The New Life Podcast
The New Life Podcast is hosted by Pastors Devon Patton and Luke Evans. Two pastors. One decade apart. Both Pastor's kids who grew up together and now serve side by side - one as a youth pastor, the other an associate pastor. Each episode they dig into Scripture, share real ministry experiences, and teach to help others grow in their daily walk with God.
Affiliated with New Life Church in Trumbull, CT
The New Life Podcast
The Pastor Mark Interview (Ep.29)
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In this episode, Pastors Luke Evans and Devon Patton sit with New Life Church head pastor, Pastor Mark Evans, and talk about leadership, navigating difficult seasons, making hard decisions, and what it takes to lead people while staying grounded in your faith.
Welcome to the New Life Podcast. We are so glad that you're back today. We're in a little different setting. This looks nice. We got a new office. We talked about it last week, and so they've upgraded us to a new office. Yep. They felt bad because they stuck us up in that office together by ourselves that whole time. No. That's not true. This is not. We decided to be in an office, but this is not our office. Why are we here?
SPEAKER_04We have a very uh we have a different podcast for you today. We have a very special guest that I know a lot of people have been wondering. You know, you had Papa on. When's he gonna be on? And we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna finish with Papa. We'll get him to the United States sooner or later. We had Papa on. Um, but people have been saying, you know, they've been clamoring, is what they've been doing. Is when are you gonna have, you know, the the big the big guy?
SPEAKER_05And we invited him because there are people that come up to me weekly and they're like, I would love to, whenever you want. And I'm like, I've never met you before in my life. And they're like, Oh, dude, I'll I'd love to be on the podcast with you.
SPEAKER_04We've also had people that we do know that have asked us to be on that I would never in a million years let them be on the podcast. But today we have a very, very special guest. Pastor Mark is with us. My dad, our lead pastor. My fake uncle. His fake uncle is here with us. Go ahead, say hi to the people.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's great to be here, and I'm excited to be on the podcast with these clowns. Uh, I'm gonna try and maybe make it a little more spiritual than it normally is. My wife told me to wear this hoodie. Uh, my wife dresses me, as you well know. Your mother dresses me. And this morning, uh, she's the biggest fan of the podcast. My wife is like she watches every Monday. She goes in her little sunroom. I hear her in there crying, praying, then giggling. And uh so she told me this morning, you're being on a podcast, you gotta wear a cool sweatshirt. They wear sweatshirts, you've got to look cool like today. They didn't he didn't wear a sweatshirt. But anyway, so yeah, no, this is when Jesus saves, baby. I believe it.
SPEAKER_04Amen. He does. So we're gonna get into some things today. We're gonna talk a little bit about leadership. We thought with him on, with you on, um, that that would be probably the most beneficial thing to talk about because he leads us every week as a staff and as a church, and so we thought that that would be beneficial. But before we do, do you have do you not have a fun fact today?
SPEAKER_05I don't have a fun fact.
SPEAKER_04Mateo was really nervous that my dad was behind it, so he told us no fun. He's the no fun police. He's like, we got can't be messing around.
SPEAKER_05He said this is what Mateo said. He said, Pastor Mark doesn't like to have fun. That's none of this is true. None of this is true.
SPEAKER_03You're the funniest guy.
SPEAKER_05You want to have a good time? And he was like, Yeah, nope, he doesn't. So you guys ever talk about that. This is my last day at work. I I don't have Mateo, who?
SPEAKER_02Mateo.
SPEAKER_00Used to work upstairs.
SPEAKER_03Next week, Spencer's just there. Hey guys, look at the dude. Well, it wouldn't take much to grow that much that show.
SPEAKER_04That's not sponsored. That's not me. That's ugly. Uh that would that would actually be good. You should shave. You guys should race who can grow one lot faster next week. This takes me a cool shaving on a cool month. A solid month.
SPEAKER_05Dude, I started shaving my beard when I was in sixth grade. There's my fun fact. Yeah, but you're like the hairiest person I know. Devin.
SPEAKER_00It looks like you have some gorilla gene somewhere.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. But I was in sixth grade and I went to Christian Heritage, and they used to make us shave. And I remember I was in sixth grade, and I they were like, you need to go to the office. They'll they'll provide you with like a razor you can shave in the bathroom. And there was no shaving cream, so I had to use the soap from it.
SPEAKER_00It was just back. You just gotta shave your back.
SPEAKER_04Wait till the summer podcast when he has shorts on no shorts.
SPEAKER_05No shorts. You won't know that he had shorts on. No, it's wearing dark pants. Why is he wearing wool leggings? So there's my fun fact.
SPEAKER_00Fun fact, the hairiest man I've ever met in my life. That's insane.
SPEAKER_04Barrier than a grizzly bear. That story we told last week from camp about Spencer, if Drew pulled the covers off you, you wouldn't even know. Pajama pants. Yes. He's got those wool pajama pants on in the middle of summertime. Speaking of uh of what we've already said a couple times, my fun fact, which I didn't, I wasn't really sure. Do you want to take a guess at how much a gorilla can lift over their head?
SPEAKER_05Oh, over top.
SPEAKER_04How much weight?
SPEAKER_05Come on. 2,400 pounds. Oh wow. He way over. Oh, 800 pounds. No, right in the middle. 1,700 pounds. That is right in the middle, statistically. That's pretty strong. That is pretty strong. How much can a weight or a weight? How much can a weight weight? How much can an ant lift? That's like the real thing, right? Compared to their body weight.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, isn't it like six times their body weight? That's crazy.
SPEAKER_0210 to 50 times their life.
SPEAKER_0510 to 50 times their body weight. That's such a wide range. Ten to 50 tiger ants than some other ants. I don't know. I mean some humans have been working out. Yeah, right? How heavy is the heavy is the piece of bread that the leaf or the leaf, those those cutter ants or whatever. They carry those leaves and stuff. How about they get the whole community involved? We need ant-like mentality. Fun fact.
SPEAKER_04Tell us your bee story. Go ahead. I know he wants to tell it because we die.
SPEAKER_05That's the fun fact. We got a bee to be a good idea.
SPEAKER_00He's got a good because I gave this to my grandkids the other day because I like to do this with my grandkids. How long does a bee live? A honey bee? And honey bee lives uh uh five to seven weeks, I think it is. Five to seven weeks. Which is not that long. A worker be a worker bee. A worker bee. Unless they're born towards the fall, and then there's a genetic code that clicks in them, and they live for six months because they have to overwinter. So if they're born later in the season, they live longer. Um, and then how long does the queen bee live, the founder of the whole colony? She lives uh up to five years. Uh because she sits around doing nothing all day except eating royal jelly, which only she's allowed to eat. And then the other fun fact that I found out was I'm not a big honey eater. Like my dad loves honey, but I will never eat honey again. I asked my granddaughter, I said, Do you eat honey? She goes, Oh, I like it in the thing. I said, Do you know how they make honey? Because I didn't know. I'm like, how do they make honey? This is a fun fact. So listen, the bee goes out and drinks the nectar and puts it into a stomach that is not a digestive stomach. So they have two stomachs, one to digest food with and one to just store nectar. They come back to the colony and they regurgitate that nectar into the mouth of another bee, who regurgitates it into the mouth of another bee, into another bee. They puke it up to each other all the way down the line until the last one puts it into the honeycomb and it turns into honey because now it's got all these different salivas in it, which is disgusting. Now that we've just lost half of our own. But the other thing that blew my mind was it uh it said, How much honey does an average bee, how much honey does a bee make in its lifetime? It's one twelfth of a teaspoon. Which you could suddenly spiritualize these issues and turn it into the fact that when we work together, we accomplish a lot more. And what I do or what you do may not be important in and of itself and seem like insignificant, but if we can get on the same page and build the same thing, certainly for the kingdom, look at me spiritualizing this now. This is what you need on this podcast, a little spiritual depth. So if we could only work like worker bees and not worry about so many other goofy things, um, you know, my little bit of effort and your little bit of effort, we could build something great. And obviously, bees uh keep the world alive. Uh without bees, there's no planet. No, it's like and I know it's goofy, but without bees, there's no planet. It's like that, and they say there's not a God.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Well, even just the bee that's born, you know, and they know winter's coming, and so they can't they're not gonna be able to get the work done that they need to do, and so they live long enough.
SPEAKER_05How could you say there's no god when you think, but also that the process of like, why does it have to be like that? I don't know. That's just a weird question. It's like yeah, they can't just like carry it with them and hand it to somebody else, and they got something on their little bee hands to cast it off.
SPEAKER_00Like, so really, honey is like bee vomit, like yeah, like yeah, no, no wonder it lasts forever.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, literally forever. Yeah, that's my fun fact. I'm done. That's a good fun fact. That was a good fun fact. You didn't even come prepared. I didn't. My fun fact is cool too, but that's people won't be talking about it. So this first question, we're talking about leadership. Okay, so to give Mateo credit before I ask this first question, because this first question is just so broad, it's crazy. The first question on my thing is what does it mean to be a leader? Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00Is Mateo the one who came up with that question? We just all he wrote we wrote them down, but it's actually a great question. It's you, uh let's go. This guy's getting a raise. Uh because what does it mean to be a leader? I I think that it's different in different contexts and different places. Yeah. So what I I hopefully what we want to do today is talk about what I call good leadership or heavenly leadership, because you can be a leader and be a really terrible person. You know, leadership is this thing that you know we think, oh, only good people are leaders. But Adolf Hitler was quite a leader, yeah. You know, turned a whole nation into you know insanity. Uh but you couldn't say he wasn't a leader. So uh we'll focus on some of the good things. But uh for me, the essence of leadership, uh I've always believed, is is anybody following me? So, yes, leadership is this and it's that, and it's you know, knowing the way before you take people the way, and it's doing the right things and being a person of integrity, and we can talk about a lot of those things. But to me, a lot of people think they're leaders because they read a leadership book or they listened to some podcast or they got John Maxwell's book, or Craig Rochelle does some great stuff on leadership. So they listen to one of Craig Crochell's podcasts, which are better than these. Um, I'm just telling you. His I listen to every time they come out. Your guys every once in a while. Every once in a while. But uh you could listen to a Craig Crochelle podcast on leadership, and there are people who do. I know people who listen to these things, who read these books. But if you look at what they do in their lives, they make no practical application of those things. They don't live out those things themselves. And if you look at their lives, there's nobody following them. So for me, the essence of leadership sometimes is to turn around and look behind you and say, Is there somebody following me? And that could be look, for some people like Craig Rochelle, that might be millions of people or hundreds of thousands of people. Like someone like John Maxwell. Um for a pastor, it may be the sheep that are in your church. But for some people, it's my family. It's you know, if you're a husband, it's my wife is following my leadership in a spiritual sense, not chauvinistic sense, but in a spiritual sense, it's my children. Are they walking the way I walk? Are they following me? When Jesus called people um to leadership, you know, to be a disciple, what did Jesus say? Come and follow me. So it's a big question, and it's got a lot of other answers that we can dig into if you want. But I I personally think that the essence of leadership is is anybody following me? Is anybody trying to imitate me? Is anybody trying to do things the way I am doing them? Paul the apostle said, you know, he wrote half the New Testament, and in one section what he says is, do the things that I am doing. Follow Christ like I follow Christ. And some people say, Oh, what an arrogant individual. And it's like, he wasn't arrogant, he was humble. Read the rest of his writings. But what he was saying was, I know how to follow Jesus. So if you do what I'm doing, just imitate me. Follow this. Um then you'll you'll be all right. One of the greatest books ever written uh is is called The Imitation of Christ. And uh that's to me what leadership is about. Um, is is anybody following me? I've been a great imitator most of my life. Um it's hard for me to tell non-truths here today because my son is sitting right there, so I I can't uh tell non-truths. I I'm not the sharpest pencil, I'm not the brightest guy, I don't have the best education. But from a very early age, if you talk to my dad, the next time he's on, ask him, he'll tell you, is that from a very early age, I looked at people who were good at something, whether that was being a husband, whether that was being funny, whether that was money, whatever it was. I'm talking 12, 13 years of age. My dad used to call me, and we don't have time to go into that, but he would call me Walter Middy, which was a movie about a guy that just imitated things. Uh, if I saw somebody doing something good, I would be like, I don't need to understand all that. I'm just I'm gonna do what they're doing. I I when it comes to my financial life, I would look at people that were millionaires or super successful financially, and that's what they're doing with their money. I'm gonna do the same thing. And sometimes I didn't even understand it all. Like I didn't get the big picture, but I just thought, well, if that works for them, and then conversely, I would look at people who are idiots and go, I'm not doing that.
SPEAKER_05That guy's marriage is terrible.
SPEAKER_00That guy's kids all serve Satan. Like, I'm not doing it the way he's done it. Uh this guy's broke. No, I'm not doing what he did. No, it's like so leadership for me. I think to become a great leader, one of the things you have to humble yourself first is and acknowledge that you you have to be a follower. So people always leave out the the part of leadership that is about following. You know, it's like every great leader you have to follow somebody. So, anyway, is anybody behind you? Um, not in a sense of a mugging, but you know, is anybody following you? Is somebody following me? I'm being stalked. Does that make me a leader? I'm a leader. I got two stalkers. No.
SPEAKER_04Sorry. How would you, you know, obviously a lot of people that are watching this are you know from new life, and so they have an understanding of like who you are and and where you've come from and stuff like that. But for those who haven't, obviously, like you've been here for you know, whatever it is now, 40, 45 years. Um, and obviously, like you said, you know, you're following your father, Papa, who we've had on, my grandfather, um, and then watched the church become what it is as far as you know, going from whatever it was when you came on staff, 150, 200 people, to what it is today, and watching the growth of the church and the way that your leadership has impacted the church. What do you think are ways? Because I know there are a lot of people that probably watching this that think to themselves, like, oh, I'm not a leader. Like, that's not that's not what I'm that's not I was I don't I don't have that gene or I don't have that ability. It's not in the you know, it's just not who I am. What are you first? I guess twofold. One, do you think someone can become a leader that maybe isn't a natural-born leader, but then can do it? And then if so, what are some intentional ways that someone could build on that to begin?
SPEAKER_00I I I want to answer cautiously because you know, thousands and thousands of people listen to positive. I don't want to steer anybody in the wrong direction here. That's true. Um's watching. So I m mom, yeah, she's a great leader. Um I personally believe that leadership can be learned. It it is a trait that people can get better at. You can read, you can do certain things, and so you can get better at leadership. Um, I also think that you have to have a healthy understanding of who you are and what your giftings are, and understand that people lead in different ways. So, you know, we always think the leader is, you know, the loudest person or the flashiest person or whatever. Um and and in many ways that's that's just not true. Um so I you Charles Spurgeon said you you you don't cut a tree down with a razor and you don't shave with an axe. Um there I think so. I think for some people they have to come to terms with look, I don't have that natural ability. I'm I don't have charisma. I'm not I don't I don't like talking in front of people. Can you still be a leader? Yes. You just have to figure out how to do it a different way. Um and so again, if leadership is about having people follow me, I don't think you have to be the loudest guy uh to have people follow you. So, yes, I believe that there are some people born with certain giftings in the body of Christ and in life in general, there are some people just born with certain giftings, and they can use those giftings to lead people. I think you have to find what your gift is, and maybe your gift is not loud and in charge, um, but you can work quietly and accomplish you know some incredible things. Um, I I don't want to put him on a spot. Spencer is sitting over there. I don't know why he's in here. Does he do anything? Like Mateo's actually working, but he just kind of staring at me in the corner. It's kind of a strange uh thing. But you get used to it. It's yeah. I don't know, it's kind of eerie. I keep looking at him like, what does he do? Like he's not doing anything, just sitting there. Um, but uh Spencer, so I'm gonna put him on the spot here. Look, Spencer is a quieter. I wouldn't say he's you know gregorious. You have to look that up, but uh you know, he's not the most uh, you know, I'm not oh put me in front of a hundred people, I'm super comfortable. Um I'm not saying he can't do that, he certainly can do some of those things, but I wouldn't say that's his normal posture in life. But I know for a fact that in our church over the last uh 12, 18 months, and those like we have more people involved in social media, in camera work, in production. And so if Spencer turns around on a Sunday morning, there's eight, nine people that are looking for him. You know, where's my camera? What shot do you want me to be on? What do you want me to do? So Spencer is leading those people. And he may not view it that way sometimes, but he's leading those people. And one of those people might one day do things that Spencer's never done. They may do bigger things than Spencer and others, but he led them to that place. Leadership is sometimes about seeing in other people what they can't see in themselves, yeah, and then you know, seeing it before they even see it, and then giving those people an opportunity to grow, and they grow into something that is sometimes even bigger than you know what you're doing. Look, my prayer, and we goof around a lot, my prayer, my goal is that the future of this church will be bigger than it was when I was the leader someday when Luke is the leader or Devin and whatever roles you play, and it's a decade from now. My goal is not, you know, I want them to do worse than me because I'm the leader. My goal is I want them to do more than I ever did. In other words, and so I'm I'm going around here, but so leadership is not always about being the one in the spotlight or the one out front. And I think that's what you have to be comfortable with. Um, because some people think, oh, that's the only way to be the leader. I I gotta be in charge, like I gotta be the guy or the girl. And in many ways, uh, like I said, I look the cray crochels, I've already mentioned him, the cray crochets, the John Maxwells of this world, they are, you know, lighthouses of leadership, Zig Ziggler. You know, you could go down a list and all this, but but these are far and few between. These are you know comets in the in the story of leadership and others. Most leaders are quiet individuals who live their lives who have found their skill set and do it well enough for other people to want to do that. I don't care if that's photography, I don't care if that's baking, I don't care if that's whatever that is that you do, whether that's being a mom, um uh look, we're talking about your super fan here. So I know for a fact that there are, I've known for 40 plus years that there are women sometimes who want to just have coffee with my wife or hang out with my wife. And it's not because my wife is the most uh loving, fun. She she is, she's all those things. But you know why they want to hang out with her? Because they go, Wow, you know what? She's a great wife. And I've heard Mark talk about that. And I see what she did with Luke and she's a great mom. So so what is it? They're following her in that look, you're never gonna put my wife's never gonna preach on Mother's Day. It's like it's not it's not happening. No, it's like it's not. Oh no, but she's a oh though, and she's just then she's not a leader. Yes, she is, in other words. Yeah, so um, I don't know if you want to ask me another question, but I I I I brought something, so can I just talk about it real quick? Yeah, yeah. I don't want to go off script. No, no, no, no. Um I I talk sometimes to people I'm with and I say, you know, look, I have these journals at home. You know, some of them are great big leather, you know, some of them are just this is a beautiful little look at this made in Italy, beautiful little leather journal here. I got hundreds of these. In fact, I brought I brought a gift today. So I brought a little bundle. They come three in a bundle. So I have one for Devin, one for Luke, and and one for Matteo. I didn't bring one for Spencer because, well, it doesn't really do anything. He sits there in the corner. And and I'm not even sure Spencer can write because. Every time I have a meeting with him, he takes his phone out and he types everything I say fast. He's like, What is that you want? And he does it and he gets done. But I've actually never seen him with a pen and pencil. I don't know that he can actually write. So stage. I'm joking, Spencer. I will get you one. But it came in a bundle of three. So I bring them for you. I recommend one of the things I think you should do in leadership is determine first and foremost, will I be a follower? So it's not about I don't seek leadership. I have never sought leadership. I don't want to be the guy in charge. I have seen people do great things and I want to try and imitate that. Um there's a video out. Um Mateo can find it and people can Google it later. Maybe they'll put it in here. It's called the First Follower. Um, we talked about that. Yeah, it's a group of people on the bank of a hill. One guy gets up and dances, and nobody does anything until the first guy does it. Yeah. And the question is asked you know, who's the leader? You know, is it the guy who started it or the second guy that said, Yeah, I'll do that? In other words, that made everybody else comfortable and everybody else is not comfortable. So I think sometimes that second chair or that that heart of like, I just want to follow. I just want so my whole life I've always kept journals with actual pen and paper, Spencer, uh in an old-fashioned thing. It's called a book. Uh not on my phone. I put it on my phone, but I lose my phone. I can't get in there. Um and so look, just for fun, I I brought the one that I'm working on now. It's only got three pages in it. So this is like a brand new one. Um, and uh there sometimes they're super spiritual things. I have them for different reasons. I have different ones at home for different colors. I write quotes in some of them. Um, some of them have to do with leadership, some of them have to do with spiritual things, my spiritual walk. Um, but what I have found is that if you're willing to listen to other people and then feed yourself, um, like look, I've taken over here, so that this is what happens. You know, it's like if there's nothing in you, nothing comes out. But if there's something in you, you know, something will come out. So look, I I I wrote the this is the one I wrote, this is like three and a half weeks ago. Um, and I just wrote down the definition for the word charismatic. Oh, he's a charismatic leader. Oh, he's charismatic. Uh a compelling magnetic charm that attracts, inspires, and influences others through warmth, confidence, and competency. Those are pretty good words, actually. Uh am I competent? You know, do I do what I do well? Um, look, it boy Spencer, I'm sorry, buddy. Um look, if Spencer was a terrible photographer and he made stupid videos, the team that he has on Sunday morning won't last. Yeah. You know, if he doesn't have the assignment rights, if he doesn't use their work, as we we've had these meetings, and it's like there's nothing worse than asking people to do something and then not use what they gave you, even if you don't like it that much, even if it's not what you the way you would have done it. It's close enough. Use it. Because nothing makes people feel better than using what they've produced, in other words. So, but you have to have this sense of competence, warmth, uh, and confidence about yourselves. It goes on, it says they make others feel heard and value, which by signaling trust and friendliness. Uh they exude assurance, uh, they have high emotional intelligence, uh, they're effective communicators. Um, these people are often expressive, optimistic, and engaging speakers who can energize a room. So I wrote this down from a podcast I listened to. And it was like in the middle of it, uh, the guy said something about being charismatic, and he's like, Well, you're super charismatic. And the guy he bluffed it off a little bit. And I thought, charismatic? Like, who's charismatic? You know? Um uh but but here's here's what then now I dig a little deeper. So uh this is why I wrote this down. Listen, the most character, the most charismatic people I have ever known in my life. So think of someone who's charismatic. They walk into a room, people want to be with them, they want to talk to them, you know, they want to listen to them. Uh they share one common unexpected trait. And here it is they are exceptional listeners. Yeah. Some people think that being charismatic means that you talk the most, or that you're the funniest or the most interesting person. And so this is I wrote it in red letters. Look, watch this. Charisma is about being interested, not always being interesting. And and so they they make you feel like, man, what you're telling me is important. I want to hear what you're saying. Um, and so then I wrote down these three things, and then I'll shut up and you can ask me another question. Listen, think about when people are talking to you. And it's like, so uh I wrote this down. Look, there's me listening, there's you listening, and there's us listening. You ready? Look, me listening. Most people that we talk to in life, because they're not good followers, because they're intimidated, they're me listeners. Me listeners, when you're talking to a me listener, all they're thinking about is how does this affect me? What does it got to do with me? What story do I have in my life that fits into? And here's how you can tell when you're talking to a me listener. The moment you pause, they'll say, Wow, that's hilarious. Do you know what happened to me one time? Oh, yeah. The worst. The worst. They got that one-up story, like, oh, your story's funny, but this is what happened to me. I'm not saying you can't share something with your friends joking around or whatever else. But when you meet a me listener, this is always the pattern. In other words, they they they are listening, waiting for the moment to jump in. They're not listening to kind of learn or understand, they're just waiting for their moment. So they're me listeners. Then there's a you listener. Uh, you listeners, I think, have a deeper sense of focus. They want to know about you, they want to understand the story that you're telling. What did that mean to you? How did that affect you? They'll ask questions at the end. How did that make you feel? What did you do next? You, you is what comes out of their mouth. You, they're still focused on you. And then when you become a leader, I think one of the things that you try to figure out is how do you get to a place where you're us listening, which is now I'm listening to what you're telling me. I'm pulling stories from my own life, my own experiences, what I've been through. But that's not what I'm gonna just dump on you. I'm I'm figuring out how does how does the story of my life help me create a map for your life so that now I can take my experience and help you. It's still it's still about you, but it's us. It's gonna join us together. So I'm gonna use my experience, I'm gonna use my past, I'm gonna use my stories, my stupidity, my mistakes, which is, you know, we learn a lot from these things. And I'm gonna figure out how do I help you, because I've I'm a you listener, I've listened to what you're saying, and then you can kind of bridge that gap and it becomes an us conversation where now I'm taking something that is not just about you and not just about me, but it bonds us together. I can help, I can give insight, or maybe sometimes you don't even have an answer except to just say, Look, man, you know, I I've never been through anything like that. I searched my memory bank, I never have, but I know this God is still there, God will still help you. And obviously, we want to try to bring the whole conversation back around how God can help any of us be leaders in that moment. But it's for me, it's constantly about will I be a follower? I I just think followers turn out to be great leaders eventually, in time, not overnight, and those you got to follow for a while. I followed my dad in ministry, um, and you learn the good, the bad, the ugly, you know, this, but you you gotta follow before you lead.
SPEAKER_05So I guess to kind of follow that up, like there's different questions and different things that like we can touch on, but just while you were talking there, so like you've been a leader for all of this time. You've obviously learned from different people, you've grown in leadership. Is there anything now that you're like, yeah, that are there times where you're like, yeah, I could still learn that or improve that? Like, or have you at your age the status you are? Are there are you like, yeah, you know what I think I'm good? No, not like that. But it's like I I I got a handle on how the type of leader I am and the things I'm good at. So like there's there's different things.
SPEAKER_00Listen, I think that I think you have to find a balance in those things. I said earlier, look, you you got to figure out what your strength is, what your giftings are, and then flow in that. Don't don't try and be something you're not. Don't don't force the issue. And it's like, if you know, if you're not good at baking, don't open a bakery class. And it's like, stop, like, stop. That's not you. Um, and then obviously so if you find your strength, you find your purpose, you find your calling or your giftings, and you you you focus on those and you move in those, obviously, over time you're gonna get better at that. And as I'm listening to more people, I'm watching more people, I'm following more people. So I'm growing as an individual. So do I make less mistakes than I used to make? Yes, I hope so. Just like my spiritual life. I hope I I look, uh, do I still conquer? You know, is there still things in my life I have to conquer? Yeah, but smoking and pornography is not one of those things. Yeah, why? Because those battles were 40 something years ago in other things. So you grow. So am I better at being a Christian today than I was 10 years ago? Yeah, absolutely. Um, does that shut you down to say I don't need to any more help? Gosh, I hope not, because I that's pride, and now you're really gonna fall flat on your face. So, no, I think you always have to be open to say, look, I can keep growing, I can keep building. Having said that, look, life definitely changes. There are some people I used to listen to I don't listen to anymore. I've outgrown that. Um, it's it's I'm gonna paraphrase it so I I hope he'll never hear this. But John Maxwell. He's not tuning in, I don't think. Uh John Maxwell, in one of his early books, you know, he states that what you can do sometimes is, and it sounds harsh, so please give me a moment. You know, he says what you can do is you can delegate a number to everything and everybody. So when you meet a person, you can meet them and say, hey, look, this person is a six. You know, I'm not talking about women now, and we gave, oh, she's a ten. That's on Facebook. Not that kind of engaging, all right. But you meet a person, male or female, and you say, Look, uh, they're a six, they're a seven, one to ten. So ten being fabulous and perfect, the best they could ever be one, an absolute idiot. So you look at them and you say, okay, where are they on the scale? Um, and and I'm paraphrasing, so John does it much more tactfully than this on my first name basis, me and John. Yeah. Uh so Mr. Maxwell uh does it you know much better than I do and and and much kinder. But in in essence, what he's saying is that look, if you meet Mark Evans and you start to say, okay, look, as a pastor one through ten, what is he? Put put a number. Don't don't answer that, but three. Yeah, his review is next. His review is next week. Mateo's trying to get his job back. He's an 11. You're an 11. Um so uh that if you if you gauge me on that one through ten. Okay, what about a husband? Okay, he's uh this number. Uh okay, what about as a father? Okay, he's this number. What about as a leader? I think you can do this to everybody you meet. And I I'm I'm sad to tell you this, and I'm not ashamed to tell you that I've I learned that 40 something years ago or 35 years ago from John Maxwell. I do this pretty much every day of my life when I meet people. You put a number on them. And and and what you have to come to in life is that whatever your number is, here's what Maxwell says. He calls it the law of the lid. So if I'm a my if I'm a seven as a husband, let's just say I'm pretty good. All right, I'm a seven, all right, as a husband. Here's what Maxwell says is that the law of the lid says that probably my children, now there's an exception to every rule. Luke would be that exception, but there's an exception to every rule. But what Maxwell says is that my wife, my children, whatever else, they'll never rise above a seven. It's the law of the lid. I'm the leader, and this is it. If if I'm a seven as a pastor, um, the truth is that in my congregation, if you did a survey of people, what you'd find is that the people who attend my church are one through sevens. If a nine comes to my church, they're gonna come for one week, two weeks, three weeks, and they're gonna go, this guy, I know more than he knows. I I'm further along the journey than this guy is. I gotta go find a church with a nine. And that's okay. Like, don't, I'm not offended by that. In other words, it's a long way to go to answer your question. Do you ever stop growing and learning? Do you ever say, no, I've reached a place where no, I'm a ten now? No, no, no. But I do think that you come to a place where you say, Look, I I'm not gonna learn from a four. Uh uh I've passed four. So I need to find an eight. Yeah. So this guy led me for this moment, and I could take advice from this person. I I joke, and it's a true story, but I had a guy in the church years ago that bugged me. Pastor, can I come and meet with you? And I was like, Yeah, anytime you want, you know, call the office, you can make an appointment, you know. Well, I'd rather come to your home, like you and your wife. I was like, me and my wife, like what, you know, well, I'm I'm you know, I'm a financial, you know, I'm going to school for a financial counselor and this and that and the other. And I'm like, I don't really need any financial advice. I'm I'm pretty good, you know, I'm great, you know. And he kind of asked me enough times, and and then I kind of felt sorry for him because he was like on this course and there was so many, you know, he had to do so many of these things. So I'm like, yeah, all right, sure, whatever. So, you know, he came over and he rambled for 45 minutes of my thing. And he said a lot of things that made sense. You know, he had a little book with him, he quoted a lot of things. And when when I walked him outside, his car wouldn't start. I finally started, and those like, and then had more Bondo, like you're young, so you won't know what Bondo is, but the car had the whole back end was held on with Bondo and like bumper stickers, and he drove down my driveway with blue smoke coming out the tailpipe. And I thought to myself, I thought, who would take financial advice from this guy? Yeah, you know, I'm not I'm not putting him down, I'm just saying, look, maybe he's a four. I guess he could help some twos and threes. But if you want to look, if I want my children to grow, if I want my marriage to grow, this is an important part of leadership, is that I have to look at me. If I raise my number, if I grow, if I change, everybody around me is is is lifted up. So I I think you have to I think you have to be humble enough to acknowledge where you're at without getting arrogant in it. Keep learning, keep growing. Um you can ask me another question, but I I turned the page because I want to say one more thing about charisma. Can I can I say it? One of the dangers of charisma and leadership, and you need it, you need to be friendly. Um people follow people. Um you really don't get to pitch your dream, your idea, your purpose to people if people don't like you. Um I just you gotta be likable. You know, you gotta listen to people, you gotta be interested in them. It's not you can't you can't fake it. I'm not talking about false intent. But if you're a genuinely charismatic person, you're gonna get people around you. One of the dangers of charisma is that it can become addictive in the sense that, man, people really like me. I'm a fun guy, I'm great to be around. I people invite me, I get to go to all the parties. You know, when I step in a room, people want to talk to me like I got charisma, they want to meet with me, they want to talk to me. You can kind of you fall in love with that charisma and you get carried away. And it's how come a lot of preachers get jacked up, they get in trouble, and they think they're that all that, and others it's God, it's not them. So charisma is addictive and it's dangerous, so you need to be cautious of it. You should strive for it, you should use it in your life. And it's like I said, you should be. I preach this all the time from the pulpit, but look, you walk in. If I check in at a hotel, some of you have been with me when we've checked into a hotel. When I check into a hotel, that person behind the counter is the most important person in the room. They feel like they're special. I tip them, I tell them they're doing a great job, and others. That's all about charisma. Um, and I think that's true whether you're checking into a hotel or a waitress or a waiter in a restaurant, and others like make people feel special. It's great, it's a wonderful thing to do to leave people feeling better after they've been with you or around you. What an incredible thing to do. Here's the danger of charisma is that either I start to fall in love with it and now I become arrogant, or it hinders another super important part of leadership, and that is hard conversations. So when I'm when I'm so addicted to charisma, what happens is I want everybody to like me. So I want people to be happy, I want people to have a good time, I want people to be fun, I want to be liked. And and there are different stages of leadership. So I'll pick on Spencer again. Look, Spencer on a Sunday morning has got, you know, ten people, eight people, whatever the number is. But it's it's ten or eight people. So guess what? You gotta keep them all happy. Um, but does that mean that at some point he might not have to have a hard conversation with one of them who shows up late every week? Uh no, I can't have that conversation. Why they're a volunteer, they're really great people, they take good pictures when they're here, and you know what, we get along so great, like you know what I mean. We're just happy. Okay, great. But you know what? That guy's gonna be a problem. Not today, but somewhere down the road. So uh look, I wrote here, listen, one of the weaknesses of charisma is that you can't have hard or difficult conversations. And as a leader, you should never avoid a hard conversation because if something is a minor issue and you leave it alone, it never gets better. Yeah. What I will tell you is this is time does not fix minor issues, but time always makes a minor issue worse. Listen, that's true in leadership, that's true with Spencer with eight, ten people working for him on a Sunday morning. That's true in a church as a pastor of a thousand people or two thousand people, whatever it is. Guess where else is true? In your marriage, in your friendships. If and I look, I think you ought to be loving to your wife, you ought to be kind, but sometimes in a marriage, you have to have a hard conversation. Why? Because I'm the leader, spiritual leader in my home, and this decision we're making, this isn't spiritual, it's not the right way. This doesn't make sense. We need to go in this direction. And so you have to have that uh you got to have that hard conversation sometimes that says, no, no, no, I I'm I'm the leader, and charisma sometimes gets in the way of that. I I wanna be liked. And in the early days of my uh ministry, um I I probably over-emphasized sometimes the the desire to get along with everybody, because I'm the leader and everybody's gotta like me. You know, if we're gonna do what we gotta do, everybody's gotta love me. Everybody's gotta like me. And you come to a place eventually where you realize, look, if I'm gonna do some of the things that God wants me to do in my marriage, in my finances, in my life, in my story, there are gonna be some hard conversations that you have to have sometimes, difficult conversations. Um, one of my staff members, I won't say who it was, but they're not in this room. But one of my staff members said to me once, you know, Mark, they said, one of the things I appreciate you about you, it's it's probably the greatest compliment I've ever been given in my leadership. They said is that sometimes I've had conversations with you. We weren't having one that day, we were just having fun. They said, but I I felt like I wanted to tell you that sometimes you've had really hard conversations with me that have been just downright awkward, painful. Like, I don't want to do this, it's embarrassing. Uh not for me, I'm not the one with the issue, they were, but anyway, uh I'm going a long way to answer one simple question. Wait, I won't forget it. Listen that what that person said to me was I came to understand early in my partnership and on the team here, was that if ever I was having a conversation with you and it was awkward, you were not trying to hurt me, you were trying to grow me. And I was like, I mean, I don't I've had people say to me, I hated that conversation, you're a jerk. I've had a couple of people cuss me out on staff. Uh, you know, I I don't want to hear that. But but to have someone say, look, what I learned was not the first time we had an awkward conversation, because the first time I didn't want to hear it. And I left the room saying, What a jerk. Like, who is he to tell me that? Um, but over time, what they learned was, look, I'm not trying to hurt you. It's just see this little thing, this little tiny issue. If you don't fix that, your life 10 years from now will will just you you won't be happy. Like, you gotta fix this. This is an issue. And leaders over time, in their area of expertise, will notice things about people who they work with that they're not doing it right or they're making a mistake. Why? Because A, they've been down that road, they've made that mistake. So, Spencer, sorry, pal, I just woke him up. Did you see that? He was like, So Spencer, I think he was not, and his hand was definitely down like this. So Spencer can meet with his team on a Sunday morning and not every week, look, if every week you're pointing out someone's fault or flaw, you're now you're a dictator, you're not a leader. But if what I'm trying to do is grow you into something more than what you are, then as a leader, you can have that awkward conversation. And I look, you got to do it in love. You don't, Spencer's not gonna, I don't think you take the entire staff and say, Luke, I want to talk to you about an issue in your life, you know, in front of everybody. You know, it's like you do it in love, you do it in kindness, and your approach is everything, how you approach that person, how you start the conversation. Um but if Spencer has an issue with someone who's on the camera. Crew. We'll post later who it is because you know we talked about this earlier. If Spencer has an issue with that person, in other words, you can't leave that issue alone. It'll disrupt the whole program, it'll disrupt the plan. So, somewhere as a leader, you have to be able to say, Hey, look, man, I love you. You're doing a great job. But see this on the camera? You need to change these settings. And that person can either go, Who are you to tell me that? Which kind of signals to me they're not a follower. You don't need them anyway. They're not followers. Or that person can say, you know, I don't like to be told I'm not doing this the right way, but wait a second. Spencer's been doing this longer than me. He's taken some great pic. I've seen his work, and I was like, wait, he he does this better than I do it. So maybe I should okay, thanks, Spencer, or whatever else. And their attitude is I'm a follower, I want to grow. And you fixed an issue. Like it's taken care of. Um I said all that to say, do you ever stop? Um look, there are people in my life today. Now you you don't need 50 of them, but there are people in my life today. If I make if I'm making a financial decision, uh I'm not talking about 50 bucks. If I'm making a major financial decision in my life, there are two people that I call, I talk to them. I lay it all out for them. And you, I'm not gonna let you listen to one of the conversations, but the conversation doesn't start with, look, I know what I'm doing, and this is you know, I've done this a hundred times, I'm good at this. I start out with a super humble platform of I just want to run this idea by you. This this opportunity has come my way. I'm in this moment, I got to make this major financial decision. These are my options. You know me well enough, talk to me about that. And I have people in my life for almost every area of my life, like like my marriage, my parenting, like you need somebody that you can go and follow and be accountable to and check in with from time to time. So, no, I don't think you ever arrive. Boy, I talk, huh?
SPEAKER_04I forgot the question. I'm glad he remembered it. I don't know what's going on. Spencer wrote it just won't go. He just texted it to me. Spencer just texted it to me. I guess. Spencer, dude. No, I mean I I think the whole the whole theme of of everything that you've been talking about and a lot of the stuff that we talk about when we do get serious on this podcast is is all back to that idea of being of having humility and understanding that you know my reaction to things are on me, not on anybody else. And so when you have when you are humble enough to take advice from someone that you consider is a leader, and then don't overreact and take the advice that you know. I mean, you all of us, all four of us in here have had difficult conversations with you at one point or another. At one point. Spencer. Speak to yourself. Spencer never has you definitely have. Oh yeah. He's at a couple, he's at a couple. I know I have in multiple different contexts. I know I have. But I think that when, and maybe sometimes at first, when you hear it, like you said, you build up that pride in those walls of like, well, I don't I don't want to know this or anything like that. But I think, again, as you said, the the older you get and the more mature you become, not only spiritually, but as you try to grow as a leader, it's that humility of like, man, this person's been there, they've done that, they've they've understood it, and I think having people like that to look up to um is such an important an important thing uh in our lives. And I know it is, of course, being in youth ministry and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_05I think the other kind of like piggyback question that I wanted to ask you is like as a leader, then of like you're you're in charge of all of us, like you're in charge of like our our staff, but then eventually like our church, like does that like how do you deal with the weight of that, like as a leader? Like, how do you deal with the responsibility of that? Like, is that something that at first it you were like, oh, this is like this is great because our church was smaller, and then that things get things get and now it's oh there's a lot more moving pieces to these different things, but how do you deal with the the weight and the responsibility of that?
SPEAKER_00Look, you know, the simple answer is obviously you know you have to lean on the Lord. You again, you you have to I'm gonna sound like a broken record here. You have to constantly see yourself as a follower, not the leader. So in many ways, and I know we joke about it, I don't view myself as a leader most days. Um I'm just one of the people here, I'm one of the guys. I don't get caught up in titles or you know who's in charge or whatever else. I look, yes, at some point someone's got to make a decision. And if you're the leader, you have to make that decision and live with it. Um, but if you can keep a team concept and keep people's input in your lives, some of that stress leaves, obviously, because why? Because we're making a decision as a corporate sense in a corporate sense instead of it's all on my shoulders. Having said that, look, as you grow in leadership, part of leadership is carrying a responsibility. Um, and but it fortunately I it doesn't happen overnight. And it's no one steps into this huge leadership role. No one, you know, no one jumps into pastoring, you know, 2,000 people. Oh, I'm the pastor of a church of 2,000. No, no, no, no one that was never anybody's first job. You know, you don't graduate Bible school, or you go, oh, I'm going to church, pastor a church of 2,000 people. And it was like, you know, that's not how it starts. You start with 25, you start with 50. Um Spencer, you got eight, 10 people working in a media department. You know, there are churches that have a media department with 150 people in the media department. There are organizations with, you know, hundreds of people in a media department. Does that guy have more stress and more responsibility? Yes. Um, but so you you grow into those things, which I think is, you know, look how nature works. Like, this is how nature works. You start slow and you grow. Um having said that, yes, at some point you will reach a moment where there will be days when the weight of the leadership and the responsibility of it weighs heavy on you. Um and that is in different realms. For me, uh that sometimes that's the spiritual weight of, you know, look, I have this incredible responsibility as a pastor that I have to answer to the Lord for how we lead these sheep, how we lead this church, how I lead my staff, what kind of life I live, uh, you know, how productive are we? What have we got done for the kingdom? And so those things, you know, weigh on your shoulders. And and they should. I'm not because I don't think there's an easy out here. I don't think there's like, oh, do this and you won't feel it. I I don't I don't think there is. This is part of leadership. You have to suck it up and figure out, just like when look, you guys are newer parents, not him so much, but you know, you're newer parents. And those look, you get married. What is marriage? It's a new responsibility, which Spencer will be stepping into pretty soon. Relatively soon. You know, big God help him. Something else to pick on him for. Something else to pick on him for. Yeah, exactly. Right. Uh so what is marriage? Marriage is leadership, but now it's more responsible, it's not me anymore. Now I I gotta worry about we. Uh oh, wait a second. And then shortly after we're married, we start talking about maybe kids, maybe that. And look, you have a baby, and all of a sudden, I you know, I I remember when Luke was born. I there's a lot of a lot of things I remember, but I remember when Luke was born. I remember leaving the hospital, and I can tell you before God, I left the hospital, I went home, and I wept because I'm a crier. I wept, and I'll tell you what I wept about. I don't know how to do this. I'm not gonna be good at this. I was a terrible human being as a boy, as a teenager, as a kid in school. I thought if he turns out like me, I will kill him. You know, I don't I don't know how to do this. Like I don't know how to do this. Which again, uh that's that humility again, is I don't know how to do it. So what? So buy a book, listen to a podcast, listen to somebody who does it better than you, get advice, do all those things. But is the weight of parenting always there? And I was like, You got a little kid, you got teenagers, you got young kids. And I was like, I he's 40, what are you? 40. He's 40 years old. I would lie to you if I told you, oh yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't feel any responsibility for him anymore. I don't worry about him. I don't worry about his spiritual future, his financial future, I don't worry about what his life will be like 10 years from now. He'll tell you, I I worry about him more than he worries about himself. He's an idiot most of the time. Yeah, he doesn't worry about stuff. Dad, I don't have to worry about it. Luke, you should be concerned. Dad, I'm not worried about it. I'm like, why? Because you're worrying about it. I know you'll take care of it, Dad. I'm like, okay, great. So whether it's pastoring, parenting, uh, or any aspect of life, uh there comes a weight that is spiritual, um, that is physical. You have this physical responsibility. And can I say also financially? Um, you know, there's the financial responsibility of leadership, which is look, whether if that's marriage, do I make enough money for us to survive? Am I the breadwinner? Um, am I the man that God wants me to be? I'm not saying women can't work, God bless them if they can, and we do and help, and some women make more than men. Wonderful. It's great. I'm not that's not what I'm talking about. But am I am I responsible? Is that a weight on my shoulders? You know, it's like, uh yeah, I gotta do it. I gotta, we can't get in debt. We gotta, I gotta be the leader in this realm, in other words. Um, and so that's true in a marriage, it's true in a church staff, it's true in so yeah. Do I do I lay in bed at night sometimes and think to myself, man, payroll, I gotta make payroll. I got everybody who works here, every everybody who works here feeds their family, provides for their kids, for provides for their homes or futures, whatever else, based on what? Based on we have to be successful to some degree in what we do financially so that those things can be taken care of. And when you have someone who works for you, uh that doesn't have to be a church. I mean, you I for me, that's where I'm at. But if you run any kind of business, in other words, the moment you have employees, I'm responsible for them now. Yeah. If you're a good employer. Now, again, look, we started off. There are bad leaders. Yeah, yeah. You could be a really bad leader. You can raid the the mutual fund, the retirement fund, and don't care about your employees and treat them like dirt. You're not a great leader. You're a leader because you're doing some things that make you a leader, but you're not a great leader. But to be a great leader, I think means that you have to carry the weight of that responsibility. There is no easy out. You don't get to go, oh yeah, no, I've learned how to cope with that. No, it and as you grow, it becomes more. But with God's help and his grace, if you stay a follower and stay humble, he'll help you carry it.
SPEAKER_04It's a lot of responsibility. It is. It's a lot of responsibility. Yeah. I mean, that's what being a leader is, right? I mean, it's it's a it's a lot of big part of it.
SPEAKER_05I'm glad you touched on those other things because like parenting and marriage and different things like that, because that affects a lot of the people. It's like everybody, yeah. We're not talking to people that have 2,000 people that they're responsible for or different things, but they are responsible for somebody. You know what I mean? They are a leader. They if you're if you've been thrust in a little bit. Everybody's a leader, it's everybody's a leader somewhere. Yeah, you have influence over, and it's like it's it's good, it applies in every situation, big or small. So I like that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I think the cool part, I mean, not to, as the kids say, glaze you, but um I got a teenager. You didn't even need to teach me. I got a teenager at home. I got a teenager at home. I don't even know. Yeah, man. Clock it.
SPEAKER_03Um okay.
SPEAKER_04I think I I think too, you know, uh in uh because I've seen it in my own life with like friends of mine, and and I I know we both have with friends of ours and stuff like that, is you know, our brain goes to ministry, and so we've seen I've seen pastors neglect their kids or their families because of their ministry. I've seen you know, businessmen neglect their kids or their family because of their businesses, vice versa, and all that. I think that having you as an example, not just to me as my dad, but to all of us as our leader here, is that you do a really good job of prioritizing the things that you need to prioritize in the correct order that you need to prioritize them in. Um, and I think that again that creates a weight of responsibility of yeah, I have all these sheep, I have this church, I have a wife, I have a son, I have all these things. Um but I guess the the question to that is how how does the how does the balance take place? Is there is there seasons where it's you know one's more than the other, or is there a balance of every day where you wake up, you know, I'm thinking in my own life, right? If we're to get really personal with this, I'm thinking in my own life of like, I've watched you build this church into what it is with the help of a team, obviously, but I've watched you as the leader build this church into what it is. But I also are pr am privy to other information that people aren't of you never missed one of my basketball games, and you go out with mom every Friday night for dinner, and you're financially secure. So, like you obviously had to prioritize those things in order to make all of that happen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I the balance is hard. Um and uh to me, the answer is in the balance. So, look, are there seasons where um you have to turn up the heat in one area? Right, the answer is yes. Uh, were there moments in my life when I said, Look, right now the church needs my attention, my focus? Either for different reasons, crisis uh or revival. And I was like, uh right now there's something happening, and so that needs my attention. But if what you have built into the lives of the other people who you lead and that you are a part of this with is their understanding um that look, for right now, I this is what I got to do for this month, this week. I don't think it can be a 10-year, you know, look, I'm ignoring my wife for 10 years because I really got to grow this church. It's like, no, you're not gonna have a marriage out the other side. So you you have to find a balance, and I think that um that that's what it just comes down to. You have to carve out the time, the energy. Um, and it's funny, you know, Paul in the New Testament, you know, he talks about all the things that have happened to him, and then he says, and the daily weight of the church, the care of the church. And it's like, so it weighed heavy on him. Now he wasn't married, he didn't have kids, so got all the time in the world. But yeah, no, in my life, look, what I still do, which is, you know, some people would say, well, that's nuts. But like, so what I do sometimes is is, you know, I'll go home uh in a late afternoon, and you know, my wife's been home, so I'll take her somewhere, we'll go do something that she wants to do, I'll go to dinner. Um, and you know, when we come home, you know, are there nights when I say, hey, look, babe, you know, you can watch a little TV. I gotta go in my office here at home and you know, I gotta do a little work. I gotta, I gotta catch up on some things. Um and that I I don't like I said, you can't, I haven't done that for 40 years, but right now our church is in a season of mad growth, lots of things going on, you know, craziness everywhere. So, you know, I I probably this is a a sad thing to admit, I'm 67. I probably work more hours now than I did when the church was 500 people. And it's like, you know, I'm running like a chicken with my head cut off. Um, but but you know, my wife and I we're we're pretty staying, like she's not leaving me tomorrow. Like she's not, you know, you don't give me any time. And I was like, we're we're way past those things. Um so I yeah, I think it's about a balance. Uh there's a there's a business uh analogy that everybody's using lately, the the four burners on a gas stove, and you know, that if you and it's you know, you know, your career, your family, your health, your there's another one, I forget what it is. Who cares? You know, but what they say is, you know, people like Elon Musk, like he turns off three of them and only focuses on his business, which is why the guy's been married, I don't know how many times he's got kids everywhere, like you know, his personal life is a wreck. What a train wreck! Like, who would follow him in parenting or raising a family? Nobody, you know, it's like um I disagree with the analogy that the way to succeed is turn off the other burners, just toast this one and be you know successful, which unfortunately a lot of men do. Men fail at this. You know, we you joked earlier about, you know, now you got financial responsibilities and Spencer getting married. Now it's like look, men are driven by the goal, by like what's next. So when a young man, you know, is single and he starts looking, and it's like, oh, I'm attracted to her. I'm attracted, what does he do? He's on the hunt, he's trying to find a mate, he's trying to find a wife. Uh, and most men, once they achieve that, this is why a lot of marriages fail quickly. Spencer, get your phone out, take notes. Somebody write this, Mateo. Write this down for him. All right, write this down for him. Listen, one of the things that that Spencer's got to learn is that, and he doesn't know this, it's subconscious. No man sits around and thinks like this. We're not that clever. But subconsciously, for men, is we get married, and now we feel the weight of, oh, I gotta take care of this woman and her future and maybe children. So what am I gonna do? Now all my focus, my burner becomes work. I gotta be successful, I gotta make money, I gotta get a career, I gotta get a promotion, I gotta do these things. And women, three years after marriage, five years after marriage, say, I'm neglected. He doesn't care about me, he doesn't have any time for me. It's not like when we were dating. And the guy is like, What? What I'm doing my job. My job was to get you, I got you, done. The hunt has changed. Yeah, the hunt has changed. Like, I got you, captured that, you're on the wall. Let me go over here and and and do what I got to do next, in other words. So, no, I I think that one of the smartest things you can do is figure out how to keep the burners level. Like you can burn all four. You can you can do this with an understanding, and I appreciate you saying, Luke, I never missed a game. Um, I probably did miss one. And Harper reminded me the other day that I didn't go to Grandparents' Day last year. No, you left early. You left early. She was she was really quick. You left early, you know. I said, I was there, but yeah, you left early because I had to do some stuff at the church. I had a meeting I had to get to about the town zoning thing. Um, so I I look, even Harper is old enough for me to say to her, you know that I love you, right? And I'm here for you right now, and I'll be back tomorrow with 100% focus on you, but I can't stay here today. I have to go to this meeting that's like super important. And I I think sometimes in leadership, if you explain that to people, like those just don't move with your charismatic personality, like boom, I'm going 100 miles an hour. If you stop and explain yourself to people, I I think they can relate and understand that. I think there were probably times when you were a teenager, Luke, or in college, where I you know let you down or focus too much on a church event. Um but I think we probably talked about it and you were cool with it and you knew you know it doesn't matter, dad will be there when we gotta go do this thing in other words. So I I think communication is a big part of it, but yeah, no, uh it's about balance, and I don't think there's uh one answer for everybody you gotta keep your eye on the ball.
SPEAKER_04Well, I don't even know what time it is, but I know that you have an important meeting that you I gotta go. This is all the time I got for you. That's it.
SPEAKER_00I got other things to do. I don't care about you.
SPEAKER_04That's it. What time is it? 12 30. 1240. Oh, 12 40. Oh, here you gotta go. Well, I I I mean, I learned something. That was great. That was awesome. I learned something. I always learn something.
SPEAKER_00Wait, where's the funny part? Are we gonna do something stupid? I got too. We thought you had to go. No, I got listen, man. My favorite part of the whole podcast is when you guys go.
SPEAKER_05His priority is right now, right here, right now.
SPEAKER_00Listen, I've I've talked about serious issues. Let's make fun of Spencer some more. We've told him he can have a mic and a camera.
SPEAKER_03He kept he keeps saying he's not. He didn't want to have a leader.
SPEAKER_02He doesn't want to keep it.
unknownGuys, I just want to be on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03That's funny.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can have him on the podcast with his fiance. That would be fun. Yeah. Wedding planning.
SPEAKER_02I'll tell more 21 questions.
SPEAKER_05Oh, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay. I have three options we can choose from. Oh, that's good. I like options.
SPEAKER_04I like options, especially when Mateo is finding the game.
SPEAKER_02There's there's safe ones. So the safe one would be like guess the object. So 20 yes or no questions have to think of something, and we'll whoever's coming up with the object. Pass. Okay, what's next? There's this one, which I think you'd like. Um it's called Cancel the Movie. So take a famous movie and remove one crucial thing. So the example that I found was Titanic, but the boat never sinks. So it's just like a movie about like people have to. I like that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if I'm like that creative though to think of something.
SPEAKER_02Um, and then the last one is explain it badly. So you could take uh movie, book, bible story, and explain it badly. So uh the example is Rich Guy beats up a mentally ill clown instead of the dark knight.
SPEAKER_03Wow, that is that's hilarious. I feel like it would take it. Mentally ill, I'm not sure we can even cover that again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I don't I like both of those. That's kind of wild. So you guys pick, I'll leave it up to you. I don't know if my brain can do that. That's what I mean.
SPEAKER_05I think I think we'd have to to like go and like find something.
SPEAKER_04That does sound like one like he would prepare for during the week and he'd like bring he'd bring it with the whole list.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I would. Let's do that for next week, and then I'll like your things that you don't like lists, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, don't do that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think you'd be I think you'd be good at that. That would be funny.
SPEAKER_02So, what was the second one? Leave it up to you. Uh, cancel the movie, so remove something from a famous movie that like ruins the plot. You can do a movie. That's hard too.
SPEAKER_00I mean, when you're on the spot, like to think it is it is tough. You gotta be creative. Go back to Family Feud. You don't pay him to do this, do you, Mateo? You do. This is what he pay him. I'm gonna do a half-by-job back or man.
SPEAKER_04He didn't think you'd want to do the game. Go get bean boozled and bring it down here.
SPEAKER_02He didn't do one the other day. He did do one. Yeah, yeah, he did. Yeah, he didn't. Yeah, he got banana in the back. It was good.
SPEAKER_05Jason would not do it. Pastor Jason participated. He wouldn't do it.
SPEAKER_00I know you never had Jason on here. What's up? We don't know what he'd say.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he's a he's he's a wild card. I think he'd do great. He'd be fine. He would get serious. Yeah, he would. He does.
SPEAKER_00He would, he would. He'd get that voice, you know, that's a worship voice, you know what I mean? He's singing on the podcast. That'd be awesome.
SPEAKER_04If you're in here today and you got a need, just reach out to Jesus. I love it. He's never watches. He was moving on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00I was like, man, he was praying for people. I was like, man, he got saved. I was like, man, Jason got saved.
SPEAKER_04I know, I know what we could do. It's not a game, but we I I know what we could do. We since we talked about camp last week. Do you have any uh do you have any oh my gosh? Do you have a camp story that you'd like to share with the crowd?
SPEAKER_00Camp story. And I'll get you. Can you edit this in later? Can you put a picture in if I give it to you? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. All right. We got all the kids. Yeah, yeah. He sits there and does nothing. He finally nodded at me. Did you see him? Uh-huh. Spencer's gonna go do that. Spencer's gonna go dig a hole in the woods and lay in it after this dude. So so when I came to this country, I know the story he wants me to tell. So when I came to this country in 1970, 1970, can you imagine that? I was uh 12 years old. I was negative 25. Wow, that's really scary. Really cold. 1970, my my mother and uh three boys, uh, my older brother, uh Paul, me, Simon, and Luke. So four boys, the three brothers and Jason. Our brothers. Yeah, we're brothers. You said Luke. I said Luke. Wow, did I really? My younger brother Luke. Yeah, my brother Luke. Yeah. Uh so uh we came to America and uh I'd never seen anything like it. I mean, America was like the land of good and plenty. Oh listen, I was a 12-year-old kid. I had never been in a house. We didn't have an inside bathroom, our bathroom was outside. It wasn't an outhouse, it was connected to, you know, it flushed. There was a flush toilet in it, but you had to go outside the house to get to it. And I was like, you know, we didn't have you didn't know that? No, I didn't know that. I'd never I'd never I was 12 years old. I'd never been in a house where somebody had a telephone. We went to the corner to make a phone call. And I'd never been in a house that had a refrigerator, and I was 12 years old. I was we were poor. Using ice boxes? But it was no in the bottom of the pantry there was a cook. And they told us, No, I'm serious. We went to the corner store and you bought what you were gonna buy for the day, in other words. You had no refrigeration in the house. Uh the milkman came every morning, brought milk, and you know. And again, look, it it's different than America because in 1970, you know, you're talking about, you know, 25, 30 years after the end of World War II. And it was like uh Europe was still, you know, pretty backwards compared to where America was at that point. So uh and and like I said, I'm you know, m my parents did not have a lot of money. It wasn't like you know that were there people in England that had a phone? Yes. My in fact, my aunt, my mother's sister, got a small refrigerator and a phone, and we went all went over there to look at it. That's how you know he was like, let's go over there and see this when you open it, it's cold in there, and I was like, So we landed in uh June uh in uh Philadelphia, and a pastor, a friend of my dad's picked us up in an LTD Broham. That was the brand uh the style of the car, an LTD, and we got in this car in July or June, whatever it was smoking hot, and he turned the car on and said, Wait a minute, the car will cool down. And we were like, What do you mean, cool down? Like, you know, and we got in the car and there was cold air blowing out of the dashboard. You know, I was like, What mystery is this of magic? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's like, wow, is this happening? And we went up the highway and we stopped at uh uh Howard Johnson's 36 flavors of ice cream. I had only ever seen vanilla ice cream and pink ice cream, and we got it once a month when my grandmother got her pension little money, and we would go to the store and buy it and eat, come home and eat it right there. You couldn't keep it in a house. So 36 flavors of ice cream, in other words. I never saw anything like it. And and I picked maple walnut, which is still one of my favorite ice cream flavors. Jason, this tells you a lot about my brother Jason. 36 flavors. We stood there for 10 minutes. Jason picked vanilla. And it just makes total sense. If you know Jason, like what I'm gonna go with the one I know. Thank you very much. I'm not taking a risk. I'm not gonna, I might not like it. I'm gonna, you know, I went for maple walnut, still one of my favorite ice creams. I never tasted anything like anyway. Uh so this was my foray into America. Now that's in uh shortly after that, we had pizza. I never saw that before in my life. But anyway, we went to this camp, which I didn't know at the time, was the Southern New England District Assembly of God camp. My dad had been the speaker. The one you talked about, yeah, in Camp Charlton. That's where it was. And my dad had been the speaker for the whole summer. Family camp, youth camp, kids' camp, the whole thing.
SPEAKER_05And was for many years afterwards I just picture Papa at kids' camp just firing broken up. Those little kids are going to heaven.
SPEAKER_03Two of you will be in a field. Neither one of you are going. You little rotten kid. You're both gonna burn out. Your mom's going to heaven and you're rock here. Record number one.
SPEAKER_00Take the mark of the beast, not even a magic marker. Don't put it on you.
SPEAKER_04Also, family camp.
SPEAKER_00I need to bring that back. That's family camp. They used to have family camp with trailers and campers and everything else. Anyway. Uh so it's youth camp, but my dad is the evangelist, all right? So my dad is the evangelist. Now it's 1970. You don't you don't even understand. Bowling was a sin. Movies. People did not have radios in their car because they would not have AMFM radio in the car and listen to that ungodly rock and roll. I mean, my dad was like that when he was. We didn't go to the movies. It was a harsh place to grow up in. This was holiness land, all right? Uh, and so uh on Friday night at camp, they had a thing called the Sadie Hawkins Banquet, and girls could ask a guy to go to this banquet. And it's like so all week long in camp, who's gonna ask people or whatever else. Um I learned at an early age. So it's a funny story, actually. I'm I'm uh at this point I'm 13. Uh and because it was the following year, actually. I'm 13 at camp, and I I ended up I was Camp King with a girl who was uh 18 in Camp Queen. I've always liked older women, which is why I married your mother. But anyway, uh so she'll get a kick out of that. You jerk. You jerk. Uh so my dad is the camp evangelist, the district superintendent is at the head table. There's an outdoor banquet, and uh Hugh Corey is there, the general suit the district superintendent, my dad, the camp evangelist, and all these other dignitaries. You know, it's a big district thing in those days. Great days. And I convinced my uh one of the guys in my cabin that we should go to this dinner uh and that one of us should dress like a woman. Now again, look, this is before transgenderism or the jokes or whatever else, so don't judge me. But I convinced him, because there's no way I was dressing like a woman. Yeah, uh, I convinced him, so we borrowed a dress, a short mini skirt from some girl that was obviously bigger than she should have been because it fit him. So she must have been a she must have she wasn't a little petite thing, all right. So we convinced this girl. We were worried about Spencer's camp story last week. This is the way it works. So I convinced him to put on this dress and a wig and a necklace and work boots. He had construction boots on, and so we come around the corner with him on my arm. I'll get you a picture. I I got a picture of it. My hair is huge, my hair's out here like this, but I got a big head of hair. And I'm all dressed in a little jacket and like I'm going to dinner, you know what I mean? And I got this hairy leg. His legs are almost as hairy as yours, man. And and I come around the corner. Fortunately, uh this another cool thing I said about my dad. Look, again, like today, that's like, ho-ha, it's not even funny. You you got it's this it's 1970. Like people were like uh people were aghast. They were you know, like, dressed like a woman. Like, what is this? Like, you know, some homosexual event at the Southern New England district Bible camp, you know what I mean? Uh my dad, you know, being British and having a great sense of humor, my dad thought it was absolutely hilarious. So I was not in any trouble with my dad. My mom was a little bit upset, but I was I was not in trouble with my dad. He thought it was pretty funny. Um, the uh district superintendent did not think it was funny or appropriate for the evening. And although we were seated at a table, he made us leave the table, and I think the guy had to go back and change and put on his man clothes. But uh, and that guy, the guy who actually did it, I I posted that picture on the there's a Snemmin camp page. There's a Camp Charlton page on Facebook from all the old people and old photographs. It's hilarious, it's great pictures on there. Um, and so so I someone posted that picture of us uh a couple years ago on there, and they tracked down who the guy was. And he's he's now he's some like he's not a general, but I'm I I don't know the what they are, but he's not a general, but he's like a lieutenant commander of some big strike force in the military. He's like a rambler. If only they could see that big. Yeah, well, I knew him when, boys and girls. Send this to his. I knew him when he had questions. I knew him when he had questions. I knew him when he wasn't sure. You know what I mean? So, yeah, that's my great camp story. Now, look, I also got saved at camp uh pretty much every summer. Pretty much every summer. Uh I got filled with the Holy Ghost at camp. Yeah. Uh I got called to ministry at camp in the back, they had a back prayer room. So uh camp was a lot of fun, but also a lot of great, a lot of great memories. But that's one of my favorite camp meetings. I got a guy to dress up like a woman and take him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. We said it last week.
SPEAKER_04It doesn't matter how old you are or where you've been, you say give me a camp memory. Yeah, everybody's got one. Everybody's got one. Everybody's got one. It's the best. It is the best. It's the best.
SPEAKER_00It's been great being with you guys. You guys are doing a great job. I tease you all the time. Mateo are doing a great job. Spencer, awesome job with this podcast. It's great. Blessing a lot of people. A lot of people have a good laugh, but I think they're really learning some really great things. And they're getting to see you in a light that makes you, I think, more relatable and better leaders. Uh I wish I'd done something like this years ago. It makes you relatable to people, which is that that's that charisma part of it. And it's like, hey, uh, you know, we're just guys, we're just regular people. We're not special other than God put his hand on our lives and called us to do something, but we're just doing what we do. So I think it makes you relatable without losing you know your pastures, and I get all that. But you're you're all doing a great, great job with it. Well, we appreciate that, and we appreciate you.
SPEAKER_04Sorry for picking on you, Spencer. And we appreciate you being on, and we're sorry it took so long, but we we're thankful that you did come on, and we're thankful that you let us do this, right? Because I think that's another we're wrapping up, but that's another piece of leadership that has definitely trickled down. That's one of the coolest things about Papa that I remember when he was in his 80s and you'd go, Hey, we're thinking about changing this, or hey, we're gonna start wearing jeans. He's like, I don't care, it gets more people in church. Like, I don't, you know, and we came to you and said we wanted to do this, and you were like, I don't care, go do it. Like the freedom from your leaders to be able to go and just you know do something that I mean.
SPEAKER_00Fortunately, a lot of people are not seeing it, so that's that's fortunately.
SPEAKER_03If they did, we'd have a different conversation.
SPEAKER_00I might I might want to revisit this. The numbers start growing up, we might have to tweak it.
SPEAKER_04We get 2,000 people a week watching you. I'm coming on more often.
SPEAKER_03Uh bless you guys.
SPEAKER_04Well, we know this one's gonna blow up, and we if you tuned in and we're thankful that you're here and that you're watching. Subscribe. Subscribe. Yeah, subscribe.
SPEAKER_05Smash that like button.
SPEAKER_03I say it all the time.
SPEAKER_04Do it. And uh, for those that listen every week faithfully, we appreciate you and we thank you. Love you, Deb. Yeah. Love you, Deb.
SPEAKER_05Somebody said dev for a second.
SPEAKER_00Somebody said dev for a second. Love you too after Uncle Mark. All right, that's it for this video. See you next week.