Transition and Relationships with Dick Foth

Dick Foth is Tim's featured guest on this episode of Navigate. With Jesus of Nazareth at the center, Dick invests his time encouraging and discipling individuals, privately, across the spectrum of personal, social, religious, and political lines that separate people from each other. He is often described as “a collector of people, a connector, and storyteller.”  Listen in as Dick talks about relationships, information overwhelm, and something he refers to as relational baseball, all in the context of navigating winning transitions.

Transcript

Timothy Austin: 0:02

Hey, everybody, thanks for tuning in to this episode of navigate. This is the place where we talk about all things transition related and beyond. And my goal is to encourage and resource you as you go into as you journey through and as you emerge on the other side of transition. And to you regular listeners out there, I just want to say thanks, thanks for subscribing. Thanks for listening. I hope you've had some good takeaways. That's my goal. And I would love to hear how this podcast has helped you in any way, shape, or form. So please give me a review. Give us some feedback. And I really think you're gonna enjoy this conversation today. You know, transitions are pivotal points in our personal histories. And today we're going to be hearing from pastor and author dick both, as he talks about friendship, storytelling and big transitions. Dick is married to Ruth and together they have four married children, 12 grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Since 1966, Dick has worked in various roles as a pastor, teacher, and sought after speaker for conferences, retreats, civic groups and universities. He actually was president of Bethany college, when I attended there in Scotts Valley, California. He was president there from 1978 to 1992. From 1993 to 2008, Dick was a team member with National Prayer Breakfast and a life coach in Washington DC. And since 2008, Dick and Ruth had lived in northern Colorado, where he serves on the teaching team of Timberline church, and where they continue to work with community, business and church leaders. He's often described as a collector of people, a connector and a storyteller. His most recent book is called known finding deep friendships in a shallow world. And it's co authored with his wife, Ruth. So let's dive into a conversation I had with Deke both last month at Timberline church in Fort Collins, Colorado. All right, well, welcome to this episode of navigate Deke. And I'm so glad you could join me. My joy. And yeah, we go back aways. from Bethany. college days, Bethany University days, whatever. We called it back then and ever was named, we had some name changes there. Yeah, I think I graduated in 91, from Bethany, and my wife Eve, graduated 92. And that was your right your last year? Nothing. As soon as you were done. I left in June of 92. It was all you could take. Right? Well, it's such a privilege to have you been on our show. And our listeners out there are going to be encouraged, challenged and blessed, I'm sure today through this conversation, and we're just going to open it up pretty broad right now. And we've talked a little bit about what, what this podcast is about in broad strokes in terms of transition and dealing with transition and living out life in transition seasons. So what's something you have learned while navigating a challenging transition? Do you What's one thing that stands out to you?

Dick Foth: 3:41

Yeah, I think that that, to, to understand that all transition pretty much as risk and reward from the very first one, from the womb, to the to the world of the Giants. You know, that's that's the most frightening transition. You have one of the reasons that I like reading Jesus is that he did that to you know, one of my one of my favorite things was a youth publication years ago called youth alive that had a double page centerfold back this to be back in the 70s. When it was a nude, it was a naked baby, just born umbilical cord still attached and bold, block letters on the bottom of the page and said, Emmanuel, God with us. And you talk about transition from heaven to earth, from glory to guts, if you will, I think, I think the risk reward piece of any transition that I've ever been a part of really stands out. Okay. And yeah, and you never know what those percentages are. Yeah, you know, how high the risk either reward whatever,

Timothy Austin: 4:54

Right. So has a transition in terms of risk reward ever not worked in your favor?

Dick Foth: 5:07

Over time, they have all worked in my favor. Yeah, some are scarier. At the at the front end. When he graduated from Bethany, I spoke at the Baccalaureate that year. I just took the privilege of sort of presidential privilege. And I said, I read from Hebrews 11, where, where it says that Abraham obeyed God and went to a place he didn't know. And I just said, one of the greatest faith statements is, uh, you know, people say, where are you? I don't know, I know, with whom I'm going, but I don't know where I'm going. And of course, that's the big piece. Right? Right, you know, with whom you travel is the big deal. And, and when I said, I'm leaving Bethany. And I don't know, what's going to happen next. Like the whole senior class. What? Yes, cuz I didn't know either. So, all of a sudden, we're, we're buddies, you know? Yeah, yeah. And I think, I think that transition. At my age, I was 50. Transitioning at 50 is very different than loading up a car when you're 23, like we did, and left California went to do a church plant at the University of Illinois, in Champaign Urbana, when I'm 23. That the quarter of a century in terms of how you approach transition, right, or how you feel it is very different. Yeah. So I think probably that was the that was the scariest in the sense of not fear, but anxiousness about not knowing was on the other end. Yeah. Simply because we were going to a place where there was no salary. There was no staff. There was no budget, you know?

Timothy Austin: 6:58

Yeah, yeah. So but but that that all got figured out, You know, fast forward from 92, when you gave that, that message about Abraham. So it was 95. And even I were getting ready to go to lunch out into Central Asia, Tajikistan. And the Lord gave me that that scripture where God said to Abraham go to the land, I will show you. So he hadn't shown us yet. And he wasn't planning to. But stepping out risk and reward.

Dick Foth: 7:35

I think I think that's the, I think, moving when you can't see the end, from the beginning, it's one thing to move to a place where there's a job or there's resources, because resources is always the key piece. Right? Right. Even that has its challenges, but going where you're not sure what's there. That's a pretty different deal.

Timothy Austin: 8:01

It's different. Yeah. So for you, having navigated a few transitions in your life, what what characterizes a successful or healthy transition?

Dick Foth: 8:17

You know, I think the other day I was I was listening to the, to a podcast, and it was the vice president of a well known company. And he made the comment that in any group he goes into, he now asks a different question than he did 20 years ago. And it wasn't How can I run this meeting? Or what are they going to learn from it? The question that he chose to ask chooses to ask now is, by my presence in the room, will there be value added? I think one of the qualifiers or one of the marks of an effective transition is when you land when you get your feet on the ground. To what degree is there value added? And because that that cuts both ways, is it is it value added to me? Like all the things you learned when you landed in Central Asia, about life and people and culture and religious systems that you didn't you thought you know about, and you'd read about them, but you didn't know them? Right. Right. Right. And so your experience there for for a decade and a half or more changes who you are and clearly as value added to your life. Whereas oftentimes we make transitions especially in in charitable work are the kinds of room where we feel like we're the people bringing the value, and a lot of times we get surprised. Yeah. When I was in Washington, watching DC Ruth and I were in DC from 93 to 2008 15 years, and the city is divided into quadrants. And southeast DC is the least serve the most underserved quadrant of DC across the Anacostia River. People would say, Well, those were poor people are there many are on welfare and all of that. My experience is that I may have learned more in southeast DC about life and resiliency than I did on Capitol Hill. And you could see capitol hill from Southeast DC. So, you know, people surprised us.

Timothy Austin: 10:41

They do. Yeah. So do you think we get it wrong? Sometimes when we're evaluating a transition? And simply kind of say, Well, that was a failed transition, because I didn't produce or I didn't succeed in some way, as opposed to looking from like, what you're saying. I was enriched by this experience. God taught me these things, people I learned from other people.

Dick Foth: 11:14

I think that's, you know, transition means movement. That means I'm going from one level to another, it's it's a Seelye, isn't it, I think Sema, to the degree that they understand what that is, take a deep breath or change keys, or go to the next step up on the temple stairs. I think, I think the idea of movement, we we tend to think of movement forward or upward as transition. As you age, and you'll know this later, you don't know it yet. But as you age, what you find is that you have transitions forced on you, by virtue of loss of capacity in some way, either physically, you can't do what you used to do, right? Or your eyesight goes or you your hearing is not as good. All those are transitions, and it those types of transitions sometimes are harder to adapt to. Yeah, because you didn't choose it. And some others.

Timothy Austin: 12:21

Yeah. And a lot of our listeners out there, I have to guess are facing forced or rug pulled out transitions, you know, where, you know, maybe they're in a country that they, the government won't renew their visa, or civil war has erupted or some kind of health issue as forcing them to shift gears and change or to move. And so there's a lot about these forced transitions, which can just totally rock our world and change things up for us. And so, in the work we do with with cross cultural workers, we talk a lot about self care or soul care. But really, this has application to whatever vocation you choose, and you're in involved with. So again, going kind of talking kind of along those lines of soul care. How has How have you practiced self care, soul care? And does it look different? Has it looked different for you while in transition, as opposed to seasons of relative calm and stability?

Dick Foth: 13:36

I've had a belief, and a practice for a long time. That I didn't always have. And that is I was brought up in a religious environment where your primary communication in terms of spiritual matters, or even emotional psychological matter, was vertical. It's with the god I couldn't see. I was introduced to what was called back in the 70s relational theology through guys like Lloyd Ogilvy and Cecil Osborn, guys who are known now as much and it's that other piece it's love God with your whole heart. And the other thing is like unto it as the okay James would say, love your neighbor as yourself this idea of, of what happens when you walk with a handful of people intimately over time. How does that help care for your soul? I have a friend who says if when you are young, you will choose two or three people older than you. By whom you will run the second major decisions are through home. If you will do that, and stay with those two or three folks. Your decisions almost happened on the backstroke. good decisions. Okay. So in terms of soul or self care, whenever we've made a move, there have been a handful of people in our life with whom we have discussed, stayed in contact, I wouldn't say we've made contracts. But I think there's the idea of covenant that plays into them, that you find in Matthew 18, even, even though Jesus is talking about how you deal with struggles in the congregation, this idea of where two or three are gathered, in my name, I show up if you agree on anything. And what we tend to do with that passage is we say, well, there's a prayer need, why don't we hold hands here, these three of us and we'll do that? I'm not sure at all. That's what that's talking about. I do think it is this idea that I am committed to you as a brother or a sister or as a friend. In covenant. covenant is a word that that's lost from our language, except when you buy a piece of property these days, unless you join the military. And then you take a covenant, an oath, a pledge of promise to defend the Constitution of the United States, in our case, against all enemies, foreign, domestic, so forth, that idea of art, are there people other than, say, a spouse, to whom I have a pledge that I want to, I want them to be in my life going forward. I speak with lots of young people, they're sort of my favorite people from 1830. And this idea of how do I find deep relationships or covenant relationships? Is something that's almost a foreign language today, okay. But your question was about soul or self care. And I think for us, for Ruth and me, having a cadre of folks and that could be a big group who are praying for us. We're talking by phone, writing letters. That piece has helped enormously.

Timothy Austin: 17:12

Well, yeah, and that so in, and in speaking about soul care and self care, you bring in this whole dimension of, of the horizontal. And oftentimes, we only think in terms of the vertical like you said, so this may be a good time to bring in some things you talked about in your your most recent book that you authored with your wife, Ruth, can you just tell me tell me more about the about for in terms of because you're talking about connected connectedness, you're talking about relationship here. And I'm, I have a, I'm guessing that maybe there's some, some content in that book around that theme.

Dick Foth: 17:56

The book's called"Known: finding deep friendships in a shallow world." And it's tilted toward younger people. There's a there's an MIT psychologist by the name of Dr. Sherry Turkle, who studied this for 20 years. And she says the the internet defines itself or imagines itself as the architect of our intimacies. And this came home to me, when I asked to two or three university students a few years ago, sitting over breakfast, give me a word to find your generation, or your age group. And this one young Junior in university said, overwhelmed. And when he said that, I said, seriously, I said, I think my parents, my parents generation was overwhelmed. They had the First World War, the Great Depression, Second World War, what are you overwhelmed by? He said, the information. I said, Well, I get that, you know, there's been more new information generated in the last two years than in the history of mankind. And it'll happen again in the next few years. So that is over. We're getting it through all of our devices. I said, Yeah, but you're still connected. He said, Well, I'm on Facebook, and Snapchat and all that. But he said, My problem is, I don't know how to start a conversation. So every relationship starts with a conversation. And we live in a culture where the family dinner table is rapidly disappearing. The places where we have conversations, whether it's family or school, or religious group, also have less tactical or tensile strength in our lives. They used to sort of frame who we are not so not now. And so the key in terms of relationship is how do I get there? Yeah, how do I start that? And I'll just give you four bases real quickly. Yeah. I call this relational baseball. It's not mine. It's borrowed from a fella named Lyman Coleman, who was a small group guru back in the 70s. I always say that originality is the art of concealing your sources, but I just gave you the mind was, but I was introduced to the idea of this lateral or horizontal piece of faith and practice. Back at a retreat, a conference that was held in Italy Sorento, Italy in 1972. And I was 30 years old, it was my first trip overseas. And he introduced us to these four ideas for building relationships. First, if you think in terms of baseball, and not everybody may think in those terms, it might be soccer or football, as you call it. But first base would be story or history giving. So example for an example. If I were to say to you, Tim Austin, where's home for you originally? What would you tell me? Chico, California. Where did your people come from? Your grandparents or your past? Sweden? Okay. Yeah. So Sweden. Did you know when? Not really? Okay. So So what did you do in Chico for fun as a kid? I mean, Chico State was a party school. So right talking about that. Yeah. I'm talking about prior to like when you were growing up? Elementary School. What do you do for fun?

Timothy Austin: 21:27

Fishing, hunting. Yeah, I love the outdoors.

Dick Foth: 21:30

Okay. could you do that in Tajikistan?

Timothy Austin: 21:33

I tried my hardest, but it wasn't easy. Yeah, it was, it was challenging. Because in Tajikistan, the rules have all changed as far as having permits to do these kinds of things. But I tried.

Dick Foth: 21:47

So where was the coolest place in your town to go when you were a teenager? Whose place to go?

Timothy Austin: 21:55

That's I think I would, my mind would go back to Bear Hole. It was a big deep hole. That that was that was in the foothills, just just outside of our town, a stream that fed this big swimming hole. And we'd all gather there and, and jump off the cliffs and could spend all day there.

Dick Foth: 22:21

People say, Well, what does all that have to do with relationship? Well, it has nothing to do with it. Unless I want to really know what shaped you. So if I say to you, who, who in your growing up years left their fingerprints on your soul in a significant positive way? Who would you say?

Timothy Austin: 22:43

Oh, I would say, I spent a lot of time with my aunt, my father's sister. And she, and I just actually officiated at her funeral a couple years ago. Her name was Claudette. And I was the fourth child. And after number three, my parents were, I think, pretty tired. My mother, especially, she was pretty tired. So she was happy for Claudette, my aunt, to take me, and she loved kids. And so I spent a good half of my growing up years, probably with her.

Dick Foth: 23:27

I mean, who, who would, who would think of a person who sort of took on a country like Tajikistan would say that one of the shaping influences in his life was an ad named Claude debt at Chico, California. I just find that fascinating. Yeah. And I was in a room with four leaders in government that if I were to say a couple of their names, people who were older would know them instantly from previous administrations, the United States. And I asked them who left the fingerprints on your soul when you were a kid. And two, four of the five said my grandmother. So when you when you when I start hearing your story, like I'm, I'm again, and I will take us off track too far here. But I was born in Alameda, California, three months after Pearl Harbor. on St. Patrick's Day, March 17 1942. I was working with some leaders in Japan some years ago. 50 leaders from the Japanese diet for people who were industrialists, and we decided to do small groups. Well, in that part of the world, the idea of small groups with the with the saving of face the hierarchy that that's a very difficult, but how do young Japanese not a young Japanese friend older than I am, I said Koji come do this with me. And so I said Koji Where were you born and brought up said I was born in Tokyo Tech brought up in Tokyo my whole life. And where were you born? said I was born in Alameda, California. We had these eight groups of six around this room of five, five star hotel in Hokkaido. And a man Japanese man in perfect English from across the room, said, Alameda that's near Oakland, isn't it? And I said, Yes. How did you know that? He said, that's where IBM trained me. When we were done with our session, he made a beeline for me walk straight up to me. And I was speaking to the president of IBM, Japan. And we were buddies because he knew where Alameda was, right? Yeah. The smallest thing you'd say about your story is like a Velcro ribbon to which other people can attack. And, and there's just all kinds of things like that in story. You know, people say I don't want to tell my story because it got scars. Well, if you if you're looking for unscarred people, you're on the wrong planet, right? And, anyway, that that idea is first base. second base is, as I get to know your story, I learned to know where to love you. And one of the ways we love is by affirmation. So I can, I can affirm you by talking to God about you, we call that prayer words to you about that we call it compliments, taking action toward you were taking an action toward your world and getting involved in your work. All of those are affirming things. And I, I don't need in a relationship, I don't need you, essentially, to tell me what I'm not. I know what I'm not. I desperately need somebody to tell me who I am. And so that your story. First of all, your story never stops. So your story keeps growing even as we're friends. Right, right. So third base then becomes covenant as we start doing things together. Small covenants, let's have a coffee, or let's take a trip, let's go to a bog, whatever. Those things express the first two basis, okay? And covenant over time is based on on time. tenacity, I'm going to stay with you. Okay. And truth telling. I'll tell you the truth about what I think, feel and know. And again, I'm just saying a bunch of this stuff. But then home plate is dreaming. If I can trust you with my past, and I can trust you with my Now perhaps I can trust you with some of my crazy dreams. And those are called transitions. Okay, and I just made that up right now. Perfect. But that, but but dreaming of something I want to do. Yeah. When I when I don't know exactly how that's gonna happen? how crazy it might be? You know? You don't know. Nothing happens of consequence. Right? That's somebody dreaming it? That's just true, right? Whether it's the light bulb, or a new chair or whatever.

Timothy Austin: 27:52

Okay, so that's the connectedness piece. That's the relationship piece. And I'm assuming if people want to read more about that they can go to your book, "Known." And you also have a podcast as well. Yeah,

Dick Foth: 28:02

I think if they if they just Google dickfoth.com it'll take you to a website called known FM, and the books there and other podcast stuff and messages and so forth. But I think the thing that was challenging for me to learn was that if I got to know Tim Austin, I could learn about God. If I got to know him, I could see the face of God better. And if I loved him, I was actually like, loving God. It's like when God has to feel this way. Because we're made in His image. That that that when we love his kids, yeah, we're actually loving him. Yeah. And his kids put a face on him, if you will. Does that make sense?

Timothy Austin: 28:53

Yes, it does. And it and I think it's like you said it's challenging because we we often don't think of my mind doesn't necessarily go that direction. If I know if I as I get to know dig, I get to know God. Yeah. goes the other direction.

Dick Foth: 29:12

We think less of that as spiritual growth. Right. And more social services. Right. Or passion ministries or something. Yeah,

Timothy Austin: 29:21

Yeah. Well, when you when you were at home base there and talking about dreaming and transitions. Some and someone you can talk to about some crazy dreams. Yeah. you've had in your life. What what's what's one or two people that have stood out to you?

Dick Foth: 29:46

My father in law, Roy Blakely. Ruth's dad, my wife's dad came into my life when my father after 29 years of marriage was walking. So he left my mom after 29 years of marriage, and Roy, her dad, came into my life, and he was he was accepting. When I asked for her hand in marriage, I met him. He drove an old pickup truck to a school yard in Modesto, California. And I climbed up and said, I really love your daughter. He said, we kind of like her too. He said, like your marriage that I think that could be arranged. I said, but I'm scared because, you know, my parents deal is coming apart. And I think I think it may be genetic hereditary. And he put his hand on my shoulder and said, Nick, here's the deal. Why don't you love Jesus and love Ruthie, you walk together? And openeye his wife? Yeah, we'll walk with you. And it'll be okay. I trust you. And that was 57 years ago. so far. So good. So far, so good. So there, there's his, he was always a dreamer. He wasn't a high profile person. He wasn't on the front page of a magazine. He just did stuff. that other people, he started taking high schoolers, and college students to Mexico, when nobody was doing that, that back in the late 50s. And early 60s, right. He started a Christian school. And nobody was doing that in his arena. He did a he built a senior citizens center with government money, HUD money when nobody was doing that. And he just did it. And so when we decided to go to Washington, DC, and I was 50. And I didn't know where the income was going to come from. He just said, both. He always called me forth and so forth. You need to do that we need we need people to help and to and to encourage people in Washington DC. You need to do that. That he was always that way. So he dream the dream with e.

Timothy Austin: 31:50

Yes. Sounds Soun s like a super affirming p rson in your life.

Dick Foth: 31:59

Very much.

Timothy Austin: 32:01

Kind of staying on that dreaming piece. I think with big transitions sometimes require a bit a bit of reinventing ourselves. In terms of maybe lifestyle or the work, the ministry we do. Any advice for someone in that kind of season?

Dick Foth: 32:28

I'll use DC again. Because I had been a pastor for a dozen years, been a college president for 14 years. So 26 years worth being sort of a Moses, Moses, small pond, but Moses only went to DC. We became Aaron's and hers to other guys, Moses. It wasn't our agenda, it was theirs. Our role was to come alongside, and to encourage men and women in, in their roles as senators or admirals, or generals, or sergeants or commerce guys, whatever. And to help them do what they were doing, not be their staffers, but without an agenda for them, and to encourage them either deeper into Jesus or toward it. That was our function. And so, in order to do that, you end up being an ambulance driver and a golfing partner and a counselor and coffee mate in whatever. And it's their timing, not yours. That was a very, I was used to people coming to make appointments with me. for 26 years. And all of a sudde, people say, so where's your ffice? I say in my car. Yeah. Cuz I'm going to go see Senat r whosits, or whatever. Right Right.

Timothy Austin: 33:57

So was that was that adjustment hard for you?

Dick Foth: 34:02

Well, it was it was huge in the sense that I was used to leading the charge. So I was the one with the agenda. Now. It's somebody else's agenda, right? Sort of the agenda of the country, if you will. The other the other piece of that is that you're offering to them one thing, friendship. And the higher you go in any enterprise, whether it's healthcare or the military, or whatever, the higher you go, the more competitive it gets, the closer you play your cards. And you end up at the top of the heap a lot of times with 1000 acquaintances, a no friends, leadership isn't hard. Because you have to make decisions. That's what leaders do. Yeah, leadership's hard because you don't know who to trust. Yeah. So our role was to try to become a trustworthy friend to a handful of people in the most powerful city in the world. And the in order to do that one key thing That was the biggest challenge for me was that I had to, I had to be able to not act categorically Republican, Democrat, whatever. And to suspend judgments on the front end. I was raised in a religious environment where judgments were the coin of the realm. Yeah, that was the currency, right. And all of a sudden, if you're going to get a hearing, or if you're going to get access, you cannot assume something at the front end, either by label or whatever it is. And for me, that became now sort of a lifelong learning piece. So it's been 26 years, since we went there, and I'm still learning.

Timothy Austin: 35:47

Yeah, yeah.

Dick Foth: 35:49

I would just say th s, Tim, I would say that tran itions in thinking are much more challenging than transition in place. Yeah. very tricky. And oftentimes, they go ogether,

Timothy Austin: 36:04

Oftentimes, they go together, very true. And I often talk about, it's impor ant to distinguish between chang as it as a, as a point in time, right, or, you know, geogr phical move or some decis on, we make some reaction, as op osed to transition, which is mo e of a process of devel pment and growth and oftentimes we don't take the time to re lly engage that peace, we ust go on to the next thing. And and yet you had to sink or sw m in Washington, DC, it sounds ike. You had to engage. I was a totally different approach to to work in lifestyle work and ministry that you were oing there?

Dick Foth: 36:47

Well, in part, and an you would, of course, un erstand this from Tajikistan is is that in a in a culture, es ecially in in a church, world cu ture, or oftentimes how many yo speak to on a weekend? Wh t's your audience? Is the big de l? Yeah, that's not as true wh n you're in academic work, ri ht. But it's even less true if your role is to make a single fr end. Just one, I asked a guy I aid, How do you get to know se ators, you can't go around le ve your car, because they're 15 000, literally 15,000 lo byists on Capitol Hill, even th ir cards. And the friend sa d, all you need to know is on. Just one. Invest in one, wa k with that one. And over ti e. Perhaps you'll meet ot ers. Yeah. But if your goal is just to be with the one, if th t's your end point. That's a go d place to be. Yeah. So but fo me, again, coming from the mi dset of how many did you have Su day? That's a shift.

Timothy Austin: 38:00

Yeah. A big shift. Yeah. Well, you know, this is this has been super enlightening, for me, challenging in terms of some of the things we talked about, especially as I think about our conversation today. That whole that whole horizontal piece that you that you're talking about, which causes me and challenges me to, to approach not only relationships with people in different ways, but my relationship with God. And so, I don't know, we're kind of wrapping up the our conversation today, any last things you would like to say to someone, wherever they are in the world today in in a transition transition season that maybe they've just feel stuck or challenged by what they're facing.

Dick Foth: 38:56

I have a friend, who's a conservative columnist for many years, and hundreds of papers. His name was Cal Thomas. And he was fired by NBC. This is sort of how he came to faith. And when he did come to faith, he came to faith for the first for the Presbyterian Church in DC. The pastor was filling him Dr. Richard Halverson. By the time I got to DC, Richard Halverson, who had pastored there for 22 years was the chaplain of the United States Senate. And so we used to meet some regularity, but Cal told me the story about the Halverson at the end of every Sunday morning message, he would essentially give us similar same benediction, which would be the last two verses of the book of Jude, not to him who is able to keep you from falling and present you without fault and with great joy to glorious present so forth. And then he would say, remember, as you leave here today, wherever you are this week, whatever role whatever place, you're not accident. Jesus is with you go in his grace. So whether you're transitioning from or transitioning to, I think it's important to remember that that's not a football, that that's not luck of the draw that that God goes before he comes behind. He's surrounds us. He oversees us. So, Richard Halverson died three years after I got there. I went to his memorial service, they had big screen TVs inside the school rooms, all kinds of things I happen to get in the sanctuary. And the greats from DC came and eulogized him, including family, but people from the White House in the Senate. And then they said let's stand for the benediction. Everybody stood and nobody moved to the pulpit. And all of a sudden over the PA system. Richard Halverson set out to him who is able to keep you from falling into present you without fault with great joy. And he went on he said, remember as you leave here, you are not an accident. And wherever you are this week, Jesus is with you. And people were weeping. These are Presbyterians, right. Yeah. Because of this this moment, yeah. Yeah, in time, that every benediction was a blessing on the transition. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever it was gonna be.

Timothy Austin: 41:28

Yeah. What a gre t encouragement to wrap up this onversation today. Derek, thank so much, you for being with e. And remember, to our liste ers out there, wherever you a e, you're not alone. Thank for joining us today for this pisode of navigate podca t. Following this conve sation with Dick, I shared with im how before I knew him as my college president, but now I kno him as my friend. And that' just the way decades he invit s you into relationship. Such n easygoing, conve sational style, and I hope you g eaned something as he share from his experience and his w sdom today. To learn more about dick and what he does, you can h p onto his websi e@known.fm. And yeah, learn more about what he does. What' your relational theology look ike in your current trans tion? Are you taking time to ge to know God through peopl? What can your relat onships with people teach you a out the spiritual life? As a coa h, I'd love to hear your trans tion story. Book a disco ery call with me at encom ass life coaching comm if you'r interested to learn how worki g with a coach can help you g t unstuck and grow during this ime of transition. Thanks for j ining me today for this episo e of navigate podcast. I've een your host Tim Austin. If th s has been helpful to you, would you mind raiding the podca t, writing a review and shari g on social media? And of cours, you can subscribe so that ou're sure to get in on the n xt episode. And I'll see you t ere.