Celebrating the 300th episode of a podcast feels like a landmark achievement, and it's perfect timing to bring on podcasting peers and pastoral pals, Dr. Andrew Larson and Tim Miller, who join us to chat about the unique juggle of ministry and the microphone. We peel back the curtain on their Monday routines, post-Sunday fatigue, and the weekly pressures that pastors face in crafting meaningful messages for their congregations. As we sit down, sharing our own trials and triumphs, the episode becomes a testament to the power of shared stories in creating connections within our vocation.
Navigating sensitive topics can feel like a high-wire act, but Andrew and Tim embrace the challenge with a mix of sensitivity and humor. We discuss the importance of authenticity and relationship-building in our roles while also respecting confidentiality. We share the unexpected joys and heartfelt messages from listeners who find solace in our shared experiences, reinforcing that none of us has to navigate ministry alone.
Our conversation then takes a practical turn as we examine how churches can form meaningful partnerships with nonprofit organizations. We exchange tales of community impact, how to sidestep the aggressive tactics of certain nonprofits, and the merits of relational engagement. This episode serves as a hearty blend of advice, anecdotes, and affirmations, reminding all of us in ministry, or those working with ministries, how vital it is to serve with purpose, preserve our well-being, and lean into the support system that surrounds us.
Shownotes
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Celebrating the 300th episode of a podcast feels like a landmark achievement, and it's perfect timing to bring on podcasting peers and pastoral pals, Dr. Andrew Larson and Tim Miller, who join us to chat about the unique juggle of ministry and the microphone. We peel back the curtain on their Monday routines, post-Sunday fatigue, and the weekly pressures that pastors face in crafting meaningful messages for their congregations. As we sit down, sharing our own trials and triumphs, the episode becomes a testament to the power of shared stories in creating connections within our vocation.
Navigating sensitive topics can feel like a high-wire act, but Andrew and Tim embrace the challenge with a mix of sensitivity and humor. We discuss the importance of authenticity and relationship-building in our roles while also respecting confidentiality. We share the unexpected joys and heartfelt messages from listeners who find solace in our shared experiences, reinforcing that none of us has to navigate ministry alone.
Our conversation then takes a practical turn as we examine how churches can form meaningful partnerships with nonprofit organizations. We exchange tales of community impact, how to sidestep the aggressive tactics of certain nonprofits, and the merits of relational engagement. This episode serves as a hearty blend of advice, anecdotes, and affirmations, reminding all of us in ministry, or those working with ministries, how vital it is to serve with purpose, preserve our well-being, and lean into the support system that surrounds us.
Shownotes
The Nonprofit Renaissance is Powered by Vers Creative. An award winning creative agency trusted by global brands and businesses.
Follow @collinhoke
Follow @heredes
Follow @vers_creative
Work with Vers
Well, Colin, what I love about episodes like today is that we're talking to experts. We're talking it's not newbies. These are not like podcasters who COVID hit. Now we got to do something. They've been at it, they've been doing it for a while, for a while and again with titles. With titles and 300 plus episodes, if I'm correct. If we'll talk about this, Is that right?
Tim Miller:We're inching in on our 300th episode.
Heredes:So there's a celebration about to happen, but with titles such as high number highs and shrinking man thighs playing hooky and unholy matrimony, butts, budgets and building, and that's just wet your appetite.
Collin:So if you aren't aware. We never go back and look at any of the.
Andrew Larsen:It's not unfortunate. So, entertaining, that might make it more appropriate. We come up with a title and then okay, that's funny, and then never think about it again who says the funniest thing five minutes before the show starts?
Tim Miller:And that's how we title it.
Andrew Larsen:And so the shrinking man thighs got me. I wasn't expecting to come back to that at any point in my life, and there it is.
Heredes:It's back today, but introduce her guys, conor. We're at the nonprofit Renaissance podcast helping you go further and grow faster. Who's with us today?
Collin:Conor, we got some buddies. We got Andrew Larson here, excuse me.
Tim Miller:Dr, Andrew Larson. Dr. You are correct, dr.
Collin:Andrew Larson, as of.
Andrew Larsen:I was officially conferred last month. Hey yo.
Collin:See, he uses words like conferred.
Tim Miller:He's definitely that's it, he's a doctor.
Collin:So is it a doctorate or a PhD? Because I recently learned that those are not the same thing.
Andrew Larsen:They are not the same thing. They're separate things.
Collin:It's a doctor of ministry. Ah, yes, sir, so I should not come to you with my fungal problems. I mean, I'll take a look.
Andrew Larsen:Okay, but it's not Mostly because I'm curious your chat's CBT yeah.
Collin:Yeah, so that's Andrew, a pastor of Safety Harbor Church, and then we've also got another buddy of mine, tim Miller. He's the pastor over at Lakeview Lakeview Church, baby Lakeview Church, and so known these guys for a good amount of time, and they are the hosts of a two podcast. One is the Morning After Ministry that we just the Morning After Ministry show.
Heredes:First show Come on, Colin.
Collin:That's it Show.
Heredes:You acted like a fangirl earlier. Now you're going to come on. Oh my God.
Collin:And then also Practically Pastoring. You get with three other pastors every week Every other week we do so two podcasts that you guys are doing. The both of those are weekly shows.
Andrew Larsen:Well, we record two episodes of Practically Pastoring at a Time, but they play every week, yeah. And then we they're both weekly shows. We release one every week, but, yeah, it goes out.
Collin:So a lot of content generated each week, and you guys are also pastors, so you're writing sermons, you're just generating a lot of things, practically A lot of stuff.
Heredes:I want to start there Because one for our listeners, whether it's ministry, prayer, church, whether it's non-profits. You've been at it for a while. It wasn't a joke. You've been doing some content, generating content, podcasts, multiple podcasts outside of your church and your ministry podcast and all the other stuff you do. Like this podcast. Why and why have you stuck with it? Why do you keep going back to the microphone and putting content out?
Tim Miller:I think it's pretty easy for me. I don't know if Andrew would agree or not. When we first had the idea to do the show, we were looking really for an excuse to hang out every week. That's exactly what I'm saying we knew that, hey, we need time.
Andrew Larsen:Mondays are hard. We don't actually want to do real work.
Tim Miller:Typically for us in ministry, weekends are long and they're exhausting, so Mondays are really difficult to get at ministry land. So we thought what's a good way to decompress a little bit and we know we're not alone. So we knew our target audience was going to be other exhausted pastors. So that was kind of the idea of what if we just got together and hung out every week and we just did it on a regular basis.
Heredes:When it's live. You're live on Facebook. You're obviously distributing all platforms. Tell me it's 2018, I think episode one, and you've been at it because I think the consistency is key with things like this. You haven't quit.
Collin:Have you thought about quitting? Have you thought about you guys didn't join the COVID train of? Well, I guess we might as well just do a podcast, because we can't get together. We're pre-COVID, yeah.
Andrew Larsen:Now practically pastoring came out of COVID land that season, but now we've been doing this since 2018.
Heredes:Yeah Now. So help a nonprofit leader understand a little bit of the pastoral ministry rhythm. Right, I was like what do you mean? Monday Dude, monday's hustle, monday 9 am, boom, tell them, help them understand. Obviously because this is for multiple layers of leadership in nonprofit churches or in nonprofit. But that weekend, 52 weeks a year schedule is a grind. Help them understand a little bit about that.
Andrew Larsen:I mean, think about the term paper that you had due in comp one or Western Civ, that thing that was looming at the end of the semester, and how, the day after that you're like, whew, I am not doing any homework today. That is 52 Sundays a year. I tried to explain to teenagers like, hey, what's your job like? I lead our student ministry right now at our church, because we don't have a youth pastor right now. And they're like what's your job all week? That paper that you don't want to write, that's what I do every week and it's one of the things that I do every week.
Andrew Larsen:One of the things that I do every that's the thing that people can see that I do every week is I am writing a 3,500 word term paper and it's not just a teacher coasting that's grading it. It is people who are grading it with their feet, with their checkbooks, with their kids involvement. So that means that Monday morning is a huge exhale time while at the same time trying to kind of recoup and get ready to do it again six days later.
Tim Miller:Yeah, so something that we say often in ministry land is Sunday is always coming. It's like it's just this we know in the back of our minds, no matter what day it is. It could be Sunday afternoon and we've already thought that next Sunday is coming again. So it is that weekly grind. But Sunday is the day, it's the exhausting day, it's the one that you've pumped and you've put the pressure on and you've done all, hopefully, the prep necessary, and not just Saturday night, but all throughout the week.
Andrew Larsen:I was at a big, big, cool church, if you will, in Texas, while I was in seminary, and the staff's slogan was it's the weekend. Stupid, because it was hey, whatever's coming up, the weekend is the thing that matters.
Andrew Larsen:And that's, I think, a very shallow and short-sighted way to look at things but at the same time, it's true, sunday comes every seven days. Whether or not you're prepared to, whether or not you've been on vacation, whether or not you've had difficult things, whether it be counseling or funerals or whatever else is happening during the week, sunday is still coming.
Heredes:And it's an emotional, spiritual, physical. We can go down the line, financial depending on whatever, but it is right. There's a pull in all those senses that Monday morning is.
Tim Miller:Yeah, and there's this pressure on Sundays where you feel like you kind of have to be on, like you have to be there to talk to people, to listen to people and also, by the way, I'm going to preach possibly more than one service. If you have multiple services you've got to be ready to go back to back. So it's like that big meeting you have coming up and that feeling you have when that meeting is over and pastors describe it like that to business leaders and that pressure you felt when that meeting was looming large. And there it is and then you can exhale that's us Sunday afternoons at like 12.30.
Andrew Larsen:But also when you are in nonprofit, you have a board of directors and most churches have elders or a board or whatever it is, but you also have, however, many board members that are just sitting and listening. So it's not. Hey, I'm looking at the minutes, I'm looking at the results, but it's the immediate feedback, but also the immediate how available are you to me? Because I know that you do this 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week or whatever, but I've got 15 minutes that I expect for you to give me right now, even though you've just dumped out everything that you had.
Heredes:Tell us this, and we've talked a little bit about this topic earlier, but how has it impacted the podcast on Mondays? How's it impacted the connection to the congregation audience? Board members, are you filtered on? Filtered have? Has any episode not made air or you're live? So have you had to Take something down? Let's get real on. We'll hit the mute button every now and then We'll hit the mute button.
Tim Miller:I've gotten myself into a little bit of trouble. Before. I've had elders call and say, hey, that might have been a little too much dirt on what's happening specifically at the church right now.
Andrew Larsen:Okay, but you, you went through a ridiculous situation at the church his, it's been years ago, so it's Tim's.
Andrew Larsen:Mentor senior pastor. He was the next-gen pastor at the time, and when you're, when a senior pastor resigns on Good Friday, there's usually a story behind that, and so that's what Tim went through about the time that we were getting a year after, so we started doing the show in 2018. This was 2019, so Good Friday 2019, tim gets a call. Hey, as of now, you are the only pastor on staff. Wow, get ready for Sunday morning, which is Easter by the way.
Collin:Yeah. So we should say for context you were. It had been the youth pastor for many years and In all the sudden became the yeah, so I was youth pastor, next-gen pastors basically the same role, different title and then, in 2019, assumed the role of lead pastor.
Andrew Larsen:You assume the role of interim pastor and then there was on Easter Sunday, and there were elders who, even though it had been well documented that the the plan was for Tim to take over when this other pastor retired, there was a succession plan place.
Andrew Larsen:Succession plan in place, but then there were a couple of elders who were like nah, we're good, the church has voted on this, ratified this, this is all clear. Let's get rid of that. And some of those things were discussed, maybe in a little bit of frustration, but also me standing up for my buddy, and Maybe we should have been a little bit more careful about discussing.
Tim Miller:We could have been a little more careful. So I had a few, a few conversations with hey Do you think it was wise to to go there on the podcast? And and I did stand up for myself. I admitted probably said a little bit too much at the time, but I was going through a lot, I needed a chance to talk through some things and I had a great community around me. There there's an elder who's no longer with us, who is not dead.
Andrew Larsen:He just quit. He's no longer with us as a church.
Tim Miller:He suggested that we we actually X the podcast. He said I don't think it's good for you right now and I said, oh, I, I need the podcast, I need that community.
Andrew Larsen:I will let you guess if he was one of the ones trying to nix the succession plan.
Heredes:But we're gonna link it on. Right here at the bottom of this page you can click the link to that episode. I'm kidding.
Tim Miller:It's not hard. It's the most listened to episode.
Collin:Oh wow, If you got a little bit of time will just sip through 300 episodes.
Heredes:Well, that brings us topic, because I think there's a lot of great content out there, a lot of great podcast. There's, you know, niches and and and lanes. I mean, how authentic can you be right with conversations like this? There's wisdom. Are dirty laundry in public right? There's a but also I think there's a craving for Real talk, authentic talk, especially a therapeutic Monday morning after I'm sure you guys have wrestled with that, right?
Collin:Yeah, well, it's a and you can pretty intuitively tell usually when someone is not being Authentic when they're putting on some type of mask. So I mean, yeah, how do you guys navigate that?
Tim Miller:Andrew and I will typically like we'll look at each other and we'll just know okay, we can go down this topic, but we can't mention names right, like because we know that if you're working at a church in a ministry position, you have also been down this road. We don't even have to give a certain name because you know that type of person or that situation that you've been through.
Andrew Larsen:So we we try to hit on these situations or topics that we know You're walking through it too, and we don't even have to give specifics because you've been there and we also know that if we wait Three weeks on some of the heavier stuff, we might have better perspective and the person that's listening this week to get us in like gotcha, like ha ha I heard you talk about that they're not listening in three weeks because they've moved on and so then we can, we can talk about it then.
Tim Miller:Yeah, we have these moments where it's like, okay, is this okay to talk about now, and so we'll wait a few weeks to make sure, yeah, that it's died down.
Collin:We can now Talk this on the show what I imagine with your audience too that there's probably people listening to or that eventually listen, that this is all probably very helpful with, because maybe they are experiencing something very similar and they're a learning Okay, somebody else, someone else has walked through this but also maybe insights and like here's how we went through it or I don't know, just like that idea of there's somebody else that suffered this and knows when I'm there's definitely a sense of camaraderie and we get, you know, one, two, three Reach out so weak, I'd say, just from people.
Tim Miller:Be like wow, okay, I know that was like a really dumb part of the show, but I'm just telling you that's what we're walking through right now and then, yeah, we'll have a chance to have that conversation outside of the Monday morning setting and then build a relationship which is really kind of the. The point of the show is to build relationships Not just with each other, but with with other, whether ministry partners, our motto seem Well, whether we ever voted on it, I don't know, but it's just don't, don't do ministry alone.
Andrew Larsen:And that's our tag and we kind of both came up kind of with with Colin as well, in a church that was fortunate to have a Multi-staff student ministry, and so we cut our teeth in ministry, like, hey, I'm part of a team. And then one day we became a grown-up and it's like, oh, it's me on an island, cool, and the, the vast majority of churches that's, that's how it is, the. It's really easy to focus on the big and the cool and the loud churches and, thank goodness for them, people are getting saved there, they're, they're coming to Christ there, they're growing in their faith there. But the vast majority of the churches in our country there's one staff person and there's a lot of people that feel like they are just stuck and there's nobody else that they can go to. Who is going through, what they're going through, and so kind of what gives us the freedom to do this? And if it's a person in the congregation or a Board member, who's okay.
Andrew Larsen:Why'd you say that's like? Well, because we're not talking to you. We're talking to the pastors who are dealing with what we're dealing with and you are welcome to listen in Because it's public and it's out there, but it's not for you, it is, it's for these pastors, yeah, who need you know, who need a staff meeting, who don't have a staff to meet with, that they can kind of Digest the week and ministry that was most of those who jump on the show with us every Monday Are those who are looking for a connection and need that, that sense of camaraderie, and that's that's what we get the same people commenting every week because they're looking forward to that time every week, right?
Heredes:Well, speaking of the connection, authenticity in the show we're gonna link the morning after ministry show, we'll talk about practically Pastoring. I also want to talk about all the dirt you know, you know Colin for years now, so we'll talk about that. But about authenticity. I'm gonna play back something here. Um, just just in connection to style, the demographic, the show. Um, this is the intro to the show and we want to talk a little bit about this Authenticity welcome to the morning after ministry show a caffeine feud.
Heredes:Look back on the week and ministry that was.
Collin:All right so which one of you did that? Okay, you.
Tim Miller:Andrew, you can. You can go through the story here, but there there is a story behind the intro. Tell me more.
Andrew Larsen:We had. We were in Chicago for a denominational conference where the median age was 39 years older than either of us. And we had talked about this thing like, hey, joint, let's do it, and so we decided we were gonna do it and I Was playing in garage band and put a few things. You know, that's it's free garage band. I love it.
Heredes:Whatever, boom, chaka-la-ka, so whatever so, and and so in the.
Andrew Larsen:The other audio that we have on the show is just like three or four beats mixed together from garage band. I am the least musical person I've ever met and that's just playing in garage band. So we kind of had this idea of wouldn't it be funny if it sounded like that?
Tim Miller:and there was like this, this almost like 70s. What was the, what was?
Andrew Larsen:the SNL sketch, sketch the ladies man.
Tim Miller:Yeah, idea, yep and.
Andrew Larsen:I Was taking a class at this. This denominational conference is like an in an ordination transfer thing. It'll be very boring if we get in that. But there's a guy in the class who was sitting at my table for a week. We were in a High-it regency basement for eight hours a day and it was just so boring. But he had this deep, booming voice which you've heard. I went up. Well, yes, because we're at this table discussing the theology of the evangelical covenant church. It was just thrilling and I went up to him at one of the breaks. Like this is going to sound so weird, but can I have you read this one sentence into my phone? So we recorded it on an elevator On your phone.
Heredes:On my phone in the elevator.
Andrew Larsen:And then this was, you know, pre-air drop, and so I then plugged my phone into the laptop and then I think I dropped it by about a half octave, we slowed it down.
Tim Miller:We slowed it down To like 80% speed and that's how we got like the depth that we wanted there.
Andrew Larsen:And I think probably a half dozen times. We're like are we going to update this at some point, and why no?
Tim Miller:Why we can never touch that.
Heredes:It's just so ridiculous.
Andrew Larsen:I love it.
Heredes:The first time I heard you know an episode. I'm listening, you guys are kind of breaking in and then, well, you know you do the introduction. It just made me giggle and laugh, I'm like, and it was soothing, it was kind of like oh, comforting.
Andrew Larsen:We want to take ministry seriously. We want to take our calling seriously. We want to take the people that God has entrusted to us seriously. We never want to take ourselves seriously. I love that.
Heredes:Yep, I love that. No, laughter is good for the soul. I think there's joy that comes in. And so and you guys definitely do that I highly recommend, if you're a pastor in ministry, if you want to understand, if you're a leader in wanting to understand and get a little behind the scenes, definitely check out the morning after ministry show and all the links below. You know, tim and Andrew, let's talk some leadership and let's talk some insights here. I'll let you get rolling.
Collin:Yeah, so, and this is the nonprofit renaissance, so we want to help nonprofits go further, go further, grow faster.
Collin:We always I don't think there's ever been an episode where we've got that right the first time. But so you I mean as churches, I'm sure you guys partner with nonprofits. So what are you looking so for the nonprofit leader who's saying, like, who sees churches are a big partnership opportunity? What are you guys looking for in orgs that you partner with? Like to get your attention and trust to be like, okay, this is an org that I want to have my name connected to or that I want to help, but, like, what are you guys looking for out of an org?
Tim Miller:What do you say? For us it's mission and vision. So when we approach or hear from a nonprofit, does it line up with our mission and vision as a church, which we would consider ourselves to be gospel focused and gospel centered. So typically most of the nonprofits that we align ourselves with also share in a gospel focused, gospel centered approach. And there's a process that's not just you know. Hey, the pastor wants to partner with that. We have a board of elders that we talk through this with. We've got a mission outreach team If it's a missions organizations that we talk with and we go through this process and we have this conversation, quite a bit of prayer, and then we make the decision.
Collin:Yeah, and you err on the a little more choosy side, maybe with, with, oh yeah, no, yeah, we.
Tim Miller:we have lots of requests and people reaching out to us and we do listen and we do have those conversations, but we're pretty selective with who we partner with because I mean, that's you know, we're putting our church's name attached to that organization as well. So if we're sending our people there to volunteer, to help serve, then we want to make sure it's a mission slash vision that we can get behind and that we're in line with Sure.
Andrew Larsen:So we can look for yes to everything he just said, but one caveat that makes things a little bit different is our church is in the middle of a downtown area and there are organizations that specifically focus on downtown safety harbor, where our church is located. That may not be Christian organizations that we'll still partner with. You know, we we do something next week called the turkey hoop shoot, which sounds dangerous Like we're shooting turkeys. We're not. Kids are shooting basketball as they win turkeys.
Collin:You're shooting turkeys into hoops.
Andrew Larsen:Yes, and we make them, cook them, and they're disgusting and covered in gravel.
Andrew Larsen:It's delicious, but no. So we, we partner with whoever is partnering with the city of safety harbor for lots of things like that, Sure. And so I say there's a different. Everything is ministry, absolutely, but maybe not everything is. Is gospel ministry. Not everything is going to, you know, present Christ to somebody.
Andrew Larsen:So I think if someone is being called to go to a foreign country or to go to a specific people, that's a different conversation for us and the way that we decipher who we're going to partner with versus someone who is coming into downtown. I just think our main partner in the city of safety harbor is an organization called the Maddie Williams neighborhood family center and they feed about 150 families in downtown safety harbor a week. We we could, we could collect canned food and we could do all of those things and not make a dent compared to what they're doing. And so it's easier for us to say, hey, we are going to trust that God is going to be glorified in us partnering with you, and not hey, we need to put a John 3 16 stamp on every box of spaghetti that we give you for it to actually be ministry. So I think that it's just the one caveat, and part of that comes from us being located where we are.
Tim Miller:Yeah. I would say with with the gospel focus that we have. It's it's hands and feet. So I think that's definitely a hands and feet ministry of feeding. We have a feeding to children. We're the same way like we. We used to run around food bank years back and we realized that there are nonprofits that do this way better than we could ever do. So we partnered with several nonprofits to help feed kids in schools and things like that.
Collin:Yeah, there's a lot of nonprofits that are that, that do have that strong faith base. I'm thinking of, like Metro. We've I partnered with them as a youth pastor multiple times but they're not in their face, they're just, they're trying to help people and so it's. It's, you know, but you still know that you've got that foundational piece.
Heredes:So yeah, I mean I'm still saying, right you know, whether it's an Andy Stanley ism, we're going to bring him up. It's the invest and invite or the that you know that approach. First let them belong before they believe theologically. Let's open up a kind of worms here, dr, I'll let I'd love to doctor go first. That okay, do you concur? I concur, cause he's brought up gospel 17 times. I think you're keeping the gospel word check.
Collin:Yeah, yeah, I've got the. I've got the. Okay, we got a counter, which is good news. Trying to see if I can beat Matt Chandler with it, you're going to have to get get going.
Heredes:It could be. It's a, it's a Christian term. It's the good news. It's also a musical genre True.
Andrew Larsen:It's also what non charismatic people want to say. For the Holy spirit, the gospel compels me where, where? In Matthew, mark, luke or John, is that compulsion? No no, no, you're talking about the Holy spirit, but you don't want to. That's the one.
Heredes:Yeah, that's good, that's good. Well, I only ask only because many times, unless there's that ultimate alter call presentation of the gospel, folks will withhold the good or withhold being a good Samaritan or serving or giving. Because, like well, I rather not. Because unless I know that they're going to join my church or we're going to give them this Gideon Bible and they're going to trust Christ, with this chick track in front of me right now, and I think that's a miss, because then we become unlike Jesus to a community looking for something different. It's like where are these? Who are these Christians that thoughts on that?
Andrew Larsen:This was feeding at least 5,000, if not 15,000 at a time, and yet he sent out 72. That's not a very good conversion ratio. I am okay being like.
Heredes:Jesus, that's good. So you wouldn't make a not reach top 100 with that? I don't think no, no that's okay.
Andrew Larsen:I tell everybody, man, I spent the first 15 years of my career working at big, cool churches. I am so good being at a little neighborhood church. Do I say it? I?
Tim Miller:dare you Go ahead.
Andrew Larsen:They don't pay you any different.
Tim Miller:He's not wrong.
Collin:It's, that's is that what you wrote your thesis on no.
Andrew Larsen:Close. No, no, but I.
Tim Miller:Burnout ministry was his actual thesis.
Collin:Hey, right there, right there.
Andrew Larsen:The place of the little church that's actually in the neighborhood that we say that we want the people in our neighborhood, in our community, that might not be churched people or be churchy people, there's going to come a time and a point in their lives when they're going to need a church, whether that's for a funeral or because God gets ahold of them in a specific way.
Andrew Larsen:We want them to be comfortable in our space so that when that moment comes whether that's because of a gospel driven there's, there's another one for you, thank you. I don't know if that's because of a gospel driven conversation with someone from our church or just because God is using the circumstances of life to get ahold of them. We don't want it to be difficult for them to find us, and so we try to get involved in, in city work and community work wherever we can, whether that's a parade or, you know, helping kids in underserved neighborhoods win Thanksgiving dinners for their families, because we trust in the sovereignty of God and that God is going to use all things to glorify himself, whether or not it's on a track. Love that.
Tim Miller:So we don't have the benefit of being in the middle of a city like you guys do in San Diego.
Andrew Larsen:We have way better lunch options at Safety Harbor than Tim does at Lakeview. He has way better parking options.
Tim Miller:We have more parking, we have more traffic. We have about 46,000 cars that drive through right in front of our church every single day. So a lot of our partnerships come from our people presenting them to us. Just because we aren't in the middle of a community, we're off a pretty busy street, so we do have to have a vetting process because we have a lot of people wanting to do a lot of things, which we could have our hand in a lot of things, but we'd rather do a few of those things really well. So that also plays a big part of it.
Collin:Yeah, on the lunch options topic, it's called Lakeview Church, not for no reason. It's because you're next to a lake and also it's really cool. If you look them up, go find photos, you're like your whole it's glass, it's all glass pretty much.
Tim Miller:It's almost it's three sides glass. So when I'm preaching, no one's paying attention. The only thing they can see behind me is the lake it's a beautiful lake. There's often a gator frolicking in the lake while I'm preaching.
Collin:So that's what I was gonna ask. So there's gators in there, I'd assume that means there's also fish. I mean, that seems like a good lunch option, potentially.
Tim Miller:Turkey, a lot of Turkey, and wild boar has been the latest nuisance. So we have hunters hunting the boar as we speak and they get to keep whatever it is they capture.
Collin:What kind of wild animals are roaming around? In downtown Safety Harbor we have a lot of cats, other than some of the people.
Andrew Larsen:We have a lot of dogs that come to church.
Tim Miller:We started the reason they opened up an outdoor service.
Heredes:Like DAWGD. No, no, no canines Like my dog.
Andrew Larsen:So Safety Harbor, it's kind of a I say it's granola, it's kind of crunchy, which is the fancy way for saying affluent white but not a lot of Trump hats. And so they were more COVID, cautious than lots of other communities might have been. And so Christmas Eve 2020. And the we only have one of our three sides is glass. We don't have like a lobby that you walk into and then walk into the worship center. You walk into the worship center, but the whole front of the building is glass. So if you're outside of our building, you can look in and see what's going on in the building. And so we put a TV on the front stoop on Christmas Eve 2020, that plugs into our ATEM video splitter, and so whatever is being seen on our live stream is also being seen on a TV on the front stoop, and that people kept coming, so we kept putting it out there, and so now, most Sunday mornings, we'll have, you know, 12 or 15 people and their dogs outside.
Collin:I'll just say I thought you, I thought you were going the direction that. It's just, it's just like 12 dogs.
Tim Miller:It's all animals on the outdoor service.
Heredes:So it's Charlie Brown Christmas. I think that would be there.
Andrew Larsen:Yeah, it's really kind of funny.
Heredes:What's the ratio of glass to salary per building in your staff Like so? More glass, more salary, better pay.
Andrew Larsen:It sounds a little bit. Yeah, okay, cool, tim's got more glass.
Heredes:We're going to send this to your board just to make sure.
Andrew Larsen:Yes, but going back to choosing nonprofits, yeah.
Heredes:I'll tell you what makes it. Oh no, that's his way of like. Please cut that out.
Andrew Larsen:No, no, I'll say it's really easy for me. I could be completely theologically and mission, mission, that's not a word Missionally.
Heredes:Yeah, doctors can make up their words and we have to believe it.
Andrew Larsen:Yes, that's true, theologically and missionally aligned with somebody and be like hard pass. No way, because so yeah. Why.
Andrew Larsen:There are so many nonprofits that are so pushy. There's something about a lot of nonprofits that say, hey, this is what I'm passionate about as a follower of Jesus. This is something that I am called to do. Therefore, if you are not called to do the thing that I'm called to do, you must not be following Jesus, and I don't know that any of them necessarily would articulate that, but I could list four or five organizations that every time they reach out to me, that is what I get.
Collin:What do you mean? It's clear, it's obvious.
Andrew Larsen:You're not giving me 10 minutes on a Sunday morning, you know, a half an hour after I've met you, Don't you think that we need to do this? And you can put whatever cause you think is in there. And everybody listening to this could think of three or four organizations that are way too pushy about that cause. And I wish I had a form letter to just send to some of these nonprofit people that reach out that says I absolutely affirm God's calling your life for this cause. It is not the only cause that the church is called to. In fact, it might distract from the greater cause that the church is called to.
Collin:So I was gonna ask, so you know, if there is a nonprofit that may not be have as strong of a faith foundation, but it's really. Their drive is just community based. I wanna, I have a heart for whatever this thing is. Which of those organizations probably has a better chance of partnering with you? The one who's maybe not as faith based or the one who is faith based, but they're Obnoxious, obnoxious.
Andrew Larsen:Definitely the less obnoxious option.
Tim Miller:Yeah, we had this scenario hit us a couple of years ago and we had a nonprofit reach out and they wanted to pull off a big event at our church. They were not faith based, but they were real big on community and wanted to do something awesome for the community. And we have 36 acres at Lakeview so we had the room to pull it off and it was just one of those opportunities that we thought. You know what? We're not gonna be preaching here, we're not gonna be passing out tracks, there's not gonna be any Bibles handed out, but we can open up our space, we can invite our church people and they can invite the rest of the Trinity community to come on out. And it was the most well attended event that's ever happened on our church property. And it was all because a nonprofit reached out to us and just said hey, we'd love to partner with you and use your space. And it was just a really sweet partnership, even though it wasn't you know, it wasn't necessarily a Christian event.
Andrew Larsen:There was no altar call.
Tim Miller:There was no altar call, there were no tracks, but yeah, it's possible. Wow, no spontaneous baptisms, and people did show up on Sunday, though it was one of those like events where typically no one ever shows up to church after that, but we actually had a few families that did come to church after an event like that, which was rare.
Heredes:I love that. It's great, great insight, cause I think there's a level of passion right that will inspire and actually connect, but it can cross the line. And there's a level of passion that becomes pushy, like you said, and will, you know, break or, you know, push someone away. And I do think, for those of you listening, I think that's a good and trying to be, you know, square, pegging around, whole. If the missions don't align, if the don't don't force yourselves into, and I think churches need to be okay with not feeling guilt. It's like, yeah, maybe I don't need to do blank, I don't need to do what everybody else is doing. What's God calling you know, your local neighborhood church, to do and align with you?
Tim Miller:know internally and externally. I think Andrew brings up a great point too, because I've often been guilted into this and like if you could just stop, like that would be great, like we don't need more pressure or more guilt. Trying to be I mean trying to just throwing on us Like the what do you mean I can't have more time on a Sunday morning with you, but like if you were a bit more relational and conversational and I don't know, bought me a lunch like I might be more open to More open to Topgolf.
Andrew Larsen:Shout out to Adore of Hope.
Tim Miller:Hey, that was such a sweet event that nonprofit took. They invited every pastor in the area and just said hey, we're gonna pitch our organization and we're gonna buy you lunch and you're gonna play Topgolf for two hours.
Collin:Like that was awesome yeah it was so sweet and I'm probably far more effective than was guilting somebody into hey, you're a church, you gotta do this.
Andrew Larsen:Far more effective than the email I got two months ago that said hey, you haven't responded to my past email. Are you even pro life?
Tim Miller:I got the same one.
Andrew Larsen:I got the same which means that somebody in their strategy session has said here's what you do If a pastor doesn't reply to the first two emails. You send them this so that they feel guilted into replying because unfortunately the entry level position in so many nonprofits it's basically an outside sales job and yikes, yikes.
Heredes:Big yikes and probably AI, generating some of those crappy emails now, which is horrible.
Andrew Larsen:I hope so. I hope that was.
Heredes:I'm pro life, but am I anti? Yeah, you got the center button on this, one or no?
Collin:No, not on this one, but in post. In post, I promise I'll do it.
Heredes:No, I love that Again. Just to get practical and I'll resay this because you're gonna have a fun time editing this one but to get practical on tips for nonprofits, there's everything from the convoys of hope where join us on a cruise for a week and we're gonna tell you everything about this, which listen for a pastor who's hustling 52 weeks a year probably can't get that. Yeah, there's a strategy that works, that's encouraging, that's inspiring and that also will cast vision. The golfing or the simple lunch, relational conversation and no pressure. I may not hear from you for six months a year, but I'm here. This is what we do. Some pro tips. Give us some pro tips. You're on the receiving end of the sales emails, of the texts, of the mailers, of the give us some more tips on the folks listening who are looking to access to your congregation.
Heredes:Sometimes the same dollars, sometimes the same stage, space part, whatever it is. So there's a competition here, for you know, for that resource. We all want to do good things. We all want to get the gospel to people. We all want to feed families. We all want to make a dent Talk to us. Give us some pro tips.
Andrew Larsen:I think the word resource is. That you just said is the word is what you need to focus on. How can I be a resource to this congregation? Some congregations need this, this and this resource and some don't, and so find the congregations that you can actually be a resource for, and that's where you will have more success.
Heredes:Adding value yeah. Actually adding value to you first right, and then you're not like what can they do for me? So what can we do for you? Fair, absolutely.
Andrew Larsen:Because every church has whatever mission organizations that they partner with. And then when you add denominational churches in there, that is my favorite rejection line. If someone is reaching out like I don't want to, this is not a group that I want to partner with. Hey, our denomination has a wing that handles this and we are committed. You know, x percent of our budget boom towards denominational causes. So sorry, we're good there. Now we could wiggle things around and make something else happen. If you were someone who I personally felt like, hey, this is worth bringing to the elders. This is where and any of our elders can do this this is not me gatekeeping the church, but out of relationship and value.
Andrew Larsen:A relationship, and what is going to make life better for people in my church and what is going to make life easier for me to provide this resource to the community.
Tim Miller:Yeah, we can resource your family and say we've got a great resource for your staff. Those are two big keys for me. I'm like, okay, that's one less thing I have to worry about and you can actually help me in this area. I'm listening. So that's real big for us as well.
Collin:It's also a way to prove that, hey, we actually do have something to value by partnering with you. You know it's. We're not just trying to get whatever you have. It's like we can. This can be an ongoing thing where we were consistently providing value.
Heredes:I want to jump on this because one, we don't want to set the vision that, well, churches aren't on profit as well, and we're talking to nonprofits who sometimes look at the church as their only source of volunteers, of resources, but churches are non-profits. So there's a tension there that you're kind of talking about the same people the same time, the same right, talents, treasures. Talk to us a little about that. People, volunteers. Any hesitation Do you just like? Oh, here's my, here's my roll call, here's my CRM.
Collin:Just jump in my. Here's the list of a thousand people you can call.
Heredes:Why wouldn't you do that? I'll answer that for you. And how can organizations understand that in partnering with churches and kind of building that relationship?
Tim Miller:Well, our volunteers only have so much time on their hands, and we already ask a lot of them, and Sunday is still coming every seven days and Sunday is always coming.
Tim Miller:So when you're asking for volunteers, it's going to be a big ask and we better have a real big window here. We're looking for volunteers way down the road. We've had some that are like, hey, we've got this event coming up this weekend. I'm like, bro, like had you told me six months ago and I could have given you that that mission team leader or that the head of that area or that ministry, I would have put you in touch with them months ago. But this like and I get these a lot like these last second we're looking for hands, we're looking for help and it's like we want to be there. But you got to like let us know in advance and talk to us.
Tim Miller:But really, I try to protect our volunteers as much as possible. I try to protect my staff, I try to protect our volunteers. So when there are great opportunities, yeah, we'll let them know. But when it's like, okay, there's a lot happening right now and this is going to be one more thing that's possibly going to lead them to burnout, then the answer is probably going to be no.
Collin:Yeah. And that's where mission and values alignment, I think, comes in and is so key is that if you, if you have you know, if your mission is very much aligned with the church, it's a lot easier to say, hey, this will be a valuable thing for you to push to your people to say, hey, come and be a part. I know as a church my church we do a few things where it's like, hey, let's go serve together and we don't give everyone the opportunity to do that. Right, there's some works that we've built a relationship with and it's like, hey, we're going to go do this as a church and so, again, that's a community builder. But you know, it's going to be a lot easier to do that, I think, when you've got that alignment there.
Andrew Larsen:Alignment and then value add.
Collin:Exactly, yeah, yeah. So volunteers we're talking a lot about volunteers. Orgs need them, non-profit orgs need them. That's how they run, that's how they do what they need to do. So, thinking of the non-profit org, how do they reach, recruit, retain volunteers effectively? I'm assuming that you guys have a little bit of knowledge of that as well, because that's pretty much how a lot of what happens on a Sunday happens as well.
Heredes:Well, they're podcasts, right.
Collin:There's like 16 volunteers running the back end of that whole thing. Yeah for sure, volunteers, volunteers.
Heredes:Engineers, producers makeup alone is like three.
Collin:Well, someone's got to be doing the palm fronds.
Heredes:Yeah.
Andrew Larsen:That's true. Go after people that not everybody else is going after. That's the best way to get volunteers. We had a guardian-adulatum group come to our church and it was hey, here's what we need here, the children in the foster care system right in our immediate area. And they made a pitch to pretty much exclusively retired people in the church and everybody that wants to come. Hey, we need people to swing hammers, we need people to sweat, we need people to do this.
Andrew Larsen:And it was, hey, retired people. This is we need two hours a week. And she was like I think we might have had like 95-ish people there that Sunday and 17 signed up to be guardian-adulatums and went through the whole process and I got a letter from her a couple of weeks later. This is the biggest percentage of any audience we've ever had. Yeah, wow, yeah, because you're going after someone that not everybody's going after. Go after the teenagers here in Florida. Every kid needs bright futures, volunteer hours. So, yeah, it would be great to have a 38-year-old engineer who wants to design and build something for you, but that guy has a wife, three kids and is exhausted and a job where he's doing that.
Andrew Larsen:And a job and a golf game and all the other things. So go to either end of the adult spectrum the young adults that, whether they need experience, they need volunteer hours, wonderful or the people that have kind of been overlooked. Oh, you used to be awesome. You're still awesome. Maybe you're not swinging the hammer the way that you used to, but you can serve Absolutely.
Tim Miller:Yeah, for us, when it comes to recruiting, we try to. I mean, it's not that we don't push it from stage, but we don't really push it from stage. We haven't seen a lot of great results because there was a time in my ministry life where it would be hey, we need more kids ministry volunteers. Well, we know, let's get our kidsmen director on stage and ask for volunteers and for whatever reason, that just never really worked. I would get the social media graphics. Hey, can you post this on the socials? That's how we're going to recruit more volunteers. We need a new drummer. Can you post this? And it just for our context. Rarely worked. So we came up with an idea because we don't really have a four year at our church we have what we would call a narthex.
Collin:You have a hallway.
Tim Miller:It's a hallway, so we ended up paving in our garden area and we invited ministry leaders to start setting up tables just to talk to people as a way to get to know them, get to know different ministry leaders and to recruit. And we have found the success rate is far greater than any stage announcement, than any social media posts. It's one-on-one conversations. Hey, here's the need, and our kids ministry team does such a great job of hey, let me actually walk you into our space. And so she'll grab a potential volunteer. They'll go into the kids ministry space before or after service and just show them around and give them some ideas and what their specific needs are.
Tim Miller:And we did a big ministry fair volunteer push a few weeks ago and I said a few words from stage but the push was not hey, here's to hear the signups. It was hey, here's our ministry leaders, they're going to be out there on your way out. Well, you just walk by and say hello and see where you might fit in. And it was the single greatest day of signups we've ever had and it was just those face-to-face connections. Now, it required a lot of work between our deacons and our ministry leaders because we had to have them there and their teams had to be there. But when they're there and there's a face to that ministry and it's not just a card there's actually a person talking to them. We've seen great success when it comes to volunteer recruitment.
Andrew Larsen:So scan the QR code on the screen if you want to volunteer is not what you're suggesting. It sucks.
Tim Miller:Every now and then we'll get a person, but when we really need volunteers, we have ministry leaders out there greeting people and saying hello and letting them know. Here's the need.
Collin:So for a nonprofit who usually doesn't have a weekly meeting space, synthesize that for them. How do they put that into practice? How do they that principle you just talked about, what do they do with that? Go to where the people are yeah that's it yeah.
Andrew Larsen:Find where the people that you are trying to reach are and actually talk to them. If you can have a conversation. That's not a pitch. It's going to make the pitch so much easier.
Collin:I mean so if a nonprofit leader came to you and just said hey, all we're asking for is a little bit of space in your lobby, or Narthex, because everyone knows that word, it's an old one. Yeah, I actually I.
Andrew Larsen:Google it, it's not a stage.
Collin:It's the chance, same thing, yeah, because it's a separate chamber, porch or distinct area at the Western entrance. Is that the Western entrance of your church?
Andrew Larsen:It is.
Collin:Yeah, actually it really is. It's a real Narthex.
Tim Miller:From the Renaissance crew.
Collin:That's why this is how you get on the nonprofit Renaissance podcast. We have our Narthex at your church. Hey, I know of a great architect.
Andrew Larsen:He's up in Tarpan Springs. Stop it. He might have been that elder we were talking about earlier Stop it.
Heredes:We'll put a link to his website down below.
Collin:So if they came to you and they said they're asked to you was not hey, give us volunteers. But it was hey, give me a little bit of space. We want to come set up a table, just have some information and just to talk like, is that a yes, is that a no? How do you respond to that?
Tim Miller:I think it's on Meet your Topgolf, if we can talk about it, that's true I love that one, but actually that is a big yes for us, most of our nonprofits that we partner with. When they do come to Lakeview they end up getting a little table. They have some space right outside our ministry leaders and we'll plug them from stage. They make sure you go see either a missionary or a mission organization or that nonprofit say hello, introduce yourself. Low risk, high reward. Ask right there, yep Especially if they bring coffee or say hello.
Tim Miller:I was going to say, and we've had a few that say, hey, can we bring donuts, and those are awesome. We love that A little sugar man.
Heredes:Caffeine goes a long way, of course, goes a long way.
Andrew Larsen:Makes me wish that Chick-fil-A was open on Sunday just for the chicken minis. Could you imagine if we could bring chicken minis to church? We would get so many volunteers. You'd have to freeze them. That's terrible. Don't do that.
Heredes:Is that an idea? I was a college student right here, became a millionaire selling Chick-fil-A on Sundays.
Tim Miller:It's a great idea that happened New York. That happened. I read something I think I heard this story, something, yeah.
Heredes:Then he started yep, get them. End of the day, I think they canceled him, but that's what.
Collin:I heard Sure, they did the episode. We won't talk any more about that.
Heredes:I want to dive into a little bit of all the dirt you have on Colin. Oh geez, now, wait, tell me about the internship you guys you interned at.
Collin:Marks Hill, correct? Yeah, so I did an internship out in Seattle at Mars.
Heredes:No, did you meet a?
Collin:small tiny church out there in Seattle not.
Heredes:I've heard well, I've heard about the rise and the fall.
Tim Miller:Yeah, yeah yeah did you hear about the?
Andrew Larsen:rise of that was because of Colin.
Collin:No, yeah, I did my work over that. I did some, I did today.
Tim Miller:It's not that he came back a changed man, but he came back with a really foul mouth, like his language was just beyond.
Andrew Larsen:I didn't want to bring it up. I'm glad you did there. That's what I want to talk about.
Tim Miller:Don't, even Colin, don't.
Andrew Larsen:He was like it's cool to cuss at church. Now I'm so confused. What the bleep are you talking about?
Collin:I'm glad.
Andrew Larsen:A little bit now, and now he's just using bleeps you guys, all you guys all made a rehab.
Heredes:Yes, yep, he can submit every have after Martins Hill for, apparently.
Collin:But but we do share. We do share a large internship Like it, like a see, I don't know.
Andrew Larsen:I mean, I was never technically an intern, I was a volunteer who then got hired and then got fired. So you're an intern.
Collin:That's Most places where they're gonna say it or not yeah, I don't. So yeah, we've got that history. I don't again. No dirt. I don't know what you're talking about.
Andrew Larsen:I mean, I'm way older than Colin is, though that's what you need to realize I was. I Think you were maybe like a freshman when. I was the middle school pastor.
Heredes:Yes, yes I guess I don't mind you faster. No, don't be nervous, Let him talk please.
Collin:Hey guys, thank you so much siblings and I.
Andrew Larsen:Collins sister was one year behind me in a little private school where everybody knew everybody's business, Yep. And then his brother was on my flag football team for years that Colin later joined.
Collin:I was just gonna say don't leave me out, we were the purple pandas. Yeah, we were.
Andrew Larsen:I.
Collin:War and did and do we ever win a?
Andrew Larsen:do we ever win a title? No, but I wore head to toe spandex man. Those are the. And was not built for spandex. It was not a good look, it was. This is ridiculous and I'm gonna lean into it.
Heredes:Well, that's in the eye of the beholder, because I said the title of this podcast exactly built for, oh yeah.
Collin:Yeah, okay, well, I knew the competitive side of Colin.
Tim Miller:We we did several summer camps together and and at this particular camp there was always the, the big dodgeball tournament. It was just it.
Tim Miller:Of course it was a big deal like we took it serious as youth workers, as students, and I'll never forget one, one match in particular where Colin's team went a bit over the top and it was. It was a bit much. We may or may not have had to have a little conversation with that, that competitive edge, and I hope you didn't lose. I hope you've never lost your competitive edge. I hope you.
Andrew Larsen:Remind me. I don't think he remembers this. Oh, there's a lot.
Tim Miller:There may have been multiple headshots with young middle schoolers and you were not a middle schooler at the time, it was well. That's just part of the game.
Collin:That's just what you're signing up for. Oh boy, it's called dodgeball. If you can't do it, don't play. You know, dodge, I can't die the referees were not his friends.
Tim Miller:He knew all the right calls. They knew none of the right calls and that's not just a language, that's. After that oh.
Heredes:Man, so I'm a great person is what we're trying to say Trying to communicate here it's a common, the common boost episode just trying to keep talking about your calling. Oh man, you sweating bro. Why you sweating?
Collin:It's really red. I'm sweating because it's actually really warm in here. Are you guys warm? I'm warm, I'm always warm.
Andrew Larsen:I am severely overweight and I feel fine, so I'm not sweating. I think it must be your conscience fair enough, well then, I start talking about.
Collin:Just get out of here.
Heredes:And in temperatures. I want to go back to ministry burnout, okay, and and what. That is what that means. So you spent some time diving into this. I did a lot of time. Very relevant, I want to say trending, but very Real, real topic that doesn't get talked about. Tons get avoided. Maybe some things have come to light as a recent you know, maybe after 2020 some ministry tendencies have changed or have been looked into. Tell us a little bit more. What was your angle? Did it?
Andrew Larsen:it was a from personal experience a little bit, but also just knowing the community that we have. So it, the, I think the. It's only been a couple months. I'm like what was the topic of that thing? But it was digital resources and virtual communities as a ways to combat ministry burnout, and so it was post post covid. Ministry staffs have gotten smaller. Doesn't matter if you are at Since we're talking marsill you know obviously that staff has gotten smaller. But, by a hundred percent.
Collin:Yes but?
Andrew Larsen:but whether you are at the, the big cool church or the Neighborhood church, ministry staffs and most ministry budgets are smaller than they were, and so if you are on a ministry staff of six or seven, you're probably on a ministry staff of four or five right now. And if you had budgets to go to one or two conferences a year where you would reconnect with your buddies from seminary or bible college or wherever, that conference probably doesn't exist right now and if it does, you can maybe go to one or two. So pastors are lonelier than ever before. Like New York, the New York Times did a big like Sunday morning piece on the reality of pastors leaving ministry at an alarming rate and especially Millennial pastors Leaving ministry at an alarming rate, which means who is there to take up the mantle?
Andrew Larsen:Because the boomers are retiring, the millennial pastors are saying I'm, I'm out, and the answer seems to be and of course my research was very biased going in because it was here's what I think is working, because I I'm at, I am on a church staff of one and I'm not struggling with this right now because I have a community of other pastors, and so it was. Pastors need people that they can be in community with. They need people that they're job does not depend on, and I think we've all served in roles where there was church hurt and there was frustration and you couldn't go to your boss Because your boss was the one causing the church hurt and the frustration. And so pastors need other pastors at a similar life stage that they can go to, that Can support them, that can give advice and that will not fire them.
Heredes:And if you put it on a podcast, they may even listen to it. On monday, they might even listen to it and be like wait, Are you talking about me?
Andrew Larsen:Yes, we were talking about that.
Collin:Have you ever gotten? Questions like hey, you said something. Yeah, I'm just curious where? Yeah, absolutely so, not, not from a pastor. Is that what you said? Yeah, and.
Andrew Larsen:I'm like yeah, that was absolutely yeah, every time we've had one where we were talking about people, people leaving the church and you know, are they ghosting or or what's going on? So I had someone who had left a few and I knew why they left. They called the next week and like, hey, we got let's, let's talk about what we're not there. I wasn't talking about you, I was talking about another. You know, somebody else that left for a very different, less important reason.
Tim Miller:I'm sorry you feel so guilty. I'm sorry, yeah, but I'm sorry, your conscience says that you have violated that membership covenant.
Andrew Larsen:Not contract, not form, that membership covenant that you made, and then you just ghosted us. It's cool, whatever. Now.
Heredes:We'll say you guys must you have to be somewhat careful and disciplined to not be super passive, aggressive Monday morning. So today we're going to talk about the non tithing Um you know?
Andrew Larsen:you know who you are, or the? Have you ever noticed that the families that take the most ministry resources give the least? What's up with that?
Heredes:What in the world? Yeah, statistics outside of florida, of course, say that that's gotta be, that's gotta be challenged, because I mean, I'd be tempted, I'd be tempted to call out that frustration or that, whatever, whatever, from wardrobe to freaking the thing that works really well is we text, probably like teenage girls, I mean, throughout the week.
Andrew Larsen:I'll like try to find something that we had said For the Monday previous's podcast and I'll take like 10 minutes of scrolling to find the show notes from last Monday on this Monday, and so whatever Frustrations he's dealt with during the week, or vice versa, we typically know and so there have been times that I have brought up what he's struggling with, struggling with and with just enough plausible deniability that they might think that I'm talking about me and vice versa.
Tim Miller:We have done that. We've also. We've also done it in such a way where we thought we weren't going to talk about it, but one of us would bring it up and the other one would know exactly what we were talking about, just just to mess with the person. But I think what helps is we keep each other in check. So there will be times right before we go on the show We'll say, okay, here, here's the topic, and then one of us will say, yeah, that's too soon.
Tim Miller:This is what we can't talk about and we'll have a list of things not to talk about, because that's just not again.
Andrew Larsen:That's the, that's the community, that.
Andrew Larsen:I'm talking about when I say you know, pastors need Communities, whether virtually or or face to face, so that when a microphone is in front of their face they don't Vent because they've had that conversation. They've been able to process that within their community of People who are in the same ministry stage and in the same life stage and just get it. We have we call a group of friends that, we have the ministry frat and we have frat parties with our wives and kids and it's like, hey, we don't have to, we don't have to behave there's 17,000.
Heredes:So, a lot of, there's a lot of it. Sign up for rush week now.
Andrew Larsen:The link below. But but it's so nice that we don't have to feel like we're on because they had this, you know, either a really good or really bad week, like we had a really good or bad week and it's not like hey, this guy's complaining or this guy's bragging because we, we've had weeks like that. And so I think and this is true for any ministry leader, whether that's church, vocational ministry or nonprofit ministry you need people. God created us to be in community and if you are isolated, you're going to be snarky and you're going to be bitter and you're going to burn out.
Heredes:Talk to me, talk to me and talk to the millennial leader, the millennial pastor that's thinking about quitting, thinking about dropping it, fed up. He's watched one too many youtube reviews and have seen one too many fall or step into for the wrong. What would you say? Because I think we, we need godly Called leaders from this gen. We need the boomers to mentor, we need the gen xers to Chill out you know we need the gen, y gen, all the gents I mean.
Heredes:I think what would you say to the generational and the ones coming up and quitting?
Andrew Larsen:Find someone a life stage ahead of you. Find someone a life stage behind you. Find out from the one ahead of you why they stayed and give the person behind you a reason to stay because it's really good. The we are guaranteed that the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church. The church now, if you need to say, if you need to leave for the health of your family or your marriage or whatever, by all means fine, the church is going to do. Fine, the church is going to survive without you.
Andrew Larsen:But talk about job security. I mean every nonprofit that we are talking to on on this podcast right now is going to cease to exist in the next 50, 60 years. That's, that's the nature of nonprofits. The church is not Whether the same church with the same title in the same pastor. Sure, all that's going to change. But we are promised that the gates of hell are not going to prevail against the church. So that is something worth sticking it out for in an organization Worth dealing with the heartache and the hurt and the hiccups and whatever other h words you want to use that describe the people that make it up, and the burnout issue is going to happen, whatever your job is, if you're unhealthy in church, you're going to be unhealthy in corporate.
Andrew Larsen:You're going to be unhealthy in nonprofit spaces, wherever you find yourself. If you're not healthy, you're going to be unhealthy wherever you end up. So, of all of the places that I would choose to seek health, it would be the church. It would be the organization that I know is going to exist way, way, way beyond my life.
Heredes:You want to chime in. I did have a comment before you chime in here, because I do think that's an important point. It's easy to blame the church, that organization, for the burnout, and again, they're imperfect, imperfect people. But your workaholism, your habits will go with you wherever you go, whether you end up at a 4 or 500, at a nonprofit or at the public.
Andrew Larsen:Or Arby's yeah.
Heredes:And I think then we love to deconstruct and point at the church. Oh bad, the church fried me. It wasn't perfect. There's a lot of again. I'm not a cop out for bad leadership and for bad because that will go right with you wherever you go. And if you don't handle that, you're just creating a cycle that will repeat itself.
Tim Miller:Yeah, and I think what happens with some of these guys that I've talked to personally, who've reached out, who've gone through this in their context, is they have this idea that, well, I just got to find the right church and so they'll bounce from church to church and I'm just like, when you find it, let me know. Like it's just not. There's no such thing as a perfect church. There's going to be problems, there's going to be issues. So, yeah, there's some introspection that needs to be done. But my question for these guys is always tell me about the community that you've surrounded yourself with outside the church. So what pastors, what ministry leaders, who are you regularly?
Andrew Larsen:talking to? Who are the three people that you are texting the most?
Tim Miller:And more often than not they don't have a list Like because there's outside of their church, they have no one like and there's their. In lies the problem. You have not had a chance to process this with anyone outside of your organization.
Collin:I don't know that I've met someone that that would say they've been through burnout, who has had that right They've. They've had those people that they know to they. I can go to with this. I'm not going to be judged, I'm not like, I'm just going to be cared for. I don't know if I've ever met someone who's burned out when that's in place.
Andrew Larsen:Some just had a really crappy ministry week, Like I don't know when this is airing, but you know, death of a child in the church, crappy ministry week and the funeral was yesterday. And I mean, how many churches were represented at that funeral? I mean, I know I wasn't there but we were as a congregation were praying for the church yesterday. And it's when you look at the New Testament. And then there were no denominations in the New Testament.
Andrew Larsen:There were not you know, first, second, third, fourth Baptist church in every town in the New Testament. So it was a little bit different because there's one group of believers per town for the most part, maybe not in Rome, but we don't.
Heredes:Well, Paul would say no, here we are in a New Testament survey with Andrew but.
Tim Miller:Dr Andrew, yeah, you're definitely.
Andrew Larsen:Thank you. But the church was connected. They, they were praying for each other. The leaders knew each other there. They were corresponding with each other and we we live in such a time now that the churches down the street from each other don't know each other because they see each other's competition. When I said I spent 15 years in like big, cool churches, it's so nice being at the little kind of under resourced church, because when somebody inevitably leaves and goes to the mega church down the street because there's this program for their kids or there's this recovery program or whatever it might be, it's like hey, good, freak, like good. We are not in competition with them. We are on the same team. We're fulfilling a slightly different role. But when pastors see each other as competition, there's not going to be community. But when pastors see each other as co laborers for the glory of God and yes, your methods might be different than my methods, but our goal is God's glory Then that's how community gets formed and that's how really silly podcasts start.
Collin:Thank you guys, so much for being here. Thanks for the invite has been super, super great.
Andrew Larsen:We got to have you guys now over to our space. We could have the morning after parentheses. Vocational ministry show.
Heredes:Let's go. What time? What time do you guys do the lives?
Tim Miller:11 o'clock every Monday. Monday's at 11.
Heredes:That's as early as you can get a pastor up on a smud.
Tim Miller:That's it.
Andrew Larsen:So that way we can roll their day off.
Tim Miller:They're still up by that time.
Andrew Larsen:That way we can roll into the office at 10am. We like hey office support stuff. We're here. We're working today, wink and then, do a show with them. When we're done, it's time for lunch. Hello, oh man, it's true.
Collin:After 300 episodes, you got to figure it out. We'll see you guys next time on the nonprofit Renaissance.
Outro:Thanks again for listening to the nonprofit Renaissance. We hope it ignites a Renaissance in you and helps you go further and grow faster. Be sure to share, rate and subscribe and if you'd like to recommend or be a guest on our show, send us an email at podcast at firstcreativecom.