The Two Callings Every Christian Needs to Understand - Jeremy Fulda | Faithly Podcast

I think one of the challenges is that it would, and I haven't done a lot of study on this, but it would be interesting to look at the biblical and theological role of a pastor and then to see how culturally we've adapted that over time. This is the Faithly Podcast. Hi, and welcome to the Faithly Podcast. Today's guest is Jeremy Fulda, and he serves at one of the most influential seminaries in the world. This is a moment where churches are facing leadership shortages. We're talking about ministry burnout and shifting pathways into vocational ministry. And I think Jeremy has a very unique vantage point into both the challenges and the opportunities ahead. So, Jeremy, welcome to The Faithly Podcast. Alicia, thank you so much for having me today. It's a real pleasure. Take us back to the beginning. How did God first begin stirring a call to ministry in your life? Yeah, that's a great question. So I grew up going to church fairly regularly. My older brother actually got really involved in a church in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. And my parents were the type that were very supportive. And as he got more involved, they got more involved. And then the rest of the family attended more and more. And the change, the kind of the switch for me as I went from middle school to high school was one that was pretty profound. I had several really good youth ministers that really poured into me. And I would say that that transition as I got into high school, I started to get more and more serious about my faith and started to read a lot, get into the Bible more. And so I went off to college. After college, I went to Europe. traveled there for about a month and something happened where I came back from that trip and I was just like, I can't do this. Like I felt like the Lord was calling me to something else. And so I went back home, just started to kind of pray, reach out to different people that I knew, influential leaders in my life, pastors in my life. I took a year long interview, internship at a local camp and retreat. And it was there as I spent that year serving different groups that came in. They would be church retreat groups or individual groups. That year was kind of a year where the Lord was just kind of telling me, hey, you need something deeper. I want you to go on to theological education. I eventually ended up finding Asbury Seminary and ultimately where the Lord began calling me Wow. I love that journey. Thank you for taking us through it. I can't help but reflect on the role that your youth pastors had to play in that earlier part of your call to ministry. We've had over a hundred episodes of the Faithfully Podcast. That's one of the themes that's emerged. So many pastors and ministry leaders, people who are serving the kingdoms, have called out their youth pastors as being really pivotal in their journeys. And so I just, I want to mention that just as an encouragement to the youth pastors who are listening and pouring into young people, especially those young people who will grow into callings in ministry. Yeah, I mean, when I look back on my life, that's one of the things that I can see over and over again is the Lord blessed me with community, but also mentors in my life. It was almost in a way that I could see how he just had them hand me off from one to another, you know, all the way through high school to college, from college, even out of college, and even when I started seminary as well. And I can just think of all and name all of those people that, I mean, I wouldn't be in ministry today if it weren't for them in my life. You told me that you spent time serving as a missionary in Taiwan, which I got very excited about because that's where my folks are from. How did that opportunity come about? Yeah, so I was in my third year of seminary. I had a fellow student that was from Korea, and I ended up spending the summer with him traveling throughout Korea. I went for two or three weeks traveling and visiting different churches in Korea, and then for the other two or three weeks, I taught English at Seoul Theological University there. That's where the Lord opened me up to missions. While I was over there, I was standing on a mountain and I just felt like, you know, I was like, I was like, Lord, if you want me to do this, I'm, I'm open. I'm willing to do this. And so after that trip came back to the U.S., I came back to Wilmore and the organization I went with, One Mission Society, had a representative at the student center in Wilmore reach out to me to come and share with undergraduate students about my experience there. And so I went and shared about my experience. And then that person, her name is Meredith. And I actually got to know her a little bit better. I would end up marrying her later on. As I got to know her, she's about to leave for Taiwan to work in an orphanage for a year. And we started dating. She literally left two months later. We dated long distance for a whole year. She worked in the orphanage. I finished up my seminary education. We would talk on the phone a lot. We would write each other a lot. I ended up going to visit her in November of 2011. And while she was there, we got engaged. And she came back at the end of the year. I finished up my seminary education. We funded for two years. And then in 2014, we left for Taiwan. We left in October of 2014, and we committed to five years to go there. Five years. Wow. What were some of the lessons that the Lord taught you while you were serving in Taiwan? Yeah. So, you know, when I look back on that time, it was unbelievably beautiful. It was an amazing time for our family, but it was some of the most challenging times as well. I wasn't as prepared to serve overseas as I thought I was. You know, I had just finished going to seminary. I did a Master of Divinity, Master of Mental Health Counseling degree. So I thought I was prepared. But when you go over and, you know, you're serving in a cross-cultural environment, I learned a lot about myself. And one thing I learned is that ministry, specifically overseas missions, is extremely isolating. You're kind of leaving behind your family, your communities. You're kind of going as like an infant, like you're trying to, having to learn everything new. I mean, little things, like if I was going to mail a letter, it could be a half a day, just trying to navigate the languages and figuring out where to mail it, how to mail it, all those kinds of things. I'm a more... productive oriented or achievement oriented person. And when we moved to Taiwan, that was really, really challenging for me. It was also challenging just because the isolating nature of it. You don't have the community there to help you that you previously might've had. So those are a few things that I think make it a little more challenging. So what you've called out is something so important, which is there is a big difference between credentialed and prepared. I probably didn't understand the impact of environment and calling as much as I do now. This is kind of what I tell my students is that, you know, you have your job description. That's like what you're going to do. And then you have the environment that you're going to work in. And you can be in the right job description and wrong environment and be miserable. And you can be in the right environment and the wrong job description and be miserable as well. For some people, the environment doesn't even have to be like a bad environment. It just can be not conducive to someone's personality. And it can make it really challenging for them. An example of this would be I... I... I'm the type of person that needs to be around people. I'm not a person that works from home well. I don't have those interactions with people that I need. And so when I'm picking a job or when I'm picking where I want to work, I think having community around me is always going to be something that's really important. For a lot of people, we see what we're good at, but we don't know exactly what kind of environment we need to flourish in. It sounds like your experience in Taiwan was like a very extreme training in that sort of job description versus environment tension, right? Because your environment was so different. Do you think that's helped you to prepare students as you're working with them? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. And so, you know, here at Asbury, one thing that's kind of, we're a graduate institution and postgraduate, but two thirds of our students are online. So when we think of students, I've got about a third that come to me and they're preparing for graduate level work, or sorry, they're preparing for ministry after graduation, and they'd never been in ministry before. Yeah. two-thirds of my students are already in ministry. And so for some of them, I'm trying to prepare them for something that they've never gone into. And maybe the things they think are going to be important are less important and vice versa. However, others, they're already in it and they're realizing the challenges that they're facing. And so there's a lot of students that come to me. And I mean, especially early on, like they might be six months, a year out from graduation in their first ministry role. And they're like, Did I miss something? Is something wrong with me? Like maybe I didn't understand the calling. And some of that is they're just placed in an environment that's not conducive to their personality. And some of them are placed in an environment that wouldn't be conducive to anybody's personality. So what we do is we start working with these students and trying to understand like what environment is really, you know, conducive to your personality. What are you looking for? How can you flourish and not languish? Jeremy, when we first met, you shared with me that God showed you young people who wanted to serve Him, but who needed preparation, support, and guidance. Can you share more about that vision? Yeah, after I came back from the mission field, I served in my hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the local church. And what I saw there, my role was an executive pastor. So I began to kind of oversee and supervise, you know, the different organizations. areas of the church. And one thing that I saw while I was there is that you had a lot of younger ministry leaders that were coming in to the church, but after a year or two years, they began to struggle a lot. And I think there's a lot of reasons for this. When you're in the church in particular, your call or your vocation is also your worshiping community, which is also where your friends and your family tend to be as well. So you can see there's a lot of enmeshment there. So like if something happened to me in my job, it would not only affect me in my job, but it would also affect my friends. It would also affect my worshiping community, my kids. You know, if I had to leave a church, they would have to leave a church. And so there's something particularly challenging about that because maybe the stakes are higher. Maybe there's not a space for people to get reprieve from ministry. They're in it like 24-7, it seems like. And so what I was noticing is that a lot of these young leaders would come in, they would have high rates of burnout. They would kind of get a little from the church itself. They kind of needed support and community sometimes outside of the church. What I found is it can be hard for people to be vulnerable with the challenges they're facing with the people that like oversee them and supervise them. Because there's a fear of like, okay, if I'm going to be vulnerable and, you know, I'm going to talk openly about these challenges, it could hurt my job. You know, it could hurt my livelihood later on down the road. And so when we began planning for the Career and Calling Center, this is one of the things that we looked at. is like, how can we provide our students with a continual connection even after Asbury, where they view Asbury as a place that even once they've graduated, that they could come back to and find support, find help. That was one of the reasons I came back to Asbury, is I feel like the seminary is uniquely positioned to kind of help its graduates in this way. When you're Asbury, you really are Asbury for life. And we are going to care for you even after you graduate, as you get into ministry, recognizing that ministry is challenging and difficult. What year did you return to Asbury? Yeah, so I graduated in 12 and I ended up coming back here. I started in this role in 2022 in the summer. And then my family moved back here to Wilmore at the end of 22. You joined Asbury in the role of director of career and calling. Your role has expanded since then. But how did that opportunity first come about for you? Yeah, so the role as a director of career and calling was brand new. It was an initiative that kind of started with the aim of helping come alongside our students, help them discern, gain more clarity in not only their calling, but also their career in where they were going to go after seminary. And so what happened was is I had several contacts still at the seminary. And when they started this role, when they, you know, wrote out the job description and they planned on hiring someone, they reached out to me and they asked if I'd be interested in applying. And it kind of everything kind of aligned at the right time for our family. And so, yeah, I applied and went through that application process. And yeah, the Lord kind of just opened up doors for me to come back. Yeah, and it was a very important time at Asbury too, right? Because of the Asbury outpouring. We moved up here at the end of 22 and the outpouring would have happened around February of 23. I see. So right before. Yeah, right before. And for anybody that doesn't know, so like if you come to Wilmore, Wilmore is a very small town. On one side of the street is the university, and on the other side of the street is the seminary. And they're not – they are – the founder of the seminary came from the university, was a president, but as far as the institutions, they're pretty separate. But when the outpouring happened, it started at the university in the main auditorium over there, which was Hughes Auditorium. And when it first started, I was actually in Colorado. I was at one of our extension sites. I traveled to the different ones. And my wife called up and she just mentioned, hey, have you heard? You know, there was a chapel service in Hughes. And it's still going on. And so, you know, that kind of made me aware of potentially, you know, what could be going on. And then I talked to her again about two days later, and she just said that, yeah, it was still going on. More and more people were kind of gathering there. And I came home that day, and I brought my family over. And at that time, it was smaller. I brought my family into Hughes Auditorium. We have young kids. At the time, our youngest was probably about under two. So our expectation is that we would stay for about 15, 20 minutes because that's how much time she would allow us to stay. But the way that I would describe it is when we entered Hughes Auditorium, it was, there was a sweetness of the spirit like I had never experienced. And so I remember we sat down, um, we went to the balcony and sat down and we were there for three hours and my kids were just sitting down. We were, it was just worship. Um, and it was just, it was just a sweetness of the spirit, um, in that, in that place. And so, um, But we left there. I think we went back the next night or it might have just been my wife and I that went back the next night. What happened though is like kind of after those first several days, it started to kind of get larger and larger. And then I worked a lot at the, they had overflow sites at the seminary. So our main chapel, Estes Chapel, was an overflow site. We have another chapel on campus, McKenna Chapel, was an overflow site. And by the, kind of by the height of it, we had people in our student center. I mean, you're thinking, you know, each of these sites, one can hold 800 people, 450 people. A student center can hold over a thousand and they're all filling up. And people are coming in from all over. I only have my experience. The only thing I would say about it from my own personal experience is that serving overseas were some challenging times ministry-wise. Serving the local church during COVID were some challenging times ministry-wise. But it was during this time where basically you would open doors and there was a hunger for people coming all over, just from literally all over the world, just coming in and worshiping and worshiping in a way that... I mean, the worship wasn't like by any means like overly produced. It was just simple worship. And for me, that was a very encouraging time just to see the hunger and the desire for people to worship God. And so, yeah. Wow, that's so beautiful. And it's exactly the way that my husband described it. He was one of those people coming from all over. He flew from New York City to Asbury just to experience what was going on. And I think the way you described it, the sweetness of the spirit is exactly the way he would have described it. And I love your story about how your two-year-old was able to sit still for three hours. I've got three young children. That is a miracle in and of itself. I wonder, were you able to detect a shift in the kind of conversations that were happening as a result of the outpouring? There were many people on the university side and also the seminary side that were praying for this. They were praying for the Lord's movement and the Lord's outpouring of his spirit. And yeah, and even some people that I'm close with on the seminary side, it was something that to them, I would say it wasn't as big of a surprise. in the sense of they were a part of groups, part of people that were coming together and kind of laying the groundwork of prayer and seeking the Lord for this to happen. So I don't know if that kind of makes sense. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's not as students were suddenly talking about calling or suddenly talking about ministry. Those were things they had already talked about. This was a moment they prayed for. You mentioned earlier in our conversation, Jeremy, that about two-thirds of your students are online. How are the needs of your online students different from those who are on campus with you? Yeah. I think kind of what I mentioned earlier, a lot of our online students are, they are already in ministry. So they're already in full-time or part-time ministry. Might be, you know, they handle or they balance school in addition to balancing full-time work. And if they have a family, family as well. I think that they're a little more maybe aware of what their immediate challenges are in their current ministry context. I think also sometimes online students, if you think about it, they're not taking as many hours, but they're also probably going to be a student a little longer. So they're, you know, getting their degree maybe not as quickly. And so you're able to connect with them, you know, over a period of time. But what I've noticed is with online students is that a lot of them are really open or hungry for a mentor. So we do something for, we do a program through the Career and Calling Center called Asbury Legacy Mentoring. We are basically pair an alumni mentor with a student in a like-minded vocation. I have found that especially for our online students, they see the value of that. There's multiple reasons, one being the isolation, like finding a mentor that is knowledgeable in what they do, but also that is safe enough outside of their ministry context where they can share openly. I also think that, especially with younger generation, that they are really open to having generational relationships together. Because they realize, hey, listen, I've never done this before. So how can I connect with somebody that has and they can help walk alongside me and help me as I navigate things that are kind of new for me. And so I've seen that as well. That makes a lot of sense. I love how thoughtful you are about making these relationships because they are so important to your students. All right. For the students who are on campus, who are not yet in ministry, when they come into your office, what are they anxious about? They know that they're called to ministry, but they're a little uncertain into what type of ministry that they're called to. And this is one of the challenges slash, like, I don't know, challenges. the beauties of seminary is that, you know, I came to seminary as a pastor wanting to be a pastor, but I didn't realize that, well, there's like, you know, a hundred different types of pastor. You've got like a, a lead pastor, executive pastor, children's pastor, youth pastor, discipleship pastor, missions pastor. you've got a church planner who's like all of those things. And so there's so many different types of pastors. And like, so when somebody has a call, they might have a call to ministry. But when you come to a seminary, you realize just how many different ministry contexts and jobs there are out there. And I would argue that like the role of an executive pastor versus a lead pastor is very, very different. So the skill sets, the giftings, you know, they require kind of two different types of personalities. And so a lot of students will come in and they'll be like, yeah, I have this call to seminary. I have this call to ministry, but I'm trying to... I'm trying to discern what that looks like, you know, once I graduate here. And so what we do is we kind of, we have different programs that are set up. We have some that are more co-curricular. We have something called the career clarity program, where it's a co-curricular cohort based program where students can join other students to kind of get some of that discernment and help them understand what type of ministry job that best fits with their personality. We do something called the Berkman. And a lot of students will engage in this. It's like a personality assessment that assesses not only their personality, but also their environmental fit. And as we mentioned earlier, we have the mentoring program. So students are able to hear from people that are already in those positions. those type of vocations. And so, yeah, I think a lot of them are just trying to discern, okay, I'm called to ministry, I'm called to seminary, but what type of ministry best fits my personality? And to be honest, a lot of it's changing too. Probably the type of ministry that was around 15, 20 years ago, like even when I graduated, is a lot different than the type of Interesting. Can you dig a little deeper into the Berkman method that you just mentioned? Why is that such a powerful tool for vocational discernment? Yeah, when I came on into this role, we had a donor that had put some money aside to help us kind of administer the Berkman to our students. And so we entered into a contract with them, and it allows us to give the Berkman to our students. And it's been amazing. unbelievable. So I think since we started this two years ago, we've administered the Berkman in the Career and Calling Center to over 200 students. And so what that is, is the students will take a 45-minute kind of questionnaire. It'll have a very, very detailed report that is produced, and then we'll walk alongside them for about an hour, hour and a half, walking through their results. And what's great about it is it For a student, it will look at their interests. So what motivates them? It will also look at their personality. So how they behave when they are flourishing, when they're their best self. what they need out of an environment to flourish. And if they do not get what they need out of an environment, what their stress behaviors are. So what's great about it is I can walk through their report with a student. And if they're already in ministry, I can walk through them and talk about like, okay, you're stressed here and here. This could be possible reasons why. Let's look at what you need out of an environment. What are you getting out of it? What are you not getting out of it? If they're feeling not motivated in their job, we can look at what their interests are and say, hey, how much are you doing these things which highly motivate you? And how much are you doing these things which are demotivating to you? So it allows me to sit down with the students either before they go into ministry or after. while they're in ministry and just kind of walk through all that with them. And it's, I think for a lot of students, it's just, it creates self-awareness. Even if they don't necessarily agree with everything, it enables them to ask questions and think about their context and how, and what they're looking for, or maybe potential areas that they might be struggling in. Do you find that the method sort of confirms for students what they kind of already know, but have trouble naming? Or do you find that they can experience breakthroughs in the process? the Berkman would say needs are hidden. And what that means is that we're, um, that often we don't even know what we need. We, we might know what, um, how we normally behave. We might even know how we behave under stress, but sometimes we don't know our needs that are lacking until, um, until we are under stress. And so I think one thing that Berkman does a really good job at is that it, um, It enables students to see what they need and see if that's true or not. And if it is true, then they can work toward getting those needs filled. The other thing that's interesting on it when it comes to motivations is that You know, interest or motivations are really important because I'll get some students... I had a student come into my office not too long ago, and she had been working in finance for five years. And everybody told her how good she was at it, and she hated every minute of it. And so the Berkman, when it measures her, you know, how she is with finance or numbers, it's going to put it really low. And it's not saying that she's not good at it. It's just saying for her, it's a demotivating thing over time. And so that's really important because we can be good at things and people can tell us how good we are at them, but we can still, they could still be demotivating to us. And they, you know, there might be something much higher that is like a very motivating thing for us. And so how do we engage more in those? And I also want to caveat this with a couple of things is You know, when we talk about calling, there are people that are called and they stay in an environment that is challenging and difficult. And they are doing work that is challenging and difficult, but they still feel called. And so I want to point that out because there are times when we stay in things, we do things, and it's maybe against the grain in some ways, but it's still, there's this innate feeling for a lot of people that I'm called here and I've not been released from this yet. And the other thing is when I talk about calling, when I think of it, I think of it as primary calling is abiding in Christ. And our secondary callings are how we carry out that primary calling into the world. And so when I talk about calling for me, my primary calling is to abide in Christ. but my secondary calling is of the director of career and calling is of a husband. It's of a father. And my role is to hold those secondary callings intention. Um, as I live out, you know, um, as I focus on my primary calling, which is to abide in Christ. And so, um, I don't know if that gives context. Sometimes I'd like to throw that out there because when we talk about calling, it can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. Absolutely. I feel like I'm in your office hours with you, Jeremy, because I think these are things that like we don't just wrestle with one time in our lives. I think we're actually meant to wrestle with throughout a lifetime of serving the Lord. And it's a uniquely complicated conversation because I. I find that I and others, we talk about gifting, passion, opportunity, calling, being called, vocation, career. Like we talk about all these things and it's very hard to untangle. And I think having a framework like the one you just laid out about primary versus secondary callings, having a tool like the Berkman method. These are all really important tools to utilize to sort of untangle those ideas. Yeah. Well, in the story I like to share about this is that when we were leaving Taiwan, I remember I was in the airport and I was stepping onto the plane to leave. It was at the very end of our five years. I had 10 boxes each weighing 50 pounds. I had in my family and everything we owned was with us. And I was leaving that role as a, that calling as a missionary. multiple jobs back in my hometown of Tulsa. And I hadn't yet received a job offer. But I remember I stepped onto that plane. I go, God, who am I? Like, I'm not a missionary anymore. I don't have another job. Like, who am I? And I remember him saying, Jeremy, you are my son. That's who you are. And so it's so important that we understand this. And Os Guinness writes a lot about this in his book, The Call. But it's so important that we put that primary calling and we keep it above these secondary callings. Because I believe at any time, some of these secondary callings could be taken away. It could be taken away because we choose to walk away. It could be taken away because somebody else decides... It's time. For one reason or another, we can't do that anymore. It's taken away because we retire. And it's so important that that primary calling, which holds our identity, is elevated above these secondary callings. Because when we organize that in a way where there's secondary callings or over the primary calling, that's where it gets really challenging. We can have a lot of heartbreak. Yeah, absolutely. So your role has expanded. You're still overseeing a calling and career, but your role also includes the Beeson Center and initiatives that serve graduate and postgraduate ministry leaders. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Yeah, and so the Beeson Center is an entity of Asbury Seminary. It's reaching out to is ministry leaders either before seminary or after seminary, particularly providing resources in the Wesleyan tradition for leadership and preaching. Recently, the Beeson Center has been undergoing a relaunch My supervisor is Dr. Jessica Legrone, who is the executive director of the Beeson Center. As she came on board, she asked me to come over and help with this relaunch. And so we are currently looking at and building up kind of systems and programs in order to reach out to ministry leaders everywhere. I want to go back to something else you said. A lot of your online students, they might already be in ministry, but they might also be entering ministry as a second career. Can you talk about those students, the second career students? What unique strengths, what unique challenges do they bring? Yeah, I mean, we get a lot of students that are second career. I think one of the unique strengths they have is they have a a vast amount of experience, usually in different areas. And I think sometimes what can be challenging is understanding how that experience can correlate into ministry settings. But, you know, my role when I was in the local church was an executive pastor. A lot of ministry leaders, they might not necessarily have the skill set of, you know, administration, of finance, those kind of things. And so if you have some of these second career students that have a background in a more corporate world, or they have these giftings, you can see how some of those giftings could easily translate into ministry settings and that are really, really needed. Yeah. What about challengers? Do they face any unique challenges? That's a good question. I mean, I would think part of it that is challenging is going from one sector to a brand new sector. And some of that can be kind of hard to navigate, you know, with the expectations of how things are going to be. Also, I mean, to be honest, it can be challenging financially sometimes. I meet with a lot of students that go from making a job that could pay very, very well to transitioning into a ministry, a job that just doesn't pay as well. And they're trying to figure out how they can support their family in this way. A lot of ministry workers are co-vocational. So more and more people are having two jobs, whether it be two ministry jobs or a ministry job and, you know, a job outside of ministry. But they're looking at ways in which they can intersect together. One can feed into the other, which I think is very interesting. Absolutely. Well, when we met Jeremy. I think one of the challenges is that. I haven't done a lot of study on this, but it would be interesting to look at the biblical and theological role of a pastor and then to see how culturally we've adapted that over time. My gut would say that, you know, I think the role or the job description of a pastor could be much like someone that is like a CEO of a large corporation in just the complexity and the amount of hats that someone would have to wear. You know, and the challenge is that it's like that for a large church or even a small church as well, probably especially a small church because they don't have a staff. And they're having to wear all of those, all of those hats. I think there's a level here where the expectations are sometimes unrealistic. And I think, you know, I think another key point to this is that when we talk about supporting pastors, it has to be done holistically. And so, you know, each church tradition has their different setup. But, you know, for the one I'm in, we have something called like, you know, like a board or an SPRC. And so what they should function as is, you know, a board should function as an accountability and also kind of a support mechanism for the pastor to be able to recognize that, hey, listen, like we are going to come alongside the pastor and help, you know, help, yeah, have a level of accountability, but also help support them and the other ministry leaders to make sure that they are upholding rhythms that are sustainable and they are flourishing. I think it's important for churches, denominations, networks to be proactive with this. Yeah. I'm hearing what you're saying, and I agree with you. It's something that I've seen at my church, just, you know, all of these expectations placed on a pastor that you would typically place on a corporate CEO. I want to shift gears for a second because we've talked a lot about the challenges, right? But I'd also love to hear from you on what some of the greatest opportunities are for churches to better support pastors and other ministry leaders. I think the more that we can, as churches, invite our ministry leaders into the conversation together, the more that we can develop a vision for what our mission of the church is, not only how we're going to carry that out, but the way in which we carry it out, the way that we're going to mobilize our congregation to take on some of the ministry roles, not or the church leadership, but it's going to be shared mission. I think it's encouraging when congregations as a whole take ownership over the mission of the church. Everybody is in it together and everybody is called together. The calling is just not for the ministry leaders. The calling is for everybody in that congregation is first called to Christ, to abide in Christ. And then everybody in the congregation is called to carry that out into the world. As you know, in their vocation, in their home, in their community. And so being able to embrace that together, I think to me is exciting. Amen. I'm also a big believer in the priesthood of believers and you've just described it so beautifully. Well, we're coming up on time. Here's where I'd like to leave it, Jeremy. For the person who's listening today, who senses that God may be calling them into ministry or deeper into ministry, but they feel uncertain what would you want them to hear? There is no better place to be than following the will of God in your life. And it does not mean you won't have to suffer. It does not mean there won't be sacrifices. In my own life, I was most deeply formed by God in times of suffering. Yeah. It's when we suffer that we can most relate to the suffering Christ. To me, that's hopeful. If you have a call on your life, step out into that call in a very practical way. If you're in a church, go to your pastor, go to someone in that church and say, I feel like I've got this call. and start exploring what that means. It doesn't mean you're going to be like overseas in the next week or two. It just means you're taking that next step of faith in that exploration. I mean, and ultimately what it means is that you're listening to God and open to his leading. And so that's probably what I would communicate with him. That's really beautiful. Thank you, Jeremy. I know that our listeners are so encouraged by that. I'm encouraged by that. We touched on so many different things today, and there's so much more we can talk about, but we'll leave it there for today. Thank you so much, Jeremy. This has been such an interesting conversation. I really appreciate you coming onto the podcast and sharing your wisdom and experience and what you're seeing with our audience. Well, Alicia, thank you so much for having me on.