Attention Bootcamp Listeners! Be sure to sign up for our Replant Bootcamp Ball Cap Giveaway!

Last week at the Missouri Baptist Convention the guys caught up with their good friend and Replant Pastor, Evan Skelton.  The topic: the weightiness of leadership.

• Pastors/Replanters are leading in very heavy times. (Politics, Covid19 etc.)
• Pastors are exhausted and leaving the ministry
• There is nothing like the weight of leading from the first chair
• In the midst of chaos and crisis your people need a shepherd more than ever! A shepherd who leads from the confidence and joy in Christ.

The truth of being at the end of the “Liver Line,” sometimes in leadership it all comes down to you, when that happens you have to step up.

If everything “always comes down to you” it’s important to examine your leadership-this isn’t healthy and it won’t lead to joy, longevity or effectiveness in ministry.

How can you handle the weight of leadership?

• Stay in the word and in prayer
• Constantly remind yourself you are not the hero-Jesus is!
• Be honest about your weaknesses and struggles with the right leaders
• Allow God to redeem the bad moments in your leadership

Pastor Brother, are you hurting and in need of encouragement?  Contact us here that the Bootcamp or call the

Pastor Help Line: 1-844-PASTOR1. This is a free, confidential, dedicated help line for pastors. Trained, professional counselors are available every day from 8 a.m. – 10 p.m. (ET). Confidentiality is ensured by Focus on the Family.

Is your website weighing you down? Get some help by connecting with our great sponsor: oneeighty digital

Check out the show notes below for more detail. Show transcripts are an approximation of the podcast, audio should be consulted for exact detail

JimBo Stewart: [00:00:00] SI. Welcome to the replant bootcamp.   Here we go. welcome to the replant bootcamp, everybody. It’s going to be another great episode here. Live at the Missouri Baptist convention with thousands of Missourians listening with bated breath on every word that we have to say.

Bob Bickford: [00:00:31] man. I’m so excited here because not only does the ambient noise sound like the antiques roadshow. Yeah. Which I only watch when I’m ready to go to

Evan Skelton: [00:00:39] state,

Bob Bickford: [00:00:41] but we’ve got another great voice, a great podcast voice with, uh, he’s probably our most frequent with turning guests.

JimBo Stewart: [00:00:51] he’s kind of like an official third member of the team.

Bob Bickford: [00:00:54] is mr. Evans

Evan Skelton: [00:00:56] I’ll come on. If you’ll have me, there we

JimBo Stewart: [00:00:57] Evan, the voice skeleton.

Evan Skelton: [00:00:59] voice you guys say that, but I’ve never anyways, there you go. Well, thanks.

JimBo Stewart: [00:01:04] You know, I’m really glad to be in Missouri. When I left Jacksonville at like six o’clock in the morning, it was 85 degrees. And I had to tell you something that you guys have that I’ve only heard stories of four seasons. I don’t know what it’s like to have four seasons. And I grew up in South Mississippi on the same latitude that I live now in Florida, which we have summer.

Hotter summer and three weeks of blistering cold winter.

Bob Bickford: [00:01:36] now defined blistering cold

JimBo Stewart: [00:01:37] like 35 degrees, but with a hundred percent humidity,

Evan Skelton: [00:01:42] Well that’s, that’s worse

JimBo Stewart: [00:01:44] bone chilling.

Bob Bickford: [00:01:45] Evan, our good friend here is from, the Denver Colorado

Evan Skelton: [00:01:48] Oh, that’s right.

Bob Bickford: [00:01:50] it’s a, it’s a different kind of cold, right? Evan. It’s not like bone chilling cold. Yeah.

Evan Skelton: [00:01:55] it it’s Oh man, I loved Colorado winter so-so would dump.

snow all the time , but it’d be gone by the afternoon. Most people I think because they see the news and they watch movies. They assume that Colorado is buried from October till February. No, not at all. It’s the best.

Bob Bickford: [00:02:10] why so many people move there. And that’s why property is so expensive. It is so high and, it’s mile high city and it was just awesome weather and I love Colorado. , one of my favorite places, but we’re not here to talk about

JimBo Stewart: [00:02:24] Nope. We’re not here to talk about Colorado where we can do out another episode. Maybe I’ll just Colorado, today, we’re going to talk about how to manage and handle and survive the weight of leadership. I think in this season in particular, I don’t know about you guys, but I have felt the weightiness of leadership, maybe more.

In the last nine months than I ever have, because it’s just been, it’s been so complex in the sense that there are so many things kind of pulling in so many different directions. You have COVID, which obviously is divisive. And there are all these different views in the views. I don’t know about you guys, but in Florida they express their views very passionately on this subject.

And it, it becomes one of those things that like, you’re, you’re trying to navigate because you’ve got people in your church on both sides of that equation. And you’re trying to figure out how to navigate that. And then you’ve got political tension in both kind of racial, disharmony and disunity in the country being really elevated to a higher level recently.

And then the political tension of it being an election year. and maybe one of the more contentious election years that we’ve had in a while. And you’re trying to figure out how to pass their and all that. While also having probably decreased attendance because of COVID and decreased giving and decreased missional opportunities for outreach, because you gotta be socially distant and it’s just, it’s, there’s a lot of weight.

Have you guys felt that weightiness.

Evan Skelton: [00:03:54] Yeah, absolutely. I think. You. So this is my first time in a lead pastorate in any church. Um, let alone in a season like this one. And,  , I think I felt that weight this year, more than ever before, um, lost sleep over it I’ve , and , many ways I’ve been reminded of my youth and out of my, I felt out of my depth and making, and, uh, not just a few decisions, but a variety of different decisions almost on a weekly basis.

Yeah.

Bob Bickford: [00:04:22] Yeah. I think it’s the succession, uh, of the success of wave after wave, after wave of hit after hit, after hit. That particularly has been wearisome to me because it’s not just, COVID, it’s a personal crisis or it’s somebody leaving the church or it’s a. A church, a difficult conversation that’s you have to have, and then you can, one of the things I can see in, in the faces of our people is like several churches across the nation.

We, as we’ve returned to worship, we’ve had a significant number have still stayed away. So we’re running 30%, 33% of what we normally run. And you can kind of see that on people’s faces when they come in. And they’re like, well, we’re glad to be here. Where’s everybody else. And there’s a weight to that, right? Let’s toss in just personal stuff with kids, with finances, with family, with health. And what we’re hearing is leaders are just simply exhausted and they’re, they’re just feeling the weight of everything.

Evan Skelton: [00:05:21] Yeah. We’ve lost several leaders in our city already. Uh, I think they’ve said, I mean, we’re seeing more pastors resign there, uh, from there, um, from even thriving churches at one point, uh, this year more than, than any other year prior.

Yeah.

JimBo Stewart: [00:05:35] Even if you remove all of the kind of current situations, because we know that this podcast is going to be tired and people are gonna listen to this 10 years from now, and they’re going to be like, what was COVID? What was all this?

Bob Bickford: [00:05:49] what were these guys? 10 years ago,

JimBo Stewart: [00:05:52] No, but just that kind of first chair to leadership. And I don’t know about you guys, but a lot of lead pastors told me, Hey, there’s just really no way for me to explain it to you. Um, but there’s just something different. About that, that lead position and really the weight that falls on you. Do you guys, have you guys felt that as well?

Evan Skelton: [00:06:14] Yes.

Bob Bickford: [00:06:16] Um, particularly when a family comes to you for counsel, let’s say their marriage is in a bad spot. and they’re looking at you you’re thinking about your own marriage. Am I in a position where I can have something to share? And then just the weightiness of feeling the, the hurting, the hurt that they’re expressing and that thinking of a senior adult who’s facing a transition in their life.

Like they’re, they’re no longer can live by theirself and they have to consider what, what are my options now? Do I move in with my kids? Do I go to a center, a home, those sorts of things. And then I, I just think being the lead guy for a season, maybe that just should have not been the lead guy. And typically if we’ve served under a leader, we always know in our minds how we would do things differently.

And we think in our minds it would probably be better if we were in the lead position. And then we find ourselves in the lead position and guess what we have that guy behind us or those people behind us. And so. The weight of those experiences and pastoring, pastoring’s heavy, the challenge of managing your own life and, and paying attention to your own life and the gospel and all those things.

And just the sheer exhausting of exhaustion of being the guy that’s taking on the full force of the wind all the time, the circumstances, the life, the spiritual attacks, all those sorts of things. We find ourselves in a position where, you know, we just, sometimes in, in particularly I feel that on a Sunday afternoon when I come home, Uh, and I, you know, shepherded people and talked to people and preached a sermon and seen people, uh, both rejoice and also be sad.

And you know, all those sorts of things. I think Sunday night, Sunday afternoon, when I come home, I just kind of collapse into a chair and go, it’s a hit, it’s been a heavy day.

JimBo Stewart: [00:08:04] I’m never more exhausted than Sunday afternoon.

Evan Skelton: [00:08:08] The other, I think a few weeks ago, uh, I think I had this cloud that hung over me from probably again, some Saturday evening. I slept about four hours. Um, I tend to get my worst sleep on Saturdays for some reason. And then it persisted probably till about Tuesday or Wednesday until I finally felt the clouds part.

And there was a variety of reasons for that. And I think part of it is the, is that what you’re describing? Um, and. I had a good mentor who reminded me recently, you know, in the midst of this, we, it took a while in the pandemic, particularly just to get our feet under us to feel like finally, okay, okay.

Like we have at least a sense of what, what, what this is going to look like, or at least what it looked, what it does look like right now, let alone how to begin to move forward. And he really pressed in that the, you know, our people during this time, especially at least in the season that we’re in, we’re still very, still very early on in a replant in many of our people in this season.

Uh, have, uh, have seen a drift towards, uh, just a spiraling anxiety and isolation. And in that, um, it can easily, it can be easy for me to get frustrated or resentful over our last, uh, loss of momentum, but my people need a shepherd more than ever. They need a leader more than ever. They need someone who, who can lead from a position of joy and of courage.

And he really pressed in not. That my responsibility is, uh, more than ever before in this season is to be at rest in Christ, confident in his, in his, uh, in his power, his strength, his wisdom, and be an out of that refreshment, even in changing circumstances to lead forward because our people won’t be, uh, in many ways, uh, um, have that on their own.

They will. I mean, if they’re a faithful, godly believer, God’s meant them to be meant for them to be led and for their leaders to. Inspire that evoke them and, and to March forward with them. And, uh, and I, and I feel that because I can just get very weighed down in my own discouragement and self-pity and whatever it is, and miss that, uh, that, uh, really does affect the people around me.

JimBo Stewart: [00:10:12] My wife gave me the greatest analogy I’ve ever heard that gives the clearest explanation. I I’ve heard of what it. What it means to have that weight. Right. So me and my wife went on a mission trip when we were engaged to Kenya. And on this mission trip, we go out into the African Bush at the some point sleep like just on the ground.

And, and we meet with the Masa, which is a primitive tribe in Africa. So the Masa at that time decided to honor us by slaughtering a goat and cooking it. Right there in front of us around this fire. And in particular, the liver is the like way to honor a guest. And so they take this goat liver. Put it on a stick and cook it for maybe two minutes on the

Bob Bickford: [00:11:03] my gosh.

JimBo Stewart: [00:11:04] and our missionary that we’re working with comes and tells us, Hey, just heads up.

Here’s what’s about to go down. They’re going to pass us this liver. This is a huge way of honoring us as guests in there area. And we have to eat the entire thing

Evan Skelton: [00:11:20] You have like a 32nd warning for

JimBo Stewart: [00:11:22] Yeah. Or, or it will be like really, yeah. Huge dishonor to them. And, and it’ll, it’ll mess a lot of things up. You, you just gotta, you gotta do it.

Right. So we’re already kind of sitting in a line on a circle around the fire and, and so they come and they hand it to the first person. That’s one huge chunk of liver. And the idea is you H suppose each person is supposed to take a bite and then pass it down and we have to finish the whole thing. It’s been heavily communicated.

Well in God’s sovereign Providence. My wife was at the very end of this line and I say sovereign Providence because my wife grew up in Northeast, Mississippi eating gas station, chicken, gizzards, chicken liver. And so no one on this trip was more prepared to handle being at the end of the line than my wife.

Yeah. I mean, I look, I, I’m not going to. Not going to lie. I have a little bit of a refined palate is how I’m going to say it.

Evan Skelton: [00:12:18] that’s how you strike me having a refined palette.

Bob Bickford: [00:12:21] I just think he’s refined.

Evan Skelton: [00:12:22] That’s right.

JimBo Stewart: [00:12:23] vomited, if I had to eat much more than I did, and everybody, everybody ate the smallest bite they could possibly eat. And so 80% of the liver’s left when it gets to my wife at the end of the line.

And I felt horrible. I wanted to be chivalrous. I wanted to, I just, I couldn’t do it. I would have dishonored everyone because I would’ve vomited the whole thing. And so I hand it to her as she mans up and just takes it and just throws that liver chews it up, swallows it, like no one else on the team could have done it.

And my wife said to me that recently being in that top level leadership is like being at the end of the liver line because everybody else gets to take a small bite as they want. But when it gets to the end of the line, You have to do it. You have to finish it and you can’t lean on everybody else at that moment.

It’s on you right then. And pastoral leadership is so often that way where church members will take a small bite as they can, or maybe they’ll take a big bite, but whatever gets left at the end of the line. Well, it’s up to you. You got to eat the liver.

Bob Bickford: [00:13:35] I I, you know, so we talked about kind of the emotional pastoral way of loose talk about some of that administrative weight, that cause, cause of that, when you tell that story and kind of couch it that way, it makes me think about the Saturday night, nine o’clock cancellation of the childcare folks and who call your wife and say, we’re not going to be able to do childcare.

And your wife’s already been in childcare for, you know, three weeks at that point. Well, that falls to somebody who’s that fall two falls to. The pastor’s wife oftentimes, right. And there are all kinds of things that happen in our church. Like that, that, that

Evan Skelton: [00:14:10] one,

Bob Bickford: [00:14:12] uh, we do need to have good leadership and good administrative systems and good teamwork.

And we need to develop leaders who realize that their yes needs to be us. And there are no needs to be known. They need to keep their commitments, but ultimately it does come back to you sometimes where it just falls on you. You’re at the end of the liver line. So to speak now. If that’s happening on a regular basis, what’s going to happen is you’re going to get exhausted and it’s gonna bring, it’s gonna build resentment and frustration, and it’s going to decrease your longevity in ministry and certainly decrease your joy in ministry.

Evan Skelton: [00:14:47] So

Bob Bickford: [00:14:48] hear us say that while leadership is waiting and sometimes you’re the personal, you’re the last person there that has to get things done. But if that’s always true of you, you probably need to examine your leadership. Because here’s what happens sometimes in an unhealthy way. Some of us enjoy the fact that we’re needed and we put ourselves in positions where people are dependent upon us. And if that’s a scenario that’s kind of in our lives and we’re getting affirmation from that, it’s very unhealthy and it could undermine the success of the ministry in the sense of building God’s people for God’s mission. And then us leading God’s people towards God’s mission and vision. Everything that, that falls on us is something that detracts from the primary call on our life.

And I want to be careful when I say that, right. So we talk about being resourceful, generalist being right. So if their toilet stopped up and there ain’t nobody to do it, well, guess what? You gotta, you gotta handle it. I happened to me on a Sunday, right? Light bulb needs to be changed. You gotta do it. Like something happens like it’s game time.

Right? Somebody’s gotta

JimBo Stewart: [00:15:55] on the way to the pulpit. I had a lady stopped me to let me know that there was no toilet paper in the ladies restroom.

Evan Skelton: [00:16:01] On the way

JimBo Stewart: [00:16:02] I’m like walking up to the pulpit.

Bob Bickford: [00:16:05] Says I love them, but you, yeah. Yeah. And you know, we can handle a couple of those, but let’s just say one of those hits you on the week that your kids stayed up all night, your car broke down

Evan Skelton: [00:16:17] your

Bob Bickford: [00:16:18] Parents in another state called you and were frustrated because you hadn’t been home in a weekend or to your wife and you got a fight because you’re both tired and you didn’t have a date night, et cetera.

And

Evan Skelton: [00:16:28] all theoretical, right? Bob,

Bob Bickford: [00:16:30] this not speaking from experience,

JimBo Stewart: [00:16:33] somebody experienced

Bob Bickford: [00:16:34] somebody is experienced

Evan Skelton: [00:16:35] My friend is

Bob Bickford: [00:16:35] what we hear, what we hear. Right? You guys are laughing because you know, it’s true. But, um, but in those moments, that’s the, that’s the Sunday that somebody is going to come up to you and say, there’s no toilet

Evan Skelton: [00:16:45] Right.

Bob Bickford: [00:16:46] And in that moment, right before you preach, like all of these unsanctified thoughts are going through your mind. Right. So let’s kind of get to some solution side things,

JimBo Stewart: [00:16:55] Yeah. So what do you do with the weight? How do you, how do you, what do you do with it? How do you process it? W where, how have you guys processed and managed that in your life?

Evan Skelton: [00:17:05] Well, I would say, I mean the first way, and this is, this is supremely practical, practical, but it’s also, I mean, it’s spiritual, emotional by, by the, the daily. It means of grace, of staying in the word and in prayer and, and reminding myself, I am not the Jesus is the leader of the church. It rest upon him.

He’s the one who builds it. Only if I am forcing myself praying and fasting and repenting so that I actually believe that will I ever be able to then begin to make decisions on the fly where I can respond more from a position of rest is if I’m actually convinced that the Lord is patient, that the Lord builds that this is again about making.

Christ’s name glorious, not my own only if, and that, I mean, that does, I mean, there’s, there’s no shortcut to that. You can’t microwave that. And sometimes God uses suffering and the, and the real big failures or the big, or the unexpected onslaught of decisions or to, so that we begin to believe that. And it begins to form that maturity in us.

But I would say that that, that has to be the number one priority is to begin to actually grow in our joy. Uh, in the Lord to see him as Lord and to treat him, um, as the, yeah, as the King of the church, not me. And so

Bob Bickford: [00:18:18] I think confessing your weakness to, uh, your elders, deacons key leaders, the ones who, who have accepted the responsibility to lead the church with you. Not advise you only on how you’re supposed to leave the church.

There’s a distinction there, right? And hopefully most of our brothers at least have one or two folks, maybe more who have said to them as pastor, pastor, I’m here to support you and help you in your role in ministry. Because the honor, even in a, in a church that’s been in long decline, there there’s some good folks there who realize the pastor can’t do this by himself.

And it may just be an honest coming to them and saying, look, I I’m bearing a lot of weight right now. And I just kind of have to confess. The, I cannot do these things and I can’t do them any longer. It’s about I’m being crushed by them and I need you all to step up. So we had one of these it’s uh, my, uh, it’s the, the rumor we’d remember the rumor we’d on veggie tales.

Did you guys watch veggie VeggieTales rumor wheat Jimbo?

Evan Skelton: [00:19:21] One of the few things I could

Bob Bickford: [00:19:22] All right. Yeah. So, so we have this area ack out behind our church and our parking lot and. And, uh, for whatever reason, like the weeds just infested it and our lawn guy wasn’t getting it. And it was in particularly busy week. And, um, it was in the spring time, right after COVID hit and everything’s just kind of exploding. And so I’m trying to figure out how to handle all my pastoral responsibilities and also have somebody take care of the weeds that are going in the acks, because they’re about to encroach and kill our AC.

JimBo Stewart: [00:19:57] But you’re at the end of the liver line.

Bob Bickford: [00:19:59] I’m in, well, I am, but I’m also at the end of my line. So I was like, I took a picture of it and texted about four guys in our church and our elder team.

And I just, uh, I just said, guys, this needs to be taken care of. I cannot do it. I’m exhausted. I’ve got too many things going on. Somebody, they handle this. Right. And so radio silence for a long time.

Evan Skelton: [00:20:26] And

Bob Bickford: [00:20:26] I’ve just determined, you know, what. I’m going to let this one go. I’m just going to, I’m going to let it be out there.

I’m going to leave it hanging. And so oftentimes what will happen? I found this out. I was like, when I’ll text something to the elders, a couple of them will go on the, they’ll have the side channel conversation of like, what are we going to do about this as pastor Bible? Okay. Like what what’s I think we need to handle this, right?

Say it aside set aside general conversation. And finally one of them comes back and says, I’ll do it. And it had to be the hottest day of the spring. The most humid day in st. Louis. And he went out there and he cleared all the weeds. And I was rejoicing because I was like, he felt the weight. And that was so good for me to offload that to a group that was exists, that exists in our church to make sure things are done well, and that I’m not bearing all the way

JimBo Stewart: [00:21:12] I it’s so key to reiterate what you said earlier, that if you always always find yourself at the end of the goat liver line, then you’re not leading correctly. You are not meant to be superhero. You’re not meant to be Atlas carrying the world on your shoulders. You’re meant to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

And you got to figure that out. But I think sometimes man, it’s just gonna be tough. Um, one of the, one of the single worst moments of my ministry career was also a catalyst for one of my greatest seasons of spiritual growth. And it was such a. Lots of things where I felt, or I felt were imploding around me.

The dark clouds wouldn’t leave. Everything felt horrible and bad in the church in this season. And there was a stupid house. I owned a Mississippi that I could not sell. And I’d try, rented it out for 10 years and tried to sell it and couldn’t sell it. And I, I mean, I lost all my savings trying to keep this house and make mortgage payments.

And I’m in my office pen to paper, filling out an application for short sell foreclosure, hoping that the bank would show me that grace and a young leader walks into my office and says, My wife was crying on the couch last night. Cause she hasn’t been fed under your preaching and over a year and your failure to preach the gospel.

Clearly it will be the reason this church died and then walks out. And at that particular moment, I was like, I ain’t eat any more liver. I’m done. I am absolutely done. But what I did is I ran to the Lord. And I, I really, I ran to the Psalms and I ran to some Barnabas friends and some Aaron leaders that would hold my arms up for a little bit.

And I think about second Corinthians one nine, Paul says, indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. Right. He’s he’s letting the Corinthians. And they’re like, I don’t want you to, I don’t want you to get this twisted, like not everything’s great. We thought we were going to die. But then he said something so important, but that was to make us rely not on ourselves, but on God who raises the dead.

And I’ll tell you before that season of my life, I would have told you I was a spirit dependent pastor, but I wasn’t in that moment. I really became more of, and I’m sure there’s more for me to grow in this, but it really. Drove me to my knees and drove me deeper into a dependence on Christ to not rely on myself, but to rely on others.

So one of the things I would say is don’t always run away from the suffering sometimes, if not often times, it’s, it’s the path of suffering that God has for us in our sanctification. And in those difficult moments, you don’t need to run away from it. You need to ask the Lord, what are you doing here? And what do you, what do you want me to do?

Evan Skelton: [00:24:31] One of the, uh, um, I just think, I want to add to what you were saying to Bob about this vulnerability piece.

I think it’s so, so important for, uh, well, one our longevity, but also for the people that we have been entrusted to serve. Is that not only are we saying I am not the SERE superhero, Jesus is the superhero. I can’t be the superhero, but to be very practical then about our own weakness, to be able to like confess, as you said, Bob too.

And I remember when he first started doing that at Bayless, even in sermons being in like admitting my own struggles with discouragement, even depression. I had several people who are very, very rattled by that who came up and said, pastor, are you okay? Like, are you going to quit? And I said, no, no, this is just daily reality.

I want you to know that I’m fighting for joy just as I want you to fight for joy, but isn’t Christ good. And for them to even see when you’re having those vulnerable moments, I cannot bear this on my own. I need teammates. I need somebody to take this, or even allowing some things sometimes to crack. So to not go, according to plan a little, to fumble the ball and to realize, again, the Lord’s patients with our church, this actually can be really good for, for our church to see about what matters most and even like, okay, so moving forward, how can we do so as a, I have a good mentor or puts it, this is not a, it’s not an individual event.

This is a team sport. That’s what we, and to have our people begin to see, Oh yeah, like I am a necessary. A piece of this team, as you know, Corinthians talks about this body, we can’t, we’re, we’re all of us are required. I mean, which, uh, which organs would you call expendable? And so for our people to see and act upon that, sometimes it takes things to be dropped.

Bob Bickford: [00:26:14] I just want to end with, with this. Um, there, there are likely some guys who are listening, who are really there at the end of maybe there’ll be on the end.

Okay. And the reality is we’ve seen pastoral suicides. We’ve seen guys just blow up their lives with sin and just shipwreck their, their marriage, their leadership, because they’re well beyond the end of themselves. Jimbo very clearly articulated that we, God brings us to the end so that we would depend on him.

But if you don’t depend on God, you’re, you’re, you’re in a season of, uh, risk.

Evan Skelton: [00:26:55] So

Bob Bickford: [00:26:55] I just want to say the guys out there that, that maybe you feel like you’re beyond your end and you’re concerned, and you’re having thoughts that alarm you and frightened you and are concerning to you. Reach out. We’re going to put the pastor’s help number on the end of the show notes.

Reach out to the pastors helpline. It’s confidential. It’s 24 hours. Um, they’ll answer you, uh, reach out to us, reach out to your association or leader. Reach out to your sending church. Reach out to a brother, reach out to a mentor, reach out to a peer from seminary or college who you could have. You could just tell them anything and they’re not going to judge you.

get the help you need. Part of that help may be a time away from ministry or transition away from ministry, or it may be a little bit of a break. It may be some medication and some counseling and all those sorts of things. The reality is when we are hurt physically, we’ll seek medical relief. When we were hurt mentally and emotionally and spiritually, we often try to just to suck it up and bear it on our own. And that does not work. So Paul says we’re going to be, we do not want you to be uninformed about the suffering that we experienced. And he talks about the depth and the extent of it. And he said all of that happened to make us not depend on ourselves, but to depend on God. So pastor, if you’re in a bad place, don’t depend on yourself, get the help you need.

JimBo Stewart: [00:28:22] All right guys, one last reminder for you for the next several weeks, we’re going to be given away a hat. Each once a month and you can find the information on how to enter that@replantbootcamp.com or on our social media, a lot of different ways that you can enter. We’re just doing this to help us get the word out and let others know about the podcast.