture and this scripture Right, right yeah.
Speaker 1:So we know that the Bible has taught us this for millennia and this is cutting for the secular world, for the scientific community. This is cutting edge knowledge and breakthrough understanding, and we've known this for 2000 years. And, at the same time, although we've known this for 2000 years, christianity, especially Western Christianity, is so intellectual rather than experiential that we can read it and gloss over it and just miss the whole point, and we focus more on beliefs than we focus on experience, on experiencing truth, the truth of God, and so that's sort of one thing that I can tell you is, gregory Boyd, seeing is believing. That was a mind blowing to me.
Speaker 2:It sounds like you're going to have to write something after you do this with some cohorts. After a while, you know, get some good stuff. I think I will, yeah, do you use chat TPP to do some writing for you. Exactly yeah exactly, it'll help it out. Well, man, this is super cool. I know there's a lot more to it, like where can folks go to check out what you're up to and how to learn more about the program?
Speaker 1:If they go to exponentialexponentialexponentiallife. There's actually the programs there and there's a free training on sort of these four shifts that you can access at any time. All you have to do is just sort of get access. You can find me also on ChristianRayFloriscom. There's a free newsletter that goes out every Sunday and there's a lot of stuff there, all kinds of resources. I quote books, everything I'm watching, reading, I share there. I do two YouTube episodes a week. One is an interview with an extort, the other one is just a solo episode every week, so you can get a lot of material out there.
Speaker 2:Love it. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Or you can just Google ChristianRayFloris and you'll find a whole bunch of my stuff Do that.
Speaker 2:Everybody just do that, just Google.
Speaker 1:ChristianRayFloris, you'll find it all yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, man, thanks for coming on the show. I appreciate it, Thanks man. Thanks for having me Appreciate this good stuff. We'll to be continued. We'll talk more on some of these other subjects at another time. We'll do it. We'd love that, Love it, Love it. Well, guys, thanks for watching or listening. Whichever you're doing, We'll catch you next week on another episode of Modern Church Leader. See ya.