That Spot in the Middle - Pastor Ricky Jenkins & Dr. Bryan Loritts | Masterclass Episode 2

So you asked the question, how do you train up and lead the next generation? I think it's important that you let that generation have a voice. This idea that every Sunday we can guarantee that God's going to meet us in the 45 minute presentation, ladies and gentlemen, it is just not how it works in the sacred narrative. How does he give you a heart for such a specific place? And then to really see the stats and to really say, we want to make change and it's possible. You know, the hardest part in leading change is not where you leave and it's not when you get there is that spot in the middle to sometimes in your weakness, foolishness, not getting it. God's like, he just doesn't anyway. If there's a core issue in my faith and I can't see God right and I'll demand he does for me quickly, what my character can only handle slowly. How do you know what you're speaking into until you hear where they're coming from? I have to see that proper rest and replenishment wasn't in the way it was the way. I will borrow from what's on the inside of you and bring it out. So the quality goes in before the song comes out. Humility is this acceptance of who you really are, who God really is, that puts you in a posture to encounter God in a genuine and authentic way. Welcome to Voices from the Masterclass, a special faithfully podcast series brought to you by Faithly, preaching Masterclass and leading leaders collective. Past Adam Derser here, faithfully stories on the founder and president of leading leaders collective and a senior advisor at Faithly and I get the opportunity to sit with the angel that is over this house here and being hosted preaching Masterclass at Southwest Church. Pastor Ricky introduced himself to the audience, my brother. Thanks, bro. Thanks for having me. Ricky Jenkins and Glad to serve here at Southwest Church in the Indian Wells, California for eight years and then. And we're so glad to have preaching Masterclass with us. Preaching Masterclass has been fired. We'll talk about that in a second because Pastor Brian Leritz, you tried the house down last night, man. You absolutely just crushed, please introduce yourself to the audience. Yeah, Brian Leritz, serve as a teaching pastor at the Summit Church and do some other things or written some things, so it's great to be here. You said something last night, let's start there, that the Chuck Swindle quote, that maybe the most dangerous thing about this is we can learn how to do it. Talk to the ministers, the leaders that are out there listening. I mean, you challenged this audience last night. Is this a gig or is this a calling? Speak to that. Yeah, so I want to be careful. There's a place for competency, right? Yes. I'm a big believer in education. I've gotten degrees. I got a kid who feels called to ministry. I'm like, get the education, learn this stuff. We just sat in this session with Pastor Ricky learning about systems. So I am not anti-competence. And even as I read in the book of Exodus and the building of the Tabernacle, it's God saying, I want so and so to do this because they are skilled, right? So I want to be, I just can't be louder that there is a place for competency. I guess what I was trying to come against is a spirit of professionalism that puts everything in a competency box and doesn't leave any room for the anointing, the unction of the Holy Spirit. And more importantly, a life that is built on John chapter 15 where I'm abiding in the vine. So I should be ministering, and this isn't just for pastors and worship leaders. I think it's for people in the marketplace, business sector, anyone who names the name of Jesus Christ should be ministering out of the context of an abiding relationship with Christ. I think you kind of then piggybacked on that a little bit this morning. I think we were saying this before, that's right, you walked back in the room. The idea that David, when they're looking for somebody to play for Saul, David's skillful and the Lord is with him, that somehow they're not in competition. We don't need sloppiness being blamed on the Holy Spirit. Absolutely. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, I was trying to express my own experience with it. I think we work in a very relational arena with respect to our craft. We are preachers who weave together text and exegesis with art and history and other genres of thought, and we create this artistic moment every Sunday. We are relational by design. We are shepherding the sheep of the fold, and I think most leaders listening are really good organically, but the default is not that good organizationally. I think if we learn how to conflate those two together and call that leadership, I think the game changes into your point. That's what we see in Scripture. Moses was organically connected to God, organically connected to people, but had a system after Jethro talked with them and said, hey, no, you need leaders of tens and hundreds and thousands and all these good things. Here's the thing that leaders need to be reminded of. God is 100% and both. He's not boxed in one, and I think at the same time that means some leaders can overdo it one way or the other. There are no guys out there that are organized to a fault, but they ain't no holy ghost in there, nowhere. It's just system, system, system. I think you have to really present both and call that leadership. Hence our conversation this morning. I come from a Pentecostal upbringing in New York City, and I think we tend to think, no, if it's too organized, if we're planning out the year, what if the Holy Spirit decides that He wants to say something this week and you're challenging people to be like, no, no. You need to be thinking about what God is saying to the house. The way that that's important, I mean, Jesus is talking to His church in revelations, seven different locations, and He doesn't speak to the congregation directly. He speaks through the angel. There's a waitingness on the importance of your role in communicating what God is saying, the say of the Lord, to the house. How important is that for those that are listening right now? I think it's a dance. I think Brian articulated this real well when you were talking about jazz, right? Like, I'm studied, I'm familiar, I've written out my best sense of what the Holy Spirit has inspired this text to me, but I'm comfortable enough with it, where I can be sensitive to that opportune moment where the Holy Spirit says, boom, or reveals you something in the room that says, raw that out, or man, I know Brian, you probably had a thousand Sundays, I know I have as well, where something just pops into the mind, even in the preach moment that was not there before, but I can get back to where I'm supposed to be. Doc, why don't you flesh that out? Because I think that's really what we're talking about, thank you. Well, yeah, let me reach back and grab something, so look, I grew up charismatic very much. I think part of the, one of the critiques I would make on my own tribe, charismatic tribe, is we tend to put everything, all of our eggs in the Sunday morning experience, and as much as I love preaching, teaching, communicating my gosh, I wouldn't be at the preaching masterclass if I didn't, at the end of the day, Jesus put all of his eggs in the discipleship thing of which teaching is a part. You know what I'm saying? So, my experience with sanctification, most people's experience isn't, man, I came to an altar and boom, the taste was taken out of my mouth, I stopped, no, it's, I may need to see some therapy while I sit in a small group, while I read my Bible, pray. You know what I'm saying? So, it's much more robust, and so what that does for me as a communicator is, I'm still going all out for it, but it takes a little bit of the pressure off. You know what I'm saying? Everything doesn't rise and fall on my 45 minutes, right? There's so much more that is, that is going on, and so, you know, one of the things, I think Ricky was, what me to reach back and grab is, in the preaching moment, I try to have multiple conversations, right? There's me trying to process where MIs relates to my material, but also when I internalize my material, I want to metabolize my material into the bloodstream of who I am, so that the Holy Spirit can say, I mean, there's something happening here or I need you to go over here, and then even do a multiple services, I've had to learn the hard way that what works at the first service, don't necessarily try to reproduce that in the second service, so I just need to be in the moment, all of the time, so good. I mean, it's clear, Pastor Ricky, as you walk around the corridors of this church, which by the way has been designed impeccably, it's the thought process behind it, and I know because of the amount of staff that I've engaged with over the last day and a half, and that starts with the top down, and you've got an incredible staff on your team. They serve well. Yeah. The discipleship, to your point, is a key part of what's happening here, talk about how important discipleship is here at Southwest Church. Well, I think any church, you know, and I got this from Ryan and Fellowship Men, any church has to clear a North Star. There has to be a tip of the spear, or then everything's important, if everything's important, nothing else. And I think I inherited a church that was really good at a lot, and great at nothing. And so it has to be kind of a redefinition, according to the whole, the whole of scripture, as to what is God's North Star for his church. And God's North Star is make disciples, that can make disciples, great commission Matthew 20 and all that good stuff. So we had to ask the hard question, what good things do we want to kill in Jesus' name to make sure that the great thing, which is disciples making wins? Yes. And so we have really, and it's been eight years of labor and all those good things. But by God's grace, right, of course, of eight years, we think we're now in the cusp of seeing the fruit of what happens when a church says that what's ultimately important to God, and to what's ultimately important to us, even if that means some good things we could be doing, we've said, you know, we're going to let another church take that. We're going to let a church do that, we're going to look, we are going to make disciples in that unapologetically. And again, it just, it starts to, you know, I've got elders who says, you know what, man, you've been preaching this for eight years, and I just got it. And you're like, we'll praise the Lord, brother. But I think that's the win of making sure that your program is God's program, making sure that your mission is God's mission. And I think after a while, if the leader is faithful to saying the same thing over and over again, perhaps in new ones in different ways to use Brian's verb, it starts to metabolize into the lifeblood of the church. And I think if the church does that, the rest is history. And we're seeing that for good here. We're seeing that. We're seeing what we're hearing is pruning. I host passes retreats and Dr. Henry Cloud was with us. Oh, yeah. Necessary endings. Necessary. God's fair. You know, I've been in church. I'm a PK. I've been in church, you know, my whole life. And it was the best word on pruning I had ever heard. I passed it right. How important is it for a leader to say it's good, but it's not great. Yeah. And I've got to prune that thing so that we can be more fruitful. Yeah. Not just in church, I mean, any organization, market place, people that are listening. Yeah, that's exactly what Jesus does with us, right? John chapter 15. And it's, but I think, I think what you really have to sell as the leader is the greater fruit, the greater harvest, the why almost has to become louder than the how, the how's going to be really painful, but you got to, you got to really cast a vision for what we're going after. So I'm sure Ricky just didn't walk up in here and just start cutting programs. Right. Maybe some people, he had to cast some vision on some level. Maybe he wasn't ready to go public with the whole church. Maybe his first concentric circles is, hey, I got to have some conversations with the elder team, maybe with the staff team or whatever, but Jesus helps us to see what makes pruning palatable. John 15 is I have a greater harvest of fruit. So this isn't punitive, it's not punitive, it's for a purpose in Jesus cast that vision. So then when it's happening, I'm able to connect some dots even in the midst of my pain. So good. Well, you know, even in that passage, I prune them that it may bear more fruit, right? And I think even when it taught, when that starts to get real on the ground, right? And so here's a leader, hey, I'm going to change your job so it can bear more fruit. That's a painful conversation. And then there's those that time was just like, hey, I don't think this is where you're supposed to be. So you can bear more fruit. And man, that's been the leadership throws here is unapologetically saying we're going to do what's best for the church to accomplish her mission. But this is what I've noticed on the other side of hard conversations, painful conversations. Everybody's bear more fruit because we were paying attention to that mission. And I think the leader, I think leaders should be comforted, never comfortable, right? And what I mean by that, it was comforted by the Holy Spirit, even in the midst of throws, the things we have to change and do, but I should never get comfortable with where we are. I think as a leader, if you're at a place where it's like, this is exactly how I want to do it. You need to do something. You ain't a leader. You're not a leader. So I walk around the building. If I see a wire hanging from a TV that ain't supposed to be there, the only thing I think is there's another wire I can't see that may be important because you're, you're indicating something. And I think the leader is not the person who says, how dare you do this? I says, hey, do we have good, do we have good, are we doing the things that we need to do? And I'm using a metaphor of something very insignificant. But I think leaders are naturally nosy. I think leaders are, they're naturally nosy without being micro. You know what I mean? There's a dance there, but I'm concerned that we are bringing our best product to the four of the Holy Spirit's excess, so he can do with us what he wants to do. And if I think a comfortable leader needs to resign, are you need to go on a vacation and get some rest to be able to come back at it? So because we want, we want to push the agenda for it for God's kingdom. When leaders are leading change, it's, it's not an easy season. So where do leaders go to ensure that in the middle of the noise and the drain, because those conversations are not easy conversations. I mean, I love the, you know, we're going to go take the mountain stuff, but I mean, when you're leading and you're saying, hey, I'm going to release you to your destiny. Right. And that's just not here. Sure. It becomes there. People you've done life with. Yeah. Where does a leader go to make sure that they don't just throw in the towel. They don't just, you know, they give up midweapon. We know the hardest part in leading change is not where you leave, and it's not when you get there. It's spot in the middle. Yeah. In the change. You don't deal. Well, I really want Brian to speak to this. He's got way more experience, but I do want to tell a story about how Brian's spoken to that in the chapter of my life. You used to always say, I think you would say concentric circles, but health is, man, there's a physical space. There's a emotional slash mental space. And then there's spiritual right, my connection to Jesus. And if either one of those circles are fading, that spells on health. And I can't do emotional mental or spiritual by myself. That means I've got community accountability up and under physical, right, diet and exercise on this. Let me tell you about when I started working for Brian, I was probably the place where emotionally mental, I was probably doing fair, maybe above average. And then spiritual always say I was probably above average in those days. Physical was, I had to be 315 pounds in those days, a 31, 32, Brian says, hey, Doc, let's have breakfast at the pee body this Saturday. Pee body hotel, old world, high end, it's like, interesting, you know, while we have in breakfast, it's so nice of spot is what I'm thinking. And we have breakfast. We sit down, have our breakfast catching up like always. And he says, hey, man, I want to talk to you, you too big, that's a quote, that's a quote when I tell you I was rough around that, that's a quote, don't copy that, don't copy that. Well, cool thing. I'm in a grand maze. I don't even think you love me if you don't cuss me out twice a year. So I was rigid as fine with me. And he said, you too big, Ricky, don't get me wrong, I don't care how you look, I don't care. Yeah, I love you just as you are, I want you to see your grandkids. And you said, I'll pay for the gym, I'll pay for the physical trainer, I'll pay for the food, but whatever you need, I got you, and I want to challenge you that in that area of your life. That was August of 2009, and you dropped a lot of weight. I dropped in the next four months, I dropped 90 pounds. Wow. Now I found most of them. So don't hear me say I was fixed forever, but there was an area of my emotional spiritual physical health, there was a gift called awareness, right? And one of those circles that I didn't have before that I maintained to this day, and my point is this out, she's Brian's going to speak to, I think, where leaders go, but man, ain't no sense in going nowhere if when you get back, you're not going to be taking care of those three areas zealously for yourself. So that's been my reflection. I fight my body, it'll look older, I get the more I have choice words for Adam and the guy standing that was introduced into the world, but I heard a preacher say your ministry will only last as long as your body does, right? And then I read, you know, you know that scene where Moses strikes the rock, I actually think that's the mental health episode, yeah. I think he just got so sick of people complaining, complaining, complaining, that's right, that they did it one more time and he snapped. And that little episode borrowed him from the promised land. That's good. And so I just read that and I go, I mean, we heard earlier today, Brian, you better guard your heart. Right. And a part of what that looks like for me is, among other things, find a hobby and don't apologize for it. Find what brings you joy and put it on repeat. Obviously, we understand responsibility, we understand that kind of thing. I find most leaders, especially young leaders, don't give them self permission to enjoy. And you got it for your own health and for your own soul, you got to do that. So we're sitting here live at Preachy Masterclass. Why is this so important? I mean, in 30 years of ministry for me, I've been to lots of conferences, but there's a weightiness in this room that's just a little different. I mean, I walked out of worship, Matt Redman was leaning, I walked back in, something had shifted in the room. John has big rentals as long as they have rentals. I mean, it was just like, I think, I think Pastor Albert had made his own alter call somewhere down front and he was laid out, you know, on his feet, and I'm, so why is this something that should be on leaders, calendars to get to? Because this doesn't feel like just the raw, raw conference. It feels like there's something else that's in the air, there's something, there's a weightiness that's in this room that's just different. Well, part of what I like, which probably isn't exactly what you're speaking to, but the uniqueness of it for me, having gone to a few different preaching conferences, I just love the favorite part where a person will preach. And then right afterwards, there's an interview, it's like, it's like you just ate the meal and now I'm back in the kitchen with the chef, who's walking me through their process, how they approach it, the why behind, you know, the psychology of how they presented the message. That, that is gold and it's like 25 to 30 minutes of hearing that. That's why one of my sons to be here, you know, he can podcast great preaching. And for sure, there's things that are happening in the room, which are phenomenal. I also wanted him to be exposed to not just the labs, but hearing how these amazing communicators approach things. Yeah, I'll draw something out of that too. I think that's the uniqueness of preaching master's class is everything that Brian just said. About further, preaching master's class is a permission conference. And what I mean by that is there's, there's experiences where you can work on mechanics, you can work on, hey, here, here by the illustration, you know, here's some, here's some outlines and here's some setup and here's explanation illustration. We've been there and done that with homilett and that's, that's all good. Transcendence is the new commodity of the church. Content is free. Right. I can literally go to Chad GBT right now and I can give Chad GBT 10 YouTube links of Brian Laritz, 10 of Tony Evans, 10 of Albertate and 10 of Gardner C. Taylor and say write a sermon on Ezekiel chapter 34 and their voices and I'll have a perfect sermon in 30 minutes. So that can't be what it's about right now because anybody can do that, right? So I think the reason churches are swilling up now is not for content, it's for something they can't get on Chad GBT, something they can't get in the podcast, something they can't get and their tribes on social media. And that is the indisputable raw authenticity of a transcendent moment happening in real time and space because cultures running out of those spaces and the church, that's the only thing we know how to do well. And so I think it's a moment that preaching master's class has learned how to package and produce and to Brian's point, it happens after the sermon world, just like, oh my gosh, but now transcendently I get to speak to the preacher while they're there. I get to ask them a question while they're there. I get to get her or him to speak to it to me. And there's an exchange that is happening in that space and I think the root word is permission. I think Megan Faith this morning gave everyone permission to go do that. I think Brian Laritz last night gave everyone permission to go do that because it takes the mystic out of it. It takes the mystery out of it. We're sitting down in the living room chair and he's telling me, oh, okay, I can do that too. Because if I just watch Brian Laritz preaching, this isn't me now, but it's just a watch Brian Laritz preach, man, I wish I could do that must be nice. But when he sits down in a living room chair, I said, no, I did this. Then I thought that and then, oh, you just broke down that gourmet meal. It's gourmet, but it's really you went to the same grocery store I can go to and I can buy that. I mean, I put it together the same way, but I can go back and I can figure it out and I can try it a few times till it tastes just like you are, it just tastes like the way I do it. I think that's huge, man, you know, Brian, you go everywhere, I don't know a space. No, I don't. That does this. I know. Like this. Yeah. How important is working on the craft of preaching. I mean, I heard a long time ago, I was in a room and Bishop Jake said, you're changing the oil on the showroom floor. You still working through your message on, it's only half baked by first service, maybe by the third service you go, but you're working through it. How important is it to work on the craft, the skill of preaching teaching, communicating to be an effective leader? Look, athletes have a saying, Aaron Donald, the great lineman for the Rams, everybody's like, what are you doing? You're at the top of your game and you're retiring and Aaron pretty much said, I've gotten to the point where I want to take shortcuts in my preparation and the moment I want to cheat the game, cheat the process is the moment I need to get out of the game. For me, having done this for 35 years, I'm at a dangerous place where I got an amazing back catalog of stuff and I've just preachers at my age, at my stage, they tend to either plateau or decline and I get it because whereas busy as will ever be, we've got this amazing backlog of stuff and it's just easy to reach and cut that illustration from there now and I have to force myself as never before to put the work in. I keep telling myself, don't cheat the game, don't cheat the game. And that's what I want to encourage this generation and I'm not anti-AI, which might surprise people, I am anti-AI first. That should be towards the end. Tim Keller said the internet is the friend of information, the enemy of thought. And I think we have to work really hard and to put up appropriate boundaries that guarantee our thoughtful engagement with the text and that other stuff is just from your supplemental. So I've got to put the work in and I'm not, let me say something that's going to sound like I'm contradicting, I actually think some young preachers put too much work in. You're pastoring a church, not a church service. Okay. So this nonsense, they feed you in seminary about 40 hours a week. You ain't spending, you ain't spending 40 hours a week. I think you should give yourself an 8 to 12 hour window and at some point, okay, that's enough and I need to go to the hospital, I need to sit with some people, I need to go spend some time with my wife, my kids. So I don't want you to hear my work, I'm not saying 40 hours, but I'm also saying put your time in and have the process. I think that's brilliant, I think it's prescient for the room that we were just with. The average guy out there is probably more like a maybe a team pastor, a high school, you know what I mean? So I think there's a lot of bivocational people in there to Brian's point. For me and where I sit, I think if you love preaching and are thereby called to it, you are naturally working on bettering it, right? Like there's often to this purity factor there. So I'm not happy with them, I think I've become a different, they say you change, you've become a new preacher every 300th sermon, right? So I've witnessed that, I am not what I was five years ago, you know? And so all of that, but my encouragement to Brian's point is, and this is just where I mean, I'm just testifying for Ricky Jenkins. I want to be a great preacher, I'd rather have a great church. You know what I'm saying? So like, and I'm not saying we're going to be a great preacher, I want to, some guys pick what I get that, I've kind of made up my mind, I just want a great church, I'm good enough, you know? Like I know who I am, and I think that's 48 talking, you know what I'm saying? But this is what I do know, I don't care if even if I did just want to be a great preacher. As far as the fruit and leverage factor is, I can probably only leverage our scale, my preaching gift, maybe three X, that will translate into kingdom fruit. Maybe, maybe somebody can do a five X, you know what I'm saying? I think Tony ever did a five X and all those people. Well, it's different capacities, right? There's like a one talent, two talent, five talent, you know? But my systems, I can scale them at least 10, at least. And then I can create a new one that can scale that even further. So I think for the bivocational person, for the high school pastor, for the team pastor, that's why I'm so heavy on getting that other stuff so organized. So you're not putting so much pressure on your preaching. Craig Rochelle, what, largest church in America or second largest, maybe it's still gay way, whatever, Craig is good, Craig is real good. He ain't that good. Like Craig preachers a good message. That dude has that sucker organized to get a hundred thousand people. Right. Because let me tell you, I love Craig Rochelle, his gift ain't a hundred thousand people. Right. His system is. Right. So I think that's a gift that preaching master's class is giving to these leaders where they're really start to leverage their voice and see what their voice has potential on because it's not as much pressure on it. So that's why I'm passionate about that. So in 30 seconds, you and I are the same age. I'm 28. I've also just, I just lost 75 pounds over the last year. That is so, you know, to, to your, that's awesome, man. I had my pastor pastor, Robert, I say, hey, you know, you need to say, did he say, you to be, it wasn't, you know, I said, I was in the hospital, I was in the hospital just had my, yeah, and, and, and it was not what I wanted to hear. Let's just put it that way. It wasn't as, wasn't as harsh as Pastor Brian, so obviously he does not have the gift of compassion. That's awesome. That's awesome. Now, we used to show the front vision in the hospital. They about to pull the plug. Yeah. Exactly. I think they don't pull the plug. Sounds like you, the one, you don't want about yaking the plug, so, but if you just told a leader, that's listening, watching this right now in 30 seconds, about them being healthy, whether they're in marketplace leadership, they're leading an NGO, a nonprofit pastor in whatever area of leadership they're in, you need to be healthy. What would that one thing you would tell that leader to ensure he does that they're healthy? Comprehensively healthy or specific kind of health? I'll, I'll leave it up to you, Pastor Brian. Well, listen, I think there's, there's many factors that go into that. I think the number one thing I would point to outside of a walk with Christ is a solid, authentic community of people around you. And what I mean by, I've been, I've been in this thing long enough to see, unfortunately, many leaders implode. Yeah. And when you do the autopsy, what gets them is never, the affair, it's never the money, it's never, they did, they weren't known. Like they didn't have people around them to say, I think you're doing too much. Or I've, y'all been spending a lot of time together and I don't think like they weren't really known. Yeah. It's amazing how many places I go to and I get introduced by the pastor. My good friend, I'm like, really? We talk once a year, right? So I would say, and even, even psychologists would say this, one of the benchmarks for health is rich life giving relationships. If I had to say one thing, I would say remember the Sabbath and keep it holy. Yes. 100%. You read your Old Testament. The years of exile got punished them with was commensurate to how many Sabbaths they missed. Right? So they go to the Sabbath, they were supposed to let the land rest every seventh year. And if you do the math over the hundreds of years of existence, God made them stay in Babylon respectful of the years of Sabbath that they hadn't taken. And you dial that back right to the weekly basis. I just know from my own story, COVID hits, maybe two weeks out of a month, I do a Sabbath, but even that was rushed to not intentional. My life changed. And what springs out of a consistent Sabbath? Well, I've had a deep, meaningful engagement with myself and with my Savior. My body is rested. Don't make trust any decision you make when you're tired, you know? My anxiety level is down. I'm a better Ricky for April, a better Ricky for those three kids and a better Ricky for this team. So I would encourage that, I would encourage leaders that there, if you're making an excuse for Sabbath and there's work that's more important than Sabbath, you have missed the God of Rist, Hebrews 4. So that's my story and I think those are intertwined community and Sabbath, but man, yeah. Well, and by the way, it's clear you live that because I actually spoke to a staff member who literally told me he was like, yeah, I came in and stopped by the office on my day off and I was rebuked by my senior pastor, and he was a staff here, so it is clear. So thank you for your transparency. Thank you both for your honesty, Pastor Brian, Pastor Ricky. Love you both. You both are just incredible, incredible leaders. Thank you for sharing this time with all of you faithfully podcasts, preaching master classes, been an incredible time, continue to follow us at faithley.co. God bless you. Thank you for tuning in to the Faithfully 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. 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