A Call to Action for Dynamic Youth Ministry Leadership with Daniel Meyer

Join me as I welcome my dear friend and Concordia, Nebraska alumnus, Daniel, to explore the transformative power of worship and its lasting impact on our ministry work. We take a nostalgic trip back to our college days, where we spearheaded a contemporary worship service, igniting a diverse community's passion for Jesus. Our heartfelt conversation dives into the current challenges faced by the church, including engaging congregations, discipling in a bustling world, and the yearning for a reformation in the American Christian church focused on an active, committed faith life.

As we unravel the intricate dance of calling and ministry within the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, Daniel shares his unique journey. Opting for a master's degree over traditional seminary, he brings insight into the rich interdenominational interactions that shaped his approach to youth ministry. We ponder the need for adaptability in the face of cultural shifts and the art of nurturing spiritual growth amid life's relentless pace. Together, we examine the potential of alternative ordination paths and the importance of leadership development through initiatives like the Harbor Leadership Collective internship program.

In our final moments, we cast a vision for the future of youth ministry, acknowledging the necessity of personal connections and community in an ever-changing technological era. We discuss the importance of investing in young lives, fostering their active participation in faith, and preparing them for an unwavering commitment to Christ's love. As we close, the conversation becomes a call to action for collaboration among church leaders, supporting one another as we eagerly anticipate Jesus's return, strengthening the collective resolve to propagate His profound message.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to the American Reformation podcast. I pray. The joy of the Lord is your strength. I am Tim Allman. Today I get to hang out with a longtime friend and we have popped in and out of one another's lives from time to time. But going back 24 years now, gosh, that dates me. We were both in college at Concordia, nebraska, and this guy was an awesome guitar player. I'm sure you got better over the years too. But we all thought and so we started a contemporary worship service at Concordia, nebraska. Do you remember, was it called Praise Daniel?

Speaker 3: 1:16

Yeah, I mean. So. I'm a big history guy, I can remember everything.

Speaker 2: 1:19

It started off our sophomore year, so dust off my memory. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:31

So started I think it wasy colway and a group of people tealac auditorium in like spring semester. You know that's the second semester of our sophomore year and it was actually koinonia.

Speaker 1: 1:35

But then by time, junior year, and when you and I really got full speed with, with, our, with our overflow band.

Speaker 2: 1:39

It had moved to the uh weller auditorium, yeah, and then it had the name Praise, so yeah, that was super fun, kelly, talk about Juliana right, grace, yep, amy, amy, oh, my goodness, isaac, thank you, my goodness, I have not. What sweet people you know. Those first experiences in ministry are so, so formative and all I what I remember you probably remember more is is the joy of praising Jesus with people from very diverse backgrounds. You know you've got I was an athlete, you're in the DCE program, you had some teacher, you just had a whole bunch of different folks that were just hanging out and kind of start of a of a sweet season, I think, at Concordia, nebraska. Do you remember anything more about the diversity of folks?

Speaker 2: 2:33

on that team yeah.

Speaker 3: 2:34

Yeah, I remember being a guy that I didn't start playing guitar until I got to college. I said, oh, I'm going to be a DC. I got to learn to play guitar, luckily, had enough like a musical. Just I don't know genetic ability, I don't know. Get from the Lord, whatever. And so I'm learning guitar and then it's a. It's actually Kendra Sipe at the time, kendra Rickert, you remember her. She was in the other band, the route 66 band, and so they wanted a second band so they didn't have to play every week. And she goes how good can you play guitar? And'm like, I'm no, like, uh, I was no Jason Phelps, you know, if you remember him from college.

Speaker 3: 3:07

I mean that guy, that guy that guy's a musician and obviously I'm still working for the Lord in a church and I'm not taking my show on the road, and so I just remember getting there and the like you guys are doing harmonies Like, like you know, if there's only one, one downside to you being a pastor, like and you can sing, I mean we had so much fun. We had so much fun. We did the coffee shop a couple of times, we did electric guitar and the drums. I mean gosh, it was just a blast to and then really kind of I don't want to say the start of contemporary worship. But contemporary worship wasn't a huge, huge thing and people like you really got me into a lot of these different artists and musicians and styles that, um, I just really hadn't been exposed to a lot of, so it was awesome.

Speaker 2: 3:47

I remember at the coffee shop doing Jeremy camp like Jeremy camps, really early, Rocky.

Speaker 3: 3:53

Yes, I miss that stuff too. That was great.

Speaker 2: 3:58

Yeah, yeah, super fun, so we were probably not as good as we remember.

Speaker 3: 4:04

No.

Speaker 2: 4:04

It was so good, yeah, so let me tell you a little bit about Daniel Meyer. He has been a DCE, so if you're not, in the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod context, that's a director of Christian education for 20, 20 years. He had his internship and he was just sharing right before we hit record, the office mother, the pastor one and only Jeff Jeffrey Claytor at Christ Memorial back in St Louis, and his sister is a DCE right down the road at Peace. Lutheran Life is good in the loo for Daniel Meyer. So here is, here's the opening question to this podcast how are you praying, daniel, for reformation in the American Christian church, bro? Thanks for hanging with me. This is sweet.

Speaker 3: 5:07

Yeah, yeah, great, I mean really a great question. We, I think, live in a culture where there's just a lot of activity. You know this. And so, as I experienced the families in the St Louis area, we've got a longstanding history of Catholicism, lutheranism. You went to seminary here. You kind of experienced some of that, I'm sure, where people aren't opposed to church necessarily, but they get going with a million other things, and so a lot of our, a lot of our members, at times it's like, yeah, we see them once, twice a month, they fit it in.

Speaker 3: 5:41

Or they were all here yesterday for Mother's Day, because you go Christmas, easter and you go with church with your mom on Mother's Day, and so, from there, how do we, how do we disciple? How do we connect people further? That isn't just hey, I came into worship, I received the word, the sacrament, which is what we're all about. But that isn't just this, this low level of engagement that, like as baptized believers, we're going to live out our vocations as followers of Christ. And I think that's the biggest tension we manage, not solve I steal that from Andy Stanley all the time that we're managing this tension.

Speaker 3: 6:13

And how do we constantly engage? We get some people engaged. How do we, how do we plug into these other people, how do we find opportunities, how do we make those connections, knowing that in my opinion and I've done this as a youth leader over the years and it's not a great thing to do long term, short term every once in a while it's fine, but you know, you'd see somebody come into church and you hadn't seen him for a month and you go hey where you been and what's going on, and and sometimes I kind of harass the youth a little bit, and after a while I praying, how do you walk with people together? And I think that's the challenge that we really face with that, with that, with that reformation you're talking about.

Speaker 2: 6:51

Discipleship is is hard man. It's a long road in the Jesus direction and I think we're coming out of a season where it was a lot about church growth and more and more and more you know and pastors we love to talk about. Oh, I had so many, you know, eight or nine or twenty, twenty five thousand people in worship.

Speaker 2: 7:14

I don't know, you know we kind of talk about all the numbers, and numbers matter, and the book of Acts says numbers matter. But the reason the church multiplied was the depth of relationship People drawing close to Jesus and then drawing close to one another. This sounds cliche, but they were doing life together. They were shoulder to shoulder in this new Jesus way, bringing light to dark places, deeply caring for one another's soul. And maybe that's a good place to go a little deeper. I don't know that, as because we're in a Lutheran context, I don't know that. I heard early on I had to seek out opportunities for soul care. I couldn't have been a pastor for now 16 years, et cetera, apart from caring for my own soul. So connect soul care to discipleship, daniel. What does that look and sound like, specifically with young people who may be like that's weird, bro, like what does that mean?

Speaker 3: 8:09

Yeah, go ahead, yeah, yeah. So I really try to start with myself. I think if you're going to last in youth ministry particularly, but in the church world as well, whether it's a Lutheran church or not I think you've got to be a genuine, authentic person. Youth smell that out in a hurry. If you're just there to do fun and games or you're just there to, you know, teach a cool lesson or whatever that is, that can be great short term, but long term what are you going to do? So kind of one of the taglines, unofficially, that I have is once you're one of my youth, you're always one of my youth. So I got some youth now that, unfortunately now that are like in their thirties, they're doing great. I love them, but you know it's not fun talking about the 30 year old youth you got now but that are having kids and all this kind of stuff and Lord's blessing them. It's great. But that, like they call me, we connect, whatever let's chat. You got something you want to praise the Lord on Great. If you have a struggle in your life, I'm still going to be here and and that's what's been great over the over the long, long haul of ministry to have those relationships have that consistency because, no matter what to part of youth ministry is, it's a short-term thing.

Speaker 3: 9:14

So what we do at Christ Memorial here is we're big on loved and sent and I can talk more about that. I know you're familiar with that with pastor Jeff. But we really focus on building youth that are loved and sent. But from that is how do we build we use the term missionary disciples. We don't assume they're going to stay in St Louis forever. We don't assume they're going to stay at Christ Memorial forever. And so, yes, St Louis has a lot of homers or people that grow up like I'm a perfect example, grew up, went to college, lived somewhere else for a few years, came back, had my family. But we want to prepare people that, yeah, they want to be plugged into our ministry here and they want to help with VBS or they want to serve or do whatever Awesome.

Speaker 3: 9:55

But how do we equip them that when they go to college sophomore year, maybe they can do a little Bible study with some kids on their hall? How can we have them be able to pray with a coworker who tells them now they're 30 at their job saying, hey, I got cancer or my grandma's struggling with this or whatever's going on with their life. How do we build a people? Not just take them through some programs, not just take them on a cool mission trip or a national youth gathering, but how do we build them over time so that they can impact others?

Speaker 3: 10:26

And then maybe B we even have big, lofty like prayers and goals for our people. We say, how could you be the one leading the VBS at the church someday? How could you be on the council and be the congregational president or whatever roles need to be filled, because those are great opportunities to help further God's kingdom. And we need we need more leaders. But but it is tough too, because Jesus calls us sheep and not not all sheep want to be led, and that's that's a good stereotype of what sheep do or don't, do you know?

Speaker 2: 10:56

You're kind of strange, bro, and I mean that with all due respect. You've been a DCE for 20 some years. I don't know what the shelf life is for a lot of people in youth ministry, but I have to believe that's probably a little longer than the average. So how is this happening right now for you? And maybe go back and tell your origin story a little bit about what led you to become a DCE?

Speaker 3: 11:22

Yeah, so I was in the incubator, um, I was just actually up the road from where I serve now at Concordia, kirkwood, and so I had great um, infusion of leadership by several DCEs I mean even people, uh, that were in other roles. Like we had a guy, dave Christian, who was our, our worship leader, and so he did like choir. So I remember doing Monday night choirs as like a grade school student with him, so someone like you know, hoping to learn how to sing. I was probably more of my parents, you know, making me go kind of thing or whatever. But, um, but you had that. I had a Ben Freudenberg who's one of the DCE giants, um, and, and when I think of him I think of nurturing. So I mean I remember being in kindergarten, me about basketball and different stuff and creating leadership opportunities and just having that relationship with him. And then I had Jeremy Becker and Jim Meyer in my high school years, so other just big DCEs that poured into us, created leadership opportunities. So then I go off to Concordia, nebraska, just really feeling led to do that and of kind of fast forward to now where you go.

Speaker 3: 12:26

Okay, how do you? How do you last in ministry? Well, I think one you'll last when you've got a calling from the Lord. Um, I, I'd like to say, hopefully I have enough talent to go do something else, um, and I don't probably have to do this, but I feel like God continues to call and lead me to do this. Then you have the pressure, though, as a male in the Lutheran church, missouri synod, you know where I'm going with this. Pastor Tim is well, when are you going to become a pastor? And there is that kind of stereotype that, like, well, dces just do youth. Well, we're trained to be, you know, lifespan faith educators. So I've done it all, from lead children's Sunday school programs to VBS, to. I've done the senior adult pastor Bible study at my other church when pastor was out of town or sick or something or whatever. And so really I've done cradle to grave ministry over the years, been able to really focus on youth here at Christ Memorial, other duties as assigned, like all of us have.

Speaker 3: 13:16

But I really had a good time of examination back about 2017. Pastor Jeff and I, you know, reporting to him and under his leadership, we just kind of really spent some time examining what is my future, what do we want to do? I had kind of talked about some continuing education, master's degree. He said you know, now would be a good time to be a pastor. I will say this very lovingly and respectfully If I had my way, I'd be a youth, children and family pastor in the LCMS and I'd be ordained that way. Unfortunately, there's probably not enough of us in Synod to kind of warrant the financial viability of a program like that. So I get some of the constraints of higher education, but I would love our, our, our synodical denomination to to train and help pastors in different ways.

Speaker 3: 14:04

I don't want to be the pastor, that's just an associate pastor. I don't say just in a bad way, but I mean like an associate pastor, you know, with Christ, christ Memorial or whatever. Or I'm doing SMP where I hate to say it now I spend several years money and time and now I'm like for lack of better term, in a rude way I'm like half a pastor, like I want to continue to pour into youth, children and family. That's where I feel God's calling is for me.

Speaker 3: 14:31

I wrestled a lot with like what's my personal mission statement? I've been to marketing seminars. You know what can you do or what can your institution do better than anybody, and I've never been that like arrogant, like, oh, I do this better than anybody. I've wrestled with that, but I just keep going back to I can passionately care about teenagers, I think, in a way that not everybody can. And then my personal mission statement has just really been like, how do I passionately lead people into a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ? And so I think when you focus on those things, you continue to stay in tune. You're in a place where I've got good leaders that I can rely on and connect with, to know that like, hey, what am I doing? Well, what needs to work on? How do we need to support the ministry?

Speaker 3: 15:10

Um, and and then also, too, you just try not to be like the rock star youth leader. When it's all about charisma, um, short-term talent programs and events, that just doesn't always last. And youth ministry ebbs and flows, where what you did with kids four years ago may still work in this group that you have now. They may still love doing that, but they may want to do something different now, and so you got to ride those cycles and ebbs and flows. My older sister has been helpful too. I mean, we've gone back and forth over the years where, like her youth group, will be up numbers, involvement, leaders, uh, adults helping, and then mine will be down and then we'll flip and we'll kind of support and encourage, knowing that like it's got cycles to it and so it's. It's definitely been a journey and a process and you're right Going to going against the grain, for sure.

Speaker 2: 15:58

So, man, I really want to talk about the alternate paths toward ordination in our church body. Some would look at your story and say, well, you've got to do. You know, and you do live in St Louis, so you could do the alternate route. You know you could go for a couple of years and you don't have to be residential because you live in St Louis, right, so there could be that opportunity. But what I hear you saying is there could be a large number of men in your season with you know, 15 to 25 years of experience, which is something significant, and you've been in theologically informed that entire time.

Speaker 2: 16:35

What would rounding out your theological Lutheran mind look like in anticipation of the church saying, hey, Daniel, now is a youth and family life pastor here at Christ Greenfield or at Christ Memorial. So yeah, we don't have we don't think that way and unfortunately, existing experience in the church, both for Lay leaders who have done a lot of years, as well as for those that have been in commission ministry roles, like you have, that doesn't count necessarily toward academic degrees and so little shout out for competency-based theological education, because it would count in competency-based theological education and your Lutheran mind would be rounded out, if you will, with the appropriate content, but the character of Christ that you have shown in the congregation, faithfully serving for 20 years, that is a significant thing in the life of the church. And so, yeah, lutherans are sometimes slow to adapt, but maybe that's an adaptable opportunity for us in the coming years. Anything more to say to that? And then I want to get into the ebbs and flows of what ministry and youth ministries look like. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:49

So then in 2017, I kind of left this significant part out. So, instead of doing seminary and going that route, just just still feel just wrestling with like no, I feel like called to do children, youth and families. That's what I want to do is I just explored kind of master's degrees and I said, okay, what's what's, where can I get a master's degree that's going to be affordable, work with my family situation, different things that I've got going on with kids and coaching and you know, extracurriculars, all this other stuff. How can I make something work? And so found a program through Indiana Wesleyan University and so they had a youth, children and family master's degree and it was. It was great.

Speaker 3: 18:26

I was able to rub shoulders with people like I'd never met with a church body I had very little interaction with and really a shout out to their program. They were really eager to have me and be open to learning and growing and they had a Wesleyan John, wesleyan influence and background and it was great to learn some things from them. But no part of the process was like, oh, we got Daniel doing his LCMS thing or his Luther thing over here. It was like, no, we want to learn from you, daniel too, and so that was great to make some connections, learn and grow and then double down on what I was doing.

Speaker 3: 18:56

I think it's easy to get a little complacent and so, like, I remember taking a class like how to talk to teenagers or give like speeches or little sermons and presentations to them, and that was helpful. Some of it was some stuff I had learned in a communication class before, but it helped me refine my skills and and go okay, I've been doing this. What 16, 17 years? At this point, how do I go back and relearn the right way to put stuff together and prepare to give a talk or a message or classes like that? And so it was. It was a valuable time to really grow and learn and, you know, prepare for the next, the next phase of ministry.

Speaker 2: 19:30

I find that when I interact with folks interdenominationally, two things happen. One, I gain a wider appreciation for what God is doing in his big C from Catholic charismatic church, all confessing Jesus as Lord, and I become even more grounded in my Lutheran distinctives. Both things happen at the same time and I think we have a false dichotomy that exists, because I went to Denver seminary, got my doctorate at Denver seminary, like you're going to come and you're going to be a Baptist now, or you're going to be a Wesleyan, you know, whatever that doesn't happen. Why? Because we're embedded in a Lutheran church. For goodness sake, that has to count for something, daniel right.

Speaker 3: 20:10

Yeah, no, exactly. And you know, part of it, I will admit, was my degree was not like a heavy theological degree, but they again, they really welcomed me with open arms. It was awesome. It was never like ever once. Yeah, we want you to become Wesleyan, and so it was great to be like no, no, no, Tell your story.

Speaker 3: 20:31

You know, in the papers, all the assignments and the intentional learning clarify exactly what you believe, why you believe it, all those kinds of things. And you know what the best part was. Being Lutheran, we have such a rich tradition Like it was easy. I didn't have to manufacture anything and go like well, no, I guess our church body thinks this and this is what my personal belief. It was like, no, I could just go back to what Martin Luther talked about and when doc one, doc two from Concordia, Nebraska, and different things, and pull that out and then, as you said exactly, just nail on the head um, you're able to clarify and more distinctly communicate and articulate what you believe it was.

Speaker 3: 21:04

It was neat, being at a mature, a more mature stage in my life and a more experienced stage of my life, to do learning process and that's why I just think in DCs are big about it, but, like being a lifelong learner, continuing education is just so important and I and I would say one thing that I've never been a huge school fan, but that what the master's degree forced me to do is be very intentional about the learning that you're doing. I read books all the time. I go to conferences I've done all this stuff over the years but how much synthesis, application, intentional learning do I follow up with that? Or did I just read the book and chuck it on the shelf and move on? And so that was, yeah, that was valuable as well.

Speaker 2: 21:45

Yeah, no, integration is a real thing, and integration best happens in your local context. So adult learning theory says the quicker we can get to application, the quicker I can teach. Whatever it is that I'm learning, the more it's going to integrate into my entire ministry, into my entire person. So that's a beautiful, beautiful thing. You talked about ebbs and flows in youth ministry. Take me and you can paint with a broad brush or get super specific. But what are some of those trends like Concordia, nebraska they could not have prepared you for this. And then how youth ministry has evolved pretty significantly as a world, technology, et cetera is, of all, pretty significantly. I'm sure youth ministry has as well. Give us a little bit of those, those pivots over the years, daniel.

Speaker 3: 22:26

Yeah, I would say, you know, I'd probably take it back to when, like you and I, were in youth group mid nineties. The focus was a lot, a lot of parents really wanted like a Friday night, teen night months, once a night for their or once a month for their junior high kids.

Speaker 2: 22:39

Once a month. Okay, yeah, like once a month, or they wanted a Wednesday night thing.

Speaker 3: 22:42

We want a safe place for our kids to go. We don't want them maybe hanging out somewhere else or with different people that you know wouldn't be the most conducive experience for them, or places where you know drugs, alcohol, any of that kind of stuff. And so there was a big movement on that and you know there was not. I don't remember anybody growing up you know I played a lot of basketball growing up I don't remember anybody doing like a club team where they traveled or went anywhere, had all these tournaments. Some people maybe had like another team and another little league or something, but I mean it was about the same involvement we were doing, you know, a couple of practices a week, a few games, you know, and that's just the basketball thing. But where, where you know, now you fast forward 20 years there is so much opportunity. It's not even funny. The stuff that college kids used to do, high school kids do, well, now the stuff that high school kids do, junior high are doing it. Just, it just trickles down and so um, we, uh, we, uh. I see it every time I drive home. We live by an indoor soccer facility and they have a big led sign and it says you know, you know enrolling now kick a ruse, and I think it's for like two year olds. And so what happens is that you get people involved in other activities and then maybe someone like me comes around and says, well, now I have a mission trip opportunity, we're going to go out of state somewhere or international whatever, for your high school kid. Well, your high school kid has never done a mission trip. You as a parent probably haven't done a mission trip, so you don't really have much um, much to uh, to go by.

Speaker 3: 24:07

Experience wise, then I would say this too I can't speak for everybody. My family was growing up like the Meyer family is going to go to church. Why? Because the Meyer family is going to go to church. We think worshiping the Lord is important. We're going to do that. So, like if we missed church on a Sunday, it was like who is sick? Why aren't we going that kind of thing?

Speaker 3: 24:25

Um, and then from there, my parents were heavily involved and so even some phases in my life, like sixth grade, my best friend went to. It was at a different Lutheran church and we were at the grade school together. He went public school, for example, so I wasn't connected with him as much. So I remember going to, like a Friday night, one of those youth events, and going like, mom, I don't want to go, none of my friends are going to be there. And my mom's like, okay, that's great, but this is good for you and we want you to go. And, and you know what, I didn't die, I, I, I did. Okay, I survived the night. Was it the most exciting night of my life? No, but, um, you know, I skated or whatever the event was and where a lot of it it's.

Speaker 3: 24:59

It's more well, well, well, tim, what do you, what do you want to do? And and and I think there's a place for that as well, but I think it's okay too for for families and parents to communicate that like, no, this is an expectation, we really want you to go. And here's why. And so I remember going into high school, my, my older sister, she, she'd gone on mission trips and stuff. So I just kinda, I just to me, it was kind of just an expectation, that like whether it was said, I think at times said but not said like yeah, daniel's going to go on mission trips, he's going to go do this, he's going to be involved in the youth group.

Speaker 3: 25:30

You know the DCEs at the church are putting on this ministry and we're going to support this ministry because this is what we're going to do, but at the same time I wasn't doing 12 other things, and so I think a lot of families aren't intentionally now saying stiff arm, no, we don't want to do this. It's just I'm trying to check this box, this box, this box and this box and and maybe that god box isn't, maybe the the um. A lot of times we do, like the sand in the jar with the rock, you want to put that god rock in first. You know if you've seen that analogy, and so that's, I think, the tension that the families are really struggling with. How do you fit it all in?

Speaker 2: 26:04

Well, yeah, no, it's real. I mean, I'm a parent of three teenagers right now and even getting them on a Friday or Sunday night to say, hey, this is this, is it when, um, when they may not want to go, they got homework, they got whatever, they got a really full week coming up and and it's easy to say, okay, well, maybe it's not that big of a deal, even for me. I'm a I'm a 16 year pastor man, you know. So that that expectation is is harder today and maybe, um, maybe parents have become a little bit more lax and I'm just just painting with a broad brush, not just looking at me, but kind of some trends.

Speaker 2: 26:45

I've noticed that we'd rather not lead with the law per se, like telling someone they have to do this and be here, rather than the holistic life of who is the student around consistently, who's the primary influence, who are the primary adults speaking into their life and they need time to serve, they need time to be poured into as well, but it's all of one thing rather than maybe a program thing that you have to be a part of. So maybe the flip today in terms of youth ministry is like the church and the ministry, the program has to fit into the family rather than the family kind of fitting into the program, and there's no doubt that the weight and the heaviness of our schedules is crippling potential opportunities for the program to work at the local church. Some are killing it more than others, but some are really, really struggling. I got some creative ideas I'd like to kick around with you too, about how to solve that. But before, before that, uh, what are your, what's your take on what I just shared?

Speaker 3: 27:48

Yeah, yeah, we, you know, we just stick to our values. Is what we really try to do? Um, so much programmatic late nineties, early two thousands ministry, like we've talked about. It focuses on numbers and you just got to get kids there and you want to do this and do that. I mean, I remember being at a purpose-driven youth ministry conference, I think like 2004 or five or whatever. And there's this guy and I think he's at a non-denom church or whatever and he's talking to one of the presenters and he's like I got, I got two years to grow the youth group. I'm a year in and if I don't double it by the end of this year, I'm thankful that our culture in the LCMS isn't that way, with our divine calls and all that kind of stuff. But I've been at churches and different friends and things where, yeah, what are the numbers, what are the metrics and what's going on, and at the end of the day, we really focus on developing more youth that are loved and more youth that are sent. And so how do we focus on their identity in Christ and who God's called them, how God works through them and how do we build people, not programs.

Speaker 3: 28:48

And, yeah, there's always going to be a programmatic element, but you know I take a deep breath too, as much as I can get frustrated. The Holy spirit doesn't do things the way that I want them done. I'm okay saying you know what Everybody has a different spiritual journey with the Lord and you can't just programmatic and get an end result. And sometimes I think, as DCEs it's easy to get into that trap because that's how we're trained. We're trained to create educational opportunities in congregations for members and outreach and non members and that's what we do and that is great and well. But at the end of the day you really got to care about people. You got to walk with them and can't walk with every student, you know come perfectly, completely. That's why you got to have adult leaders. You got to have other people. You know we use a lot of the sticky faith ideology of having. You know how can we help, support parents and having five trusted adults, care, care for each team and walk through that process with them. Walk through that process with them, knowing that it's a journey and it's not just about, oh, your freshman son, and if we don't disciple him, hardcore and get him connected to Christ, then it's, then it's just a failure and we've seen the stats of drop off after confirmation and after high school and you just got to take a deep breath knowing that the Lord, the Lord, is in control, he's still using us. Impact is still happening.

Speaker 3: 30:05

One thing that I've found some comfort in and this is almost kind of downer Daniel a little bit here, but I found comfort in trusting the Lord ultimately. But then to how real is the parable of the sower, and I think we live in an age that goes. Well, we've got the Bible app on the phone and maybe I'm at a big church with a budget or can just staff some people or I can just do it this way, and if I just check the boxes, it's automatically going to disciple and bring more people to the Lord, and there's some general truth to that that. Yes, you do some more things, that you're going to see some out and some outcomes, but you can't just you can't just create a mold and then everybody else is just going to be that same mold by default, and so it's just good to take some of the pressure off yourself.

Speaker 3: 30:48

Allow God to be God, have your values, have the things you stick to, so that you're not just knee jerk every two minutes going oh I came from the conference, Now let's do this. I just read the book. Oh, I just talked to pastor Tim at Christ Greenfield. We're going to do what they're doing. I've been there and I've done those kinds of things and sometimes those are successful, Sometimes there's not, and a lot of times you just burn people out through those processes of just flipping the switch all the time. That's great man.

Speaker 2: 31:13

Really good words of wisdom. So have you had any kind of consistency and success, if you will, in collaboration between churches as it relates to youth ministry? Have you done anything like that?

Speaker 3: 31:25

Yeah so. So the good news is, when you're DC a long time, I think, I think um, if I can brag on DCEs, I think they do community as well as anybody. Um, hats off to uh Christ Phoenix there for doing best practices. I went to that a couple of times and I go uh collaborating in ministry, sharing resources, talking about what you're doing.

Speaker 3: 31:46

That's what we've been doing for forever, um, and so it's. It's been great we have our NADCE, um, national association directors of Christian education. Um, and and and you said it well earlier, not everybody lasts in DCE ministry. Um, it's got some ebbs and flows to it. There's certain things that you know that make it um not for everyone, and that's okay, but it's been great to connect with some of those people.

Speaker 3: 32:07

But the latest thing actually that I'm working on, I literally just got this going. I've felt the desire and a need and I want to say this very humbly Not all people are at a thousand plus a weekend church, but I've noticed the situation that I'm at at Christ Memorial is sometimes I have a lot of great friends and peers in churches, but how many people are in my same boat? And so I've just kind of started something it's called Youth Ministry Pioneers, and so I've been connecting the large church mostly DCEs, but not all our official roster DCEs, but the large church youth ministry workers together, and I've met a few of them over the years. But it kind of hit me I interviewed at another large church about a year ago and was saying man, maybe the spirit's up to something, and through that process, decided no, no. But I remember sitting there in the interview going, gosh, I don't know if I'm appointed by the Lord to do this position, but I remember going I don't know how many DCEs could do this job. What they're looking for, they're looking for a high caliber, experienced individual that have done large scale ministry events, because that's who they are. They weren't just trying to be cool or anything like that. It wasn't about a number thing, it's just no.

Speaker 3: 33:23

We're this large church that's used to doing things a certain way and not everybody can do that. Just like you put me, maybe in an urban context or you know a different setting, and I'm going to be a fish out of water and my gifts aren't going to be used while there. And so sometimes, though, I feel like it's a little I've said it this where it's like, oh, it's great for you, daniel, you've got a big church and you've got more kids, or you've got more budget, or you've got this, and I go yeah, but I got. I got my own challenges too.

Speaker 3: 33:49

And so this youth ministry pioneers I've been pulling, pulling us together, and I've been trying to reach out to people to have that collaboration, to have that support so that when I, you know I or someone else asks a question, we, we can get some great feedback and responses, not just somebody from a setting. That's maybe not the best and they mean well, but that the feedback isn't that helpful because you're going okay, your setting is nothing like my setting. So that's been, that's been valuable just in the little stuff we've done in the last couple of months.

Speaker 2: 34:16

That's awesome to hear, dude, and I commend that. You should run. Run with that. We need, we need men like you and your season and, as well, obviously, leading the charge toward caring for churches in diverse contexts and sizes and shapes and missions, et cetera. So that's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 34:35

Is there any research on the sizes of gatherings that are and this is again kind of high level but the most compelling in engaging youth today? So one of my working hypotheses is I don't know that we have enough, and this is going to sound like event kind of promotion, but what I'm here for you what happens? Yeah, what happens? What happens at the National Youth Gathering? When these kids get together and they see, oh, my goodness, I'm not alone, there's 20 or whatever thousand kids that are around, there's some Holy Spirit, Jesus juice that gets released. You know Holy Spirit fire, that kind of fires these kids up and really propels them into the next season of life.

Speaker 2: 35:20

And I feel like in a lot of our churches, especially if they're medium or smaller, then you come back and it's like, oh, could there be? Could there be like regional and I know we try to do this with some kind of consistency, but could it be a weekly Like. This would be the ideal for me, that churches would work together and there would be core things like worship. But it's a lot of younger people Maybe it's youth freshmen through marriage, pre-marriage, right Right up to that point and there are churches that could be created, that kind of fan into flame what the kids have experienced at the National Youth Gathering, with some kind of consistency, Because there is like kids want to be a part of something.

Speaker 2: 36:03

This is why okay, just let me go off on this this is why GCU, Grand Canyon University, is blowing up right now. It's because kids see what Jesus is here and there's like a critical mass of their chapels are unbelievable. You know, there's this critical mass and I In the East Valley here, if our churches combined to care for we would have 200 to 300 youth to young adults. That would be, man, my calling to deeply disciple this, and then we could. We could collaborate between churches. I don't know, it's just a, maybe a pipe dream, because churches, especially when you get pastors and you start talking about church planning, then then all the restrictions, these are my people, but I don't know Any thoughts on that kind of concept.

Speaker 3: 36:59

Yeah, yeah. So so what you're talking is logistics, um, and so that's what I feel like. I mean, I feel like I'm like the old UPS commercials or whatever, like I feel like I'm a logistics specialist, so so, so, so great. Example was a little different, but super quick was um. Pastor Jeff came to me. You know we were not doing live stream. If you don't want to get it going, that's fine, but you seem like the guy and I'm sitting there going. Well, I know some tech stuff a little bit, but I've never live streamed anything. And I said give me the budget and what's the vision. And so what I think the biggest challenge we have is I love your idea, I love what you're talking about. You need some horses to do that work. So so, and what's hard is this is not a knock on Concordia, nebraska or anything Significant event planning takes a lot of experience and not everybody is great at pulling off huge, huge events, like you just did your gala in your brand new gym and stuff.

Speaker 3: 37:59

I was. I was asking your youth person Rachel yeah, sorry, maddie. I was asking Rachel. I said how many people do you have? What did you raise? I was like, because we do a similar event and I'm going. I'm just curious, how'd you do that? And so I love learning from those kind of things.

Speaker 3: 38:15

The biggest challenge is you have to have a desire to want to collaborate and unfortunately we just historically haven't done that. For I think the main reason of it just takes more time. It's harder. It's harder to bring someone along with you. We do simple stuff, like we have kids from our sometimes we have kids help in worship and so we'll have them do the scripture readings. Well, it takes time to send an extra email to the parent to get them to read, and I know that's a micro example, but, and so that's why it's just easier. You know what I'm going to just get my kids together on Wednesday night and do my youth group thing. We've been doing a couple of those things here.

Speaker 3: 38:50

I know your context out there where I, when I was there 20 years ago, I mean it was like what, 50, 60, 70% Mormon there was a Mormon ward every mile on the mile and I remember taking the kids in 20, what was that? Uh, uh, I'm internship. What? Oh, four gathering, I think I. I've been there two weeks so I went on youth gathering with kids. I didn't know at all, and they were going like we're not the only LCMS Lutherans oh my gosh, we thought we were all alone. Um, but I but I think, definitely, definitely, I am a. I'm on the planning committee. I was kind of the chairman the last couple of years for the Missouri district youth gathering, so we've been getting 450 middle school, high school kids together, um.

Speaker 3: 39:24

But I would say, yeah, it's identifying who you want to get together and then you just need to have some logistics special specialists that are going to pull off, pull that stuff off. But I would also say this the thing we want to be careful about is, um, we as Lutherans I strongly believe and this is why I love your personality we need to have more passion, joy and excitement. We need to have more emotion and I'm kind of a stoic German Lutheran and I'm not always the best at doing that, so I need to be around people like you that give me that, and we need to have more of that. But one thing that I think we have to be careful of the other way is emotionalism, where you plug people into this epic machine and then they do go off to college or they do move to another part of the country and they're not plugged into that machine anymore and now they don't know how to do faith on their own. I have this curriculum that I used years ago. That bought it from like, simply, youth ministry or something, and it was for college students and it said strip everything away, get rid of the youth group, get rid of DBS, get rid of the you know, the mission trip, the, whatever, all, all the ministry that is done for you.

Speaker 3: 40:28

What is your relationship with Jesus Christ? Because if it is all external, which we need to have, it's a both, and you know it's a vertical and a horizontal. I'm not teaching anything you don't know. But how do we build people that have that? Ideally and I'll never forget, it's about 10 years ago I'm on the phone with a mom and great, great friends of ours. She actually watches our youngest kid. Now we get along awesome.

Speaker 3: 40:51

But she was kind of sticking it to me about mission trips and we were going to go off to serve at a Lutheran camp and she goes. I just don't think that's impactful enough. I think we need to be with a homeowner, we need to be down where there's been a hurricane or something like that. And I said and I just remember kind of pushing back, going like I think there's always an opportunity for that, but it's not a successful mission trip if it's only riding on the fact that, well, we need to meet Tim and how his house got flooded out, and if Tim doesn't cry sharing his story, and then we don't cry together with Tim, like, like you have to have this level of emotionalism because then you go back and then I've taken kids and we've had a trip like that, by the grace of God that we had an impactful, just just God moments, and then they come back the next year and they're going like, oh, it wasn't the same, and so it's a both hand. But I just I'd like to be a little careful with that that we don't create something that then they just never get to experience again. But it's tough.

Speaker 3: 41:41

You get to youth gathering and you see the band. Well, 99% of our churches can't do the youth gathering band there, right, and so you got to keep pumping kids up and you've got to keep connecting these opportunities and, um, and I think you keep asking the question, and so the next time you get together with some pastors, or I'll just say it, find the youth leaders Most, most of the people doing children's and, um, oh my gosh, I want to connect with her so bad Um. The gal from Las Vegas that you had on one on the podcast, her energy she was doing the VBS stuff at was that faith in Vegas. I was like I don't care what I would get to do with her, I just want to do something with her. It was just infectious energy and I go. That's someone that knows how to get stuff done. It's awesome.

Speaker 2: 42:24

Yeah, there are so many opportunities and I definitely receive that and I, we don't want to go, you know, a mile wide and an inch deep. It's always about the gathering and the scattering and the discipleship that takes place in the scattering. And we, yeah, as Lutherans, we're definitely against emotivism and centering everything in the experience. And yet God still is an experiential God and he wants to create spaces where he can show us how much he loves us. He wants to create spaces where he can show us how much he loves us, and that can be in a very small group of people or a very large group of people or anywhere in between.

Speaker 2: 43:09

I think we as Lutherans get kind of stuck Large is bad, small is good or small is you know, and it's just. It's our God meets us all in a variety of different contexts and ultimately it's about relationship. It's not about emotion, it's about knowing no one were loved by God and sent to let the world know that they're. They're loved by God too, so much that he sent his son Jesus. So that's that is the focus coming down the homestretch here. This has been fun, daniel. If you look, I'll ask you to get out your. You don't have a crystal ball by any stretch, but you've been in it 20 years by any stretch, but you've been in it 20 years. What do you think are some trends, some things that will be different in the American Christian church, specifically in youth ministry, and in 20 years, how are you going to have to adapt and we, as a church, in term, adapt?

Speaker 3: 43:55

I think we have to continue to stay steadfast to our calling. I think it's, I think it's going to get harder. I don't know if I fully subscribed to pendulum theory. You know where, where families have gotten busier, busier, busier, busier, busier. We're seeing that a little bit from COVID. A few families you know people, I you know, I know, uh said hey, gosh, it was kind of nice not to be so busy.

Speaker 3: 44:24

No-transcript. There's not the depth of the relationships, the meaningfulness, um, the good news, no matter what, because we live under, you know, god's, god's kingdom and his rule, and he's, he's the creator. We're created for community and, um, we're going to continue to desire that, and so there's always going to be people looking and searching for more. One of our previous pastors here. He said you know, people don't need Jesus till they need Jesus, and I would hope and pray that our churches wouldn't only be a place for oh, my gosh, we have to have the funeral now because grandma died, or the cancer, or the car wreck, or the whatever. We know people need Jesus in those moments. But I think, moving forward, especially with youth ministry, you can't get married to something too long. Every four years you have a new high school youth group, and so you've got to stay to the values and then continue to just invest, invest and invest. You know, kids want to be known by name, adults want to be known by name. People want to be valued and respected. They don't just want to be another, just another number in a program. And so I think, as long as families are busy with a lot of things and a lot of activities and a lot of things going on and just that, that culture of consumeristic, you know, give me what I want or I'm going to go to the church down the street. Consumeristic. You know, give me what I want or I'm going to go to the church down the street. I can't.

Speaker 3: 45:44

I heard it. I've heard it this way from years. I think it was Doug Fields. He said you know, I'm never going to be six flags, I'm never going to be Disney world at Christ Memorial, but I can know a kid's name, the right attendant at at those places.

Speaker 3: 46:07

I wasn't a piano recital for my high school senior. She was playing pianos for years. I mean it was awesome hearing her play. I had one of my other adult leaders that she invited the girl. Kathy invited her name's Kat. She invited Kat too to the event and Kat, I guess, had wrote a letter to Kathy, a note just saying I don't even know what, but encouragement or just thank you. You know, I just was so proud to be a part. The mom and Kat are crying because the mom is thanking Kat for sending that note to her girl. It was what? Five minutes to write a note. It's one note.

Speaker 3: 46:38

Every note you send isn't going to have that same result, but I think it's just continuing to do those those little things and and and valuing those, those people, and knowing that people want to be known. And you know, we just we just keep beating the drum here at Christ Memorial of of more youth loved, more youth sent, and what we're doing today may be different, but we keep involving. And the other, the other caveat is big is the involvement. Involvement is big now where, where you don't just do it for them and have a passive experience, how do you incorporate them into it? And so it's, it's it's touch and go for me with stuff Like I've got a youth leadership team. These are like my 12 best of the best kids, if I can get three or four to respond to a text that me or the other adult leader sends out, or we get more than three to show up to a youth leadership meeting. It's like a win, but it's a grind and it's a challenge, and you know what I've really wrestled over the years with. You know. It just seemed easier.

Speaker 3: 47:35

At this other church I talked to this peer and I just go. You know Pastor Jeff's been good with this. He's like do you need me to pull back out the call documents? You were called to Christ Memorial to serve the Lord in this place. And so you just keep reminding yourself um, we, we we've kidded years over the years, like you have days where you just you just want to quit and and that's okay.

Speaker 3: 47:53

Um, knowing that, um, the Bible is full, I just keep going back to the prophets of the old Testament, um, the times, uh, my dad brings us up a lot. He goes. You know, do I need to point out in scripture where they didn't all even follow Jesus? And he's Jesus and Daniel, you're not Jesus, so you know. And so you just keep forging ahead, knowing that that we need to continue to baptize, we need to continue to share the love of Christ and lead people into these relationships with Jesus and, um, the future is going to be the future, and I'm a testament to like, the fact of like.

Speaker 3: 48:25

I don't use Snapchat that much, really, but I can still connect with kids, and so that's why I like to encourage adult leaders and people of all ages, like let's continue to invest in the future of our church. The church now, but the people that are going to be in the positions we're at in 20 years, and you've got to keep praying for them. Go up to them on a Sunday morning and just say, hey, I'm Bob, I've been a member here a long time. Um, what's your name? Where do you go to school? What, what activities you're involved with outside of school? Those simple things, I think, can really speak volumes for a, for a body of Christ to to continue to invest in kids.

Speaker 2: 48:57

Amen, I love it, daniel. Uh, what will not change is our need for Christ and community, our need for one another. It doesn't matter how old you are, young you are, whatever as the world evolves, those two things are the staple, and people need to be reminded that they're loved and sent. Praise God. I love that your vision has integrated into every aspect of the ministry there at Christ Memorial. It's so, so good. So shout out to wonderful pastors like Pastor Jeff Glader at Christ Memorial. It's so, so good. So shout out to wonderful pastors like Pastor Jeff Glader.

Speaker 3: 49:26

Last question what's that? Why tease him all the time? It's so stupid good. It drives me nuts. I'm like how did you come up with this Two words, you know, but it's great, I think he read the Bible, I think yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 49:41

It's funny, though, that, like these, these hooks, good communication is is really finding a good hook that you can kind of tether yourself to, and finding a good hook, though, really takes a lot of a lot of effort. So this was no small thing that the Holy Spirit led you guys to that kind of a hook for your ministry. Praise, praise God. And that's got. It's got a long shelf life. Loved and sent is is super, super powerful.

Speaker 3: 50:04

And we've analyzed it too where we've said do we want to go to something different? Is loved and sent Don? And every time we kind of go back we're like, no, I think it's foundational and I think it's just so important. I don't know if every church needs to be doing it, but but it's. It's something that we've really embodied Beautiful.

Speaker 2: 50:19

All right. Last question we are proud multi-generational members of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. No-transcript.

Speaker 3: 50:31

Yeah, I love it most of the time. I love, I love our consistency of who we are. We don't just make a left turn to make a left turn and and you're never wrong being grounded in God's word You're never wrong having a great, just thorough explanation of Scripture. The fact that we have a system it's. It's flawed at times but we have a system everything from, you know, for for professional church workers, to our college university systems, to you know, our, our healthcare and our retirement and all that kind of stuff. You know I talked to a lot of peers and non non. You know, uh, solidified synod, church body kind of places, non-denoms and other. They don't have those kinds of things and they're really on an Island by themselves on different things. And so the fact that we have that, we have the community, we have the network of people like you and I that that haven't really been in person in the same room much in 20 years, but we can have a rich history and communication and community together. I think that's what we do really well and I think of, like best practices or the NADC conference, those kinds of things, the thing that I think really needs to improve and I know you're on this and you're working. We've got to figure out, I think, how do we build more leaders? And so we're working on some other stuff here Christ Memorial, we've got an intern program called the Harbor Leadership Collective. We're working on some other stuff here Christ Memorial, we've got an intern program called the Harbor Leadership Collective. We're working with some other churches in the St Louis area Maybe this is a whole nother podcast for another time but we're trying to build up leaders.

Speaker 3: 52:03

So I've had a school year interns we're kind of doing like 17 to about 27 year olds and it's kind of like a gap year thing. Or I've had high schoolers and and it's been like no, we're going to, we're going to pay you a nice little stipend and you're going to be involved, leading and responsible for ministry, and so it's been great to have weekly meetings with that intern, develop and build and give them ministry opportunities. Okay, yeah, it'd be awesome if they do church work. The one I, the one I had this year, she's pre-med, she, she's going to crush a medical career. I don't think she's due to her to deterred in that, but I know she's going to be an active member in a church doing, doing ministry. So we've been.

Speaker 3: 52:37

Uh, that's kind of good, but I sit there and look at someone like me where I go. No, I think my guests are best used not in a pastoral role or, as we title, pastors. How do we continue to educate and disciple someone like me and allow me to be a strength? You know you talked about collaboration. You know I've wondered do I be a DCE for like three churches? That'd be sticky, it'd be a mess, it'd be convoluted.

Speaker 3: 52:59

How do you figure out? You know salary and benefits, but I go, every church can't have a Daniel Meyer. How do we, how do we help more churches have have a, have a solid youth group, have resources, have training, have stuff, and that's. That's the kind of stuff that I just have a heart and passion for. Uh, combined with, like so many people, helped me get to where I'm at. How can I help others? You know I don't have all the answers, but but how can I be a blessing, maybe, to other people, knowing that you know who's the 25 year old that's going to be sitting here on a podcast or whatever form they're using? You know, 15 years from now, going like, hey, a Daniel Meyer or someone else poured into me that I can be dynamic and helpful in ministries moving forward, and we've we've got to figure that out.

Speaker 2: 53:40

Yes, yes, preach it and maybe, just maybe, directors of Christian education um have more passion and the ability to execute on a vision of multiplying disciples and multiplying leaders within the church. Maybe there's. Maybe there's because the the market, if you will, for pastors like spearheading this conversation is. It's a lot trickier to navigate in my experience up to this point, but man, we all let anybody would do the youth stuff. You know, you guys just find somebody with a lot of passion, charisma, the kind of thing and let's platform and let them go after kids. There's a lot more to youth ministry than that. By the way, I'm painting a caricature but, I, think that's the way some in the.

Speaker 2: 54:27

LCMS think yeah okay, fine, yeah, let's start with leadership development in caring for the next gen and start young and identifying those young people who have those skills the I see in you conversation and maybe the DCE route becomes an expandable route, because the ordination piece is very, very tricky right now in the LCMS and there are a lot of power brokers at high places that say no, no, no, this, this, this. But I think there's a lot more spontaneity and creativity coming out of maybe our Concordia's today. So, yeah, anything more to add there, daniel, this has been fun man.

Speaker 3: 55:02

Well, no, I mean, I could pontificate on a lot of that At the end of the day, like to the greater world, I'm pastoral, that's what I do. I'm pastoring people, our church body, and that's a whole nother sticky wicket for another, another time, and what I get paid because I'm not a pastor blah, blah, blah. I mean I could go on and on and on. But but yeah, no, that's exactly, that's exactly it.

Speaker 3: 55:24

We are at a point in ministry where it is hard, it is challenging, it's been hard and challenging, but I think all the more to have to help not only people like us lay people. People were developing the next gen, whatever it is. How do you have lasting impact in ministry? Because we've all got peers that have done it for a year or two and have quit. We've poured into leaders that have lasted a year or two and it hasn't worked out, and so we just need to continue that development and pour in. I mean, I'm sorry To me it just doesn't get any more exciting.

Speaker 3: 55:54

The reason I keep doing the youth stuff is like adults. Adults get static, adults get boring. In my opinion, not all of them. There's a lot of awesome people out there, but they get to a point in their life to go. This is who I am, these are my gifts and abilities, and I'm not going to alter from that where you can get a junior high to do a lot of stuff, and so I just want to. I want to continue to infuse that energy to go like no, I'm a work in progress, I'm not done, and so maybe there's a new skill I'm going to learn, and so we just got to keep, keep, keep at it.

Speaker 2: 56:22

It's good man. We need more, daniel Myers. We need more. You shout out to Becky Chaplin from faith in Vegas energy. Yeah, yeah, becky, you should reach out to Becky. You don't send me an email, I'll connect you guys, but if people want to connect with you, if people connect with you, daniel, how can they do so?

Speaker 3: 56:38

Yeah, so I'm. I'm DCE D Meyer on on social media, that kind of stuff. I'm danielmeyer at cmstlorg, but here in St Louis. You can probably track me down on the NADC Facebook page. I would encourage anybody pastor, lay person, whoever join the NADCE Facebook page. It is a great resource for anything. You need a policy manual? That's the group to ask. You need help with your VBS? That's the group to ask. And if you can get connected to people like us that want to help and want to impact the kingdom and want to share resources and open source, give it away. I've spent way too much time doing way too much stuff. It's like let me help you.

Speaker 2: 57:19

Amen, amen, so good. This is the American Reformation podcast. We'll continue to have awesome conversations with leaders like Daniel, trying to be faithful, to run the race with perseverance, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, and there's always more to learn. There are always other ministries to collaborate with. If you're a leader and you're isolated, let this be a clarion call to you to say you are not alone. Get connected to other leaders in other churches. There are strength in numbers, there's strength in the Holy Spirit and we in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, we have a lot, a lot of people who would love to care for, encourage and lovingly challenge you as a leader. Whether you're paid, not paid, you're a leader in a church. Let's keep running the race. Let's not give up, because eternity is at stake and we want to be found faithful and sharing the gospel with as many people as possible, young and old, because the day of Christ's return is quickly approaching. Thanks so much for this conversation, daniel. It was a joy bro.

Speaker 3: 58:18

Hey, man, you're welcome. Thank you, all right, it was awesome.