Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Hey, good morning. Welcome back to Grow Tension. I'm Sarah, and I'm with my awesome dad, Doc. How you doing?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I'm doing well. Just keeping warm.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: So we started this podcast. We don't remember how long ago, but about two years ago, but we hope that it's been a blessing to you. I think this is maybe one of my favorite things that you and I do together.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Good.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: What do you. What do you think about this podcast?
[00:00:28] Speaker B: I'm. I'm in it with you, my dear. I'm in it with you.
[00:00:31] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm super excited about the next two podcasts we're doing because we were talking about the six ideas that will help us have the best year yet.
And then after that, you and I started discussing could we talk about the Bible in ways that would be helpful for people to go back to? So maybe the story of the Bible. How do you go about it? So we're kind of kiboting on that being our next series. That'll be great, which I'm really excited about, but I thought I'd kick this one off with asking you a couple personal questions. All right, you ready? Okay. Are you a night owl or morning person?
[00:01:14] Speaker B: I'm definitely a morning person.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Have you always been a morning person?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: As long as I can remember, yeah.
[00:01:20] Speaker A: Okay. Favorite food?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: I don't even like food.
I am. If there is an opposite of a foodie, that's me.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: Okay. You got a strand of Kobe that killed your taste buds forever. So it's like the long haul. But what was it before?
[00:01:42] Speaker B: I like steak a lot before.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: I would say if I got to pick, it would be rib eye.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay. What is something that you think we are similar in you and I, personally?
[00:01:57] Speaker B: How about something positive and something negative?
[00:02:00] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:02:02] Speaker B: All right.
Negative. We're both know it alls.
We think.
We think we know it all.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: When I was a little girl, my dad always has this joke that. What was the joke you'd say?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: I'd say if you said to Sarah, the sky is blue, she'd say, no, it isn't. It's gray.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah, sounds about right.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: And positive. I would say we're problem solvers.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: We just.
We drill in and get the problem solved.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
Yeah. That's been a gift. You have taught me, and I'm thankful for.
Very thankful for. Okay, so back to this know it all situation.
It's a perfect segue because one of the things we're talking about today is humility.
And you and I were talking before this podcast started that A lot of times we define humility wrong.
And Brene Brown had a definition of humility that you talked about in Sunday's sermon, which was awesome. It was on anger.
Let's just say I took a few notes on that one.
For a friend, obviously.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Obviously.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: Yeah. So.
But can you give us that definition from Brene Brown?
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So basically, because Brene is a genius, she says humility is.
You would rather get it right then prove you're right.
So Bernay says in humility in relationships, instead of spending a whole bunch of energy to prove you're right, you would rather get the issue right.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And that is, I think, one of the best definitions I've heard, because I am hardwired to think I am right. Do you think that is most people, or do you think it's a special.
A special brand?
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Well, I've always said the trouble with know it alls is they get in the way of us, who really do.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah. So I struggle with it big time with my husband, with my kids. And I will get in arguments where I am, like, so sure that I am right, and it's like I am so aggressively wrong.
Um, and so it is something that I've been trying to work on and it's hard to overcome.
It is hard to overcome, but it's no fun for the people around me or any.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: No.
I have a lifetime of proving that.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. So I love this definition because it helps us put what's most important first. Yeah. And I think too many of us spend so much wasted energy trying to prove we're right, and it's about stuff we don't even truly know most of the time.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: You know, or we know very little about.
And when you think of this definition and people trying to live their best year yet, if you are someone who struggles with thinking you do know it all or struggles with this idea of humility, what would be a starting place for someone to help think about this in a better way this year?
[00:05:29] Speaker B: Okay, so I'd like to look at this from two different ways.
The first is I would rather have a pleasant, strong, healthy relationship with Shay than to prove that I'm right in my political opinions. And she's wrong.
[00:05:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
Okay. Do you and mom differ a little politically?
[00:05:58] Speaker B: We do.
[00:05:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Jacob and I do also. So this is a area that has been a form of tension.
Not much, but a little bit. Okay, so.
So what does that look like.
In practice?
[00:06:17] Speaker B: Okay, so in the moment we're watching the news, Shay sees something that upsets her and she talks to me about it.
And if I'm humble, I can not agree with her.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: But.
[00:06:36] Speaker B: But listen, if I'm not humble, then I have to say, no, you're wrong about this. Or I have to say, you let this upset you too much.
So what I've done is I've put myself and my opinions above our relationship because she's not going to respond and say, well, thank you. I never saw that in myself.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: You are a genius.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Right?
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think for too much of my life I've tried to.
This is ugly. And I even hate to admit this, but I'm gonna do it. I tried to parent Jacob as if I know better or as if I get it right.
And it's one of the ugliest things in our earlier days that I wish I could do again.
You, in your sermon on Sunday, you.
And maybe you can share with us what verse. Cause I can't remember that you drew this out of. But you connected.
One of the ways we beat anger is by humility.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: And can you just maybe give us one idea on that as we talk about this?
[00:07:58] Speaker B: Yes. So at the core of anger is a sense that I haven't been treated right or it's a sense that somebody has kept me from accomplishing something that I would have otherwise accomplished.
So at the core of anger is my ego.
I'm not being treated right. This is about me.
Humility deals with the issue in a very different way.
Humility stops being self focused and says, what is the right and healthy thing in this moment?
Even if I have been treated wrong, or what is the healthy way to respond to that? Being treated wrong as opposed to my ego shouting, ah.
I'm going to make this right. You can't do this to me. This isn't fair.
[00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, punish. Yeah, Okay. I love that because this is.
This is the gift. When Christians get it right.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:15] Speaker A: You create health where you go everywhere. You create better homes, you create better relationships, a better working place.
And I don't think innately we want to admit we're wrong or humility doesn't come innate. I think it's something you do have to work on.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: I do too.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: And it's because you are.
It's like the first shall become last kind of idea. And so especially when you're hurt, especially when you have been wronged. So I love that you hit on that.
Who wants to be humble? Who wants to. Because it almost feels like you're folding or it feels like you're not.
[00:10:00] Speaker B: You're letting the person get Away with something.
[00:10:02] Speaker A: Exactly. So what would you say to someone who's in that zone of hurt and anger and this person, I don't want them to get away with something. I want them to be held accountable or whatever it might be.
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Well, history has proven over the millennium that that approach just doesn't work.
I mean, you can do it all day long, but you're not gonna resolve any problems, you're not gonna make any relationships better, and you're not gonna be happier.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: I need to.
If I want to live a better life this year, I need to deal with these issues in a different way.
I'd rather get it right than be right. I want to bring my strengths to the issue, but I want to be open to learning from others who have strengths that I don't have and allow them to bring their strengths to the front.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: This is one of the gifts about working at the church on the staff, and we have a leadership team that we work with. There's a lot of people at that table who are a lot smarter than me in many different ways.
And humility allows you to learn, allows you to put yourself not in the place where it's like, I gotta make a name for myself or I gotta push to the top. Like, that is not my heartbeat at all.
And to be able to sit at a table with people who are smarter than you and you can learn from them and you can share that wisdom with others, that's been one of the gifts.
But this kind of brings me into our next heartbeat. But before we get there, you said there were two ways of looking at humility.
[00:11:57] Speaker B: So the second side is we can't.
Sometimes people call, I'm not willing to compete. I'm not. I don't feel strong enough to compete, so I pawn it off as humility.
Or.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: Or you let the insecurity become life.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Insecurity. Right.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Driving force. Yeah.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Okay. But an important part of humility is also acknowledging I have strengths that I'm accountable for using. A humble person participates.
A humble person engages.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Speaker B: A humble person gives their best effort.
And not doing that and calling it humility is self deception.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah. And it does rob you of the gifts that God's given you, and it robs what God wants to do through you in the world. Right. I think this has been.
I've never heard it as humility before, so thank you. This is really interesting because insecurity has been one of my deepest stoppers in life. I don't know a better way of saying that. It has stopped me from Going all in. But when I turned 40, I think I made a real true line in the sand where I said, I'm no longer living this way. It might have been a little before I turned 40, but I had never heard, if you're gonna own your insecurities, then you better own your strengths.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:32] Speaker A: I had never acknowledge that. I knew to grow in the areas that you were good in, and I knew those things. And I did do hard things. So I don't want to say I didn't. It was just.
I didn't do some of the hardest things that I feel like God has called me to do. And when that happened, I.
I came here and I partnered with you, which.
It unleashed that in me, dad. It. It was like.
I don't know, I just. I wanted to honor you. Well, I wanted to be like, we get one life for God, and I didn't want to waste it.
And I'll tell you one small story about this.
So part of our history in the church is you started this and some of your kids have been called to ministry.
And we don't talk about this a lot publicly, but to be the pastor's kid and to be called into ministry, knowing everything you know is. It's interesting because I think the statistics prove that most pastors kids walk away from faith at a high rate.
What is it, 75% of pastors kids walk away from the faith.
But God did something through this church, watching you and mom.
And nothing else in my life would fill the call that God had for me. And so now you're the pastor's kid. You know, all the good, all the ugly. And it is a level of sacrifice that few people will understand because there is no off.
There is no.
As much as we try, there truly is no day off. There's no. Our evenings are filled. Our lives are filled with mission for Jesus. And I wouldn't have it any other way.
But there also comes a pain of people talking about nepotism, or you're only hired because.
Not because of your qualifications, but because you are the pastor's kid. And so that's been something I've grown up with and always felt like it's hindered me from some of the things I feel like God has called me to do because I don't want it to be the talk of the town, that it's just one more thing that the pastor's kid. It's nepotism. And I'm protective of the church and you. And so we could probably have a whole podcast on That I have a lot of feelings about that, and I want to protect future generations from it. But one of these ideas came into my mind about doing a women's event where we poured into the women of our community. We celebrated women, we shared their stories. It was a deep worship night, and I wanted to do it for probably two years, and I just wouldn't. And I remember going to Chet, who was my boss at West Campus, and I remember telling him, like, this dream that I had, and it was, like, undeniable. I could see it. I could feel it.
But I told him, I just don't. I don't want to put up with the fight that might come with it.
And he said, so you're gonna allow the negative voices to be louder than the voice of God in your life?
Wow.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: Way to go, Chad.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
So we put on this event.
It was probably four or five years ago. We did it a couple years in a row. Huge success. Awesome. I just. I still feel the moment. It's just like one of those peaks. And I went out with a couple this week who. The woman there told me that it's gonna make me cry. She told me she was suicidal, and she was absolutely done with life, and she had gone through horrible things, and her mom said, why don't you just go to this event?
And she told me that at that event, she felt God speak to her in the kind of way where she found life.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: And she said, I'm no longer going to live this way. And it's changed her life ever since because of how God showed up.
And I just. I think too often we live in our insecurities instead of, like, God will use your strengths.
[00:18:18] Speaker B: Yes, he will.
[00:18:19] Speaker A: And so you better not let the voices of others or the voice of your insecurity be louder than the voice of truth and the voice of calling. And I love that idea.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: I do, too.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Okay, what time are we at Lex?
Okay, so I want to. I want to move this conversation then to the next piece, because I think to overcome insecurities, I think to have humility when you've been hurt, or to really move in the focus of not being right but doing what's right, it takes resilience.
[00:19:02] Speaker B: Yes, it does.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: One of our first podcasts was done on. I think we called it Grit.
And I think it's a big piece of both of our lives. I would say that's maybe one of our biggest things that is similar, is we do solve problems, but it's. I think we have a grit about us that nothing will keep us down, we will get back up, we will seek God, we will fight if we have to. But we like, if we're doing it alone, we're doing it right.
So talk to me about resilience.
[00:19:35] Speaker B: Resilience will make you confront every problem you have to solve next year differently.
Resilience says, I'm gonna figure this out and I'm gonna work as hard as I have to to make this happen.
Without resilience, we end up looking for shortcuts.
We end up looking for what is the easiest. Can I avoid this problem?
What is the easiest way around this problem?
But resilience says if at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again.
Resilience is not a one moment thing where in that moment I grit my teeth and do what I need to do. Resilience is an approach to life. Yeah, I'm gonna get up tomorrow and I'm gonna work on this. I'm gonna get up the next day and I'm gonna work on it. I'm gonna get up the next day and I'm gonna work on it, and I'm going to solve this problem in the kind of way that things get better.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: So I heard a fascinating study done in the younger generations versus the older generations.
And in it, it said what happens and why they are the most anxious generation that we've had so far is because they've. They do less.
Let me explain.
When you were younger, you would have to go to a person's door to ask them on a date or you would have to do it in person.
When I was younger, it could be a home telephone call.
Now it's online, so you don't even have to physically speak to anybody. And so when you do something less and less, and it creates deeper anxiety when you have to do real conversations, Even making phone calls. My kids and I joke about it all the time because it's such a text and online.
So even to make a phone call can give younger kids anxiety, and it's because they don't do it.
So the less you do something, the more anxious you can become about it. And so I feel like in resilience, it's the same way the less you have the hard conversation, the more you sweep it under the rug, the more you don't confront, the less you want to.
And you grow weaker in this muscle. But the more you do it, the stronger you become.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: I believe that.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: And so I think resilience kind of falls into that category. What do you think about that?
[00:22:33] Speaker B: Oh, I think that's spot on.
Nobody is 100% successful.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: Nobody.
[00:22:44] Speaker A: No.
[00:22:46] Speaker B: Everybody has bumps in the road.
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: The kind of person I am when I hit the bump or I have the obstacle or I failed, the kind of person I am when that happens, that determines what I do after that.
If I am a resilient person, I say, this is just a normal part of life.
This is just one more thing. If I'm not a resilient person, I start looking around and I start saying it's their fault.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Blaming. Yeah.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: I look around and say, this isn't fair.
I look around and say, maybe I'm just not good enough.
And it doesn't have anything to do with any of that. It's really all about. This is just the way life works.
[00:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:43] Speaker B: And if I accept, I read can't think of his name's book some years ago, and the first sentence said, life is hard.
And the minute you accept that, it gets easier.
[00:23:59] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. There's also. It's the saying, the more you become comfortable with being uncomfortable, the better you are.
[00:24:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: And I think especially, like, as you move up in leadership or as your kids grow and you have to do the hard things in being parents, like, there is such a reality about that. I don't remember the last time I felt comfortable. I think there's a knot in my stomach almost regularly now, and I think it's the church.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Well, Paul lists everything he went through. I got beat, I got stoned. I was in the wall a night and a day. And at the end, he says, and on top of that, there is the anxiety for the churches. He put it in his tortures.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Cause you care. It is a weight you carry. You care so much.
Okay. So when you think of resilience, when is a time in your life that maybe as a dad, I'd love to hear that aspect that you had to be resilient.
You had four girls and a son, so you have five kids. Jay was born later in life, so the girls I was. Misty was 17. She's my older sister. And I was the baby at 10.
So it was like a brand new stage of life. But when's a time as a parent that you felt like resilience was needed?
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Well, it was probably when you girls were dating and I felt like locking you in the basement until you were 21.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
Ah.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: I mean, just like any parent, you have times where everybody seems to be getting along well and then you have stretches where it's like you can't have a single supper without somebody being Grouchy.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Do you know what I mean?
[00:26:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. We were so. My siblings and I, we are best friends. Like, nobody will mess with any of the siblings. We are. We are ride or die. We are for each other so very much. And best friends. But we were kind of rotten when we were younger to each other. I remember, like, Crystal and I, we would. We probably fight the most.
[00:26:30] Speaker B: Crystal and I probably still do.
[00:26:33] Speaker A: Yeah. It's probably true. And we're very similar, very strong women, but we. We picked up boxes and we're hitting each other with boxes like we had some crazy in us. And so. Yeah, we were. We were brutal to each other.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Do you remember I used to say to you, these little dweeby friends of yours will come and gone.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: But your sister will always be your sister.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And you were 100% right. You were 100% right.
So when you think of resilience now, dad, and your realm of life and where you and mom are, what does it look like for you?
[00:27:14] Speaker B: Well, I have to be resilient in a different way.
I'm doing the best I can to create space for other leaders.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: So sometimes resilience looks to me like I would really do it in a very different way, but I'm creating space for other leaders.
So I just have to say to myself, this is not your issue.
You have given this person this space.
Now I have to resiliently say to myself, this is not your issue.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And you do that very graciously. I will say.
You have said to me several times like, you're leading this. It's your call.
And I know that, especially in something like the church. It's your baby. It is a child. And so I do. You do it graciously, and you do a good job at that about letting us lead, and.
But you also do a good job of, like, teaching us, too. So we had a big snowstorm. It's like, negative 30 outside right now. It's miserable. We had a big snowstorm on Sunday and 12 inches of snow. And I think every church in the area, almost every church in the area had closed.
But you've never closed the doors in 43 years.
And I think sometimes that is, like, it'd be much easier to close the doors when the snow's. You know, it's crazy, but it's not about what's easy. It's about what's right.
And I think that goes back to the humility piece of. I want to lead like that, too.
[00:29:14] Speaker B: Here's an important idea.
Okay.
If we give in to the weather, it becomes easier to give in to the weather.
If we say there are reasons not to open, well, then there'll be more reasons not to open.
If we say it's just weather, if you can come, come. If you can't, that's fine.
But there are places where.
What we call not bad weather. In Tennessee, they call it, you got to close the church. The weather's too bad. All right, well, what we call bad, maybe in Minnesota, it's just a normal Sunday for them, and they deal with this kind of weather every week.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: But I think what it showed me, dad, is that, like, Covid happened and you physically couldn't. And instead of letting that be the answer, there was a resilience that said, no, we are. We're keeping the doors open. So how do we. And I think that's part of the problem solving you taught me is this resilience of. Okay, there's some realities here, but how do you move forward? What. How do you work your way through this? What are. What are options? Right. If there's just one or two options, we're never in a good place. But if there's options A, B, C, D, and E, then we have. We can solve problems better. And too often we see it as black and white. It's open or closed or it's. It's, you know, yes or no. And we need more options. And I think a resilient leader has that.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah. For our audience who doesn't know we did parking lot services.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: We have a lift here that we use to change light bulbs and stuff. And we drove that thing outside. I stood up on it, and people sat in their cars, could tune in.
[00:31:25] Speaker A: With the radio frequency that the guys figured out.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: We broadcasted the radio frequency in the parking lot, and we did services.
[00:31:33] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that that is.
It's one arena, but I think what happens is the more resilient you are, the more it unfolds in your whole life. Yeah. And I think that's what we're going to get to in our next podcast, is how do you integrate your values into every piece of your life where you are the same person at work as you are at home, as you are at night, as you are with your friends. I, um.
So I look forward to catching up with you next time. I think this was awesome conversation.
Thanks for helping me have healthy perspective, and I hope and pray that it gives our audience a healthy perspective to.
To lean into your strengths and not just your weaknesses, to show humility as you lead, then to lead with resilience.
I love you.
[00:32:29] Speaker B: I love you.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: Thanks for everything.
If you like this, please feel free to share.
Tell a friend about it. We appreciate you. Have a great day.
