Beyond the Event: A Youth Ministry Podcast
Bringing together influential voices from the CIY community to walk alongside you in your journey to maintain momentum between the mountaintop experiences of youth ministry.
Beyond the Event: A Youth Ministry Podcast
BTE4.14 Fostering Restoration with Tim Hester
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When conflict arises in your ministry, how do you respond? Tim Hester, Executive Pastor at Southeast Christian Church, offers a biblical framework for restoration that focuses on healing rather than punishment.
Drawing from decades of experience shepherding both church staff and congregation members, Tim walks us through the delicate process of addressing sin and repairing broken relationships. The conversation provides practical wisdom on preparing your heart before difficult conversations, creating balanced environments where truth can emerge, and recognizing genuine transformation in those seeking restoration.
Tim explains how youth ministers can discern when to handle situations themselves versus when to involve church leadership, always maintaining the goal of bringing people back into right relationship with God and others.
Unlike harsh discipline approaches that often leave people damaged, true restoration recognizes the image of God in each person while still holding appropriate boundaries. Tim shares personal experiences that illustrate both the challenges and beauty of this process, including how one youth pastor's commitment to biblical discipleship transformed all twelve of his children's lives.
For youth ministers navigating the inevitable conflicts that arise in ministry, this conversation offers hope that with prayer, biblical wisdom, and gentle persistence, restoration is possible. What's at stake isn't just resolving immediate problems, but teaching the next generation how to handle conflict in ways that honor God and preserve relationships.
uh, michael, I have a confession. I lied on the last episode. I was just listening to it and, uh, at the very end of the episode, I said I don't remember exactly what I said, but I was like, yeah, we're definitely 100 sure, gonna do one of these two things next week, and we're not doing one of those two things, so I'm a I don't know what to do.
Speaker 2:Own up to it. I typically, I think owning up to it is the best way.
Speaker 1:No one listens to outro. No one listens to the outro. We don't need to bring it up. We're not going to bring it up. Okay Onward. Hi, I'm Brad Warren. This is beyond the event, a youth ministry podcast presented by Christ in Youth, where we help you maintain momentum between the mountaintops. Very excited for today.
Speaker 1:Today we have a professionally though honestly, tim is not a nepo baby here okay, he is super duper qualified to talk about what we're talking about today. We're going to be talking about restoration and what to do when people that are part of our flock fall into sin or have conflict with one another, and Tim is a really incredible person to engage in this conversation. When he was first married, was a youth pastor, was involved in youth ministry, so he knows what it's like to be in the position that you are currently in. He owned his own business for several years and then he sold his business to become a pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, kentucky, and has been there for over a decade. Now he is an executive pastor. They have several, but he referred to himself as the staff elder, so a lot of what he does is take their elders and their deacons and their staff and shepherd those people really well and in doing that, has gained a lot of really valuable experience in what it looks like to resolve conflict and to restore people in a way that is biblical, in a way that recognizes the image of God in those people and in a way that is gentle, as scripture calls us, to, which you'll hear Tim say here in a little bit. So that's going to be a really fun conversation.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, but I do not have a co-host today, sad. So, michael, you're my co-host.
Speaker 2:Great Got lots to add.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a joke I don't have. But I do have some questions, because I was just like kind of introducing your dad and I don't know. So he owned his own business, yep, was it in a construction of some kind? No, it was a staffing firm. Oh, that's right. Yeah, very Temporary and permanent, temporary and permanent staffing solutions. And he owned that business for how long? I think it was 22 years, 20. So, owned a business for 22 years, sold the business to go work at Southeast, right?
Speaker 2:Sort of he. Actually there was an overlap for a few years. Oh okay, so he got hired on and then he was an absentee owner and then at a certain point just realized that he couldn't do both. Yeah, too much, and he needed to be fully committed to one or the other and the obvious choice was the staffing firm, and then that just fell apart completely. That's not true. He committed to being on staff at Southeast.
Speaker 1:I thought you were going to say he committed fraud.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:No, tim, great dude, really really excited to have him. Michael, I have an update about something. Okay, the past several episodes of this podcast we've talked a bit about Nebraska, uh-huh, and I have some information about nebraska. Oh boy, uh, backstory, I, I, I trashed nebraska, yes, on this podcast. Me and and caitlin, we did that. Um, the the fine people of Nebraska caused an uproar. Frankly, it was a mutiny, saying like oh no, nebraska is a great place to live. I'm sure Nebraska is a great place to live.
Speaker 1:Sure, yeah, in the non-island portion of North America, so just Mexico, canada, united states, canada and alaska, okay, in that little section, all right, there are like a whole. I want you to imagine in your mind there are a whole bunch of states that border the ocean, okay, yeah, states and provinces yeah, if you're canadian, uh, there's a bunch of states that border the ocean, right, and then there are like a lot of states that border a state that borders the ocean, okay. And then there's another little layer of states we're getting smaller as we get toward the middle here. There's another layer of states that border a state or province that borders a state or province that borders the ocean. There is one state that does not fall into any of those categories. Can you guess what it is, michael?
Speaker 2:the state of isolation the state of isolation. Nebraska oh, you're so far from an ocean so so okay, let me make sure I was tracking correctly. Correctly, nebraska borders a state that borders a state that borders a state connected to the ocean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think its quickest path is Kansas, oklahoma, texas ocean. That's crazy, looking at a map right now. Yeah, it could also do like Colorado, idaho, oregon Ocean. Uh-huh or no, that's not Colorado, yes, it is. No, it's not.
Speaker 2:What state is that it might be?
Speaker 1:Wyoming, wyoming, wyoming, idaho, oregon, ocean.
Speaker 2:Dang. Are there mountains like in the western part of Nebraska? No, or is it really just like it looks?
Speaker 1:like a scene from Dune Part 2. You expect a sandworm to just come cruising along and sweep you away If you're?
Speaker 2:listening and you're from Nebraska. I'd love to hear from you Beach or mountains? Neither, Because you don't have either one.
Speaker 1:Neither, oh. But you know what they do have Oscars pizza and wings.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which I like. Yeah, so anyway, they also have Matt Stevens, which I like. They also have Stonebridge Christian Church. Yeah, we were just there Christy.
Speaker 1:Babermeyer, which I like Wonderful people. But, boy, the setting is not good. It's tough and that's you know. If you want to respond to that, you can, mhester at cioycom, you can let us know what you think about all of that. But here's what we're going to do right now. We're not going to have a mailbag, because you don't want to hear, believe me, you don't want to know what I have to say about the mailbag, and I don't have a co-host here, and we do have a kind of long and great interview with Tim Hester. So what we're going to do is we're just going to stop right here and we're going to go ahead and jump right over to that. Well, going to stop right here and we're going to go ahead and jump right over to that. Well, tim, I really appreciate you being here as we dive into this conversation.
Speaker 1:I was thinking through some of the conversations that you have to have, or get to have, I should say, probably as part of your job, conversations around restoring people who have fallen into sin and reconciling relationships that are broken, and those types of conversations make me, brad Warren, nervous. I don't like them. I don't think that most people enjoy having those conversations, so I am curious why you are passionate about them. How did you get to a place where you became at southeast kind of the guy to have these conversations?
Speaker 3:well, I, that's a great question. I mean, first of all, I don't know that anybody's really passionate about these things. They're just a necessary part of you know leading. Uh, no matter what level that you're in and I am one of those guys I do get a lot of the really tough ones when it comes to whether they're congregational issues or they're staff issues or, you know, whatever level we're at, I get a lot of them because I've done a lot of them over the years.
Speaker 3:I think that the reason that it's an area that I kind of gravitate toward is because it's going to sound kind of weird, brad, but you know, I love people, I absolutely just love people, and the one thing that I know from even personal experience is that people get in conflict, you know, all the time, and when they do, usually somebody is damaged. When they walk away from a conflict or that's what we fear we think that, oh man, if I don't do this, well, we don't even. Some people don't even think about it. They just enter into these conflict conversations and when they do, somebody's damaged and left on the floor, and that has a tendency to be another one of those stories in someone's life that makes them back away from what God created them to do, so they leave somewhat damaged, and when I see people that are in conflict or when I see people that have been not treated very well or something you know, I immediately start asking myself some questions about.
Speaker 3:You know not what happened. That's obvious. There was a conflict, there was something and somebody got damaged. But my question is why? Why did that occur? Why are we even here in the first place? And I think, rather than just getting over the pain of having a difficult situation, I'd rather walk through the pain with somebody and then get on the other side, having understood at least why it occurred, and that can bring long-term, lasting results and reconciliation as opposed, and growth as opposed to we just got over the situation and moved on. So I think that's why, ultimately, I end up getting involved in more of these than I care to, because the truth of the matter is I'm no different than you. These, almost every single time, these things scare me to death. In fact, as we sit here right now at two o'clock today, I've got one of those conversations scheduled, uh, between me and another person here on staff. That's going to be a very, very hard conversation, but it's necessary if we're going to grow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think that's why okay, um, I mean, I that that is all really interesting and convicting in a lot of ways. You are. So you were telling me off, mike, of some of the just like demographic information about what your role is at Southeast. I'm going to have you kind of repeat them. You mentioned that you have how many elders and deacons.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we have 105 deacons and we have 38 elders currently. And what is your staff? Yeah, we have somewhere around 600 staff members, which is equivalent of about I don't know 450 full-timers, because we have a lot of part-timers.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And we have 14 locations and a Christian camp. By the way, I always hate sharing those statistics depending on who the audience is, because it feels somewhat unrelatable at some point.
Speaker 1:Well, no, I, I'm asking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know that you would never just like volunteer that information and be like this is my credentials is, but I am um soliciting that information from you because I think that it actually helps people understand just the scope of how often you are involved in this type of thing Because we're ultimately talking about 700 people that are trying to work together to accomplish a mission that God has placed on the hearts of the fine folks at Southeast Christian Church, and every single one of them is a sinner, and people are going to fall along the way and people are going to hurt one another on the way, and so you have kind of a pastoral role in many of these relationships like you're talking about, and I want you to talk from your experience. But also I just want to kind of acknowledge something here too, which is that you are speaking from that perspective. Uh, I am asking the youth pastors who are listening to this to kind of take a mental step, uh, to kind of forward a stream here, um, and apply some of the things that you're going to say to a youth ministry context. So you're saying I have a staff member who we're not going to get into specifics on any of that, but this is how we would address this with our staff, knowing that the listener is going to take that and say, okay, I have students who engage in a similar type of thing and this is a principle that could help me with that. So in that sense, I think it becomes a little bit more relatable, uh, but the there there are two, and all of this another context piece for the listener.
Speaker 1:All of this is based on a conversation that I had with you, tim uh, about a year ago in your living room. We just got started talking and I had thought my gosh, more people need to hear this conversation. So if I'm remembering correctly and you can correct me if I'm wrong there were kind of two different things that we talked a little bit about. We talked about about restoration of somebody who's been caught in sin and we talked about reconciliation of relationships that have been broken. So those are the two things that I want to kind of hit on Dealer's choice. What do you want to do first?
Speaker 3:Yeah, let's start with that whole concept of restoration.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, great, I love it. Why'd you pick that one first?
Speaker 3:Well, because I think that, especially from my role as an elder and to back up, I'm in my 18th year as an elder at Southeast Christian Church and all of our elders at Southeast get involved in what we call restoration cases. A lot of churches call those discipline cases, but we learned a long time ago that when somebody picks up the phone and calls them and says, hey, brad, this is Tim, I'm one of the elders at Southeast, I'm calling you about a discipline case, you know not many people want that phone call or voicemail with that. But when you put yourself in the posture of what is the purpose of biblical discipline, if you will, well, you know it's restoration. Ultimately we pull that out of Galatians 6.1, you know, if there are any fallen among you, let those among you who are spiritual restore them gently and be careful, unless you fall into the same trap. So you know, paul gives us in Galatians this sort of outline that says, hey, you can be a heavy-handed person and bring discipline if you want, or you can restore someone back to a rightful relationship at a variety of levels in a gentle manner but gets them to become a fully functioning member of the body of Christ again. And also. I want to be careful, brad.
Speaker 3:There are so many subtleties here, one of which is that if somebody violates something pretty egregiously but they go through a restoration process, they may not be able to be restored back to a position that they left when they were violated, but they can certainly be restored back to a proper relationship with the Lord, obviously, and then, secondly, in a right relationship with people and with the church or whatever. That doesn't necessarily mean that they get to be restored back to a volunteer level position or even a staff level position, that when they violated something that required restoration, they may not get to return back to that position. So there are nuances to this whole thing, but that's why I like to talk about it from a restoration standpoint, because when you stop and think about this, if two people inside of the church organization are in conflict with one another, we've got something that's broken. You know, we were called to live in community with one another, and we were called to live in community from a variety of levels, you know.
Speaker 3:I think, first of all, we all know that we were not created to be isolated. It's not good for man to be alone. And God himself there's three of them, you know, and all those types of things. So we know that we're supposed to be living in a community and we know that, inevitably, this whole 1 Corinthians 12 body of Christ thing is is pretty big deal. Um so, uh, everybody has to play their role and everybody, everybody is playing their role without jealousy, envy, strife, all the things that scripture tells us not to have. Then this body works pretty well and when it does, it's a force to be dealt with for the cause of bringing glory to god, which is ultimately what we were all created for. Yeah, so when you talk about doing these restoration issues, man, that's what we're restoring back to. We're trying to restore back to something that God wants to use as a force for his own glory, and he wants to use us as people. So that's why it's an important issue.
Speaker 1:Totally, there's a lot of really interesting stuff there, because I feel like a lot of people in the church there are issues that are I think you use the word egregious that it's. It's like hey, listen, you can't work with with students anymore because you've crossed this line and that's just not going to be allowed anymore. And I feel like a lot of people feel like what they would need to do in that situation is just do kind of like a cut and run and you know say, hey, we got to move on, we got to act in the best interest of these students, and you know you can't, you can't be here anymore, kind of thing. And I love that you're saying, yes, we are going to act in the best interest of the students. Of course we're not going to necessarily restore this person to that position, but also we can't just neglect this person and leave them out on the street. That's a person created in the image of God, that's part of our flock and we're going to take the steps needed to kind of restore that person.
Speaker 1:So I'm curious just from your and I know that you're you do this a lot, so I'm sure you have kind of a process that I'm interested to know about when a person at Southeast Christian Church maybe they confess something to you, maybe you're made aware of a situation, I'm sure both of those happen with some frequency what does this look like at southeast, what happens? And I'm sure it depends on the nuances of the situation or whatever. But I'm kind of asking 30 000 feet, you know, yeah, what would be the process that they would kind of enter into?
Speaker 3:yeah, yeah, great question. And you're right, you know it depends on what the issue is. It depends on you know who the aggrieved are and all those types of things. But let me just answer that in general terms. You know, first of all, you always want to set up the parameters where you can have what you hope is a really honest meeting with someone and really get down to what the root issues are.
Speaker 3:And the other thing is, too, is that one of the things we have to recognize is that every single one of us brings in inherent biases to these circumstances, and usually those biases are based on past hurts or how you've overcome your own sin issues and that kind of thing. And I remember one time you know I was taught that oftentimes, if somebody has overcome a certain one time, you know I was taught that oftentimes, if somebody has overcome a certain sin issue, then you're either going to be way too soft on people that have that same issue or way too hard. There's very little middle ground in there, and so you have to be really honest with yourself when you're entering into these situations. Number one am I the right person to really even handle this situation? Is it too close to me where I'm going to lose some level of biblical objectivity. So be honest with yourself and assess okay, am I the right? And I hand off these types of things all the time to other people because of that very situation.
Speaker 3:Also, do I have too much relational equity? Because I'm always going to err on the side of people that I just love. I want them to win, I want them to be right, that kind of thing. Personality differences, by the way, also come into play, because I'm a very relational person and what that does oftentimes is that puts me in a position of being even a people pleaser. So you can see, on some cases, somebody like me would might not be the right person to walk into a real tough situation. So I need to make sure that I'm either partnered with someone or handing it off to someone that has a little bit better of a perspective of how to deal with those things. Um, without needing feeling the need to have the feel, the good feels, by the time you're at the end of that meeting.
Speaker 1:Which I have two questions about that. I told you I was going to do this, that's totally good. You talked about being partnered up with somebody who might balance you out a little bit in that. Are these the type of things that you wouldn't normally enter into, as like hey, someone has come into this meeting with some leaders at Southeast and it's going to be two or three of us, or are these things that you kind of handle on a case by case basis on your own? That's question one. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3:Yeah, let me do question one right down. Question two you always want to let them know what they're walking into, because usually when people are having to walk into a circumstance where there has to be a very serious conversation, number one, they're afraid. Number two, they're defensive. You know there are all these emotions that are kind of running through them, and to be able to do this appropriately, you've got to be able to appreciate everybody that's involved and where they're coming from, and so you always want to make sure you're setting the table appropriately when it's, you know, as elders, one of the things that we do. We never do a restoration case alone, we always do in twos. And here's the other piece you know, and some of your youth pastors might have to do this or be involved with it, with some of their volunteers who might be married, as an example, and so you have a married couple that's going through something that might be leading down the divorce pathway, and of course we want to get in the middle of those types of things. And if that's the case, oftentimes you bring in two men as elders into a room and you're doing some fact-finding and you got a wife sitting there and now she's got all these men and she's the only woman sitting in the room. That creates what feels to be like an unfair balance and she doesn't know if she can trust us as men, and so on. And so we always try our very, very best to balance that and actually bring in somebody that can understand who that person is. In this particular example I gave you, it might be another woman. In another case it might be a business dispute or something like that. We might bring in somebody that's got a little bit more acumen in business so that they can understand that business person's perspective. So you always but you always want to let them know, hey, and we always tell them here's what's going to happen.
Speaker 3:You know there's, by by the way, brad, usually these things come to us. There's some sort of a of a um, um, an accusation. Somebody's coming saying, hey, I was wronged by someone. Our first question typically is um, you know, first of all you got to empathize right away and and you got to say I am so sorry you were wronged. And you ask to say I am so sorry you were wronged, and you ask them what the situation is. And then the next question is because, remember, these are two members that probably are in the same area of ministry, service in some form or another, at least at the same church, and the first thing we want to ask them is have you gone to them and asked them or appealed to them about what they did wrong to you? Sort of the Matthew 18 outline, right, somebody's sinned against me. I got to go to them and say, hey, you know you violated this. And oftentimes the answer is no.
Speaker 3:And then you have to ask some pretty serious questions about that, you know, because they're really uncomfortable I don't want to accuse anybody and then sometimes they want to walk away from that situation as opposed to actually diving into it. But those are important issues because, remember, we're discipling people. You know, it's one thing Jesus told us to do go and teach them everything I've commanded. And so that means that when you get in conflict with somebody, how would Jesus have handled this from a biblical perspective? How are we taught? And so you want to lead them to do as much of the work as they can on their own as believers. And, by the way, that usually uncovers someone's understanding of scriptural principles. You know, I didn't know that was a thing. Or you know, I didn't know that fear was running into this, so, um, but we tell them when they come, we ask those questions and then we'll let them know.
Speaker 3:Okay, so we're going to go on some fact finding. So we want you to come into a meeting with us. That meeting will last for about an hour at the most. We don't want to go anything beyond that and we're just going to listen to you. We want to hear your heart, we want to know what happened to you, we want to know all the circumstances. And then we're going to do the same with the person one-on-one that you're talking to. We're going to invite them into a meeting and we're going to do the very same thing with them, and then we're going to compare those stories and then, hopefully, work toward bringing you all into the same room in another context and then begin to work on that together, prayerfully, biblically, and see if we can't bring about some restoration.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of a general setup of how we do that and I I really admire the eldership model that southeast kind of has and philosophy that they have. Um, I remember reading a book by bob rus Russell about eldership in college. I was like man, there aren't a lot of books about being an elder and you know, this is really important. So I love how deep rooted that is in your guys' history as well. But I think so for youth pastor listening to this and thinking through like oh, I have a volunteer that you know we need to confront some sin issue in their life. I have a student we need to confront some sin issue in their life. I have a student that we need to confront some sin issue in their life.
Speaker 1:And I think a lot of student pastors feel like oh, the buck kind of stops with me, like I'm the person that's supposed to have this conversation and I don't want to put words in your mouth. So I'm posing this as a question. I think Southeast would say, well, that's what elders are for. Like, invite those people into the room because they want to be part of that restoration process. Is that accurate?
Speaker 3:It's accurate too, depending on the level of the problem, if you will, because one of the things that we really try to do here is at Southeast, is that we want our ministers to be ministers, and oftentimes what happens is, if they think that they can take some conflict that's going on inside of their ministry area and they can just get an elder to jump in, well, that removes them from the equation and they're able to say, yeah, those guys will handle that. I'm going to go on and do whatever, fill in the blank, your ministry is, but the truth of the matter is is that we're all shepherds, and shepherds have to deal with sheep that are sometimes hard to deal with. So you can't shy away from this. So what we try to do is get our pastoral staff, our ministry staff, to step into those situations as deeply as they possibly can before they engage an elder. Now, an elder may be on the outside coaching them, but we want them to take it as far as they can. And then in that relationship, or in that, you know, mentoring, mentee sort of relationship, it becomes really obvious when it needs to really rise to a whole different level, if that makes sense. And so in doing so then we're really hopeful that we're helping our pastors and ministry leaders to be shepherds, because that's ultimately what they answered the call for.
Speaker 3:So then it gets put into the elders. But, to be sure, the elders oversee all of that. So when we know that it's not unusual, there's not hardly a week that goes by that I don't get a call from a staffer and say hey, I got a situation. I'm you know. Here's how I think I'm going to handle it. What do you think about that? That's kind of what part of my staff role is now is being executive pastor on the lead team and is my job. Is job is to try to help, uh, you know, coach them through those situations. I get those calls all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's funny, I, I feel like we're not even in the room yet. We're just, you know, we're, we're, we're not even there yet. We've just made a couple of phone calls and we're trying to get things set up, which is great, um, and I, I have one more question before we can kind of like move into the room, so to speak, which is you call.
Speaker 1:So somebody comes to you, tim, and says, hey, uh, there's another guy in a leadership position here at at at Southeast, and he's flirting with my wife, he's being inappropriate with my wife, it's offensive to me, it shouldn't happen at the church.
Speaker 1:Uh, we need to, we need to talk about this. Um, so you're going to do your fact finding thing with with that man, or with that couple, maybe even, and then you're also going to, at point, confront this, this other guy, and do kind of a fact-finding. Hey, what's your side of the story? Tell me what's going on when you call that person, the, the person who has been accused of whatever, whatever it may be, um, how do you, how do you address that situation in a way that doesn't just cause them to go okay, I'm going to leave, I'm going to go find another church in town. You know what I mean. If they don't want to have that conversation, I feel like a lot of people might just go. I'm not going to deal with this. There's a church right down the road I can go to, yeah, and it go to, yeah, and it does happen, absolutely, that happens.
Speaker 3:Can't control that all the time, that's for sure. Because you got to, you got to remember. Well, this is when it really gets gets really hard. This, this man, this gets into so many of your different church philosophies and all those. You know. Types of things for sure, types of things for sure.
Speaker 3:But I can speak specifically as elders. Part of our job is to guard this flock from wolves. It's okay. It's okay If somebody is actually being a predator and I use that word, it's probably too strong of a word but if somebody even is just beginning to put pressure on people to do something that might lead them into sin, our job as elders is to ensure that we're keeping a safe environment where people can be free to flourish in the Lord within the context of our church.
Speaker 3:And that means occasionally that people will come in and they will not submit to the eldership and therefore they, either by their choosing or in rare, rare cases, we ask them not to come back now. I think another thing that's really important here is is that this is where membership in the body of christ really becomes important, like it's an example the elders really only have quote you know, some form of spiritual authority over those that have chosen to make this their place of their spiritual worship, and you know we call that membership. When they become members of church, then they even in our statement of faith, they even say they recognize that the elders are the authorities of this church, because we're an independent Christian church, non-denominational, and so that being the case, then what they're saying is that we will submit to the leadership of the authority of this local body. That's what gives us the ability to call someone and say hey, you know, you're a member of this church and you've got this. Somebody has lodged a little bit of a grievance against you, so we want to talk to you about that and find out what your side of that story is. The way you start those conversations is really important.
Speaker 3:But yes, brad, get back to the original point. There are times that they say yeah, no, I'm not into that, I'm out, you know, okay. Well, if they're a member, we try our very best to figure out how to keep that from happening or to find out what's really going on. But if they're not a member, then there's really a limited amount of responsibility that we have to go do that. Our job is to protect those that are part of our church. If you will and, by the way, I recognize the danger of that statement you can tear that apart any way you want to, and all that, but I'm prayerful that people will be keeping it in the context of the local body.
Speaker 1:Sure Well, I think it's actually really interesting because a lot of churches are moving away from the idea of membership altogether. Altogether, I'm very, very involved at my church and I don't know that I've ever, you know, done anything to like officially become a member in any kind of formal or informal way. Besides that, I serve there and if somebody you know I have a good relationship with my church. If one of my elders called me and said, hey, somebody, you made somebody uncomfortable and we need to talk, I would talk to them.
Speaker 1:You know I'm I trust them and and you know there's that, but I I wonder how much harder your job would become if Southeast didn't have any kind of like formal membership process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm very familiar with churches that that you know, do not have formal membership, but they do have what I would call informal membership. Whether they call that or not, you know, whether it's just, I identify with this church, it's where I worship and in doing so they still take them through discipleship classes that teach them how the church runs and they do all those things and let them know. If you call this your church home, then we're going to treat you, you know, as a, you know as a member of our body and therefore here's how we're going to treat you. So you know again, I appreciate you saying that because it takes away the legalism side of this thing. Oh, just because I signed a piece of paper means that I have to do this Now. These are heart issues. So whether you or not sign up for membership is not really really the point, so much as how you identify with our body, you know. So I think that is a really important thing that we have to delineate. It's a hard posture.
Speaker 3:You said that, well, that's your situation, so we would still, you would willingly submit to the authority of our church because you recognize, as elders, this is our responsibility to this local flock. So, yeah, as a believing Christian that's a disciple and wanting to grow in the faith and understand how God sets up authority for protection and for proliferation, then yeah, you would submit to that. So that's really really good and a great example.
Speaker 1:This is just a point of sheer curiosity, and I don't even know if you'll have a number on the top of your head, but what do you know like what percentage of people you would say are versus are not willing to kind of engage in this process when you do make that phone call?
Speaker 3:It's a pretty high percentage that are yeah, so that's been. That is really really encouraging. Now what happens when you get in the process is is oftentimes where there can be some fallout. But the people that when we call them, make that initial call and we tell them what we're after and say would you be willing to meet with us? That percentage is really high.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, that's good, that's great.
Speaker 3:And, by the way, before an elder makes that phone call, we try our very best to find out where that person is plugged in and we try to find that leader. That helps soften the phone call. Like, as an example, if we knew something was going on in a youth ministry someplace. We're going to call one of our high school ministry leaders or middle school ministry leaders and we're going to say, hey, do you know so-and-so? Oh, yeah, a great volunteer in our ministry. Okay, listen, I need to have a confidential conversation with you because that person has been accused of something that we're going to have to talk about. So you kind of walk through it and then find out were you aware of that? And you know that ministry leader might say yes or no, and oftentimes they say yes because our ministry leaders do it. And this is an insight that I would give to any of these youth pastors Relational connectivity, long before any problem is caused, absolutely makes this process work.
Speaker 3:So you can never take for granted the relational equity you build every time you sit down with one of your leaders or one of the people involved in your ministry. You're actually you know, you're actually building toward a better future when conflict inevitably occurs and you're building trust. So that's a real important piece. So we go to that ministry leader and say you know, hey, are you aware? And they might say, yes, I'm aware of that and here's what we've done so far. Oh great, didn't know you were involved, hey. So it's gotten to this level now Would you mind calling that person and say, hey, listen, the elders are now aware of that and a couple of them would love to sit down. They want to hear your story, because without hearing your story, somebody else is out there telling the story and it could be end up getting worse. And our goal and our role here is is that we want to restore, we want you guys to be able to walk in fellowship together.
Speaker 1:Would you be willing to sit down with me and with the elders and and man that really helps sure, rather than getting a phone call from some guy who's you don't know them at all and you know, and kind of going, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:I also think it's really important. It's real easy to sit there and sort of put yourself in this position and think, well, yeah, man, these elders, they're sitting there as judge and jury and that kind of thing. That is not. That's why we call it restoration. That's not what we're after.
Speaker 1:Well, I kind of was wondering like how often you personally, or Southeast as an organization, just gets kind of accused of being nosy and and turning over rocks that they shouldn't be turning over and and that kind of thing, because I'm sure that there are things that are needing to be addressed that you perceive need to be addressed, because they do need to be addressed, but the person involved is saying why in the heck is the church bothering me about this? You know that kind of thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that happens all the time, brad, and why? You know? Because when you're talking with somebody, it's usually in a situation that they don't want anybody to know. It's private, it's personal, it's something that would you go put it on a billboard someplace. Hey look, I've been accused. No, and they think that somebody else is painting them in a terrible light within their own church. I've got a situation that's going on right now that I'm one step removed, because I know both parties that are involved in this thing and one of the parties is absolutely convinced that the other party aggrieved them greatly and has gone to elders and has pleaded his case, and now all the elders are against this other person because the other person has relational equity and, frankly, nothing could be further from the truth than that. But that narrative is already deeply embedded in that brother's head. So it happens all the time.
Speaker 3:But you know what, as leaders in the church, I don't care what your role is as a leader, but you are a leader in the church. It is part of your responsibility. We are trying to be as biblically accurate and as biblically obedient as we can, because it's the Lord's reputation that we're upholding here. It's not mine, right, it's not mine. Now, what that requires is the ability for me as an elder, when I step into these cases, or as a Christian leader, is the ability to say oh man, I was wrong about that. And because you know we can easily be drawn into that, Remember, let those among you who are spiritual restore them generally, but be careful unless you fall into the same trap. So this whole thing is done with a tremendous amount of caution that we are checking our hearts all the time too, and as soon as we realize, oh, we were a little harsh Like, as an example, I had one not too long ago where it was a dispute between a man and a woman and the man was abusive to the woman and as part of what we were trying to do to bring peace and safety and all of those things, we asked the man to not attend a particular campus.
Speaker 3:We told him you can attend any other campus but don't attend this one, because if you do, she might come and she's afraid of you and we don't want her to be afraid. Well, one day he called and said hey, I've got a friend that has asked me to come and be a part of a class you know, to do some special presentation, can I come? And we said, absolutely you can come. For just that class, that one time blah, blah, blah. Well, for just that class, that one time. Blah, blah, blah. Well, that created a really bad situation with the woman who felt afraid. I mean really bad. So she texted me and said I can't believe you did that, because now I don't even feel safe to come to church with my family and all these things. And, brother, she was right. She was right.
Speaker 3:I did not uphold what I felt like you know in retrospect I should have upheld as an elder to protect a member of my flock, and so that led to a couple of other meetings and I think we're good, but I felt awful. But that's the point is to be able to have enough humility to even recognize when we make mistakes, which then I think also helps them to see our sincerity with wanting to bring restoration is holistic. You know, all of us need to walk in harmony with one another as best as possible. In Romans 12, where it says in as much as is possible, live at peace with everyone all the time. And that's in the middle of a horrible conflicting situation, right? So that's a big piece of the puzzle as well Be humble.
Speaker 1:Gosh, I feel like everything you say. I want to dive off on a tangent, but I've got to. I've got to keep myself focused here. We got to. I just realized we've already been talking for like 40 minutes. So you know, we got, we got stuff, we got to get through here.
Speaker 3:I'll try to keep it.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, it's not you, it's. I keep asking questions, um which? So let's say that you're kind of in this process with somebody and this person maybe they're a staff member and I don't know what your guys process is there. Maybe there is there some type of like administrative leave that a person can be put on while we kind of like figure this out. Is that a thing that you guys would do? Or yeah, it is.
Speaker 1:And the reason I ask is because I do feel like youth pastor might have a young lady in his youth group who sings on stage and is involved in whatever way, and okay, we've learned that this thing is going on and we need to probably not have you singing on stage leading worship until we get this figured out. And I want to know at what point maybe everything is going great. Obviously, restoration rarely is a straight line. There are ups and downs, we know that, but maybe generally this is moving up and to the right and we feel good about it. At what point do you, as an eldership, start to say, okay, maybe this person can begin to work their way back into some of the service opportunities or, if they're a staff person, maybe this person can go back to work during the week and that kind of thing. What do you need to see in order for that to happen?
Speaker 3:No case to case dependent. That is a very difficult question, and it is one that we wrestle with all the time?
Speaker 3:Not at all, you know, because one of the things that man, this relationship business, brad, it's tough, isn't it? Yeah, I mean it's hard. So because one of the things that we all want as Christians is would somebody please just tell me the boxes to check so I can see what progress that I'm making. And the fact of the matter is, I'm sorry, it just doesn't work that way, and it's very much Holy Spirit driven by prayer. You know, I think I failed to say early on, man this whole process starts and ends with prayer in between. And when I say prayer, you got to remember in James 5, when we're talking about prayer, it's the fervent prayer of righteous men and women that avails much, that causes things to happen. Fervency is a big deal, man. It's not an arrow prayer that says oh God, I'm walking into this meeting, help me, give me wisdom. Do that if you don't do anything for sure. But the truth is, you wrestle with it in your prayer time. You search the scriptures in these situations, because that's kind of what we're called to, if you will.
Speaker 3:Now, having said that, we can go very deep on all of these topics, like you just said. So where are they on that linear progression of oh, everything's great, now it's not linear? Never is. You said that and it's absolutely true. There's so many things that you have to take into account. You know what was the issue in the first place? How widespread was that issue? But I'm going to tell you the number one issue Are they humble If it's a person that's singing on the stage and let's just use that as an example, because it's a really, really good one If the stage isn't there, where is that person's heart with the Lord?
Speaker 3:If the stage isn't there, where is that person's heart with the Lord? Where are they in relationship with their youth ministry? Stage isn't there. Where are they in relationship with their church? Because if they feel like that, their stage has been robbed and now that ruins all of their relationships. I just wonder what the motive is. Now, I know who I'm talking to, yeah, but we're talking about teenagers. I mean, come on, do they even know? I mean, we all know as guys, the frontal lobe isn't even connected or whatever. Until you're what? 62 years old now, I think, is the latest.
Speaker 1:You're almost there. I got a long way to go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you know how that goes, so I don't know. So there's a certain amount of that. To where you go, yeah, they are going to be prideful and all those types of things. Well, these opportunities are opportunities for us to be able to deepen them without accusing them. It's really a question of their heart.
Speaker 3:I recently read a great book that we, as elders, now are starting to figure out how to incorporate. To answer the very question you just asked, the book is called Trust by Dr Henry Cloud, and most people that know Dr Cloud know that this guy is just brilliant when it comes to these types of things. Well, one of the things that he does is he walks through this entire book. In fact, we as elders are studying it together right now. We just had our first discussion on it yesterday morning. We'll have a second one next week, and the reason is because, when you have to walk into these restoration cases, trust has been breached. At the end of the day, that's kind of one of the fundamental issues that causes the need for restoration. So this book walks you all the way through the process of how is trust gained, how is it lost, how do people perceive, what are all the different nuances and what's happening deep inside of you when that happens. At the end of the book, dr Cloud gives in fact, he gives these many steps of regaining trust, and at the end of the book, he gives like 11 steps that show that someone's making progress. So when we saw this and we saw it in the book, we went oh my goodness. In fact, one of the sub headings is 11 indicators of true change. Is somebody really changing? And that's what you're looking for. I'm looking for trajectory, I'm not looking for perfection. And so the question is how are they doing? Coming alongside, are they continuing to meet with me?
Speaker 3:Oftentimes, I'll tell somebody hey, before we restore you, like, I've done this a couple of cases I've said hey, you know what? Here's what I want to do. I want to take two years before we put you back in your position. Well, it sounds like a shockingly long amount of time. It could be, I don't know. And, by the way, I've only done this a couple of times. I've done it shorter at other times. And what I'll tell them is I'll make a commitment. I'll say to them and during those two years, here's what I want to do I'm going to meet with you at least quarterly, just me and you, and I want to find out how you're doing and let's have a conversation about that. And I have found that really is helpful to people. And the people that are really serious about wanting to be right before the Lord, right with the person that they maybe have been in conflict with, and right with the church, they'll do it, they'll absolutely do it. And the people that are like, ah, it seems unfair and that kind of thing, well, great, okay, well, maybe, and I'll tell, well, maybe it won't take two years, so why don't we just start? Let's just start meeting on a regular and and and when I demonstrate to them that I love them.
Speaker 3:You may have even done something terribly wrong, but that has no bearing in terms of whether or not I should love you now. It may have bearing us in terms of whether or not I should love you now. It may have bearing us in terms of whether or not I get to we get to play in the same sandbox any together but it doesn't have any bearing on what my responsibility as a christian is to love someone. You know, brad, most of the time we live in the fields, right, like when we say I love you. We're expecting that to be some emotional reaction, what we all know as Christians, that's not what love is. Love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13 for us, and the very first attribute of love is it's patient. That doesn't feel any good to me at all, so I'm already taken out of my feels. Love's not easily angered. Now, that's an emotion, but it's an anti-emotion.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:Right. So you kind of walk through that and when I show a level of commitment and, by the way, I have to pray through these things, sometimes I'm not very happy with these folks, but you got to pray through it and say, god, I want to love them the way that you want to love them, how would I do that? Well, be patient to them, be kind to them, that that's really what I'm in it for. Then God does the work. Right, and you said this a minute ago I'm not the one that I'm not even the one that really brings about restoration. I hope I'm an agent of restoration, but it's their heart, interacting with God through the Holy Spirit, through the power of his word, that actually brings about restoration, which brings up.
Speaker 3:The ultimate point of this is you can't restore someone if you're not acting in accordance with the word of God. So before you even enter into one of these relationships, you got to ask yourself a question Do I know God's word well enough to be able to help walk someone through from where they are to where they need to be? Can I do that with some biblical guidelines, right? So that's a really, really important piece as well. So when do they ultimately get put back in their position. What's their trajectory? How are they doing with humility? Have they demonstrated a willingness to understand and sit in the seat of the one that they might've wronged and empathize with them? Or have they actually started to say, man, I wish I'd have done this different? Here's how. Whatever those things are, but anyway, in Dr Cloud's book, those 11 steps really have been helpful in giving us some guidelines on what to look for before we put someone back into a position.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good stuff. I had to read, got to read a couple of his books in college and it's, yeah, incredible stuff, incredible guy. I'm glad to hear that you guys are reading through that. I haven't not read that one, but I've seen it and I think you've inspired. Start to wind down here. I got to begin to tie up some of the loose ends of my own brain. So I want to talk really quick about the longer term follow-up. If everything goes swimmingly, you know if this has been just a really good situation, if the person you know is willing to meet with you is demonstrating humility, if they've begun the process of reconciling a relationship that they may have hurt, things are going really well. Is there an end of this journey? It would be kind of my first question. And then how does that either wrap up or how does it continue to move on from there?
Speaker 3:be honest with you. I don't, I don't know how you draw a hard line on that. We've got some that are. I've got one with a family that is, um, estranged from their daughter that is now four years old, and we've we've moved the needle, but barely, but we're hanging in there, um, so it depends. And there are others like, uh, if somebody comes and says, well, this person wronged me and, uh, owes me money, and then there's restitution made and, okay, end of the matter. And then when there is an end of the matter and it's easy, because it's somewhat measurable, if you will, and the relationship has been restored and they've hugged it out, or whatever the case may be, then but yeah, you know, as the people that are leading it through restoration, you do have to kind of let them know. Hey, guys, man, thanks, you guys have done a great job. And so I think we're finished. You know, I think we're finished, but I want you to know we're available if anything, you know, kind of pops up. So, yes, there can be an end. And then sometimes there's not.
Speaker 3:And again, you know, brad, one of the things and this is one of the things that again we obviously not only do we not have time to go into it, but it wouldn't be appropriate. We're not lawyers, we're not legal people, but youth ministers get involved in some things that are pretty dicey when it comes to the legalities and what are the reporting requirements and all those things. And, man, once you start to bring in legalities, it really messes up the relationships big time, because now we've just transferred, rightfully by the way, under certain circumstances, transferred rightfully by the way, under certain circumstances, but sometimes, you know, you start to transfer the authority and responsibility over to the legal system to the degree that we have to do. That is the degree that we're walking away from some spiritual authority that we might have in that situation, if that makes sense. So, but again, let me be very, very clear in certain cases you have to report and you have to transfer that. That is the right thing to do. Someone has violated the law of the land and it must be for the protection of all to do that.
Speaker 3:But as you do that, you realize, of course, that you can't always have a kumbaya finish when it comes to that kind of a thing. So and those things become ongoing and some people just get tired and they quit even coming, yeah, and and those things become ongoing and boy, and some of them, people just get tired and they quit even coming. Yeah, no, we've had enough meetings, we're done. And then some of them just don't end well. And when they don't end well, our responsibility is to say okay, then how do I keep the sheep of the flock, uh, moving in the same direction, even if these two sheep can't matriculate together anymore?
Speaker 1:Sure, you know, even if these two sheep can't matriculate together anymore. Sure, you know? Yeah, all right, I want to. I want to wrap up.
Speaker 1:I want to give you a chance to, to kind of encourage our listeners for a second, and the encouragement that I or maybe I should say the way that you've challenged me is I think everybody has a threshold that is somewhere for what they are willing to address when it comes to sin and broken relationships, like things can get bad enough for anybody to feel like they have to get involved in a certain situation. I feel like for most youth pastors that threshold is probably too high, based on some of the things that I'm hearing you say. So I kind of want to just give you a chance to encourage youth pastors to have a plan in place for this and you started off at the beginning of our conversation talking about it beautifully, but I want to give you a chance to kind of wrap up in the same way with what's at stake here and why is it important for us to have a plan in place to address some of these issues, even if it's not something that maybe we perceive would be worth our time to engage in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Thanks for that man I'm going to tell you. Look, Brad, I was called into the ministry 25 years before I ever drew a paycheck from a church. Okay, the rest of it was learning. The rest of it was just life and figuring out how do I live my life biblically. My wife and I actually started, when we first got married, as very high-level youth workers in our church and we did that youth ministry for six and a half years.
Speaker 3:And I'm going to tell you one of the things that really excites me about youth pastors is this you have to recognize what's at stake is we all know this from a general sense generations to come.
Speaker 3:It's real simple to me, Because one of the things that I learned when I was doing youth ministry was we would have these wonderful spiritual events and kids would take these giant leaps of faith and then he would go home to parents that didn't believe quite as deeply and as strongly as they did and parents that were beat down by the world, didn't know how to biblically interact they probably didn't even have a prayer life and those parents would come to church on the weekends and they would act holy and then they would cuss their kids out on the way home, or whatever the case may be.
Speaker 3:I was so frustrated by that because I didn't understand why everybody couldn't be just totally committed to the Lord and just live that way. But my mentor was a youth pastor who was just amazing to me, and one of the things that I learned through him and through his wife and my wife did as well was this was that man, guess what, If we can rescue the next generation before they get into, before they get married and start having kids themselves, and we can start training them up to love God with their whole heart before they're encumbered by a relationship that's going to try to take them off the course and then start having kids, and those rascally kids, man, they will take you off. Anyway, I don't want to get off on that.
Speaker 1:So you had 12 of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but if you're seeking the Lord wholeheartedly yourself, then you can set up the next generation to be able to enter into that same type of relationship with the Lord. And then, when they marry someone who has that same passion, look at what happens to that next generation. Conflict is inevitable and the enemy is always trying to steal us away. And what these youth ministers are doing is they're entering into the lives of these kids at volatile points who, most of which, don't have homes that we would hope that they would have, and they have the opportunity to set that trajectory in motion so that the gospel can go out into all the ends of the earth. I believe it that strongly. Here at Southeast, our vision statement is that we want to unleash the full force of the church to love people one at a time. And I want to circle this one at a time thing okay, because it's real easy to look at your youth group and count sheep oh, how many sheep are in your herd? We all do that kind of thing, right? But the truth is, is the way you grow your herd is one sheep at a time? Grow your herd as one sheep at a time and as a youth minister to be able to dive into the life of a child who's confused and hurting and being bombarded by all these things, and to be able to shine the light of the gospel so that it can do its work inside of someone's heart. It's like an atomic bomb that can be set off, that can spread. You know, wherever the work that our youth people are doing, our next-gen leaders are doing, cannot have a value placed on it enough, right? But I will say this First of all, conflict's inevitable. Just measure your own life. We all know that right, and to the degree that you have learned biblically how to handle conflict within your own heart, between you and the Lord, you know, when David was accused, accused, was confronted by Nathan, you know, and, and because of what happened with Bathsheba and Uriah, and what did, what was David's first response? He went face down before the Lord. He said God, against you and you alone, have I sinned? He didn't even talk about Bathsheba or Uriah. He talked about he had violated the ways of God. So, hey, youth pastors, that's us man, you know. Are we standing before God to be able to say God, these sinful things that are in my own heart against you have I sinned? Because once we're able to come to grips with that and then live in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. We get to give that to other people and we do it from a basis of experience and knowledge and wisdom that can only come from god in the work. And once we're able to do that, man, and we can really spread it. So my encouragement is conflict is inevitable. How are you doing with it? Because to the degree that you're dealing with it okay in your heart and with others, you can be able to pass that on to other people.
Speaker 3:You asked me to the very beginning of this why is this kind of a passion point for me? Because I believe God's taught me by being drugged through so many high-level conflicts personally in my life. Brother, on the other side of this thing is beauty, is beauty in relationship. Now, you know it's still hard, but there's still beauty in that relationship. So I don't know if I was able to articulate that in a concise enough way for you.
Speaker 3:But, man, but I'm telling you, you've been called. You have been called by God Almighty to lead a generation, and that is not a small thing and I'm not making it bigger than it is, but it is what it is. So that's why we're doing this. Man, let's go, let's take them. By the way, last thing I'll say is you said I've got 12 children and I was very skeptical to send my children to youth group because most youth ministers back in the day were in it for themselves and what they were really trying to do is they were trying to say, look at my youth group, and they were trying to grab these kids to come into their youth group so they could be known as a great youth minister Until.
Speaker 2:I met Matt.
Speaker 3:Reagan, and Matt Reagan was our youth leader here at this church and, man, I get emotional about this because I'm telling you that brother changed the trajectory of my children's lives. I thought I was doing a pretty good job as a dad but, brother, you need other people speaking into the lives of your children and brought matt reagan over to my house when he first came on staff here at southeast and I said, man, I don't want to send my kids to some toothpaste swallowing, fun youth group thing to where all they do is come and have a party and do gross things. I'm sorry to put it down to the basis thing, but that's kind of what we talked about. Matt reagan looked at me and he said man, creation waits, I'm trying to unleash lions on this world. And I fell in love with him and he was true to his word and I have.
Speaker 3:I think all 12 of my children have been impacted by that one youth leader's life and if we had time, brad, I'd take you through every single one of my kids, all 12 of them. My youngest is 16, my oldest is 36. Every single one of my kids. At this point in time they had a great mama. Let me just say that is involved in one way or the other in the ministry today, and I am forever grateful to my friend Matt Reagan, because he has changed the trajectory of my children's lives. He partnered with me and my wife to do that. By the way, we've had conflicts. Matt and I have had conflicts. We're good friends, but we navigate through those. Why, for the greater glory of God, I've got to stop there, bro? Because I can go on all day about that.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, we love Matt. I'm thankful for Matt that I get to do ministry with one of your 12 children, with 8% of your children, but he is a really, really good dude and yeah, I mean I couldn't say it any better if if I wanted to. You know, that is the stakes is that every youth pastor gets the opportunity to do that. Um, if they'll step into it.
Speaker 2:So that's what I think. I think we could reasonably say that Matt Reagan is ultimately the reason why we're having this episode right now. Um, cause you know, I probably, uh, wouldn't be here for Brad to say, hey, let's have your dad on the podcast that's for sure, man isn't that?
Speaker 3:amazing. One guy, one guy that's incredible anyway. So one young lady it can be a man says let's go. I think I'm going to go back into youth ministry after this.
Speaker 1:Let's go you could do it. You'd be the best of the best. Let's go. I think I'm going to go back into youth ministry after this. Let's go, you can do it. You'd be the best of the best. Tim, I am very, very grateful for this conversation, really appreciate your wisdom. Yeah, it was really cool having you on and you gave me a lot to chew on, so I'm hopeful and prayerful that it gave our listeners a lot to chew on as well.
Speaker 3:We appreciate you, man. Yeah, and I love that bearded guy you got sitting there with you. By the way, I can't help it, but you know.
Speaker 1:I hope you're encouraged by that conversation, even if only right at the end there, just knowing the impact that a student pastor can have in the lives of students.
Speaker 1:Tim was describing his, his kid's journey and the role that a youth pastor played in that journey. Similar to my story, I would say, and hopefully similar to the stories of some of the youth who come in and out of the doors of your church every week as well. So, but also, man, what a great challenge to just be willing to biblically and gently restore people. Maybe we're tempted to be too harsh in those situations, maybe we're tempted to ignore those situations. But Tim's challenge to me was to do the hard work of finding where the Spirit is leading in those situations and bring about the restoration that is leading in those situations and bring about the restoration that God desires in their lives and that's going to be best for them and their relationship with Jesus and with his church. So I'm going to go ahead and read our blessing and then not make any promises about what's happening in two weeks. May God show you grace and bless you. May he make his face shine on you.
Speaker 1:May you experience the love of Christ, through whom God gives you fullness of life. May you be strengthened by his power. May Christ himself make his home in your heart, that you would be full of his love and grace and that those you serve would see Jesus in you. Today's episode was produced by Michael Hester, lauren Bryan and myself. I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to Tim Hester from Southeast Christian Church, tim Hester, sire of Michael Hester, for being here today and sharing from his wisdom of years of experience. We're going to be back in a couple weeks. I don't know what we're doing in a couple weeks, not going to make any promises, like I said, but we'll be here. So be sure to subscribe to our show wherever you listen to podcasts or on YouTube. In the meantime, you can reach out to us on the CYY community Facebook group or by email at podcastcyycom. We'll see you next time. Thank you.