Deep Friendships in Ministry - Taylor Henry

00:01 - Speaker 1 I think we all just got along so well. It really was like a family experience. There wasn't these cliques, there wasn't this drama, there wasn't, you know, just gossip and all these toxic things. It just felt like a family and all different grades, genders, we all just got along and we were all just deep friends. And you know, I've had good friends my whole life, but I think that was the first time I had those like. It felt like family more than friendships and I just look forward to being with them every week, a couple of times a week, and it was just my place to be. Hi, I'm Taylor Henry. I am a pastor of youth and kids at the River Church in Liberty Township, ohio, and I have been involved in ministry for going on 10 years now in different volunteer roles and now as my career, and it's just been an awesome journey of getting to know Jesus more and helping kids and youth get to know Jesus more, and this is my Faithly Story. 00:55 - Speaker 2 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast. 01:37 - Speaker 3 Would you tell me about how your faith journey started? 01:40 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so I grew up in a very Christian household. My mom and dad are two of the most devout believers I know, and so it was just kind of something I grew up with from day one and just in the church and involved, and they were really faithful volunteers themselves in different ministries. So I saw them getting involved in ministry and then accepted Jesus when I was four, I believe, and so very little and ever since then been super involved in the church and then it was really in high school my freshman year of high school. I went through some big challenges mentally, just anxiety and depression and adjusting to high school life in the teenage years, and so at that point we actually changed churches and I got really involved in my new youth group and just really found my place and my friends, who are still my lifelong friends, and that's when I first started feeling the call to go into ministry myself and particularly youth ministry. I just my life was changed from youth group myself so I wanted to create that environment for other students. 02:47 - Speaker 3 So what was it at four years old, cause I can't even remember four years old. Yeah, but like, was it like in the service? Or like how did you understand like you need to receive Jesus? 02:58 - Speaker 1 Yeah, If I remember correctly and I probably don't, but I believe it was more of a family oriented thing. My parents made sure that we were aware of the decision and we're always able to ask questions and have conversations with them. So, yeah, it was more of a family thing at that point. 03:16 - Speaker 3 So what was going on in high school? Because actually a few podcasts. We talk about like mental health and how like faith has helped them navigate through that. 03:25 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I've struggled with anxiety most of my life, off and on, and in high school it was just. It was a mix of a rough school environment I was in, rough teachers, rough peers, and I think it all just kind of came crumbling down at once and I just felt like I didn't have a place. I didn't have a solid group I belonged to or just a place to be myself. And so at that point I begged my parents to pull me out of school. I was like I can't do this. 04:05 We will switch to online school, but you have to be plugged into a youth group somewhere because you're not going to sit at home. You need to be, you need to have a community, you need people. And so when we changed churches, there was that pressure of, okay, I have to get involved here, because that was the rule I don't want to go back to regular school. And it was just. God's hand was all over that, because he just led us to the most perfect church for me and just an amazing group of kids to get involved with and an amazing youth pastor who just took me under his wing and just discipled me and led me to ministry myself. 04:37 - Speaker 3 What was it about your specific youth group that you were like flourishing? 04:40 - Speaker 1 I think we all just got along so well. It really was like a family experience. There wasn't these cliques, there wasn't this drama, there wasn't, you know, just gossip and all these toxic things. It just felt like a family and all different grades, genders, we all just got along and we were all just deep friends. And you know, I've had good friends my whole life, but I think that was the first time I had those like. It felt like family more than friendships and I just look forward to being with them every week, a couple of times a week, and it was just. It was just my place to be so you mentioned online school. 05:19 - Speaker 3 Did you finish school online? 05:21 - Speaker 1 Yeah, I did so. I left public school halfway through my freshman year and then graduated online school and then I actually did college online as well. So just kind of found how I liked learning and my way of doing it and just kept going. 05:38 - Speaker 3 So what was it about being online that really helped you? 05:43 - Speaker 1 I have always been more of an independent worker and I like just kind of putting my head down and being in my lane and just getting my stuff done and it's very self-driven. And that's a pro and con, depending on what type of person you are and what type of learner you are, but I've always been the type that can just read about something and then start doing it. It doesn't necessarily need to be the hands-on explanation and visuals and stuff. So I really liked the self-driven aspect of it and especially in college you can kind of work ahead a little bit more and I graduated early. So yeah, it just meshed with my personality and how I learn and was a good fit. 06:23 - Speaker 3 I admire that, because it took me 30 years to get to that point. I needed a lot of hand-holding. Yeah, I was just like so lost, okay. So then how did you jump into ministry after college? 06:35 - Speaker 1 Yes. So I started feeling that call to youth ministry, in particular in high school, so worked really closely with my youth pastor during high school. He was very, very, really closely with my youth pastor during high school. He was very, very good about getting kids involved in the youth ministry and we had a student led worship band and students were greeters. So we were all, in one way, getting ministry experience, um, whether we wanted to do that or not. 07:00 So I went into my freshman year of college planning on studying youth ministry and the first school I went to was also not a good fit, like my high school just didn't work out. It wasn't for me. So I left that. I was working full time at a coffee shop. I was questioning God. I thought I was supposed to go into ministry. I thought I was supposed to study this. I thought I was supposed to go here and now I have none of that. What am I doing? So I was looking into different community colleges and easy two-year degrees just to get something, but my heart just kept coming back to ministry and I couldn't settle not going into ministry. But I didn't know how to do it, because I tried and I felt like I failed and I left. So what do I do now? 07:56 So that's when I applied to Liberty University online and ended up studying Christian ministries so it was a little more broad than just youth ministry, but all of my focus and electives and everything were youth and family, and then I graduated in December of 2020. So, right in the middle of the pandemic, so there was not a lot of momentum from most local churches. Not a lot of people were hiring. It was more the opposite, unfortunately. So I was just applying to any church in the area that had any type of opening, so communications or connections or small groups, youth, kids. I was just applying everywhere and the river was a church 10 minutes from the home I grew up in and I knew about it. I heard about it and they had a children's ministry position open, and so I just threw my resume out there and they were the only church to give me the time of day, and it's been almost four years now, so it's been a great fit. 09:01 - Speaker 3 It's funny how, when you have no options, or only one options, it's like God saying like hey, this is your thing. 09:07 - Speaker 1 Only to question it. This is the only place you could go. 09:10 - Speaker 3 It's funny because that's how I kind of fell into children's ministry. When I did children's ministry, because I was in between roles and so I was like, like you just applying everywhere, this was back in 2018. And then the only one that was like available was children's ministry and never did it. 09:27 I was like all right yeah, like I didn't know what I was getting myself into, uh, but it was actually one of the most worthwhile ministry experiences for me. Just the dynamics of like children and parents and like it makes a really big difference for the family when you have a thriving children's ministry. So, because this was your first role, did you feel like you had a lot of support from the church or how did that work? 09:52 - Speaker 1 You know I really did and it was an interesting transition because, again, we were still in the middle of the pandemic really. So I remember my first Sunday there. We had 11 kids in the ministry total, and now, a good Sunday, we'll have about 65. So it's grown a lot and people have come back. But I felt very supportive. 10:15 But it was also a weird time of not much was going on. We were trying to figure out how to build back and come back and what's safe and what's not safe, and so I dealt with a lot of imposter syndrome during that time because I felt like this little kid that just literally got out of college two weeks ago and now I've been entrusted with this entire ministry on my own and yeah, so that was a few months maybe closer to a year of wrestling with that and feeling like I needed to earn the trust of families, which is very understandable, because you want to trust the person that you are entrusting with your kids, and that's a really big deal and there's nothing more important than their faith development, and so you want to trust that person. And I know I was so young and didn't have kids at the time, so there was a lot of like, does she know what she's doing? But but I think we've we've focused on relationships and just getting to know one another, and that is the greatest trust builder in my opinion. 11:16 - Speaker 3 What are some practical things that you try to do to get the trust of the parents? 11:21 - Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. 11:22 So I have found that the best way to get a parent to love you is for you to love their kids. 11:31 Parents just want people to love their kids and see their kids as the greatest thing in the world, and I think my kids in the ministry are the greatest things in the world. 11:39 I love them, and my students as well, now that I've expanded to youth ministry and so I've just taken a lot of steps to try to just get to know as much as I can about the kids and I really love the size of the ministry I'm at because we're bigger than that 11 kids we started with, but we're still at a point where myself and my team, we can really get to know these kids and their hobbies and their hobbies and their passions and their interests and have good conversations with them about that, and so I think it makes a big difference and really goes a long way for a parent to see you take more interest in their kid than even you're taking in them. Not that you want to push the parents to the side, but they want to see your heart for their kids first and foremost the biggest problem for me when I first started is I had no idea, like, how to do children's curriculum at all. 12:31 - Speaker 3 And when you think of children, well, when I thought of children's curriculum, I thought it was just like coloring or not, but like there's only first grade and once you get into the higher grades you're just like oh, I don't, and I came from a youth background and you can't treat them like youth group kids because it's just too high level. So I was struggling for like three years figuring out a curriculum. So for you, like, how did you figure that out? 12:54 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we spent actually probably about the first two years of my time at the river trying to find our sweet spot with the curriculum, because when I came in what we were using was not bad. It was not bad at all, but it just was not quite it Like I don't even know how else to explain it. It just wasn't quite it for what we were going for. And so I developed kind of a key team of leaders of about four volunteers who are there every week, who just know their classrooms and these kids inside and out, and we kind of formed this little committee and started doing some sample lessons from various curriculums and then we would try them, we would debrief what worked well, what didn't, and it really took a while. It was a pretty defeating process because it felt like nothing was just quite hitting the mark. It was either, like you said, way over their head or way under their head. And so we decided at that point to go back. 13:57 The church had prior to me, the church was using Orange curriculum and so we decided to try that again and to me that's been a game changer, because Orange does a really great job at meeting the spiritual, emotional, mental and developmental needs of a child all at one time. They know what a child is capable of developmentally and spiritually, and it fuses it together. Because we were finding that some activities would in other curriculums, would want preschoolers to read a verse from the Bible. Well, they can't do that. They can't even find it in their Bible or read it, and they can't use scissors as well as an older kid, and so we were just trying to find something that really understood kids and families, and so that's where we've landed for the past couple of years. 14:46 - Speaker 3 Do you also run the? Do you guys do VBS? 14:50 - Speaker 1 Oh yes. 14:51 - Speaker 3 Yeah, and you run it, do, yeah. What is that like? I love sharing vbs horror stories I love vacation bible school. 15:00 - Speaker 1 it is like it is a week like none other, but it is one of my favorite weeks of the year and we use lifeway curriculum for vbs. 15:08 I'm a big lifeway vbs fan. I just think it's so great and, um, it's actually one of of our biggest events period at the church all year. We have so many guests come and we've actually found that a lot of churches in our area aren't doing a traditional VBS anymore, but a lot of families want that for their kids and so we do have a lot of families that are very involved in other churches. Their kids go to Sunday school there, but they still come to us for VBS because they want that experience. So that's an honor to have them there, and we have probably about double the kids at BBS that we have on like a Sunday morning. So it's quite the experience and it takes a lot of hands. I'm actively in the recruiting phase right now because you can never start too early, so but it's a lot of fun. It's chaotic and I have my fair share of horror stories, but all in all it's so worth it. 16:02 - Speaker 3 Yeah, it's this weird like I dread it, but once it happens you're like oh man, it's so great. Yes, and I start in December. So, yeah, you can never start early. 16:13 - Speaker 1 Exactly, and I've learned that with each and every passing year I start earlier and earlier because you will not regret it. 16:20 - Speaker 3 So what has been the most challenging thing for you in ministry so far? 16:23 - Speaker 1 I think honestly it's been that trust thing of just having to make decisions and having to lead a team through decisions I have a team of about 40 volunteers or so and not only having to lead them through the decisions. 16:37 - Speaker 3 Wait, you said 40? 16:39 - Speaker 1 40. Yeah. 16:40 - Speaker 3 You have 40 volunteers. I do. 16:43 - Speaker 1 I do so we're 65 kids yeah. So I'm so jealous. 16:51 - Speaker 3 I thought I had a lot. I had 26. You have 40. Wow, you're an amazing recruiter. 16:56 - Speaker 1 Well, thank you. That's not one of my favorite parts of the job. I feel very awkward doing it and like I'm annoying people, but you have to do it and it never stops. It never stops because you know, and as you probably know, in different seasons of the year it's going to be harder to schedule than others and we find in spring a lot of vacations are coming up but a lot of sicknesses are always coming up too. So, anyway, so having to lead such a big team through decisions and changes, and well, maybe we always did it that way, but we're actually going to do it this way now and thankfully, like I said, the more you build those relationships with people, the more likely they are to follow you and be okay following you down a different path. But that's hard and I'm a people pleaser and so I never want to upset into the world. Does it change your understanding? 17:56 - Speaker 3 of children's ministry, or it's like the same, or you don't know yet. 18:00 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it is interesting because I'm going to be in a really unique position in a few months where no longer am I just a leader, but I'm also a receiver of the ministry and my child is too, and that's going to be an interesting dynamic. And I know I'm a little probably a lot biased about the ministry and about my team and you know I'm probably more likely to trust my team than a family walking in for the first time because I know these people, I know who's going to be with my baby. But it does create a greater sense of importance and weight and intentionality. And I'm excited to see it through a parent's eyes and not just a leader's eye, Cause as a as the leader, it's your thing and it's really easy to not see those flaws sometimes that a family could see. So hopefully I don't see too many of those things but but it should be really interesting and same for my husband as well to see it from a different Is your husband in ministry too? 18:58 He's not. No, he's an electrician. But he is a volunteer in our youth ministry. He's a lot more geared towards the teenagers than the kids, how'd you guys meet. 19:09 We were actually set up by a mutual friend, so it was somebody he used to go to a different church before we got married. But then since I was on staff at a church, so it was somebody he used to go to a different church before we got married. But then since I was on staff at a church, it was kind of like, well, you come here now. But it was actually a friend of mine from school that went to his old church as well, that thought we would be a good fit and so we got set up and it worked and it was awesome. 19:33 - Speaker 3 This was after you were in ministry or before. 19:36 - Speaker 1 Yes, this was after I was in ministry. I had only been on the job for eight or so months before we met, so that was also an interesting transition from being the single girl in ministry to then dating and introducing him to everybody and then getting married and him getting acclimated to the church and it being his church as well. 19:56 - Speaker 3 Did he have any questions about you being in ministry? Because a lot of times it's usually the girl that has to like work things out with the guy being in ministry. But I've never really had situations or conversations about what does a guy think about the wife being in ministry? 20:10 - Speaker 1 Yeah, it was actually really interesting because we grew up with a lot of the same, almost all of the same values and beliefs and all of that, which is great and you should look for that. But we also came from different denominations and in his denomination he grew up in there wasn't really women in ministry. So that led to some interesting conversations and just kind of me seeing their point, them seeing my point. But I think the more he's seen me in ministry, the more he's seen the fruit of the ministries I'm a part of, the more we're kind of just both on the same page. That you know, jesus is going to share his good news however he sees fit and in my opinion, if that's a woman, then that's awesome. It's just more people hearing about the good news. 20:57 - Speaker 3 Did he personally have concerns or was it mainly because it was just kind of how he grew? 21:03 - Speaker 1 Yeah, he was always very open. But I think it's just one of those things when you grow up believing a certain thing your whole life, it's kind of like, oh okay, I actually need to like stop and consider this and figure out what I believe, and all of that. But he's always been incredibly supportive. How? 21:20 - Speaker 3 do you navigate theological things with kids? So what I used to do is I tried to keep it really simple, just make it about Jesus. But then there are certain times, like when I went through Genesis and I talked about circumcision, I just said talk to your parents. I just didn't talk about it. There are certain things I would refuse to talk about. So for you like, do you have to align with the church's theology or you're kind of just like keeping it simple? 21:46 - Speaker 1 Yeah, we do keep it fairly simple and fairly Jesus focused in all we do. But the thing is, you can try to keep it as simple as you want, but the kids are going to ask you questions and you got to be prepared for those questions and so when that's the case, we do try to line up with the church's theology and thankfully I've not seen any contradictions in our curriculum to what we believe as a whole in the church. So that makes it really easy for our teachers to follow. We don't have to. You know, edit and Orange is a pretty neutral curriculum in itself and we are as a church too. So we do keep it Jesus-focused but also try to be very mindful that kids are going to ask questions. But, like you said, there's some conversations that are better had at home and better started with the families, and there's certain things that families would like to teach more than having their kids hear it from somebody else. 22:42 - Speaker 3 So that's actually a pretty good segue. How do you get parents involved? Because for me that was always the biggest struggle, because parents kind of just drop off their kids and as long as they're having fun they don't ask any questions. But then when kids start asking questions and it's like, oh, we should let the parents know. But then the flip side of it is like sometimes the kids are like, oh, you told my parents, I'm not a doctor anymore. 23:03 There's this like weird thing where because I always believe the parents have to be responsible for kids period, you know, and we're actually working alongside parents but again some parents it's really been hard to kind of get their involvement. So how did you work? 23:18 - Speaker 1 that out. Yeah, we have a leadership coach. That's a part of our church that works with the staff, and something he told me a while ago that I've just held on to and just can't let go is that nobody is going to care about your ministry like you care about it. And that has been really beneficial for me to remember in moments where I feel like, does anybody see what we're doing? Does anybody care? And it's not that they don't, it's not that they don't, but they also are full-time employees and full-time spouses and full-time parents and are running here and there, and it's not that they just don't care, but they don't spend 40 hours a week on this like I do, you know. 23:59 So we have tried really hard to utilize things like social media and newsletters and even sending snail mail to kids at their homes. That's one of the most beneficial things you can do. In my opinion, kids love a card in the mail. But we've also done things like training our teachers. You know, at pickup, when parents come to your room, don't just say, oh, they were great today, have a good week, but tell them what they learned today, what did you talk about today? So parents know and can continue that conversation throughout the week, and so we'll do that on our social medias as well. I send a monthly newsletter and break it down by week. You know, on week one, this is what we're learning. This is the Bible reference, and you know at that point that it is in their hands, and I do know that a lot of our parents utilize that and and some of the resources we send. 24:58 - Speaker 3 But it's just doing what we can and then, like you said, entrusting God with the rest and knowing that it's in the parents hands, and you sound like a full service children's ministry. You're like doing amazing in your first two, two and a half years. I'm actually really jealous. I was like, wait, those are really good ideas. Why didn't I do that? 25:09 - Speaker 1 Well, I try, but I don't always get it right and I learned from a lot of people. But yeah, it's all about trying and being willing to fail and I have tried many different initiatives that have not turned out and you just say, okay, you live and learn and you try again. 25:27 - Speaker 3 Were your grandparent believers too. 25:28 - Speaker 1 So that's a really good question. On my dad's side, yes, absolutely Still are, and they've always been so supportive of me in ministry and just cheer me on, and my other grandparents on my mom's side do as well. But my mom actually didn't come to know the Lord till she was in high school herself, so she did not grow up in that environment. But she was dating a boy in high school who invited her to church and that's not my dad, but that's how she got involved in the church and then eventually met my dad and ever since then she's never looked back. But even on that side my grandparents are so supportive and they'll tune into our live streams on Sunday mornings and especially when they know I have the kids in church singing a special or something, they'll tune in to see my kids and all of that. 26:18 - Speaker 3 Your dad should thank that boy. 26:20 - Speaker 1 I know I feel like I should too, because who knows? 26:24 - Speaker 3 But yeah, so the reason why I ask is something I've been thinking more and more is like where the so like for me, my parents actually were the first people to start going to church. I had some uncles to go to church too, but like my grandparents didn't believe so for me, I only knew this like one generation and hopefully, like my grandparents didn't believe so for me, I only knew this like one generation and hopefully like my nephew. And if I ever have kids, god what place I would pass that down. But then there are other times where I know families that are like church going but then the kids go away and then it kind of falls off. But for you, you kind of like have this succession of faith and now it's going to go to your kids. 27:03 Um, I guess what I'm trying to ask you is like, like it already sounds like like you grew up in a very healthy and warm family. Um, oh, actually, okay, let's spin it to your, your children's ministry. Do you know children, that you know where maybe the parents aren't as involved and like, do you see kids struggle with their faith more? Or do you feel like kids are all the same and they just have you know where maybe the parents aren't as involved and like do you see kids struggle with their faith more, or do you feel like kids are all the same and they just have you know? The same kind of questions Like how important do you think faith in the family is for? 27:33 - Speaker 1 the kids. It's actually really interesting. I have found that even if parents aren't super involved in the church, even if you know they're believers, they attend, they know the truth, but they're just not super plugged into their faith journey. They want their kids to be. And I think. Well, I believe that God has placed something in all of us deep down to know that there is a God out there and that we should be seeking him and longing for him. And so I have found in a lot of cases, even if parents aren't necessarily on that track themselves, they want their kids to at least be able to make that choice and at least know the truth and begin to learn so they can make that decision for themselves. Which encourages me because hopefully that's building up a generation of more tiny believers. But yeah, it's really interesting that I've found that, even if it's not a personal thing for parents, they want their kids to be able to have that experience. 28:35 - Speaker 3 So what do you do for fun? Because most people think pastors don't have any fun, they're just doing ministry all the time. 28:41 - Speaker 1 It is our fun. No, so we have two dogs, which maybe you've heard pittering around or not, but they keep us pretty busy and we have a really great friend group. I'm very blessed that my friend group I came into marriage with has merged really well with my husband's friend group that he came into marriage with and now we're just all kind of together and so I love to spend time with them, go to dinner and have game nights, and both of our parents live very close and so, and we're very close with them, so we spend a lot of time at parents' houses and hanging out with them and so, yeah, and I also I crochet, I like to do artsy things, even if I'm not great at it, but I found that when you work with your mind all week long, like we often do in ministry, it's really helpful to have like tactile things to do for your release time. 29:31 - Speaker 3 So yeah, the thing is, if you work with your mind, you need to rest with your hands. 29:33 - Speaker 1 And if you work with your hands, you need to rest with your mind. I totally believe that. 29:37 - Speaker 3 Yeah, what is one thing that you realize now that you didn't realize while you were dating about? 29:42 - Speaker 1 marriage? That's a great question. It's interesting we only dated for eight months before we got engaged and then we had a six-month engagement, so it was not a ton of time, but in the moment it did not feel short at all, it just felt natural. But looking back I was like, oh, that was kind of fast, but we wouldn't have done it any other way. 30:03 I just think how important it is to find that person that complements your strengths and your weaknesses. 30:12 You need to balance each other out and even each other out, and I think we do that so well and I'm so grateful for that and I love that. We still get to learn about each other each day and we still learn little quirks and little things and something I was told by a couple people before I got married my dad, specifically him, and I went to lunch one day after church because my mom was out of town or something and it was just us and we were talking and he was like marriage does not have to be as hard as people say it is. It does not have to be that hard. Like my parents have been married for almost 40 years, it does not have to be that hard and I've learned that it can be a lot of fun and it can be easy, as long as you keep the major things major and the minor things minor and be willing to forgive and forget and move on and apologize. It does not have to be as hard as people say. 31:05 - Speaker 3 So what are some of the strengths and weaknesses you guys complement each other on. 31:09 - Speaker 1 Yeah. So when we were on our honeymoon even I realized really quickly one of the things I love about him is like I'm a little more reserved and shy and like if I don't really know like the answer to something, I'm going to try to just kind of like figure it out myself. But on our honeymoon he like was never afraid to just like walk up to an employee and just ask a question, no matter how out of the left field it was. And I was like don't bother him, don't you know, so. 31:40 So he's definitely more of kind of that problem solver and, um, I'm the more emotional one, he's the more steady one, so it's helpful both ways. When I'm really in my feels and really in over my head, he can bring me back. But, um, when he feels like he's not seeing a situation fully or not having the empathy for it he needs to, um, I can be like well, this is probably how they're feeling, this is probably what's going on, so it's been a good fit. 32:09 - Speaker 3 When was your? I know he's the one moment. 32:12 - Speaker 1 That's such a good question and I honestly don't know. I just I had decided, as crazy as it sounds, the year I met him, which was 20, I felt like that was the year like I was really ready to get serious about dating and finding someone. I graduated college, I had the job, I was moving into my own place, like that just felt like the next thing, and so I was trying the different apps and I was meeting different people and I just never felt settled. I never felt like eager to see them again or continue on. But with my husband I just never got tired of seeing him and like I was always looking forward to the next time I got to see him. And it was never a dread thing, it was never anxiety ridden, it just felt natural. And so I don't even know that I have a definitive moment where I'm like, yeah, I think that's it. I think it just always made sense and there was never a reason to not pursue it. I guess. 33:16 - Speaker 3 No, that's great. I think a lot of times it's a progression, especially for women. For guys there's a switch. Usually it's either way in the beginning or way at the end it's true, you either move fast or not at all. A couple last questions. What's your fondest um childhood memory? 33:31 - Speaker 1 oh, that's a good question I would say probably family vacations. My parents were always so faithful to to take us somewhere every summer and we spent a lot of time in Gatlinburg, tennessee, which is just a tourist trap, but for kids it's like amazing, it's the best thing ever, and I still love it as an adult. So I think just those memories of getting away and just being the four of us I have an older brother and, yeah, I think those would be some of the biggest highlights. And every now and then we did a bigger trip. We went to Disney a couple times and and the beach and all of that. 34:04 So what would you do there? Like Gatlinburg, we would do all the go karts, all the arcades. We'd always my parents always stayed in a hotel with a good like water park or pool, because my brother and I just wanted to swim all week straight. That's all we wanted to do. So we never stayed in a cabin or anything. We always had to stay with the pool. But yeah, mini golf, go-karts, arcades, shows, it just felt magical for a kid. 34:32 - Speaker 3 Isn't it wild. Our childhood memories are usually the best memories, but it was just very simple and just having fun, right? 34:40 - Speaker 1 It's so simple. 34:41 - Speaker 3 looking back yes, and we grow up and we make it so complicated and we just want to be kids again in so many different ways. It'd be so much easier final two questions um what are you hoping for at faithly? 34:53 - Speaker 1 I I'm so excited about faithly. I think it's such a great platform and such a need, um, because ministry can feel so isolating and so lonely and you know there's so many similarities to other jobs and you can talk with your friends and your family about work, struggles and all that, but at the same time, it's so unique in ministry and there's so many things nobody else is going to understand unless they're in it, and so it's a really cool experience to be able to have ministers of all different walks and denominations and backgrounds come together and just be able to relate and just you know, because even on things like LinkedIn, I'll log into LinkedIn and I'm like I don't know what we're talking about here. I'm not really doing the kind of things you guys are doing over here, but on Faithly we can talk about, you know, the nitty gritty and the hard things, because we understand we're a community. 35:51 - Speaker 3 And how can we be praying for you and your family? 35:53 - Speaker 1 Thank you for that question. That's a great question. Yeah, I guess just the next couple months, just as we transition to a family of three or five, if you count our dogs as kids, which we do yeah, and just finding a new work-life balance for myself. I'm going to continue in ministry, which I'm really excited for and grateful that I have such a flexible work environment and church who understand family comes first, but I'm sure it's going to be a little bit of a challenge figuring out that new dynamic and priorities and all of that. So that would probably be our biggest prayer request. 36:26 - Speaker 3 All right, thanks for coming on. 36:28 - Speaker 1 Absolutely Thanks for having me. 36:30 - Speaker 3 That's it for the podcast guys. Bye. 36:32 - Speaker 2 Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate.