The Rusty George Podcast

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Rusty George
As a pastor or staff member of a church, it is common to experience compassion fatigue and find that you spend so much time caring for others, you're not caring for yourself. Saga wants to help foster healthy churches by facilitating the support of the emotional, mental and relational health of their leaders. As a partner of Saga, pastors and staff can confidently and easily begin their journey by being uniquely matched to a therapist that best fits their needs.

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Rusty George
To learn more about our church partnership with Saga, go to Saga Center dot org. That's sagacenter.org.

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Intro/Outro
Welcome to Leading Simple with Rusty George. Our goal is to make following Jesus and leading others a bit more simple. Here's your host, Rusty George.

00;00;51;29 - 00;01;13;22
Rusty George
Hey, welcome to another edition of Leading Simple. I'm Rusty George, taking you through this today. And recently, I got to sit down with one of my favorite people in the world, a guy by the name of Jim Sheldon. Jim was a guy that came to Christ and then got into business, was working in the marketplace world, and somehow felt like God was tugging at his heart to go into ministry.

00;01;14;10 - 00;01;30;01
Rusty George
Some of you are in that position right now. You're thinking, Should I go into ministry? Should I keep my day job? What am I supposed to do? And Jim ended up getting in the ministry, helping plant a church with a group of friends and becoming their executive pastor. How did he do this? Why did he do this? Why does he stay?

00;01;30;08 - 00;01;57;23
Rusty George
I think you're going to be really blessed by what Jim has to say. Well, if you haven't already, subscribe to the podcast. So you get this content free of charge and to your inbox every single time it comes out. Here's my conversation with executive pastor. Police chaplain and long suffering Chicago Bears fan Jim Sheldon. Okay, buddy. Jim Sheldon finally on the podcast, The Man, The Myth legend.

00;01;57;23 - 00;02;06;08
Rusty George
Let's just deal. First of all, with the thing that everybody wants to know, and that is how do you feel about the Chicago Bears and the upcoming draft?

00;02;07;17 - 00;02;30;23
Jim Sheldon
Man, I would say I have growing optimism, which is in it, which is concerning. As a Chicago sports fan, you learn to hedge disappointments. So I think they're doing everything right. I think we've hired from a great organization, right, the Kansas City Chiefs. We've got a front office that has good roots there. I don't know. Time will tell, but it's been fun and entertaining.

00;02;30;29 - 00;02;32;20
Jim Sheldon
I'm enjoying the ride. Let's put it that way.

00;02;33;19 - 00;02;46;05
Rusty George
Well, the fact that you guys finally made a trade in an effort to add some offensive players is huge because I. I can't name an offensive player since Walter Payton.

00;02;46;26 - 00;02;53;06
Jim Sheldon
I can name a lot. I just don't know the issues that they've been good.

00;02;53;22 - 00;03;02;17
Rusty George
Well, you do have the the added distinction of trading up to get Mitch Trubisky while Pat Mahomes fell to number ten. So there you go.

00;03;03;14 - 00;03;07;16
Jim Sheldon
They've been nothing but great at identifying talent, so they.

00;03;07;16 - 00;03;07;29
Rusty George
Really.

00;03;09;28 - 00;03;10;06
Jim Sheldon
Knew.

00;03;12;12 - 00;03;21;18
Rusty George
Okay. Hey, buddy, tell our listeners just a little bit about who you are and how you even got into ministry because that was not something that you initially chose.

00;03;22;18 - 00;03;43;03
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, you're right. I grew up in a family where faith was a really important thing, and I've realized now in my adult years, like I grew up in a family that, like most people did not have the privilege of experiencing. Like, I don't I've gone hunting for them and I haven't found childhood wounds, which is great. I think it made my parents nervous, like, why are you looking back so hard in your past?

00;03;43;03 - 00;03;59;28
Jim Sheldon
And it's like, I just don't know. Just I'm told I'm supposed to, so. But faith has always been a huge part of my life in my growing up years. I had an older sister that died of cancer when I was six, and that was a huge part of our family growing closer to each other and closer to God, which is the exception, not the rule.

00;03;59;29 - 00;04;19;17
Jim Sheldon
I think when a family experiences a trauma like that and I actually thought in high school, like I may end up going into ministry, I was going to a Christian high school, had a religion teacher that mentored me. But classic story, met a girl, fell in love, and all of a sudden nothing else mattered. Right. So ended up not going to college, stayed home.

00;04;19;26 - 00;04;38;07
Jim Sheldon
All of my Christian friends went off to college. All of her friends who didn't go to church became my friends, and faith became irrelevant. It wasn't like we had this thing that we were rebelling against as much as like it's just kind of were indifferent towards our faith and just drifted away from church. It didn't seem like it didn't apply anymore.

00;04;38;07 - 00;04;59;00
Jim Sheldon
And that set me off on a journey to chase things like most people do in their twenties. I found a career, got married, I got a job at a bank that I'd loved working at, and I just kept getting more and more opportunities there and found myself down a path where I was building a career at a young age that I thought I would do for the rest of my life.

00;04;59;08 - 00;05;24;20
Jim Sheldon
And common story among believers. The goalposts kept moving and what I thought would bring me success or a sense of acceptance and realized along the way I was compromising who I was in a lot of terms. I was being whoever I needed to be in whatever circles I was in. And my Christian, like anchoring, like I knew that's not really what I want to be about.

00;05;24;23 - 00;05;47;20
Jim Sheldon
And had this moment where I got promoted, got my business cards and had this like come to Jesus moment, like this did not pay off and I don't want to keep doing this. And that set us on a journey to find a church. And we found a church that even though I grew up in one, we found a church that was teaching the gospel in a way I'd never heard it presented before, changed the way that we lived almost immediately and just reoriented our whole life around.

00;05;47;20 - 00;06;11;03
Jim Sheldon
Putting God first. Him works 40 hours a week instead of 50 or 60, and started volunteering everywhere that we could imagine in the church. Just anything they needed. We're like, Yeah, I'm in, We're in to help. We're just hungry, just kept consuming. We're like, Tell us what to do and we'll do it. And ultimately, that led to someone seeing something in me and taking a risk and giving me an opportunity to do something I was not qualified to do.

00;06;11;24 - 00;06;13;02
Jim Sheldon
And then I got into ministry.

00;06;13;17 - 00;06;18;27
Rusty George
Wow, that is awesome. So that was all in Rockford, Illinois, Is that right? That's right.

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Jim Sheldon
Rock Vegas. Yep.

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Rusty George
Oh, man. The home of the Belgian waffles or pancakes and the.

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Jim Sheldon
Peaches.

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Rusty George
For peaches.

00;06;28;05 - 00;06;28;28
Jim Sheldon
Sock monkey.

00;06;29;12 - 00;06;30;13
Rusty George
Okay, well.

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Jim Sheldon
There's a lot of things.

00;06;32;14 - 00;06;56;07
Rusty George
The hits keep on coming as well. Okay, so that's kind of where our paths crossed. And I met you as you were getting ready to go and help plant a church out here in Ventura. So tell us, man, it's one thing to go into ministry. It's another thing to jump into the deep end and plant a church. Did that just make sense to you or did you recognize, Boy, this is crazy.

00;06;56;22 - 00;07;22;16
Jim Sheldon
Oh, I thought it was going to be my path to getting back into banking. That's great. But I realized, like, I've always been underqualified and undereducated for everything I've done in life, including banking. I'm working on positions, but I was not qualified to go get them. So when I left the bank, I knew probably this is not like an easy reentry.

00;07;22;16 - 00;07;44;10
Jim Sheldon
If I had bad pizza and got into ministry right to change it. So it felt like leaving this church that had been formative in my spiritual formation, an opportunity to ministry, to go play in a church where the statistics are just depressing, right? Moving across the country where we don't know anybody with friends, when they tell you to plant with friends, they won't be when you're done.

00;07;44;10 - 00;08;06;23
Jim Sheldon
So I'm like, All right, well, like a great way to end friendships and my career in ministry. So I had wise counsel that I saw, and they just kept telling me like, well, it's not sin staying like. So you don't overthink it. Like, maybe God's giving you the opportunity to choose. Yeah, And long story short, we chose. But for real, I think we thought we were going to head out there.

00;08;06;23 - 00;08;25;05
Jim Sheldon
We feel called to do it. Faithfulness is obedience. Let's go do this. We're going to fundraise for three years. And even if we're successful in the church planning world in three years, we have 200 people come in. You don't have three full time staff members. You for sure have a lead. Pastor. You probably have a worship pastor, but whatever I'm doing, you probably don't have that.

00;08;25;05 - 00;08;33;20
Jim Sheldon
So I'm probably going have to fire myself by year three and we'll move back in. I've had a great experience living in California for a few years, so that's what I thought I was signing up for.

00;08;34;18 - 00;08;51;03
Rusty George
That's kind of how we all come out here, right? We're just saying, you know, at least go to Disneyland a couple of times on the beach and then we'll go home. Exactly. So what you know, when you when you come out here to play in a church, I remember the first time that that you and I and your team of people we talked about this.

00;08;51;14 - 00;09;04;08
Rusty George
Everybody's role was pretty nebulous, you know. Well, I'll teach or I'll connect the dots or, you know, nobody wanted to work with kids. So what did you initially think your job was going to be when you signed up for this?

00;09;04;19 - 00;09;26;23
Jim Sheldon
Oh, it's such you know what? No one did want to do kids ministry. So I thought for sure I'll be leading kids ministry. I just knew. I'm like, this is a start up and I'm going to be the person that just does everything that needs to get done. So that's kind of how I got into ministry. Like, I think that was an important connection for me, was to go, I didn't have this niche that I felt called to.

00;09;26;23 - 00;09;51;15
Jim Sheldon
I didn't have a career that I developed for. I really felt like I had opportunities got put in front of me and I wanted to say yes. And that had led to some of the biggest faith adventure I'd ever experienced. So yeah, I was just going to keep doing that with this church. And so I knew, I knew with some clarity, like I'm going to handle the stuff that happens outside of the weekend, so I'm going to lead adult ministry in groups and I have a business background in banking.

00;09;51;15 - 00;09;57;04
Jim Sheldon
But like that's the equivalent of telling a guy that plays the guitar, Hey, you probably know how to build a sound system like.

00;09;57;16 - 00;09;58;00
Rusty George
No, I don't.

00;09;59;28 - 00;10;14;01
Jim Sheldon
And change the volume, but I don't know. So it was a little bit of like, you're a banker, you can do all the budgeting and it's like, No, probably we'll figure it out. So I kind of just knew would be a jack of all trades and I saw my role as a catalyst. Like our is going to have great ideas.

00;10;14;11 - 00;10;23;08
Jim Sheldon
We've got amazing leaders. My role is going to be to make sure that, like we can set out accomplishing some of the things that we wanted to do in a way that produced results.

00;10;23;23 - 00;10;41;18
Rusty George
Okay, So this is so key because everybody wants to have an executive pastor. Nobody knows what they do. It's true. So, you know, they really I mean, I've had a few different ones and they usually all kind of have different takes on how to do the job. And then you have different seasons of the church in which they're required to do different things.

00;10;41;18 - 00;11;04;22
Rusty George
So there are some great start up guys and then some guys that are better just like better after it's finished. And then I just keep the wheels going. So, you know, through your progression, what is your job look like over that over time? Because it wasn't initially called an XP, but it eventually became an XP. So, you know, you mentioned you were kind of the connector or the catalyst when you were planting.

00;11;05;19 - 00;11;19;19
Rusty George
So you've got the scaffolding years. You've got let's just raise money and a launch team, but then you move in to a theater Day one. What's your job look like then, once you start actually meeting together?

00;11;20;08 - 00;11;40;20
Jim Sheldon
Yeah. So I think 100% right. How the how the role changes and evolves. In the early days, it really was like, how are we going to just help connect people? So I think a large part of my role in on the ministry side of that XP role would have been like, I let all the groups I oversaw, like I did oversee the ministries, like kids ministry.

00;11;40;20 - 00;11;59;17
Jim Sheldon
We had a volunteer really doing it for a while and then a part time person. So I was kind of figuring out the structure that would need to exist given the limited resources that we had available, how to create a structure that could scale and not be inhibited by the roadblocks that we saw come in or the funding that we would have had.

00;11;59;17 - 00;12;15;26
Jim Sheldon
Like we needed to figure out how to do ministry and be creative. So I think it takes a little bit. There was like a roll around strategy that I had, but then there was also had to be an agility to go. I can I need to be able to play different roles based on whoever God brings on this team.

00;12;15;26 - 00;12;38;14
Jim Sheldon
So it was less it's a probably the antithesis of like know your strengths and build around them. I think it was like I kind of knew. I knew what I knew what I brought, and I knew that I that I could bring that in a bunch of different ways. I didn't have to have a specific role or title, and I wanted to pay attention to who God brought and manage around that more than I wanted to build it around who I was.

00;12;39;26 - 00;12;50;24
Rusty George
So it's more of a I know this is so true in the early days of church planning, it's kind of a you know what? Forget about my strengths. Let's find out what the organization's weaknesses are and I'll fill the gaps until I don't have to anymore.

00;12;50;29 - 00;13;14;20
Jim Sheldon
Right? And then people walk in and they're like, This is terrible. Yeah. And they know because you're bad at it. And they're like, Let me do it. And then you hand it off. So I think what I saw was like, I was responsible to get things started and to be the catalyst for things. But as I look back, I didn't it really I didn't manage things for more than 6 to 24 months before I handed it off and then kept moving on to the next thing.

00;13;14;20 - 00;13;36;12
Jim Sheldon
So in some ways, like I think I felt responsible to start to get a lap or two under my belt with whatever I was owning so that it could be reproducible. It could have our culture, our values, and it could be defined in a way. And now that could be handed off to someone with enough clarity that they could we could define what success was and have clarity on expectations.

00;13;36;28 - 00;13;41;05
Rusty George
Okay, that's a great point. So give us a few of those things that you got going and then hand it off.

00;13;41;22 - 00;14;00;20
Jim Sheldon
Yeah. So set up and tear down. And then we moved into a building. So like set up and tear down was easy. Also, we have a facility and it's like where we have to clean it. So like little I would clean like I would vacuum, I would mop, you know, for the first month, month or so, a couple of weeks, I'm like, I'm pulling volunteers in, but I'm still trying to get my hands around.

00;14;00;20 - 00;14;16;26
Jim Sheldon
Like, what do we we were in a 16 screen movie theater. So just trying to figure out like you could you could have a full time crew just cleaning that thing. So, like, I just need that's this is all how I'm wired. Like, I want to get my hands dirty and kind of feel experience it, and then I can make better decisions.

00;14;16;26 - 00;14;33;16
Jim Sheldon
So I did that for a short time, then found volunteers to come in and clean, and we had a volunteer team doing that. I did that with groups, I was leading groups, and then we had a resident that we brought on who had fundraised their salary for season and I would hand that off to the resident that was there and then a new resident came out and I would hand it back.

00;14;33;16 - 00;14;55;23
Jim Sheldon
So giving them an opportunity to do stuff that I felt comfortable doing and I could have done that. Like that was my background. But again, God brought a resident. We could do that managing staff. That was kind of the one thing I realized I couldn't let go of because that was really upsetting for our culture. So that was the thing that I knew that I needed to make sure that I was spending time on.

00;14;55;23 - 00;15;13;02
Jim Sheldon
And the last thing I'd say about staff is like that include volunteer staff. So not just paid staff, but high capacity volunteers that really are functioning in the organization in a way that they have responsibility. And so I'm treating them as staff, doing check ins, developing them, that sort of thing.

00;15;13;11 - 00;15;25;08
Rusty George
So finding those people, we assume the only way you can do that is you post something on social media or you have the pastor say something about it in his message. How did you go about getting the word out about that?

00;15;26;03 - 00;15;40;29
Jim Sheldon
A couple of different ways. I mean, like the the resident approach was just networks. It was like going to have a relational network. And that's where being in California doesn't hurt. No. You know, it's like I'm a year or somewhere out here. It's like it's a it's attractive. You know, I've got friends in Arizona getting summer interns there.

00;15;40;29 - 00;15;47;18
Jim Sheldon
It's not easy. Yeah. Come sit in the desert without getting 20 degrees for a little while. So there was that. It's a.

00;15;47;18 - 00;15;48;07
Rusty George
Dry heat.

00;15;48;07 - 00;16;10;06
Jim Sheldon
It's totally dry. You barely even notice it. Yeah. I think one of the things that we had to get our heads around was like, we we were bad at leadership development. We were good at recruiting leaders. So we we had to learn how to develop somebody for where we were going, not just recruit someone that had already been trained and could slot in.

00;16;10;06 - 00;16;29;22
Jim Sheldon
And so we uncovered like this capacity myth I think is the way I would frame it. Like early on in the first couple of years, we were growing quickly and it would be tempting to go like, well, we're growing beyond their capacity to lead or like they were the right leader for the right season. And I was just confronted with the reality that, like we've actually not developed them.

00;16;29;26 - 00;16;49;15
Jim Sheldon
So when I say they don't have the capacity, the next question should be and what have you done to develop or equip them to get where we need them to be? So it kind of that epiphany helped us realize, like there's a ton of amazingly gifted volunteers in our church that need to have someone do for them what someone did for me.

00;16;49;29 - 00;17;12;16
Jim Sheldon
Well, I see this in you. Like I think that you have an opportunity to like, do kingdom work here, whether it's vocational or not. Would you consider giving some of the best hours of your week to do this? And we were blown away with like a third of our staff team was volunteers, people that would that they attended our church, they served as staff for 6 to 18 months and moved on.

00;17;13;14 - 00;17;22;22
Jim Sheldon
But they, they not only filled significant roles for us, but it was a huge part of their spiritual formation. And I think that was a key part of our early days.

00;17;23;10 - 00;17;42;19
Rusty George
You know, you're in ministry long enough. There are certain words that everybody uses and nods their head at, but no one knows what they mean. So define development because one person hears that and they think, Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I give him a book. Another person says, Oh, I just lead a staff meeting and then they'll figure it out.

00;17;42;19 - 00;17;49;05
Rusty George
Another person thinks, Well, I'll just show my video what does development look like in your context?

00;17;49;18 - 00;18;15;10
Jim Sheldon
Oh, man, I would. Tell me, why don't you tell me what it is? Because I just had a meeting today and I'm like, we're we're 11 years and we put 75 names up on a whiteboard and we're like, How do we develop these people? And we're like, I don't know. So I think you can overthink it, which is I think what we have a tendency to do is to go, Man, I've got to have a syllabus, I've got to have a curriculum, or I have to have this very clear end to this thing that I'm inviting them into.

00;18;15;10 - 00;18;44;14
Jim Sheldon
So I have to have a role that I'm asking them into. I have to have a responsibility for them. And I think what we try to do is just go. At the end of the day, we're trying to bring someone into my world and give them opportunities to play significant roles in ministry, give them real opportunities to to do ministry work, meet with people, weddings, funerals, discipleship, and be in relationship with them so that as you're doing it together, you're having conversations.

00;18;44;14 - 00;19;05;25
Jim Sheldon
So for me, it's been being vulnerable enough to let people see me fail or be uncertain. That's been some of the best ways that people have felt developed around me is is seeing how I do it wrong, which leads to more open conversations about what would right look like. So it's it's we're not the most organized church in the world.

00;19;05;25 - 00;19;16;28
Jim Sheldon
So it's if someone said, hey, send me what you do for development, I stare them in the face and be like, We don't have anything. But if they came here, I would know how to develop them. I don't know if that makes sense.

00;19;16;28 - 00;19;26;23
Rusty George
So no, it totally does. And sometimes it's just easier to say, Hey, follow me around and then we'll talk about it than it is to say, All right, then we give you the PowerPoint presentation and then you go out and do it.

00;19;27;11 - 00;19;39;29
Jim Sheldon
Right? Yep. And then at the end, I think giving them the chance to do it and get out of the way, I think that's been the hardest thing sometimes is it means handing stuff off, maybe stuff you don't want to stop doing, or maybe stuff that your identity identity's wrapped up in that you need to let go of.

00;19;40;00 - 00;20;03;26
Rusty George
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Okay. So you guys, you know, you're in this movie theater and then you're able to take over the movie theater, and then you finally get this building that you've renovated and you move in and, you know, have a big boy mortgage and all that kind of stuff. So how did your job change then? Because now and now you're like an organization.

00;20;03;26 - 00;20;11;29
Rusty George
You know, it's an entity. It's not just this little engine that could I mean, you guys have done now now, how does thing how do the things change?

00;20;12;14 - 00;20;43;21
Jim Sheldon
Oh, my gosh. It felt so complicated. I'm like this thing that was so simple and grassroots. All of a sudden, people are asking like, Hey, can I see your handbook? What's a what? A what's a handbook? Like, Oh, we don't have we need that. We have we need some H.R. guidance, probably. We're hiring people. Like there is this scale to what we were doing that I think created some tension around like how we operate to go, how do we we valued intuitive leadership and kind of figuring it out as we go, which is part of the fun of a startup.

00;20;43;29 - 00;21;07;08
Jim Sheldon
But when you start to scale, that becomes a real inhibitor where people don't have clarity. The ambiguity of from intuitive leadership creates doubt or uncertainty. So I think there is a sense of like we have to figure out how are we going to start to put procedures in place, how do we start to create, which is like words that we hate here.

00;21;07;21 - 00;21;36;09
Jim Sheldon
So it was like all of a sudden everybody was reporting to me, we need to have other people managing staff. Scaling was complicated because it because it forced us to define things that we had previously defined. So I had to learn to start leading more through other people than just myself. So as an XP that took some learning to go, I have to figure out how to teach people to do what I've been doing, not just do it myself.

00;21;36;17 - 00;21;49;17
Rusty George
MM Yeah, it is interesting. A lot of times church plans start because we want to run away from all the bureaucracy of the big church and then we become big and we're like, Oh, now here we are, you know, now what am I going to do? Yeah.

00;21;50;13 - 00;21;50;21
Jim Sheldon
Yeah.

00;21;51;24 - 00;22;13;10
Rusty George
Okay, so here you are. You guys have grown from this little start up into now a megachurch that's planting churches. What is your job look like now? You know, it seems like we're always reinventing ourselves and we have about a seven year cycle, and then here we go again. And you guys are probably getting ready for another seven year cycle.

00;22;13;22 - 00;22;36;21
Rusty George
So, you know, what does your job entail now than it was when you first moved in the building? Obviously, you survived COVID, which was the weirdest, strangest, most awful time any of us have lived through. And now you're on the other side of it as you guys are planting churches and dealing with, you know, becoming exponential rather than just, can we survive?

00;22;37;04 - 00;22;46;08
Rusty George
What's the mindset like there for an XP? Because it's no longer just I hope we pay the bills this week. Now it's how do we leave a lasting impact on legacy?

00;22;47;04 - 00;23;09;12
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, I think man there's I think our work has been hopefully unique on the art side of it that we have had. We scaled up before COVID, we were scaling, scaling, scaling. We were in a building for a year and a half, ran out of space. We got to figure out multisite, kind of all of this stuff out of a need because we were growing during COVID.

00;23;10;00 - 00;23;39;02
Jim Sheldon
I mean, we didn't know who our church was anymore. We knew the people had left the state. We're like, we don't even but we still what it started as a need. We need to multiply developed as a conviction and COVID like now we feel called to reach our county. It's a little bit of like the parable of the talents, like we were looking at what God has put in our hand, not in terms of finances, but in terms of people like it's a parable of the talents of people about money kind of changes your your perspective on what stewardship means a little bit.

00;23;39;10 - 00;24;15;16
Jim Sheldon
So we were thinking through like, how do we steward the resources of people that God has put in our hand? And coming out of COVID, we were now launching things and we were probably numerically half the size we were going into COVID. So it stretched us in a lot of ways. It caused us to really define what we're convictions and really was a little bit of crucible to go like this is to be honest, I'm like on this side of it, I'm like, Did we overreach with some of the things we we had a whole campus back in a year ago.

00;24;15;25 - 00;24;34;03
Jim Sheldon
We're still planting a church this fall. So is this weird season. We're like, we're we're we're shutting a thing down. At the same time we're launching another thing. So we've planted two churches. We're planting our third this fall. That'll be in the last four years or five years. It'll be three churches we planted. We launched a campus and we pulled that back in.

00;24;34;06 - 00;25;04;10
Jim Sheldon
So it was this weird season of scale up and scale back down very quickly. We hired to go multi-site and then we had to pull it back in and lay people off and realign staff and restructure all while we're still planting churches and trying to pull residents in and release them. So it felt bipolar at times, like we're trying to do two things at once, but I think it grew our dependance on God and really clarified.

00;25;04;10 - 00;25;30;25
Jim Sheldon
I think that clarified. I think as much as if was interesting where I tend to lead strategically. So I think we need to have vision. We need to be able to tell people where we're going and we need to. That's going to create movement. And I think this last season really reinforced the role of pastoring that in our current climate, people care way more about how we're caring for people than they do about our plan.

00;25;30;25 - 00;25;48;09
Jim Sheldon
They trust us for whatever reason. Like I think we've built equity over time or last ten years because we've largely done what we said we were going to do. I think how we navigate it or be perceived as a failure in some circles by calling the campus back in was the litmus test for whether we really cared about people or not.

00;25;49;03 - 00;25;54;08
Jim Sheldon
And I think the way that we did that allowed us to come out of it in a way that allowed us to keep moving forward.

00;25;54;27 - 00;26;17;01
Rusty George
Hey, let me interrupt this podcast for just a second. To remind you, if you're not taking care of your mental health, nobody is. Step up and go check out Saga Center dot org to find out more. All right. Back to our show. So tell me what do you think has to be done in the heart of an executive pastor to take some of these lumps?

00;26;17;10 - 00;26;39;18
Rusty George
Because we all love the highs, but we remember the lows. You know, I remember I heard a basketball coach that's won a thousand games at one time. I don't remember many of the wins, but I remember every single loss, you know, And so you play in a church, you hit certain numeric numbers, you have a campaign. And oh, by the way, we had to close down a multi-site.

00;26;39;18 - 00;26;49;25
Rusty George
That's the kind of thing that wears you out. So how do you balance that in your mind? How do you do the, you know, the self work and self-talk in order to realize it's still a good day?

00;26;50;08 - 00;27;07;03
Jim Sheldon
Yeah. And so the rest of your thing and then I'm like, yeah, all of the things we celebrate end up like in a trophy case or like certificates on the wall, you know, stuff you hang in your house, but all the failures because it's the way it goes in ministry, the things that are like hard and up we wear, we wear them as scarves, right?

00;27;07;03 - 00;27;28;07
Jim Sheldon
So they're just always with us. Yeah. And sometimes we can't see beyond those things. Or it's the reality of like, maybe we're limping. Like, we're like, I'm, we're reminded of this every step I take cause it's with us. So the thing that I've had to, like, really remind our team in this season is that and this is where I'm just personally grateful for my journey personally to go.

00;27;28;07 - 00;27;58;06
Jim Sheldon
I didn't start out in ministry. I had a corporate job. My life was changed because I became a disciple of Jesus. And then I was given an opportunity to spend the best hours of my day doing vocational ministry. But I don't feel like I have to keep doing that. This is not my career, so I don't. I feel like if if it ever came to the point where, like, I wasn't able to do ministry anymore, that church didn't exist, my relationship with God would still be okay.

00;27;58;06 - 00;27;58;23
Rusty George
So good.

00;27;58;27 - 00;28;22;06
Jim Sheldon
And I think if my discipleship is a means to an end, then I'll suffer a fractured soul that can't bear the weight of ministry. So my discipleship has to be first and foremost just because of who God is in my life. And if I'm not building that type of relationship of my spirit's not formed in that way, then there's zero chance that it's going to sustain the weight of ministry.

00;28;22;17 - 00;28;44;07
Jim Sheldon
And it's really easy to get into the weeds of like, I'm going to put strategy together, even around self care, that I'm going to I'm going to have a replenishment cycle, I'm going to do all these things, but you can do all of those things and not be a disciple of Jesus. So it's in some ways you just never get past the foundation of Jesus's followers to pick up your cross and follow him.

00;28;44;07 - 00;29;01;12
Jim Sheldon
And people that pick up crosses die. So like in it's like it's, you know, oh, we're going to suffer. I mean it more in the terms of like, I'm giving up my life so that I can find the things that Jesus says. He also says that my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So carrying a cross should feel light because Jesus is with it.

00;29;01;12 - 00;29;18;04
Jim Sheldon
So I think and I think to me, don't misinterpret what I'm saying. So like if if you're burning out, if things are hard or things are bad, it does not mean your discipleship is erratic. That's not what I'm saying. It's not cause and effect that way. But I just think you have to get the first things first in that order.

00;29;18;13 - 00;29;32;23
Rusty George
And that's really well said. Yeah, and that's good. Okay, so I want to ask about this because a lot of xrp's I know what goes on when you all get together and that is you all complain about your lead pastor. Okay? And my experience.

00;29;33;08 - 00;29;34;07
Jim Sheldon
Is we just all say.

00;29;34;25 - 00;29;52;17
Rusty George
Yeah, my XRP is leading the charge on that one. Okay, so here's what I want to know. You work with a very visionary leader way out there. What if we did this? How about we do this, that kind of thing? And you've got to be around to kind of pick up the pieces or connect the dots. How do you deal with that?

00;29;52;17 - 00;30;02;03
Rusty George
I mean, what advice would you give to an XRP out there that's dealing with a visionary leader as to do I take every idea seriously? Do I ignore things? How do I manage this?

00;30;02;14 - 00;30;29;12
Jim Sheldon
Oh yeah, that's so true, man. I think on top of that, hourly pastor is an intuitive leader, so there's a lot of like I know it when I see it or judging by feel. So I've had to ask questions and try to define what good questions are that give me information I can act on. So when he has an idea or we have a new thing, my first three words almost always are like, Tell me more.

00;30;30;19 - 00;30;54;20
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, tell me more. Like before I jump to a conclusion or shoot down the idea because it's it's not feasible. Tell me more of why about why you want to do that. Or like when you said blank, what did you mean by that? I'll ask like, do you care how we do that? If doing that meant blank for our church, would it change how you feel about it?

00;30;56;03 - 00;31;20;20
Jim Sheldon
If we don't do that, I would you be frustrated and y like so those are just some of the questions that I just have on speed dial conversation. And then I take notes because I'm like, okay, like with a visionary, I need to start like sketching out what do you really mean when you say that? Right? And then I think the other phrase that him and I have used is like, Is that a bear or a rabbit?

00;31;22;04 - 00;31;30;14
Jim Sheldon
So like he's if you've done thinking wavelengths, he's nine. I'm thinking wavelengths. Like he just like always he only sees opportunity.

00;31;30;14 - 00;31;31;06
Rusty George
Your goodness.

00;31;31;08 - 00;31;50;10
Jim Sheldon
Only opportunity. Yeah. I mean that's I'm in the middle. But here the analogy we've used is like, he's out there like, see and targets and shoot them and he's, he's thinking he's shooting rabbits and he's like handing them back to be processed in like grab the fur off, you know, and he's just throwing them back and see him on the backs like you're throwing bears back.

00;31;50;10 - 00;32;03;16
Jim Sheldon
And there's a lot more to processing a bear than a rabbit. And so you think that's a small thing, but you are discounting the work behind the scenes. So it's just been a playful way to go. Like, do you think that's a rabbit or a bear?

00;32;04;14 - 00;32;32;01
Rusty George
That's really good. Oh, that's good. Okay. So part of your job as an expert is to really deal with staff. You're trying to get the right people, as Jim Collins would say on the bus and some in the right seat on the bus. But occasionally you got to stop the bus and ask a few people to leave. So how have you learned to some of the things to say and the way to, you know, couch it to help people kind of change their role?

00;32;32;02 - 00;32;43;04
Rusty George
Because sometimes, you know, and this is true of most churches, the job you get is not the job that you keep. You end up somewhere else. What's the, you know, the kind of the nomenklatura use to move somebody from one seat to another?

00;32;43;20 - 00;33;06;01
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, I think I think it's got to be baked into how to do the development more. But like maybe for this conversation how you're checking in with the person. So I would want to always I always want a balance for us. I don't have the person in the right position based on who they are and how they're wired and their giftedness and their passion.

00;33;06;01 - 00;33;24;28
Jim Sheldon
And me and our current culture is all about that. Like find your sweet spot, but it has to be held in tension with this is where we are as a church and as an organization, and this is what we need as a church. And so there has to be some some fit conversations, but it also has to be directly connected to our strategy.

00;33;25;08 - 00;33;51;29
Jim Sheldon
What's next where we're going. And so I want to have conversations about both of those realities continually, constantly. I mean, we have a we're strategic, so we have a dashboard, we have a roadmap. We have all of these things right, that are pointing to the future so that can inform those conversations and I can have conversations with them about, hey, if we if we go from one location to two, if we're going to plan a church this fall, what needs to be true about your role, about this position?

00;33;52;29 - 00;34;13;02
Jim Sheldon
Do you think that you have all of the skills to do that right now? If if we went this direction and three years from now our church was this size and your role looked like this, would you still like that job like so we can have some of those conversations in our culture in a way that it doesn't feel like there's a bait and switch?

00;34;13;02 - 00;34;26;18
Jim Sheldon
Or maybe you answer that wrong and you're out, but it's around and care and go and I'll learn the team. We can move seats. I think it feels terrifying when when it's sudden. I didn't see it coming.

00;34;26;26 - 00;34;28;01
Rusty George
Mm That's true.

00;34;28;03 - 00;34;49;02
Jim Sheldon
How is that? I don't ever want to hear as a manager. Like if I have to fire someone, I want to have had so many hard conversations directly with them. When I call them into my office to say, Hey, today's your last day, their response is, Yeah, I know, yeah, I want it to be obvious and have had the hard conversations.

00;34;49;02 - 00;34;55;24
Jim Sheldon
So that's that's one of the ways I think that like you've just got to lean in and make sure that you're having the right conversations all along the way.

00;34;56;07 - 00;35;17;15
Rusty George
Okay. So when you do have the conversation of it's time for you to get off the bus, sometimes it's we have outgrown you, sometimes it's you know what? I can tell you're getting a little cantankerous and you need to change it sometimes. You know, they just they're not a fit. Walk me through that. What have you said in those situations to help ease the pain as certainly if they're part of your church beforehand, That makes it really complicated.

00;35;18;03 - 00;35;34;18
Jim Sheldon
Yeah. I mean, fortunately, in our context, I haven't had to do that. But in the in Rockford before we moved out here, a good friend of mine that was co-leading a campus with me and he he had three or four staff members that we all we were leading. We pulled into the office and we had to let go over an 18 month period.

00;35;35;13 - 00;36;00;13
Jim Sheldon
And all of them stayed in the church. Wow. Just kept attending the church. What I saw in that was it goes back to like how we're valuing people now. We can't control how they react and respond. And like that doesn't mean that like that's the measure of success, but it does in some way reflect the way that we've we've cared for this person and care is having those hard times.

00;36;00;13 - 00;36;18;07
Jim Sheldon
So I don't ever want to get to the point. We have to avoid getting to the point where, like I have four examples in this conversation that I can point to to justify my position. I probably should have had four conversations along the way about each one of those things so that your eyes are open. You're kind of feeling it.

00;36;18;07 - 00;36;37;16
Jim Sheldon
We're talking together about where this is going. I'm giving you a to like make some changes and or change my mind about it. This is assuming it's not like character or controversy type stuff, but when it is fit capacity, those types of things, I think there should be a longer conversation leading up to it.

00;36;38;08 - 00;36;58;03
Rusty George
You know, you make a great point there because I've gotten into the meetings where I feel the quiver up. You know, I got six or seven pieces of evidence that I'm willing to drop on the table at any moment. And the reality is, boy, that should have been six conversations rather than six arrows I'm going to fire at at this particular time.

00;36;58;03 - 00;37;15;08
Rusty George
That's that's really wise. Hey, what did you would you never expect about pastoring? So here you are in a bank, you start working, you know, you start volunteering at a church, that man. And it's great to be on staff here. And I remember that year had the great church. I love to be on staff here. And now you're on staff at a church where you never expect.

00;37;15;29 - 00;37;38;06
Jim Sheldon
Oh, all of it. Like, I mean, I, I went into it very naive, like, so I didn't really know. I don't think I knew what to expect, but I never in a million years would I have painted the picture that emerged like the opposite. I feel like Forest Gump in some ways, sort of like I've found myself in places that I.

00;37;38;11 - 00;38;00;25
Jim Sheldon
I have no right to be in, around people that I have no right to be around. It's been one of the most amazing adventures, and I don't think that's because I took a job at a church. I really do think that's just the nature of following Jesus like you. Would you see it in you to say yes with a reckless abandon, you end up going down this path that you can't predict.

00;38;01;05 - 00;38;22;02
Jim Sheldon
So in some ways it's like, I can't believe I live in California. Like I tell it to my boys all the time, like they're ten and 15. One was three when we moved. Another one was born here. I'm like, You don't know how lucky you have it. Like there's snow on the mountains. We're standing on the beach like, like ten year olds never worn jeans, you know, it's only where you don't know and you don't know.

00;38;23;06 - 00;39;05;24
Jim Sheldon
So there's just been some sweet benefits to it of, like me. And I get to raise my kids in a place that's pretty amazing. The friendships I've developed, like, have been incredible. And then my personally, just my spiritual formation, my relationship with God, the way that I've been able to grow through those opportunities is far exceeded. Anything that I could like chart course for the spiritual side or like the pastor side of it, like me and I, it's I do and few funerals do it when I'm showing up in like the worst of times for families and like, just thinking through like what a privilege it is to, to step into those moments and bring

00;39;05;24 - 00;39;14;27
Jim Sheldon
the hope of the gospel circuit and celebrate some of the highest highs in people's lives. Like it's it really is just an overwhelming privilege to be in that seat.

00;39;15;10 - 00;39;42;25
Rusty George
That's so good. I love the way you frame that up. Okay. So one of the things that I've always thought was admirable and fascinating about what you do is you took an interest in the police force there and your city and decided to kind of work your way into a police chaplain. Was that a job that was open or did you just kind of declare yourself that one day you show up with the Bible and say, listen to me, or and walked me through that whole progression and why.

00;39;43;06 - 00;39;47;12
Jim Sheldon
Online course rented a uniform and just showed up at the station.

00;39;47;12 - 00;39;48;07
Rusty George
That's all it takes.

00;39;48;25 - 00;40;12;28
Jim Sheldon
To take me on the ride along. That's right. Well, we we made the mistake of praying. God give, us opportunities to serve our community and then actually paying attention to opportunities that God gave us to serve our community. So that was our prayer When we moved here. We didn't know what that look like. And through a friend of a friend of a friend ended up meeting with an officer with the police department here in town.

00;40;13;02 - 00;40;35;03
Jim Sheldon
And they did not have a chaplains program. He was a believer, had seen the value of this in other departments, was trying to figure out how to start one. He didn't know any pastors in the community that might be willing to do it. And I'm like, Well, I'm a pastor. We don't have a yet. So yeah, I think I'm interested if you're if that's okay with you, like again, it's like, I don't write any qualifications to do this, but this sounds fun.

00;40;35;07 - 00;41;05;22
Jim Sheldon
It sounds great. Let's give you. Yeah. So they started the process to create a chaplains program and it was a nine month process. And during that time, the church launched. I got trained and we were ready to roll it out. We were a month away from rolling it out and an on duty officer committed suicide. And so it went from this idea of how are we going to implement this faith in the workplace in a way that won't meet resistance to him calling and going like, Hey, we need you here in an hour.

00;41;05;22 - 00;41;26;13
Jim Sheldon
This just went down and I found myself on stage for the funeral. No officers resisting the idea of having a pastoral presence in that moment. And again, it was just like, What am I doing here? God, look, how do I oh, I hope I don't screw this up, you know, like this, right? Openness to the gospel in those moments.

00;41;26;13 - 00;41;50;10
Jim Sheldon
And just like relationships, the relationships that can be built. So that's kind of how it started. And then I did that for nine years and it really did start as a way to serve the community. And then honestly, it was the best pastoral training that I've ever received like that. The opportunities you get to do ministry, I mean, maybe they teach this in Bible college or seminary, I don't know.

00;41;50;10 - 00;42;10;01
Jim Sheldon
But showing up to do death notifications, you know, it's knocking on the door of a stranger's home with a police officer and they're like, All right, go ahead and tell them, you know, it's like, oh, I'm doing it. And walking into that moment and knowing I'm a resource for an officer. So they they get to be there, make sure it happens, and then they can leave.

00;42;10;11 - 00;42;32;07
Jim Sheldon
And then I'm left there with this family that's just had their world collapse more times than not, don't attend church, don't they would not walk through the doors of a church, may not even have believers in their life. And I'm able to to minister in that moment and develop a relationship is just unbelievable. Showing up for suicides like whether it's a public suicide.

00;42;32;26 - 00;42;50;15
Jim Sheldon
We've had some in our community where I've then been equipped to do critical incident stress management briefings. So I show up with the employees or those that were affected or around when it happened and leading them through a process. All of those are lead to developing community relationships because you provided a service and showed up in their greatest need.

00;42;51;19 - 00;43;13;00
Jim Sheldon
No one's no one's ever pushed back on the gospel in those moments or situations. I'm not leading them to Jesus in the moment in terms of like conversion. I'm not like asking them if they want to repent, but I'm clearly showing up with the hope of Jesus in a way that causes them to ask questions months later. And there's been tons of fruit from that.

00;43;14;00 - 00;43;40;09
Rusty George
That's amazing. Most of us shy away from those moments and you're running into it. So, Jim, I want to ask you this, because you you talked about obviously doing those kind of conversations gives you a lot of trauma and ministry goodness. I heard this great term from I think it was Dan Alcindor referred to it as vicarious trauma that we pick up from, you know, situations that we counsel people through and then we take it home with us.

00;43;40;29 - 00;43;50;01
Rusty George
And after a while it adds up. How have you dealt with that? How have you dealt with your mental health and just made sure that you were okay?

00;43;50;19 - 00;44;12;07
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, it's been so true, and I think it's such a a topic that's on the forefront of people's minds in a in a good way. I think our our culture is really open to this, and I think churches are really starting to understand this. I think, again, we've got some great training as a chaplain through this, and God had my eyes really open to this.

00;44;12;07 - 00;44;36;03
Jim Sheldon
The FBI training that we had talked about, police officers and how they are have to live in a hyper vigilant state, meaning like they never know really what they're walking into. They have to maintain awareness. And when we were stepping into uncertain or traumatic things, it causes our body to produce adrenaline and it takes a physiological toll in the sciences, like it takes time to replenish those reserves.

00;44;36;23 - 00;45;03;20
Jim Sheldon
But it's 24 hours often to replenish. But you're back on shift to the next day. Or for pastors, I mean, we're always on call. The next calls come in. So many things are demanded from us. We find ourselves going from meeting to meeting or conversation to conversation that feels like, you know, we're shifting gears without a clutch. It's like I can have one meeting with a person or our church that's furious about a comment we made or the theology we hold.

00;45;04;02 - 00;45;22;11
Jim Sheldon
And then I can get a phone call of someone that just, you know, their wife got diagnosed with cancer. And I have to show up with empathy to that. And then I can, you know, I have to jump into a staff meeting where I have to have a disciplinary conversation with someone. And so it's like and then you're supposed to go home and, not bring it home maybe.

00;45;22;11 - 00;45;37;02
Jim Sheldon
Or do I bring it home Like, I mean, you hear all these stuff like you're going to your family's going to hate the church if you do it. And it's like, if you don't, you're going to feel like you've abandoned your family because they don't know what you're doing. So I don't do what I do because I'm not a therapist.

00;45;37;02 - 00;45;57;07
Jim Sheldon
So, I mean, that's the first caveat. But I think what I've what I've done personally is I do talk about it. So my wife and I talk about a lot of stuff, like she's a safe place for me, to have a lightning rod for it to go there. And I feel like she can handle that. And and that's been something that we've done forever.

00;45;57;16 - 00;46;16;04
Jim Sheldon
I've also got an inner circle of guys. There are things that I'm like, maybe not going to have that conversation or it's not resolved yet and I can't talk about it yet. I have people outside of our church that I can in community talk with that I'm not their pastor. Yeah, they don't care what I do. They really care about who I am and how I'm doing.

00;46;16;04 - 00;46;33;24
Jim Sheldon
And they'll ask really hard questions. I think in the same way, we have to be disciples to be pastors. We can't just talk about mental health if we're not going to be practitioners. So I think I think therapy, I think being like we have groups that we're a part of, we're working through all of the stuff, limbic wounds, childhood stuff.

00;46;33;24 - 00;46;38;22
Jim Sheldon
And I've been in those groups doing those things. Just I think you have to keep working at it.

00;46;39;23 - 00;46;59;04
Rusty George
It is an ongoing battle and it just about the time you think you've got to, you know, figure it out, Here comes something else. And it's just this ongoing, how do I empty this out and fill it for something good and and move ahead? I just I know that so many of us are dealing with more than we ever thought we could after COVID and kind of all escalated.

00;47;00;11 - 00;47;19;00
Rusty George
And there's people that are no longer with us that once were that we thought could help carry the load, which really feels it's daunting at times. But I appreciate it today, Jim, because you have not only modeled it well from a distance, but you have now communicated it well in the present so our people can really learn from what it is you have to say.

00;47;19;00 - 00;47;21;26
Rusty George
So thanks for what you're doing, buddy. Thanks for sharing the day.

00;47;22;12 - 00;47;23;20
Jim Sheldon
Yeah, thanks, man. Appreciate everyone.

00;47;25;09 - 00;47;41;07
Rusty George
Well, Jim, thanks for being with us. It was awesome. So grateful for his words to us. If you haven't already, subscribe to the show and make sure that you also pass this episode along to your favorite executive pastor or maybe somebody you know that even wants to get into ministry. But they're thinking about How do I do that?

00;47;41;15 - 00;48;00;11
Rusty George
Or perhaps somebody, you know, that wants to plant a church. And if you're looking to plant a church in the California area, we might actually have some money for you and some support. We'd love to help you plan a church out here. You can contact us through our website, Real Life Church dot org or you can email me at our George at Real Life Church dot org.

00;48;00;28 - 00;48;22;16
Rusty George
Hey, next week we get to talk to one of the great leaders that you may have never heard of. He's a guy that has supported and worked with and helped pastors like Andy Stanley for decades. He's been a leader over Northpoint Ministries. He's become a good friend and he's an incredible thinker, an all around fun guy. His name is Layne Jones.

00;48;22;16 - 00;48;29;11
Rusty George
He joins us next week on Leading Simple. Hey, thanks so much for being a part of the show. And as always, keep it simple.

00;48;29;22 - 00;48;55;05
Intro/Outro
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