Shepherding Care with Adam Crain

In this engaging panel discussion, pastors Adam Crain, Rob Paterson, and Jason Allison explore the critical importance of mental health, self-care, and spiritual rhythms for church leaders. They share personal stories, practical advice, and biblical insights to help pastors sustain their calling and thrive in ministry.

Resources
ShepherdingCare.org 

Follow us on Insta @churchtalkproject. www.churchtalkproject.com

Transcript

0:00

Well, welcome back everybody to the Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason. I am so glad that you have joined us again this week. Rob, it's really good to see you, my friend. I feel like we we spent like two weeks in person, like constant, and then I haven't actually, you know, been in your presence for a couple weeks and I'm I'm feeling weak and drained. You know, that's funny, because either, you know, we are like joking with slash ripping on each other, or like it's high praise, right? And yeah, and I think that's okay. We're you know, we're still surviving 15 years into our friendship, so you know, the recipe must not be all bad. Yeah. Well, something's good, I I'd say, and all that. I I it is funny after all that, you know, anytime something is going on in my life that I there's you know, I just need to talk to someone, a friend, you know, I mean you're the one of you're the first call, uh generally speaking. So obviously, whatever really kind of friendship we have, it must be working right because there's there's very few on that list, so much less at the top of it. So yeah, that's that is very true. Well, and you know, Jason, we have talked a lot here recently, both on and off camera, about needing to play golf. Um, because you and I both play golf, we both love golf, and we have not uh gotten to play golf. I actually got out for my, I don't remember if it was my third or fourth round of the year. I think it's my fourth round of the year on Memorial Day, went out with a few buddies. Yeah. And uh, you know, it was like w the one clear day we've had here in the great state of Ohio where we're in the rainy season, you know, we're kind of almost to June and it it's still like cool, which I which I like. I'm not complaining about that part at all because I hate how we typically skip spring in in Ohio. You know, it's like it goes from like cold to 90, and I do not like that. No. I'm more of a springfall, spring fall, spring fall guy. If we could just skip summer and winter going forward, I would be perfectly happy. I'm with you. But you know, here's here's what happened the other day, and you know, because it has been raining so much here, it was cart path only, which is like you might as well walk at that point, you know what I mean? But I will say, um, I didn't shoot a bad round, I didn't shoot a great round. It's still early in the season, so I still have quite a bit of inconsistency in my game. But I was really, really good at like my driver was pretty on, and I was like, I was aiming at and hitting toward the card path. Amen. And like very successfully. I think there may in the 18 holes, there may have only been two holes where I had to walk to the other side because I just did it that well. And you know what? Like that I I'll take that. I mean, uh apparently, you know, laziness is actually a motivating factor for you to be good at golf. Dude, I don't know if I could have survived walking across the cart or the the fairway that many times if I had, you know, so it worked. And and so I what my my point of all this is saying you're still gonna have to sort of be weak in the knees for a little bit longer, as am I, because you know, until this weather, you know, kind of dries up just a little bit, we're probably not gonna execute on our hopes and dreams to golf together soon. No, but we'll figure something out. We always do. Yeah. Well, we have a guest today that I am excited to bring in. This is a guest that I've met now several times uh through uh the regional president of Mid At of Converge Mid-Atlantic. He actually is an old friend of Brian Weber, and and yet I still like this guy, so that's a good thing. I know. Crazy, isn't it? I'm just learning this, and uh it now I kind of liked him when we were chatting with him beforehand, but now it's questionable. Well, we have with us today the one and only Adam Crane, and Adam is the founder of Shepherding Care Ministries and is a guy who's got a long history of working with churches and pastors and people. He he's got education and all that stuff in the realm of counseling therapy type stuff and and all that fun stuff that uh, you know, people, only certain people are good at. And uh, Adam, I've spent a couple of, I don't know, three or four hours probably over the last couple months just chatting with you at Panera and at your house. And man, welcome to the show. I'm really glad that we made this happen. I'm so glad to be here. It is a deep honor to be with you guys, Jason Rob, and just to hear you guys banter back and forth. They are truly the same offline as they are online. And it they have a it appears that you guys have a good friendship. I'm glad I passed Jason's uh test, uh not to pass Rob's test. Uh I thought Brian would have been a good uh you know reputation to to know, but I guess maybe not and stuff. In some circles, but uh circles, yeah. Yeah. Well, hey, let just to get started, maybe uh, you know, give us uh a little bit of your your ministry experience. Like, you know, how did you even get to the place where you found serving pastors in churches in this way was a a calling? Yeah, absolutely. Uh you know, probably like mm everybody has their their stories as to their call into the ministry. Uh when I was 15, 16, I I felt the the call to ministry to quite understand what it was, but looking back, I mean there was a clear call to ministry. Then I went to school at at it's now Cairn University in the same region that uh Brian was when he first started as a youth pastor. So I began my ministry life as a youth pastor, and then in my early 20s is when I just came in hard charging ministry for the Lord. And by 23, 24, by the time I reached the age of 24, I was already burned out. And so, but I just thought that that was how ministry life was. You worked hard for Jesus, you grew tired for Jesus, and that this was how life was supposed to be and for for Jesus. I ended up single at the time, and I didn't have any really rest rhythms at that point in my life. I because I I loved what I was doing. I actually was passionate about youth ministry, and so much so that if you weren't in youth ministry, I was like, did you really love Jesus? One of those guys. And and then uh the the church uh gave me a a new responsibility to start an outreach sports ministry, and I kind of hit my sweet spot, but then also I it was I started overfunctioning at that point because I loved youth ministry, and so I just basically added another job on top of a job and went from the 45, 50 hours to about 70 to 80 hours a week. And young in my ministry, I didn't know how to delegate and I was fear of failure, all those different things. And so I just worked harder. Uh, I didn't work smarter, right? You know, that that's the young. I just worked harder and longer and so scared of of failure that I just I ended up burning out by the end of that first sports season. But the language wasn't out there for your own emotional, mental health. Um so and I just thought this was normal. So I just shut it off and just did what I enjoyed right into like the summer months. And summer months were pretty intense for youth ministry. Some summer camps, we just kept on going. And then I rolled into the second year, had enough energy as a younger guy, went in the second year of the sports ministry and repeated the same process. And so I functioned, I guess, highly effectively for several years, burned out, but just thought that that was what it was. And then looking back, I'm like, man, I I was really burned out during that time. But that's also when the Lord brought this to my attention of, I mean, I'm not doing well. Brought this to an elder, brought this to a pastor, and we didn't have the language. And so I look back and go, that's not like I don't blame anybody, but we just didn't have this language. But that's when the Lord actually put this going, if I don't know where to turn to, where do other pastors, where do other ministry leaders, where are they turning to as well? Yeah. And so, because I look back and then I just call it that chapter of my life, the years of gospel boredom. Uh, because I was teaching the gospel, but the gospel wasn't rich in my life because I was really functioning on more of a works-based ministry life and not reliance upon and dependence upon Christ doing the transformation in people's lives. I wanted to see it happen. I was trying to produce these things in life and looking at attendance and numbers as ministry success. And so when you change those things, you're just naturally going to burn out. Fast forward a lot of years uh for that is when I decided that I wanted to go for further education uh for ministry and prayed, Lord, do you send me back to seminary or do you want me to go down a counseling route? And felt the Lord just wanted me go down this counseling route and went back to school, took Cairn University to get a degree and a master's in Christian counseling with the goal of I was going to graduate and start a retreat center for pastors, missionaries, care for them behind the scenes, bring them in, support them, send them back out in into ministry. But that that piece of the dream, you know, that didn't happen, but that was about 16 years ago. And I really felt the Lord just saying no at that time because I was too young at that time to really start a ministry like that. And really the Lord pressed my heart that he had a few things he wanted to teach me uh in the last decade and a half of what pastors go through. And, you know, COVID was definitely a a teaching element uh of things, right? Yeah and so I burned out the first time uh because more administrative in the wrong role. I burned out a second time because of compassion fatigue, uh, because uh of leadership things that were happening and in a totally different realm of burnout, and then the Lord just really humbled me and said, You're gonna struggle with this the rest of my life. Yeah. And so so that so through that as well is just looking, going, where are the ministries that are caring for pastors? Where are the ministries that are caring for the ministry leaders? Where are the ministries that are caring for late leadership as well? What are they doing? Because again and again, you just hear pastors fail in ministry and people are going, well, what happened? Where do they go through? And so I I say this is just adding my ministry shepherding care is we're being cared for by the good shepherd. So it's a reminder for myself and for everybody who's here. We need to be cared for by the good shepherd first and foremost before we care for anybody in our in our flock. And we need to love our the overflow of our hearts. And so, first and foremost, we need to be loved by Christ. And so sometimes as pastors, you get isolated in your roles. You need a level of confidential care that sits kind of outside your circles that you can go to through somebody who's been there, who's faithful to the word of God, it can point you back to Christ and help you walk you through and stuff. So I just provide the level of confidential care that pastors provide for their flock. Yeah. Yeah. In multiple to multitude of different ways. So that that is that is so good, Adam. You know, I I don't think anyone listening would disagree that pastors need care, some encouragement, sometimes maybe some permission, you know, like it's okay for you to look after yourself, it's okay for you to slow down to take a break. I mean, we we need we need help. Just like everyone needs help, whether we see it or not, whether we're willing to admit it or not, we need help. But I I I kind of feel like, and maybe some people listening in have already kind of had this like thought in their mind. We live in a really unique time and in a really unique culture. You know, I think so many uh people on staff at my church, like I we have all watched, even some of mine, you know, like when our kids kind of go through adolescence, it seems like kind of mental health issues and struggling in ways that I don't remember very many people struggling back when, you know, I was a teenager. And I don't know if that's just because we were unhealthy in the other extreme, and you know, your dad told you, hey, listen, you're not don't be a sissy and pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And so we were maybe we were we were stunted a little bit there. I don't know. But you know, it seems like nowadays almost every young person struggles with their mental health in some way, shape, or form. And and you know, and I've seen even adults, you know, like they're just triggered by everything, and they need to see their whatever, their person, their counselor, their whoever, like three times a week in order for them to even sort of stay, you know, and so we sort of have these two extremes where like this has become more into view. And I remember hearing Erwin McManus at the Global Leadership Summit back when I was in college, so that was like, you know, 30 plus years ago now. And uh, and he was and and I'm he was saying it tongue in cheek, he was on the board for some big Christian university, and there was a board member who was super passionate about, you know, we're gonna, we want to make sure all of our missionaries have the best care and support so that their mental health is as just strong as it can be. And and he kind of made this joking kind of comment. He's like, Are you kidding me? We have people who believe they have heard the audible voice of God, they're willing to sell all their stuff, move to another part of the world where they don't know the culture, don't know the language, and God's gonna use them to change things, and we want to help them be mentally healthy, you know, and everyone laughed at, you know, and so uh, you know, as you think about this as somebody who helps just provide this care for for people in ministry, you know, what would you say to kind of where we currently are? And, you know, and we'll kind of work from there back to the fact that we all know people do need care, but you know, like maybe comment on this like kind of current cultural climate we're in. Yeah, uh it's we are the byproduct uh of our culture, right? As much as we have the word of God, depends upon the word of God, we sit in a context that is constantly coming at us in multiple different ways. You know, we're doing a video podcast today. 20 years ago, we would have said a video what? Right? And we're not even understanding what this is. And so we have seen the last 20 years, 25 years, the the rise and shift uh of how much our society is moving and how much more technology speed that we're at. And so if we have our teenagers, right, uh, who are growing up with this, we remember a time when we didn't have this, we could pick and choose whether this is gonna be part of our lives. The younger generation doesn't pick and choose whether this is gonna be part of our life. And so when you have this much information, it creates more of an anxious culture, right? And so with an anxious culture, you're just going to never have a time where you're pulled away from all of the influx of things. And so, as pastors, we're the same way, right? It one of the greatest resources and worst resources is our our cell phones. No longer can we not be available unless we make the choice not to be available. And so then, you know, depending upon your your church culture, are you allowed to be unavailable to your congregation, or are you required to always have your cell phone on and respond back to them? And so, or do you have you even given yourself permission to do that as well? And so there's a that creates a whole nother level of anxiousness of being able to unplug and not just unplug for your own, you just talk about the emotional health, right? Uh of for your own, like, I'm just gonna unplug to unplug because there's that, this is my me time, but to unplug to go, I want to actually depend upon the Lord to care for my flock, to care for my people, and and and to steal away from from my people. Uh, and so there's all sorts of things that that need to happen now. And so is there a mental health uh awareness or a crisis that needs to happen amongst pastors? I would say so, yes. You know, there's too many stats out there that when I was, you know, you look at what Barna puts out there, and you always wonder, are those always true? I can tell you, man, it's like as I'm doing this ministry, those numbers are true. Yeah. They're not beat up, they're not exaggerated, they're concerning. There's so many pastors who will struggle. As I shared before, I didn't have the language when I first went through this, and sometimes they just don't have the language and an understanding, or the community that's around them doesn't know how to support them. So then go ahead, Jason. Well, what what do you see? Uh, because so I think of some some friends of mine who are passionate in their, you know, pursuit of Jesus and their pursuit of ministry, and and then I know others who seem to put these mental health boundaries in their lives that end up kind of walling them off from caring for their kind. Like there, there's a balance there somewhere. Like I don't, I don't, I'm not saying either one is wrong or either one is right, but how like what do you see when you're working with pastors and and and leaders? How do you help them find that kind of balance between, you know, the healthy boundaries, right, that that that are needed, but also uh, you know, it's just the passionate drive that the Holy Spirit gives us. Right, right, right. So definitely I'm glad you said boundaries, not balance. So you gotta find the right balance. I'm like, No such thing. I've never found the right balance in ministry because there are s seasons of ministry where you have to respond. Yep. And then seasons of ministry going, oh Lord, thank you for the break. Uh and in my my choice, those those last for like a week or two. And right. Then I have other seasons. And so you're talking about the the the boundaries. Uh I look at the life of Christ, and as I examine my life, I did not start the rest rhythms that Christ had. I started with the you work hard, and that's just out of kind of my my background. You work hard and then you can rest. You work hard and then you rest. You work hard and you rest. Because I looked at the life of Christ and going, he worked really hard in his ministry, and then he had his Sabbath day, and that's all he did. And so he worked six straight days and then just crashed on the the Lord's Day, right? And then the Sabbath day. And then I look back and going, man, I had I read scripture totally wrong. And that was a humbling uh piece of it as a pastor. You you look at it. Christ started with a place of rest, right? And he spent 40 days in the wilderness, which was exhausting, but that's him growing dependent upon the word of God, being tempted by Satan. But then there's a really short little thing. The angels then came and ministered to him for how long? We don't have a context for how long, but obviously it was more than an hour, more than probably a day. There was time to recover, and then you see him start his ministry life. And so then he actually started from a place of rest and refreshment, did ministry, and then he rested again. But it wasn't just he like waited these six days on a regular basis. You you see these things in scripture uh of Christ actually when ministry was growing really fast, he stole away purposely from the crowds in order to spend into an isolated place. And so he chose to leave the ministry or the people with all the demands in order to do what? To find his rest and dependence upon spending time with his father. Yeah. Yeah. We do the opposite, right? I just heard uh a podcast, somebody talk about like a mega church. Like he looks back and says, I wish that I could have done this much slower. Right? And that goes to the opposite of our culture. Our culture says, if you're having success, people are coming, you must be doing something right. What is your special sauce? And and like, let's all then write a book and let's pattern ourselves at after you and do these things. And but then you look and going, is that what success is in this Christian life? If is that faithfully dependent upon the Lord, or is this you'd be starting to overfunction because you're seeing something like that is going? Yeah. I mean, if you go back to Genesis, they even went, you know, God created humans on the sixth on the at the end of the sixth day. So literally the first thing they did upon being created was go to bed. You know? And and then the very next day was the Sabbath day. It wasn't even a day of work. So like there's a there's a rhythm, and and I've heard you kind of allude to this several times. There's finding that rhythm of of rest and work, and then that rhythm of engage and withdraw. And and you know, and you have to find your own. You know, Jesus had his, and and it's not that his was what everyone's should be. Like different people are just wired different ways, and and that's great, but you've got to be intentional about finding that rhythm. What's interesting for Christ in his in his ministry, he still had the 20 same 24 hours that we have, right? And so go you know, sometimes as pastors, we want to manage our time. And I say, let's not manage our time, let's manage our energy. And so where you put your energy is not all equal. You know, there are things in our roles that it is life-giving, and then there's things in our role that are are not life-giving, but we still sometimes schedule or have the same expectations that I need to accomplish all this in the same amount of time. Yeah. And so then as you pointed out, that when Adam and Eve were created, Christ created them, or the God created them with actually capacity before the fall. And so he created them to grow tired, to grow hungry, to become dependent upon the word of God, right? God spoke to Adam to walk with him in the cool. Of the day. And so he created them with dependence to rely upon him. And so I believe that the more we depend upon Christ in our daily life, the more we are create, the more the actual human we become. The less dependent that we are become, and we start to overfunction, the less human we become. And we start to become almost more like this godlike status. I can look back in my ministry life and go, man, my pride of how gifted I was to the local church. And like, man, that was just like the level of arrogance that what I'm doing, people truly need. And Jesus is the byproduct of what I'm doing. It's like, man, that's just and we fall into those traps. And I can speak now very humbly. And I can even know, like, next week I'm probably going to do the same thing, but by the grace of Christ, that he's going to still continue to reveal these things in my life. And so that's just my growing dependence upon Christ, going, I need to continue to have this dependence upon him. Yeah. That's so good. Adam, I I want us to get to helping Jason because he really does need some shepherding care. But uh let I want to make a couple comments because, like, as as we've been having this conversation, there's a couple things that are just like, man, like this makes sense in context. And I and I think these comments will be really helpful for our listeners. So uh Michael Hyatt, who was like the CEO of Tommy Nelson and company for a while, started his own company, Michael Hyatt and Company, that's now full focus. He talks about this concept of like backstage and front stage. And so the more you're going to sort of be in the public or or have uh something to do that's gonna take a lot of energy, you know, like the more backstage time that you need to prepare for that, to manage your energy and all those things, which is very, you know, like what you're saying here. And I just think that's helpful for our listeners because sometimes, you know, here's people who make, you know, deep six-figure incomes who are like, hey, in order for me to do what I'm put here to do well, I do need to rest, I do need to sleep, I do need to whatever, you know, and sometimes people in ministry in in many cases who do who do not even approach low six figures, you know, feel this need to like literally just kill themselves for Jesus, like you started out saying. Yeah. You know, because I would be letting the church down, and it's like, listen, like you can't you would be letting Jesus and the your church down if you don't like steward your life well for the long term. So, and and caring for yourself along the way is part of that. The other thing is when you were talking about just the anxious culture we live in. I remember, you know, our oldest son, we have two boys. Our oldest son, um, you know, he was, I mean, we didn't know, right? Like, so he was kind of the the the test dummy guy. And I remember when he wanted Snapchat, and we and you know, my wife and I did all the research and we're like, no, you can't have this. And he's like, I promise it's just to talk to my two friends when we're playing this one video game, and that's all I'm gonna use it for. And he was such a good kid, and he kind of wore us down over time, and we're like, okay. And he was just telling me he's almost 21 now. He just graduated his junior or finished his junior year in college, and he's like, Dad, if my younger brother ever asks for Snapchat, do not give it to him. He said that contributed so much anguish to me because he had like a person in his life that would be texting him positive, encouraging things, and at the exact same time, knowing that they wouldn't stick around, blowing him up on Snapchat, and it created such stress and anxiety and pressure for him. He's like, You were right, I was wrong. And I thought that might just be a helpful comment for you know parents listening in who are like, I don't know about any of these apps or things, and and you know, we can help mitigate the stresses that create that anxiety and anxiousness if we know what we're doing. So yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's multiple different things you can respond to with that, but I would definitely encourage as many parents to delay as much social media as long as possible that we're seeing the effects of unfiltered and seeing the detrimental signs of it now. Like you look at the some of the top levels of people who are in charge of it, don't give that to their own children because they see the negative side of it as well, right? Yeah. You know, there was a time, speaking of that, it is as a pastor, I had so many things appearing on my home screen. My cell phone's right over there, so you know, things are popping up over there. But I found myself constantly checking it, and so that it was now controlling me, becoming the master of myself, instead of me becoming the the master of it and using it as a tool for further effectiveness for my life and to be able to help me. Instead of like, I just check it all the time, check it in the middle of the night, is there it's responding, and like, man, where is my life added with this? So Yeah. Which kind of goes back to the the rhythms idea, right? Of you know, it's not wrong to have that. It's when it just dominates your life, you know, and your rhythm is almost a staccato constant check, constant check, you know, instead of a smooth because that you know, Rob, you are probably more disciplined, you are way more disciplined about this than me, but I I know you keep your phone on do not disturb almost every morning because that's your Yeah, well, and you blasted me a couple episodes ago, I think. You know, you're like, you're all like you said it because you you're trying to reach me and I'm on do not disturb. And actually, I heard that as a compliment because like for all of us, right? Like if the thing's dinging and beeping and whatever, we're like everybody else. We're gonna look, we're gonna check it. And so I just know in my rhythm, like it hits do not disturb at 9 p.m. at night, and then it stays in that through noon of the next day. Um, and and like my wife and my oldest son, actually, Christopher's the one, I don't even know how to undo it, but like he made it so that if either of them text or call, it pops through, but anyone else, it doesn't pop through. And it's because I know like if I don't get certain things done in the mornings, I'm I'm just I'll go into the office and life will happen and people will happen and I will get nothing done. And then I'll be like stuck on the weekends, like, you know, working like for 24 hours to get everything done for everything else. And it's like I don't want to live like that. So so yeah, like I have, and as an extrovert, I get sucked into the trap super easy, right? So I have just disciplined myself to set those things up, and and if it's an emergency, guess what? I'll get it at noon and and I'll get there then, and that's has to be okay. And Rob, what you just you just described was a rest rhythm uh of your daily life. And you also said the the life I want to live. And I when I I'm caring for pastors, and I just will say, Hey, when do you when do you start working in the day? And they'll say, Well, when I get to the office. No, no, no, not when you get to the office. When's the first time you checked your emails or your text messages? And so immediately it's like, well, then the wife was, well, when you as soon as you get out of bed. I'm like, okay, so you start working immediately, as soon as you get and immediately be going, like, because your mind is now functioning and you go so burn on that this pastor, he's burned out. And so we're talking about, you know, entering into the day at a slower pace. And so as entering into the day is a slower pace of is your mind waking up and drifting to the things of God? Or is your mind, or have you confused it and going, your mind is now drifted immediately because you went and checked an email thinking that is the things of God. Now it could get so confusing and so overlaid of I need to start getting ahead of the day to get all the work done. But as a pastor, your godliness is a significant piece of that. And part of godliness is making sure that you're constantly dependent upon the word of God, dependent upon his permissions for the day. You look at Christ when he woke up early in the morning or stole away for the day, he was going and communing and asking the father for permission. What should I do for ministry and then dependent upon the Spirit to lead him through those days? When's the last time you asked the Father, God the Father, for permission to say yes to something that day? Because every time is this is some of the weariness is pastoring, is every time you say a yes, there's probably another 24-hour no's that you have to say no to. And those no's are all like relational-based things and have huge implications upon many different things that are just this intangible that you can't fully describe. And so, but if you say yes to everything as a pastor, like say even a say a quick yes, like I'm gonna check this email because I gotta get to this email, you have now, you talk about the the the body and stuff, you have just put your body and you crease your heart rate so much quicker, and you can literally keep your heart rate up the entire day until you try to go to bed. Yeah. Yeah. Right? And so then your body starts becoming, this is how we can actually equip and train our bodies, and this is exactly what I did to my to my life and stuff, right? Is that you equip and your body becomes adaptable to it, that you have your heart rate up for days and weeks upon weeks. Yep. And eventually what's going to happen is that you're just going to come into fatigue and then exhaustion, and because you've never been able to like slow down, the only time you slow down is when you're on a vacation. That is the last, that is like terrible because how many vacations do you get? And so then it takes you two, three days to wind down because your body has been going so fast. And so then say you've been overfunctioning. Yeah. Yeah. There's enough research, there's enough scripture to say that is so detrimental to us. Well, and Jay Adam, I uh was saying we needed to like talk about Jason and all the things he needs, but as you're like talking about this, that feels like you're, you know, like pointing a shotgun with both barrels right at me. Uh, because I still remember, gosh, it's it's got to have been about 10 years ago now. And um my doctor's like, hey, you need to you need to be on blood pressure meds. And I'm like, I don't, I'm not getting on blood pressure meds. I don't want to take more meds, I don't want to take meds. Like, you know, and I resisted and I lost weight, and I, you know, and and my blood pressure still was not controlled. And then I had a couple, actually, one of my surgeons actually had a massive stroke and could still do surgery, but couldn't communicate anymore. And I'm like, well, gosh, I don't want to have a massive stroke. And so I got on blood pressure meds, and I remember like the first sensation that I had was I I I I don't have all the energy that I had, and and my doctor was literally like, that's how you're supposed to feel. Like you you're not supposed to be able to get up as early as you want and do everything like until like 11 o'clock and like work for you know, whatever, as many hours as you want to, and uh, and then do it again over and over and over and over and over. And it was interesting because the one thing we noticed over years of this is that I started at one point maybe 10 years ago of just taking a month off in the summertime. It's a little bit more slow in in youth ministry, it's not, but in in local church it is a little bit because other people are vacationing and things. So I just take a month off in the summer. And and if I would have a doctor's appointment and they would test my blood pressure in the summertime when I wasn't working for a month, it was much lower. And and so just this whole idea of like what you described is me. Like I wake up and I'm thinking about that person or that thing, and it's it's we go on vacation and guess what? We talk about ministry, you know, like it's non-stop. Right. Because it's part of it, it's it's our life, right? As a pastor, you have this calling upon your life, and so there's really hard to separate all these different pieces uh uh of your life. And so, but I know when I talk with pastors, and I we if we want to get, we can talk about it now, Rob, and stuff, right? What what what are your uh that that's the uh the care side, the counseling side of me, right? Uh but what are your what are your indicators? And so I'll I'll talk to you you drive enough vehicles over the years that you have check engine lights that go on and off, and some people are more aware, some people just put they fix it by putting uh black tape over over the uh check engine light, right? Uh and that's how they fix it. Some other people are just very well aware of when it this light goes off, this means this. Everybody needs to understand their check engine lights, their dashboards as to overextended. And so when you wake up in the morning and immediately go, you know, your RPMs, uh for ministry, let's just say, right? Most time ministries, our RPMs are like a five to six thousand because there's just this constant kind of thing. But if you start functioning in the red as an RPMs, and you just listen to the engine, just going constantly, eventually you're just gonna the engine is going to explode. Come back and never come down to a place of rest and never come to a place of like, I'm gonna trust somebody else. I have to do this in order for the ministry to continue. And I think that when I hear those things in coming out of my my heart, and then I start to do those things, is when I realize that man, I have just moved past what Christ is asking me to do. I I am now becoming more dependent upon my skills and my talents for the transformation of somebody's heart. And as much as I read, I've never seen that in scripture that my skills and my talents will transform somebody's heart. And that's one of our the major goals of a pastor, right? Teaching and discipling for the transformation uh of people's hearts. And so as I look back, uh I just asked these questions uh upon my my life and upon my ministry, because and through the years he's he's transitioned me into several different churches. Each time I just have made the added question, what was I doing? What was I producing in the years looking back at it for students uh or for the different ministry context that I was in, like, did I actually disciple people well? And disciple people well is are they did I teach them to become dependent upon Christ where they can actually then teach somebody else about Christ? Or when I left, did they just enjoy the ministries that I was doing? Yeah, or and or become dependent upon you. It depends upon me, right? And so the more dependent they become me, the more I have now become overfunctioned. Now that's that's sometimes it's the person too, right? So there's a lot of caveats with with as well. And so I all I now I question and ask myself, man, if I want this ministry, this person to last the test of time, and I know the test of time means not the next four to five years, because that's an American mindset. I I want a biblical mindset, I want this to last two to three generations from now. From when I am well gone, and people don't even know the name Adam Crane, uh, but they will remember the name Jesus Christ because that's who we want to proclaim. Did I teach them to become dependent? Uh and that's it's called the ordinary means of grace. That's what we're called to do, right? And so as I talk with pastors and and we because we we, because this is me still, we bring in all the ministry demands that we have, our our our ministry job descriptions of all the things that are on that, and then um the systems of the church. We could talk all about how the systems of the church can become enslave us. Uh and what I've discovered is most pastors aren't burned out because of their call to ministry. They love what they're they're called to. They become burned out of all the systems and all the things that need to keep up with in order for the church to function. And that's just probably a whole other podcast just on that alone, right? So one of the things go ahead, Jason. Well, I you know, Rob, this is reminding us of our friend uh Mitch Harrison and the the running on fool thing, where you know, he talks about very similar things, you know, and and concepts. He he comes at it from a different angle, so it's a different uh you know way of looking at things, but the the principles are very similar. You know, for me, I know you know, you ask what are the indicators. You know, for me, I know when I'm when I'm I'm getting empty, my tanks are getting empty, I know when I start getting snarky with people, when I start getting really sarcastic, you know, when I start getting cynical about my outlook, like that's when I okay, that's that's that engine, check engine light, right? And and and that's when I need to, and so what you're saying is, hey, let's be a little self-aware, number one. And and it took it took some time to recognize that about myself. It wasn't like I just, you know, there wasn't, there's there wasn't a a manual with adulthood, you know? And so I think uh, you know, there's there's IQ, EQ that that is out there, emotional intelligence, and I call this uh PQ, pastoral intelligence. Is that when you have pastoral intelligence, you realize that God has set you apart, the church has set you apart to and you have been delegated, it's only delegated the spiritual authority over people's lives, right? It's not inherent to who you are. The Lord has delegated you this the spiritual. So, in the context of you being a pastor, when you walk into a situation, you are walking in with this spiritual authority over somebody's life. And that's a very humbling place to be. And so if you're not caring well for yourself, you will become more overdependent upon yourself and then apply the spiritual authority over somebody's life. And so we have to be very well aware of our godliness is sometimes going, I just need I need to slow down here. My gas tank is running on empty. You know, one of my indicators is I'm prone to more self-wallowing about my about my world. Nobody loves me, nobody cares for me, right? Even though everybody's around me, and it's like it's like all facts prove otherwise. But in that moment, I don't know if even the Lord is looking down upon me, right? And so that's an indicator upon my life of going, you need to be really concerned because years ago that was just how I was functioning and how I was living my cr my my daily life with Christ. And so now it's building up. Uh you talked about uh Michael Hyatt. He talks about like some key relationships in your life. And I tell I read the book and I was like, man, I don't have these key relationships in my life. I just moved to a minute to a new church, and people don't realize how much it it becomes isolating for a pastor to move into a new local church, and I just left a really good community, and then multiple different things happened in my life that are just like I won't ever repeat themselves. But I looked and was like, I don't have a best friend anymore. I like, I was like, I these people know me, they know my name, but they don't know me. Yeah. And so not that they were like standoffish, but I just didn't have a cough knot in my life. And so then as a pastor, you feel the pressure to have to walk through. But as you guys talked about, you know, your relationship with the past 15 years, and uh I wrote down, who's your first call? I think every pastor needs to be able to name who's your first call. Because I look, I've looked back and going, where was I more sustainable during the hard seasons of ministry? Uh, because every pastor is going to face weariness. Because you look at the life of Christ, Christ faced weariness, and he didn't ascend the night before when he was betrayed, he confided with Peter, James, and John. My soul is so despondent, right, to the point of death. They're like, man, if pastors confessed that to their church boards, they'd get fired. They would get fired, right? Or they would they most of us were not knowing what to do. But here Christ, and so there's, you know, what he did is he asked them, would you stay awake and watch with me? And so pray with me. Yeah. And so, pastors, we need to be able to have these confidential relationships. And then maybe that's just like somehow I'd encourage every single pastor. If you don't have a confidential relationship, find a ministry like Shepherd and Care to help establish something like that. So then, because we need those, and I believe it's required in ministry. Yeah. Yeah. If you don't have those, but you know, I tell pastors, you need to find somebody that's not that impressed with you. That's not hard for me. We we are out of time, but this is one of the crazy the crazy ones this happens occasionally where it's like, man, I just feel like we haven't even scratched the surface yet. So I really would love to have you come back because this whole time I've been thinking to myself, Jason and I all the time are talking to pastors who either hear concepts like this in their responses, I would love to do that. I just can't, right? They have made themselves so indispensable in their churches and ministries that if they were to not be there for, you know, 10 seconds, it feels to them like it would fall apart. And then I think there are other pastors. Who, like you've been saying, you know, are like, I would love to have this transition occur. I just don't know how. And so, man, I I think if we can schedule something soon to maybe really dive more deeply into those and even talk about how Shepard and Care, you know, could be that, you know, resource, you know, for our listeners. I think that would be incredible. Yeah, I'd love to be back and be able to talk about this. Uh this is my my heart and passion of, you know, when a pastor is well cared for, man, his church is able to thrive a whole lot more, right? Uh to be able to stand up on the pulpit and to preach, to believe what you preach. That it's not just application for your congregation. This also then applies to my life as well. I believe sometimes the loneliest person who who's standing at the church is the man that's standing behind the pulpit. It is that he can preach his heart out, and people will say, good job, but never go on that morning or through the week going, Hey, how are you doing? And there's there's multiple different things of the care that pastors need. Um I would just encourage pastors that, and I was in this mindset as well. I look back and I was like, when's the last time I actually felt joy in ministry? And I went, started going back for several years and couldn't name a time that I was feeling joy in ministry. And I was like, man, is this what ministry is is all about? Of not having any joy? Yeah. And the deep levels of joy, the joy of our salvation, the things that David was talking about, that that is there, the promises of God. Does that not apply to my life? And so it took a while to unravel some of those things. But man, now I'm I'm living a joy-filled life. You know, this new ministry, it's not the easiest thing to do, but I'm loving what I'm doing. And I've slowed down a lot more because of saying, I want to last in ministry till I'm into my 70s if the Lord allows it. Yeah. Well, and and so just so everyone knows, you know, shepherding care.org uh is is the best way to reach out to you and to find out because you do everything from uh, you know, working with pastors in kind of a coachingslash pastoral care setting, and and I know of other things that you do because and we didn't even address the systems and structures that push us into these stages of burnout, you know, that maybe aren't even in our control, but you work with church leaderships and teams uh to do those things. So I would, you know, obviously we'll put the link in the show notes. I'm I'm working to get a resource page onto the website so people can find these, all these amazing resources that we've had over the years easily so that they can they can connect. And you can you can work with a pastor in any state, right? Because of the the way you're structured and you can do that. The way I'm structured, yeah. I can go across states and stuff. Okay. I would encourage pastors just schedule an encouragement call with me, is what I call an encouragement call. Those are just introductory. Let's talk. I'd rather just talk first before you actually have to say, yes, I'm I'm receiving official care here. Yeah. It just set the bar really low and let's create a relationship and have a conversation to begin with. And maybe there's something that is more than what you need, or there's something different than what you need. But if anything, every pastor that I actually care for, I have a three by five card that I write their name down and their prayer request that they need. Because that's just what pastors do for their flock. Yeah. And so I'll pull those out and just going, man, I'm praying for this guy and praying for this. And so in this area, because it's more local where I'm at, um in the the east side of Pennsylvania, I'll just get together with pastors for an encouragement just to take them out to coffee or lunch for things solely to encourage them. Yeah. Uh because I want pastors to thrive, because I want the kingdom of God to continue to grow the United States and wherever it may go as well. So well, Adam, we will we will definitely get you back on the schedule quickly so we can maybe even dive into a couple of these topics uh in more detail. Uh, because this was this was great. And, you know, Rob, we it just feels like over the last six months, even these kind of topics keep bubbling up. And, you know, maybe we should be paying attention to that and and what God might be doing and and and in the lives of the the pastors and leaders. Because you know, we we say this all the time, but we exist to you know, engage, equip, and encourage pastors and leaders. And this is part of it. So for all of our listeners, uh, please reach out to Adam if you want to even just schedule an encouraging call. I I know you will definitely be encouraged and and it will be a good thing. And if you have questions uh for us, please reach out, let us know. We we appreciate the feedback and want to be there to help you. We are cheering for you, and we are so excited that you would even take some of your day to listen to our bantering and so forth. We think it's worthwhile because we think God is being glorified and his church is being built up. So have an amazing week, and uh, we will talk with you next week. Thanks for joining us today at the Church Talk Podcast. We hope the conversation encouraged and challenged you. We would love to hear from you. Email your questions or comments to Jason at Churchtalkproject.com. The Church Talk Podcast with Rob and Jason is brought to you by the Church Talk Project. We work to engage, equip, and encourage pastors and church leaders around the world. Thanks for listening.