95Podcast 220 "Marriage And The Ministry Over 40 Years" w/Karl & Shelley Vaters

[Music] you're listening to the 95 podcast from the team at 95 Network where we host conversations specifically designed to support leaders in small and midsize [Music] churches well hey everybody welcome back to the 9B podast this is Dale sers executive director of 95 Network and I have two of my favorite people in the whole world with me on this particular podcast uh I am so thankful for the friendship I have with Carl and Shelley Vaders and Carl this is your fourth or fifth I don't I've lost count Now podcast that you've been on with us so it's at least four I think maybe this is the fifth but sh this is your first one I know so if it's his fifth one is it like SNL he gets a special coat he gets he has I give him all the 95 Network get him timer Club I'll give him all the swag we can find and in fact in fact next time I'm with you I'll just get some stuff off your table and give it back to you there you go how you guys doing doing good we are doing really well we got a new season of ministry going we got a lot of stuff coming up and uh we'll talk about as little or as much of it as you feel like well the first thing I want to do is uh there's always new people listening so Carl take a few moments and just kind of let folks know uh about Ministry and who you are I mean I consider you to be the guru of the small Church space and I'm just glad that we're even friends and then uh I want to talk after that about your transition you just made and then I want to dive into the topic of why I have you here today so kind of let in case someone doesn't know who who Carl Vaders is give us just a little overview sure yeah we oversee a Ministry called Helping small churches Thrive it began 11 years ago when I wrote the book The Grasshopper myth out of some of my frustrations with trying to follow the church growth principles and not having them work for me and I thought I was the only one for whom they didn't work and it turned out no I was actually right center of that uh that Bullseye right there a whole lot of folks like it it was these Church growth principles were not as inevitable uh as I had been led to believe and uh so instead of pushing back and getting getting angry about it I decided Well what is a healthy small Church look like so I started writing and speaking about it from uh my experience and from whatever resources I could find and the resources were very few as you know even today they're still few but 11 years ago they were almost non-existent and so for the last 11 years now we've been uh speaking and writing and podcasting and having conversations uh to one encourage small Church pastors two to provide small Church specific resources to small churches and then number three to mainstream this message into the larger Church world so that even those who are coming from a denominational or a large Church standpoint can have a better understanding of where the majority of pastors are ministering from what's it been like have you been received well is it has it been crickets what what's it been like it has been received way better and much larger and much more widely than we ever could have anticipating it has really been something the invitations to come and speak the places we've been allowed to go the conversations we've had with amazing pastors who are doing Ministry completely under the radar has just been one blessing after another after another that's so cool you know because as you said uh when I started leading 95 Network I one of things that we do is focus on small and midsize churches and just noticed man there's just not lots of resources out there to help folks you know and I passed a small church for 12 years and it grew from 30 to 300 to 150 because we had a terrible split in the eth year and then we actually closed it um four years later because it it was unhealthy because I was unhealthy and all that led to me having heart Sur surgery and we don't want people to go through that stuff you know you've been down that road I've been down that road now how long you guys been married shell why you asking me why don't you ask him because the woman always knows she always knows 40 and a half years 40 and a half years wow be July Gan and I'll be 41 in in August yeah so y'all got us by a month yeah ain't that amazing yeah it is it's gone by really fast to be as young as we all are to be married that long it's just you know we were we were like early teens when we got married so you guys have just gone through a recent transition You Know Carl part of you didn't really mention this in the in the first there but you also pastored a church there in Cy for a long long time tell us a little bit about that transition yeah um we pastored this church here in Orange County California for 25 years it was where we went through a very similar Arc to what you just described a church you know from 30 and up to actually just about 400 for a while and then under 100 for a while and then it finally steadied out at about 150 to 200 um and it was uh right around there that I started uh doing some of the research and some of the writing that I was doing and then as this ministry helping small churches Thrive started to grow we started realizing that this was really where the Lord was calling us and we started reducing our role at the church until six years ago um we actually had the trans transition where my youth pastor who had been my youth pastor the entire 25 years wow he became the lead pastor and we stepped aside and I became one of his teaching pastors and did that for six years and then about two years ago Shelley and I started looking around and going okay so far we've been doing this ministry by really kind of responding and reacting to requests and it's time for us to be more proactive and to look around okay okay what is the Lord calling us to do what are decisions we need to make and as we started seeing where the Lord was leading us we realized we can't do this and have any responsibility at my home Church on staff anymore because when we come off the road I need a place to go where I can be refilled rather than just one more place to be putting things out so for the last two years we have slowly handed off all of the remaining duties that I had at the church to other people I am now unnecessary at my church which was by Design but it is still our home church but now when we go we get to get refreshed and renewed and revitalized again rather than having one more place where there's a whole bunch of output yeah shell when you were growing up did you have any thoughts about marrying a pastor yeah none at all not in my scope at all it was no were you anti- it or you just didn't cross your mind never crossed my mind yeah because I know a lot of girls were like you know I'm not marrying a pastor and a lot of them that have married pastors used to say that so I was just wondering so what was it like to you shell tell us a little bit about you growing up uh well I'm a California girl I was actually born like five miles in this from this area so when I was five we moved to to South of San Francisco which is where I grew up in the Bay Area so I'm a NorCal SoCal girl um and met him in Silicon Valley and yeah I how did you meet Carl um well I mean I grew up in the CH I would say I grew up I stopped going to church at 14 years of old 14 years of age and had some we were times there and uh 19 my the Lord called me back I gave my heart back to the Lord went to this church in Sunnyville California and his father the next year came to Pastor the church I saw this gorgeous six foot6 guy and I'm like oh that she's talking about me not my dad his son his son tell Carl thanks for yes dad's only 64 so yeah his parents brought him along uh I mean I was I I had been in Ministry uh myself as associate pastor before that but was between Ministry jobs so my dad was going to this church and I went I'll go along and I'll help you out because I got nothing to do right now so I showed up to help my dad at the church where she was uh already and uh I'd been there a year the pastor was leaving and his dad showed up and wasn't looking for anybody um in fact I was dating somebody else at the time and uh what I know was it was it love uh pretty much almost yeah I mean we both remember the first time we noticed each other so yeah yeah I wouldn't go love it's so first sight it was baby at first s it was really was so that was July 4th weekend and we got married the following July 4th weekend 19 it it was close to love at first L then if you got married within the year and we were young when I think about it now we were so young but we were old Spirits I mean we were old folks old souls I think is what you would say at we were 21 and 23 but I was old at 21 just because of life and and you were always an old soul so we felt really old even though we were yeah and even the people around us were like yeah you guys are older than you are yeah so and here we are 40 and a half years later odd odd Gan and I used to hear that a lot people would say that you you guys act like you're a lot older than you are I don't know what that means to us today though and hopefully I'm staying the opposite now you know who knows I hope so so tell us what about your family you got got kids we have three children they're all in their 30s so our daughter Veronica um she has two children so our two grandchildren um her husband Sam and our 8-year-old redheaded grandson adorable Conor and Abigail is our little 5-year-old um and she loves me very much and she tolerates me does say she loves her grandma anyway um and we have our our sons Matt and Phil they're 36 and 33 and they both live I mean all three of our children live you know three miles this way two miles that way so we're all here basically home bodies huh yeah keep them we're keeping them here in Fountain Valley Huntington Beach yep okay so with that in mind I know the transition that you're about you're about to make so kind of walk us through you're about to do now that you stepped away from the the church yeah yeah I mean we're we're continuing to do uh helping small churches Thrive and um we're we're hoping that to be able to ramp it up our our goal is that we want to be able to help the churches that typically don't get the kind of help uh that seems to be available to a whole lot of folks uh the first part of that is so much of what's created to help pastors is Created from a big church context and a lot of it only works Works in a big church context so we have been creating resources for small churches and we want to be able to increase that so that's why we're going full-time um we're going to be on the road a lot this year the next uh in February and March uh here here in 2024 in February we're going to be in I think it's 10 to 12 places in the US and then in March we're going to be in nine places in Europe actually we're and most of them are going to be in towns where they almost never and some of them never get people coming in uh to teach pastors and to Resource them in ways uh that they really need help with in their situation so uh our hope is to be able to do more of that to have people come alongside us and we're hoping then to build even what we're going to call a small Church collaborative uh we want to expand our website to where we uh make it a home for a lot of the small Church voices out there that don't have the size of a platform that either even you are I have right now and whose voices really need to be heard because there's some people out there that are creating really good small Church resources and nobody knows about it so I want to give them a voice Carl how do you get connected because you've done a lot of things or in my mind a lot of things overseas how did that come about yeah it's it's been from reading my articles or uh reading uh one of my books those have been the primary ways so um uh the article when I for for five years I blogged before Christianity to today Christianity Today um and that gave me a really really large audience internationally and so I started hearing from folks like that and then out of that the books that I've written I have been translated into Korean German Spanish French and Croatian and so when you take a an American Church leadership book and put it in a language of these countries uh there's a real interest in that because we in America are inundated with church leadership material good and bad but we got a ton of it they don't have anywhere close to the amount that we do so when we were able to make inroads with one or two translations and then folks in other countries could read it uh we became in high demand for that because there're just so little of it for them that's so cool and Shel you get to go too right I go on pretty much every trip not not there's a few that I don't go on but most of the time I do go yes yeah I do the driving I do the I do everything but speak I take care of everything this so it leaves him free to speak and um he doesn't have to worry about all that so because a lot of the times we're driving sometimes eight 10 hours in between conferences and if he has to do all of that it just wears him down so I like to drive I do all that I do all the you know planning and know where we're going and all that kind of thing that that's a good lead into why I wanted to have you guys on so this podcast is going to air the week of Valentine's okay and so uh what I wanted to do today was just kind of walk through what it's been like uh to have to be married in Ministry you know now we've got we've got you know this as we've been dealing with the stresses that churches have worked through and and everybody's work through on this side of the pandemic going through the pandemic and stuff but there's a lot more than than that and so you know what were the early years like for you guys when you first started pastoring the the church that you were at for so long you know what was it like for you Shelly when you guys first started out um well um when we first had our when we went to our first church we were mid 20s um uh I I was I learned a lot it it it was I mean I grew up in the church so to speak I didn't spend my teen years in church so um um it was it was an adjustment to um having everybody look at you differently or um well okay let's just say I I learned I was told early on not to have good friends in church you know have good friends outside um not to um you know your best friends in church because things happen and I thought no no no I'm going to change that you know that's not that I'm going to change it but I'm not going to I'm going to have friends in Church well at our second church this one um found out that there's a reason why that you need to have good friends outside of church not in church and um I you can have good friends in church don't get me wrong addition to but if you're gonna have somebody that you need to talk with things about um you don't do it with people in the church um you you know there's a limit to how far you can go and I understand that um I I learned that lesson but um it but the overall it was um it was a learning experience for me because like I said I I was not one who had that um call from God that I was going to marry a pastor um so it's a different lifestyle you know um like being thrown in the deep end of the pool sort of I guess you wen't trained you you you didn't even have expectations I'm assuming I mean just from the the one pastor's wife that I remember growing up I mean I was too little to remember the other ones but um the one pastor's wife I do she was a career woman so um so she wasn't the the the wife who stayed at home and did everything and she was an actual high up in her career in a high-end company and that said a lot that um that that that told me a lot that you can have a career and be a pastor's wife and do all these other things but it was a of a learning curve especially in your early 20s actually you need you need to tell them about your first experience in about to become a pastor's wife oh my gosh oh yes that one I had a couple so Carl and I so in our district we you know I'm sure most districts most most um denominations have this they have uh pastors wives Retreats or at least they did back in the day anyway so we're about four months out to get married and as a as a um pastor's wife Tob I went to the pastor's wife Retreat and um the first night there you know it's what two nights three days something like that so the first night there you know there's a service and all that and I in the sanctuary and I I I really wish I'd had taken a picture it's something on the banner that said something about burnout and anger and I thought ah all right this is going to be interesting and so the superintendent's wife she was the speaker that night you know spoke and did all that at the end of her sermon she said now all of you you know who are feeling the anger the burnout you know blah blah blah blah you know come to the Altar and we'll pray with you well the altar was flooded okay this is just pastor's wives missionary wives Pastor you know Ministry wives right and I'm like my eyes just went whoa like what like they're experiencing trauma at the altar and it was crying and wailing and I mean not everybody but you know some of them I'm like okay no so I got up out of my seat not head down there I went to the other direction and I there was a phone booth phone booths back in the day and where you could see into the sanctuary just where this particular um Retreat Center was and I called him and I said listen this is what's going on I mean I explained the whole situation I just said is this what I'm in for because if this is what I'm in for I'm out did you really I did I said I'm not doing this I'm seeing from this burnout anger and all this I said I'm not doing this and uh so I yeah what did you say Carl down yeah so I said so is is my my mom my my mom was a pastor's wife at the time too and they had gone with the staff of the church so I said is my mom there she says yeah I said is she one of the ones who's crying and all upset up front she said no he's helping those who are crying and upset up front I said well that's more like what your life is going to be so when this is over sit down and talk with her about what it's like for her experience and you can even ask her about me and what I'm like and whether or not I'm going to put her put you through that so my mom had to talk my future wife off the oh yeah what what was your conversations like for the next few weeks after this you know I honestly I don't remember what our conversations were I think that night between Carl especially what he talked with me about I mean I don't remember word for word I do remember him I do remember telling him this is what life is like I'm out you know I I remember one very specific conversation because we you came back we talked about it and um you said I don't know that I'm called to be a pastor's wife yeah and I said are you called to be my wife remember that I do remember that and she said yeah I'm called to be your wife and I said that's all I'm asking you to be I do remember I'm not call I'm not asking you to be a pastor's wife I'm asking you to be my wife and between the two of us we'll sort out what that means as far as the pastor and as far as the church concerned but if you're if if you feel the Lord wants you to marry me then that's all I'm asking you to do because I talked to you know a lot of women and I know some girls um you know growing up some did become Pastor wife they always felt a calling to be pastor's wife I'm I'm like okay what's wrong with me because this I don't feel this calling I I don't know what I'm called to do but um I don't feel it like I hear all these other women saying that they went to Bible College or whatever and I I mean I met him after he graduated Bible College so that was not a thing for us so um yeah but no that's right I I you know I've I don't want to say fallen into it but this is years later now this is the path that God called for me to be in Ministry with Carl so but it took me a while to figure that out we you know right out of the gate we had kids and then life changes so Carl did you just because you grew up in a pastor's home did you already have some certain things that you wanted to guard her from and guide or I mean do you have a plan is I want to ask yeah I did I'm a third generation Pastor so I wasn't just raised by a pastor I was raised by a preacher's kid um so this is very much a part of our lives and my father and his father before him were really good examples of how to first of all of Integrity who they were in the Pulpit was who they were in the home uh I remember when I was a preachers kid and I'd visit other preachers kids and we'd hang out together and in way too many of their homes the dad that I'd watched preach on Sunday was really different in the house around the kids and it's a real shocker to me because my dad was exactly the same guy in both places there was an Integrity of his life that didn't change one place to the next so I saw that and went that that's who I've got to be I'm not going to live two different lives secondly he made a separation uh uh between the home and the church whereby for instance um if he was going to use an example from home he asked our permission and if we were even slightly no that's is not a story I want you to tell anybody he said no problem I'm not going to touch on it and so I did that to my kids I never ever talked about my kids from the pulpit without getting their enthusiastic permission beforehand like if they were even iffy like yeah I guess it's okay I wouldn't do it but if were like yeah I want you to tell that that's cool that was the only time I would do that and then the third one was we didn't put expectations on on either Shelly or on our kids that they had to behave a certain way because you're the pastor's wife or because you're the preacher's kids now I didn't come to that as quickly with shell as I should there were times in the early years where I put expectations on her that I should not have put on her because she was the pastor's wife but we never did it with the kids so even anytime somebody and it didn't happen a lot but a couple times somebody would go to our kids I can't believe you don't know that verse and you're the preacher kid believe have your Bible yeah and we'd go to those parents the adults afterwards and said don't you ever put that on my kid that's my children they we we put up very firm boundaries and I think they were very helpful uh for us in in moving forward so that that the people understood and even when we came to our current Church uh I told them you're hiring one person you're hiring a pastor you're not hiring a couple my wife is a Christian and she will be involved in the church and she will volunteer and she will help out as any other helpful involved member will be but do not expect her to do certain things simply because she's the pastor's wife and some of that was because well we had had such a bad experience of the previous church but also two but the previous two churches um because one of them was so small I basically been three to four years in the nursery rarely in church and it's like I I just I can't do go to a new church and do Nursery again I haven't been in church in almost four years um why did you do that because there was nobody else there's nobody else when you're at a church and you've got single mothers with two or three kids they need to be in church they need to hear the word at least I'm I'm reading my Bible every day I don't know if they are but they need that time away from their children that knowing that their children are safe but and when there's only one service there's not a whole lot to do so I mean yeah and it was it was a really tiny church so it was either it was either folks in their 60s and 70s or it was The Single Moms themselves watching the kids and in many services she was literally the only person he either wasn't too old or wasn't already one of the parents cover for it I think we could have done a better job I should have done a better job and given her time away but we were trying to figure it out as we go figure to us it was this is what pastors do we sacrifice ourselves for the congregation yeah and we have now since learned that there are boundaries to draw on that yeah you were young and learning I'm so glad you said that came to this church though 31 years ago I was a mess I was broken and I and I I it could not be a two for one like all of them are it's like I just I have to back off I have to learn to trust again I have to learn to know what it's like just to be in church again because I'm I'm not trusting of anybody at this point so let's do this I want to take a short break and I want to come back and dive into that just a little bit more if you would Shelly okay so we're gonna take a short break and we'll be right back with Carl and Shelley Vaders back with Carl and Shelly and you kind of teed us up Shelly with that last comment when you said you when you came to this church you were broken what tell us some what you can tell us about what that was like um the church we were at before this one we were there for 20 long months we had gone there um with certain expectations that the board had told Carl salary and all of that and um they didn't come through um we had um we had we basically lived there with um three children and infant toddler and one in school and there we lived on three or four meatless nights a week for dinner because we didn't have enough food to buy I mean enough money to buy food when you have to buy diapers and all these things so um and it wasn't because couldn't afford it it was because they chose to pay us little they chose we were scraping by um and just there were some things that happened of naming names and things coming out in some meetings um that you as a Christian you don't these are your brothers and sisters in Christ and they're treating us this way it was it it broke me deeply and um it it was just um it broke my mind it broke my spirit it broke who I was and um then we're making a decision we made the decision to leave because we we decided this is a smaller town it's a wonderful town wonderful place to raise children but um we thought we I Carl I remember Carl saying at one time we can stay here for 5 years you know and and um fix it learn to grow with it change and all that and we were like both of us were like we can't do this and can't put yeah we can't put ourselves and our kids through five years we can't put put our kids this it got to the point where our kids were being um uh treated and shun by others by others and that were their friends and when that happened we Mama Bear came out then didn't she not doing that that that was when I I said you know I love these people because Jesus tells me I have to but I don't like them and I'm not going to stay with people I don't like now not everybody in the church obviously but leadership and and some others so um by that point I was just I had already been through about four months of this um I call it kind of a mini breakdown I think I had a bit of a mini mental breakdown because it just crushed me and looking right now would you still say it was a mini breakdown or was it just a Flatout breakdown no I I uh I guess it was at least midsize it was yeah there was a time I mean during this time period there was a time where for three weeks I literally couldn't put food in my mouth I couldn't swallow it yeah that's a little more than I couldn't get it down and this is from working in a church yes okay yes I couldn't and I and I knew something was wrong and um but we didn't have money to go to anybody or anything like that but when you can't eat for three weeks I lost about 30 pounds or something because I physically just I I could get the food in my mouth but I couldn't swallow it from stress and Trauma yes yeah all right I I want to ask you a question Beyond this but before that Carl what was it like for you watching this happen to your wife and your family H how did you handle that um yeah yeah that was that's harder than dealing with it yourself yes um you go ahead and attack me I'm the pastor I made this bad decision I made that bad decision but um to put that on my wife to put that on my kids um that's nothing is unforgivable uh the cross tells us that but it's as close as I've ever been to feeling like you've done something that I could never forgive that's as closest I've ever come did you have someone to turn to to help you you do this all by yourself and the reason I'm asking this is I know what it's like I I had heart surgery at 53 and I had heart surgery because of stress and it's because I protected my family as best I could because we went through I mean honestly it's like listen to y'all sh our story you have no idea the parallels of things you've already said but I know what it was like what it did to the inside of me and I didn't have anybody I don't think we had any well you you you went you did some counseling with a uh a local pastor's wife for a little while in that town did I honestly I don't even remember you did you did I honestly what about you Carl did you have anybody no I didn't I my i' I've got a wonderful family and they are always there for me but they were living quite a distance away and they were very much involved in their own churches with their own stuff and if I had reached out to them they'd have been there for me but I didn't because I just looked at it and said oh I don't want to bother them so yeah I I sucked it up then basically yeah yeah and um when they when our CH when it got down to our children this is like a four four month period when it got down to our children um that's when it was like we're gone I'm out of here we need to find a place to go to because we cannot do this anymore and so we um we looked for about three months you know the the process and when we came down here because I was in Northern kelon now we're in southern cal um back to my hometown so to speak um when we came to this church I mean we were both broken didn't honestly did not want to be in Ministry anymore I thought this is how this is the second time in my life that this has happened like with Christians first as a teenager and now again and I'm like Ministry do not know if I want to do this again this is really hard um but we came down here and uh so in December um we moved in a week before Christmas to our new place and the church board Well church board yeah they they brought us I mean here we are this living room is filled with boxes right I mean they it's just a mess right they brought us over a tree with ornaments did they bring gifts gifts for the kids you gotta remember this is I remember the tree and I remember the ornaments I don't remember gifts it was all a very busy time um and they said and they said yeah they said your all your Christmas stuff is in boxes we don't want you to have to find your boxes your kids need Christmas so just take this and set up Christmas for them that was our first here so even though I was a mess it was like that healing is beginning and then a year and a half later as we were moving from our condo to our home me and the kids got chickenpox big time all four of us you know and the church chickenpox is a grownup is brutal yes but I had people I had to have babysitting on Sunday kids adult sitting because I I lost like three weeks of my life I was out of it I was so bad and plus the kids had it was right the week we needed to move it was the week we were moving so I had um so I had people from the church come and watch me be with me while and the kids while he was you know got off on Sundays preaching when we moved because this was all we were moving from a condo to here the house had to be cleaned and this had to be done things had to be I didn't do anything they packed up everything they cleaned everything they hauled it over they unpacked it they set it up at the new house for us I couldn't do anything was so sick they did this church did all of this without asking I mean they coordinated it with him yeah yeah but they did all I it was in fact our condo was left so clean the landlord who we knew for years after that he always he said you you guys were the nicest the cleanest and this and that I always had to tell them it wasn't us but I mean we did we were good we were good renters but I mean um this is but this is what these people did for us yeah so each time these things happen it's like a healing in me it took me about five years before I could trust anybody here but these things were huge yeah yeah that we didn't even have to asked them to do they did it it was like they did it because they loved you yeah yeah and time to think that people could love us yeah and and when and when you're in a church and you're participating in something like helping the pastor move you forget about that later in almost no time at all I mean if you were to ask people who did that they'd be go I guess we helped out with that it I guarantee you it didn't register for them but it registered for us so it's one of those things where these small Acts of Simple Kindness that are done at just the right season when somebody needs it the most are often of way greater import than the amount of output that you that you do in order to to accomplish that and it's one of the ways that the Lord infuses his church with uh a blessings that that are way beyond our ability to actually do yeah and I think I know there's been times when a couple of times you've come home and made mistakes for whatever reason you know but no no no I mean just like you know what I mean I know what but I mean what but you know he's he'll say yeah I said this to the board and then they they came back me and and um you said but that but that was the right decision but it was out of love and we didn't have any hard feelings I know I know what you like when I first came you know because I was still young in Ministry there would be times when I'd go in and hey I think we need to do this and the board would pause and they'd think it through and they'd come up with something else I don't think that's good and here's why so I'd go back after the board meeting and she'd say how'd it go and I'd say I presented that like we talked about and they didn't like it they had this idea instead and she had immed immediately clench because of the previous experience and I'd say no they actually had a better idea and we actually have such a good relationship that they're honest with me and they're kind about it and we actually created something better that's amazing Carl I want to ask you a question I bet no one's ever to ask you and did you think at any point during all that you were going to lose Shelly no which one mean the church before at the low point of the low point when she was not good not not during one second did I ever worry that I would lose her you mean mentally in any well we're not gonna We're not gonna go there I'm just talking about your marriage and stuff like that no no I mean we've been through rough Seasons where we've had you know seasons of we just can't seem to agree on anything and all of that but even in those times we are going to fight our way through through this we're not going to leave it that never entered either of our heads that either one of us for ourselves that we were going to do it or the thought that the other person might do it it didn't occur to me at all that that might happen with you and I don't think it happened for you because I mean I come from a my family my parents divorced when I was 12 and I when um that was a criteria when I got married was I'm not doing that to my children I'm not going to do give my children that kind of life and we both kind of felt that way now if there had been you know physical abuse or something that that's you know that's that that aside there's been none of that um you just you know in marriage there's certain times um years later I mean you're learning to live with each other and that's that doesn't change after one year of of marriage that's I mean we're still learning things about each other at 40 years I I can tell you this though if it had gotten severe enough where I could see that she was not going to be able to recover from this and stay in Ministry I would have very quickly left Ministry that was my next question for her restoration that I would have done that in a heartbeat I did get the gift of coming here and him saying him telling the church that she will not do anything without that I don't know if I could have made it because I was in such a state from that previous place and it does happen in Ministry it does happen to people and and I know a lot of people out there if they're going through anything like this they just sit there and live with it because they think they they don't have anywhere to go well she gave me a gift when we came here I'm so glad he said what he said because I was going to ask you hang on you're you're breaking up you're bre okay are we here now you're on I'm not hearing you at all D you're breaking up and you're image is frozen oh no yeah and I think it may be behind is it back now it's back now there we go okay all right so I I edit that out so uh I was going to ask you the question about would you step away from Ministry to save your family basically and you already had said that so here's what I want you to address there are people right now going through what you were going through and the thing that healed you it sounds like obviously Jesus but Jesus's body is what healed you those PE those kind people at that church some of the people listening don't have that right they don't have that kind Church what what would what would you tell them to do right now based on your experience Carl well we've had both experiences we've had an experience where we did leave the church because they were it was so toxic and because the place was so dangerous for us and we came to another also broken church but it wasn't broken because they were uh sinful and mean it was broken because they had been hurt themselves and so there's a big difference between a church that's messy because they've been hurt and a church that's messy because they're mean and I'll stay and I'll fight for the church that's messy because it's been hurt but if it's just mean um you really have to weigh uh what it's going to cost you and for us with a young family uh so with a wife in crisis and with kids who were being affected I I would have lost my family if I had stayed there for the amount of time that it was needed to fix that church and that's why I left that church and thankfully I came to a healthy church so I didn't end up leaving Ministry permanently but I did leave one church because they're they're yeah their their toic was of their own doing and I came to a church that was hurting but it wasn't of their own doing and uh a hurting church and a hurting pastor and family the Lord used each of us to help heal the other well see the reason I wanted to go here is it seems like people don't want to talk about this very much that and and this is more common than not and that's why I think you know I don't want to be negative or whatever but there are just some mean churches in America they're just mean people and and and the churches have split time and time and time again and so many pastors chose to serve the church and lost their family and I just want them to know that hey even if you need to take a break you can take a break from Ministry for a season and not be out of the ministry forever you got to get healthy first and Carl you one of the things that we've talked about in the past was just learning how to deal with trauma and the effects of trauma you you learned that firsthand I'm assuming yeah yeah I mean I I didn't know to call it that uh and I've I've since done enough research and learning and had conversations with folks who' have been this to put some language to it which really does help when you can name it as trauma and then you can take a look at what trauma causes and how to overcome trauma these then give you handles to hold on to that can help you uh pull yourself out of it uh but when you're in the middle of it it's really hard hard to see it um and the the the wonderful part of it is is when you do go through trauma and are able to find healing on the other side of it you then become the wounded healer that helps others it's the old saying of the guy's down in the pit and he's yelling for help and the person who walks by jumps out in the pit with him says what did you now we're both stuck here and he says no I've been down here before I know the way out um and that's that's what we now bring for other pastors as we're working with them uh both Shelly and I you know Shelly talked earlier about how she comes along and uh with me when we do the conferences one of the key things she does is she works the book table but at that book table she has conversations with pastors with Pastor spouses uh and so on that are uh one confidential and two very healing for them because she's able to talk in a very personal way different than you know talking to the main speaker there's a there's a distance there there's a thing there's a distance there that I have with people because I've been physically standing above them talking at them for hours that she doesn't have that meets them much more face to face that is a healing place for them and it's coming out finding healing from our trauma that allows us to be able to help them and and sometimes too at that book table um some I've had many pastors or pastor's wives um come to the table and they start to talk they say oh no I probably shouldn't say that you know and I say you know listen this space right here where we are I said this is a safe space I said you can say anything you want get it off your chest so I'm not going to say anything and no one else is around usually it's it a you know during a session or something I said you can say whatever you want I'll try to help you but it stops here I don't even tell him I this is a safe space for you you can get whatever you need off your chest and we'll pray with you we'll um talk it through or whatever you know whatever is going to help you to get this because a lot of times they come to these conferences you know I mean you know as a pastor and it's just laying heavy on their heart and they need to let it lay it off to somebody and sometimes that's me and I'll just say perfect because it's not going be on this table that's so cool so one of the things I would like to suggest on this podcast if you Pastor or listening and you're specifically uh your wife is struggling shelle's a great resource she would she and I I'm volunteering her now but I can tell you she'd love to help your wife absolutely if if she's going through well the the thing that we do you know I've always said this and and and it's even though we've made lots of progress in the last five years I still say this where does a pastor go when they're struggling where where does a pastor go if they've gotten in something immoral or or just where do they go if they're dealing with depression who do they turn to and and and I think my experience has been that the pastor's wife that's ramped up even further yeah where does she go who did she turn to and and and I think one of the great voids in America and maybe this is something we can work on together moving forward in the in the months years ahead is to provide real authentic Ministry to Pastor spouses uh and so I'm volunteering you now Shelly so you know get ready you know and maybe people reach out maybe they won't if you if you have as a pastor's wife if you really have concerns or something's going on or even I know I'm I'm not a real talker as far as sharing intimate details I just that's just who I am I know there are a lot of Pastor wives who just you know need to share those intimate details don't do that with someone in the church you find some outside the church and that is a common I think most people know that but if you find a pastor's wife even outside your denomination different denomination because even within your denomination you know there can be um you just don't feel as safe so you find a Christian out doesn't have to be a pastor's wife but a good friend or maybe even a family member outside but I mean obviously the first thing is they need to know the Lord and at least you can start with that someone you know and trust that isn't going to talk and and that'll even very important that'll even give you an outsider perspective that it's important to have when you're so consumed within the church even if it's someone in the church who can be trusted they still don't have the perspective that you're going to need from the outside because they're often embroiled in it themselves but also too what if that person leaves the church over something oh yeah that too that they don't agree with and then they talk is that's why it's important outside you know that's very good wisdom right there someone who might be silent now may not always be silent may not always be silent that's whyd let's make a shift here you've been doing this for decades now Decades of ministry uh tell me a couple of your highest highs couple of our highest high yeah highest high um yeah I wanted to kind of balance out the other stuff I I go ahead you got one go ahead okay we move when we came here we when we got married and first started out of ministry we asked the Lord we want to go somewhere where we can raise our children in one place we don't want to be moving around now we thought that place was a couple other places it was not so when we came here our kids are 2 five and eight and we said Lord we just we don't we don't want to be constantly every two to five years moving and uprooting our children we've been here 31 years so our children have graduated elementary middle school high school and college and now now we have grandchildren and to that is a very big high we've been to be here in this area with and we've got other I've got my family members here I've got cousins you know and I've got Uncle and you know other so I've got family members that are already here because my dad grew up here in LA and he's got his family here so to me that is a high very much that we've got we have gotten to be here they've let us stay here for 31 years it's been a true blessing and now we are reaping the rewards of consistency longevity and healthy Ministry for 31 years in the same place not everybody's called to that not everybody's going to get that so it's not required but if the Lord brings that to you as he has for us we now get to have the experience of you know dedicating the babies of people that we dedicated that's so weird when you get to do that yeah yeah and in fact this is this is gonna sound not like a high at all but it's one of those real poignant moments that we just recently experienced that the Lord really gave to us when I first came to the church 31 years ago they had been through five Pastors in the previous 10 years and the the the real Elder of the church came to me his name was Ron and he said pastor I want to support you I want to pray with you I want to help you and he said I want to do whatever I can to help you have longevity here I want you to stay here long enough that you're the one who performs my funeral and um we announced that you know we were going to be stepping aside in December we announced that a little over a year ago and he kind of came to me and said yeah I want to change my mind on that now and in December he took sick and within 10 days was gone to be with the Lord and days before my last day on staff I performed his funeral and that's Aha and and those of us in Ministry all Us in Ministry understand that yes yeah that's that's the the it's almost poetic that that actually happened that way and on in his in his at his funeral I told people that story I mean there were gasps and sobs I mean he actually said that to you because we're all reeling from the fact that he's gone so quickly he was so healthy a week ago and now he's gone and he was the anchor he was the he and his wife were the last remaining founding members of our church that is 62 63 years old this year he'd been here from the first year he and his wife so he's the last one and the that we look at that and go what a blessing to actually be able to fulfill that prayer that he half jokingly said but that was really an important thing to him that we were able to provide that kind of consistency for him and for his family and for the congregation and that they have been able to provide that consistency for us so the biggest high for us is not a moment it's it's all those moments strung together it's it's Ministry it's it's what it is it's what it's what got you through it it kept you through it so as we wrap up the podcast I'm G ask you both this question uh I'll go with you first Shelly then we'll car we'll Carl we'll close it out there's a pastor listening right now he's in Ministry he's going through a difficult season uh it's taxing on his family uh if he sat down with with you for coffee what would you tell him I would tell him to um first of all pray with your wife about what to do but I would also say um go and find a Christian counselor a Christian therapist um because there is no shame in that and I do think the tide is turning on this I I've seen this in the last few years now that we've talked with pastors other Ministry leaders that they've had issues and they're in therapy and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that sometimes you need that outside person who's actually trained in this to help you and and can spot different things that you need but first of all definitely pray with your wife your spouse pray with your spouse because not all pastors are men that's right pray with your and um and then uh find either through your denomination or um a Christian group or something somebody um some group you know that you may know of that as a Christian who is a therapist and and get the help find out and some will say but I can't afford it uh sliding scale or find uh um somebody a group that will pay for it or something I think that's most important first Carl that would yeah in addition to that I would I would encourage P Pastor you are probably doing a way better job than you think you are uh most of most of the pastors that I run into are doing extraordinary work they're not seeing the numerical increase they're not seeing the markers that they told should be the markers for success and so they think they're failing and this is one of the things that Shelley gets at The Book Table all the time and that I get on a regular basis after I've talked for a while and they come and they say for the first time in my life I've gone to a conference and walked away feeling better about myself and not worse realizing that I'm doing well and not I'm not a failure that I don't have some other person's uh version of success that I have to live up to so Pastor you're probably doing a much better job than you think you are um and so start with that encouragement and then secondly there are resources like Shelley talked about that can help you and one of one of the very few Silver Linings from the pandemic is that we now have grown comfortable with what we are doing right now the conversation uh over Zoom or whatever video conference app you're using and that is now available for counseling as well uh in fact a most counselors are doing uh quite a bit of that so even if you're in a rural area and you don't have counselors around or you're in such a small area you can't talk to anybody with without it getting out to everybody in town you can do that uh remotely and it it can be just as effective as sitting in the room yes that's another thing to definitely that can I just say one thing real quick too for anybody who's listening who who's feeling like that the Lord has put Pastors in any wherever you are whether it's 10 people 20 people 50 people the Lord's put you there for those people not that you're going to have you know a thousand within the next week because I I I we've been through this that's the failure you're thinking of but no you're not failing God has you there for those people for a purpose and that is your success right there you're not failing when I wanted to do this podcast I reached out to you because I was thinking you would do exactly what you've done and be transparent and honest and let us in and see because Carl you are you are wellknown and so people assume when you're well known that you didn't go through all this stuff you know but you did and and you know and and it's it was it was painful and there scars and those don't go away but I really appreciate you both being here today I love you and our friendship and look forward to you know doing lots of things together in the in the future but thanks for your honesty and transparency today and as I said throughout the podcast if you need help you're listening now you can always reach out to Carl and Shelley you can reach out to me I I'd love to help you but uh don't keep going at alone and pastors most of all don't sacrifice your family on the altar of ministry don't do it well guys thanks so much for joining me today I appreciate it so much I know it's help a lot of folks thank thanks for listening to the 95 podcast we look forward to sharing another episode with you next week in the meantime visit our website at 95 network.org the website is loaded with great resources created for small and midsize church leaders until next time have a great week