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Main Street Reimagined Podcast
This is a podcast for dreamers, creators, developers, and entrepreneurs to learn, share, and be inspired to change your community through small business.
Main Street Reimagined Podcast
Episode 37: The Role of Faith in Restoration & Revitalization with Steve Estep
Pastor Steve Estep opens our conversation with a powerful challenge: "Find what you're passionate about, a need that needs to be met. Roll up your sleeves and get at it." This perfectly captures the spirit of community transformation that drives both his ministry and this enlightening discussion on how churches can be catalysts for community revitalization.
As lead pastor of Marion Church of the Nazarene for nearly eight years, Steve shares how his West Virginia roots and early resistance to ministry ultimately led him to Marion, where he's witnessed remarkable community transformation. The church's Celebrate Recovery program – now the largest in Ohio – stands as testament to their approach of doing life with people rather than for them, addressing the hurts and habits that often stem from profound childhood trauma.
Our conversation ventures beyond typical church activities to explore creative facility usage – including a thriving partnership with a childcare center serving 150+ children – and universal leadership principles applicable in any setting. Steve articulates four essential leadership functions: defining reality accurately, solving problems effectively, serving people genuinely, and bringing consistent energy when everyone else is discouraged. His morning practice of asking "How's your heart?" offers a practical discipline for maintaining leadership perspective through challenges.
What truly distinguishes this episode is our candid discussion of Marion's ongoing revitalization. Steve describes witnessing the city transform from "a place where people come to get high" to "a place where people find hope" through collaborative efforts spanning faith communities, businesses, and civic organizations. This partnership model, where ego and credit-seeking take backseat to genuine progress, provides a blueprint for any community seeking renewal.
Whether you're leading a church, business, nonprofit, or simply want to make your neighborhood better, this conversation offers practical wisdom for bringing positive change through collaborative leadership.
Guest Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marionfirstchurchofthenazarene
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The Main Street Reimagined Podcast, Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqfkmF5bRH0od1d3iiYKs3oEn_gvMYk7N
Henry Development Group:
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Luke Henry:
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#FaithInAction #ServantLeadership #PastorLife #ChristCentered #HopeThroughFaith
#MarionIndiana #CommunityRestoration #ChurchAndCommunity #MarionNaz #CelebrateRecovery
#RecoveryJourney #HealingThroughFaith #CelebrateRecoveryWorks #RestorationInChrist #FaithBasedRecovery
#ChurchCollaboration #CreativeMinistry #ChurchPartnerships #InnovativeMinistry #FaithDrivenChange
There's so many facets to making a place better, but I think the real key is find what you're passionate about, a need that you see needs to be met. Roll up your sleeves and get at it.
Speaker 2:This is the Main Street Reimagined podcast, a show for people ready to turn visions into realities and ideas into businesses. Hey, I'm Luke Henry and each week I lead conversations with Main Street Dreamers who took the leap to launch a business, renovate a building or start a movement, their ideas, their mindsets and their inspirations, as well as some of the highs and lows along the way. This is a place for dreamers, creators, developers and entrepreneurs to learn, share and be inspired to change your community through small business. Enjoy the show. Hey, friends, this is the Main Street Reimagined Podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Once again, appreciate all of you that continue to support and listen. Share like, follow. I appreciate all of that very much. We've got, we believe, meaningful content to share and are so glad that you're partnering with us on that. So this week I'm excited to have with me Pastor Steve Estep.
Speaker 1:Howdy sir, Good afternoon.
Speaker 2:Whenever somebody's listening to this, greetings to you and thanks Steve for being with me. Today we're going to Steve is not an entrepreneur, so going a slightly different angle at hearing his story, learning about the role of the church in the community and a part of revitalization, restoration, and also digging in some leadership stuff and some cool topics to be had here. So I'm excited to be chatting with you, man.
Speaker 1:Thanks for the invitation. It's going to be fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if folks are listening, they're maybe not from the area, don't know. Mary Naz, which is where you're the lead pastor, tell a little bit about the church and where it's located and a little bit of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're at 233 West Church Street. Church of Nazarene has had a presence in Marian since 1912. So we're a century-old church and have a pretty big footprint in the downtown. So we're a century-old church and have a pretty big footprint in the downtown. Very kind of contemporary model of worship and a lot of really cool ministry stuff that's happening with Life on Life and an amazing group of people that get together on Thursday nights or Sunday mornings with a goal of we just want to get it right and encouraging each other, helping each other along the way. I love it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely so. The church building is not from 1912.
Speaker 1:It has been updated a couple times. Yeah, new sanctuary in 2012. It's beautiful. If anybody hasn't seen the inside, come on in. They can watch online too, but there's nothing like being there in person, yeah yeah, absolutely so.
Speaker 2:Steve is my pastor, and so we have a great relationship and we share and share a passion for our community and the people herein, and so talk a minute about what happens at Marianaz on Thursday nights and how has that evolved over the last several years.
Speaker 1:Okay, ten years ago we started which was a couple years before my time a ministry called Celebrate Recovery, which is a national kind of organization started out of Saddleback Church in California. But the goal is to address hurts, habits and hangups which a lot of times people think well, that's just people with substance abuse or drug addiction, and there's a piece of that. And if anybody's lived more than about 10 minutes they've had a hurt and in many cases that's what's led to a habit or a hangup. So we enjoy really being the largest Celebrate Recovery in the state of Ohio. It's grown pretty exponentially.
Speaker 1:So on a Thursday night there's stuff for adults, teenagers, children. There's a meal where we don't do food for people. We do a meal with people and life on life, like I said, and so we celebrate victories. We encourage people when they trip and fall and try to help them get back up again, and we're seeing amazing stories of life change and victory over all kinds of addictions and hurts and God's healing presence that he uses other people to help make happen and it's really just fun to be a part of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I'm going to put you on the spot. Does a particular story come to mind as you think back at your time in being part of that ministry, that somebody's come through and really has a story that comes to mind?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we don't share names outside of that venue the confidentiality is really big.
Speaker 1:But I guess in general, one of the things that's really struck me is how many people have come from backgrounds that were abusive neglect.
Speaker 1:A lot of sexual abuse that's happened. That has led to people's habits and hangups and brokenness has led to people's habits and hangups and brokenness. That tends to be kind of a recurring theme and it gets you know stuff loses its power when you drag it out of the dark into the light. But to see the resilience and the resolve of folks that were dealt a hand a whole lot worse than the one that I or you were when we were growing up, I mean these people inspire me with their tenacity and their refusal to give up. So every time there's a milestone that's celebrated whether it's 30 days of somebody being in their right mind for the first time in decades, or 17, 28, 30 years of sobriety we celebrate that every week and almost every week I'm crying because I'm like these are stories of people whose lives have been radically rearranged by Jesus and his people. So it would be really hard to nail down one story.
Speaker 1:But, every time you hear a testimony, it's going to rip your guts out in a beautiful way and make you mindful of how amazing God is whenever he can bring healing to hurting people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that community is really gaining a lot of momentum as those stories keep, keep stacking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and it's, it's, it's at Marian Naz. But one of the things that excites me is it's become a real ecumenical movement Like we're. We're having people that are coming from other churches even part of our leadership team support from the Marian Community Foundation for the first time this year. It's really something that's moving the needle. Drug courts are being involved and it's not just a Mary Ness thing, but we're real happy to be in the middle of it. Sure, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:so I know that's a big part of the story I wanted to be sure to highlight first and foremost, but we'd like to hear your story as well. How did this meandering road that started in West Virginia, I believe, lead to Marion, ohio, and doing what you're doing?
Speaker 1:So I'll try to give you a shorter version as possible. I grew up in a little small I mean one stoplight where everybody knew everybody and everybody knew everybody's business. Great place to grow up in. A Christian home with mom and dad who loved each other and loved Jesus and lived at home Everything they testified to at church, which they were the biggest influences in my life and I'm really grateful for that. Never wanted to be in ministry, have an older brother he's a pastor. I have a twin brother that was going into ministry and I was like I'm doing something else. But God had different plans. I was a freshman at Mount Vernon. I just finished my freshman year there and about two weeks it was August 19th 1988, I was at a Thursday night service at a camp in West Virginia and felt the unmistakable. I don't know that it was audible, but it might as well have been a voice of God saying if I wanted to find fulfillment in what I was put on planet earth to do, then preaching was it.
Speaker 2:So what was that other thing going to be?
Speaker 1:Something with sports. I thought it may be sports medicine or coaching or something along those lines. Okay, yeah, so that changed the trajectory forever. Go back to Mount Vernon two weeks later, change my major and literally have never looked back. So that obedience to the call has taken us right out of college for a couple of years, youth pastor in West Virginia. I knew I wanted to go to seminary, but I wasn't ready yet, so figured out some questions that I should be asking, went to school there and then I've served as a lead pastor since 1996. So 12 years in a little town called Harrisonville, Missouri. Nine years in a very big town called Clarksville, Tennessee, which is now 200,000 plus probably, and then from there to Marion Naz, which will be eight years June 1st. So very different places and I would have never mapped that out for myself. But when you say yes to God, you never know where it's going to take you. And I just keep saying yes and this is where I am.
Speaker 2:I know that Marion has quickly developed a pretty deep sense of belonging for you, especially as it relates to your kids and them starting families here and all of that. That has all all happened in your in in that almost eight years right.
Speaker 1:Yes, all three of my adult kids found their mates here and we have four grandkids and one on the way. And yeah, we're, we're, we're locked in here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yep, grandma's got those grandkids now and uh, that's, uh, that's a special special bond.
Speaker 1:We're very blessed to have them all close.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, thank you, thanks for sharing that story and yeah, again, I look forward to digging in with some things I would like to hear again, kind of thinking back eight years ago, you were probably about that time evaluating this opportunity, coming to town to see if this was something that might be a fit for you and your family. So obviously eight years ago you were looking around Marion seeing what was here, what wasn't here, and talk a little bit about your impressions of Marion at that time and then how those have evolved and progressed during your time here.
Speaker 1:So the first time we ever got an invitation to at least consider Marian was actually three years before that, in 2014. And we were in Clarksville, tennessee, felt like, no, this is exactly where we need to be. And then, three years later, the church calls and said, hey, we'd like to have a conversation. And it just the Holy Spirit, he leads you and he's like, yeah, you need to listen this time. So Michelle and I came, we met with the church here and we started looking around town and at that point it was before Main Street reimagined. It was before a whole lot of the downtown renovation and renewal was happening. And you know, luke, sometimes you look, you look at a person and and everything about them says they've had a rough life.
Speaker 1:You see it in their eyes, you see it on their countenance.
Speaker 1:It's just like they've had a very different experience on planet earth than I have and it it makes me curious. When I see people like that, I want to learn their stories, because when you do you kind of get endeared when you realize what all people have been through. So marrying the community kind of looked like that you drive down through the areas where houses are boarded up or the downtown has vacant buildings and that one time you know we're really thriving and I kind of had that same sense, I guess, of this city's had a hard life and so once we knew that we were supposed to come, I really tried to jump in and do everything I can to learn the story, and the more I've learned about it, the more it's been endeared to me and the desire to make an impact and to join with those who are already doing it, to kind of have the same mindset of, hey, marion's best days are not behind us, that's right.
Speaker 2:They're in front of us, that's right, so yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's the best way I can think of to describe those initial like yeah, it's a city that's had a rough life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm putting some people in my mind with that word picture that I've met through my journey that that would describe, and I agree that probably, yeah, circa 2017, that's how our downtown kind of looked as well.
Speaker 2:So, I mean, that is an accurate portrayal, so you know. More importantly, let's talk about that second part of the question in terms of you know, how has that evolved? What have you seen working in our community? And if there's somebody out there listening in another community and maybe their town or their downtown looks like it's had a rough go for a while while and there are some passionate, caring people that are looking to make some changes, what are some of the things that you'd point to that you've seen really move the needle? I mean, this is your podcast from your perspective?
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course, what you and Alex and Lois Fisher and other people that have literally invested a lot of their resources into a community, that you could be doing that anywhere. I've said that of you. I've said that of Lois.
Speaker 2:She's a West Virginia girl by the way, which is pretty amazing she shared that on her podcast episode.
Speaker 1:These are brilliant people who could be using their gifts really anywhere, who have had a heart for their own community and said I'm going to stay here and I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make it better. So, whether that's big scale, like buying buildings and bringing in businesses, or at small scale, like picking up the trash on the sidewalk or making sure the vacant lot beside you is cleaned and mowed and looks decent so that the environment is just better, and everything in between, so getting involved with the agencies and the people that are already about it whether it's Habitat for Humanity that's making a big impact here, or Marian Matters that are working on an individual level with people that are teaching them about how to get out of poverty.
Speaker 1:There's so many facets to making a place better, but I think the real key is find what you're passionate about, a need that you see needs to be met. Roll up your sleeves and get at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right now, as this is being recorded, we're in the throes of this Strongest Town competition. We're hoping real soon we find out that we are named and I'm calling it that I'm believing for it that we will be the 2025 Strongest Town. But you know, that organization talks about doing the next smallest thing that you can do to just make something better, and I mean that's what I hear you saying as well, and if somebody's out there listening, I think that the take-home message here is that it doesn't cost money to care, and if you get enough people mobilized who care and you send them out into the world and everyone's supporting one another, you can really start building some momentum in a lot of different facets.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's one of the things that excites me with a lot of the different kind of collaboration that we're seeing happen. I think, it's really been growing over the last few years, since I've been here anyway.
Speaker 2:I agree.
Speaker 1:Whether it's businesses or the spirit of not competition but cooperation. It takes a lot to get there. I think people have to get to the point where their egos are out of the way. Yes, and whenever that happens, big stuff bigger things can happen, that's right. And I see that even in the church world too the more that we collaborate and cooperate. You know you've been a part of restoration that we do every summer at.
Speaker 1:Marianaz, where we get out and build stuff and clean things, and this year, Dayspring and Hope Family Church and Pastor Rigo Ramirez, who's at a Spanish church in town. They're all joining with us. So that willingness to yeah, jump in, get involved, and people like to jump on a train that's going somewhere, and when it's going in a positive direction it gets real fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, talk tactically about how you've been able to join with some of those other individuals, leaders and organizations to to get to the point where it doesn't matter who gets the the credit for for a project or a weekend or whatever. How do you help break down those walls and barriers so that real work can get done and it's not about the egos and the credit and all that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to meet leaders, kind of go out of my way to make those relationships happen, and then typically for me the way it's worked is, out of those relationships you find some commonality and passion and things are like, wow, if we just if we put your resources and my resources and their resources, we could really do something here. And that tends to resonate with people. Great leaders are not about bringing attention to themselves, because the mission is always bigger than the me. And when you find people like that which there are a lot of them in Marian and can get around the same table, yeah it's great, and sometimes it's the Holy Spirit that just orchestrates that. So let me give you an example.
Speaker 1:It was probably my second year, third year here I was prayer walking the neighborhood around the church and it was rough. I mean, it was like 50 plus percent of housing in Marion's rentals, so a lot of those are not the best kept and I had my back to the church and it was like God said hey, unless you turn and look at that building, you wouldn't know there's a church here, and it was really convicting. So that week I didn't know anybody at Habitat, but I made a phone call and then developed a really good friendship with Christy Neff and then we just started doing projects in the neighborhood. So I think some of those are like God orchestrated, ordained, when he puts the same something in your heart and then you rely on people that are experts at it. Right, we're not builders at the church. We can help. Habitat's great at it, so we joined with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, talk about a few of those projects, what those have looked like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so our first one was two houses side by side on Columbia Street over near the corner of Columbia and I think it's Olney. They were horrible. They were land bank. One of them was a land bank house, the other was way behind on the taxes so we paid for that one, basically just paid off the taxes and got the property and gave them the habitat. And that was really exciting because we did two houses at the same time and it really changed the look of that whole corner. So from there we've done about one a year where it was either a remodel or rehab or a brand new construction, and I believe we've done six of those within about a four block radius of the church and involved a whole lot of people too. There's wall build events. We had football team from Pleasant that came and neighborhood people that come and help out make it a family event and yeah, it's just, people want to be a part of something good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So I mean what I hear you talking about is getting out beyond the four walls of the church, and not not always necessarily directly, you know, evangelizing, but doing good and showing the difference that the church wants to make.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely. We have to have the mindset make it better and however, we can do that. Ultimately, we believe that hope has a name and that name is Jesus. So we can only go so far with making improvements or making life better without Him, and then with Him, like the sky becomes the limit. But yeah, every church—I think that's one of the questions that you were asking earlier of what role does the church play in?
Speaker 2:like the revitalization of a community. Yeah, yeah, yeah, speak to that.
Speaker 1:I think every congregation has an opportunity and we're in different lanes. So, like Dayspring out on the edge, they've got a beautiful campus, great facility and all kinds of green space. They found their niche with kids' sports.
Speaker 2:Land for soccer fields. Yeah, exactly Something that Marianize does not have.
Speaker 1:Exactly Meet Denise. So you've got Hope Family Church downtown. They have as many kids as they do adults in that place, because that was their target. That's how we can make it better Stronger families, make a stronger community. And then I mean there's so many churches doing great things. You've got Genesis and LifeLink that are kind of the least of these and they're also doing recovery ministry, like we are.
Speaker 1:But I think the heart of that is you just got to know your own self, your own resources and passions, and then look around. Half of that is just looking, because if you look around, you can see needs and you can see names, and then it just becomes a matter of how do we take what we're capable of offering and do something nobody else is doing or that they already are, but we can help them do it better, and every I think that's the every church wants to do that. They want their neighborhood to be better, they want their families to be stronger, they want their city to be better. And because of the content of this podcast, like you just have to have a leader that says let's, this is the direction we're going, let's go get it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that you know churches in general are looking for ways to hopefully be more relevant, be more positively impactful. I mean I think you've shared some important tactics there. Something else that I hear more and more a growing amount of chatter about is how to use the facilities of the church for maximum impact, and I mean I know that you're having those conversations and have been for a few years and I've heard it happening at other churches both locally and far away just looking at different ways to say, hey, we've got this big facility in many cases we have parking, we have different resources that could be used to positively impact the community and just looking for ways to plug those in. So facilities in particular. Mary Naz has done some creative things. Maybe you'd share about those.
Speaker 1:So it is. It's a big place 72,000 square feet and a whole bunch of parking, and one of the things we saw happening in Marion, particularly after COVID, was a blight when it came to child care opportunities. So we were looking at that, thinking about it, talking about it, and then a friend of ours, von Sizemore, connected us with a friend of his whose name is Scott Wiegand, who runs Advantage. Early Learning Academy had four different facilities in the Columbus area and he's like what do you think about the possibility? So we had lunch one day. They had never partnered with a church, we had never done a daycare that we didn't run, and it was a totally different model than either one of us had seen. But it met a need and it gave us opportunity to make it better. So we said let's try it, and within just a few months it became the largest daycare in Marion County.
Speaker 1:We have between 150, 160 kids enrolled now, and that became the catalyst for a new program at Pleasant Schools, where Advantage is providing on-site care there, which is a pilot project, could be a model that's duplicated in other places, but they use our entire downstairs from 6 am to 6 pm and fill it full of kids and there's some growing pains when you have shared space, but it was a great stewardship of that space and a way to meet a need in the community. So that was one of the things we've done. The other is outfitted some other areas of the church that are suitable for rental or meeting space or use, and we also started operating a nonprofit called Hope for Health which is trying to meet some mental health needs and small group stuff that's been going now for a couple of years that those. It doesn't do us any good to have a building sitting empty all week long.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's a good that to your point. It's premium space. It's great and it benefits them and we're happy to have it being used.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I challenge folks that are listening, if you're involved in a church, if you go to a church, if you're leading a church, that there's really opportunities to partner with the private sector or the public sector to find ways to mobilize those resources, like you said, to make it better and to use the church's resources for good, beyond just the members or just beyond the Sunday and Wednesday nights or whatever that is.
Speaker 2:You know, for example, one of our facilities is Neighbors with a Church and we cooperate on parking as well, and it's a really helpful win-win scenario. Well, actually, two churches are adjacent to our facilities downtown, where we have parking and they have parking, and during the week we need some of theirs and on Sunday they need some of ours, and it really is a really handy, beneficial relationship each way. And again, I mean, that's a simple thing, right, right, and I've had the opportunity, as a result of that, to have great relationships and friendships with those pastors. And so, yeah, I just think there's opportunities all around us in every way that, with a little bit of creativity, a little bit of connection, that we can mobilize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't take a whole lot of initiative to start discovering what those can be. But you can't find them when you're sitting in your office behind a desk all day. You got to get out there, yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you have other thoughts in terms of ways that either the church you know, marianaz, or the big churchiven drive not just to do something within the walls of the church?
Speaker 1:We need great leaders in the church. Obviously, every organization does, but we're really trying to encourage people. Use those gifts wherever God has placed you. It's business, commerce, whether it's in education. If the church can raise up people of character who have a great gift mix for leadership and then inject that into the community, it just makes everybody better. And I think for a long time churches looked at leadership development primarily from how can that benefit us within and you need that. But if the only thing we're doing is developing people to use their gifts for an hour on Sunday or a couple hours on a Thursday night, we're really missing their capacity to do good on a much greater scale. So we try to invest in that. You're a part of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, let's talk about the leadership study that we've been kind of co-leading the last few months. So we've been working through the book Developing the Leader Within you from the godfather John Maxwell the godfather of leadership, I call him, but some really rich content in there and we've been having a great group.
Speaker 2:I don't know 30, 40 people, that have been kind of reading along and we've been meeting on a monthly basis to talk leadership and, yeah, we've kind of been using the book for pulling out some ideas. But we've also just kind of riffed on some really good tactical discussions of how to lead where they are. We've got people in every industry across. They're in Marion, they're working outside of Marion, they're working in the church, they're volunteering, or this is primarily through their job or whatever. So it's been great.
Speaker 1:It is. I think one of the things that makes it so powerful is the kind of cross-pollination that happens when you start talking with people from lots of different fields. But the principles and practices of leadership can be universal. It just has to be contextualized. So, yeah, it's fun to learn from other people about okay. So if leadership is influence, how are you using, leveraging, maximizing that? Or if the qualities of leadership, the foundation for that, is character, how do you see that play out in your world or your industry, or like we're going to talk about later this month? Leaders have to bring positive change, so that's going to be a fun conversation too, but it's fun because it really literally is applicable whether you're leading a family or a business, or you're in politics or in the church. Leadership is, it's an art and it's and it's fun to learn more about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So in that book John Maxwell says Leaders are. Every leader is born. But they're not born a leader, it's got to be developed. So talk a little bit about your leadership development journey, because I know that you didn't come out of the womb knowing all the things. It's been hard fought, probably some mistakes in there, and what does that journey look like?
Speaker 1:So by personality I'm an extrovert and I'm very optimistic and energetic just by nature, I think and those things are all qualities that kind of serve well for leadership. I try to study it. Like you, I've tried to read, and I love sitting across the table from leaders that are innovative and creative, and typically one of the things they all have in common is there's this drive because they believe that what they're doing, it matters, it really matters and that helps people. I think. Be willing to get out of bed when you've had a brutal day the day before to say why would I step back into this again and get just like punched in the face all over? But it's because the mission or what the calling is to is something bigger than we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so my own leadership journey like in the ministry world the lead pastor is like that's the thing for the local church, but I served as an associate for all altogether for five years under some really really good, solid, great examples and that was a gift. Like the first guy that I served with was nearing retirement probably should have already been retired and he had just as much zeal and energy and go get it at like 70 as anybody I'd ever seen and I'm like I want to do it like that. And I think the key was he never allowed the hardships, because we all have stuff that happens to make him cynical. So that was one of the first lessons about leadership that I learned.
Speaker 1:The night that I told my parents I was called to preach, my dad said we're proud of you. We just always wanted you to do what God wanted you to do. He was called to preach. My dad said we're proud of you. We just always wanted to do what God wanted you to do. He told me a story about how my grandma prayed that he would be a pastor and he never felt the call, but then all of his kids ended up in ministry. So that was like a fourfold answer to the prayer. The third thing he said I'll never forget it you got to learn to be thick skinned. I didn't know what he meant when I was 19. I kind of know what he means now.
Speaker 1:I kind of know what he means now, so I think one of the keys in my leadership development or journey was to learn how to have thick skin with maintaining a tender heart.
Speaker 2:That was big, that was really big for me, man, that's tough. I mean, that's so easy to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially in here. This is nice in here, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, we're saying nice things to each other. But in the heat of battle it's not so easy. And how do you maintain the tension between being able to shed off the stuff that is maybe unfair and cynical and critical with the actually helpful feedback that you need to hear but don't want to hear Right? How do you discern that? Sometimes honestly, but don't want to hear Right? How do you discern that?
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's honestly. Sometimes I don't discern it very well, because it's really easy to take a defensive posture anytime somebody doesn't agree with you, and so I've really tried to work hard not to not to do that. But oftentimes the source does matter. If it's somebody that's always look just it's like they're looking for a reason to be upset with you. I don't put a lot of stock in what those people say, yeah, yeah. If it's somebody that their life is something that I admire, or I know that they are genuinely voicing something because they want me to be better, they want us to do better, then it gets a whole lot easier to receive it and allowing, inviting, asking. All right, god, you got to help me here, because I'm really upset about what that person said and I'd kind of like to just punch them in the throat.
Speaker 1:But I know I don't want to do that and, honestly, prayer becomes like an everyday. That's a sustaining driving, discerning. He helps me with that, and so people that don't pray and seek God for that, I think they probably make a lot more mistakes, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a good amount of humility and spirit checking that happens as a result. What about asking for it from people that you, you know you ask for feedback? You have any kind of specific mechanisms or kind of rhythms for for trying to get feedback, whether it's about a sermon or decision or direction. What does that look like in your world?
Speaker 1:Yeah, anytime we have somebody that's in town, that is what I would say like is in the know, like they're another pastor, they come from another place, they're in leadership, they're from outside, they come in. Every time that I know that we have somebody here like that, I try to have a conversation with them afterwards and I'm asking the question what did you see that we could do better? And the people that love me will be really honest about that. I had that happen a couple weeks ago and I me will be really honest about that. I had that happen a couple of weeks ago and I was like I would have never known that had you not told me. So, so, thank you.
Speaker 1:Um sermons you. That's kind of a fun one because there's a lot of real time, uh feedback that you're getting from people. So, uh, that one's a little easier to judge because people I mean they tell you why their engagement, or you know if they're leaning forward or they're checking their watches it's that one gets pretty easy to tell. And and at the end of the day, whenever there's an opportunity for hey, how are you going to respond to this? If there's nothing, I'm like, maybe I'm maybe I missed how I was supposed to say that, or most of the time there's somebody that's saying oh man, yeah, I know, I know that was for for me and I know what I'm supposed to do with it, and if that happens, it's a good day for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, I agree, I do enough public speaking or group speaking, or you know, in years past performing that, you do get some of that feedback. But what's curious, sometimes I'm sure you've experienced this too people come up after afterwards and say, man, I love that, that was. You know, that was really great. You know really enjoyed what you were saying and you just want to you know, you remember them in the audience and you want to say like it would have been great if you would have told your face.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, they're definitely something that are easier to preach to than others, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, hey.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you something sir.
Speaker 1:I mean your work in the city is phenomenal, your capacity we've talked about this, like how do you run all these businesses and have all these projects going at the same time? And yet also, you know your faith is really big, like on Sundays. If you're in town, you're there. I just know you're going to be there. Your kids are really involved and you're working that faith and work and family and life balance and you're a leader in so many capacities. You're a dad, a husband in business. People look to you for leadership in the church, this thing that we're doing to get our leadership development. So, when Luke is looking across the board at leadership, what are some of those? Like the question you asked, the transferable principles of leadership that, no matter what your field is you're like. These are always things we could talk about and it would be very applicable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't know I was answering questions here so you flipped me on my heels. But what I'm trying to focus on, I think more and more, is connecting with people and you know I shared this in one of our leadership studies. That just it's very easy for me with with a lot going on and you know I thrive on on activity and the adrenaline of it and you know, checking things off and bouncing from point A to point B in this project to that project, and it's very easy to get very task oriented and I think that, um, when I'm at my best, um, yes, I'm, I'm focused and I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm focused on the task and I'm getting things done, I'm being efficient, effective, but, uh, along the way I'm making sure that I'm recognizing the people that are, that are on the journey, and, uh, and and, and you know one of the things I work on and I always say you know I make mistakes. I put old Luke on the bus. He keeps showing back up and I put him on the bus again. But is you know, not to allow that task orientedness to keep me from being people oriented and being grateful to the people that are helping all those things happen? I mean cause, you know, yeah, people ask me how do you get stuff done?
Speaker 2:It's like people, great people that I surrounded myself with, and they, uh, I'm grateful that they find the vision that I share to be compelling and that we're able to work towards that vision of the future for our community and for our projects and for all our businesses and the things that we're doing.
Speaker 2:That is compelling enough to get them out of bed in the morning, as you said, after a tough you know a tough day, and get up and do it again, right. So you know, I'm super grateful to them. I've got to make sure I'm telling people on a more consistent basis and I think that that's one of the things that I'm continuing to grow as a leader. But, you know, in a broader sense I mean to answer your question I think that all leadership is transferable because it's built on that people orientation and it's built on building trust with people. It's built on having a character that people can rely on and you know, I've seen people follow people that I don't believe have real great character, but they don't do it for very long, right? And and you and I've both seen and we studied this, our last leadership study with the book, that that those moral failures are devastating to watch and we just have to work so hard to hold ourselves to a high standard to not allow it to get to that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I guess that makes me think of the first job of a leader is to be able to lead yourself. Yes, it's so vital, important, so sorry to throw that one at you. I didn't mean to catch you off guard because you gave me that one to think about. I had some time to think about it. So I came up with three or four things and I think, yeah, this is applicable, church for sure, but absolutely beyond that. So listeners that were becoming from a different field, hopefully this would be beneficial.
Speaker 1:I think it is Maxwell that says, like the number one job of a leader is to define reality. So the best decisions are made with the best information. So as leaders we have to be listeners and we have to be pretty observant, because sometimes what people want you to think the reality is and what the reality really is are really two different things.
Speaker 2:And as the organization grows, the harder it is to get the truth from the front lines, because that feedback loop is not as direct and it's not as fast. So you know, you and I are both at risk of of not getting the full story and then working with only partial information. Exactly. And it's easy as as visionaries energetic, you know, optimistic to also put on our rose colored glasses. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I can be guilty of that for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, great point.
Speaker 1:It's very difficult to move people where you want them to go or where you feel like in in my case, god wants them to go, if you're not all on the same page about what's our starting point. Where are we now? So that means asking sometimes hard questions what is our mission? How are we doing with accomplishing it? What's the value system? That is, the unspoken stuff that is non-tangible, that influences everything? Like, are we on the same page about what that is? Are we being realistic with it? Because if we're not, if we haven't clearly defined what reality is, it gets very difficult to make any progress on where you want to go. So I think that's true across the board. So leaders define reality. We solve problems. Yeah, you know, people could get where they wanted to be on their own. They wouldn't need us, that's right, and we wouldn't need the people that lead us, because we have leaders in our life as well.
Speaker 1:And I think being aware of you know, when a problem comes across your desk, you could either be like, oh man, another one, or you can remind yourself hey, this is why I'm here, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. We solve problems and, to your point about being surrounded with really good people, oftentimes the way we solve problems, at least at Mary Naz the solution comes from somebody besides me who has a better insight or a better idea than the group really works it and makes it better. But it's a group effort and the problem solving and the more people we can involve in solving it, typically the better the solution is. So, yeah, define reality, solve problems.
Speaker 2:Let me add there I remember a real shift happened in my leadership when I was working with a coach and I was complaining about problems. Frankly that's what I was. I was working with a coach and uh, and I was complaining about problems frankly it's what I was doing and uh, you know, he looked at me, he was like a real, like sugar-free kind of guy and he'd just give it to me pretty straight.
Speaker 1:And uh, I was complaining and he cut me off and he said you know what, that's enough.
Speaker 2:Um, if they could, if your team could solve these problems, then you wouldn't be necessary.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:And so you know like it's the way it is Exactly. And you know, I think when we can kind of like stop that victim mentality of you know, woe is me, I've got problems, and you know whatever, woe is me, I've got problems, and you know whatever and we can start to look at it as truly that empowerment of hey, this is why I'm here and this is why our organization exists, it's why you know I'm necessary as a leader and people are looking to me and I got to stop pouting and complaining around and start getting about the business again to done Exactly.
Speaker 1:I've never seen a problem solved by complaining about it, right, right. So, yeah, I think that's applicable across the board. If you're a leader and you're wrestling with a problem, don't complain about it. Find a solution Like stay at it, let that drive you, let it motivate you. That's what we do. We solve problems, we define reality, we solve problems, we serve people, and we talked about that a little bit earlier with the whole kind of ego piece.
Speaker 1:People who are self-serving are not leaders. They're manipulators or opportunists and, like you said earlier, typically those folks don't get followed very long because we got a good sniffer. We can sniff that out, like people can sense, whenever the motivation is what's in it for me or how does this benefit me as opposed to, even if it involves sacrifice on my part, it's better for the whole. So I'm willing to do that. So an attitude. And I got to bring in Jesus because he's the greatest example of a servant leader that ever walked, and there's been a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1:Robert Greenleaf wrote about servant leadership a long time ago that that's what makes people want to follow you. A compelling vision is absolutely a must, but a heart that's truly there to serve All of our gifts were given for the sake of somebody else. We really use them best when we give them away and benefit others. And then so, yeah, we define reality, we solve problems, we serve people and then my favorite one we bring energy. That's what leaders have to do.
Speaker 1:When everybody else is like down and discouraged and they're frustrated and things haven't gone right, somebody got to step into that room and say, hey, we're going to be okay, we can. With God's help, with the resources that he gives, we're going to be able to figure this out. So we may need to step back and take a deep breath or give people a little bit of a break, but leaders have to keep leading. It's easy to lead when everything is up and to the right right. The real test of whether we're leading or not is when things go sideways and we have the wherewithal to not lose it, not go crazy, not add fuel to the fire or the chaos, and be able to be that presence that says I still believe, in spite of everything that's burning up around me, we're doing something good, we're doing something that matters and we're going to keep doing it in spite of the struggles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well, and so often constraints are what create the creativity and the solutions that wouldn't have come without those challenges or constraints. So hopefully there's somebody out there that needs to hear that.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm sure somebody's having a rough day like there's something just hit out of left field and you're like, oh, but every one of those are an opportunity, opportunity to improve, opportunity to innovate, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's so, you know, so easy to say that in a, you know, in an easy time. It's harder to be able to have that attitude consistently every time we get busted in the teeth Right. But to the extent we can and we must for the sake of the team. How do you make sure that you're keeping those things in check? How do you keep the right mindset? And, especially in the face of adversity and challenge, what are you doing to make sure that you're showing up right for the team from that leadership standpoint?
Speaker 1:For me it starts at the beginning of the day. Every single day I get my mind in the right place by starting it with God and I read Scripture and I listen to what he has to say to me. And he has something every single day. I try not to rush through that at all. I get up really early If I have an early meeting. I'm getting up earlier because I want the tone for my day to be set not by me but by making myself available to hear what God has to say. And so I spend time in scripture and then I journal a little bit. I say and so I spend time in scripture and then I journal a little bit.
Speaker 1:I have the same prompt every day and it's real simple. I got it from a guy named Jeff Manion who wrote a book called Dream Big, think Small, great read. And he said he starts every day asking the question real simple one how's your heart? And I love what he says because it's like I do this as a gift to everybody else. I'm going to see the rest of the day Because if I don't bring whatever's in me whether that's frustration or tension, fear, maybe it's anxiety, because there is a problem and I don't know how to solve it, or there's a relationship that I'm not sure how to bring to resolution or dissolve the tension. No matter what I do, it seems like it's not working.
Speaker 1:I start every day with a heart check and I write it down and it becomes a prayer that I lift up to God, and then I'm not putting all of what's inside of me on every other person that I'm around the rest of the day and I have to. One of the things that practice does, luke, is that I cannot go more than 24 hours without dealing with what's inside of Steve, and sometimes that can be the biggest like I can't get out of my own way. But whenever I'm doing that every day, it changes the tone for the day. I think it helps me have better interactions with people. It gives me more resolve to deal with problems, Because I know that in my weakness his strength is made perfect. In my lack he has abundance and his grace is always going to be enough. If I'm not living into that, the problem's not God, it's because I'm not putting myself in a position to be right with it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, good good practice. And, man, I think that, having that self-awareness that that time creates, a lot of us could use some more of that and starting there and being able to deal with it, because if we don't really know what our problem is, then it's going to be difficult to deal with it.
Speaker 1:It is, and other people are going to pay the price when they don't deserve that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's a great way to look at it. So talk to the leader. That's made a mistake.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's all of us right.
Speaker 1:Well, that's all of us, yep, I love it.
Speaker 2:This is something you and.
Speaker 1:I talk about really, uh, probably fairly often, is uh, when you make a mistake, the worst thing to do is to try to cover it up or act like it didn't exist. Or you know, you've got the book here, extreme ownership on it, like if we blame somebody else for a mistake that we made, we were wrecking our credibility. Yeah, so I think the first thing we do is we have to own it. Yes, that was me, that wasn't somebody else's fault. And we can analyze the mistake.
Speaker 1:I didn't get enough information, I didn't ask enough questions, I made the decision out of emotion. I made it too soon when I should have waited. I made it too late when I should have waited. I made it too late when I should have done it before, and kind of do an autopsy of the decision to say where did I miss it and how could I or should I have done it differently.
Speaker 1:And with that, oftentimes, I think, comes the need to go to the people that our decision or our mistake immediately and most closely affected and not just say I missed it on that one, but I missed it. I know that that created some stuff for you that it shouldn't have and I'm sorry. I think that the humility and the honesty, because none of us are perfect. We can have the best intentions of the world and still miss it. So when you make a mistake, people don't think you're a great leader if you give the persona that you never mess up, because they know better. So we might as well own it, because they're owning it in some other room behind us if we're not owning it in front of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, seems like a sign of you know, maturity as a leader, as we keep doing this, week after week, month after month, year after year. We make enough of those mistakes that I think that hopefully, if we're having any amount of self-awareness, it's given us some, some more empathy and some more grace for everybody else that we bump into that also makes mistakes Right, and hopefully we're extending the same grace to them that we wish that people would towards us when we've made many a mistake, and most of the time if I'm questioning the decision of a leader in my life, the majority of the time the truth is they have way more information than I do.
Speaker 1:Right, and you've had to experience that in your different areas of leadership and leadership in business, where you might know something nobody else in the room does, but it's really not appropriate for you to say it. That's right. So you let that inform your decision without informing them of all of the whys underneath of it, and they then may question you, maybe even think you made the wrong move and maybe you did make a mistake. But I think that's one thing that's true of leadership in any capacity unless you say too much is you're always going to know more than you can say. But all of that stuff has to filter into the decisions you make.
Speaker 2:Not everybody's going to understand that then yeah yeah yeah, I think a people-pleasing leader can be an oxymoron. It is an oxymoron it is Because, to really make the right decisions, somebody's going to be upset, really no matter what decision you make. Honestly, if it's the wrong decision, you're going to upset somebody, but really being able to have the resolve to make the decision with the information you have. And sometimes it's not popular to push forward and not everybody's going to always understand it.
Speaker 1:Right, what you just said was I mean, it's really biblical. Paul said it's one of my favorite scriptures in Galatians 1. He said if I were still trying to please people, I would not even be coming close to pleasing God. So yeah, that's a challenge that we all have to learn how to get over that. Not everybody's going to be happy with the decisions they make, but like, okay, welcome to leadership. That's just part of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, shifting back to our conversation about Marian, as we kind of wrap up here, tell me about something you're excited about for the future of our community.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm excited about a lot. I talk to my colleagues in ministry and there seems to be this kind of swell, this interest in faith, in Jesus, in Christianity, and it's happening with teenagers and people in their 20s, like the youth, and they want it straight. They don't want water, water down, they're like just talk to me and I'm really encouraged by and we're seeing it at Marianaz too just kind of an influx of young people that are searching, that are hungry. I'm encouraged by that Because I think when you raise the spiritual temperature of a place, everything else has an opportunity to improve like exponentially.
Speaker 1:I'm encouraged by the collaboration that we talked about earlier, this desire for people to partner, and it doesn't matter who gets the credit, it's for Marion, the whole Love your City that Mayor Collins has brought to the table and plastered it all over the place. I love that because the messaging is real If love becomes our motive and all of our relationships and in our leadership and I'm seeing that I'm seeing more of that, which is super encouraging. I'm encouraged to drive down Center Street or Church Street and see buildings being renovated and businesses coming in and people moving into lofts and people cleaning up their yards and all of that is like it's and I'm encouraged to see a community that has gone from. Marion is a place where people come to get high and it's becoming Marion is a place where people come to find hope and to get help.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:So I see that happening on a lot of fronts, yes, and I'm extremely optimistic because I think God has something really special in store for our community that's going to make an impact that's bigger than any of us are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, really good, appreciate you sharing those. I, too, am excited for all those things and more. As you said, I think that our best days are ahead. Yes, call this our home and are developing deep roots here and care about the people and places of this community.
Speaker 2:And you know, while I don't always talk about my faith as part of this podcast or, you know, in some of my business settings, you know you and I are doing similar work. We've talked about, you know, taking busted broken things and working on turning them around, and all of us, to some extent or another, are a work in progress personally, and we've got some pretty busted up old buildings that we're working on as well, but it's just as gratifying to see those coming to new purposes and serving the community well, and we believe that we're putting a lot of love into those places and hopefully, people feel that as they go into the places around Marion, that we're putting our hands on and the places that your fingerprints are going on to, and that it continues to positively spiral upward as we go forward.
Speaker 1:It's super encouraging when you and I take a walk around town and we're just specifically not just to get some exercise but to pray over these blocks and buildings and opportunities, and then you know, a couple months later we're taking another walk in a building or there's a story behind something that wasn't there before. That. Of course, you and we're going to attribute it that to. We prayed about it and we asked God to do something big and he's doing it and we get the privilege of being a part of that which is.
Speaker 1:it is, I mean, it's challenging, but it is fun. It is fun and I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. I'm glad that God put us in the same place at the same time to make it better. That's right.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, thank you again for for being part here. We've covered a lot of ground. Times went quick. We're out of time, but I will. I will give you an opportunity here If, if some things resonated and people either want to reach out to you or or understand more about Mariannaz or some of the programs and stuff that you've talked about. Tell them how to get in contact.
Speaker 1:I would love that so you can go to Mariannazorg. The website's a great source of information. My email's on there it's S-E-STEP, E-S-T-E-P, at Mariannaz, and I will respond to emails pretty quickly, usually within the same day, and love to entertain conversations or questions. Or you know people have feedback about hey, you could be doing this better. I'm all ears for that too. But if the listeners do not have a church home, Mariannaz is a great place with a bunch of people that are genuine, who love God, love each other, trying to be a great example to the world, and I think y'all would enjoy being there. So Sunday mornings at 10 o'clock, Cafe opens at 9.15. We have great coffee and cinnamon rolls, so you won't miss out on that too.
Speaker 2:It is indeed Some of my best coffee of the week, so appreciate that very much week.
Speaker 1:So appreciate that very much.
Speaker 2:Let's me lean in be a little more caffeinated during that sermon. So, hey, thanks again for being a part. Steve. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in. Hopefully you got inspired. Hopefully you're going to take action and put some positivity, put some love into the projects that you're working on, wherever in the world you are, that you're listening to us today and I look forward to hopefully having you back here again next week. Thanks for listening to the Main Street Reimagined podcast. To learn more about Main Street Reimagined Henry Development Group or our work in downtown Marion, ohio, please visit MainStreetReimaginecom If you want to connect or if you know someone who we need to interview. Shoot us an email at info at MainStreetReimaginecom. Until next time, keep dreaming and don't be afraid to take the leap.