Healthy Churches & Ministry Leaders with Stan and Josh Givens

What does a healthy church look like? What does healthy leadership look like? In this episode, Amber is joined by Stan Givens (a senior pastor with over 40 years of experience) and his son and ministry partner, Josh Givens (of 6:14 Ministries). Join the conversation for practical advice that will help you disciple and remain in ministry for the long haul. 

Learn more about 6:14 Ministries: https://614ministries.org/

Listen to their podcast, The Shepherds Circle: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-shepherds-circle/id1796331013

Transcript

Amber Pike (00:01.108)
Welcome back to the Kid Men Huddle. Today I am joined by father and son superstar duo Stan and Josh Gibbons. Welcome.

Stan & Josh Givens (00:09.837)
I don't know where the super came from. Or the z That's right. That's right. That's fine.

Amber Pike (00:12.334)
It's my podcast. I say what I want.

All right, guys, welcome. Stan and Josh are with the Ministry 614 Ministries, but Stan has been a pastor for 40 years. So before we jump into today, why don't you guys kind of introduce yourself? tell us a little bit about you, maybe an embarrassing story about each other.

Stan & Josh Givens (00:32.627)
Good. So well and and Amber, I'll just say it's been an honor to get to know you through your podcast. when Josh sent me the link to that I was driving six hours, so so I got to know a lot. And I really think there's a a similar energy that you and I have to to get to the heart of things and go to the core ministry stuff.

the wow of kids ministry is Jesus, not the room and not the stuff. And so I think you get that and if you can get your kids to really fall in love with Jesus, you got a whole better plan than just falling in love with the building. So and the stuff. So I've I love that about your ministry. I appreciate that. So

Amber Pike (01:12.083)
I'm impressed you could listen to me for six hours. I couldn't listen to me for six hours.

Stan & Josh Givens (01:14.291)
It just plays over and over. So but but I've been in ministry for about forty six years now. Really since I was seventeen years old, my home church, North Side, where I s serve now for the last twenty six years, I was called to ministry and I love what I do. I love small church work. I served in a big church in Birmingham for fifteen and a half years and then got called back to my home church and been here ever since and love it.

I love serving with pastors now. alongside our small church ministry we have. We've we help support small churches with six fourteen and I brought Josh on board to do that for for us back in twenty eighteen when we launched it. And he's been a huge support in that. So he's my favorite firstborn son. A T. Your only firstborn son. Well, yeah, but you're also my favorite. So

Amber Pike (02:07.478)
Josh give us the give us the detail on you and I know you, but everybody else might not know you.

Stan & Josh Givens (02:13.535)
yeah, so I've been with the ministry since twenty since we launched in twenty eighteen. so I came on to handle communications and a lot of the s digital and social media aspects of the ministry. that's sort of my niche in serving and everything. I did about twenty I guess about twenty years, almost twenty years as the communications director for Northside.

Before rolling off just recently and still do some of the stuff there a little bit when Michael or somebody else sends me a text and says, Hey, I have no idea how to do this. Yeah. The reality is he hated my PowerPoint slides. As a high schooler. Yes. As a high schooler, he hated my PowerPoint slides. It's like, damn. I wasn't gonna go there.

I was not gonna go that's all I got. So I'm gonna say it right there. My creative stopped right there. Yeah, so so I I I was like, no, we can't there is no way we can do that. And you know from being connected with me through Carl at Church Visual, shout out to Carl, that I have a little bit of a tit tendency to say, Hey, we need to have better visuals here with X, Y, or Z.

especially once I got into college, and I I declared my major in broadcast journalism, but I had to take a lot of graphic design and digital media classes even under that umbrella. And once I started doing that, I was like, No, there's no way. We g we gotta there's we can do better here in in this area. So yes, I did take over the PowerPoints and he In high school. And he never saw them ever again. Yeah, yeah. So

Amber Pike (03:42.19)
And the congregation rejoiced.

Stan & Josh Givens (03:45.727)
Right yes. Exactly. Exactly. You got it. Exactly.

Amber Pike (03:50.976)
And in true like small church fashion, you as a teen were taking over things. Love it.

Stan & Josh Givens (03:55.835)
yeah. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and I've I've been doing it ever since and I've always loved it. And you know, running all of the eventually, you know, one thing led to you know how small church world works. It's like, hey, if if Josh can do the PowerPoints, maybe he can do social media, maybe he can set up a good website for us. And so it kind of all snowballed. Also something I had created that he hated. So it kind of all snowballed from there. and

you know, did all of that and then in twenty eighteen dad got a real big heart for helping small churches on a bigger scale. and said, let's launch a ministry to help small churches. And we had been listening to some podcasts at the time and about other guys that were doing that in different ways. so we kind of stepped out and

I said, hey, if we're gonna do this and that our ministry is gonna need, you know, all the branding and the marketing, it's gonna need a face, it's gonna need, you know, all the things. So I'll run that side of the ministry. And I also help a lot of our small church pastors and ministry leaders do the same thing, right? Because a lot of these small churches that we step into, I mean, you know, Amber, they don't have any of that stuff at all. They a lot of them don't even know they need to be on those platforms. They don't know why they would need a Facebook page or an Instagram.

Amber Pike (04:58.68)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (05:07.313)
Wha why would the the pastor need to be on Instagram? you know, why would we need a website or a podcast? They they don't they don't think about those things. so somebody it it takes somebody stepping in and gently telling them, Hey, if you're gonna connect with the next generation, the Gen Z, the Millennials, and you if your church is gonna be here after all you guys are gone, you gotta speak their language. So it is exactly a whole other episode.

Amber Pike (05:29.378)
Yeah. Yeah. That's a whole nother podcast issue. Also, if you want to come to Kentucky and talk to my pastor, because it's bad in our situation. And I've got too much to do. So I just I post about the kids. Our Facebook is our live streams, and whatever I post. Cause I'm like, can I have admin power? Okay. So some of what you guys do, it's at six fourteen, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit later. But you all go in and you help revitalize churches, you

Stan & Josh Givens (05:45.075)
Yes, exactly.

Amber Pike (05:58.174)
are encouraging them, you're offering them coaching and help. So if you were to describe what does a healthy church look like, what would it what would it be? I know, loaded question.

Stan & Josh Givens (06:08.307)
Yeah, my favorite question and and I'm I say it all the time, all the time. I'm a C minus student. I fought for every C I pulled every D up to a C minus to get out of school. So it has to be really simple for me and and I try to keep everything as simple as possible. When I study the old and new testament, the disciples were goobers. I mean they were just as raw, stupid, simple as you can be. And even in the old testament, Israel just didn't get it. So

So I think the scriptures are written to us simple minded people. And Jesus gave us one clear instruction before he left. Let's go and make disciples. So so I say a healthy church has to be at least making disciples. But if you can say we're making disciples because we're having Bible studies, but if those Bible studies aren't making disciples, if the disciples aren't making disciples, disciples are disciples are disciple makers. So

So I say it has to be somewhere reproducing itself. It doesn't mean your church numbers are growing. It means it means the guy that works at the plant is having lunch Bible studies with the guys at the plant. And he's got a ministry to people because you've got a ministry to him. So so I think church is supposed to be just a disciple making process. And Jesus changed the world with eleven. So it doesn't take very many to get it done. You just have to get after it. And so that that to me, the core is true discipleship.

Amber Pike (07:34.23)
Love that. So what would you say? especially for small church, because we have a friend and he had some statistic that said the number of pe church goers are actually small or medium churches. I don't know what the statistic is, but I'm betting a lot of the people listening to this podcast are small, medium, or sh medium, my favorite term, churches. How would you how would you judge, okay, are we making disciples?

Stan & Josh Givens (07:47.634)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (07:53.461)
I like it. I like it.

Amber Pike (08:00.3)
Like what would be some evaluation, some rubrics? Is this is this happening or not?

Stan & Josh Givens (08:05.939)
Sure. So so the the first thing one of the first things we'll do, and it may intimidate pastors not even call us to get help anymore, but but the first thing I'll do is talk if I'm talking with a pastor, is I'll say, tell me who who which guys in the church are you discipling or outside the church? Who who are you personally investing in to try to draw them closer to Jesus? Could be informal discipleship. Like when I did my yard business, all my customers were informal disciples. If I could find a time to sit on the

porch them, stand on the front porch, stand out in the front yard and talk with them about pulling them to closer to Jesus, I would. So it's informal or formal, but but ultimately that the pastor has to set that example. if the church is without a pastor, then I'm looking at those leaders, the board, the deacons, whoever whatever they call their leadership, the elders, and I'm saying, can I meet with you guys? Tell tell me somebody you're working with. Tell me somebody you're trying to trying to gr gro grow closer to the Lord. And so it's the marker.

If if they're going if they look at you like, what are you talking about? You go, All right, we gotta go back to the draw board, right? This is you know, the old the old football deal. This is the football, there's the goal line, this is what we're trying to get across there. So you have to start at the basics and the pastor's role is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry. So while we're doing it, we're equipping. And so just trying to get churches to get back on those on that very basic level ground, you know, quit trying to worry about

Amber Pike (09:04.397)
Mm-hmm.

Stan & Josh Givens (09:29.229)
all these growth tactics of having flags out in your front yard and all the stuff that looks like it's you know we gotta have special coffees and all that that's all good. Really? Real to this generation they are. and it helps. But if the coffee's there and there's no real relational stuff, not gonna help you. So so we try to get back to the basics on that really

Amber Pike (09:37.922)
I mean the coffees are pretty important though.

Stan & Josh Givens (09:51.259)
really hard and try to evaluate that with the chur with the church. Say where where are you and do do your mom are your older moms discipling your younger moms? Are your moms good at discipling the children? All the stuff you you're focused on. So so we look pretty straight at that.

Amber Pike (09:58.434)
Mm-hmm.

Amber Pike (10:06.446)
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So coming from a senior's pastor's perspective, because sometimes sometimes there's a lot of unhealthy relationships between the children's ministry leaders and the senior pastors. Like, been there, done that, I could make a t shirt line and it would sell like crazy. and often there is fault at both sides.

So we want healthy churches that we are seeing discipleship happening. We want to see dads especially leading their kids at home. We want to see spiritual growth from from infancy on up. So what sort of things should children's and family leaders be doing relationally with the senior pastor to make sure that that relationship is healthy and strong?

Stan & Josh Givens (10:33.981)
Sure.

Stan & Josh Givens (10:45.842)
Mm-hmm.

Stan & Josh Givens (10:55.975)
Yeah, my one of my biggest worries, and I've seen it time after time, church after church, ministry after ministry, even in my own ministries at times. and you know this term from being in ministry for a while, but there's island ministries inside a church where a youth pastor or a children's pastor or a music pastor, they got their own thing going and they're really not connected to the church, main church flow. they're so

busy and successful and good at what they're doing or so involved in what they're doing, they really don't know. They don't even know the announcements that happen Sunday. They're like, I didn't know we were having a party this weekend for the, you know, kids' ministry or whatever. So, so I always worry about children and youth ministers especially becoming islands unto themselves, like isolated. And so our church, like you suggest on your podcast, our church has the kids stay in the service until

Preaching time so they see their parents worship. They're involved in our worship, our announcements. We do quite a bit of testimony time where people just give popcorn testimonies through that. So they get to hear that. Bible verses, we have our church read, tell me your favorite Bible verse this week out loud. And the the kids get to hear adults all excited about verses. So that's good.

But I don't it's very easy to get disconnected. And so they need to be in, obviously they need to be in a regular staff meeting, but they need to be in the church. I I ask my children's director to find somebody at least once a month that'll cover you totally. And you're down here with us. You're you're ours is upstairs kids ministry, as some churches are. So you're in the sanctuary with us and the kids and were with somebody else that you trust.

And you can actually involve yourself in the whole day of just, you know, being with the church family. So I think that's that's pretty important. And then they need to hear the announcements. You know, our our announcements are on our recordings. We just record the message. So somehow they've got to get information. And then the last thing I say is

Stan & Josh Givens (12:54.001)
the the children's pastor, the youth pastors should invite the pastors over to their house for dinner or coffee or whatever, but but somehow there needs to be a relational thing and hopefully the pastor's doing the same. The pastor's saying, hey, come hang out with us this weekend and let's just have dinner on our deck or I'm gonna grill out some hamburgers and hot dog and bring your kids and we're gonna play for a little bit and just just be friends and get to know each other. And that takes some of that tension away.

Amber Pike (13:20.364)
Man, I wish you were my senior pastor. So, children's leaders, if you don't have this kind of senior pastor, you need to tell them to go call Stan at 614 Ministries. But seriously, like, yes, we need to have really good communication. because you know, the senior pastor, whether you are a a small church or a massive church.

Stan & Josh Givens (13:22.823)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (13:31.259)
Mm.

Amber Pike (13:43.906)
He's got a lot going on. So you gotta make sure that you're communicating to him, here's the wins, here's the struggles, here's here's what's what. you need to be present. Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (13:52.723)
Yeah, and tell us what you need. Tell tell us as pastors what you need. And don't whine about it or nag us or beg us, but just tell us, hey, we really need to try to work on this and I need more curriculum or I need more helpers. My my children's work will say that to me all the time. Can you give me more helpers? I'm like, I'm on it. I'll go get I've got I've got some clout. So

Amber Pike (14:08.259)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Because you get the vision that you get. It's more than just babysitting and that's that's my if I could have a soapbox, that's one of my soapboxes that I wish senior pastors that they all understood the importance of children's ministry. Cause there still is a lot who have that. Well, you're you're babysitting. I'm doing the real work in with the grown-ups and you just you keep them quiet and like, no, no, no, no.

Stan & Josh Givens (14:31.451)
Well, at our last summit back in March, our summit I I my one of my opening sessions that I led had to do with Psalm seventy eight I think where where it's every it's it's multiple generations. You're supposed to be pouring into multiple generations the wonders of God.

Amber Pike (14:46.05)
an explanation.

Stan & Josh Givens (14:51.397)
So in my church, I can ask the people, we're a recovery church, so we got tons of crazy miracle stuff happening, you know, that we hear the stories of this guy was, you know, here in a very bad place in life. This lady was a atheist, agnostic, God hating person living homeless behind a a mall, and now she's leading a ministry. And so you look you look at all that and you're just amazed. And I'm like, those are the wonders of God, but the kids need to know that. They need to know about Noah.

Amber Pike (14:56.814)
Mm-hmm.

Amber Pike (15:19.299)
Mm.

Stan & Josh Givens (15:21.009)
They need to know about Jonah. They need to know about, you know, the the walls of Jericho, the walls of Nehemiah. That they need all the good stuff too there, Jesus and Peter and all that good stuff. But they also need to know the wonders that happened today. And so we we really believe that the kids' ministry is where that, you know, gets a good launch. Of course we try teach our families at home to do the same thing. So part part of that's a a multi layered ministry that you're trying to pour into. So

Amber Pike (15:49.454)
I love it. I love it. That's a great segue to my next question. All right, Josh. Your dad was a pastor your whole life, basically, right? and and we're talking about, okay, the church making sure that the church is healthy, that discipleship is happening, that good communication is happening between the children's leaders and the pastor. So, what about at home? What sort of things did pastor dad do at home to make sure you you got two siblings, right?

Stan & Josh Givens (16:17.108)
yeah.

Amber Pike (16:17.528)
To make sure that you and your siblings were being discipled at home.

Stan & Josh Givens (16:21.649)
I would just like to say I'm gonna call him Pastor Dad from now on.

Amber Pike (16:24.59)
Please do. So we call my mom comes and helps in in our kids group and half the kids are her grandchildren. so we call her Miss Grammy. Everybody calls her Miss Grammy and she goes down the line and like kisses each kid on the head. And sometimes the kids that aren't her grandkids are like, What are you doing? Yeah. Miss Grammy and Pastor Dad. Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (16:38.355)
That's so good. That's awesome. Yeah, I think I think a lot of that I know for me growing up, and yes, I do have I do have two younger siblings. I have a brother that's a year younger than me. I have a sister that's a year younger than him, so we were all stair steps. and I think that a a really big part of that, for us goes back to being raised the right way in church and that

Amber Pike (16:54.734)
Mm.

Stan & Josh Givens (17:06.119)
n neither none of us grew up sort of bitter or hating, you know, ministry or life or church life at all. and and a big, big part of that was just being molded and shaped and discipled as kids in the right way all through our younger years, and being, you know, put in the right, you know, kids' ministries under the right kids leaders.

and so that when we finally did get into our preteen and teen years, we didn't have a a bitterness towards the local church or towards ministry. I think that there was a lot of I know for us as kids, you know, there were some youth there were some kids leaders that spoke into our life from at from a very young early age, that were just very, you know, solid and

you know, real, real, you know, helpful in that regard, I think for us. And then and then obviously, you know, mom and dad, you know, never really forced it or pushed it on us, you know, as kids, but we learned we grew up with a love for that kind of stuff for the stories of scripture and, you know, that kind of thing. so I I think that's a a huge part of it as far as parenting goes. Yeah. Yeah, and and Amber, we took we took with us when I when I was a youth minister

Amber Pike (18:22.647)
Love that.

Stan & Josh Givens (18:29.083)
Even when they were little bitty, we'd take them with us to the youth retreats. We'd take them with us to camps. We took took to the singles retreats to the beach or whatever we were doing. So they were they were adopted by our youth groups and adopted by our

Amber Pike (18:43.202)
Which is so cool for a little kid to have like all those teenagers loving on

Stan & Josh Givens (18:46.587)
Yeah, ten brothers now that'll run all over and ride on their shoulders and all that stuff. We got tons of well and I have pictures of that. So I have memories mission trips, yeah. Yeah, I have memories, Amber, of being a little boy at that church that big church in Birmingham that dad referenced earlier and eventually getting to the point where it was cooler for us to hang out with dad and like the college kids.

And they were in a separate building. And so a lot of times on Wednesday nights when we were doing our kids thing or our youth thing, my brother and I would want to sneak out and sneak over to the the college kids and go hang out with dad because he was hanging out with all the cool kids. But but it was us seeing him do ministry, right? When we would come in there, it was dad with his guitar leading worship for the college kids, or you know, it was hey, that so and so who babysat us last week, you know, at the house, let's go hang out with him or her.

Amber Pike (19:17.804)
Ha ha ha.

Stan & Josh Givens (19:35.421)
You know, we would go eat pizza with the college kids and all that stuff. So we got to see ministry in action. We got to see Dad doing what he was called to do.

and I think that that made a a really big difference for us. And it's your full circle discipleship. The guys I've pouring into began pouring into my family, even to the point that they're on our board now. Yeah. Six fourteen board is the guys I poured into. yeah. And they pour into them, they pour into us, we pour into them still. But it's just it's just full circle discipleship. That when he was talking about the youth leaders that that he they really loved, it's guys that had been raised up under the children's and youth ministries that I led.

Amber Pike (19:49.486)
Mm.

Stan & Josh Givens (20:14.097)
So they become their leaders. And it's just a full circle discipleship process. Yeah, when we when we launched Six Fourteen in in twenty eighteen, those were the guys that were saying, Tell us how we can help. What what do we need to do? How can we how can we donate to this? How can we contribute? And and you know, three or four of those guys are on the board now. Yeah, and I know you're a big proponent of of like

the passage in Deuteronomy where where we're to we're to in the highways and byways as you're rising up, as you're going along. So we just took along with us on pretty much everything. And I think that's a discipleship model that a lot of parents sometimes overlook. We find babysitters so we can go do ministry when we should be taking the kids with us and letting them help us. And that's Yeah.

Amber Pike (20:57.4)
That's where you develop your gifts and talents. I I was that my mom was the VBS leader when I was a kid and I was always so salty. I'm like, I didn't sign up for this. You did. Why do I have to do it? But then when God called me into ministry and I started at my first church, I knew how to run VBS because I was doing it at 10 because I did it beside my mom. It's like God knows what he's doing.

Stan & Josh Givens (21:05.843)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (21:11.795)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. And and you you include in the blessings and the burdens of it, right? They get to see you wrestle with some things and they also get to see you blessed by them all. And I think the other thing is not to have

Amber Pike (21:24.27)
So that was that's my next question because in 40 years there is no way that everything has been sunshine and roses for you, that every church member has just been lovely. There's never been any problems. as a parent serving in ministry, whether you're the senior pastor or or church staff, there is still a lot of yucky. and our kids see that. And that sometimes causes PKs to to leave the faith, to leave the church. We hear those stories all the time. So what did you do?

Stan & Josh Givens (21:34.747)
Yeah.

Well

Amber Pike (21:54.508)
To walk through that church yuckiness and make sure that your kids still grow up to love Jesus and the church.

Stan & Josh Givens (22:03.335)
Well, we ha we have to stay authentic with them and ministry's messy, so but I know my calling and so w whether it's somebody attacking me relationally, one of our elders did years ago, and it was a really bad scene at our church, we had to open kind of just everybody on the same page and I just opened up our whole life to them. So I'm an open book. Y'all study whatever you need to study to figure out. But whether we whether it's relational issue or

you know, just a verbal assault or whatever that is. I was fired at one point and rehired the same afternoon. But but at the end of the day, y you you have to know your calling. So as a minister,

I know my calling. And I told my kids on the day that I was gonna be fired. It's gonna be okay. I don't know how. I know God called us here and I don't know how, but He's gonna walk us through this. So they got to see my faith trying to fight its way through, fight, you know, Paul says fight the good fight of faith. And so and by that afternoon I'm I'm rehired as the the pastor forever there and still there twenty six years later. So but I also think it's important for for ministers

you know, that bitter spirits will destroy you. So you gotta have I I always try to keep two older mentors. Now the older I get the harder gets to find two. But older mentors, that aren't I'm not looking for a mentor that is

Amber Pike (23:27.596)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (23:35.399)
that's a wow factor, back to our wow conversation. I'm not looking for a personality guy. I'm looking for a guy that bears fruit. And most of those are like we've been talking about in the smaller ministry circles. They're they're unsung heroes. And

They're quiet natured pastors that have loved on a community and a group of people that have loved and hated them. They've loved on them for years and they're bearing tons of fruit now. And that the end of their lifetime is bearing a lot of fruit. That's who you want mentoring you as a pastor. You need somebody that knows how to get to that level. So you need two of those. It's always good to have two peer.

level guys that are it can be cooled ignorance when the three of you get together because you're you're fr functioning just from your viewpoint but at least you got somebody that understands what you're saying. so you so you gotta have some peers there and and I think you should have at least one of those peers should be outside your church community. So when you talk bad about your church, you're not gossiping to your church, you're getting help. So I've had several several of my peers eventually join my church and I had to quit doing that. I'm like

Amber Pike (24:41.726)
Mm.

Stan & Josh Givens (24:42.541)
go find another guy now because now you know all the names. So but but then you build good relationships with your elders in the church. I have a real close relationship with my elders. We have over here at the house all the time and meet with and feed and they spend a lot of time with me, so staying really close to your to your elders, so you know their families, you know their lives, you know their pets. J just like you do with your, you know, your church kids, the pastor has to do that with his inner circle. So, so I think all of that helps

Helps you get to the place where you can just keep going. And perseverance is the key, right? If we don't quit, we win. And as I said at the summit, we win big, right? He's able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. So as long as we don't quit, we're gonna win big. and the rewards in heaven are gonna be awesome. We give them back to him as a gift, which is awesome too. Can't wait to do that.

Amber Pike (25:30.626)
Mm-hmm.

Amber Pike (25:38.818)
Yeah. Yeah. How we were how we walk through church hurt with our kids is I think so important. That's when I went through my struggle season, I shielded my kids as much as possible. My my younger was like five, so she didn't really get what was going on. But my big kid, he was bigger. And the thing I'm most proud of during that is I walked through stuff that no children's leader should have to walk through. And my both my kids love church. And I'm like, okay.

Stan & Josh Givens (26:05.053)
Sure.

Amber Pike (26:06.966)
I'm sure I messed up. I'm sure my my face will show my emotions. So sometimes my face probably needed to apologize. But my kid, my kids walked through a horrible season that that could have affected them horribly where they want nothing to do with church because of how I was treated. Cause you know, I'm mommy and they that's mommy. but I they love church and I'm so proud of that.

Stan & Josh Givens (26:12.751)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (26:18.632)
Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (26:29.891)
That's why you stay at it, right? You didn't quit because you got hurt. You just pushed in and you know. But but but you're back, right? You're still serving, so

Amber Pike (26:34.54)
Yeah. Well I I did I did quit that church, but I was supposed to. Well, and that was when, you know, I was it was it was bad. It was messy. Like it was so messy. I was so mistreated. It was it was really bad. And I resigned and they canceled church to not have to tell people that Amber resigned. Yeah. and so I'm I'm heartbroken, right? That was ten years of my life and I loved it. And the next Sunday I wanted to stay in Wallow.

Stan & Josh Givens (26:53.532)
Okay. Right.

Amber Pike (27:03.244)
Like I wanted to just kind of lick my wounds, even though I chose to leave, you know, the circumstances were hard. And I told my husband, I'm like, no, I I want to wallow, but I am showing my kids that when we're hurt, when we're hurting, where do we go? We go to Jesus. So we went to church and we went back home. I went to the church I was born and raised where my my parents still are. And it's like there was a I don't remember if that Sunday or a couple Sundays after it was

Stan & Josh Givens (27:03.421)
Amen.

Amber Pike (27:31.222)
guest pastors filling in and my mom would just look at me and she's like, this sermon's for you. And I was I cried through a lot of church services, but when we're hurt, we don't we don't leave church. We we s we stay in because God made church and church is beautiful. It is messy. It is full of sinners just like us. But we gotta we gotta do it.

Stan & Josh Givens (27:36.387)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (27:49.715)
Well it's the same same story in me and my when they're attacked, he just he prays and he keeps working, he prays and he keeps working, he prays and he keeps working and and you have to just push through, right? You have to you have to keep persevering. That's a big issue with Jesus teaching the disciples. This isn't gonna be easy, but just persevere to the end and you're gonna see the the benefits, the fruit and the blessings. So

Amber Pike (28:11.298)
Yeah. Yeah. So I know you guys are seeing it with working with churches. There's a lot of church hurt. There's hurting people. There is, you know, if you look online, you see people are either quitting or getting fired from churches, right and left. So what kind of advice would you give to someone starting out in ministry? Like they're in their first six months, whether it's a senior pastor, a kidmen leader, someone on church staff, what advice would you give them to be in it for the long haul for 40 almost 50 years?

Stan & Josh Givens (28:40.487)
Well, we'll just go right back to what what I was saying got us through there. You need you need some older mentors with that are fruit bearers. You need some really godly men. They don't have to be high personality, you know, s type A salesman salesmany people. They just need to be guys that can get through to the end. it

You know, you think about in the Marine Corps they get older Marines to go sit with the with the new Marines and those guys have zero personality, man. They're tough. But they got through, they've fought through so many battles and they know how to get that guy and a mindset to get him through. So you need you need the the older mentors, you need some peers, and then you just you need you also need for yourself to find a way to have to to to give yourself a break.

I'm terrible I'm a I'm a I'm a task oriented person. So I don't take breaks easy. I don't s I don't Sabbath well. I we've got a bunch of people in our circle that beg me to be better at Sabbath and I've I'm trying so hard, but but as an older guy, I just I'm a workaho I'm a workaholic. I love what I do. I can't imagine, you know,

Amber Pike (29:32.671)
look at that look you're getting.

Stan & Josh Givens (29:54.125)
Sitting down and not doing anything. So even when I'm sitting down trying to not do anything, I'm doing things. I've I've been known to take my notes and stuff into my deer stand. That's a terrible idea. So well, I figured that out pretty fast. But yeah, yeah. So but one of the things that is necessary, you need some some hobby, you need good relationship with your elders, but you need some hobby.

Amber Pike (30:05.986)
You're not gonna get many deer that way. But maybe a great sermon.

Stan & Josh Givens (30:20.175)
or something that's your break, whatever that is. If if it's just, you know, going to the beach, reading a good book, you know, if you're a movie person, I know a lot of the younger pastors love to get on and play video games or whatever all that is. Not my style, but but I'm a I'm a go to the woods guy. If I get in the woods, my head clears my even I'm working up at the f deer farm my friend owns. I'm just feeling better about it all. And I always tell my deacons if I get to shoot something at the be at the end of the year

142 days from hunting season, just so you know that I keep track of that. But if if if I get to the end of the year and I actually get to shoot something, my deacons will have a better year. So they l they get to live a little longer, is what I tell them. So just go hunting. But that's my stress break. That's the thing that helps me relax.

sense, you know, it's whole different sense of God to me when I'm in the woods, when I'm in in nature and all that, it's a whole different sense of who God is and and my life has a bigger picture. It's a lot easier for me to see that than when I'm up in the middle of it all. So highly recommend guys do that. But those older mentors, you know, they'll push you into the woods or fishing or

Whatever your hobby needs to be. If you're if you like fixing cars, fi fix up an old car. If you you know, if you're a bike rider, go bike riding, hike trails, whatever it is. Just g get out there and do something that's the break so your brain gets a little f refreshed.

Amber Pike (31:40.258)
Yeah. Yeah. Josh, what would you say looking both from, you know, watching your dad pastor healthily s I think that's a word, successfully for all these years, but then both is your your time in ministry. What would your advice be to someone starting out in ministry? How do they stay in it for the long haul?

Stan & Josh Givens (31:58.567)
Yeah, I think you have to I know for me especially what it was was know your calling. You have to you have to know your calling and stay true to your calling. no matter what the you know, naysayers are gonna say and there are gonna be some naysayers. and I think that I've learned that over the years.

just through different, you know, friendships and relationships and things like that. It's, you know, you're you're gonna have the people that are gonna say, Well, but this isn't gonna be you know, like even especially in college, this isn't gonna work out for you, you know, financially. This isn't gonna work

Amber Pike (32:34.968)
Wait, wait, wait, you mean you mean ministry jobs don't pay well? We're not in it for the money?

Stan & Josh Givens (32:39.123)
You know, you you're gonna you're gonna have to work two or three jobs or you're gonna have to work your career and do this at the same time or be bi or tri vocational, right? And you know, you have all of that thrown in your face as kind of this, you know, don't even worry about that, don't even go in that direction.

but you know, one of the things that I know and that I know from having watched my dad for as many years as I have is that you know, calling is a calling. And if you're called to do something, you can't. It's it's it it it burns so deep inside of you that you can't say no to it. Jeremiah 17. Yeah, it's it's the I I even if I wanted to say no to that, I would not be able to. I I can't not do it. Exactly. and so I I I think I think my advice would be no your know your

calling and know what God created you to do and then lean into your spiritual gifts. you know whatever you're whatever God has gifted you to do spiritually, whether that's you know preaching or teaching or you know for me if it's the you know you using your talents and gifts and abilities in a particular niche of ministry like digital arts or communication or worship leadership you know I still grab my guitar sometimes and leave worship you know during the week you know for different things.

Because I know that's a spiritual gift God's given me and I don't want to abandon that or let go of that. and I think that those little avenues and venues of ministry are important to to lean into if you have a gifting or calling in it.

Amber Pike (34:07.906)
And then God's gonna also push you out of where you didn't want to go and then you have to go there.

Stan & Josh Givens (34:11.377)
Yeah. Comfort zone for sure. He always does. Every time. Every time.

Amber Pike (34:15.094)
He loves to do that. what you're saying about you have to do the calling. God was recently asking me to do something I really didn't want to do. And I I know that I was supposed to do it and I really did not want to do it because it was not it was not gonna end well and

He and I both knew that I was going to do it. I was just waiting to see how long I could say no because I really didn't want to do it. So I just joked. I'm like, I'm just gonna avoid any big bodies of water with very large fish that could swallow me. And I'll be fine. Like I'll avoid some earthquakes when it, you know, so the ground doesn't open up and get me.

Stan & Josh Givens (34:38.223)
It's a

Stan & Josh Givens (34:47.89)
It's

That's right. That's exactly right. He has a way. He has a way. He'll figure it out.

Amber Pike (34:54.956)
He d he he gave me my pass and then one day he's like, You're done. You gotta do it. And so I I I literally was like shaking. and I didn't and it and it went exactly as I thought it was gonna go. It went terribly, but it was a burden lifted off. But I just avoided whales for a while, you know. Okay, so as we kind of wrap up, there's so many, so many nuggets of wisdom in this. just what healthy

Stan & Josh Givens (35:01.755)
Mm-hmm.

Stan & Josh Givens (35:07.697)
Yeah, you followed through.

Okay, that's trying to try to stay away from motion.

Amber Pike (35:22.794)
ministry leadership should look like. Tell us some more about Six Fourteen because that's, you know, the that's a big passion of you all is is to equip the local church. So tell us what is Six Fourteen? How can it help our churches if if our friends are listening to this and think, I need some help. What does that look like?

Stan & Josh Givens (35:43.207)
Well, I mean we we really work hard to help churches get healthy. we we call it rescuing churches, but some some churches don't feel the need to be rescued. So if that term offends you, just just get us to help you. we we just don't want you to to fail or struggle at what you're doing. We really want to come alongside. We provide counseling for you, visits.

Lots of years of ministry and like at our summit, which we had about forty pastors there, we had nine hundred how many years of ministry? Nine hundred and something years of ministry in a room. And at the summit we don't do all the talking. We let the room talk. We ask questions and let we want all that wisdom poured into to the guy. So

so we we provide visits and training. If if I'm meeting with your church or your your church's pastor or leadership and I know another church that's just ahead of you in something like that, I just build the connections and we try to connect you. and we do all the coaching for free. And then of course Josh does tons of the media. I'll let him fill that in, but he can come alongside and help with the media stuff and

You know, our ministries like a missionary, we're supported by our our supporters. So we don't as a little church, you can't afford any help. And so so we're that revitalizing team that comes alongside and says, We got this, just let us help. So yeah, we don't we don't charge a dime for anything that we do, right? I mean, we're completely funded by one T three nonprofit. So, you know, it's all it's all just us coming in, you know, with our years and experience and saying, How can we help you move from here to here?

and for for me, a lot of that looks like what I mentioned a bit earlier with the digital media. It's the churches and the pastors that say, We know we need to get this done. We know that we're way behind

Stan & Josh Givens (37:34.405)
in this, but we've never even tried. We don't have anybody that that wants to volunteer to even step out and try to do it. Everybody that we've asked has said no. but now we have, you know, this one person who who kind of thinks they maybe want to give it a shot, but they're kind of scared and I'll come in and train that person and then we'll develop a team.

We'll get a team of volunteers going. I'll come in and do training sessions. superb training, by the way. On all of that. We'll do, we'll do digital and social media, we'll do marketing, we'll do branding. We'll do if you're if your church doesn't even have a logo yet, I'll come in and help you build all of that. I'll design it for you. And we'll get all of that up and going so that you have a visual face in your community now. And that community that you're trying to disciple, trying to get the gospel into, trying to, you know, build a relationship with, recognize.

is that you're there and and can visually see that. which is so important. I mean, you know, from the the with the culture that we got our whole culture is visual these days. So

Amber Pike (38:33.494)
Where do we find a new church? We look on social media first. We're looking for a website and social media before we step foot in that sanctuary.

Stan & Josh Givens (38:41.221)
It's the first place everybody goes. And so it's like if they've ne if they can't even hear your pastor preach through a podcast recording, through a Facebook live, through a YouTube video, if they're not finding you somewhere like that and trying you out first before they walk into your door, they're never gonna show up. And first they might not even know that you're there at all. Yeah, you're at the beautiful triangle, you don't exist. Yeah, yeah. They're just gonna you're just invisible. So

Amber Pike (39:06.37)
That's it. When we when I left my last church, okay, where do we go? Cause my husband wasn't sold on going back to my my home church because it was small and there was like two kids. He's like, that's not the best choice for us. We went on a digital tour of every church in our area of a denomination we were okay with. And I I ruled every one of them out because of either what their website looked like. and and I'm it's not like I'm like a snob, like, well, you use cosmic sands and I hate that. No, like

Stan & Josh Givens (39:20.066)
that's all.

Amber Pike (39:36.382)
if you told me that you're pushing play on a video for your children's ministry, like if this is your this is why you should come to our kids because they're gonna watch this great video, hard pass. and then there is one, like some I didn't like the worship, and I'm not like our worship leader is 82 and he sometimes forgets the words and we have to stop songs and start over. Like I'm not like setting the bar high, but there's a lot of inauthentic worship, and some like, nope, not going there. And then there was one.

Stan & Josh Givens (39:44.893)
Yeah. Well yeah.

Stan & Josh Givens (40:00.944)
Right.

Amber Pike (40:04.982)
I couldn't handle the pastor's accent. and I'm like, I can't I I couldn't listen to this.

Stan & Josh Givens (40:09.971)
Is that a Deep Woods Kentucky accent problem or

Amber Pike (40:13.248)
I a little bit, but I'm I'm northern Kentucky, so I don't have a ton of accent, but this one pastor it was it was rough and my husband and I looked at each other and we're like, We we could not do this every Sunday.

Stan & Josh Givens (40:21.68)
Not gonna work. It's good. That's awesome. Well, we work with churches in Louisiana, so there's an accent. Georgia. gosh. Yeah, they turn on the light.

Amber Pike (40:25.85)
Yes.

Amber Pike (40:30.35)
I mean, you got a little bit of an Alabama accent, so but it's not bad. I could listen to it every Sunday, so it's good.

Stan & Josh Givens (40:32.659)
Sure. yeah. And yeah.

And I'll I'll I will say just real quick, Amber, for anybody that wants to know more about what we do, six fourteen ministries dot org and hit the what we do tab, there is a full breakdown list there of all of the services that we provide. so you can you can find everything there and there's an expanded dropdown for each one of those.

Amber Pike (40:55.33)
Yep. And the links are gonna be in the show notes. definitely go check them out if if your church could use little help. if you the children's ministry, if you're doing silo ministry, it's not the best. But hey, six fourteen can still help you out. so if you need help on on your branding, if you just need help, if you just wanna talk to a pastor who has been in it for the long haul and needs some wisdom, please go check them out.

Stan & Josh Givens (41:09.959)
Right.

Amber Pike (41:21.472)
stand so many, so many nuggets of wisdom that I wholeheartedly agree with. I haven't been in ministry as long as you have. but just yes to so much. Just discipleship is our goal. We need people pouring into us because ministry can be very lonely. you know, you you you hear this, but you don't always realize it until it's you.

Stan & Josh Givens (41:39.155)
Sure.

Amber Pike (41:45.612)
You know, all those friends that you had at that church, that these were my people, and then you're no longer at that church and you don't have those people anymore. So the wisdom and having people outside of your church pouring into you, yes, that is a beautiful thing of the world that we live in with social media. I have friends who I'm pouring into because I've walked the walk that they're now walking and I've never met them face to face, but I can offer some wisdom because I've been in that situation and so here you go.

Stan & Josh Givens (42:11.463)
Well, and discipleship at the core is are you following Jesus, right? So when I'm discipling somebody, I'm telling them I'm following him and I need you to follow me to follow him because I want you to follow him. So so what that means is we're reading scripture to see him. We're we're finding him as the wow factor in every part of our life. not the wow of other stuff, but just him. We're finding Jesus to be the amazing one.

who died for our sins, who loves us enough to pay for our sins, who wants us to live with him forever. Who wants me to live with him forever? Well Jesus does, right? And he makes a way for that to happen. So it's just, it's just teaching people to lead others to that relationship.

Amber Pike (42:55.062)
Love it. Stan, Josh, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. But not just that. Thank you for the work that you're doing for local churches, to help pour into them. Thank you for the stuff you're doing with Six Fourteen. and then in your own church. So thank you guys so much for being on the show.

Stan & Josh Givens (43:08.103)
No.

Well, thanks for having us. It's a real privilege and we're gonna recommend your stuff over to our page. So

Amber Pike (43:15.694)
Thanks. All right, and kidmen leaders, remember what you do matters.