The Mirror Nobody Wants to Look In

The Mirror Nobody Wants to Look In

Frank: Hey everyone, welcome to another special episode of the Next Sunday podcast. We're calling the Next Sunday Summer Session. And I'm here with the one, the only, the incredible, the magnificent Jim Shepherd.

Jim: I'm always scared when you start with that intro cuz I'm like, "Wait a second. I'm not doing this podcast. There's somebody else coming in the room." We talked about it. But I also have to tell you that you introduced a little bit of um maybe reflective trauma for me cuz you said summer session.

Frank: Oh yeah.

Jim: Some of us fell behind in college and we had to go to what? Summer session.

Frank: Summer session. Yeah. Those classes were less fun.

Jim: They were less fun because here's the thing. When I went back in the day at the University of Georgia for summer session, you covered the same amount that you would have in say like the winter spring session, but you did it in fewer weeks.

Frank: Yes. So it was the same content packed into less time and it was challenging. Let's just say that. And of course there are the distractions of summer.

Jim: What are those Jim? I think that's a different podcast. I think that's a different podcast. We're not talk all together.

Frank: But this is the summer session because what we wanted to do is to kind of come in the gap between what we do with our regular episodes and come in here with kind of a little bit of a boot camp of, hey, if you're just kind of going through the summer, maybe our full episodes are not what you need, but maybe if these these are just really laser focused on things you could do to get ready for the rest of the year, that might be more helpful. That's so good. And we actually have a workbook that's going to go along with these sessions to help you hopefully put this in a practical application and make it really really helpful. Uh this is a lot about just preparing the soil and getting ready for what God may do this fall and into the later seasons. Right.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I love that idea of preparing the soil, Frank, because I think it so says so much about what we're trying to accomplish here is um if you come with a great idea, it'll land better if you've prepared the soil.

Frank: Sure.

Jim: What do I mean by that? Well, you and I live in the south here in the Atlanta area. We've actually been in a little bit of a drought recently.

Frank: Hot Atlanta.

Jim: Oh, hot Atlanta. Yeah, it is getting to be the summer and we have droughts. I mean, um, we've had a period where the ground got pretty hard. And I know at my house, I watched it. And of course, we also have these periods where we have these summer thunderstorms or even late spring thunderstorms when all of a sudden, I mean, we had one last night while I was sitting in a restaurant. I mean, just a downpour.

Frank: Yeah. Massive amount of rain. Yeah.

Jim: I got home and the soil was still hard at my house because most of it ran off into the storm sewer.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Right. So when a lot of rain comes on hard ground, it's not receptive and it runs off. And the same thing happens when you come with a great idea. You've been to a conference, maybe you heard something you really liked on a next Sunday podcast, maybe you read our year-end giving plan and you come to your staff and to your people and you're fired up, but the ground isn't ready. Then the same thing, you're risking the same thing happening.

Frank: Yeah. Power and preparation.

Jim: Power in preparation. That feels like you just came up with that. Come on, somebody. That's tweetable right there. Tweet that. Somebody tweeted that. X that X that is probably what would be more appropriate. Let's go. Let's go.

Frank: That's good. So, uh, just a couple questions to get us started with this first session. We talk about preparation. Here's our road. When you think about the generosity culture of a church, how much of what you've seen, Jim, as you have led so many churches and served them so well over the years, how many of what you have seen in the congregation do you believe reflects the heart and the wiring and the unique relationship of the pastor with money and trust and that relationship?

Jim: Um, probably not enough of it.

Frank: Okay.

Jim: Right. I mean the leap usually is to think that it's either logistics or strategy.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Right. But if we take logistics and strategy again and put that over hearts that are not prepared, the gap usually is discipleship. It's not a strategy. I mean strategies. You can get a strategy on the internet.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: You know, you can even get some of that off of our ebooks. We like our offering.

Frank: Sure.

Jim: I mean that's you you can do that.

Frank: Yeah. We designed that so that you can actually take that ebook and you can implement a full-blown strategy.

Jim: Yes.

Frank: For offering moments in your church.

Jim: But what if the hearts of your people are not ready? And so, and what you and I both know is the pastor's heart is the single most important one.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: Because it's the pastor's heart, that's the biggest voice. May not be the only voice, but it is the predominant voice in the life of a congregation. If that voice, if that heart's struggling in its relationship with money, possessions, faith, and all of those things, stewardship, then it's really hard to lead the church past that because you haven't actually found victory yourself.

Frank: Wow. And so, so good. That's part of what we're talking about is being prepared. Maybe some of this is about a pastor using the summer sessions to prepare him or herself.

Jim: Yeah.

Frank: Maybe that's the preparation for here, right? Because pastors are often trained to diagnose and serve the room around them, but not always trained to do the heart work and to slow down and see what's happening in themselves. And I'll tell you, I think money is a specifically complicated one because all of us grew up outside of scripture, outside of the Bible, outside of teaching with unique relationships with money. And we bring that forward. Your congregation brings that forward. your elders and trustees and board, they all have perspectives on debt and money and how to handle it, where they get worked up about it, and where they're not worried about it at all. But the reality is, as a pastor and leader, you come with some preconceived notions and some preconceived distortions about what that relationship between God and money and the part that you play in all of it comes into play. So if you are advising a pastor that says, "Yeah, I've got some baggage in this area or I need some room to improve in this area." Where do I begin? Where does a pastor begin to do the hard work of the heartwork to get ready to serve their congregation as they go into this fall?

Jim: I think it's really simple, Frank. You got to be honest with yourself. Okay? You have to be honest with yourself. I have a problem in the way that I relate to money and possessions and until I can get past that, I can't lead my congregation past that.

Frank: How do I identify that? So, there's one thing to feel that or feel that awkward tension, but when we say when they're looking around and they say, "I have a problem." How does that show up in their world?

Jim: Well, if you don't find it comfortable to talk about the topic at all or if you're rationalizing things that don't need to be rationalized. I mean, you and I were talking about uh a pastor the other day who just kept asking you the yah but yahabah but yahabah but question in just a conversations that he would have with some of the givers in his church and I said to you I said Frank the problem is not the questions and the answers the problem is that guy he's he's unresolved in his own heart as to how to deal with this and that's why he keeps asking you the questions he gave you an x-ray into it right if you're avoiding it if you're constantly trying to walk around it rather than walk through it right it's like we, you know, here in the south, probably in other places in the nation, we have a lot more roundabouts now. That seems to be a way to avoid crashes, right? And so what I talk about is roundabouts are not bad for traffic. They're bad for your life, though. Because in roundabouts, you're circumventing the issue. The issue is sitting right there in the middle. And you need to go through that intersection and deal with the issue rather than always getting in the roundabout and circumventing.

Frank: That's so good.

Jim: And so, and here's the thing. Here's the tricky thing about strategy, Frank. Strategy can actually be a diversion from dealing with the main issue which is your own heart.

Frank: Wow.

Jim: So you keep coming up with strategy like hey I got this new strategy and I when the real issue is not that you don't have enough strategy or logistics or there's not enough implementation or not enough announcements or all the other things. The issue is that you haven't resolved it in your heart and because you haven't you'll never be able to lead your people past that.

Frank: Wow.

Jim: Right. And so, you know, for me, what I've observed over the years is, and this I don't mean this to be overly simplistic, although it's going to come across that way, is that pastors either have a relatively simple and complex relationship with money or they have a complex relationship. And the complexity comes from maybe not understanding the Bible correctly, having seen bad models, having experienced trauma under bad models. It could be any number of things, right? Or the simple could be no kind of like me. My grandmother and grandfather were amazing, generous people. My dad was that. I saw it in my house. I grew up there. And even though my dad died at 19, and I didn't become a Christ follower until 9 years later, that influenced my life. And so my relationship with money is fairly uncomplicated even to this day. But I know people who's in I mean there's there's a pastor you if I called his name many people would know him and we were looking at hiring someone who was on his staff and he said hey I've got a fairly complicated relationship with money but him it's really simple for him and so as a result anytime in our church when we're preaching on the topic generally he's going to cover it. Not that I'm afraid to but he does such a better job with it.

Frank: Right.

Jim: Because it's resolved by him.

Frank: Yeah.

Jim: He's resolved the conflict. Right. It shows up in being apologetic. Hey, so I were about to start a three-week series and for those of you I'm just I apologize, but every now and then we need that means you're not resolved in it because your your your tone should be this morning I have the distinct honor and privilege of leading you on a three-week journey with something that you think is your friend. But I want to help you understand that it is spiritually potentially one of the most dangerous things in your life. And I want to talk to you about that.

Frank: I love that, Jim, because you know, I mean, my thing is, and that I've said it this way, I've said it so so many times over the years. Jesus said you can't worship at two altars, just serve two masters. But what he's really saying is worship at two altars.

Jim: Yeah.

Frank: And when he says you'll either worship the altar of God or you worship the altar of Mammon, you're it literally is spiritual warfare. Your relationship with money is spiritual warfare. And you've probably never thought of it that way. And if I could get a pastor's attention, right? Or let's think about it this way. Pastor, your responsibility is to help your people get the best shot at a well done, good and faithful servant that they can. And it's not prayers and it's not all these other things. It's one thing. It's in stewardship. And that includes their money and possessions. And for those who have much, then they have a very unique assignment. And your responsibility is to help even the high capacity people understand I feel for you, brother. You've got a unique assignment that's weightier than many, and you're going to need us to come alongside you and help you see that because if you don't hear well done, good and faithful, the other side of that is really bad, wicked, and lazy. And so, as a pastor, my responsibility is to shepherd you toward a finish line where you've got a better shot at being well done, good, and faithful than you do at wicked and lazy. And the pastor's got to do the hard work before he's able to succeed here or she's successfully able.

Jim: That's right.

Frank: To do that, you know.

Jim: That's right.

Frank: I had the privilege of being with this uh really incredible uh nonprofit uh recently and one of their values is we seek wise counsel. And I thought that was really mean on their wall they're like, "Hey, we seek wise counsel." One of the flags I would give a pastor is, "Hey, do you think I have a heart issue here? If I don't know them well, one of the things I would say to them is when there are people that you would consider wise counsel in this space, uh pastor, friend of yours, Janerys, other leaders that are like, "No, this is our space. You're reading a book on this, whatever." If you're always saying, "Yeah, but to their guidance and direction, maybe you're unique and wired differently and we're all misunderstanding how scripture is supposed to be interpreted." Or maybe this is an area where you've got some room for improvement. You've got to get comfortable with that. So, if you're trying to self diagnose, where's it coming up? Where are you avoiding it? Where have you chosen not to address it? um quickly look back at the dynamics in your own household or your family's household, your upbringing. You'll know if there's some baggage there. It should be apparent. But if you're not sure, think about those in your life that you know and trust in this area. And are you currently listening to them and applying their advice? Or are you justifying or explaining why that doesn't apply in your context? It can be another way to kind of self diagnose and evaluate. Do I have attention here? Because I'll tell you this, Jim, like Jim, uh people can disagree with you from time to time. I disagree with you from time to time.

Jim: Um but wait, did I know that? Shocker.

Frank: Uh but in the area of generosity and what scripture says, at the end of the day, um you have tremendous insight and wisdom. And I've been in rooms where I've seen people go, "Wow, I haven't thought of that before. That was so helpful. That's helped me wrestle with this and look at this difference." I've watched them have that aha moment with you. It's been rare, but I have seen in a room a few times where a leader started shutting down and started you as soon as you started talking.

Jim: Oh yeah.

Frank: And that can be a really big flag, right? There's something there. There's some tension, some problems, some complications. So, we just need to acknowledge that as we're self diagnosing. So, as part of the summer session, here's what I would say to you. You can use the workbook as a guide, but at the end of the day, pastors, leaders, start to evaluate and wrestle now where is that unique tension that you have with money because it's going to affect how you communicate and how your people grow and learn in this season. So that's an episode of the next Sunday summer session. We got another one coming to you very soon.