Welcome to the Vanderblemen Leadership Podcast. I'm your host, Kristen Heidi, Manager of Marketing and Business Development here at Vanderbilt Women. And today's my channel is our manager here. So we're in here for 27 years before becoming the Associate Vice President of the Way, the Director of Central Development, and the co-founder and leader of the Care for Pastors Network. In this conversation, Mark talks about how pastors and ministry leaders are facing increasingly difficult expectations leading to burnout. Whether you are 10 years into your ministry or you haven't even taken the first steps, Mark shares important steps to take in order to serve well, lead well, and end well.
SPEAKER_03And so we know for you guys listening as leaders, as pastors, that it can be a stressful time when you are looking for someone new to join your team. You're going through transition and all. And as a leadership podcast here, we want to help you in those endeavors. And so with that today, uh, we have a very special person, Mark Dance, is going to be joining us. Uh, he has a brand new book. He's going to talk a little bit about that. He's also with Guidestone. And so he's going to talk a little bit about his work with that. And really, our hope is that you are going to be refreshed as a leader and you're going to have some good next steps for getting that healthy race going that God's called you to. And so with that, I want to welcome Mark. Mark, welcome. Glad to have you here today. Very glad to be here, Carrie. Yeah. Mark, talk to us uh just a little bit about you. Who are you? Uh, what is it that you're up to right now? And then we'll kind of jump in a little bit to a new book that you have out.
SPEAKER_02Sure. Yeah. Basically, uh, bottom line is I'm a pastor by calling. I pastor churches for almost 30 years. And then Lifeway asked me to start Lifeway pastors about nine years ago. And I'm still so I basically went from pastoring churches to pastor and pastors, and I've been doing been doing that ever since, now with Guidestone.
SPEAKER_03That's great. That's that's great. Well, you have a new book uh coming out and really trying to help pastors out there, help leaders. Uh, why this book and why now?
SPEAKER_02Man, you know, I sometimes I've got to wonder what what do we really need another book out there, right? And it was a it was a conversation about 15 years ago that someone at Lifeway said, you know, your first book, because I'm not really an author. I mean, I've been part of a chapter to three chapters contribution here and there, but what's your core message? That was the question. Write about that first, and everything else can come out of that. So I I would I dug deep and then was actually pastor of a church in Arkansas. And during a sabbatical, the Great Commandment, man, it just came alive to me. That was like a face mask moment. If you ever played football with a helmet, it's illegal, but used used to be the coaches, if they wanted your undivided attention, they'd grab your helmet, right?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I remember that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, it worked every time. So, so basically, uh through a little bit of fasting and praying, God kind of grabbed my face mask. And for 20 years, I've been really working hard to be a great commission pastor and uh had success by all measurements. You know, the churches I got to serve grew and was thankful for that. But uh I uh really is so plainly spoken, Jesus said this is the this is the most important thing that I mean, because he was at what's the most important commandment? What's the greatest commandment? And I thought, well, you know, maybe my aspirations ought to be to be a great commandment pastor, not a great commission pastor, because every great commandment pastor is going to be a great commission pastor. Sure, sure, but not every great commission pastor is necessarily or automatically a great commandment pastor, the relationships are not always intact, and that's kind of where I found myself there, and out of that uh kind of reset came the seed for this book, start to finish.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's great. That's great. So start to finish, uh, and really kind of there to help pastors. Who who specifically uh are you did you write this book for? And as God was kind of laying this message on your heart, what what was it that he was saying? Hey, these are the people uh you're going after, you're praying for here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, my my core audience is our tribe of ministers. I mean, pastors, pastors, missionaries, ministers. We all have the same job description, no matter what the title is, the org chart, who's paying our checks. That core calling that we'll call pastor is um is who I am and who I usually talk to. So I would it's a very conversational, practical book, but it's it's uh really more when I think of who I'm writing to, it's uh it's someone about 10 years younger than I am, because I feel that stewardship of helping the next generation not only start well but finish well, and those things are intrinsically connected. And so in in the book come some of uh my uh you know, some of my mistakes along the way. I mean, nothing that would make into any uh on any headlines, any papers, but uh common mistakes that I thought other pastors might could learn from and avoid. So that's kind of where it came from.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, one of those that that you talk about and get into is burnout. Uh and I think burnout is such a dangerous trap for us as pastors. You know, I I remember early on in my career pastoring uh, you know, working long weeks and rationalizing that by saying it's the Lord's work, right? Like how do you ever take time off of that? And I love what you're kind of doing in this book and helping us understand well, being a follower of Jesus is all of the time, and how that flows into our pastoring. But maybe share with us a little bit about just your journey into burnout where it was work. You were finding it as being work as opposed to just that natural flow of, like you said, commandment, great commandment living.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, uh yeah, I'd be happy to. You know, the the fact is anyone who's been in ministry more than 10 or 15 minutes is going to get overwhelmed. So you see, you hear about those uh surveys of pastors that feel frequently overwhelmed. And I think the ones that say they're not are just lying, you know, because it's like I've been overwhelmed for 35 years. But when you're stuck, and that's where I was, uh, that's where I came to about 15 years ago, is I had again the the church kept uh that I was serving kept growing. And eventually we relocated onto uh a campus, you know, 10 times the size of our original campus. Wow, yeah, yeah, I'd stopped growing. And you know, we all get tired. I think we all get down or maybe even depressed, not clinically necessarily, but uh and we all get burnt out. If you stay that way, you're in trouble. Yeah, you're in trouble. And I was in trouble. I I had uh I still had my on button, so it wasn't obvious. But when uh when it came down to it, I reached out to my doctor because I I had been stuck for a while and he asked me questions about the I guess that he asked people every day, and he diagnosed me as being clinically depressed, and we were we were in the middle of that relocation. I said, Well, you know, I I really don't have time for that. So there's something else. Is anything else on the table? So uh a week later, uh a lady, a licensed therapist, completely different conversation came by my office and only asked me two questions. Do you know you're clinically depressed? was the first one. And I said, Yes, ma'am, I I just found out last week. The other is uh you take anything for it. I said, Yes, ma'am, I I don't know if it works. I just picked it up Wednesday, but and those two those two folks came together as well as some trusted leaders and helped me to get healthy again because I wasn't having a spiritual free fall, or even a physical, but in that case, yeah, I'd run out of uh I had completely neglected the Sabbath, disobeyed it openly as as we we're often prone to do, use the God card to play hooky on the fourth commandment and you use all kinds of justification, but I'd run out of gas, run out of serotonin, whatever you want to call it. And I needed some help getting uh healthy again. And when I did on the other side of that, we weren't just able to finish relocation, but really my ministry changed for the better after this caregiver caregiver let somebody care for me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's great. That's great. You know, I I find that so often in our work when I'm talking with church leaders, what we do here at Vanderblumen is helping fill uh those church staffing roles. And so when you're a pastor and someone has stepped out, or uh someone uh, God forbid has had a moral failing, one of the things as a pastor, the congregation oftentimes is expecting the church to run like it normally does, and you feel that stress and that pressure of, hey, we've got to keep this thing going. And so it can be very, very difficult. Uh, you know, you talked about pressing that on button to have those places where you can press that off button. What would you say to church leaders about helping to find some of those places, uh, those people you mentioned, seeing your doctor, seeing a therapist, uh, other places where they can press that off button uh and really deal with kind of what's going on physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, uh, keeping those integrated.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I think that um God's actually put people all around us. And I don't want to minimize loneliness in ministry or isolation, but most of that is preventable. Uh we are usually leading a ministry with people all around us, and there's a generation behind me that I mean, when I when I started ministry in the late 80s, it was like, hey, don't be friends with church members, you know, keep your guard up, favoritism, all that stuff. And like, man, this is lonely, especially for our wives, you know. It's like everybody is a part of the family except me. And yeah, but it's those two people that helped me first were both members of my church, by the way. So these are church members. One of them I've been to China on a you know, medical mission trip with a couple of times. And so, so these uh whether they're in your church, which which is a little riskier or not, there are people that God has gifted and who are educated in areas that we're not. I took a counseling class at seminary, didn't make me a counselor, right?
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02Also made me take a music class, made all the theology, I had to make me a music minister, and I didn't go to medical school, right? So I didn't uh I don't have to be proficient in everybody else's profession, but when it comes in and not necessarily you don't necessarily need lots of friends, but that to to have a mentor, someone in you know, in your ministry lane about 10 years older, yeah, it's gonna take some effort on your part to to find these people that God's provided. They're not just gonna come knocking on your door. Sometimes you have to knock on their door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, I found that to be true in my ministry life was uh when I was very young as a leader in my early 20s, that there was that desire for mentorship. And eventually I realized, oh, I might have to do something for this. I it's not gonna just like show up a mentor knocking on my door. Uh and oftentimes the people who are the best mentors, uh, they are so humble they're not gonna insert themselves into your life, but asking and hey, would you speak to me? Hey, you're seeing me walk down the road. Any signs uh in my life that you're seeing it and really having that willingness to have a good open dialogue and conversation, and like you said, invite invite that to come in.
SPEAKER_00Compensation is a critical component of building a great team and retaining your staff members. Talk to our team today about our customized compensation solutions or visit Vanderblumen.com slash compensation to learn more.
SPEAKER_03Uh that kind of makes me think of just within the book, you talk about neighbors, uh, and and who is your neighbor. Maybe speak to that a little bit uh as as far as it gets into this dynamic of start to finish.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I gotta tell you, this this there's no secrets or shortcuts in this book. Uh I use it, it's about as old school as you can get. When when the guy asked, uh when the scribe asked Jesus what the grace command was, he already knew the answer. He said it twice a day, his entire life, as his parents and grandparents, and great-grandparents, and those that would easily forget, they'd stick a box on their head so they wouldn't forget. So basically, the other side of the great commandments, love your neighbor. We all know that. So we love God in the most comprehensive, all in all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. This he only asked for one, but but naturally, your your your sec the second command, then the neighbor means nearest one. And so if you think of that in terms of application, yeah, Jesus got that from Leviticus 19, right? Love your neighbor. He didn't just grab that out of his top of his head in in Deuteronomy, where you got the first command. When you look at Deuteronomy 19, the neighbors he's talking about start at home. The first application is is is about honoring your parents, one of the commandments. And so neighbor means nearest one. Um, after I, you know, 35 years ago, I broke up with my parents and and uh when I said I do to uh Janet, which is what the Bible tells us to do. And so uh she got promoted. So we had Jesus is my king, Janet is my queen. So that's where that's where the second commandment, that's the the the the basic first step in application if you're married. And if you have kids for 20 years, you know, we had two kids, uh, we still have them, but we kicked them out, you know. And so uh that that they were our nearest ones. Now we have elderly parents who need us more than our adult kids do. And then the application of loving your neighbors uh was fleshed out by Jesus at the Great Command, because that same scribe, after Jesus answered the question, said, Who's my neighbor? And that's where the parable of the Good Samaritan came from. So it doesn't stop with your family, but it does start with your family, and then it moves on to the uttermost parts of the world, right? But there is a pecking order that God has for every pastor. And so in the great commandment, he says, I'm first and then your neighbor, you know, starting with your family. Okay. If you if you if you don't get that right, you're worse than unbeliever, he tells his son in the in the ministry. And then you know, in in the neighbors in your neighborhood and across the world, all those things that we already know are true, but there is an order of preference because in God's eyes, everyone's equal, but we're not God. Yeah, and so when people in our ministry need a demotion or even in our family need a demotion, like we do when we say I do, that's that's when we that's when we get the priorities, Great Commandment priorities right, which also fuel the Great Commission priorities.
SPEAKER_01That's great.
SPEAKER_03So what Mark, with that, what would you say to the pastor, the the man, the woman that finds themselves in the middle of life, and they didn't start their ministry run with that? And so now they they've got all kinds of patterns of life going, patterns of ministry going, different people have different expectations on them right now. And if they just stopped during this podcast and and took a check, uh an inward check, they would say, my nearest are not as near, they're not in that right pecking order, yeah, as you said. What are some ways that they can begin taking some steps to course correct uh so that they don't they aren't feeling the pressure of oh the the toothpaste is already out of the tube here, right? It's all over. But oh, you you can take those steps to create that healthiness.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it it actually starts with leading yourself, uh also part of the great commandment love your neighbor as yourself. Yeah, self self-care and soul care are the same things, the same word in Greek. And so uh I love this passage, first uh Timothy 416. Pay close attention to your life and your doctrine or teaching, persevere in these things, and in doing so, you not save yourself, but save also your hearers. I mean, it's not save them from their sin, but save them from their stupidity. And basically, he also tells uh Timothy live in in Acts 20 the same thing, pay watch yourself closely or pay attention to your life and your flock. Both times he starts with life. And I know your question is about you know, how do you keep those relationships? But if you have nothing, if you have nothing to give, then you're gonna have all the racial relational pecking order stuff in your head just right. But you have nothing to give them. And so self-care, soul care starts with by by saying no, uh, sometimes to say stop to ministry and even uh taking care of, I mean, because self-care can be selfish to, you know, if you right. So but but pastors aren't generally good at at taking care of themselves. And you see from that first Timothy 4, 16 that in doing this, you save not only yourself, you not help not only yourself, but also your hearers, your family, your ministry benefit if you are walking, you know, in in a way that's physically, spiritually, emotionally, uh, heart, soul, mind, and strength. That you take care of yourself. And then from there, those covenants that God's laid out, I'm first, spouse second, your kids and family and your ministry. Um and and then you create parameters, which means you have to say no, which again, Genesis 2 says you say no, no, say no, say no to your parents first. And not all of them, you know, not all parents just love that, you know. They they you know, they know it's good, but then they keep calling or wanting you to, you know, and have holidays. Well, then same with church members, they don't like hearing no either. And the kids kids definitely don't like hearing no. But but as a as a minister, twice in our job description, first Timothy three, it says to manage your life before you're manage your life, before you're and manage your home, or you're not even qualified to manage God's home.
SPEAKER_03That's good. That's good. That word no, it's hard. That's like a dirty ministry word, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02But you're yeah, but when you do, when you do, you're discipling the people you say no to, you're showing them how to live out this life, and some will never get it, some will never go, you know what, you're right, you need to do that, but we don't answer that.
SPEAKER_03That that is really why it's so dangerous to take our cues from the congregation around us all of the time, right? It really is, I think you're talking about what is my inward journey with the Lord and how. Am I listening to him through his word, through the wise counsel that he puts forward? You know, you look at the people of Israel in the Old Testament. Every time one of the leaders asks them to do the decision making, they end up walking around a mountain for 40 years, or they they end up attacking the wrong people group. And so really having those good mentors, like you talked about earlier, and really that that inner life. With that, let's talk a little bit about your work with Guidestone Financial Resources. Uh, it's a ministry that helps leaders find guidance to run the race well from start to finish. Uh, talk just a little bit about what that is, uh, what you do with Guidestone.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so my particular role is I'm still a pastor and I work with other pastor advocates at seminaries and state conventions, associations, and and other ministries outside of the SBC as well. And but you know, guidestone is kind of the financial arm of the SBC. We with it with with insurance, retirement, and even mission dignity, which is for retirement age ministers that need some assistance. We we want to provide financial security and resilience for for all the ministers. We because we we want to help them finish well. And the earlier we get to them, the better, because right now the average person comes to us for retirement planning at 40, and we can't catch them up that fast. And so what if we can kind of like Paul did to Timothy, he said, you know, I want to finish, I'm gonna finish the race, the ministry that God gave me, he wanted to finish well. What does that finish line look like? And Guidestone wants to help them, you know, not only start well, which is you know, Vanderblumen is an important part of that, helping so many start well and get fitting churches and and ministers together and ministries, but but then thinking, okay, how do I want to finish? Not just to retirement, but through retirement. I want, you know, I want to, I want to finish strong. And, you know, financial literacy and advocacy are part of that. So we've try to help them with uh, you know, not only saving for retirement, but living within their means, a lot of things that we are not naturally good at, right? As a profession. And, you know, we're even a loan risk as a profession. And it's like we can do better because we we uh we should. We're it's again managed means we've got rarely are we the most proficient person in the in the room, but we're always the most responsible one. And so God has people around us that can help us. They don't have to be guidestone people, right? But whether you're protecting your home or your ministry with good insurance or you're providing for them for a time when you're not gonna be here anymore. Because you, you know, you don't want your spouse to have to borrow from your kids someday because you weren't, you know, you weren't setting some money aside or you were overspending. And so we try to provide some tools to help them, you know, to be resilient and because you're gonna have some tough challenges, but um yeah, help them prepare for for that strong finish. And this pastoral wellness is you know, the financial part is is is part of the greater whole whole life discipleship, you know, that that includes all the other the physical, the spiritual, emotional.
SPEAKER_03Well, it affects all of those, you know. When when you're in a place in life where you are worried and concerned about money, suddenly the enemy has got you, right? You you're taking your mind off of trusting the Lord and uh, and so he's got you in all those other areas. And as you're just thinking about, you know, to to finish the race well, you you have to have an understanding of where you're going when you begin the race, you know, to to be at a starting line of a 5k and you don't know where the end point of that 5k is, you can find yourself running a marathon very easily. And I I think that's probably you guys encounter that a little bit. Pastors who, you know, they only needed to run a 5K, but but they're about three 5ks in and still trying to get there. And so that's such an important work. I know my time as an executive pastor, one of the things we would oversee is our uh is our retirement plans, and we would give a match, and I would I was so adamant to our staffs. Hey, if if the company, if the church is gonna give you a match, that's free money. You you've got to take. But I was always surprised at how many of our church staff didn't. Uh they they chose not to. And I think that's even for those of you pastors, leaders listening, where you are in a good space with this, maybe you've gotten some help down the road. You know, we we would encourage you work with those younger staff. You know, when they're 25, the power of what they're doing from 25 to 35 is is huge. But they need uh they need those generations ahead to really give that encouragement, make that investment, because uh sometimes it's hard to see the finish line from that early.
SPEAKER_02I I had a guide stone person 35 years ago helped me. I was just coming out of college, going into seminary, and first thing I did, I had a business degree from college. The first thing I did is I bought a VCR. Feel free to laugh. I couldn't afford it, I couldn't afford it. So I this is gets worse. I I go to Montgomery Wards, all right, and uh and I get a credit card, Montgomery Wards credit card, so only have to pay ten dollars a month for this latest in technology VCR. So I end up paying for it like at least twice.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And well, I'm also about to pastor my first church, I'm about to get married in the same year, and I talked to some guy, I don't even know his name, what he looks like. It's been, you know, 35. And he said he gives me a vision of what it would be like to get on the other side of compound interest. And he says, if you put it aside just even a little bit, right now at your age, I was 22, and you stop digging a hole, you do those two things, you're gonna you're gonna be financially independent. You won't have to depend on your family or government, anything. And um, I thought about it, talked to my fiance, is like, you know, that is a better plan. And you know what? That's the last time I've paid a penny of credit card interest was 1986. And so somebody got into my life. And if I, you know, whether it's guidestone, we're not hard to find, you won't even have to type the whole thing out, or someone else, find somebody. If this is a blind spot for you, start right now seeking advice about things that you're not good at, whether it's mental health, financial health, relational health. You know, if you need help with something, that just means you're human and you have to practice the grace that you're already preaching. And so it welcome to the human race. Get on the right side of compound interest and and um and let just let somebody walk it through with you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you know, I I recently got the here John Maxwell in person again, and you know, he's 75. And one of the things he said was, People are, you know, consistently this point asking him, when is he going to retire? Yeah. And he said, I asked them now, well, what is retirement? And the typical answer is, well, when you get to do whatever you want to do, and he said, Well, I'm there, I'm retired. And yet here he is, training leaders all over the world. And what he has seen uh happen in his life is exactly what you were talking about here, Mark. Is the ability to at an early stage in his life see that end finish line. The finish line isn't necessarily retirement, go sit on a beach, kick your feet up. Yeah, it's getting to do the ministry God's created you to do, when you want to do it, how you want to do it, how he calls you to do it. And so that's what I love about what uh you guys do is you help us as pastors be in a position to do that, where we're not uh dictating our calling based on things like financial needs. We're instead able to trust God to provide for the calling that He's given to us. So that's uh Mark. So the book's coming out. We're excited about that.
SPEAKER_02Start to finish a preview, an advanced copy. So it's a preview advanced copy. You can you can order you can order it anytime, anywhere books are sold, and but June, June, June 6th is when it actually is a release date.
SPEAKER_03June 6th, excellent. So we want to encourage you guys to go uh get a copy of that book, start to finish with Mark Dance. Uh Mark, how else can people follow you, contact you, get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_02I'm I'm by as hard to find as guidestone, just type my name in, you know. I mean, I'm I'm pretty active on all social and um not that hard to get hold of, but it's a unique name, Dance, you know, for especially for a Baptist preacher. But yeah, just just look up Mark Dance and and um, you know, if I can help you, if I can help you help other pastors, uh I'd I'd be glad to. And I mean, even this, uh, all that all the donut, all the royalties and everything donated to mission dignity. And there's 2,800 retirement retirement age pastors and widows that get financial help through that. But here's what they all have in common. None of them want to be on that list.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_02And so my encouragement to you is is take care of your body, your mind, your your finances, manage, manage in your life now is not selfish, it's it's strategic for a strong finish. And and um, you know, I know you want to finish strong, so hang in there and don't beat yourself up. This isn't a guilt trip, this is a grace trip, right? Vanderblumen's rooting for you, guidestone's rooting for you, lots of ministries rooting for you, but we can't help you if you don't initiate and ask for help.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, that's great. That's great. Well, Mark, thank you for being here with us on this episode of the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. And we want to encourage those of you listening. Uh, maybe you heard something new today and it's sinking in for you, but uh maybe someone came to mind for you. We encourage you to share this podcast, share Mark's book with them. Uh, and let's get ourselves healthy as pastors, as leaders, so we can do what Mark talked about, finish that race that the Lord set out for us. Well, Mark, thanks again. Thank you. You're thanks for inviting me. I enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Thanks for listening to the Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast. At Vanderblumen, we help Christian organizations build their best teams through hiring, succession, compensation, and diversity consulting services. Visit our website, Vanderblumen.com, to learn more. And subscribe to our Vanderblumen Leadership Podcast wherever you listen to the podcast to keep up with our newest episodes. Thanks for listening.