Processing Pain in Ministry With Tony Cloud

Join us as we unpack pain and how God uses it in our lives in this one hour web conversation with Tony Cloud. 

Tony is an ordained minister of the Assemblies of God in Montana, and has spent decades in ministry and mental health spaces. His heart is to shed light on the universal topic of pain and what we do with it in our lives as pastors and ministers! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:24

All right, well, thanks for everybody who's joining us kind of in person on the Zoom call, Oxymoronic, but there it is. But uh glad for those who can jump on, and then uh obviously this will be recorded. We will throw it in as a podcast episode and kind of release the video, um, which will be fun. Uh but I wanted to introduce our speakers. So uh Tony Cloud is uh I should call him, I don't know, Reverend Tony Cloud, uh mental health professional Tony Cloud. He's got a lot of titles and experience that um are pretty great. And so um what I'm excited for is um you know he's he's got his surface level level titles that speak to this conversation. He's got you know, ordained minister, he's been a mental health professional recognized across um multiple uh really real mental health spaces as someone who can speak into things. Um but then below the surface you have what I call the experiential qualifications for a conversation like this. Um I originally uh reached out to him about coming to our leader's breakaway, and he was unable to attend. Um but I said, hey, the the voice that you have and the kind of content that you're bringing is really phenomenal. Um obviously the title of today is talking about pain and how we process it. Um and what I often find is there's people who might uh, you know, we we would say if you had any one of these areas where there'd been major life pain or major hard seasons, uh it would qualify you to speak on this topic. Um but as I read through Tony's rap sheet here, you know, you look at uh the idea that uh children and raising children has been a source of pain. Uh there's been painful seasons of marriage, there's been professional pain, there's been physical health pain. And uh when I look at all that level of upset in his life, um, I can't help but think, man, here's a guy who's not just had to run into this lesson once, uh, but who has had to run into it again. Uh and my hope for us as Montana pastors is this idea that uh I think all of us carry pain. I think church, life, um, ministry, they all cause pain and they all bring us to this place of going, well, what do we do with the negative? Because if we don't do anything with the negative, I think it has a very negative impact on us. And so I'm hoping that um through this conversation and ultimately uh I would love in the fall to bring back some more of these zooms with Tony. Um but I think that this conversation is going to help us uh process pain as well, um, which should encourage some longevity. Um as far as format goes, Tony's gonna do some chatting. That's kind of the basic format, and then near the end, we'll have time for some QA. Um basically, if Tony prompts and says, Hey, do you guys want to contribute or give answers, you can throw it in the chat. You can um is probably the best route. Um and then at the end, if we want to do some live QA, we can, or we can just utilize the chat as well. And so if you have comments throughout that you want to save till the end that you don't want to forget, again, just type them in the chat and we'll have some time at the end for questions. But I'm glad you guys are on here. I think it's a good opportunity to learn and grow. And uh I know that I'm excited because again, I think ministry can bring uh pain, and I think that it's important that we learn how to deal with it. So um, Tony, over to you, man. Would love to hear your content. I know that you're screen sharing, and I would hope everyone is seeing that screen. Um, and we're happy to have you on. So go ahead, Tony. Thanks so much, Joe.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

You know, after months of seeing the doctor, various tests and procedures, my doctor entered the room with a very solemn expression sitting down next to me this past January, looking across, and he said these words aggressive, advanced, stage four, metastatic cancer, there is no cure. The best we can hope for is to slow the progression and extend your life, but there are no guarantees. Those words echo in my mind daily, especially in the quiet moments, nighttime, early morning. But here's what we all know, and we've all experienced, and that is that not all pain is physical and not all wounds are visible. In fact, the current pain point that I am facing in life is just as much a mental battlefield as it is physical. And today I want to have a conversation together where we're not looking to glorify pain, but we want to redeem it. What if pain is something not just to survive, but what if pain is something that God uses to shape us and to make us into the leader that He intends for us to be? And so I want to have a very honest conversation together today. And here is my hope that when I ask of you to share your response, do so in the chat. Will you be brutally honest? You know, it feels rather vulnerable to share with you what I just did, but I did so in the hope that you will be equally vulnerable. Because I do know this. Having served people in the behavioral health field for many years, I know that revealing is the beginning of healing. And pain has a way of pushing us into corners where we have a tendency to hide. And if we're not careful, especially as pastors, we become masterful at performance and image management, denying the realities and the pain points in our life. And so rather than processing pain and growing through it, we have a tendency to hide in our pain, and then when we interact with others, um, it's more of a performance, it's more of managing the image. And I believe that God wants to take your pain. Undoubtedly, you've experienced it. I have no doubt that in your life there have been varying degrees of pain. Let's look at that together today in a very honest manner, and let's say, God, how can you use that pain to shape me, to teach me, to mold me into the leader that you want me to be? You know, when we think about pain, our tendency is to think about pain in a lot of negative manners. But the reality is that pain is a teacher that is intended by God to shape you and I, but it doesn't have to define us. You and I, we are more than our pain. And pain is going to have a way of revealing what really matters. It exposes where we're weak and areas that we need to strengthen. Pain has a way of stretching our capacity so that we can grow and contain more of what God would have for us that he would work through us. And so those hard, painful seasons, God can use them to clarify his calling on our life and further prepare us for his service. So not all pain is actually bad. God can use pain in a positive way, in a protective manner that prevents us from entering areas or activities, uh, engaging in things that would be more harmful than helpful. God can use pain to cause us to rise to the occasion in a manner where we're increasingly productive, we're increasingly creative. So pain can have a way of producing some really positive things in us. Pain can also be simply tolerable in that while there are these stress points that we're experiencing, that pain, that stress, that pressure, it's tolerable because of supportive relationships that we have around us that buffer the pressure. But what happens if what's tolerable becomes intolerable? That's what we call toxic pain. And I want to caution us today about toxic pain. Toxic pain is when the tolerable is intolerable because of prolonged exposure and the lack of supportive relationships. We've isolated, we're walking through our pain point alone in many ways, and so we're experiencing what can become physically and mentally damaging. When we think about pain, I want to encourage us to name the very pain that you may be experiencing. Is your pain positive? Is it tolerable or is it toxic? What type of pain are you experiencing? And I want to encourage you to name it because, as I said a moment ago, revealing is the beginning of healing. And I want us to together, as much as you feel comfortable, I welcome you to share your response in the chat because really it's more for you, much more so, than it is for me. When you reveal, you start to heal. But if you simply take in this conversation as information, it's intellectual ascent. And that doesn't produce any real growth or transformation in our life. What produces transformation is when we apply information. So consider with me what type of pain are you experiencing? Where are you at today? Are your pain points positive? Are they tolerable or have they grown toxic? What type of pain are you experiencing? I want you to name the pain. Because when we don't name the pain and we operate in denial, we become pastors of performance and managers of image. And that's not what you or I want to become. That's not what we want to be. So let's name the pain, let's identify it. So when we acknowledge pain that is occurring in our life, it helps us to begin to grow. But don't make the mistake of believing that because you're experiencing internal pressure, it's leading to growth. That's not necessarily true. The presence of pressure doesn't produce growth. It's how we respond to the pain, it's what we build through the pain that's going to determine whether or not you or I are growing. So here's what I want to ask you, as much as you are willing, um, that you would step into the chat with me and tell me there, what type of pain are you experiencing? Is it positive? Is it tolerable, or is it toxic? I want you to name the pain. You don't have to go into detail, but is your pain emotional primarily? Is it spiritual? Or is it more related to life pains? Or it could be several of those. But many times pain can um be focused in one of those primary experiences, emotional, spiritual, or life pains. That is either positive in what it's producing in us, or it's tolerable because we have buffering safe relationships that are supportive, or it may have become toxic because the pain point has become so prolonged in its exposure, its length of time, its presence in your life, and there's a lack of supportive relationships that would buffer that pain. Tell me in the chat what type of pain you're experiencing and name it. Remember, friends, revealing is the beginning of healing, it's not just a cliche, it's absolute truth. And if you want to win in your pain points in life, you have to let others in. We win by letting others in. And we would speak those truths to others that we are leading, but I find in my own life as a leader it's difficult for me to do. It's easier for me to tell others than it is for me to practice this truth. So I'm inviting you today to step into this safe and confidential space where we're naming our pain and we're identifying what type of pain we're experiencing. Because pain is a teacher that God will use to shape you, but it does not define you. You are more than your pain points. Now, how we view pain determines our response. And what I find in my own life, having been raised in the Christian church, is that oftentimes we don't have a very good theology when it comes to pain. We often view pain merely as punishment, that I either did something wrong or somebody else did something wrong, and therefore pain is the result. Now, certainly there are natural consequences, and sometimes we are experiencing pain because of poor choices, but that's not always the case. In fact, I appreciate that Jesus addressed this in John chapter 9, verse 1. It says, as he, Jesus, went along, he saw a blind man from birth, and his disciples asked him, ah, they had a perspective on pain. Their view of pain was determining their response towards this individual. So here's what the disciples ask they say, Rabbi, who sinned this man or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus replies by saying, Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. So how you and I view pain is going to determine our response. And possibly your perspective on pain may be that pain is primarily a result of punishment. You did something wrong, or someone else did something wrong, and therefore you're experiencing pain points in your life. I remember very clearly one time uh someone came into a hospital room where my sister was uh battling a very rare form of cancer herself, and a very well-intended but misguided follower of Jesus stepped into the hospital room and looked at my family as we were fighting for my sister's life and said to us, I'm not leaving this room until someone admits the sin that has caused your sister to be laying in that bed. The perspective of pain was that it was the result of punishment, and yet Jesus says here in John 9 that's not always the case. Could it be that pain can actually be used by God to prepare us and lead us into his greater purposes for our life? That he's gonna use pain to form us, to shape us, that everything that's happening to me is to make me more Christ-like. You know, this is a really simple truth, and I've really been hanging on to it in the last couple of months as I have been facing some very dire decisions, and I've been hanging on to the truth that everything that is happening to me is to make me more Christ-like. And I'll tell you, it very quickly clarifies a number of things when you're experiencing an intense pain point, and that clarity comes to our values, to our priorities, and even to our calling. So pain can be used by God as a pathway to your greatest assignment. I want you to hear that, friends. Pain can be used by God as the pathway to your greatest assignment. But let's consider the question: Do I view pain primarily as punishment or do I view it as preparation? Tell me in the chat. I want to see your response there. And uh, thanks to a few of the folks who've put some of their thoughts there into the chat, and I encourage others, as you are able, to place them there as well. Because I want us to stop and consider in an honest way what is our perspective on pain, because how we view pain is going to determine our response. And it may be that if we're brutally honest in this moment, we may primarily view pain as punishment rather than viewing pain as God's preparation. So without without giving too much thought uh and uh especially you know putting a response in that, well, I think this is you know what others would want to see from me in my response. Be honest in your response. Do I view pain primarily as punishment or do I view it as preparation? You might find that a lot of us, including myself, wrestle with that idea that pain is not punishment, it is preparation. Because our tendency when we're facing pain, and the more intense the pain is, we start asking a lot of questions. Questions are okay, but sometimes those questions are rooted in misunderstandings. Here's what I know, and I want you to see very clearly today. We don't have time to walk through all of these illustrations, but there are multiple biblical examples where pain precedes promotion. All throughout scripture, we see people, you recognize these names here, where pain was the pathway to their assignment. People who experienced enormous pain, not as God's punishment, but as God's preparation, the pathway to their greatest assignment. Joseph becoming second in command of Egypt, Moses leading Israel out of slavery, David being anointed king of Israel, Hannah becoming the mother of Samuel, one of the greatest prophets. We see Job who expands his influence and God restores what was lost to him. We see multiple examples throughout Scripture where God is revealing to us that pain is not punishment, pain is preparation for promotion. It is the pathway of God to our greatest assignment. Esther, save. The Jews from extermination, but not before she experienced deep personal pain. Daniel was elevated to high positions under multiple kings. Paul experienced multiple pain points in his life, but became who many of us consider to be one of the greatest leaders and church planners of all time. Peter, a pillar of the early church, but not without pain. Even Joseph and Mary, adoptive father, biological mother of Jesus, facing all kinds of pain points in their lives, and yet being entrusted to raise Jesus Himself. And then, of course, we come to Christ and we see that He, as our ultimate example, is one who was acquainted with sorrow and great grief, rejected, betrayed, suffered, and crucified, resurrecting and ascending, and now seated at the right hand of God the Father. But his promotion was through the pathway of very deep pain. And pain that was not just singular, it wasn't just an event, it was pain points throughout his life. And if we see these examples, friends, all throughout scripture, that God uses pain as a precursor to promotion, should we expect anything different? Now we would love to avoid pain, but pain is used by God to prepare the way, the pathway to God's greatest assignment. And some of you today, undoubtedly, you are attracted to this conversation. We are so glad to have you step into this space with us today online because you're experiencing pain and you're looking for some words of encouragement, you're looking for hope in the midst of your hardship. I want you to grab a hold of this truth. Your pain precedes your promotion. Your pain is the pathway that God wants to use towards your greatest assignment. Pain always precedes promotion. But when we are in the midst of pain, we have a tendency to shout and to demand an answer from God. Why is this happening to me? Now I think that's a fair question. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking that question. But understand that God isn't obligated to respond to my question of why. What I want to consider is not why is this happening, but God, what are you forming in me? Because everything that's happening to me is to make me more Christ-like. Now I want to live a long life, and I'm praying for God's mercy that in the mystery of miraculous healing, I would be one that He would choose to heal in life. But we also know that God doesn't always choose that. And so I wrestle with this question of why once again in my life. But I remember a lesson that God spoke into my life very powerfully while I was attending Northwest University many years ago now. I was struggling because my mother was uh overcoming brain cancer, which very few survive. My sister was under cancer treatments. My grandmother had passed away, and one of my closest friends was beheaded in a horrific car accident. And here I am at Northwest. God, I'm trying to serve you. I'm pursuing you. I'm working two jobs so I can pay my tuition. I'm doing everything I can to do right by the calling that you've placed on my life, and yet some of the deepest, most meaningful relationships around me are just massive pain points in my life. Why are you doing this to me? Why now? And I remember calling out to God in the early morning as I knelt next to my bed there in the dorm room, and this thought came very clearly to my mind. I know it was inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God said to me, Tony, I have never asked you to understand why. I have only asked that you would trust me. So, friends, as you're facing pain points in your own life, let me ask you today, will you trust God to form you even in the pain? It's okay to ask him why, but he's not obligated to answer you. And it may be that he's not looking to answer your why question. He's looking for you and I to trust him in the midst of the pain. So ask yourself this: what might my pain be preparing me for? What is God preparing you for? We recognize the multiple biblical examples that God uses pain in preparation for our greatest assignments. What then might God be preparing you for? Now you may not be able to clearly answer that in this moment, and that's okay. But I want to encourage you to consider the question, to shift your perspective away from pain as punishment to pain as preparation, to pain as the pathway to my greatest assignment. Because people who've experienced deep pain are people who draw from a deeper well. Personally, I enjoy being around them. It's not that their conversations are all about what happened to them in the terms of pain, but they're drawing from this deep well where they are more grounded individuals, they are more compassionate in their concern, their care, their empathy towards others. And I find that some of the most mission-driven leaders are leaders that have encountered, experienced, and grew through enormous pain. So ask, God, what might you be preparing me for? Because pain always precedes promotion. And we want to pass the pain test. If you think about promotion, you know, any type of promotion occurs after one has proven themselves. You know, if you have young children and they're in preschool, they're learning colors and recognition of alphabet and how to use scissors, and before they can graduate on and promote up to kindergarten, they they have to know certain things, they have to have accomplished certain skills, and we see that all throughout our lives, do we not? That pain precedes promotion, and promotion occurs once we have proven abilities that are needed in the promotion. So the goal in pain is that we want to pass the promotion, we want to pass the pain test. So, how do you do it? Let me give you a couple of really quick thoughts that I have regarding this. One is you need to insulate and don't isolate. I didn't do this very well for many years. I became a pastor that was a performer and I was outstanding at image management. I hid a lot of my hurt. I lived in a lot of denial. And hiding my hurt, living in denial, not acknowledging my pain, only exaggerated the internal pressure. And it created a whole nother set of challenges for me, physically, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. What happened is I allowed pain to drive me into a corner where I hid. Friends, please learn from my experience. Don't isolate. You've got to insulate yourself. Now that doesn't mean you got to have a lot of people around you, but you need some people. You need very safe, truth-telling, supportive relationships. So ask yourself, who am I insulating myself with? If you feel comfortable, I want you to put the name of one of those individuals in the chat. Just name them, just first name. Who are you insulating yourself with? Someone that is a truth teller, so that their words are grounded in the wisdom of scripture. Tell me their name in the chat. Is this individual one who's providing practical supports? They're coming alongside of you and they're lending very practical support. Because scripture tells us there's safety in having advisors. You need them, and I need them. The tendency for many pastors is that we are this for others, but we lack them for ourselves. Leads to tremendous loneliness, enormous isolation. And that often leads to negative coping strategies that are problematic and produce problems all their own. So don't isolate, insulate yourself. Second tip I have for you is to practice radical acceptance. Now I didn't like what my doctor told me in January. It's not that it's easy to hear those words. They're echoing in my mind very loudly over the last few months. But I have a choice. I can either try to fight against what is occurring, or I can practice radical acceptance where I take what is at face value. It's living life on life's terms. I may not like the terms, but I want to move with wisdom rather than with resistance. I grew up in Washington State, and on the West Coast, as you go out to the beach, there are often signs that warn you about rip currents. These are currents that when you step into the ocean, if they are occurring at that time, you can find yourself very quickly in a life-threatening situation where the water washes up and over you, and the current is so powerful it sweeps you off your feet and it pulls you out into the depths of the sea. The current is powerful, it's bigger than you are. It's not about strength, it's not about your ability, it's that what you are facing in that moment, the rip current is bigger than you. And some of you may be caught in a rip current today. Life has suddenly delivered a pain point that is much stronger, much bigger than you. Now, the natural reaction when facing a rip current is that people swim as hard as they can, as fast as they can, as long as they can directly against that current. And so people who die in the ocean due to being dragged out to sea by these powerful rip currents, they don't die for lack of effort. They gave everything they had to it. They were swimming with resistance against something that was greater than they are. So it wasn't about their strength or their ability, it's that they were moving without wisdom. To survive a rip current, you actually have to release yourself to the flow, swim parallel to the problem in order to move out of the rip current. So I want to encourage you, especially those of you today in the conversation that may be facing a rip current in life, that you would practice radical acceptance, live life on life's terms, and stop fighting the current that's bigger than you. We've got to move with wisdom rather than resistance, because resistance leads to burnout. Those who die in the rip current are dying because of exhaustion. They tried as hard as they could, they gave everything that they got, they did as much as they could as long as they could. So it's not for lack of effort, it's for lack of wisdom that in that critical moment they were moving with resistance against what was greater than them. So we can learn from this, friends. I encourage you in your pain points to practice radical acceptance, live life on life's terms, and as you face it, ask yourself a couple of questions. What is helping me in this moment that I need to hold on to? What is helping me? You might also ask, who is helping me that I need to hold on to? And then ask yourself what is hurting me that I need to let go of. Identify those two things and act accordingly. Because as you ask yourself those questions and you answer honestly, that will help you to move with wisdom rather than the reactionary natural response of resisting what is coming against us, the pain point, the problem, the pressure. Rather than resisting, practice radical acceptance. Let go, accept the flow of what is coming at you, swim parallel to the problem rather than directly against it. And as you move with that wisdom, may you move with the understanding of what and who is helping you that you need to hold on to. Don't let go of that. But there may be some things that are actually hurting you more than they're helping you, and you need to let them go. Let's pass the pain test. It's going to precede our promotion, it's going to precede our greatest assignment. So insulate, don't isolate. Practice radical acceptance. And thirdly, may we dance with grief and gratitude. I'm finding myself in this season. At times the grief absolutely overwhelms me. But I am also grateful in that this past July, what would otherwise be seen as just kind of a normal visit to the doctor, had I not gone in at that time, we wouldn't know what we know today. We wouldn't be aware of what it is that I'm facing. So our tendency is we focus on one or the other. And in Jesus followers, I tend to think that we focus a lot on gratitude because we believe, well, that's the right position and heart of a Jesus follower, that we should be grateful in all things. Now, gratitude is powerful, and I'm not diminishing its importance. But our our tendency is that as we focus on gratitude, we're leaving out the reality of grief. Both of these things live together. It's like if you were to get on an airplane and you're trying to go somewhere and you're trying to move forward in life, but if your airplane only has one wing, the wing of gratitude, you're not going anywhere. You're in a tailspin. Or maybe you're overly focused on your grief, your pain points, and that has become your identity, and the pain has become who you are rather than what you're working through. We need both wings on this plane in order to ascend and move forward to what God has prepared in advance for us to do. So you want to dance with grief and gratitude, they are inseparable. When you leave one of them out, hopelessness and helplessness has a tendency to arise. So ask yourself this: what or who has been lost? Let's acknowledge the grief. Acknowledge it. Allow yourself to sit in it, to feel it, to experience it. Grief is an emotion that is given to us by God and it is purposeful in the process of forming and shaping that God is doing in us. So let's acknowledge the grief. What or who has been lost? We also want to ask ourselves what or who remains that I can be grateful for. And we balance those two of grief and gratitude. And as we do, our life is ascending and moving forward towards what it is that God has predetermined in his assignment for us to do. Dance with grief and gratitude. Perhaps you're holding to one more than the other. A final thought here, as we seek to pass the pain test, is that we would build capacity. I find that people who've experienced enormous pain points in their life, and they have allowed God to help them through those pain points, they build tremendous wells of capacity that they draw from. I want to encourage you to carry the lesson of your pain, but not the wound. You are not your wound. We're living in a culture currently that does a lot of talking about the wound, about the pain point. And I believe that what we need to do is talk less about the pain point and more about the lesson. Because the lesson, the wound, the what of it of what occurred, the wound is the walkway towards carrying more purpose. The wound is the pathway. If you think of a boardwalk, you know, boardwalks are made out of planks, one laid in front of the other. And as you walk across those planks, you you get to the desired end destination. Your wound is not your identity. The wound is not all you are. There is a lesson in the wound that God wants to lay down in your life like planks, a pathway that moves you forward to carry greater purpose, to assume greater responsibility. Responsibility and to display increased compassion. So ask yourself this where am I on the capacity curve? There are four things that we naturally should be progressing through when we face pain. And out of all of our talking points today, kind of the two things I really hope you walk away with is one, that your pain is preceding your promotion. And two, that in pain there is growth that God intends to occur. But it is a process. And here is what that process looks like. Pain begins with discomfort, it stretches us with the intent of strengthening us. And as we are strengthened, it increases, it expands our capacity. So where are you today on the capacity curve? Are you in the midst of discomfort? Are you moving out of discomfort towards that place where you're allowing it to stretch you? In the stretching, have you entered that place where you're gaining greater strength? You're walking in greater wisdom, you're increasing and expanding now your capacity, understanding more so your purpose, the clarity of your calling, increase in your responsibilities, not only professionally but personally. And are you expanding your capacity for compassion, concern, care, and empathy for others? This is the capacity curve. So where are you on it? Ask yourself, where am I on this curve? Because we're all somewhere on this curve today. And finally, as you consider your pain points in life, ask yourself this question. What statement can I make out of my pain? What statement can I make out of my pain? Because of what I've experienced, I'm now able to what you fill in the blank. Because of what I've experienced, I am now able to, if you feel comfortable, I'd love to hear this in the chat. Complete that statement in the chat. We've all experienced pain points, we've all faced heartaches and hardships, we've all had very difficult things that have occurred in our lives. But as we move through the capacity curve from discomfort to being stretched to being strengthened to expanding our capacity, what can we now say? Because of what I've experienced, I'm now able to you fill in that blank. Tell me in the chat. I'd love to hear it. There's a lot we can learn from pain. My hope and my prayer for you is that you will see it as God's preparation for promotion. You'll see it as God's preparation to your greatest assignment. And that as you move through pain, rather than remaining in pain, may you move through it by insulating yourself. May you move through it by practicing radical acceptance. May you move through it by dancing with grief and gratitude. And finally, move through it by building capacity. It's a privilege to have the conversation with you today. And I'd like to give us a moment here in our closing minutes. Maybe you have a thought, a comment, or a question. We'd love to hear those. You can either unmute your audio and ask those questions or lend those comments directly, or place them in the chat. And Joe is helping me there by watching the chat for us. And I'd love to hear your questions, and I welcome your comments. Thanks for being with me today.

SPEAKER_00 48:41

Yeah, Tony, thank you so much for uh doing that. Um I uh I was laughing because you know I don't know what I expected, but when you come out of the gate in a season of true suffering, you know, you just come out of the gate. I was like, man, I you know, I'm ready to like ease into it. I'm like, what a conversation, you know, it definitely hit me. And so um thank you for your honesty. Thank you for that um kind of experience. I know that we kind of have a small enough call here that if people do want to pipe up and ask a question in real time or if they do want to chat it up, I would love if people had any questions about this that we kind of clarify that. Um so yeah, I don't know. I just want to open it up to the room. Obviously, I I know for me, um my brain is definitely in the zone of like I would love to ask more questions if I wasn't busy trying to just distill and intake uh what you said. I think I'm gonna be chewing on it for a while. But uh anybody else? Anybody want to add a comment or a question?

SPEAKER_01 50:08

Joe, thank you for your uh honesty there in the chat, saying because of what I've experienced, I'm now able to relate to people better. And uh you know, certainly that is one of our goals and God's desired outcomes for us as leaders, that through our pain points we might be able to relate uh in an increased capacity with other people. And um, and I really appreciate that comment. Let me challenge us all with that thought, though, not challenging um you necessarily, but I think there's always this danger as leaders that we make everything about other people. Not that that was your intention here, sure, but the kind of the lens that we tend to operate through because we're leaders is that it's always about other people, and and maybe it's not about other people, maybe it's really about what God is trying to form and shape and do and make in me as a person, and my tendency as a leader is to make it about everybody else. When God's trying to draw me in and and and bring me back and say, hey, hey, Tony, this is really about you, this is really about me and you, and um, I'm working to make you more Christ-like. Yes, I will use it to help you to serve in an increased capacity with others, but perhaps it's not always about others as much as it is about what he's wanting to do in me, in us. Tony, did you have a thought or a question?

SPEAKER_00 52:25

Alright, well, Tony, thank you very much, man. I really appreciate it. Again, I think the nature of this content is one that is digested and thought about. Um, and I know that uh, you know, you live right here in Billings, you know, you're one of us in a sense, and so like I know if people had follow-ups that uh you'd be more than happy to connect with them. And so, um, but I just want to say thank you for your time.

SPEAKER_01 52:48

So absolutely, it's been a privilege to have the conversation, and and having the conversation and preparing for it has been helpful to me as well, too. Okay, in uh kind of uh condensing some of my own thoughts. So I thank you for that opportunity, and I thank everyone who was able to join us, and thank you to those who will join later, as uh work and other life demands may have prevented them from joining us in this live moment. I'm pleased that uh they're joining us as we make the recording available online.

SPEAKER_00 53:27

All right, well, friends, thanks for joining us. I appreciate it. Um