EP195: Are Digital Pastors Ever Off?

Hey, Merry Christmas everybody. As we're heading into wrapping up this holiday season, Christmas is mere days away here with the release of this podcast. I want to ask you a question up front: How are your boundaries working out for you? How is your soul? What's going on inside you right now?

Hey, it's Jeff here with the Church Digital Podcast, Digital Church Network as well, that's coming soon. You'll hear more about that as we get closer into 2022. But hey, I wanted us to pause and I actually wanted us to have, hopefully, a healthy conversation here with this podcast. How's your margin? How are your boundaries? How is your soul? How's your soul care? How's your mental health in this season? Fried? Burned? What's going on with you?

To be honest, for me, confession hour here with the Church Digital. For me, working in the Christmas season at a church, those were those dark times. Those were some of the most stressful months I ever had. Yes, there's joy in overcoming those stresses and seeing the finished product of what happens, and I do believe that God was glorified through the efforts and that people did come to Christ. But it's interesting in those seasons, man, there were no margins. There were no boundaries. It was to the wall. And what was fascinating was, even outside of the Christmas season, Easter and others, it's like once you concede on some of those boundaries for a season, for a brief while, that brief season gets larger and larger and more often and more often and more often. Then all of a sudden, confession hour once again, I found myself in an immense season of unhealth, of marital struggle and stress. And the church wasn't responsible, but I was responsible, but it was all centered around unhealthy environments.

And this begs the question, and this is the heart of what I wanted to get into. This is going to be a frank conversation, straight up. Listen, how do I lead someone so that they have healthy margins? How can I lead someone who maybe has too healthy of a margin and they need to ramp up and be more productive? Not to the point of abusive, but to push them beyond some things that they may have set up. How do I respond as an employee with my boss, when my supervisor, when there are individuals that are pushing me beyond the boundaries that I have established? As a church, is it okay to have a season where it's just crazy? Or is that really pouring gasoline on the flame and doing things maybe for the cause of Christ that may not be necessarily Christ-like?

Yeah, we start to really unravel some things because in the end, in the Christmas season, it's very easy to get overloaded. It's very easy to do a lot of things for the kingdom. And yes, we want to celebrate Christ's birth and give honor and glory to God as a result of it, but at the cost of our relationships, our marriages, with our kids? Like, these are questions that, to be honest, in 2021, mid-post-COVID, I don't know that I necessarily had all the answers for. And so I sought the interwebs far and wide to try to find somebody who understood digital and at the same time could have a conversation about boundaries and soul care. And to that end, I wanted to bring in Digital Pastor John Pyle.

Now, John has been a voice on social media that I have loved connecting with over the months. And it was like, "Hey, John, jump in this podcast and let's have this conversation and dig deep." And John rewarded that conversation very well. So check this out. I want you to listen in as we're wrestling with what it means to actually lead or be led, to have margins or support the margins of our employees, even in these stressful seasons like December.

So for the conversation, I'm bringing in John Pyle from City Church and myself, Jeff, with the Church Digital as well as the Digital Church Network, in a conversation that I'm simply calling "Do Digital Pastors Ever Get a Break?"

Okay, everybody, here you go.

Hey, yeah, John, thanks for jumping on here and having this conversation. Just, man, maybe tell the audience a little bit about yourself, your ministry story.

Yes, I am an Associate Pastor at City Church in San Antonio. Associate Pastor doesn't tell you anything about what I actually do, right? That gives you kind of just the general job title piece. But I'm responsible for digital stuff, but I also do pastoral care, so marriage program, welcome team, prayer team, and things along those lines. I didn't grow up in the church, didn't think I'd ever work for a church, and God had other plans and started here as the Creative Pastor's assistant and got fired from that job about a weekend because I was a terrible assistant and not very detail-oriented. And so he's like, "We gotta find something else for you." And a long path and ended up being a pastor.

So you got canned as a detailed person and ended up going to be a pastor? That's really interesting. You know, you're not the first. You are the second person that I've heard have this combination of digital responsibilities and pastoral care responsibilities. So you're not the first guy, you're not alone in this. A Transformation Church in the Carolinas, they're in Grace Church, they have the same pattern. But it's super rare. Like, what does that balance even look like for you, where you're highly relational, face-to-face, dealing with soul care issues, and then you're dealing with the technology aspects of this? Talk to me a little bit.

Yeah, well, you know, as I mentioned, I'm not the most detail-oriented person, and so thankfully I have some other folks who can take care of some of the detail parts. But so much of digital ministry is relational. And I think our focus here at City Church, you know, they're streaming the service and doing that, and so it's not that that's bad or that that's negative or that that doesn't matter, but so much of what we see is connecting with people digitally and driving engagement is the relational part. People want a relationship with their church, a relationship with their pastors, and a place to get care. And so a big part of the message is we get our prayer requests, right? It's a big part of the comments we see on social, and it's a lot of the reason why people are reaching out to us. And so it's a role that is kind of molded to my personality. It wouldn't necessarily, if I left my role today, I don't think we'd hire a pastoral care person and a digital person in one person. But it just fits personality because I, you know, digital just makes sense to me. It's something that I do outside of work, and so it just fits for what I do in my job.

Yeah, I was totally not anticipating the soul care part of this too. So I'm gonna run on a tangent over here a little bit. What's your break of time like? What percentage of time are you digital? What percentage of time are you soul care? Do you use digital in the soul care with the physical? Like, is there any crossover? Like, just maybe explore a little bit what the pastoral care piece looks like for your church and how you're utilizing it.

Yeah, oh yeah, man, it will vary week to week. And so obviously, like many church jobs, it'll depend on what's going on. But I would say that a significant portion of what I'm doing is the pastoral care piece. And then, you know, let's say 25 to 30 hours a week is probably the best breakdown. So like, with marriage program and, you know, you send out emails and you return phone calls and text messages and all that stuff. I'm thankful we have a relatively large staff, and so most of our pastors participate in pastoral care. So we have a rotation, and so like, Monday mornings and Monday afternoons are staffed by two different people, same with Tuesday, and then somebody on the weekend and all that. But I'm overseeing that, and I'm the catch-all in case something doesn't get caught. And then the digital piece is a little less active depending on what we're doing. So if I'm filming something, whether it's a podcast or recording something, then I'm going to spend more time writing, doing all that in that week. But to me, the two just connect significantly.

And something we learned during the pandemic, and it goes back to some of the relational pieces, that church people weren't defining their church where they got their content. It was where they got their care. And during the pandemic, because look, man, Andy Stanley and Steven Furtick and Rick Warren and Mike Todd, they're better than we are. They're better preachers than we are. I mean, in fairness, they're better than everybody is.

Yeah, well, like Andy, I mean, if I'm gonna go on a tangent, Andy might be one of the best communicators in the whole world, just period. He's just incredible.

And so people can just listen to Andy Stanley. Like, it's a pandemic, you're not going anywhere. So people were listening to sermons from amazing teachers, and so they weren't defining where they went to church by where they got that content. It was where they got their care. And so we found that digital means to reach out to people. When it came to our groups, we had to move all of our small groups to Zoom. The ones that were the most successful were the groups that were meeting in person already that just continued through Zoom. They just continued what they were doing because the relationship part was there, and people, you know, they stayed going because of that.

And so the pandemic was hugely challenging, I think, for people, but we found that the digital blended really well because it was a way for people to connect. But we were finding trouble connecting to new people because there's, you know, the market's flooded, there's all sorts of stuff. And it felt like the pandemic kind of washed away what wasn't solid. And so if you had a good relationship, if you had a deep connection, if you were totally bought in, that's who we have now. That's who's left, right? That's who's there. And those are the people that were logging in every week, dialing it, whatever, however they watched it, and we're staying connected.

And so using digital means, whether it's GroupMe, GroupMe was a huge thing for us for our circle leaders, our small group leaders, because texting is just, especially if you're like a certain age group, right? Probably like the Gen Xers down, like texting is just how you do most things. And so texting and GroupMe was huge. And you know, obviously Zoom. And it's like, come on, Skype, you all blew a 3-1 lead. Like, everybody used Skype for video chatting before the pandemic, and then Zoom just took over. It's like, how did that happen, Skype? How did you do that?

Anyway, so we had, so the digital blends of the pastoral care in a pretty great way just because we've seen that care piece, and it's a way to care for people. And so when people can't come in, and we still have people who aren't coming live, you know, whenever there's a variant spike or people are worried about getting their kids vaccinated or whatever, digital has been a great way, not just like show people the service, but to actually stay connected.

Love it. The idea of it's more than just the content. The church is defined by the care, by the community of that. Love the heart behind that.

Hey, so, um, let's turn the corner here because I'm excited about this. We're this podcast is literally playing Christmas week, and so it is out there, it is coming. And really, I, you know, as I'm trying to think what do we want to talk about Christmas week? What's the show? What's the...

Opportunity, what's the spin? What's the angle? It really came down to this: man, do digital pastors or even pastors in general like, do we ever get a break? What does downtime look like? Like, I can remember in my ministry career I was in Orlando, Florida, working down here in Miami, getting text messages while I'm on vacation, literally contemplating it. It is so messy because I have left. I may have to leave vacation, drive overnight down back to Miami to solve a problem. And as we're coming up towards an opportunity for health, for regeneration, for restoration, man, do we get a break?

And so, you know, John, I know you're passionate about this with some of the soul care angles, and I've been watching John on social from afar. And when it was like, man, I really want to get somebody to talk about this, I'd have to look far because I know John and who his character is, is a man on this topic. So talk to me a little bit, John. Like, what? Well, let me even, let's spin it personally towards you. Just intro. Do you struggle with this? Do you struggle with, or do you see the struggles of that? Talk to me a little bit here.

Absolutely. And it is so difficult. And so to share a little bit of like what I noticed, right? The pandemic put a lot of things in perspective. And so for a while, my wife, she's a high school teacher. She was working from home doing virtual, and we worked from home, and it didn't feel terrible, right? We could get our kids. Okay, I take that back. It was really hard doing school with the kids and working at the same time. I have the rose-colored glasses now because that's past. But, you know, we're working, and I realized that, you know, we would work and we'd kind of be done. But what happened was when she went back to work, what I realized is that I had zero boundaries. And so I was at home with the kids before the kids went back to school because all of the teachers in our district had to go back, even when they were doing virtual, they were doing it in school. The teachers were. And so I was at home with the kids managing that. But I realized that I was working until she came home. There was no boundary. I had never set my own boundaries.

And so part of the deal with digital ministry and digital pastors getting a break is that the boundaries aren't in place for you. When you go to a nine-to-five workplace, it's like, well, the office starts to close up and everybody's going, and you, okay, I gotta go, set the alarm, right? And there's other things that are encouraging you to set boundaries in your life. And when those go away, that makes it hard. And then I'll speak to the content piece because if you're a non-digital kind of pastor, it's like, well, church is on Sunday, and then we have, you know, maybe Sunday school, or you do small groups or different groups throughout the week, but they're fixed times. And digital ministry doesn't stop. It's twenty-four seven.

Constant. And I, this reminds me, Jeff, you'll laugh at this, but I was explaining to my kids. There was a gag in the Simpsons about how bad summer TV was, that it was all reruns. And like, just, you know, shows that you didn't want to watch. It's an episode where Bart breaks his leg, and he's like, oh, I'll just watch TV all summer. And then the TV was terrible, and he turns off the TV. And I had to explain to my kids like, no, it used to be all reruns, and it was really bad. And it just, it wasn't streaming. And they didn't get it. And so that's what that frames for me is digital ministry is, it's like, dude, it's twenty-four seven streaming constantly. There's always new content. There's always a video to make. Now you don't have to go to the office to record a video. You got it on your computer. You got it on your phone. You can make content. You can write content. You can respond to people. You can retweet people. You can comment. It's twenty-four seven.

And so there's not built-in boundaries, right? They're used like the built-in boundaries we had. I had no idea personally how much I relied on those to set boundaries for myself. And as a digital pastor, our world is twenty-four seven because even as a regular pastor, quote unquote, right? Most people are not going to call you at eleven. That's just not polite. That's just not what church people do, no matter what, how difficult the thing they're going through is. No matter unless it's an absolute tragedy, people are like, well, you know, we don't call before ten or after ten. I, you know, that's another thing I'm talking to my kids about, of like, you can't text your friends at seven thirty in the morning like the, in the morning, like let people wake up, right? Like let people wake up, please. And so, you know, people don't do that. But digitally, that's not how people think. People message on Facebook at two thirty in the morning and expect a response. And so we have a whole other world where the boundaries are not set for us, where it's intrinsic boundaries versus extrinsic boundaries.

Yeah, I'm horrible at that. Like, I will, I'll send the email at three AM, at two AM. It's funny like I used to like be mad at myself when I did it, just to be honest, because it's like, oh man, I didn't mean to, I meant to press save, not send. You know, it. But then it got to the point that it's like, ah, they've got, they've got do not disturb on the phone. They're fine. But then I just, I started, no, I started discovering like some of these people are sending emails like they were angry at me before, and it was like, oh, okay, I'm sorry, didn't mean that. I will, you know, work better at scheduling, you know, through that. But the just the constantness in the digital space, I remember that like, I often joke that my best hours of operation was like eleven AM to eleven PM, like, you know, just work through the day because that's when, you know, I could sleep in, get some coffee, enjoy some quiet for myself when the kids and my wife went to work and school. And then it was okay, let me do the work stuff, the unofficial church stuff for five, six hours, then they deal with the volunteers that I need to work with after the fact. So like church job is this eleven to eleven really thing, except for, you know, family, kids, everything else that kind of fits in between that, which of course does not operate on an eleven to eleven schedule, no.

And there's that. And so that whole idea that the world is kind of shifting because like, I just think of how my kids see the world, and there's constant access. So because my wife's a teacher, they have a messaging software where it's a safe place where kids and can message each other and the adults can message. And it's like this linear idea of work happens between this time and family happens between this time, and it's kind of modular, of like the whole idea of a nine-to-five. It's like, like, I, we're gonna have to explain that to people at some point because that just doesn't, that's not how work functions. And if we're being honest, it was before digital, probably, because people worked late and so on. But it's not this modular thing where it's like, oh, now I retired to the den and put on my cardigan for family time. It's like, no, that's not how life works. And so I found, and again, this is a conversation every family is different, so every family's different. My conversation with my wife around this has been sometimes it's more stressful not to do the work at the time and to put it off in the name of family time when I'm distracted or not focused on it. Sometimes it's better to take the fifteen minutes to send the email. Sometimes it's better to take the thirty minutes to edit the draft. Sometimes it's better to take the phone call or to do that, even though you're off, because you're not actually off, right? You might not actively be working, but you're not engaged and present where you want to be. And we've been focusing on navigating how does that work? And it all comes from like setting those personal boundaries and figuring out what those are for you.

Awesome. Well, let me get a little, let me get a little personal here with this. Like, what? So you're digital, and your pastoral care, nothing about you is nine-to-five. Like, the pastoral care explosions, to your point, that's gonna happen nine o'clock at night, eleven o'clock at night. You're getting the emergency calls. And then you're, your membership, the membership's a bad word, but the people who you're engaging with with the church in the digital space is different time zones, different lives, utilizing digital tools that has less pressure and more subtlety of connection. Like, at a personal level for you, what are your boundaries like? How are you protecting yourself in seasons like this, even mid-post-COVID? Yeah, what's been funny is that I violated like the biggest rule that we had for pastoral care, and it actually has helped a ton. Oh, this is interesting. Yeah. Well, the thing that I, I shouldn't say the biggest rule, like nothing illegal, but the thing that I was told at the beginning and the thing that I was told to begin is don't give people your phone number, your direct phone number. And it's like, we have a Google Voice line. We have all these tools, and it's just, it's easier that way. And that way you don't have people that are, you know, whatever. Once I started giving people my personal number, it allowed me to have a more accountable conversation because I'm like, hey, this is my personal number, and if I'm available, I will talk to you, and if I'm not, I won't. And if you text me, I will get back to you as soon as I possibly can. But I have a family too, and my first responsibility is my family. And at first it was a little uncomfortable talking to people in crisis like that, but they've appreciated it so far, and people aren't abusing it. I haven't had one person abuse it. And because they get it, because I'm not going, hey, here's the church number, call it whenever. I'm going, this is my number. I'm a person. I'm not just this pastor that's out there. Like, you know, you used to, I used to think my kids, like, my kids, my teachers slept at school, right? Like, because you'd see them on the community, be like, oh, that's a real person. And it's like, no. Like, I think pastors often get that idea that we like live in the church and you roll out the box and open up the door and then for an hour on Sunday you work and then go back in, right? That's kind of how people think of it sometimes. But by making it more human and being like, wow, this is my number, and I care about you enough to give you my personal number, but I'm also not going to let you abuse it. And if you, if you message me when I can't, you know, I have, I think I have a text on my phone right now that somebody sent yesterday that was in crisis, but I just didn't have a chance to answer. And it just is what it is. And people get it. I really think trusting people to get that has been really helpful.

Now I'll also say our church has a great culture where it's not like one man on the pedestal coming down from the mountain with all of the wisdom, you know? We have a prayer team. We have other folks that help. And that culture's health. But by breaking that rule, I really think it's helped with boundaries because I'm setting them up front versus, hey, you've been calling or texting too much. This is too much. But going, look, I'll answer when I can answer, and you get it, right? And people are like, yeah. So one of my guys after marriage program, driving home, everybody's tired. My wife's a theater teacher in high school, and so she just finished her production. And so I'm working late Monday anyway. I'm driving home, and a guy calls with a crisis. And it's like, what do I do? And so I spent my time driving home talking to him. And I'm like, hey, man, I'm home. And so let's talk again tomorrow morning. We'll schedule some time. But are you okay tonight? Yeah, okay. Cool. Well, I'm gonna go take care of my family. He's like, oh, yeah, please go take care of your family. I totally understand.

Wasn't off-putting to him. We were able to connect the next day and guess what? Everybody was okay. Nobody died. It's hard working when it's spiritually important. It feels like spiritually life or death. It's not literally life or death. We have an important job, but unless somebody might harm themselves or others, it can usually wait until morning or later that week or the next week.

You know, one of the things that I've done in this season with COVID—because you're right, like texting, voice conversations, dealing with pastors, helping, you know, support digital pastors. I mean, at this point, literally around the planet. You know, I just at some point I was like, "Man, I don't want to give out my personal cell phone, but I want to engage." And so I created a Google Voice account. And so it's a completely—and that's if you hear me, you know, 484-324-8724. I have no problem giving that number out on the air. And but it goes to a Google Voice that I respond to on my phone. And you know, I mean, I guess I could give the same phone number either way. It's a phone number that I'd have to change at some point, but for me it was like, "Hey, there's a level of protection here where if it does go south, I don't have to give up a phone number that I've had for twenty years because I've got somebody being abusive on that. I have to give up a Google Voice account, which is, you know, not as painful." Even though that number is a number for the church, which is freaking awesome, but that's another conversation.

Yeah, well, you're also different because you got internet trolls and stuff. Like, I'm giving—I've seen these people in person, right? These are people that live in my area code that I see at the grocery store that are here. Like, I'm not posting it publicly on the internet because there are some crazy folks out there that'll do that—they'll like figure out your personality and your kids. So like, I don't do that. I totally get that. Just for my little spiritual community here, it's different. I know. I love that. It's a relational tool to be able to connect with. You're not running it through an office phone number. You're giving them the respect, and you're respecting them. But hey, here's a personal, here's a direct way to reach me. Here's my direct line. Use it with respect, and you know, we'll respect you back. Love that.

How do you lead with boundaries? Like, I don't—I'll just be honest. I'm probably a borderline workaholic, maybe a recovering workaholic. You know, in my ministry career, I think that, you know, the—and this is before Obama made this like not good—but I was averaging seventy hours a week in weekly on in building on property ministry. You know, there was a season of my life. This is unhealthy, and I know this, and I've recognized this. But like, I would go to work Tuesday morning. I would work Tuesday night. I would work Wednesday. I would work Wednesday night. I'd work Thursday. I'd work Thursday night. And so like, I would take my kids to school Tuesday morning, and then I would see them again Friday morning because that was just a lot of the pressure that was put on these situations, especially centered around, you know, ministry. This is, "We have to do this. It's for the kingdom. This is the," you know, I mean, you just feel that. And it's, you know, as professional Christians, we're like almost building our own graves. And so it's, "How do you lead as a person who has boundaries and respects boundaries for the employees and for the staff and even the volunteers that are underneath them?" It's hard, right? It's hard.

Um, in a lot of ways, because I too—I mean, I shared my boundary issue of like, I was working, you know, I was working until somebody stopped me, right? And I think leading that—I mean, you do have to model it to a certain degree of taking time off, of not always being available, of saying the dirtiest word in church. You can say any word in church, but no—I mean, no is like a swear word when you're on a church staff. Because, well, it's so easy to spiritualize and go, "No, we've been called to go and make disciples of all nations. We've been called to fill in your church's mission statement, right? Of like, fully devoted followers of Christ." And it's like our mission is never done. There's always souls. There's always people hurting. There's all—like, we have a mission, a vision of like, it can never be accomplished until Jesus comes back. And so we have this incredible week. We could work every single second of our lives and not accomplish the vision of what the church is. And so the pressure to work is insane. And so you have to—I say you have to. The modeling is important. The modeling, because people are going to watch what you do. And so that's why I've tried to cut back on the two a.m. emails, on the—sometimes the way that it often works for me is that God will like wake me—it feels like God wakes me up at three o'clock in the morning, and it's like, "Oh my gosh, I have all this stuff." And I just write it down. And it's like creative projects. And I used to like send it out to people, but one, I realized there was no context and I sounded crazy because we hadn't like discussed it. But two, it's like a little overwhelming. And I'm like, "Okay, they're gonna do what I do, not what I say." And so I can say, "Take vacation. I can say, "Don't schedule this meeting. I can say, "Find these boundaries," but they're going to do what I do. People are going to do what I do.

And leading the marriage program has been helpful because we use Reengage—shout out to Watermark, amazing curriculum. And we have these volunteer leaders who are guiding these people through a sixteen-week curriculum, but they become like mentors and pastors to them. And so they're watching how I handle dealing with people. And do they give up all their free time when they work their forty, fifty, sixty-hour-a-week job, plus they're already volunteering? Do they give up another few hours, another day to meet with people? And it's like, "How do you teach people to evaluate that?" And it's, you have to. You have to model it. And so they know—like, my—and again, I'm not saying this because I'm doing it right, Jeff, but my leaders know that if they have somebody who's in like crisis and is really struggling, I'll talk. Let me engage with that person. If it's beyond your pay grade, that's kind of the conversation, right? If you can't handle this and it's a detriment to the other people, let me handle it. But they hold that very tightly because they don't want to pass on something for somebody that they care about. And so boundaries is the right conversation to have, and modeling it. So not sending that email, not talking to people at any hour of time, letting them know that you need help. Because the other thing in ministry that we get—I personally, I'll speak to myself. I won't speak to anybody else, although I imagine it applies to people—asking our volunteers for help and showing people that we're human, of like, "I can't do this. This is too much. Hey, I'm not going to be at that meeting. Hey, you know, my kids have this appointment. I need to go." And I always expected them to be like, "Oh, what a disappointing church leader. You just can't hack it. You can't get the job done." But instead, they responded with empathy and kindness and stepping up in their leadership. And so that human side is kind of important.

It's really important. And so just try—I mean, trying to model it and even speaking the idea that there are boundaries. And let me—okay, Jeff, I'm about to go off, all right? I'm gonna try to keep it a little tight. But building a culture that doesn't chew people up and spit them out. And something that I try to remind my volunteer leaders of, especially, and staff leaders the same thing: I care about you even if you're not volunteering right now. I care about you if you don't have this role. Even if you produce nothing, I still care about you, and you're still part of this community. And I hope that message is sinking in and people are going, "Okay, I can set boundaries and not be afraid that I'm slacking." Yes.

So I mean, really, in that season, and this is the tension that I felt as a leader: I've got someone that is comfortable blurring the margins. I've got someone that's, "Hey, you know what I mean?" Like, I was this type of employee. Like, I have no problem giving fifty-five, maybe even sixty. But when it became like seventy, eighty, ninety, when the weight of that—and I've worked in churches that were like, "You know, give me more, give me more, give me more." I also worked with churches that are like, "Dude, sixty is too much. You need to be at forty-five." And so what is that tension of, you know, how as a leader I'm just curious—it's not necessarily how I thought the conversation was going, but it's a good conversation—how much are we pushing an employee, a staff person to expand where their boundaries are? Or even cut back someone that wants to run? Maybe you do have someone, you know, like me, that's comfortable at sixty, that's like, "No, man, you operate better at forty-seven-point-five." Like, talk to me a little bit about maybe when to pull the trigger to help someone better, I don't know, legitimize how much they're working or regulate how much they're putting in to create healthy boundaries.

Yeah, well, it's a great question because we want to treat everyone well, but that doesn't mean treating everyone the same. And so our executive team talks about this because, guess what? I have a six-year-old and a ten-year-old. But there's a woman on our executive team that's not married, that's in her seventies. And there's a, you know, our lead pastor—his kids are graduated and out of school. And they have different capacities. They have different capacities than I do. And seasonality is something. And it goes back to some of the discussion earlier that the digital has seemingly like the modern world has eliminated seasonality. And so television season used to be these like two blocks of time that was it. No reruns during the summer. Or when you went to the grocery store, they don't have certain fruit because it's not in season. But we've eliminated this idea of seasonality from our thinking when it comes to people's schedules. Seasonality is a big deal. Like, so many—I referred to my marriage program leaders before. So many of them are retired and they have grandkids. They don't have kids. And they don't have a job. And they're like, "Give me something to do. I can do this for fifty hours a week." They're fired up about it. And I'm thinking of them. Like, I'm thinking of people like myself, you know? I'm thirty-nine, got two small kids, and I'm so—I'm okay, if you guys can make it on Monday night a little early, that would be—and they're like, "Yes, we'll be there at nine a.m. and work the whole day. Like, let us go." And you know, it's similar. Different people in different situations. And so then there's the other part of it where you have folks who are going through a physical or mental health crisis, and you have to be able to go, "Ten hours was too much this week. You need to step away from this because you're not helping yourself or anybody else." And so I've tried to embrace this idea of seasonality, of understanding the individual and where they are. And because there are—and then also having the self-awareness. The hardest thing to do, because I have, you know, because I work with people who don't have kids at home or even some, you know, like I mentioned, one of the women, Dr. Yolanda Lopez, amazing woman, incredible. She's like the Oracle from the Matrix, actually. But she's not married. And so I mean, she works her butt off. She outworks all of us, this woman who's a little bit older. Well, but she's not tending to a marriage. She's not doing these kind of things. And it's like Paul going, "Hey, it's better not to be married." And so the hardest part of self-awareness is me not taking my identity from, "I got to keep up. I got to keep up. I got to work sixty."

I got to work 70 because I'm the hardest worker, right? That's got to be like, there's a thing that you get in your identity, or at least I did, of like, "I gotta keep up, I gotta keep up." Okay, this is what they're modeling, so I, okay, my senior leader is modeling this way, I gotta go, I gotta go. But going, my situation is different and I have kids. And so I can, we've built the kind of relationship where I can go, "Hey man, I can't come into the office today, my kid is sick," and my wife's a teacher, and he's like, "Okay, cool, totally understand," and it's not a big deal. Or when I go, I can only do one night because, as you know, ministry, right? It's like it would be great if we could do it all during our nine to five, but everybody else is working during the day, so we have to do our ministry after when other people are working. Christmas is the same thing. "Hey, it's Christmas vacation," not for me. This is our, this is one of our busiest times, and so we have to. I like, I had to be brave enough, and for me it was vulnerability. If we go to Brené Brown and some of that stuff, for me it was vulnerability of being able to go, "I can only work one night," and that's a boundary for my family and I. And you know, if, and special stuff happens all the time. "Oh, we're having our special monthly worship service?" Yeah, I can give two nights that week. Or something goes wrong and I have to fill in for somebody? Yeah, I can do that. But that's the exception, not the rule.

And the vulnerability, the vulnerability to just know your own limits is really hard to face. That's been the hardest part for me. It's not the, it's not anything else that we've talked about. It's understanding that I have limits and that my personal God journey has been showing me my pride in saying yes to everything and my inability to say no. It's the pride. God has convicted me of that. That I, I mean, that even gets just to get back to the self-awareness, like, like for me, that's just that's a big, if confession hour here on the show, like that's that's a big part of me is just the self-awareness. I'm Type A. I'm a borderline control freak when I'm, when I'm not in check. I work way too much. My priorities are awful. And so self-awareness has been for me, let me surround myself with people who can keep me in check, who can call my crap on me, who can say, "Hey, how many hours are you working this week?" and start to, you know, have other eyes on this. And these are people that I respect, that I have to listen to because I told them, "Hey, call my crap on me when when it's time." And so, you know, even start, I love the fact if you're listening to the podcast, John's head is bobbing up and down in a yes fashion because he agrees with that very well. You know, but that's really, that's that's that's the heart of just being self-aware as a leader for who you are.

Now let me turn the corner here. Let's let's say I, because I've been this guy too, working on a church staff where the expectations are ridiculous, where it's 90, 100 hours plus based on projects. And it's funny you said the seasonal language, that was my go-to back in the day. It's, "You know what, I can give you 80 hours, 90 hours a week for, I can work three, four, or five nights for a couple weeks, two, three weeks in a row. It's just for a season." You know, we're transitioning a new guy off staff, we haven't hired the new one, I got a double dip. It's just for a season. And that "just for a season" is not as short as it's supposed to be, and those seasons come more frequent than anticipated, at least they weren't for me. And so, you know, John, how do I respond as an employee, as a maybe even a high-level volunteer that has unreasonable expectations, that has no lack of respect for, or no respect for boundaries coming from the leaders and the pastors and those that are over me? What, how do I deal with someone who doesn't respect boundaries?

Yeah, that's a great question. You make a great point about seasonality because we could always find a reason for a season in ministry. There's always a change. "Oh, we're short-handed here, I can do this." When you have somebody that doesn't respect boundaries, ah man, and there are people in this world that are like that, man, and that it's brutal when we meet those folks. And so folks that don't respect boundaries, I think they either have to, because these kind of boundaries are cultural, and so they either have to get on board with it or they can't be in the culture because one person doing that messes stuff up for everybody.

And so let's, you know, let's take another kind of issue. It's easy to treat boundaries as less important when it relates to our time as it is to our, let's say, the integrity of our marriage. If you had a volunteer who continually pushed the boundaries of, you know, coming on to you, making passes at you, saying things like that, it wouldn't be an issue to go, "Hey, this is unacceptable," and we would let that person go, ask them to, "Hey, you got to stop this or you can't be here." But when the same person violates boundaries of our personal time and our time with our spouse, our time with our kids, our time, our time for ourselves, our time with God, like spending time with Jesus on our own, when somebody violates that, it's like, "Ah, okay, that's fine. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. We'll find a way." But when somebody's pressing against the boundaries of the culture that you're trying to build, they either have to get on the bus or stay at the bus stop. Like, that's, you know, I was at something, I forget who said it, gosh, I'm sure somebody really smart said it, but we don't get what we want as leaders. We get what we tolerate. And in terms of performance, yeah, we don't get what we want. We go, we tolerate. And when you just have somebody who's continually pushing boundaries and we keep them on the team, like we're gonna get that, and they're gonna change the culture instead of going, "No, this culture is not right for you. You're gonna have to stop doing these specific behaviors or you can't serve or you can't be a part of the staff team." Or, and if it's somebody that's over you, let me say this: you can lead up to the best of your ability, but at some point you might be the person that's going against the culture. The culture might be overworked. The culture might be, you know, 60, 70, 80, 90 hour weeks. And if you're in a culture like that and it's ev, it's around you completely, you're the outlier. And you might have to come to grips with the idea that you might have to leave because it's hard to change a culture like that. It's really difficult. It's possible, and man, God does amazing things all the time, but if you're in a culture like that, recognizing and going, "This isn't going to get any better," at some point you have to be like, "This isn't going to change, and I have to accept that."

Yeah, no, those are that's a hard truth sometime, you know? Like, I, I just even some of the employees that I've led in my life, it's, um, yeah, the things that you're asking for the organization to do, they're not going to do. And as much as you want to work here, maybe you don't need to work here because you're, what you're wanting to do is you're trying to drive the organization culturally in a place that it's not going to go. And as much as, and what's what's interesting in that situation, I mean, that's that's really when unhealthy starts because it gets, it gets toxic. It gets more towards, um, you know, different sides fighting against each other, the, uh, the verbal, the, um, you know, the passive aggressivity, the "Hey, I'm clocking out," and this is this is another thing that I want to get to in a little bit, but like just the "I'm done at 40."

There's nothing else you, that you, that I can do, and leaving projects open, disconnecting socially from others. Like, um, I did not respect this until my 40s. You know, in my 20s and in my 30s, I thought, "I have a job and I have to keep this job," and in my 40s I realized, "I need the job that works for me, that fits my needs, not just gives me a paycheck." And when I, when in my 40s when I go and look for places that I fit, oh my gosh, it's so much fun to work in environments where you fit as opposed to just working some place where you feel stuck to get a paycheck. So I, I can like the mental capacity to be in an environment where you fit as opposed to being the square peg in the round hole is a completely different thing.

So a lot, a lot of wisdom right there, John. That was, it's incredible, incredible change. Hey, let me let me ask this. So the tension that I feel as a leader, and I want to shift into some Christmas stuff here in a second, but the tension that I feel, and even just getting back to like that the 40-hour employee, um, you know, the employee as a leader, that that says, "Hey, you know what, it's five o'clock, I'm done," and walks away, leaves it on project, an uncompleted project, done, um, is always late and connecting up, you know, sometimes I feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, legitimately humbly asking this question, sometimes I feel like boundaries are an excuse for crappy work. Um, and that you know, I may, it may not be, you know, like, "Dude, I don't want 57 hours, I don't want you to work 98 hours, but if it's gonna take 42 to get this thing done on time so that it's effective for the weekend, if it's effective for the small group, if it's effective, whatever the church case is, give me the extra time, man. Like I want you to own the, uh, the ministry, not the time clock. Like what, what is that balance, John? As a leader, help me here."

Yo, man, I love it because there are definitely those people too that'll just be like, "I'm out, doesn't matter if the work is done." Um, those people are so difficult to work with, but that's a, that's a mission, like on-board issue because to your point, and you said it, you were right there. If it takes you, if your work is not getting done in the time that you have, right, if it's 40 hours and you're like a 40-hour purist, "I'm just working 40 hours," and it takes you more than 40 hours to get your job done, you're not in the right role. And you can even approach it from a compassionate perspective of, hey, and this is, you know, I tend to avoid confrontation, so go with me on this one. You can approach it from a compassionate perspective of going like, "Hey, I feel like we're not serving you well and that we've given you a job that it takes you more than 40 hours to do, and this isn't a good fit for you. I can't imagine how stressful that would be, right, that you don't have enough time to do the job that you need to do. Let's talk about transitioning, let's talk about a different role," because the hardest part about the church, and now we're getting into the 501c3 organization versus the spiritual community, and the spiritual community, you want to care for everybody, and you know, I'm overly simplifying, but it's kumbaya, happy, lovey, like Jesus accepted everybody. The 501c3 organization has just regular workplace stuff that you deal with, and part of it is job descriptions and stuff like this. And so when you have that person that is not getting the job done, that's just not okay. And if they present it as a boundaries thing, it's like, "Okay, cool, then you're not in the right role."

If your boundaries are to this point and people are using it as an excuse, we talk in our organization all the time about we have PTO limits. The people, the people we're most happy with, it doesn't matter, we could give them unlimited personal time off. It's not for the, it's not for those people. It's for people who would take advantage of it. And this is kind of one of those things of people will doing the minimum for the work or not getting the job done. The reality is the job's got to get done at the end of the day.

It doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter what your role is, it's just got to get done. And again, it goes a little bit back to culture of like, dude, we're about the mission, we're about what we're doing here. And when you don't get this done, and you know, if you're really if I'm really dialed in, I can do this of like, when you don't get this time, this affects this and that affects that and that affects that and then that affects what happens with person X getting baptized, right? We don't get you. You follow the vision chain down the line of where you fit into the thing. It's like we got to get this done. And so it allows you to evaluate it from an empathetic perspective of if you don't have enough time to get your job done, you're not in the right role. And sometimes people need to transition off the team because of that. As much as that kind of stinks, it's often necessary.

Yeah, that in that full circle back around to the, you know, go to the place where you fit, where where you're happy, where there's there's cultural alignment, towards that. There's there's some really good truth there.

Well, hey, it's Christmas week. And so so let's get a little practical. Christmas is on a Monday this year. Like Christmas Eve is Sunday. Like right, is that was our? It's fine. I'm out of the church circle. I don't even know what the calendar is like. I don't work in a church staff. It's slow, slow stress for me. Talk to me. What, what, how, how do we find peace this week?

Yeah, a little workout. I'll show up. I'll do what I'm supposed to. It's fine. Yeah, you're like, who cares? Life is church is so much. I want to tell this. I'm sorry. I just, I wanna. Church is so much more fun as a volunteer. Like I, I cannot overstate this enough. Adjust the stress that I would carry any given week in carrying, uh, I got to care for souls. I got to meet these deadlines. I got to do these projects. Like I have that in my work life, and I manage it. But when I go to church, oh my gosh, it is such a releasing, happy, much more spiritual moment because when I'm in the house of God, when I'm worshiping, which is ironically it's a movie theater with a church that I go to, it's a set up, tear down. When I'm in that movie theater, the same movie theater that I'll see Shang Chi and all these movies, oh my gosh, it's a spiritual moment. In church, I'm able to connect at a level because I'm not carrying. And this just even gets back to recognize the cultural fit and find a way to do that because it not only does it block your time, but it blocks your spirit. It blocks you from being able to connect at a spiritual way. And so, oh my gosh, I can speak that all day long.

The question that I wanted to ask you, John, how do we find peace? How do we find boundaries? How do we find a break in this Christmas season, this literal week? Give me something practical.

Yeah, that was a great sermon, man. I feel that because if you work at a church and you're listening to this, ask yourself, when was the last time you went to church? And it's probably been a hot minute. It's probably been a hot minute. When's the last time you sat with your spouse and went to church? I mean, decades for me, to be honest. Go ahead, talk to me, John.

Yeah, I mean, I, you, I convicted. Oh yeah. Ooh, Lord. I think something practical this week that would be a good thing is to check in with your closest people in advance and talk, like really logistically. Again, I'm not a detail-oriented person. It drives my wife crazy because I can kind of go on vagaries and just be like, oh yeah, I'm working Christmas Eve. Okay, what does that mean, right? We do a Christmas Eve service. We don't do a Christmas service. And then Christmas Eve, I think is Friday because we're not doing a Christmas, we're not doing a service on the 26th. So that was a thing that we chose to do because Christmas Eve is so close. But check in with the people, your stakeholders, you, the people you love the most, your kids. Find out what their expectations are and communicate what you expect to work. And so, you know, for example, uh, you know, my, I don't think my wife would mind if I shared this, but so often we do, we have a tradition of at 11 p.m., like 11:15 p.m., like midnight service for Christmas Eve. And there have been years where I'm like, hey, I only have to work one service Christmas Eve. It's the, but not communicating that it's the 11 o'clock. And so like the kids get to bed and it's like, okay, here we go. And I'm like, oh, see you later. I'm going to work. And she's putting together bikes and like wrapping presents and doing that whole thing. And we have avoided more conflict. I mean, we still have had conflict about it. So like, there's no, it's hard to do well. And that's at least mostly on my shoulders. But communicating in advance of when do you expect me to be home? What are our plans? What can I do in advance of Christmas? What can I do in the days coming to make it easier for you when I'm gone? Because here's the thing, I'm gonna be gone on Christmas Eve. You, we, I've worked in this church for ten years. You know that now, baby. This is the, I had one year off, and it was the year that my dad died. And my senior pastor was like, you need to go be with your family. He died the month before. It's like, hey, you're off Christmas Eve. But it's our Super Bowl, like you suit up, right? No matter what, because this is when a bunch of people are coming to learn about Jesus and hear about them. So come on, like you drive the mission and do that. And so I like communicating super clearly about the reality because in my head I get the what I hope will happen versus what's actually going to happen. And so communicating in advance on what the expectations are, what's the schedule, and figuring out how that works with your work schedule. And if your work schedule is the one driving it, it's like, this is what I'm doing. Hey, we can't do hot cocoa on the 22nd and watch Christmas Vacation because I have blank, right? Maybe we could do that another day. Like, how can I, because the stress of this season, I, you know, we just heard a message this weekend actually. Pastor Damaris Cavasso Spike, one of our pastors at our church, preached a message in our series, A Weary World Rejoices, right? That's what we've called our Christmas series. Eighty-eight percent of people report that Christmas is a more stressful time of year. Eighty-eight percent. Only eighty-eight? I would have anticipated more.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, the other twelve percent of people, I don't know who they are. Mall Santas, I guess. Maybe I don't like, I don't know, Jewish, uh, you know, uh, not recognizing Christmas. Maybe that's it. But go ahead, folks, that don't celebrate Christmas. What, um, and so in talking about that, conversation is your peace in this season cannot come from your circumstances. So I talked about a super practical thing that will help you like navigate those circumstances because a lot of times the circumstances of Christmas suck for ministry staff. Just own it. Just know Christmas Eve sucks. Okay, so how do we make it suck less? That's basically the advice that I had. The other part is that your peace can't come from your circumstances because if you're waiting for peace to come from your circumstances, you're going to be waiting until Jesus comes back. Um, because that's reality, man. And he was born into a whole thing. And the coolest thing, I'm now I'm just taking Damaris's message, which an amazing message on peace, like the angels announced, like the Prince of Peace is here. This is the Prince of Peace, and he's bringing heaven peace to this messed up earth. But the shepherds were still in kind of a crummy situation. Being a shepherd wasn't great. Mary and Joseph are in a crummy situation. There's all these kids that are murdered, right? Like, this is not a good situation. This isn't like it's all at night, everything is perfect. Like, that's not what this is. The circumstances would dictate anything but peace. But the angels are still like, hey, the Prince of Peace, the prophesied one is here. And it's because he's the person of peace that's the only place you can find peace is in Jesus. Your circumstances are not gonna do it.

Yeah, you know what? That's that's so true. And and I mean, really the heart of this is you can't, you can't control that peace, like, you know, and that that peace from from the spirit and and being engaged, what you can do is you can position yourself to be receptive for that. And so making sure that you've got these boundaries in place and you're leading others in the place where they are able to to have that peace. And so that's, um, that's such a I think a needed thing in such a difficult season. Mid post-COVID, uh, you know, the great exodus of of church staff people heading on, leaving the ministry area, recognizing, hey, there is a need, there is a struggle, there's a burden that we're living with right now, especially in ministry. And being able to, um, to position yourself to not lose sight of that peace, to not work yourself out of a relationship with the Holy Spirit. I mean, just what a what a responsibility we have, uh, in this season.

So hey, John, listen, man, I wanna, I wanna thank you for this. I think this is, uh, this was needed. Like, how do we get, uh, pastors a break in this in the season? Digital pastors especially, just with all the the stress and that that we have. Um, but we're going to land the plane just as as we're wrapping up here, John. Any any closing thoughts?

Yeah, I, you know, the thing that you were just talking about, the easiest place to lose sight of Jesus is working for a church. And I, I don't, I don't know how it works, but it is, you know, it is. I see more people lose faith by working for a church than almost any other thing. And it's because you forget. I say it's because everybody is different. I'm sure. But the pressure to give more than you have will eventually like bankrupt your soul. It just, it just does. And if you're trying to pour out something you don't have and you can't give it, that it's like the definition of burnout and pain and grief. It's horrible. And so when you try to give what you don't have, you you lose so much. And so it's part of why, you know, it's part of why I started a podcast called Better on the Inside. I'm sorry to go to full like shameless self-promo mode, but, uh, because the tagline of the podcast is how to work for a church without losing your soul. And it's that way because I just see people, whether you're a volunteer or whether you actually work for the church, the closer you get, the more you serve, sometimes it seems like the farther away you get from Jesus. And I don't have all the answers. I don't totally understand how that works or what that is. But we just try to come from a perspective of how do you actually get better on the inside? And how do we build church cultures that are better on the inside? So not just better on the inside for us, but better on the inside for these church cultures. And it's that, it's we, if we're burning people out and people are just like falling off and not volunteering or are leaving staff because they're done, I don't think we're successful. We're not fully successful. And yes, I'm sure people are getting baptized and saved. I'm sure marriages are being saved. I'm sure great things are going to happen. But man, God uses donkeys and Samson and David and all these flawed people to do good things. That's not an excuse for not taking care of people under your care. It's just not. Success is not an excuse to neglect people spiritually.

Um, well, it's working, yeah? Of course it's working. God is gonna work. Like God uses the worst people. Like like I just look at his disciples. It's Paul and it's other people who are like, yeah, we're a fisherman and we're, you know, who they're, they're betraying him and they're they're leaving them high and dry. And you just look at the nature of what God does.

God is going to use horrendously flawed people, so success is not an excuse to just keep going and burning out your people. Success is not an excuse to just keep going and burn out your people. Um, man, what would a what a great line to just even even wrap up. Uh, this was funny like we didn't we didn't talk at all about the Mars Hill podcast, but that right there and I I haven't listened to like one episode of it, but that right there is a perfect synopsis of uh success is not the the reason to just keep going and and burn out your your people. Love it. Hey John, thank you so much for jumping on on the podcast. Uh, merry Christmas everybody who's who's listening. Ever have a merry Christmas. Uh, find peace somewhere in that. Uh, give an opportunity for the spirit to to um to speak to you in in this holiday season. Don't cram it so full with uh things and create boundaries. Maybe even for for that relationship to happen. But uh, for John, we're gonna wrap this is uh Jeff with uh the Church Digital. Thanks for jumping on on the podcast here and uh we'll see you soon here with the Church Digital podcast. You have a good day.