Walking Through Differences on the Pulpit Webinar

So, thank you again for joining. As we said before, my name is Arlan Miller from ACCFS. I’m joined by Elder Brothers Ken Wuethrich and Brent Walder, and we are going to talk through the topic tonight on walking through differences on the pulpit. This has the potential to be a, an interesting topic.

It has the potential; I don’t know what your mindset was when you saw the title and read through the description. Many of you have submitted questions and some thoughts in advance, which we really appreciate as we step into it. And we will probably address some of the things that are offered there and there might be some areas that we just don’t fully get into but our objective tonight, our goal tonight is to consider how differences in style and personality on the pulpit can affect our interactions and how to step into these differences in a God honored way. We really want to make sure that we leave and go into this place with a level of proactivity towards the end.

Where do we go from here? And so just briefly you see our outline for tonight. We’ll define what we mean by differences. How does God view those and some purpose behind those? What impact might they have? Or how they might affect the pulpit and then how do we again step into those differences in that God honoring way?

Let’s frame up our minds though as we start and brothers, I’m going to turn to you here with a couple of Scriptures as we’ve had conversations about this both on individual levels and together as a group here getting ready for this webinar. This topic seems to really have a lot of importance behind it.

Timothy is encouraged by Paul to be very intentional about who he is and to take heed unto yourself. I think it goes on to say and to the doctrine continuing in them for in doing so you will save yourself and those that hear you. Just the intentionality about awareness and knowing yourself, what thoughts come into your mind Ken and Brent as we think about this idea of walking through differences on the pulpit. Either of you, jump in here.

I would start with the beauty of our pulpits having 2 to 7 ministers however, the variety of gifts, personalities, experiences, and perspectives can create some angst that allows us to work together. And in the struggle of that we get to know each other better and I think get to a deeper place and we reach our whole congregation.

So, I love this topic because it just is going to happen naturally, and we need to work together to find alignment. So that aspect and that you’ve got more than more than one person in a room, you instantly start to bring in this idea of differences, right?

We are all fearfully and wonderfully made in a different way, right? And so that’s going to start to bring that in. Brent, what have you seen as you start to think about this topic? What are some thoughts that come to your mind? Yeah, I think a lot of times we are aware of the differences. We can see them, but we’re less aware of where they’re stemming from. And we might have assumptions about where they’re coming from, but not realizing. And then they show up maybe sometimes we naturally see the benefit of them. And maybe just a source of frustration or why aren’t we making progress? Or why are we disconnected from maybe part of our churches?

And what I really love is the next Scripture, which starts getting at the solution that has to be part of any of this conversation, which is above all things. So, he’s talking about the most important thing in the midst of all these different gifts. It’s having fervent charity, fervent love among yourselves, and that part of the verse isn’t here, but I think it goes on and says for charity covers the multitude of sins.

So, if I know you love me and you know, I love you, we can work through a lot, but it still takes work to do that. And right before the verse you have here from 1 Peter, it talks about the end of all things is at hand and it talks about being self-controlled and sober minded. And I think anytime we’re feeling the differences, we have to start with ourselves and understand it in ourselves. And so that’s, I think, the place to start, but then also understanding others and the interaction and how that shows up. I love it.

Brent, here in Romans 12 verses about 3 to 8, it speaks to the need to not think too highly of yourself and to have that love and esteem for others. We just mentioned that humility realizing that your perspective isn’t the only one and it’s not necessarily right. And you don’t know that until you get together. So that Scripture talks about being members of a body and that’s what we’re talking about the natural inclination to think my perception, or my view is better.

And it’s just not. So, good Scriptures. Yeah, there are a couple of those themes there. I think brothers, you called out there first, can you talk about this idea of esteeming others or the humility that’s involved with walking into this. Brent, I love what you alluded to there. The title says walking through differences on the pulpit and instantly, I think our natural reaction is to look at the other person and think about why they are different from us.

But there’s an aspect of this that really calls us to an introspection, calls us into ourselves to say, so who am I and how has God gifted me and how am I responding, engaging, and interacting with the others and what impact does that have? I think maybe we’ll get into this later, but there’s an irony in becoming self-aware.

It’s by asking other people to help me see myself. So, we actually do this together as a body, even to do the introspection and then, of course, time with the Holy Spirit to help us see our part of that and discern the last part of this 1 Peter verse. I think when you shared this with us a couple of weeks ago as we were prayerfully preparing for this, what I really liked is this last phrase, minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.

So, there’s a stewardship piece that comes into this conversation, isn’t there? I mean this idea of stewarding who we are, stewarding our personalities, stewarding our styles in a way that walks charitably. And I hope that we can get into some of that or just think through what that looks like.

Yeah. And I don’t know if before this work, I had thought about it as much that stewarding is like God made each of us with a unique personality and each of us have a lot of strengths with that. And then we have some blind spots and weaknesses or things that aren’t so helpful. So, to be a steward would be, how do I use this temple that I’ve been given to have the strengths accentuated by the Holy Spirit, but have the Holy Spirit help me temper and control the parts of me that are weak.

That’s helpful. And you know, that starts with seeing them and then by the grace of God being blessed as we serve and help each other do that. Yep. It raises the bar, doesn’t it? Yeah.

Let’s go on to the next piece, just to define again, a little bit, what we’re hoping to talk about tonight. So, when we talk about differences, here’s the three areas we’ve laid out as maybe a way of contrast. Because I think perhaps, we can kind of blur them all together.

But there is an aspect of personality, how God has fearfully and wonderfully made us with certain tendencies and temperaments, natural ways of doing things. And then there’s even another level underneath that of style, which is how we maybe naturally speak, naturally preach, naturally engage others or not engage others.

There are going to be stylistic type aspects. And then I think that’s a little bit different even than preferences, which is how we prefer to see and engage the world. Brothers, as you see these 3 different levels here, what resonates with you? Or what thoughts do you have? Or where have you seen these 3 inter play with each other? Help our audience process through these differences a little bit.

I don’t know if you’re going to wait on me every time. I will make a beginning, but I was wondering when the slide came up Arlan, how many people have seen it. It might look a little weird, maybe the graph on the side. The graph, you know, is this science or what are we doing here? But I just want to say that our ministers’ meetings weren’t working. We weren’t being productive. We were having conflict, and I didn’t know how to resolve it until I called ACCFS and asked Arlan and he told me about this personality study. So, he came out and our wives and the ministers did this and just a light bulb went off for our ministry team. And I suddenly figured out why the other ministers in the room were moving so slow and driving me crazy. And I was really driving them crazy. I wanted to move too fast. And it’s just been so beautiful. We looked, we laid all the personalities over on one graph and said, oh my goodness, now I get it.

So, I could speak more of that, but it was just a real benefit for us to understand each other and love each other more. We always did. But it’s just a better experience.

So, we had reached out to Arlan about a year ago, and he came out and did a similar session with us. And I think, one of the learnings for myself is how when we think of differences on the pulpit, a lot of times we’ll go towards disagreements about how to deal with change, how to deal with some decision we have to make, how to right tension around this and don’t realize that a reasonable portion of that tension actually comes from our personality and shows up in our styles, shows up in our preferences, but we don’t realize it.

Examples I would give of myself, if you don’t mind, would be that I’m actually this is Arlan’s personality up here, but it could be the same. We’re the same. Right? So, Arlan and I get each other pretty well. And so, I am both big picture and detailed, but more objective and less relational by my core nature.

And so, there’s some things that come with that which make me a certain kind of teacher. It makes me a certain kind of preacher. It makes me how I approach meetings and projects. And one of those things is I want every detail to link to the big picture. Well, that’s like, well, let’s go, no, let’s stop. No, this, like, it drives people crazy. Right? So, when I suddenly have a language about that, and my minister team can call me on it because they have a language around that. Now, we can be more effective. Yeah. And I want to call that out really quick just for those who maybe haven’t seen this type of graph.

This is a graph from a personality assessment that we have used for a few years at ACCFS, which looks at four primary aspects of personality. You can see the different corners there just highlighting different places. So as Brent said, this person, me, leans on the left a little bit more towards objectives versus a little bit more towards relationships.

But view it as a language. You said that, Brent, in your description. View that as a language that can be used to start to categorize or just help us talk to each other in a common way and see each other. Go ahead, Ken. Just a practical application.

So, I’m on the right side of that more towards promotion. That shocked everyone and I have two ministers who are so good at processing and they’re invaluable. I would go in and suggest something and say, here’s when we’re going to do it, and they wouldn’t speak or respond. So, I’m thinking it’s okay. And it wasn’t okay with them because they needed time to process it. Which I didn’t understand, but I do now, and I love it. We don’t do anything until we can get together and say, here’s what we would like to do, should we do it? How would it work? Where are the pitfalls? And it’s just beautiful. Now they’ve told me, again, if you don’t give me a deadline, I will process forever.

And I believe that. But we do talk about what we should we do. And then here’s when we’re going to make a decision. And then we just really respect and appreciate each gift. So, help me understand brothers, as you’ve walked through, I really appreciate those examples.

How much of that is personality? How much of that is style? How much of that is preference. Can you draw a connection between these three or how do you view this? Brent, you alluded to a little bit, but is there any more you can elaborate on that? Because I think that’s helpful.

Yeah, I would give a couple of examples, I guess. You give a lot of examples because we actually have been having one-on-ones or couple to couple with our ministers talking through their profiles and it’s been really powerful to think about. But I’ll use myself. So how do I relate to change?

Well, in a different framework, I’m very logic oriented. So, if you give me some new data points and some new perspectives and intellectually convince me that something is a better thing, I’ll switch my mind and I’m ready to go. And I’m not paying attention to the emotional side of that. And so, if I, as a leader, think that’s how everybody’s mind works, I’m going to focus on teaching too much. I’m going to focus like I’m going to miss the whole relational part. So, it is just an example of a preference that I maybe like change sometimes and well, it shows up in a preference, but it also is a preaching style.

So, my preaching style versus somebody who’s emotional and relational. So, our pulpit actually splits the start right in half. It’s beautiful. But if we’re studying Scripture, it’s going to show up very differently. And if one is preaching, they’re going to grab a theme and think about the emotions in the Scripture. And the next one over is going to grab like, no, this is exactly what this person is trying to teach here, and let’s make sure we get how this connects to the whole story of the Bible. And like, this is very different. Teaching preferences, Brent, that’s so beautiful.

But let’s think about how God made us and why our process or our method of having multiple ministers is so good. We have a group of people sitting out in the pews that are all different. Also, yeah, they like certain styles better. And so, we, they all learn, we’re touching all parts of our congregations. And so, the more you study this, you say, well, thank God that we’re all a little bit different as long as we understand each other and move forward we are going to fulfill the gospel in a better way. You led right into the next slide.

So, I just jumped into that next slide and hopefully those three definitions are in people’s minds in the background. But to the point so here you can see an example the same graph similar graph where you have some overlay of different personalities.

Each color would be a different person in this scenario. And you can see that they hit different sections, right? They’re going to hit differently, view the world differently, walk through the world differently. Can you make the argument that God uses that diversity to further his work? The diversity of the pulpit can resonate with different individuals in the pews in different ways.

How do we ensure that happens though? Because I think sometimes it can go towards divisiveness, right? Or it can go towards this place where it’s not as effective. What has been a key for you, Ken, as you’ve worked with the Indy pulpit where they’re just led in that section, in that area, in this space?

Well, spending time together. So simple answer, right? But we used to have one meeting a month and try to cover Scripture, logistics and all that. So, after we did this whole study together, and by the way, we also did the wives. I think you did too, Brett, didn’t you?

Yeah. And which is when you think about our ministry teams, our wives are critical, right? So, we overlaid the wives’ personalities with this, which really helped us, but then it’s about spending time. We now have two minister meetings a month. One is in person and all just about Scriptures or a topic. And that’s where we learn to live out these perspectives. And it just brought us together so wonderfully. And I learned this at our four elder forums and elder conferences, how wonderful it is for elders to get together and talk about a topic in a Scripture, and you just grow to love and appreciate and your mind changes as you hear their perspective.

It’s just wonderful. So, we try to model that in our minister meeting and spend time together. Our 2nd meeting a month is on Zoom and it’s all logistics, calendars, dates and things. But in person, I want Brent to add here, but that’s what helps us really mold together. And I’m guessing, Ken, you lean towards that first type of instrument and not the logistical one. That isn’t quite which one you stand up for. I’d guess. We also do an annual retreat, an overnight retreat together, which feeds into that, which is where we usually have ACCFS come out and help.

Brent, any thoughts just on this whole diversity versus divisiveness or just how you’ve seen diversity work in a very powerful way? Absolutely. And lessons you’ve learned to try to keep divisiveness from stepping in. Yeah, I think there are a lot of examples of how it can work, but I’ll use how our wives can help. There are lots of different ways that they do with different gifts, but some of our spouses are less conflict avoidant than us.

And so, if they sense, hey, there’s some tension going on here, they can prod their husbands to deal with that tension and lean into it and love and work through that in a healthy way. And that happens in marriages, of course, but that happens on the pulpit as well. That would be a small example of leaning into those.

Another one would be, you know, we’ve been thinking about different ways of teaching and preaching and the mix of that. And we did a survey of our church. Well, depending on your personality, how you interpret survey results is very different. So, if you’re natured, we need to keep the peace, which is a beautiful attribute, right?

It’s important. And there’s some across the congregation who are like, I just like it how it is and I’m disturbed if it’s different. Well, that’s really hard to someone else’s very big picture. And they’re saying, well, 200 of these people are ready for us to move gently into this. We need to do it.

And then someone else is more on the object of we need to make a decision. And so, you bring all those personalities together. You don’t move too fast. You don’t move too slow. All those perspectives are super valuable, but if we didn’t understand the value of those and take the time to hear them out, they just become sources of conflict.

And then our personalities show up in those conflicts and how we go at conflict or don’t go at conflict. And so, it’s just being aware of those things. And then ultimately, it’s respect and love and all the virtues, the fruit of the Spirit, which are universal, right? It’s interesting how gifts of the Spirit are various and manifold.

Fruit of the Spirit are for all of us. And that can really help these come together in a healthy way. Well, I want to highlight too what you just said there this idea is that 1 Peter verse again. Love covers the multitude of sin, have fervent charity one with another. This works when there’s love. And good assumption and all of those things that go along with that. That’s how that can stay in a place of working together versus the other piece.

And I want to highlight one other piece too. And yes, ACCFS has been engaged in different activities like this, but it’s not as much about us as it’s about the third party. Sometimes it comes in and facilitates conversation, right? And there are other assessments that can be done.

There are other individuals who can actually do that facilitation or whatnot, but it sounds like there was health in being intentional about it and having the conversation about it and building the language around knowing who we are. Let’s walk into the next. piece here and just spend a little bit of time here.

So how can these affect the pulpit? We’ve already dabbled into it, but I’d love to have some more examples as we step into it and walk out through it. We, bring up three here, tension points, blind spots, potential ideas. So, tension points are those places where maybe there are those natural rubs of personalities that might happen because one person’s relational one person’s objective oriented one person’s wanting to make decisions and move, and one person wants to slow down and think about it.

Sometimes it’s just a natural rub that’s going to come into there. There are blind spots. If you can imagine, you know, where there’s people who maybe don’t see certain aspects. And if you have a team that doesn’t view one whole section of the church or is not relational oriented or not detail oriented or something like that, there can just be blind spots.

And then there’s the whole potential idea again, which I think we’ve already started to talk through a little bit. But this idea of are we functioning as well as we could? I want to start with you, and you’ve used a few examples here and there already you’ve switched up how you did minister meetings.

You noticed how the interaction within your pulpit mates would sometimes lead towards tension or whatnot. Anything else you want to call out or any of these areas that you have any examples to bring to bear on the impact this has had on your pulpit and how you’ve maybe moved past it or moved into a healthier spot?

Well, I don’t want to act like everything’s nirvana because we still have tension at different times, but I think we should embrace it or know it’s going to be because we’re going to get it if we see it. So, for us, probably most pulpits, when you’re talking about doing anything, changing or not, or whatever it is, you’ll find out if you’re spending time together where that problem is.

So, for us, it’s should we walk through a book of the Bible together? Should we, should we not. Even when you have lunch or whenever it is, if you’re self-aware at all, you see where there’s a difference of opinion because you’re sharing your thoughts and your hearts, and you just can’t live with that.

If we’re going to be functioning to the level we should because we’re good stewards of God’s grace, we can’t live with that. We have to keep working. So, I can’t think of any specific examples right now. It happens. Did you find, let me ask you this question really quick, and then Brent might come to you, but did you find one of the things that came up on some of the questions that were submitted is this idea that if we’re not, I think I’ll say it this way, if we’re not aware or aren’t growing in our understanding of who we are and of who others are, sometimes we can take these rub points and we can take them personally, and it can become like a personal thing between me and them, or two people, or whatnot.

Or we can start to move into this place of maybe jealousy, because we wish we were like them, or we wish we could do something as good as somebody else that we see. Have you seen that play out or been able to put to rest as you’ve just talked about this?

I will go back to being a new elder. I was blessed to live and to preach under three elders and learn from them. But, you know, it’s a different thing. And I’m saying this for my elder brothers who I love and cherish. And maybe the ministers that are listening, but you know, you have to give each other grace and love each other.

And so, for me, when I first had the responsibility, I think I overdid it. I think I needed to grow. I felt like I needed to lead, and I wasn’t being a shepherd. I wanted to be, I certainly had good intentions, but I would hope we’d all become self-aware and just sense when something’s not working or we’re pushing too hard and then somehow develop a transparency and a vulnerability where we say, what’s not working? What can we do to create some healthy conversation in our ministry group? And then that’s what led to the personality assessment. I don’t want people to think that we had a terrible problem, it just wasn’t as good as it should have been or could have been. So, I hope that makes sense. I can speak for myself, my need for growth, my need to model it better. It has been a help, I think, yeah, and that really speaks to the last point to that potential area.

Right? What I heard you say is that we didn’t feel like we were operating as well as we could to God’s glory. I mean, stewarding. What’s that 1 Peter verse saying? Stewarding, as we should. And the grace. Yeah. Brent, any thoughts as you look through these, the impact it can have or things that you have seen as you’ve engaged with your own pulpit, other pulpits, other situations in life?

Yeah, I would say you know, anytime you have a large group of people working together, and sometimes we like to think somehow a church context is going to show up different, and we do in some ways, right? We’re more deferring. The fruit of the Spirit are more there than maybe, Sometimes the group we’re working with in a workplace or some other group that we’re trying to work together to move in a good direction with, but there’s just personality rubs that happen that create tension and one around change would be if you get a group together and you did a little survey on who appreciates change and who doesn’t, like, there’s going to be a whole variety and there’s a good reason for that.

And it’s healthy, right? But that’s a tension point. Or you take somebody who naturally is very logic oriented, logical and concrete and is thinking about things that are really at a concrete level and someone else who’s relational. They’re communicating and they can say the same thing and they mean different things and look right across each other and they’re not grasping it.

And then you throw in that many of us are conflict avoidant. And so, you’re not really surfacing those tension points. And so that’s where that’s where it definitely shows up. I’ll just give you an example for us. I’m a slow decision maker, right? I’m careful and I’m inward. And so how do we make decisions as a pulpit? Well, I’m not moving fast enough in my decisions. Well, through this process, I probably knew this, but it became clear who’s the fast decision makers and outward and who are the people who really are looking to be efficient and empowering them to press me and force me to make decisions when I need to.

Right. And I’m overthinking it. I’m the guy your frustrated with. I need a Ken to say, Brent, just decide. A good decision is all we need, not a perfect one, right? But Brent, that is so awesome. And I think that open ministry team to be able for example, and I hear you talking about it too, Brent, that in our minister meetings now, our language has changed.

We, through personality tests and then gifts tests with ACCFS, now they’ll say something to me about, promoter, or I’ll say, come on processors. And we really do that lovingly. I’m deeply serious about that. We really respect each other.

I need those processors to process, and it’s just so we will talk about the gifts and whether we’re more relational and too sensitive and the practical ones that would hang somebody in the morning. We just get to get it right. I think. Oh, well, you highlight again, just that need for self-awareness.

So, there is this strong introspective piece, but then that allows us to engage with others without taking the differences personally and getting to that place. Otherwise, that can be that constant, oh, here we go at it again. We’re going to get into it again because they’re coming this way.

They’re coming this way. And the reality is part of it is just personalities playing themselves out. I would encourage anybody on the phone call, if your pulpit is experiencing some of this angst, first of all, recognize it’s normal, but I would say you might look at this process, and this isn’t a commercial for ACCFS.

No, this is not meant to be an insinuation. Yeah, I’m teasing. This is about differences on the pulpit. And I would say, when you first look at this, you might say, well, this is going to create more tension. It’s going to expose, but I think there might be somebody on your pulpit that has a blind spot and just doesn’t see how they are.

This exercise, partially because you have a moderator in the room. You have a guy like Arlan or Matt in the room walking through it, and then hopefully the light bulbs come on. So, I would say it relieves tension and it creates bonding and not more tension. It gives an understanding. It explains. When I read my personality profile and I see the strengths and somebody’s like, yeah, that’s you, Brent. And then I read the weakness. It gives them an easy way to say, yeah, that’s you. Right? And I would adjust this sentence under blind spots.

There may be aspects we simply don’t see due to our personalities. I would rephrase that. There are aspects we don’t see. Myself first, right? Like, yeah, it just is what it is, right? And so, it’s really important to do this work to help see ourselves. And help each other see each other. And I want to encourage.

I don’t know who all is on the call here, but there might be young rambunctious ministers that don’t think they’re elder gets it. I don’t know. I hope not. But I would just really encourage. The Word teaches us to first humble ourselves and look at the beam in our own eye and then it teaches us to go and to speak in love.

And I think that takes prayer, but I would hope that those rambunctious ministers would go to their elder first and talk through the possibilities of this. Just to work together with the hope of being what you want to be. So, I don’t know if that’s going to help or make sense, but I wanted to say that I want to shift to the next one because I if we’re not careful, we can stay on this impact. And these are somewhat negative. I mean, potential is a positive word. But if we’re not careful, we think, okay, there is negativity that comes from personalities, but we just talked about last time about the power that God uses the diversity to broaden the reach and broaden the ability for the many points working together for the greater functioning and growth in love, as it says there in Ephesians 4.

So how do we step into it and view this as an opportunity? The goal here is not to make everybody the same. In fact, it’s the opposite of that. The goal is to help everyone function together and steward their personalities according to the grace that’s given to the manifold grace of God. So, we have a few things laid out here.

This idea of like stepping into growth, stepping into leadership, committing to do certain things, or committing to be open to this possibility. I think you brothers have both highlighted that well. And realizing that there are ways to lead knowing the diversity of the pulpit that you have with you and the gifting of the wives that can supplement and support in certain areas.

Let’s talk practically here, brothers. How do you step into these differences? Or what do you do differently now than you did in the past? And how has that been a benefit as you’ve walked with your diverse pulpit through this? Brent, let’s start with you. I can start in, and I would describe it as two things.

One would be my interactions with each minister myself. Right. That’s one area where this can be super helpful. And then the other one is how we as a pulpit both serve the church and then work effectively together and have our differences be a blessing as opposed to a source of tension that doesn’t lead to good things, right?

The tension isn’t the problem. The tension is healthy if we harness the tension. Think about a bow and arrow. If you don’t have enough tension in the bow, the arrow doesn’t go anywhere. So there needs to be a healthy valuing of different perspectives. And the beauty of the tension is that it can propel you further if you harness it.

Right. And so, a couple of things that have been helpful. I mentioned earlier and I wished I had done this a year ago when we first did this, but we pulled out our profiles over the last few weeks. Naomi and I spent a few hours with each of our minister couples just talking about, how does this affect us?

And it was just a beautiful conversation to think through the unique gifting of each one. And then to think through, okay, how does that interact with my personality and what can I do differently that will be supportive? We all build our awareness, and we also think through how this strength can really contribute in a beautiful way.?

Or how is it already? And just being aware of where your personality is just naturally super useful. So, there’s that part of it. And there’s obviously, I don’t need to go into the diversity of gifts, but some of them are visible. Some of them are invisible, but tremendously impactful and with the spouses as well.

The other piece is more like how we function as a pulpit. And there are several examples, but one would be for myself. I mentioned, I guess two things on just like minister meetings. Right? So, one of the brothers is very relational and I’m very much like, we’ve got to get all our projects going. Right? I’m objective.

It’s more of that. Right? And so, they’re like, you know, Brent, we should spend more time at our minister meetings focused on just how are we supporting the congregation? How are different people doing? Are there things people were needing, the relational side, right? That’s really beautiful. That’s one example.

Another because of your blind spot but it’s completely towards objectives. And you needed your brother to call you out. Absolutely. And it’s not that I don’t want to be that way, I’m just not naturally that way unless I’m really intentional.

And another one would be, new ministers. So, we put three new ministers in a year right before we did this. Actually, that was part of why we did it is to speed up our coalescing as a group. And so, at one minister meeting, I have very high idea flow so I throw out a lot of ideas and one of my ideas was that we should move to Microsoft Teams so we can communicate better together.

At the second meeting, a young brother says, Brent, you mentioned that, were you serious or not? Because we didn’t do anything between back then and now. And I said, well, yeah, I was serious. And well, he’s very good at execution. So, he’s like, all right, can I help? I’m like, sure. It’ll never get done if I’m supposed to do it.

And by the time we had our next minister meeting, we’re on Microsoft Teams. He has the skillset and is technology oriented because he’s younger than most of us. And it’s a small example, but it’s just a powerful example of the blend of gifting that can help me move faster when I need to move faster or be more relational when I need to be more relational.

And again, that’s just using me as an example, also helping each other as a group do that. Brent, I’m going to ask you a question I didn’t prep you for so I apologize in advance, but do you think this process has been harder on you as the leader as the elder or harder on the pulpit as a whole? Maybe that’s not a fair question. That’s a great question, but I’ve only got you here so I can’t ask the ministers out there.

Maybe you could answer but I think all of us have done a lot of introspection. I think it requires a lot of grace because you see yourself, right? And it can be frustrating. Like, for me, in my past, I’ve done a lot of this kind of work in other environments. And so here I am showing up in a new role and all the same problems are showing up.

And it’s frustrating. It can be frustrating to see myself, but when I bring grace into it, it’s like, well, this is who I am. And the sooner I’m real about that and get the help I need, the better. And then to have the dialogues where we’re just open and vulnerable about all this, it’s powerfully connecting.

Right? And so, I don’t I think it probably actually depends on personality on how hard this is for someone, right? Yeah, it actually probably is mixed by personality type, but it’s what I heard you say, though, and can I be curious in your thoughts on this is that there’s a little bit of like, you get out what you put into it.

If you’re very much into this process. There’s a growth that happens which perhaps maybe is a little bit what Paul’s getting with Timothy there and it says know yourself or take heed to yourself or be willing to be pretty dynamic with who you are. Ken, would you say it’s similar for you as you’ve seen this way?

I support everything Brent said. It’s very similar and not everybody’s going to get it at the same time. It’s like our own transformation in our walk with the Lord and our different maturity levels and our experience. But I do think as Brent said, and Brent, thank you for that example, I need to do that, refresh that, meet with each couple individually and go through it.

That is an excellent idea. Because then you get to the heart of the matter, and you always find that you’re not very far apart. For us, some examples would be like making changes, right? Our pulpit looks like every other pulpit where some want to change, and some don’t. So, anything that comes up is a tension point that we have to talk through and be patient and learn.

I think there’s a natural human tendency to think, even though we know we’re not supposed to think our gift is better than the other, we tend to think our perspective is better and we just have to fight that and work together in that. I think in our pulpit we have really good teachers. We have some preachers, different styles. And then we’ve tried to find different formats for where that teaching can excel at times. And at times we’ll walk through a chapter. That seems to bode well for meeting some of the congregation’s needs and try to balance it out with our church. So, you know, those are some examples that we’ve experienced.

I really like that word transformation. I think that’s a powerful thing. And I love that correlation with transformation and our growth with the Lord, because sometimes that comes in fits and starts. But part of it obviously has to do with the work of the Holy Spirit 100 percent but also part of it is as we lean into and avail ourselves to his desire to work within us as well.

And so, I think there’s a tension to use that word that we’re seeing play out there of willingness to step into it and then willingness to continue the work there. One more question on this and then I’d be open if there’s some questions that have been chatted in or some other thoughts out there.

I’m very curious in those. Are there cautions as you think about this? And pulpits working through this? I mean, it’s not a one size fits all, I’m sure, right? There are things to be aware of and things that lay a good seedbed or a good groundwork for this type of conversation to take place.

Any cautions or things that should be learned? Brent, I’m going to jump in here. I just think if you’re working together to be aligned as a pulpit, aligned with your local church and aligned with the national body, you’re in a safe place. That’s the beauty of how our church works, why it’s so good.

The elders get together, you know, it’s a litmus test to where you are, where you’re going. So, I think one warning would be, you got to start there to say, we want to be aligned for the right reason. Our responsibility is to preach the Word that people are converted. We spread the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so, that’s our marching order. So, you know, that’s one caution. The other one would be is that our churches are our cultures, and that’s not just demographic, but our churches are a little bit different depending on how many generations are there. And we have to respect and honor that, like Romans 14 says, so what is going to work in Indy might be different than it’s going to work in Rockville.

I don’t know, but it might be right. We just have to respect that. I think we should. Absolutely. No, I appreciate that. Any thoughts on just cautions or just general, I’d say a couple of things. I think one is, and this is like, which comes first. I don’t know, but it requires at least some level of trust to be in a place within a pulpit to do this work.

And yet this work builds trust. So, it’s like stepping into that. And when I think about building trust, what’s been helpful here is just getting to know each other,  like the things below the surface that are deeper that connect us as individual people, humans serving the Lord, the struggles of life, the cares, the prayer needs that we each have, what’s shaped us and molded us, what experiences we’ve had, and when we understand that in each other, it’s just like there’s a bond there that creates a foundation to then work through conflict in a little bit of a different way.

So that’s one element. The other caution, I guess I would say, is to remember that Arlan is the one facilitating and he’s like me, which means there’s way too much content for the time you have. Yeah, so that is a lesson I have not learned. But yeah, there is a lot of time. So, it can be overwhelming.

That’s my point is actually, it can be overwhelming. And so, to just recognize that personalities are actually going to show up when you’re doing the work. Right. So true. Arlan, I noticed in those that registered, there were a lot of questions about what do you do on a pulpit where some want to be moved?

They’re more progressive and some are more traditional. Or the other common question was, well, what about extemporaneous preaching versus studying? You know, I think the reason that Brent and I are talking about this so much is that no matter what the decision is, Brent, you said it so well, you’ve got to have trust in a pulpit.

You’ve got to know each other because otherwise you’re looking at the symptom and not the issue. And so, we are going to look at things a little different. We’re going to go at different speeds, but we’re focused on knowing each other, spending time together, being transparent, having trust, because then it will work no matter what the issue is.

You can deal with it. You can share love and respect and learn that makes sense. If love covers the multitude of sins, it says there, but I think that glue of love is really powerful. And the bottom bullets on both of these. On the left hand, the step in the growth, commit to vulnerability and openness, the step in the leadership, build intentional growth and connection points.

I mean, which one comes first, Brent? You called it out there, right? I mean, to some extent, you have to go through some of the conversations and the dialogues to build those things. And that culture of vulnerability and openness is what allows those things to happen. Conversations to happen.

So, am I correct in thinking that sometimes it can be a little bit like you’re just not always complete smooth sailing, but if the intentionality of love is kept as the center, it can work. It can move in the right direction. It reminds me, Arlan, one of the concepts that came into mind here was, I think sometimes our pulpits can have almost what in a marriage context is called perpetual conflict, right?

Yeah. It’s like, we’re just coming at the world different, and there’s this constant conflict. And in a marriage scenario, it’s like, you have got to lift yourself up above that to what emotions are you feeling? And what’s the bigger picture we’re trying to get to? And we might never solve this actual difference of view. And maybe we don’t need to, but it’s how we go at the conflict and how much emphasis we put on it and how much it weighs us down. That almost becomes more important than the substance of the conflict. Right? And I think that can be true on a pulpit as well.

That’s powerful. If there are any questions out there, I invite you to unmute your microphone. Feel free to ask them. Don’t be afraid to interrupt us. If you have anything on your mind you’d love to ask these brothers. I will just point out that on the website, this will be recorded and if the technology works, we’ll post this on our website there.

And there were a couple of things there for the resources, just to support. One of them is a description of what both of these brothers laid out of how you step into this in a support session conversation around the Livstyle Assessment. That’s the test we talk about. What does that look like and how could that be helpful to step into?

Another one is just this idea of building dialogue. There are discussion modules out there on the ACCFS website, which are really intended to build conversation and dialogue amongst a pulpit group. These are centered around resiliency and health but there’s a link to those out there if they could be helpful in any way, shape, or form. So, just a couple of things you’ll see on the website afterwards.

Arlan, one additional caution that comes to mind for a moment is to not use our personality as an excuse or a shield against, actually working with the power of the Spirit to change by grace. Right. So, I think it helps us understand our starting point.

But the intention of stewarding is that it’s not our ending point, right? It’s our tendencies. And walking in the Spirit means I’m putting to death the flesh. I need to know which parts of myself I need to put to death and which of them are actually reflecting God’s image already. This work can help us do that.

So never do we have a right to just say, well, this is just my personality, and you need to just understand me. Right? Well, there’s some truth in that, but it’s got to be moderated with the other half of truth. Yeah, while you were sharing that, which is a brilliant point, a question just came in on the chat, which we really appreciate.

It says, how do you work together in situations where it seems like agendas might be at play? Or where it seems like people are not starting from that base level of let’s just get to know each other. They’re trying to maybe push an agenda. Any thoughts on that? What would be some starting points there? Sure that’s a great question because the key words there when it seems like there’s agendas that play and I think as you’re getting to know each other, the assumptions that we make are sometimes spot on and sometimes they’re not.

And so, I hope in that case, wherever that’s at, they could have an environment where they could talk about it. So ideally that person writing that and the person they think has an agenda could speak and talk about it. Some people don’t like that conflict but unless you get together and talk about it, how do you know if there’s an agenda?

So being willing to lovingly step into that and even ask that question, and you can do that. You can speak the truth in love. But everybody loves to run to their elder and say, hey, you know, that guy over there and really scripturally, they should go talk to them themselves.

Sometimes that doesn’t work. And sometimes people don’t want to listen. And then it goes beyond that. I get that. Brent, what would you say? I think that’s well said in this. The Scripture lays out that pattern, but it’s very hard. Those of us who are conflict avoidant, the idea of going and bringing up that conversation is hard and there is a lot of other things we’d rather do.

Right? Yeah, there’s a lot of ways I can get around and kick the can down the road for 2 more weeks and 2 more weeks and 2 more weeks and 2 more weeks. Right? But you’re absolutely right, Brother Ken, and I think the first is questioning our assumption and recognizing, well, I don’t know that, but that’s my assumption probably relates to my fear and what I value, and that is threatened, and it might be right, but to just put that question out there. I can speak for myself going back to my examples.

I think my good processes in a room of imagined agendas, or they were just left to wonder what I was thinking. And, when we got to know each other and just work together better, then they said, oh, well, now that makes sense. Now, I know why you were doing what you’re doing. It just can be intent, right?

It was just intent. Well, I don’t think to not be you is not fair. Right. I mean, that’s what I discovered. Well, yeah, in our profiles, it was like, well, this is just this person being them. Right. And it actually, in a way, depersonalizes it because it’s like, yeah, anybody with his personality is going to show up like that.

Yeah. There’s not something wrong with this person. It’s just their personality. And then this is my personality. And it’s just who I am as a human being. So, and then to somehow grow into the place where you realize that your gift’s not better than their gift. Your personality’s not better than their personality.

You really do need each other. And that’s the beauty of our pulpit structures. Yeah, but it gets back to the root system as well. And so, we’re talking about a lot of frameworks and a lot of things that can feel different depending on your personality. They feel like different things, right?

But at the core, it’s humility. It’s love. It’s being clear minded. It’s not thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to think. It’s all the stuff in Romans and Peter and Ephesians 4 and Corinthians 12, 13, and 14. It’s all of those virtues that are the heart of this that can make it beautiful. Yeah, and as one of you said in an earlier conversation, just a critical point that I think is so important, it is the Holy Spirit’s work and it’s the role of the Holy Spirit working within each and every one of us to accomplish his purposes, And our opportunity is to lean into that work and avail ourselves to him and the work he wants to do within our lives.

Any last thoughts or comments? Brothers, this has been a rich conversation. I’m mindful of time and I’m not seeing any other questions chat in. So, I’m glad to draw us to a close, but if there’s any last thoughts or comments.

It’s been well covered, and I think the Scripture that just came to mind when I was thinking about last comments was the Scripture that says, by love, serve one another. And I think if that’s our heart, even going into hard conversations, the Lord can help. Yeah. Amen, brother. Well, thank you brothers for joining.

Thanks for your investment. First to the Lord, second to your local church and to your pulpit there. Thanks to each one of you that joined us this evening. And our prayer is always that God will use all of our gifts and all of our differences in a way that will bring him the most glory and reach the most people with his message of love, grace, and truth.

We are thankful for the service you each render and really appreciate you taking time to listen tonight. There is one more webinar that we will be doing in the series this year in December. We’re talking about a vision of discipleship within the church setting. So be looking for updates and emails about that coming your way in the future.

In the meantime, God’s blessings. Thanks for being here and may God bless your service to him.