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Faith and Legal Challenges - Insider on Concordia Texas | Hot Topic with President Don Christian
How does a university navigate the complexities of faith, leadership, and legal battles?
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Dr. Don Christian, president of Concordia University Texas, joins us to discuss the ongoing lawsuit with the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and what it means for the institution's future. You'll get an insider's perspective on the case's current status and timeline, as well as Dr. Christian's personal reflections on being a leader during such a turbulent period. This conversation sheds light on the broader issues of trust and conflict within church systems, making it a must-listen for anyone involved in faith-based organizations.
In addition, we delve into the importance of embodying organizational values and creating a culture of recognition and vulnerability. Dr. Christian shares how Concordia integrates its core values into daily operations, fostering a supportive environment through public recognition and open dialogue. We also discuss the crucial aspects of preparing for leadership transitions, with insights from Dr. Christian’s own retirement planning. This episode concludes with a powerful affirmation of God's enduring faithfulness to Concordia, highlighting the potential for continued growth and kingdom expansion. Tune in for a compelling discussion on leadership, faith, and resilience.
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this is lead time welcome to a lead time hot topic, friday tim allman. Here I pray. The joy of jesus is your strength as we get to learn today from a brother that I've gotten to know better over the last three, four years, mostly around good things and around some hard things. I have Dr Don Christian, president of Concordia Texas in Austin for less than one year from this time we're hanging out in July of 2024, and Concordia Texas is in a transitional season right now looking for their next president. So we're going to be talking about Concordia Texas Before we get into. Well, let's just hit the first topic, and this one's going to be very, very quick, don. Most of the time in the Hot Topic we do 10 minutes per segment. This does not have to be 10 minutes. So latest on first topic. Start the clock right now. Here we go. Latest on CTX and the Synod lawsuit and hopeful outcomes and moving forward. Just update us on that story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not a whole lot to report, tim. As you know, september 1st of 2023, the LCMS filed a lawsuit against Concordia Texas Myself our chair at that time, chris Banwolf and since then we have asked for a dismissal of that case in the federal court. Right now, there are documents going back and forth. There were documents going back and forth between the LCMS and Concordia University, texas, to the court. That time is now finished and we are waiting on the judge to make a ruling on our ask for dismissal of the case from the federal court.
Speaker 2:Do you have a rough estimation on how long you're going to be waiting?
Speaker 3:I just asked that question today to my lawyer and there is no timeline out there.
Speaker 2:I mean it's not like a year or something like that.
Speaker 3:We don't think so Within weeks, months yeah. Officially, the trial has been set to start September of 2025. If it goes to trial and if it doesn't, then next steps will take place.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:All right, it has been very quiet on that front.
Speaker 2:And we're just waiting and preparing communication, cordial reconciliatory with any sort of synod leaders, or have you, because the lawyers kind of say, because we're at this point, you have to kind of stay pretty silent as it relates to that, anything there Bridges being built, don yeah.
Speaker 3:You hit it very well on the second point. As we're in the middle of a lawsuit, it is very quiet and probably as it needs to be for everybody yeah, well, I speak for many.
Speaker 2:we're praying um, and what's it? Let me? Let me just get behind the curtain here a little bit, you know, because I I have a little bit of uh, this being somewhat of a personality in the synod rather than just a person. So people kind of, I think, have a certain persona of who I am and that's not the entirety of who I am. First I'm a child of God and then I'm a father and a husband, I'm a football coach, all these other identity markers. What's it like to have the identity marker right now in this season by some who really have said maybe not nice things or have developed a caricature of you? What's it been like, just kind of processing all of that Don?
Speaker 3:That's a great question, tim. I'm going to kind of echo what you just said. My identity is in Christ, my identity is as a husband, my identity is as president of Concordia University, texas, and in that role I've made decisions and our board has made decisions and people are going to see that in lots of different ways. To your point earlier, not everybody knows everything, and heck, I don't know everything, right. And so you just kind of live and when I say you, I'm talking about me. I live in this place of God's grace.
Speaker 3:Many of my daily devotion and morning prayer is reading that, reading prayer, looking at that, and it's a series of prayers I read every day of each month and kind of reflecting on that.
Speaker 3:And much of it has to do with this idea of you know what I'm comfortable with my role and my decisions in lots of different areas as president of Concordia University, texas, in lots of different areas as president of Concordia University, texas, we call that vocation right In our vocation as president, in my vocation as president, in your vocation as senior pastor at your church, that comes with bearing the crosses. That's part of our theology. Right, we move through the times that we are presented with and we do it with a sense of integrity and with a sense of God's grace, and all the time. You know, one of the things that we talk a lot about here to understand this relationship in our vocation is, if God is God and I'm not, I could be wrong. If God is God and I'm not, I could be wrong. And I hope everybody, whether it's this topic we're talking about or in all of life, we move forward with that, knowing that God has given us our calling to live out.
Speaker 2:That might be a long answer to what you wanted there. No, no, it's a beautiful answer. I'm wondering if I want to go down this path. I think we can, uh, and probably should.
Speaker 2:The Ann Arbor struggle right now, you know there is a lot at Synod convention. I'll just speak for Tim. I've been in the last three right Uh around. Well, those that's sort of a grab from CUS or Synod and that's not. That's not where we're going right now. And yet we've got story after story of just trust and they're all different stories. I mean Selma, bronx, etc. Portland, they all have nuance.
Speaker 2:This struggle CTX and Synod is different. Your context is different. But if I could say one thing, it's just a breakdown in trust at the highest of levels and I'm not when I say highest of levels, I'm talking not just President Harrison or anybody like that. But the system has not been conducive to building bridges of understanding and humility and contextual hospitality and we've become increasingly more tribal and that's unfortunate. Our ability to listen respectfully, kindly, putting the best construction on everything is waning right now and one of the goals and you've listened to me one of the goals is can I actually have a conversation of respect and care, agreeing on Christ and Him crucified in the Lutheran confessions and yet have a difference of opinion around adiaphora, right Around structure, polity, all of these types of things. Can we disagree, agreeably there? And I, unfortunately, since we're not listening to one another in our varying context as well, as I pray we do into the future that some of those bridges have been torn down and I think then you become well, are you a CUAA guy or whatever? Ain't nobody got time for that today.
Speaker 2:Am I a CTX? I'm a Jesus guy. And then everything else is kind of messy, it's broken, it's fallen, and so I'm going to hold only Christ in him, crucified, who holds me in the palm of his hand with a closed fist. Everything else is just open and we're going to try to stay connected. When the inevitable struggle, spiritual warfare, division, comes, I'm going to try to lean in and not have I'm a systems guy, right, so a failure of nerve. What is when the heat turns up? This is adaptive leadership. What is your? Do you know the way you normally respond Fight, flight, freeze, fuse, whatever Like? Do you know your initial responses and can you have the nerve, the courage, take heart. I've overcome the world, jesus says to lean in with humility and courage. Anything more to say there around the increasing kind of tribal nature in the LCMS?
Speaker 3:Well, I think you've also described society today. It's not just the LCMS. This is one of the things we are dealing with as a culture, in how we agree to disagree, how we move forward, how we lean into difficult conversations. I think it's Brene Brown that talks about vulnerability being the courage to enter into a conversation not knowing what the outcome will be, or do a situation. I think people are afraid to do that because of what might follow afterwards and I think, as we continue to this conversation, you use the word courage. I think we're going to that.
Speaker 3:That's the key here the courage to live into your vocation, the courage to have difficult conversations and the courage to move through them not knowing the outcome all the time. Right, I think that's, if you ask me here, it's about the kind of lawsuit. We're moving through the lawsuit not knowing what the outcome will be, and the courage to continue to do that with the outcome will be, and the courage to continue to do that. We're living in a time of, for us as a university, the rhetoric of higher ed from outside coming into higher education. We have to live through that and whatever that test might be whether it's coming from culture, whether it's coming from individuals, whether it's coming as you were talking about, whether it's coming from individuals whether it's coming, as you were talking about, from the church body.
Speaker 2:Live into that. Yeah, we're doing a series on things I wish Jesus didn't say, coming up here in September, like I wish he did. The first one is regarding tribulation and suffering. In this world, you will have tribulation, and tribulation uh, the greek. There is more like to be pressed, but not crushed. Right, you're going to be pressed, it's going to be hard, but then romans 5 you know you will have suffering. Suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character. So I'm gonna, I to, I'm going to move through. Why? Because I'm being carried through and I, my identity is not in winning this. My identity is in Christ, the one who carries me and holds me in all things in the palm of his hands. And so am I just available for God, you, to you, to shape and for the fruit of the spirit to be present in my life.
Speaker 2:That is, that is the goal.
Speaker 3:And what else to say there?
Speaker 2:Don.
Speaker 3:Lean into that, to not try to avoid the suffering, to not try to avoid the tough times, not try to avoid the inherent tensions that will show up in our life, and to go through that produces the type of person God has created you to be Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep the refiner's fire.
Speaker 3:Without that, I don't think you get the fullness of life. I agree, Remember this, isaiah 43,. It doesn't say if you walk through the fire, if you walk through the fire, I'll be with you. It's when you do. It doesn't say if you walk through the fire, if you walk through the wind, I'll be with you, it's when you do. And so Jesus saying you will have this is just a statement of truth. It's a statement of how God created us as human beings. In the fall that we will have this and we're thankful for that. I'm thankful that God. I shared this the other day with some people. The line in Psalm 23, thou preparest a table before me in the presence of my enemies. It doesn't say I'm preparing a table and your enemies are scattered and gone. Now the table is right there where, in the presence of my enemies, and at that point my cup overflows. So why would we expect anything different and why would we not be thankful for that which God gives us to endure?
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:Well, that was fun.
Speaker 2:That was a quick 10, 11 minutes there.
Speaker 1:Don.
Speaker 2:So there was more to say than I thought we would say on that topic. All right, good stuff, let's get super practical here. Top three as you've led at CTX and led well, what are your top three primary values for building a healthy culture? And you can probably even piggyback on some of the stuff we were just talking about. To be quite honest, yeah, Wow.
Speaker 3:So it is that sense of what's important to the organization and for me it is what I'd like to call strategic anchors. And we start with mission, vision, values. What are those? Getting very clear on it and, as a leader, repeating those over and over and over, over and over, as Patrick Lencioni in one of his books recently talked about the false idea that leaders believe if I've said it once, that's all I need to say, right, and you just keep repeating it over.
Speaker 3:So we take our six values that we have. Not only do we post them and show them to people and talk about them with new employees, but then we write about them in my weekly memos that I send out, talk about different values. Every time something happens, I will say to somebody well, you know, you're living out this value of X, y, z. End of the year, we give out what I call the love awards, l-o-v live our values. And I pick someone each year that has no idea they're living out the value, but we publicly note them, bring them up front, tell a story about them.
Speaker 3:So these things are always mission, vision values are always on everyone's mind. One of the great things I think leaders know that's happening is when others start saying these things. And there was a moment I want will say five, six years ago, when one of my employees was up leading a session in front of the entire faculty and staff on something I forget exactly what it was. But the person said you know, in our vision statement we say boom, boom, boom. I got all weepy-eyed actually, because it was the first realization fairly early on in my presidency that I did not have to be the only one carrying the culture that other people were. And to this point today, people can rattle off phrases in our mission, can rattle off our values, can rattle off the vision, and not only do they rattle it off, they live it out.
Speaker 2:So that's one. And recognition yeah, recognition is so huge of those that are carrying that vision. I love that. Lived out values. It's funny. Live our values. It's crazy. I don't care if someone's 20, you know, obviously little kids thrive on encouragement. 20, 40, or they've been with you for 40 years, their whole career. When you, especially as a leader, publicly acknowledge them and specifically around how you've seen them, don't they light up like a Christmas?
Speaker 3:tree, Don it's nuts. Responses I've gotten from people with that are just amazing Things that I would never imagine. That changes them internally and really changes their thinking about their role here. Yeah absolutely, so yeah, recognizing.
Speaker 3:What else, having the strategic anchors, repeating them, recognizing them, etc. I would think. Secondly and it's this idea again of vulnerability, the ability to have difficult conversations. That's not an easy thing to do, I don't care where you sit in the organization, but allowing people, whether it be people in specific leadership roles or people across the organization, whatever, again to your point, whatever age, whatever position they have, to find spaces in which they can be vulnerable.
Speaker 3:What I have found is that, while that can be fairly easy for someone in my role and someone of my culture and my privilege, it's very difficult for people to do that because no one has been trained to do that.
Speaker 3:In fact, for most people, they've been told if you act this way, you will be punished. They've seen it in their family systems, they've seen it in their work systems systems. They've seen it in their work systems and, to your point, the failure of nerve. It's very difficult to stand up against things that you don't agree with or don't like, because you will be ostracized. You will be ostracized, you will be this. And so, creating a culture in which people can speak from the heart, from their mind, without getting beat up and hurt and I say that very carefully, because when we teach people how to do that and talk about it, the very first thing I say is, before you speak, look in the mirror and ask people to say is this me? And take ownership of what part it is them or myself and then move forward to whoever has to be spoken to any resources in training toward that end?
Speaker 2:because, to your point, it's not. Our natural from the very beginning is to run away and hide in shame, right, and we realize we're naked, we're vulnerable, the the metaphor really, really works. No one really likes that. And the cool thing is isn't it cool how God pursues us and meets us there and just wants us to acknowledge what is my contribution toward, whatever the struggle is, and the impact that others have had on me, and to be able to speak that way we need to get.
Speaker 2:For me, it's how do we train people to get to the prefrontal cortex? How do we train people? You can talk about emotions, to be sure, but if we speak from an overly emotional place, we're going to end up saying things that we don't really believe. We're going to end up characterizing another person in a non-charitable way. Or the intensity, the level to which I can breathe it sounds really simple that I can recognize. Huh, that's fascinating that I'm responding that way. I think my face is getting red. I think my heart rate is accelerating. I think my speech pattern is accelerating. My tone is it. Can I get curious, rather than condemning, about the way I'm trending in the moment? Right, can I stop to think about what I'm thinking about and even challenge my own thoughts? That's all left. This is the prefrontal cortex, right. So any kind of training and observations.
Speaker 3:I wish there was a course. There probably are courses that you can do, but I think the ongoing thing that we try to do here is number one. I use the phrase again If God is God and I'm not, I might be wrong and just begin there at any place where my expectations are not being met. And that's the second thing I try really hard to teach. When my expectations are not met, will I fill that gap with assuming the worst or believing the best? And I work really hard to have individuals start there, because if I assume the worst, I will go all in either with the shame or with the guns a-blazing. But if I believe the best, I can ask the question tell me more. My expectation wasn't met and I've really come to realize that when people begin to flush their face, heart rate goes up, tension in the wrist. For me it's really about my expectation not being met and, again, filling that gap with believing the best, I would say.
Speaker 3:The other thing is and again, something we teach and talk about is being able to say I forgive you. Yes, asking for forgiveness, but, even more important, proclaiming forgiveness Consistently. I say to my people here say to our people here when someone says I'm sorry, don't say oh, don't worry about it. Don't say oh, no big deal. Say the words I forgive sorry. Don't say oh, don't worry about it. Don't say oh, no big deal. Say the words I forgive you Maybe the three hardest words to say, but if people can know they are forgiven, even if the consequences follow and they do right, at least the relationship has been restored. And entering into those conversations are what's critical.
Speaker 2:All of life is confession and absolution. It is.
Speaker 3:But again we're not taught that. We're not taught that at school. We're not taught that in families. We do it in church, but we're not really taught how to live that out.
Speaker 2:Jesus teaches it. It appears like the early church. I mean, jesus forgave, right, he had to forgive those that abandoned him, et cetera, and he still believed in them and mobilized them. I love in John, the Jesus Upper Room discourse in John 13 through 17 is like a life section. Right, jesus, the night he is betrayed? Right, I mean the night before he's giving this meal, he's washing feet and then he's giving them. Just enough of what is ahead.
Speaker 2:All of you are going to leave me, but don't worry, I'm not alone. The Father is going to be with me. He's going to sustain me, and you'll be scattered, but we're going to sustain me. And you'll be scattered, but we're going to come back together. You'll have trouble. Take courage. I've overcome the world. I'm here for you, and then, greater things are you going to be doing than I've done. And oh, by the way, just as a father and I are one, so your unity is going to move out, so that the world may know and be drawn to me as the Son of God, the holy one, come to save us all, save the world. So Jesus is so kind and he leads us. The spirit, the Holy Spirit, leads us to sit in the midst of difficult things, difficult situations, and I've been wrestling with this.
Speaker 2:Have you read the book the Gap and the Gain? No, the Gap and the Gain. Probably the Gap and the Gain probably one of the best handles, don, that I've heard of, for resisting the shame tendency which we are so prone as human beings to look into the future, to analyze our present, and this is a tendency in the West right and especially the vision oriented culture. Here's what we're going to do. And then we stop and we're like man, I'm really far away from there, or I'm really far away from them. Right, there's all of these worthy rivals that were man, we really, I can only imagine in higher ed. This is a thing. Look at what GCU.
Speaker 2:If we're going to say, you know, you start to compare yourself and comparison is a killer of joy. What the gap in the gain does is say whoa, look back there, look back, look at how God has been faithful. He has shown up and shown off time and time again in my life. He bats 1,000 and he's not going to let me down into the future. And so I'm going to evaluate the character of Christ. Remember when I used to get angry about that thing, like the Holy Spirit is at work in me and I don't hold those things with so much hostility and anger anymore. He's working a new thing in me and he's going to be faithful to complete it. It's all him. Anything more to say, though, about kind of the view of life in the rear view mirror rather than just always looking out the front.
Speaker 3:I do think for me it's been an age thing, a maturity thing, growing in my faith, growing in responsibility and just getting a little bit older in life when you can look back and go, oh my gosh, how I was behaving back then and it really is giving up the comparison game. It really is giving up. Is giving up the comparison game. It really is giving up. I have to achieve this goal or else I'm a failure. It really is giving up the man. If I don't do this, people are not going to like me. That's vocation, that's God's grace, that's all the things you just talked about. That allows one to sit in a leadership role and lead fully, and then leadership role again at an institution, in a family you name it right Wherever that's in your community, wherever that is, to just be and live in the vocation to which God has called you and I really believe has created you to live in that way too.
Speaker 2:Amen, all right, cool, this has been great. Last topic, let's talk about finishing well. From one calling into the next what, as you look at your life, top three priorities for finishing well as president at CTX and then moving with hope and courage and joy into your next season of life?
Speaker 3:as they're done, so I think the first thing that comes to my mind is think about it and plan for it. Yeah, if you have the opportunity to do that and I've had the opportunity to think about a retirement from this role and into retirement, that transition what is it that person needs to accomplish for themselves and for the institution to finish well? And that's, I would say, one of those Think about myself as an individual. Part of finishing well is doing it at the right time, not waiting too long, not finishing too early, and that's been an interesting conversation we've been having here is why this transition at Concordia University, texas, is good for the institution and good for me.
Speaker 3:But I didn't wake up one morning thinking about that. Right, that took a lot of planning, a lot of conversation. I think you finish well by setting up the institution or whatever job you have for the next person. Let's call it succession planning. And succession planning can look different in lots of different ways, but it's very intentional and it's very much so that what follows continues as it needs to continue.
Speaker 2:And then I think it's just hey, don, can we pause there as you're getting to the last one. Go deeper into what you've done, if you can just get us behind the curtain. I mean all the conversations. How is that? Because it's stressful, like this sort of a transition. I'm sure your team there's a certain amount of stress Like how have you gone about setting folks up well for the next leader?
Speaker 3:I guess it could probably be. It could be another whole conversation.
Speaker 2:It could, but just give us top of mind.
Speaker 3:One is providing enough time for people to think about it, whether it's our board to have the time, so there's not the stress of we got to get this done now or we have to get an interim or this, so it's again. It's a very vulnerable decision to allow more time than most people expect in a transition. It is knowing that there are markers in place that allows for some up and down time like this, and whether that's a financial cushion, whether that is structure and stability in some place, or whether it's just the knowledge and letting people feel okay about the stress it brings. So one of the things we did was hold small group sessions. Anywhere from eight to 15. People had about nine or 10 of those in which I talked about why this was the right time for me in the institution, what it was going to look like and what they could all do to help onboard the next president. Very intentional about things moving forward. Nobody teaches you how to do this either. There is not a lot of books out there on transition and again, transition for the institution. There's more and more about transition for the person, especially someone who is a larger leadership role, and I've had to think a lot about that.
Speaker 3:One of the things I love the best and you kind of hinted at this earlier in something is, as people ask me what's next. There's a couple things like spending more time with my wife, a couple things like reading books I've been putting off, but the one I'm most excited about is giving some space and time in my life so that God can surprise me with something I've never imagined. I'm waiting for that email. I'm waiting for that phone call that says, hey, don, would you like to do X? And I'm waiting for that email. I'm waiting for that phone call that says, hey, don, would you like to do X? And I'm going to go. Man, I never thought of that before. That sounds exciting.
Speaker 2:So we'll see. Adventure Sounds like adventure, it is an adventure, right, my favorite metaphors for all of life. I don't have a clue, god, I just, I just be here today and I'm trying to be trying to be faithful and and the don't worry, and Jesus kind of gives us perspective, doesn't he? He says, don't worry about tomorrow.
Speaker 3:Tomorrow's going to take care of itself. Go ahead. For me and for the institution is you're completely prepared, right, um? I know, financially, I could make this transition personally for me, my wife. I know, um, that certain things are in place for the institution to make this an easier transition than not great preparation and being ready.
Speaker 3:So count the cost right, because you never know what's going to happen one of the things with the longer time of transition is, as our board is in the process now of searching, we have a time frame set out, but things could happen, it could be longer, and so giving enough time in there to see what can happen and letting the board find the next person to sit in this chair.
Speaker 2:That's so good. Well, this is. We hit 30 minutes these podcasts normally go 30 and can't believe it. Talk about a lot more things. Any final closing comments? For, yeah, maybe, maybe this is a good, good way to land. What case would you make for someone to who has written off CTX Like you guys are. You've, you've gone, and I think there's a lot of folks that, because it was a complex situation still is evolving, obviously that just are kind of on the fence, kind of waiting to see what happens. Uh, just close with close with the vision, and obviously it's held with an open hand and the next president's going to kind of speak into it. But what could CTX mean for kingdom expansion within the body of Christ?
Speaker 3:You know, people make a lot of decisions that have been made, and I think what people forget sometimes and I have to remind myself of this too is God has been faithful for 99 years to this place. God will continue to be faithful, whether it's me in this role or someone else, whether the decision of governance that was made was right or wrong, whatever happened with the lawsuit. God is faithful and we will continue to rely on that. Our Lutheran theology, history and practice reminds us that we will walk through the waters right, reminds us that God is there, reminds us that it is beyond us as individuals or us as an individual organization. And I'll close with this phrase again If God is God and I'm not then just admit that we could be wrong and we could be right, but let God be God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen, that's good. People want to connect with you. How can they do so, don? Absolutely Best thing for me is email. Yeah, amen, it's good. People want to connect with you.
Speaker 3:How can they do so? Don absolutely best thing for me is email donaldchristian at concordiaedu. Um, that's really the easy you got concordiaedu yeah, we just got just concordia to grab that and um or president at concordiaedu and um really would love to talk to people, to your your point earlier. If people are wondering, we are more than glad to talk with people. We'd rather have people talk with us than about us.
Speaker 2:Amen, amen. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day this is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Hot Topic. It's a joy, man. I just got a lot to learn, a lot of amazing people to learn from like yourself. We promise to have invigorating, shorter form conversations like lead time hot topics. Please share, subscribe, comment, youtube, wherever you're taking this in. I don't know how long the stash is going to last. It's been kind of a joke. I've done four or five podcasts with the stash. Probably not very long. I'm in a golf tournament. For those of you, probably when this gets released, the golf tournament will have concluded. I'm playing with my brother and I think I'm in a golf tournament. For those of you, probably when this gets released, the golf tournament will have concluded. I'm playing with my brother and I think I'm going to be pretty intimidating on the course. People are going to be like, wow, look at that stash and it's going to help my game the intimidation factor on the course. What do you think about that? Don, think it's going to work Sure, why not?
Speaker 3:I'll agree with you 100% on that.
Speaker 2:So silly.
Speaker 3:All right, this is.
Speaker 2:Lead Time. We'll be back next Friday. Thanks so much, Don.
Speaker 1:So long. Thanks, tim. You've been listening to Lead Time, a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective. The ULC's mission is to collaborate with the local church to discover, develop and deploy leaders through biblical Lutheran doctrine and innovative methods innovative methods To partner with us in this gospel message. Subscribe to our channel, then go to theuniteleadershiporg to create your free login for exclusive material and resources and then to explore ways in which you can sponsor an episode. Thanks for listening and stay tuned for next week's episode.