Leader Connect S2E12: Lance Griffin

This week on Leader Connect, we talk to Lance Griffin, Minister of Recreation and Men's Ministry at Ridgecrest Baptist Church.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Well, hey folks. Welcome to season two of Leader Connect. This year we're going to be focusing a little bit different than on just our associational ministers. But we're going to be reaching out across the state and Southern Baptist Convention to bring others into this opportunity for you to get to know them a little bit and find out how you might use them in ministry in your local church. So we hope you enjoy this episode. Well, hey folks, welcome to another episode of Leader Connect. We have special guests with us today, Lance Griffin. Lance is Minister of Recreation and Men's Ministries at Ridgecrest Baptist Church here in Dothan and becoming a good friend. And I hope that you'll enjoy getting to know him. So Lance, welcome to Leader Connect.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Thank you for having me on. I really appreciate uh having this chat with you today.

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Well, it'll be fun, I'm sure. Uh tell us a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and family, all that kind of thing?

SPEAKER_00 0:50

Sure. Uh born and raised in Fayette, Alabama, about an hour north of Tuscaloosa. Okay. Uh went to Fayette County High School. Uh, graduated from the University of Alabama in 1992.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Uh, worked uh in newspapers for a long time. Okay. Uh first job out of college was in Coleman. Worked for the Coleman Times for three years, and then here in '96 with the Dothan Eagle, various capacities, wrote sports for the first eight years. Okay. Then news, and then editor for the last two before coming on staff at Ridgecrest in 2019.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Awesome. Well, how was that shift going from newspaper reporting, editing, to church life?

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I tell you, well, obviously it's a God thing because all things are God things. But it has been different in working in ministry, and it was an interesting transition because I could look at a newspaper and say, this is what I did yesterday. I could see it every day. I could see the product of my work every day. And I had a friend who's a chaplain in the Army and has been for most of his career, and he said, You need to get a plant. He said, because that's more like ministry. You're not going to see the plant grow overnight.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

There you go.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

And that was an interesting transition because my wife Melanie, we've been married for 20 years, and she would often, you know, say, Well, you know, how was your day or what do you do today? And I'd say, Well, I don't I don't know that I did anything. I don't know how to describe that today. So that's been interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Yeah, yeah. Well, I said you're married. Uh any children? No children.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

We both married late, and so we kind of said, okay, if it happens in the first couple of years, it was meant to be. If not, it wasn't. So no children, so but we do get to enjoy ourselves again.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Absolutely, absolutely. Well, good deal. Well, your your time there at Ridgecrest, um, what is what has the recreation ministry part been like?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah, it's uh it's a little bit different, uh, as you can imagine. Um, my office is of course in the gym on the Ridgecrest campus, so it's sort of away from the other staff, which can be good and bad. Yep, that's true. Be good and bad. Uh, but I oversee the uh the building itself there uh as well as the programs that come out of it, uh, which are summer camps, exercise programs, uh, different other types of ministries, but anything that emanates from the gym, uh, that is sort of uh my responsibility in that role.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Well, I I know that the gymnasium and these facilities are stayed pretty busy, so you have a lot of different activities that have to be scheduled and organized and programs run. Uh how is the day-to-day with that?

SPEAKER_00 3:41

Yeah, we as a matter of fact, just as a preview, you'll you'll see more than likely this Sunday summer or this Sunday, you'll see everything that we have going on from right now through the summer, uh, which is we have four kids' camps scheduled for the summer already. We have a couple of basketball camps, we have a cheer camp, we have a volleyball camp. Not just for the sake of those sports, we're going to make sure that all of those camps are rooted in scripture, that we will have a biblical basis for what we do, and all of the campers will go away with a spiritual truth that they can they can connect to the sport that they like. So we'll do that during the summer. Uh we have uh several other things that go on through the course of the year. Uh tying in with my men's ministry. We are gonna take uh a fellowship trip this summer. We're gonna go white water rafting, which will be a good bonding experience. Uh we're getting ready to ramp up church softball right now. Uh so we're taking registration on that. Uh, we're taking a disc golf trip. Uh, as a matter of fact, very soon. So we've got about 20 folks that'll be going on that. So we try to stay busy, but we don't just want to have activity for the sake of having activity. We hope there's a bigger purpose to that.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Right, yeah. Well, uh networking together, inviting friends to come along, being a Christian atmosphere, and having those gospel conversations as uh opportunity presents itself. That's right. Uh those are all those are all necessary in today's world because it's about relationships. That's right. And sports is one of those ways you can build some some pretty deep relationships. Very much so. Hang with, especially in your case, the men's ministry and those things that go on there. Well, you you also have another interesting uh sideline that happens real early in the morning, I think Thursday mornings perhaps.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

That's right. Actually, every weekday morning.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Every weekday morning. Oh, so you're up real early every weekday morning.

SPEAKER_00 5:37

Every weekday morning. Uh since 2012. Ironically, we're coming up on our um, I guess it was our 14th anniversary because well, ironically, we started on April Fool's Day. Um I'm always reminded of that. Yeah, a bit. But uh a daily sports talk radio program where, as you can imagine, we talk an awful lot of Alabama and Auburn sports, talk about the Braves, we'll talk some local sports as well. But that has that's been a part of my day, uh my weekday since then, and actually before, because I served as a producer on the show that existed in that time slot before I took over.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Uh so it's uh a lot of getting up early. It airs from 6 to 9 a.m. during football season and then from 7 to 9 a.m. outside of football season. So that's about an hour of show prep before I go in to do the show. So that's how my day starts every day.

SPEAKER_01 6:33

And what station are you on?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

We're on uh FM 100.1 and AM560, that's W O O F Radio. What radio. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Well, what is uh what is your interaction with your audience like on that?

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Um You know, it if you have a negative connotation when you hear the words sports talk radio, I can completely understand them because it is populated by a lot of screaming and yelling. And I've tried not to have that persona on this show, and I've tried not to let it be carried that way where we actually enjoy talking about sports, which is ironic that you would think that would be a novel concept in sports talk radio. But we do, it's just a good way to start the day. We don't take ourselves too seriously, and we try to stay on topic and talk about sports and and just um in talk about what we love to talk about. So it's a very laid-back type of atmosphere, and our callers are cultivated that way. Uh, you don't get a lot of the yelling and screaming and putting down other callers and things that you get in a lot of other shows, and so um that's the tone that we've wanted to set, and I think people appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 7:42

Sure. Well, uh, you know, anytime uh you get two opposing uh team fans uh going at one another, there's gonna be a little jabbing here and there.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, and that's you know, there's a place for that. So, you know, we we we allow some some good natured stuff in that sure in that vein, but uh we don't try to make it acidic or toxic.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, well, that's great. That's great. Well, um in the multifaceted roles that you've had, um what has been your favorite part of each one of those?

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Well, I said very early on when I was 12 years old, and I can remember this. Um I was, I think I had, I don't remember what grade would you be in when you were 12, sixth or something like that. Uh I can remember going to a high school football game and and seeing a reporter for the Tuscaloosa News come to one of our high school football games and go on the sidelines and and cover that. And I said, I want to do that one day. And I I thought if I could just cover high school football, that'd be the penalty.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

That'd be awesome, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_00 8:49

That would be great. And I was first generation college student, so all of those things happened for the first time in my family and was blessed to be able to graduate and with a degree in journalism and start that career and was able to cover all the high school football I wanted and more in in my first job. And then when I came down here to Dothan, began doing that, and within just a few months, the um the Alabama beat opened up and got to cover University of Alabama athletics for for eight years, and that was um well.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

I'm sure that was a a game changer for you there.

SPEAKER_00 9:28

Very much so. Wherever Alabama went, that's where we went, and it just so happened there were some great experiences during that time. It wasn't that the football team was that great during that time, that came after, yeah, but uh I just had a blast doing that. And then, of course, being able to write news and all the different people that come in your path and the the different stories that you're able to tell, I began to develop a closer relationship with the Lord and understanding the platform that He had given me. Okay, and as that began to develop, tried to seek out those stories that that were difference makers, and then tried to carry that into radio in which understanding the platform that I had been given, making sure that they know where I stand on things and making sure that there's a uh a field planted for uh for the gospel, and so that has been something that I saw uh evolve evolve during the time that I was uh at the newspaper. So that was probably been the most gratifying thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

That's great. That's great. Well, serving on a uh rather large church staff, uh how do you see your role fitting in with the other things that happen in church?

SPEAKER_00 10:45

You know, it's really interesting. Uh you as you know, newspapers are are dying. The industry is practically, practically dead. And when we saw that was happening in the newspaper world, one of the things that we were told over and over again is that if you want to preserve your job, you need to learn to do a lot of things. You need to you need to to be good at this, this, this, and this. And I think that is one of the the strengths of coming on a staff is yes, your title is recreation minister, and yes, you've taken on the men's ministry, but can you do some things? When you're gifted in communication, can you do some things in that area? You uh you may have a gift in this certain area, so can you lend something there? And even though we're blessed to have quite a number of people on staff, uh we've been able to cultivate the fact that we we have different gifts that we can all help each other with. So I think it's just having a lot of tools in your toolbox.

SPEAKER_01 11:50

That's great. That's great, good deal. Well, in um church life and working with the men's ministry, uh, if you could challenge men in one area, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Yeah, it's always the thing that you're learning about right now that you want to say. Sure. Uh we just got through a five-week uh session on boldness. Okay, and we went through Acts and looking at different instances in Acts where men of God were bold, Peter and John and Paul, and how even in the face of persecution, they did not pray that they would escape persecution, they would be persecuted, and then they would go to their people and they would pray for more boldness, is what they would pray for. And I think we have been in an era in the church where men, for whatever reason, had just become very passive. And I think what we are experiencing in our men's ministry at Ridgecrest is sort of this reawakening that um that men had abdicated their role to a great extent in the family and just community life. And so boldness is a big part of that in just being the spiritual leader that we've been designed to be.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

That's right. That's right. Well, it's not unique to Ridgecrest that uh men have kind of taken a backseat uh in a lot of areas. Uh so it it it is good to see a lot of our churches that are responding with some really strong men's ministries and discipling men, and uh as you've as you've indicated, uh being what God designed them to be. Right. And so that's the key. Uh and so um in in men's ministry and in recreation and keeping the positive attitude, uh spiritual attitude, uh, and all of that, whether it's recreations, men's ministries, or other things that are assigned uh duties that fall into place. We all have that written into our uh job descriptions. Um and so it's it's good that uh God has brought you here and you were um attuned to his calling because I I can imagine that was quite a shift uh in mindset anyway, coming from the secular world, newspaper business, uh into a church uh staff role and making the adaptations that had to be made, but God had prepared you along the way.

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Absolutely, and I think there can be some advantages to having some people on your staff that did come from the secular world instead of just going straight into ministry. Obviously, if that's what you've been called in from the beginning, that's what you should be doing, but it I think it does help having a good mix on the staff.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Well, I I you know I I think that encompasses Matthew 28 where it says as you go, so it doesn't matter what what role you have on staff, church staff, or out in the world raising family, whatever, uh as you go, you're supposed to be bold, absolutely sharing the good news and living the life that that God's designed for you. And uh so but I appreciate your faithfulness and getting to know you a little bit better. And thanks for joining us on Leader Connect.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Well, it's been a great chat. I appreciate you having me.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

You bet, man. And we'll catch you all on the next episode.