Ministry During the Disruption

[15] Building the Airplane While Flying It - Steve Tamayo

April 30, 2020 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship Season 1 Episode 15
Ministry During the Disruption
[15] Building the Airplane While Flying It - Steve Tamayo
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

In today's episode, Peggy Kao Enderle turns the microphone on Steve Tamayo, a strategist with InterVarsity's Creative Labs who's leading InterVarsity's ministry response to equip and resource a national pivot to online ministry.

Peggy and Steve discuss the role of strategy during this disruption. Get a peek behind the curtain and see how exhaustion, balance, and sprinting in healthy ways shape our ministry when we're surrounded by need.

LINKS

In addition to occasional hosting on Ministry During the Disruption, Peggy is the creative genius behind The Art of Venn podcast for InterVarsity Staff (and anyone interested in thriving while wearing multiple ministry hats) ... available wherever podcasts are downloadable.

We've created a website (updated almost daily) full of resources to help you with Ministering Online Through COVID-19: intervarsity.org/online.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   0:13
Hey, everyone, this is the Ministry During the Disruption podcast. I'm Peggy Kao Enderle, and I get the privilege of guest hosting today. And my guest is none other than Steve Tamayo, the one that you hearas the host, normally. Hey, Steve.  

Steve Tamayo:   0:30
Hey, Peggy.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   0:31
How's it going?

Steve Tamayo:   0:33
Great. Great. Thanks for being willing to do this.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   0:36
So you often consider yourself a strategist. And in your work with InterVarsity, you do a lot of strategic work. I find that word pretty abstract. How would you define strategy?  

Steve Tamayo:   0:49
So I had the opportunity to go to my kids' "Bring Your Parent to Work" day sort of thing several months ago, before everything shut down. And I described what I did as I make plans that help,

Peggy Kao Enderle:   1:03
As opposed to plans that don't help. Is that how you would describe bad strategy?  

Steve Tamayo:   1:08
Yeah. Yeah, you could say good strategy, bad strategy. Bad strategy just keeps people busy. It waste resources. It leads to bad outcomes for organizations or for individuals. Strategists tend to be navigators who figure out how to get around or over obstacles. And there's a lot of that these days.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   1:29
At what point did you realize that you love strategy and that you might have some talent in it.

Steve Tamayo:   1:37
Well, I think the verdict's still out on that. There's some days where I really love being a strategist, and there's some days where it's really hard because changing course is hard and obstacles are hard. And not everyone wants to change, including me. Ther are times where I'm not willing to do what's necessary to pivot. And I remember years ago, when I was an undergrad and was leading in InterVarsity, was leading a small group in InterVarsity, and we had no one show up over and over. Week after week, no one show up. And we almost burned down a dorm trying to bake cookies in order to convince people to show up. And it was just so exhausting and frustrating, that feeling of no one showing up. And I remember us coming up with the strategy to work around the obstacle of, for whatever reason, no one seemed interested in the small group. And as we worked around the obstacle, I don't even exactly remember what we did, but it was so rewarding to see a room full of people who wouldn't have been there three weeks before.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   2:51
So in some ways, strategy is the way in which we can turn the tide on something once we recognize what obstacles are and plan around them.  

Steve Tamayo:   3:02
Yeah, and in a way, strategy is this thing that the Lord gives us as we walk in step with his spirit. It's let's do this now. This invitation from Lord, let's do this now. You see that the Apostle Paul, he wants to go into one region and the spirit keeps stopping him. And then he gets this vision of a man from Macedonia, and he just gets this inkling of a strategy that I should go to Macedonia. And he has it wrong because when he gets to Macedonia, it's not a man there waiting for him. It's a woman. He didn't get the strategy perfect. He didn't see that the church plant in Philippi was going to be led by a woman, but he got enough of the strategy to get moving. And I think that's something that we're all trying to figure out these days.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   3:51
And for the past month for InterVarsity, you've been leading the Ministry of Response Team as a chief strategist and identifying all these barriers that none of us have ever encountered before. What's that been like for you?  

Steve Tamayo:   4:08
It's been both fun and exhausting. In the initial weeks after the campus closures happened, we kind of rallied a team together, and we were just asking this question of how do we take what we're doing in person and move it online, translate it online, And we knew we weren't gonna do it perfectly. We knew that there were some people who didn't need our help with it. We knew that they were going to be some people who weren't ready for it, who needed time to recover from the shock of what had just happened to them. And at the same time, we felt this invitation from Jesus to take a step forward. And it was so fun to hear stories of people who received some training, put it into action and all of sudden their sorority sisters who weren't ever available for a Bible study are there on a Zoom call. And it's been really inspiring to hear that. And at the same time it has been a little bit exhausting. I have been working kind of 60, 70 hour weeks. Right now, I work for incredible people, and I'm so grateful that they've given me an invitation to lead and created space for me to lead and have created an environment where they can still be my supervisor and be in charge. But I can bring my unique gifts to the table. But for me, as a mixed person, ethnically - I'm Latino and white - there's always this narrative of, "Do I belong here?" Constant radar sweeping around that. And that has led to some exhaustion. As we talked about with some of our guests on the podcast, that layer of ethnic identity for some of us adds just this extra thing that we're dealing with, navigating, holding, in this time.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   6:05
You know, earlier this week, I had a friend, who is a therapist, express her exhaustion as well. And it's both work, and I think this environment that's unfamiliar. And so how are you managing in dealing with your exhaustion?  

Steve Tamayo:   6:23
Not well. No, I mean just honestly, honestly, like I am, I am learning how to do that on the fly, as this season with ministry is also with life. So I'm learning that it helps my family a lot. I've got four kids for me to get up in the morning and make breakfast for everybody. Give my wife a slower start to the day. That makes a huge difference on the emotional tone in my household, and that helps me feel less exhausted. I'm learning that I need to take breaks during the day. So, like today I got up, I did an hour of email, got the kids breakfast and and then I went on a bike ride, and managed to take a shower and do a little bit more work before I jumped onto this episode. And that's good for my emotional health. Last week I was having panic attacks and I think part of the reason was because I wasn't taking the time to exercise, taking the time to connect relationally with my family.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   7:30
And I think part of this podcast being called Ministry During the Disruption, it sounds like disruption has thrown all of us off kilter, and we're all trying to find our ways back to some sort of balance. And I think we're all trying to find that balance is achievable but to pursue that so that we're not crispy at the end of all this.  

Steve Tamayo:   7:56
I would also say that for some of us, because of our temperament or our upbringing or something about us, when there is a disruption and when there is a chaos, there's something in us that kicks into gear. I was talking to an area director in New York, about this, and he described as New York's hustle mentality. And he says not everyone in New York is wired this way. But there a significant number of New Yorkers who, when chaos erupts, they hustle. And that's just a natural speed for them. And so for some of us, this disruption is an invitation to sprint in a way that we've always wanted to sprint. And the caution there is actually, we may not even notice how unhealthy it is for us until we're way far gone. I mean, I definitely my first month. I'm like, "I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. This is great. This is great." And then last week, I'm lying on the tile floor in my office, struggling to breathe and like, "Oh, my gosh." I had no idea.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   9:00
Yeah, I definitely resonate with that because I think I have a similar temperament for the last three Urbanas I've helped leave the Crisis Intervention Team, which is a group of mental health professionals that respond to 'been told crises' at Urbana, where there is over 10,000 people and were on call 24/7. And so being wired that way. You love that, not the crisis or that people are in crisis, but you love the ability to offer support to those people. I know that you're wired that way, but it was really important for me to take naps during the day when I wasn't on call and to choose out of going to some sessions I might want to because I was focused on serving people there, not just going to the sessions for me.  

Steve Tamayo:   9:49
I find that I need to kind of imitate some biblical language. I need to just not put stuff off, but I need to put stuff on. So, for example, I've had some mornings where I've tried to schedule some off time, where I'm just I'm not gonna work. And what I found is if I don't plan something in those off times, those times will fill up with work because there's an infinite amount of things that can be done. And we're trying to navigate this infinite amount of demand for help and support. And, you know, as someone who's wired to shepherd and pastor, I find it really hard to not say yes to every opportunity to help.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   10:37
There's always a lot of need. And in a time like this, the need is just endless that we can attend to and offer our gifts that God gave us. And I think in some ways, that's why it's so important for us to try to get clarity from God of, "In this moment, what is mine to take care of? And what is yours that you're calling me to let go off and trust that you'll take care of it?"

Steve Tamayo:   11:04
I think there's also some wisdom in inviting others into that conversation, because in some ways I'm like one of those seagulls from the Pixar movies. Yeah, that's just like, "Mine. Mine, mine, mine. Mine." Yeah.  

Peggy Kao Enderle:   11:22
Well, Steve it's so good to talk to you today, and thank you for your vulnerability in sharing with folks. I know for me, I prefer to be the host because you don't necessarily have to go there. Your job is to invite people to be vulnerable. But I'm thankful that you chose to put yourself in the vulnerability seat.

Steve Tamayo:   11:45
Yeah. Thanks for being willing to do this, Peggy. I know you also have a whole lot going on with your responsibilities with Learning and Talent, The Art of Venn. Plug for Art of Venn there. A fantastic podcast available wherever podcasts are downloadable.

Peggy Kao Enderle:   11:59
Not sold. Free. It's free. Thanks.

Steve Tamayo:   12:04
All right. Thanks, Peggy.

Intro & Welcome
Defining Strategy
Strategy as an Invitation from the Lord
Leading Strategy during the Disruption
Dealing with Exhaustion during the Disruption
Finding Balance
Clarity in the Midst of Endless Needs
Closing the Episode