Episode 286 - Kevin Tracy, "Church, Community, and the Challenges of Change"

Welcome back to another episode on Restoring the Soul with Michael John Cusick. In today's episode, we dive into deep end of church ministry and more specifically, the challenging transition between pastoral roles and secular roles. We explore the complex dynamics of leaving the community you've shepherded - the pain, resentment, and pressure to support still a church you've supposedly been let go from.

Our guest today is Kevin Tracy, a former designer at Hallmark. He then spent his significant years in Peru involved in the church community, half of which was spent pastoring various churches upon his return to the States. He offers coaching programs to help people integrate Scripture into the workplace and navigate the transition process after leaving the ministry.

We discuss the tension between meeting immediate needs and thinking long-term, the value of counseling, and personal experiences of trauma. We also underscore the skills gained through ministry roles that are transferrable and valuable in the marketplace. Kevin talks about his six essential steps for transitioning out of ministry, starting with clarifying the reason for leaving.

We touch on controversial themes, including challenges posed by non-disclosure agreements and bullying tactics used by organizations. We end by sharing the resourceful website noholyhandcuffs.com and discussing the importance of creating a safe space for vulnerability, taking ownership of healing, and envisioning a healthier, more fulfilling future.

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Transcript

Kevin Tracy: 0:01

You can leave and just leave in a huff. You know, my friend that left the church that I came to take over. I talked to someone that was there when he he preached his last sermon he, he preached a message to have a King James braid, said Amen, walked down from the pulpit, walked out the front door, got in a U haul truck and drove his family back to where they can come from originally, and didn't say a word to anyone and left a gaping wound. Now he was he had been abused. He had, he had suffered massive trauma that had not been addressed for years. And luckily he found some good help and got good counsel. And, and we follow it up since then. And he's he's a good man. He has an incredible heart for ministry. But he was he was railroaded out. And so he ranted the only way he knew how.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 0:59

Kevin Tracy, welcome to the restoring the soul program. Thanks for having me. I've known you 15 to 17 years, something like that. Yeah, we're trying to do the math. And to figure all of that out, you have been a graphic designer, you have been our web developer, you have been our media guru. You've also in the last couple of years, become one of the key players in staffing are restoring the soul intensive weekend. But your background, in addition to being literally an award winning artist when you worked at Hallmark back in the day, right? You were a missionary, and the pastor, and that's what we're going to talk about today. And what we're going to talk about is this writing that you've been doing and the website that you have, and the ministry that God's called you to do to help pastors transition out of ministry, right? Little bit of a uncomfortable topic to talk about. We talked about this a little bit before I hit record, but it's like, really, should we be talking about helping people get out of ministry, I mean, it's just the other way around. But of course, in the line of work, where you've been doing a lot of personal work and the kind of work you do at our intensive weekend to staff and what we do around here, we see people that are broken, burned out, spiritually abused, organizationally abused, and so there's a great need. And that's why I've had you on the podcast today. But let's start out with your background. Talk a little bit about your art background. And then fast forward to your missionary days.

Kevin Tracy: 2:32

Yeah, I started out at graduated high school, I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas City, Kansas, I'll go Royals went to KU for a few years. And at the time, I had just terrible study habits. So I started out actually in aerospace engineering realized I didn't want to do the math. I enjoyed it. But I didn't love it like I needed to for to make a living. So I switched over to design actually starting an illustration and did well. But I was a terrible student at the time. And I had a note from my teacher telling me after my second semester, third semester, in art that I should probably think of another line of work. And it was one of those things where it was the kick in the pants that I needed to kind of get my act in order. So I took a year off, I worked at beachside records, and took a year off to figure out what I wanted to do and switched over the Kansas City Art Institute was accepted and went from barely making it to straight A's. And my senior year I was hired by Willoughby, design firm in Kansas City, which they do. They were doing branding for things like Einstein Bagels, in fact, the first thing I'd ever did on a computer for them was taking the hand drawn Einstein bagel logo and vectorizing it, you know, turning it into artwork in Illustrator, and Willoughby was the principal, the namesake for that just a phenomenal teacher, incredible boss, mentor. She's now retired. I think she's a laureate for or with AIGA, nationally, and just widely recognized as one of the best. And let

MICHAEL CUSICK: 4:08

me just stop you right there. Because a lot of what you're going to talk about today is situations where you've been wounded by leadership, where organizations have not treated you well. And I didn't know that part of your story about how and Willoughby was such a great mentor and I love hearing stories about how bosses really make an impact on people for the good.

Kevin Tracy: 4:29

Yeah, and that's one of the common themes is, in my lifetime. The best experiences I've had with bosses, have not been in church have not been in ministry. They've always been guys like John Phelps. There was a company called Harrison Phelps curtly. It was the first time I got involved in design in advertising. I had an internship there when I was just starting out at the Art Institute, a friend just a friend of a family was a an account director there so they got me in and took off. I did did well in all those places. But I still remember John would just come out come by my office and cross his arms and said, So what are you doing to earn your you seriously high salary today? And he was he was a phenomenal boss. He passed away a number of years ago, unfortunately. But he just he set the tone really, really good people. And I've had that experience has continued to this day. I find great people. I've just been blessed with having great connections and really amazing people drop into my life from not church world. Tell

MICHAEL CUSICK: 5:35

me then how you went from the not church world to being a missionary in Peru? Yeah,

Kevin Tracy: 5:40

long story short, I had spent about four years running away from God, he got a hold of my heart brought me back through a church called Kansas City Baptist Temple, which changed his name since then, my brother had gone there. And he said, You need to talk to my buddy Tim. Tim was starting a we had been running a Bible study KU, and was in the process of developing a leadership team to plant a church in Lawrence, Kansas. And so it was kind of a natural, but I went to coffee with him. And I still remember sitting in in, I think it was, gosh, what is Perkins, and he was late and got, you know, very Christian of him showing up late but he opened the Bible and started showing me things that just made sense that I always suspected was there, but no one had ever shown me. And I remember I left there, I stopped at Barnes and Noble on the way home and picked up a King James Bible. And I started reading it and I didn't put it down for years. I read it, that cover to cover at least once, sometimes two or three times a year. Just crank through it again and again and again. The church, it was kind of a weird fundamental, it was more of an independent fundamental. The original guys stuff came out of the Baptist Bible seminary and Springfield, lots of roots in the deep Fundy South movement. And I dove into everything. They had a discipleship course. So I did that they had a discipleship too. So I did that while I was still finishing up the first round. And then they had a an accredited, but on site, seminary called Shepherd schools for your school. I was credited through Trinity and St. Louis. And I jumped into that. And while I was there, a friend, I met Cindy who became a wife, and she was kind of the head cheerleader of the church. Everybody loved her. And some of the guys said, Gosh, you know, if you're good enough for her, then we want you to on our preaching circuit, and they had a preaching circuit where all these churches around the Midwest that couldn't afford a pastor would just let them know hey, can you send somebody to preach and every Saturday we leave, drive 3456 hours to Kansas, Iowa, Arkansas all over the place, little bitty churches and fill the pulpit. So I cut my teeth on preaching, you were literally a circuit preacher. I was literally a circuit writer. Yeah. I have a picture of George Whitfield on a horse. Yeah, yeah, there's visiting churches out and in Iowa. There's an interesting, I don't know if it's still there, but there's a McDonald's. I think it's on highway 76, where it crosses 35, just south of the Iowa border. There's a McDonald's there. And they've got a museum built into the walls of circuit writing, history and memorabilia from the circuit writers of the area. Wow, really interesting. But yeah, that's I fell in love with preaching and teaching and found out I was fairly good at it. So while my career was growing in design, I was also falling in love with ministry. And so I ended up my senior year I worked for Willoughby, worked for them for another year as an as a freelancer, went off on my own didn't do that. Great. And then I was hired by two more teachers from the Art Institute. They approached me and said, hey, you know, we have a one of our partners is leaving, we need a new designer Come on, and it worked out really well. Was I old Sanderson, Tracy design. Jan Tracy was the designer. She's still a good friend and phenomenal designer, no relation, as far as I know. But it was kind of a nice, Kismet that we had the same last name. I worked there for two years. And then I was approached by Hallmark. And they asked me to come in and interview and they offered me a job there on the way back to the garage and I switched to became a designer. Over the course of the next two years, I moved from being a just a designer on the team to leading teams to creating new SOPs that made our department one of the much more efficient at created ways of communicating and building bridges between us and like production. Some of the things that had always been kind of roadblocks before I found ways to navigate those. And we even had, they brought in groups from around the country agencies would come in and you know, I didn't think of it much at the time. It was just natural, but they take me out to lunch and say okay, so how did you do this? And I started kind of growing in effect right before we left for Peru. Two years into it. I was leading large teams. I think the biggest project was a$13 million redesigned for all of keepsakes, ornaments, all their displays and in store branding. and all that kind of stuff. And they sat me down said, Hey, we want to fast track to you for creative direction. And that was two weeks before I tendered my notice to go to Peru. Wow. Well,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 10:13

I want to hear about that. But first, I just have to ask, have you ever been in a Hallmark Christmas movie? Even though even as an extra Come on, say? No, no,

Kevin Tracy: 10:23

no. And I don't know. I don't know if anybody that's listening was there at the time? It it was always kind of one of those things. It's like there's another depart. Oh, yeah, that's, we don't know anything about that. We would just feign ignorance that right? It was the Hallmark and we're not even affiliated. That's the other home. Let's see other. There on the other side of the building. I mean, the campus is massive. I think it's like 7000 people. I'm fascinated

MICHAEL CUSICK: 10:47

with Hallmark movies, partly because I have two women living in our home at this time, who you know, but I read an article on New Yorker was a feature piece, it was like 15,000 words, and they film all those in the summer, and then talked about what they do with the fake snow and the putting up the lights and it's just fascinating. And I love a good Hallmark movie. That's a piece of information that restoring the soul podcast listeners may not have guessed. So

Kevin Tracy: 11:14

I've actually never seen a Hallmark movie. Oh,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 11:17

wow. You are missing out. So you tendered her resignation. You head to Peru and you were there with your family. And what do you do in Peru? Six

Kevin Tracy: 11:26

and a half years? habla espanol? Poco. Yeah, I, one of the pastors of the church we're at. I mean, we didn't even touch on some of the dysfunction there. But the guy that inspired me to preach, I ended up going to his arraignment, when he was arrested on sent away for embezzlement. The other pastor's name was Jeff Adams, inspired me more to study the Bible and really learn Spanish he had been, I think, the only American missionary that stayed in El Salvador during the Civil War. And later, I found out secondhand that he was able to work through some very repressed trauma that he had picked up, that had affected the way he treated us. Just unbeknownst to him, he didn't he didn't know how to process it. But we went down, I went down, I wanted to be the best missionary our church had ever sent. And so I learned Spanish, I wanted to get perfect. Got to where I talked to a guy in Columbia one time he came up after I got done teaching and said, Hey, introduce himself as a location, tutor for newscasters and Columbia put more. It's kinda like the Midwest or the upper Midwest. For newscasters, it's just got a very clean someone

MICHAEL CUSICK: 12:41

who talks a little bit like this saying at 5pm, we're coming up with the news. But the Colombian version of exactly one felt as of Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, and this

Kevin Tracy: 12:52

is they've just got a great accent. And I apologize right away. I said, I'm so sorry. I subjected your ears to my Spanish. He said, No. And I said, I actually wanted to compliment you. You're about 95%. Perfect. So I don't know if he was being gene generous or not. I took it for.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 13:07

I've heard you speak Spanish before. And it? It sounds completely legit to me. So I'm not surprised. Yeah,

Kevin Tracy: 13:12

it's it's been 1516 years. So I'm very, very rusty now. So

MICHAEL CUSICK: 13:17

I'd love to have a conversation more about Peru. But you came back, you were involved in pastoring in a couple different roles at a couple of different churches. And this is where this idea of holy handcuffs, how all this played out, was really born there. Give me a summary of your time in churches, and specifically, how you experience some pain and trauma.

Kevin Tracy: 13:40

It actually started while we were in Peru, our church was great for prayer support, great for financial support, but they never reached out. They never supported us in any way emotionally, or they never asked how our heart was, like you mentioned at the very beginning, you know, how's your heart? They never asked us that question. We got our first call from our, our missions pastor. We were on the ground for there for six and a half years, we got our first call from him. Three months before we left, they never asked how we were doing. God filled the gap. But we to set the stage for what happened here. We were coming back broken. We didn't have the support that we probably needed. I was dealing with undiagnosed significant undiagnosed ADHD and all those things, executive dysfunction, emotional dysregulation, being scattered and being able to come up with great ideas that would work and then not be able to follow through or not find the wherewithal to follow through and that that actually fed into a lot of what happened here in the States. So we came back we were considering either going back with another church or another agency or something else and then an offer popped up. My friend Dale had planted a church in wheat Ridge, Colorado, just west of downtown and you It seemed like a good fit. There was a half and half Spanish and English congregation, I could be the pastor for both. And the Spanish pastor was a Peruvian, everything seemed to fall into place. But Dale had left broken by his experience there. And he had told me said, I just I'm not cut out to be a pastor. And he had taken all of that on himself, instead of even thinking that it may not have all been him. So like any relationship, that's, you know, it takes two to tango. So he was only 50% of it. In

MICHAEL CUSICK: 15:31

that pastor, it ended badly where, if we can get into the specifics you had shared once how, basically some people said they wanted to come over on Sunday morning for breakfast, and basically said, We want you to resign. Yeah, basically, what was that, like?

Kevin Tracy: 15:48

I was thoroughly frustrated. Because I was flying, I was finding myself in the same falling down in the same things that I was falling down in Peru. And what was what I never could figure out before, for the longest time, really, until the last few years was that I had excelled so much in design. And, you know, Hallmark, I had thrived I could almost do no wrong there. I mean, I, yeah, there were missteps, and they were things that I probably could have done better. But it just, it was always an upward trajectory. And as soon as I left the corporate world, and went into ministry, that trajectory turned downward. And it was I was always a struggle. And no one could answer the question. So I would ask, you know, what am I doing wrong? And no one had an answer for me, we don't know, you know, just do better. You know, try harder, do all these things that didn't work for me. And having a, you know, I'm the type five, four split on the Enneagram. So I, you know, I like to study and do all those things, but I'm not the most social guy to is really low on my ranking. So I'm not probably cut out to be a pastor. That was the other thing that I didn't really realize, I thought, you know, I think just pray hard enough and teach well enough and disciple people good enough, then things will just work out. And that didn't work out. So we came back that church in a nutshell, Dale had said, you know, grace is enough and Holy Spirit enough, we'll just mash these two congregations together. So the Spanish group, wonderful people, but only a handful spoken English at all. And then on the English side, on the Anglo side, you had wonderful people, but only really, two people spoke Spanish at all. And, again, wonderful people. But what Dale had tried to do is create a dynamic where both sides were expected to act like missionaries and cross cultural missionaries at that none of them were equipped for to call for it. And it was just destroying itself. So I separated the two created some padding, and both sides began to grow. But one of the families that wanted things the way that they wanted them, decided they didn't like it. So they asked me to leave. And I went back to Design. That's when you and I met. So I went back, learned web design, learned all these skills that I didn't have taught myself HTML, CSS, PHP, and dove back into it didn't expect to ever pasture again. But then we got connected with LM HUGH HALTER and Matt's may absolutely fell in love with that church. And it's, I think, most everybody I've talked to would say the same thing. It just kind of spoiled us for church for the rest of our life, because it was such a beautiful, messy, disorganized, chaotic, glorious expression of the gospel. And actually, when I was approached by the last church, I was with Hugh and Matt had just offered me a role as the teaching pastor to Dahlem. And then we had to choose between those two $1 meant that we had to go look for support. But we'd already done that for years in Peru, we didn't want to send you wanted a paycheck. And that's what we went we got at the church. So I became a machine tailor their details.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 19:03

Yeah. So Kevin, you have written an article called Is it time to break the holy handcuffs, six essentials, to leaving the ministry and transforming your future. And I want to talk about that document. And I want to talk about your ministry to pastors that are transitioning out of ministry, or who had just left ministry because they've been fired because they've needed to resign or otherwise left ministry, but you wrote part of your story in this article, and I'd like to ask you now to read that. Would you do that? Yeah.

Kevin Tracy: 19:38

I'll pick it up from the website. It says in early 2015, I was asked to resign I was let go from the church wide served as a missions pastor for five years. I made a ton of mistakes looking for the way forward. And that's really the the the reason I created no holy handcuffs is because I wanted to give other people that better guide than I had let them know that there was a process to do it well. So it was a it was a normal, monthly Munch at Red Robin with the senior pastor and everything it seemed to go well, as he had paid the waitress, he said, The church is going in a different direction, and you won't be a part of it. Let's go back to the office, I need you to sign some papers. Oh, and you can't mention this to anybody. And it seemed to come out of nowhere. At the time, I was almost 50. I was the main provider for our family. We had four kids in high school, and junior high, and I was terrified. Now the culture of the church was becoming toxic, things were getting tense. And I was already planning to leave. But you know, my calendar was not for several months from that point. And I still had to create a plan to leave well, but things can change fast. So with no time to waste, I dove into research. And like I mentioned, I'm an Enneagram five, four, and I just looked for path forward. I mean, how do you restart a dormant career without destroying everything that you love in the process? And I couldn't find any way to do it. There was no website that said, here's the 123 Tons of stuff existed to go the other way to go from corporate or from, you know, from a job to ministry, but nothing existed to come back. And that's what kind everything started.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 21:30

And would you say that that's still true today that there's nothing substantial to help people transition from Ministry into there's

Kevin Tracy: 21:37

a similar room? Yeah, there's more there. There are more coaches, I've seen a few more pop up. When I, I mean, honestly, the first thing I did is I went and googled, how do you leave ministry for the workplace, and nothing came up. And so I like okay, I know Tony Robbins name. So I looked up Tony Robbins and started looking at his stuff. And I was desperate for anything to give me a way back to, you know, some kind of a business, some kind of a job I sent out stacks of resumes didn't get any response at all. And there was nothing you've

MICHAEL CUSICK: 22:12

discovered and put together six essentials for people that are leaving the ministry or transitioning out of ministry and who want to create a different future than than being a professional, religious person. And there's different questions around this. But let's talk about those six essentials.

Kevin Tracy: 22:32

Yeah, I actually mapped out, no holy handcuffs or breaking holy handcuffs seven years ago, when I left, it stayed on seven post it notes that were stuck on the wall next to my computer for all that time. And I prayed about it. And I thought God, I like you mentioned earlier, it feels taboo to talk about it. But I always knew that it always felt deep inside that there was there was something right about it. That you know, saying that once you're a pastor, you're always a pastor, you know that? I don't see that in Scripture. Calling Yes. But it doesn't mean that that has to translate into a job position and where who you know who signs your check, and what you call yourself, that could be anything. And you know, like I've told other guys, I had a phenomenally fruitful time when I was at Hallmark, I got to share the gospel with my entire division, because a couple had asked me to marry them. And that was incredible. But that was acting more like a missionary work or what we traditionally think of missionaries. And and I think that there's a false dichotomy there. That there are two separate things. And you know, honestly, we're all given the the ministry of reconciliation being paid for it's a nice thing, but not everybody is. And so that doesn't mean that you're less than it just means you're different from so the first question is why now, if you're planning on leaving, the biggest question you have to ask is, right, you have to really clarify why I think a lot of guys want to leave, I know there were times that I really wanted to leave and I ended up staying, because it wasn't the time to leave, in that the wind didn't hit a threshold that, you know, it's God calling or I see things changing and things are shifting, I need to plan for something else. It could be circumstantial. It could be theological. It could be philosophical, related, it could be any number of things.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 24:25

Okay, so what's the second question? Or the second essential,

Kevin Tracy: 24:28

the second essential, it's not? What immediately jumps to mind and actually think about this one for a while to find out where it fit into the order. It's, the question is where do you see yourself two to five years from now? I remember when the senior pastor told me I wasn't going to be I wasn't gonna have a job anymore. Two things popped into my head. It's a typical thing you hear with tunnel vision. blood rushing to my head. I just flooded with emotion. The two things stood out to me one is Cindy's gonna divorce me and two is As I can't feed my family. And that second one is where I think a lot of guys get tripped up and they say, I'm going to end up mopping floors, or, you know, we're going to do is yes, yes, or FedEx or Starbucks or any number of short time positions are just temporary nine to five jobs. And unfortunately, a lot of guys in ministry, they don't have degrees that readily translate into the marketplace, which is not

MICHAEL CUSICK: 25:28

to say that they don't have skills that translate exactly right. And that's a big part of what that's a massive part of it. So let me back up, you talk about this to 510 years out, that it's a detriment to just ask the question, what do I do now to keep the lights on and feed my family? So how do you help people to navigate that tension of I've got to do that. But I also do think long term exactly.

Kevin Tracy: 25:53

I separated into two things. So this question is a tizzy. And it's where am I? Where am I right now? And can I look ahead and see myself in a different role that is healthy, lucrative? Well, paying gives me the freedom that I want and gives me the the energizes me not just in professionally, but energizes my heart taps into my true talents, the way that God wired me. What would that look like, and then daring to dream, that that may actually be a possibility? So that's the A to Z. Part.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 26:25

Let me interject, I imagine that as you've talked to people in this position, and I know that you've talked to many people, you know, this is not some fun idea that you have, you've actually been doing this for a while, you're just making it formal, with no holy handcuffs. But I would imagine that if a guy has just been fired, or if he is burned out and frustrated, and wants to leave the church that thinking 510 years out is like, oh, man, that hurts too much. I can't do that. Or I don't have the energy to do that. Because I'm depressed. Do you encounter that, like, you're stuck,

Kevin Tracy: 26:58

you're thinking about the future. That's exactly where I was. I remember feeling like for the probably the first two or three years after that, that I was operating with half my brain tied behind my back, I was just, I was still in trauma mode. I was doing triage on myself and trying to figure out what what happened and I could not see beyond the next year. And that's why it's so important to to take the time to do that right now. Because it sets the tone for something better, it lets you crack that darkness, with the potential of there being a better future out there. But it doesn't give you the false hope of saying what's going to happen in the next two months, because it probably won't. More often than not, you're going to have to get a job that may be a step down and pay. Maybe you stepped down professionally made be entry level in many circumstances. But if you can look at that, within the perspective of where you're going to be five years from now, all of a sudden, that doesn't end up being an end in itself. That's not a death sentence.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 27:57

Flight says the phrase that I heard as that would feel like a death sentence. Yeah, that's exactly what I found this, this really brings up the issue that in a perfect world and a best case scenario, that anybody leaving a church position who's been there serving for a while, just in the role of a caregiver, that you need counseling, therapy, some kind of support. And so you know, an encouragement to anybody. I've got Kevin on the show today talking about this program, because I believe in his no holy handcuffs program, and you can access that at the website of the same name. But also you need soul care. And I'm just saying that because I've been in ministry for 30 plus years, and do not underestimate the pain, the trauma, and if that's not dealt with how that's going to come out sideways, and how it's gonna affect you. Not just in the long run, but probably in the short run.

Kevin Tracy: 28:49

Yeah. And that trauma, if it's not handled well, it can leak out onto your kids, on your spouse, on to the people around you, it can poison your view of the future. It can put filters that are not necessarily accurate to what you could be doing. It's not a stretch to say that, say, four or five years from that point, that you can be making two or three times what you were making as a pastor. The Marketplace pays a premium on for soft skills, that that's kind of the buzz term right now. There may be more but that's the most common one I've heard. The soft skills that you pick up as a pastor are massively in need. For

MICHAEL CUSICK: 29:32

example, emotional intelligence,

Kevin Tracy: 29:34

emotional intelligence, facilitation, facilitation, being able to see options for getting by with maybe less than ideal circumstances or less than ideal resources, making do with less holding multiple things, imbalances, multiple stakeholders imbalance, I mean, so if you were a small church pastor and you navigated successfully, choosing the color of the carpet, and On the sanctuary between the women's auxilary and the Men's Ministry and your you know, your old timers group and the youth group, all those things, well, then you've basically kind of done all the work to be a manager today. Yeah,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 30:13

skillful management. Yeah, team leading team building, team building

Kevin Tracy: 30:18

vision casting is a skill that sorely lacking in, in corporate world right now. It's just not there. And some of the most extraordinary casters or visions I've met have all been pastors, they can show you something that doesn't exist, they're able to take something that's that's intangible or distant from their imagination, or not even their imagination, but a vision that they have in their heart, make it living, viable, and put handles on it, so you can grab it. That's something that's massively needed today in a way

MICHAEL CUSICK: 30:48

that people want to be a part of it is committed to it, which in the business world, leads to a bottom line that that is in the black, and that brings profit,

Kevin Tracy: 30:57

yep. In I mean, just dealing with volunteers, you've got to be able to wrangle volunteers, bring them on, get them excited about what they're doing, have them engage in an enthusiastic way, and do it with nothing to hold over their heads besides just, you know, a smile and maybe a hug or a handshake. Whereas in you know, in the business world, you've got, you know, you can be promoted, you can be demoted, you can you have financial things that you can use as leverage or kind of, to put teeth to the to the rules, you don't have any of those things. And so you've got, you've got to develop skill sets that don't leverage the simple tools of business and use much more intuitive and much more. I guess emotionally keyed, skill sets that just really don't happen right now. I was talking with our mutual friend Jake the other day about the lack of leadership and so many, like the Harvard Business Review, just published a thing on that now. And some of those same issues. Actually, a pastor or a minister or somebody that lead a nonprofit, could step into those roles and bring an enormous amount of emotional intelligence, and connectivity, wholehearted leadership, or it's lacking today.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 32:11

And this goes without saying, but your program, no holy handcuffs, is you sit down with people and help them to identify and see these kinds of soft skills and other skills. So it's not just a matter of making a list of Well, here's all the jobs I could do. Like what we said earlier, because the you know, the joke was when I was working with young life, it was like, you can work with young life, or you can sell insurance, because people were so relational. And you'd go into a high school and literally make friends and have to every week say, you know, I met this many kids. And I don't know if this is anecdotal, but it was told that there was an insurance company where a former pastor started it, you know, decades and decades ago, I think there was probably back in the 50s, or 60s. And he started what became a nationally successful insurance company. And when he hired people, he would send them to the local high school, and they'd have to get the names of 10 kids that they met before they could sell insurance. And that's a good kind of reverse kind of thing, where there's somebody who, if they're relational, there's people that would be terrified to go into a high school and meet kids, especially today. But if you can do that sure says a lot about cold calling and sitting down with people. So and that kind of thing. Absolutely. So there's another question, what's the next question? Where

Kevin Tracy: 33:36

do you plan to leave? So that last question was the A to Z and it opens up the door to be able to dream and I think it's Tony Robbins, and other people said it, but I just remember him saying is that most people overestimate what they can do in one year, and massively underestimate what they can do in a decade. And so it taps into that potential and just realizing that if you build up momentum over time, you can do incredible things. So the next thing backs that up saying, you know, letting fear and urgency make decisions, forcing or allowing yourself to either pull the trigger too quickly to to leave, or compromising what could be a pathway to a larger position or a bigger future for just doing something, whatever you can do right now. It's looking at it through the lens of what can I do, what do I need to do when we bring assessments online? There's a new assessment out that helped a friend mutual friend or a friend of mine developed called the fingerprint gifts and it taps into an assessment that looks at your, your spiritual gifting, and then maps that to potential roles that you can you can find in the marketplace, any number of positions. What it does is it helps you map out the B to y between the A to Z. So looking at it more realistically, what can I begin to put into place as a process, that's going to take me to some for sale right out the gate, what can I get to just keep the lights on, if we have to scale back, if we have to downsize, if we have to make some cuts, right now, that's fine. But if I know that in two or three years, that's going to change, this is a temporary shift. And I've got a concrete plan to move forward. And I know the steps that I need to take to capitalize on my gifts, my calling my natural gifts, my natural tendencies, but then also, you know, just the skills that I've picked up in the years in ministry, I can give my family and especially my spouse of plan that they are desperate to hear. So it's not just I'm just gonna go get a job, you know, roofing, like I painted houses, I laid tile, I did roofing, I helped a friend of mine, who was a contractor build, you know, decks on houses out in eastern Denver. And I mean, I did all those things just to make a buck, right. But I always knew that that's not where I would land. There was a plan beyond that. So it's temporary. The other thing that that does is it just gives your heart that extra boost. So you're not going to the gym thinking this is the way it is. I'm stuck here forever. And I'm done. And that's that can be it can feel like death. So that's the that's the next question. Knowing that there's options is critical.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 36:20

As I'm looking at the article you wrote, Kevin, the next one is who do you have in your corner right now that you trust to help you wrestle with your decision to leave? And this is about not going it alone?

Kevin Tracy: 36:32

Yep, that's a major issue. I think it could be mainly me and my tendency to isolate. I notice that's, I wanted to just get away from people I was suffering from shame. I think we mentioned that. When I left the, when I was asked to leave the church, I was given a three page document that I had to read, I had to agree with I had to take and get it, assign it and get it notarized and part of that document said that I would never apply to a paid position in that church again. And my heart and soul received that as God's saying, I'm done with you.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 37:07

You're fired. That was the death sentence to you. It

Kevin Tracy: 37:10

was yeah, I, my I what I heard was God's saying, you blew it. You weren't good enough? And I mean, for years, I wrestled with the thought like, how bad do you have to suck for God to fire you? And I don't know the answer to that. But I do. That's me. And I isolated for a while. Luckily, just the need to expand my business to find customers. And I was trying to start my own business forced me to go into networking. So I started with a group called service here in Denver. That's just a small kind of informal group. And I started going to meetings and I found that I really enjoyed just meeting people just being around people again, it took me back to kind of like what it was, like in ministry and or in the mission field

MICHAEL CUSICK: 37:59

where but with no with no agenda, no way that you do inside of a church or with the mission field, I'll be at a good agenda.

Kevin Tracy: 38:06

Yeah. And that actually plays into the seven week course that we offer people is it took me a while to learn how to be human again. And networking was a huge part of me getting out of my shell. And feeling like I had to be a pastor all the time. I don't know if if it's universal, but the majority of pastors that I've spoken to speak to it to some degree or another that they're just always on, I have to behave. I can't let my hair down.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 38:34

I can't go to the grocery store. Because somebody might see me. Yeah, yeah. Especially if

Kevin Tracy: 38:38

I'm, you know, if I'm going between departments, and I happen to be in the liquor aisle, or the beer aisle, and you know, somebody from the youth group sees me guess, you know, I'll get fired. And I mean, those are a little extreme, but actually, they're not. I mean, right? That's, that's the reality. You're always parsing every conversation from the angle of is this going to lead to me offering the gospel? Can I get this person to come to church? Can I invite this person to church, there's always an agenda you see people as, as objects or projects, and when you can leave that behind. An amazing thing happens, you start to see people as human beings again. And I found to my delight, that just so many people filled the gaps that I was missing from my contacts in ministry. There was a guy in Encinitas. I just remember he, you know, he, he was homosexual, he and his husband, were part of the group and I just remember, you know, go into meetings and he'd come up and he'd put his arm around and says, Hey, how you doing day hottie and I just that's fed my masculine soul. Because things were really rocky at that point in between my wife and I, and I was not getting that from anywhere else. What it taught me is so many of the things that we go hungry for in ministry, they're out there We don't allow ourselves to experience some because we put ourselves off or we put up false walls or we create divisions to keep us in, in ministry or to the master and all those things. I think that I don't know. So

MICHAEL CUSICK: 40:13

let me just ask a question at this point, because this has been true for so many people I know who have left church, you're not just leaving your job, you are leaving what has become a community, even though it's paid, your children were at the church. And in many cases, children grow up at churches. There's the oddness for your kids that they are the pastor's kid, the PK, so they're looked at differently. They're walking on eggshells trying to behave but so if I were to take a guess I would say that you were asked to stay when you were let go. I'm curious. Did they say something like, you're no longer working here, but we want you to be part of the community go to church. Yeah. So that double edged sword of we love you, but we don't love you. You know, nothing personal, but it's your personality. We want you but go away. And that is, as I've talked with people over the years that really wrestles with the heart. And then with good intention, people do stay. And it's never the same, and it leads to pain and resentment.

Kevin Tracy: 41:19

Yeah. Yeah. And not just for the person who was asked to leave, but for the family, because you have the collateral, the kids sense that something's off. And actually, the post, the first post that I did for the new holy handcuffs on Instagram is a letter that I made, but it's based on that conversation. So you know, we appreciate your ministry. And we know this isn't the best time for you and your family to go look for a job. But you no longer have a job here. And we we do hope. And we pray that you stay, you know, part of our church and continue to support our ministries here. And there's that it's a twist, it really is, when you are told on one hand, we don't want you to surf. But we do want you to tie and we want you to basically continue doing what you're doing for free. Because you started these great ministers, we don't have anybody to replace you. That just makes me so angry. It but it happens all the time. And the more that I researched, the more I started looking for other people that have gone through similar things. There's their entire communities built around, you know, abuse in the church, and they're the subtleties of the gaslighting that goes on. Right? And

MICHAEL CUSICK: 42:31

that's the point Kevin is somebody might be listening and going well, gosh, it sounds awfully entitled, you know that you can't do some volunteer work or or help out or tight. But it's it's not the question of the what you're doing. It's how you are related to and how you're treated as a human being. And the phrase shoot your wounded is way overused, but it's very appropriate in many of the cases of the folks that you're working with. And by the way, I almost said the men that you're working with, but this program is available for men and women, males and females that are leaving ministry.

Kevin Tracy: 43:06

Yeah, my avatar, if you want to use marketing terms is a late 40s, early 50s Male pastor in a white suburban church because that's that was me. So you know, I was speaking to myself, but

MICHAEL CUSICK: 43:20

who's drinking pour over coffee? has a really great beard and smokes a pipe? Yeah,

Kevin Tracy: 43:26

yeah. All those things

MICHAEL CUSICK: 43:28

that would be more than millennial not not only for

Kevin Tracy: 43:31

my wanna be hipster coming out. And but I've been really careful to reach out to, you know, to my my friends in the African American community and run it past them and just ask them, point blank, show me the holes that I'm missing. Show me the gaps. What am I not seeing? I personally believe that this whole thing is a shift back to the early days of the church that were coming full circle, that the church is no longer in the center of the community. It's no longer on the on the, you know, the city square. It's on the edges the way it was in the book of Acts. When Paul and Peter and the apostles were going out. And there was always they they had to when, when the right to speak to people instead of just expecting them to show up in church and then hear the gospel and, you know, repent and believe and tie a bow on it and be good Christians from that point on. And

MICHAEL CUSICK: 44:26

especially before the fourth century, when or the fifth century when Constantine made Christianity the natural religion that so much of the early church was as my friend Dennis Edward says, his book title might from the margins. So it's not just on the edges, in terms of not at the center of a community, but it's the people it's the people that are oppressed, powerless, and that's what's so powerful about what you're doing is that no holy handcuffs has really emerged out of this wound in our lives. Your painful experience and whenever anything grows out of pain, and brokenness and woundedness, it's always really powerful. And that's why I want to support you in any way I can. And for listeners, that's why I really want to endorse what Kevin is doing with this program. No holy handcuffs. I think we've got two more questions on your six essentials. Yeah. So talk about those.

Kevin Tracy: 45:22

The next one actually, that was a great segue into that. And this is the one that I really wrestled with the most. You know, we were talking earlier that, that there are a lot of pastors that leave the ministry and walk away from their faith entirely. I know recently, there have been at least two pastors that have taken their own lives here in the Denver area. I've been at that point. I mean, I still remember going to Ace Hardware and looking at the row with the had the big sheets of plastic and seeing how much plastic do I need to line the bathtub? And that's a discussion I think a lot of churches don't want to have because it what it does is it highlights the fact that we're not taking care of the people that we should be taking care of. We're not holding them well, when they hurt. And so I think the next question is, how do you leave well, and the reason that's so important is because it sets the tone for everything going forward. You can leave and just leave in a huff. You know, my friend that left the church that I came to take over, I talked to someone that was there when he he preached his last sermon, he, he preached a message to have a King James braid, said a man walked down from the pulpit, walked out the front door, got in a U haul truck and drove his family back to where they can come from originally, and didn't say a word to anyone and left a gaping wound. Now he was he had been abused. He had, he had suffered massive trauma that had not been addressed for years. And luckily he found some good help and got good counsel. And we follow it up since then. And he's he's a good man. He has an incredible heart for ministry. But he was he was railroaded out. And so he reacted the only way he knew how and what I learned, and I had to go back and rebuild a few bridges that I had burned. Luckily, there were only a few, you know, something I picked up from Victor Frankel's book. Man's Search for Meaning is that everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, or to choose one's own way. And that when you're faced with something that you can't change, you're, you have the opportunity to either capitulate or change yourself. And so when it comes time, either you're fired, either for cause that you've done something that, you know, the organization or the Church says is wrong, and it could be something as innocent, like I just heard about a local youth pastor that got fired two months ago, because he picked up a kid in his ministry that didn't have a ride to church and couldn't afford Uber, any. There was no I mean, it was everything was completely innocent, but because it went sideways against some by law on some HR manual somewhere, he was fired. He was a sole provider for his family. And it's just ridiculous. So he had a choice. I don't know what he chose, I hope he chose to leave well, but that's the one thing that can reclaim. And I think that's one of the most powerful things you can do to redeem that circumstance is to take ownership of everything. One of my favorite T shirts is from a coach named Tom Bill, you. And he has an organization called Impact Theory. And it just says, Everything is my fault. And whenever I wear to the gym, I some guy will come up and say, Don't let my wife see that. But I love that shirt. Because it It forces you to say this is my fault. And when you can take ownership, then you can also take ownership for the healing and setting it right. Otherwise you you stay a victim. Well,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 49:15

it's certainly looking at the log in our own eye, and stead of the log in the other person's eye. And that's that's hard to do. Let's talk just briefly about NDAs non disclosure agreements, because ending well gets really complicated in your case, these three pages were pushed in front of you, you needed to have it notarized sign it agree with it. And it puts some pretty stringent requirements upon you and in effect NDAs gag people, and there's a movement afoot with a church called Toth and a lot of advocacy groups against spiritual abuse, sexual abuse, etc. A church called Tov was written by A Scot McKnight and Laura Behringer, his daughter, they've been on our podcast. But But nondisclosure agreements seems so non Christian. And so how do you leave? Well, when you're not just fired, asked to resign, leaved, leaving or somehow transitioning out, when your hands are tied on top of the holy handcuffs that are already there. It's you. So you can't tell anybody why you're leaving, you can't tell anybody how this decision was made. You can't tell anybody what words were said. You can't complain, things like that.

Kevin Tracy: 50:42

This is where I think in some cases, going in hiring a lawyer is warranted. My my friend Gary, who I mentioned, were when we were talking before we started recording is, you know, he had worked for a extremely well known organization, as the executive HR manager hired 630 some odd people and then fired 635 people when it collapsed. And he said, twice within our conversation, he said, most churches run afoul of HR rules and regulations. And if they were held to the same federal standards that businesses are, a lot of them would stand to lose a tremendous amount of money in litigation. A lot of churches just play fast and loose with the rules. They sort of make it up as they go. And I think that there's a culture that has developed over the years that just says, you know, we don't pay taxes, we don't we're not beholden by the same rules that have businesses, when the reality is they are or they should be it vary state by state. But if you find yourself where you're under a gag order, a great idea is to go, at least show it to a lawyer that you can trust.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 51:55

And as was the case with you, and so many others, the nondisclosure agreement says, If you're going to get severance pay, if you're going to not basically walk out of here and never get any money again, if that's the agreement. And who would say no, I'll give up three months of salary when I have to pay my mortgage and feed my kids. And I won't sign the agreement. That's a really, really big bind that you're in. It

Kevin Tracy: 52:24

is yeah, and in my case, I had to stay for two weeks, and just basically sitting in my office and have friend after friend stopped by and said, Kevin, what's going on? What's wrong? And I had to tell him, everything's fine. And one friend Tim looked at me and I said, that's a lie. He says, Don't lie to me. And I said, I can't tell you. He said, Okay, tell me that, but don't lie. And

MICHAEL CUSICK: 52:45

then the church announced it. And you still couldn't say what happened?

Kevin Tracy: 52:49

Yeah, the church announced it saying, you know, Kevin has chosen to move on. And he's, you know, God's made it plain that he needs to move on to another type of ministry, and we know that he's gonna stay here in the church. And continue, and we, we left right after I picked up the last check. And I'd like to

MICHAEL CUSICK: 53:10

see a survey of how many times it is said that pastor, so and so has decided to move on and feels called to another situation when in fact, the elders or the organization said, we no longer need you, we want you to move on, etc. I've seen that again and again, but I think that that's, that's probably the majority of the cases.

Kevin Tracy: 53:32

Yeah, that also flows into bullying tactics. You know, you may have heard of quiet quitting the sound of the trend right now, there's also a quiet firing, where you have someone who either who is a peer or above you begin to move things around. And I think that that may have probably been the case with me as well move things around, because it's going to be too ugly, to just flat out, say, Hey, you're fired. And so we're going to, we're going to begin to move the change the organization, change the finances, change your position, change your roles, take certain responsibilities away from you and given to somebody that's not qualified to do them all to set you up so that when we say, you know, you're no longer needed here, everybody will pretty much agree. It's a cowardly way to do it. It's a dishonest way to do it. That's happening more and more I that the article I was one of the articles I was reading was in Harvard Business Review, covering that very thing. What's

MICHAEL CUSICK: 54:32

the last question, Kevin?

Kevin Tracy: 54:34

What's your long term plan? And it goes back full circle to you know, the A to Z question. What are the ways that you can create a story out of this situation that will read like the script of a hero's journey? And we've talked about the hero's journey, you know, the guys like Donald Miller have made an An incredible business based on that, that paradigm, that you have the call and the refusal of the call, and then you meet your meet a team or you meet a guru or a guide, you gain tools, you go through the dark night of the soul. And sometimes that can last weeks or months and my case yours, you go through deep, deep changes. But all of that I believe, is geared towards making you something different than you were in something greater than you were there's a term that Joseph Campbell uses called apotheosis in kind of the bottom, I guess it'd be like the seven or eight o'clock area in that circle of the hero's journey. It speaks to evolving or morphing into something greater that, you know, classically, it was a human becoming godlike or a demigod, and you know, the Greek of the Roman legend. But for us, it just means that you, you finally, reach a point where you realize that this wasn't all for naught. And for me, it was it actually happened within the last year, I was going through a fast and at the end of it, I was coming out and I went down a rabbit hole on a group in Nashville that digs up old hymns from the 17th and 18th century and then recraft them with new music. Jill Phillips was a part of that. And you know, other other groups like jars of clay, and I found a song on there that I'd never heard before, called, I asked the Lord, and I'm sitting, it's like, 910 o'clock at night, I've been fasting and slinging snot everywhere. And I listen to the song. And in it, it says, you know, God, I asked you to teach me about your grace, and compassion. And it seems like ever since then, all you've done is let held loose on my life. And it's brought me to the point of despairing that I should even continue to live. And, you know, the song goes through and talks about all these things. And the the old language is that you you crushed my gourds, or, you know, the enemy crushed my gourds, or speaks about Jonah, and the gourd that the worm smoke using the King James language. And all of those things, a buddy of mine said, Oh, I thought when he was talking about that, it would have kicked you in the, in the nuts. And I guess that fits that actually think it felt more accurate. But, you know, I listened that song probably 10 times, and the end of it is God's sin. That's, that's how I teach you that everything comes from me. Otherwise, you would have relied on your own ingenuity, your own talent, your own skills, and all of those as great as they are. They don't replace Christ. And I think that's really one of the that gets back to one of the earlier things you're saying with especially with guys that men or women that walk away from their faith. Is it so tempting to say, I gotta if you're not going to show up, I guess I'm on my own. So I'll just go on my own. I'm gonna quit talking to you. And you know, the the end of that was, God says that's, that's how I answered your prayer. And, you know, the author's John Newton, the same guy that wrote amazing grace well, and so for me, it was finally not feeling that I was alone. In all of that, that it was, it's it's the same story that's been repeating ever, probably ever since, you know, the book of Acts, that you've got guys, men, women struggling to make sense of this, and that it's all part of a bigger story. And so taking it back to this last step, how do you write a story? How do you how do you see yourself within a story that's much bigger, a meta narrative, if you want to use that term, that's much bigger than what you're at that point you're at right now. And that there is nothing wrong with you. You're not broken and God's not done with you in that, amen. That I think I I personally believe that one of the greatest things that can happen and when we didn't even touch on Zeb Golan and it's a car that you know the paradigm from Hebrew tradition, about the two sons of Jacob and with Leah, that she bought with a man Drakes that it shows, you know the man that's in the business world and the man that's in Scripture as two sides of the same coin. And how Jacob blessed Debbie lon, even though he was a second born before a Sokar, who spent his entire life studying scriptures and was new, the times, all of that. And we, I think that right now, there's the greatest need in my lifetime, or our lifetimes, if not centuries, for people who can go out into the workplace with the understanding of Scripture, like a pastor, or a minister, but live just as human beings in the real world, and take the Gospel to work and be seen. Instead of expecting people to come to church and see it on Sunday, go out and live it out. As broken and followers of Christ,

MICHAEL CUSICK: 1:00:59

that is so powerful. For the sake of time, will you just quickly talk about the nature of the coaching that you offer, because the last part of what you shared about there's nothing wrong with you, and you are not finished, it's that part of your story that this has come out, you're not just a guy who thought, oh, I can make a little money on the side or have a great company. If I put together a program like this, it really has emerged out of a deep knowing that you've personally walked through, I'm not broken, there's nothing wrong with me, and that God's not done with me, and that God can profoundly use you and release you into the world in non full time ministry kinds of experiences. So you do one on one coaching, you do group coaching, you have a seven week program, talk a little bit about those, and then how people can access these resources that are so important. The

Kevin Tracy: 1:01:59

website right now, the the main site is no holy handcuffs.com We'll be launching a couple of auxilary sites as well here within the next couple of weeks. There is some one to one coaching. But what I found is the small group or Zoom coaching, which we all got catapulted into over the last few years, works really, really well. And something like, you know, we've seen on the weekend, is that when when one person does work, everybody does work. And that the one of the best benefits of of doing a group call it forces you and allows you to be seen to be truly seen our own, we're able to create the safety and the security of those closed groups were the people that are in, you know, the on those calls, that part of the agreement to be on the call is that you're not going to share it with anyone else, it stays on the call, we ask people to sign a document a legally binding document that's going to stay there. The reason for that is that that's really one of the only ways to create the safety that's needed for people to be vulnerable and truly say, this is what I'm struggling with. Otherwise, you're always going to have in the back of your mind, it's going to get back to my pastor, it's going to get back to my elder board, it's gonna get back to my denomination, somehow, and then they're gonna fire me, if they found out they would fire me if you're planning on leaving, or if you've already left. And that's a moot point. But still just the rawness of the feelings that are involved are. Those have to be shepherded and treated with the respect and honor and dignity they deserve. So that's part of that we have a seven week course that we take people through. And it's actually based on something I created years ago, for creating a missional posture in the church I was at just teaching people how to be human with our neighbors, and part of pastors, especially getting back into the work world is you got to quit being a pastor. Nobody cares. If you're a pastor that that doesn't hold the cache it once did. It didn't hold the it may in some circles, but more often than not people going to think you're just oh gosh, you're going to be weird. That's the expectation. And we've got to change that. And part of it is just teaching people how to be human. How do you see people as people? How do you become blind to the kind of person that's sitting in front of you? Some of the best relationships I had at Hallmark were with people that would never set foot in the church that I was at then I remember one of the girls tissue was on my over my left shoulder across the aisle and another cubicle and she heard somehow that I went to church and the first words out of her mouth when we met were I hate Baptist that she had a couple of other words in it that I just left out. And she had grown up in Springfield, Missouri, and worked as a waitress put herself through through school and had so many pastors, pastoral candidates leave tracks instead of tips that she just she's like I that I want nothing to do with a God like that. It took two years to where we can actually have a conversation about the real Christ and the real Jesus. And, you know, that wouldn't have happened if I was if I hadn't been there. And the same opportunity happens everywhere else. So part of it is learning how to be human, how to navigate the world, how to how do you actually create a network? How do you where do you do that part of it is assessments, we have a battery of assessments we help people go through and then filter or parse that information. And then, like so many other groups that are a bit more superficial, we do do some coaching for resumes, we've got people on our team men and women that have been in HR that have worked in corporate that can help link the soft skills, and maybe the ministry skills that pastors or staff people have had, and then translate those into language and skill sets that HR manager would understand and see as valuable. And so it's, it's more than that, it's more than just the technical side of things, right? This, our focus is actually much more on the deep, the soul work of the soul care for that. And also, we have access to all the pastors or all the counselors that are part of that have been part of the weekend that are so well versed and so trained in being grief, aware of being trauma aware, understanding how to deal with how to recognize and how to deal with and how to heal from spiritual abuse, that are so prevalent right now.

MICHAEL CUSICK: 1:06:26

So let me just be clear about that, that there's a counselor network of people that are familiar with and on very friendly terms with restoring the soul because they've been a part of staffing or restoring the soul weakened, and they were around the country. And I'm thinking of some of those faces, but if people need to get in touch with folks, all of them, to my knowledge, have done some work professionally, in serving and caring for people in ministry, or who have been in ministry, we need to wrap up. But I want to thank you so much, first of all, for the conversation today, but also for being a good steward of your story. I'm fond of saying that just as we're called to steward our finances, we're also called to steward our brokenness and no holy handcuffs has really grown in the soil of your brokenness, and I'm just grateful. And I can't wait for even if it's one person who is in the holy handcuffs and feels called to leave, because God's actually wooing them somewhere else. I can't wait for that one person to find out about this, and hopefully so many more. So, Kevin Tracy, thank you so much. Thank you.

Brian Beatty: 1:07:36

So we've wrapped up another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. In fact, the heart of what we have done for nearly 20 years is intensive counseling. When you can't wait months or years to get out of the rut you're in our intensive counseling programs in Colorado, allow you to experience deep change and half day blocks over two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com