Lead Time
Lead Time
Concordia Ann Arbor - Candid Thoughts + Transparency with Evan Wood
Evan, a seasoned professional in human performance and education, shares his compelling journey through the challenges faced by Concordia University Ann Arbor, where his daughter is an athlete. Evan opens up about his introduction to the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the valuable community connections he's formed during these trying times. This episode shines a spotlight on the impact of recent difficulties on the university's athletic programs, as well as Evan's candid thoughts on transparency and decision-making within the administration.
Listeners will gain insight into the intricate dynamics of leadership within faith-based educational settings. Evan and I examine the troubling trend of young adults leaving the church, often due to perceived leadership failures and a lack of engaging education centered around faith. We dive into essential leadership values, focusing on setting clear expectations, removing obstacles, and celebrating achievements. Through stories of servant leadership, we highlight the power of collaboration and unity in fostering a supportive, faith-driven environment.
In our final discussion, we explore the critical combination of servant and adaptive leadership. Using metaphors and examples from notable figures like Paul and coach Mike Krzyzewski, we emphasize the necessity of flexibility and contextual awareness in leadership. Evan shares how humility and open communication pave the way for effective change management, particularly in community-focused organizations. Join us as we uncover how these leadership qualities can enhance both individual and collective success, transforming challenges into opportunities for growth and connection.
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Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time. A hot topic Friday. Pray, the joy of Jesus is your strength today, as I get the privilege of hanging out with a brother in Christ that I just met. I was referred to him by May Keller. If you know of May, if that name sounds familiar, I talked with May maybe two or three months ago about the Concordia Ann Arbor struggles and she said you got to talk to Evan, and here's why this man has a PhD on human performance and development. He studied performance assimilation. Today he has turned into a little bit more of a VP of people and strategy for a medical company, but here's why he's on today.
Speaker 2:He's been in the trenches of education at Taylor University. He was a faculty member there for some years. He chaired their kind of management program as well as their MBA program, and so he's got a diverse set of skills both in higher ed as well as in management of people and really creating wonderfully fluid, accountable but also trust-filled, joy-filled, because organizations where people thrive and are in their sweet spot. This is what we need more of in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, to be sure. And so the second two questions are going to deal with leadership and management systems. That's going to be great. But before we get to that, evan, our first question tell us the story of your work in trying to save, if you will, air quotes. Save Concordia University, ann Arbor, how you, because you didn't grow up in the Lutheran Church, missouri Synod. Tell that story, brother, and thank you again for being a part of the conversation, brother.
Speaker 3:So my daughter is now a sophomore at Concordia University, ann Arbor. She's in her freshman year. We were shocked to in February find out that this decision we spent a lot of time praying for, hunting over, may not work out. She's had a phenomenal experience. She plays volleyball and she intentionally. She was a 4.0 salutatorian at her Christian school in Fort Wayne, indiana, all-state volleyball player but was intentionally looking for a Christian college where the coach could articulate how she builds faith into the program and so met with a lot of Christian college coaches and couldn't get a clear articulation out. That met Danielle Cook. Danielle could articulate that and live that out exceedingly well in her freshman year. Had a great experience and you get the news in February.
Speaker 3:But through that got to meet Ryan Peterson who's now at Concordia, st Paul, but was the campus administrator in Ann Arbor. We talked histories, these things came out. I started reaching out with a lot of questions. I'd been through something similar, although different circumstances at Taylor University when we closed Taylor Fort Wayne's campus and I just said how can I help? Through that he got me connected to Pastor Davis and I met May Keller and Tammy Ferry and Lonnie Prees, the athletic director, and on and on and all the great people that make up the Michigan district. And that was really my introduction into the LCMS not the church as far as the broader universal church, but the LCMS specific. That was my introduction and how I got connected.
Speaker 2:Great people right.
Speaker 3:Oh, salt of the earth. Tremendous love the Lord, love students and want to do right by people.
Speaker 2:Isn't that right? So it's unfortunate kind of the way everything has ended up there's not going to be any athletic programs next year.
Speaker 3:They're playing their final volleyball season this year. My daughter's in the process of hunting that next school. They are keeping her program so she is in the integrated doctor of physical therapy program but wants to continue playing athletics and honestly feels a little burned and doesn't really trust the current administration. And even if it weren't for athletics, not sure she would stay out of concern of. Each year I commit they can change the game again and then it gets too late.
Speaker 2:Each year I commit they can change the game again and then it gets too late. Yeah, so again you were exposed. You've not been a part of our synod, you haven't known folks. You met some amazing leaders in Concordia, but you sensed there was something else, kind of working behind the scenes. Any take on what was going on behind the scenes from your perspective. And again, when we talk this way, we do so with love and charity. We're striving to put the best construction on all things. But there's wounds. Right now, because this is while Concordia, ann Arbor's story is different. There is a track record of folks in different rooms making decisions that may not include folks who are on the ground floor Ryan Peterson and others. They are trying to serve students really, really well.
Speaker 3:So your take on how it kind of came down, how it was communicated, and even then the end result up to this point, evan, and I like the word that you said my perspective, because I always like to qualify it's my perspective. I know I can't see the entire elephant. I like to use that analogy. I can see my portion. But what exacerbated that perspective was an intent by the board, cuw administration to control information and control the narrative. So I was part of a Michigan district group led by Pastor Davis, district president, that was invited to create an alternative path for CUAA and that's been talked about in a lot of groups and in particular I was looking at the business model how can we grow revenue, be sustainable? And I'll be honest, the more I dug in with the information we were able to get, which was limited, I actually think it was an easy business problem to solve, an easy revenue cost model to solve. I don't think it was a one year, but given three to four years it wasn't complicated.
Speaker 2:What gave you that sort of a show? I mean, what did you see? Just get a little bit more specific, right?
Speaker 3:So students' bodies were growing. Give or take 80% of the student body are athletes. That's very common in small colleges. Matter of fact, many small colleges are growing athletics as a means of growing their student body, and there were a number of sports that are very inexpensive. You only need a part-time coach. You don't have to drop lots of money to add students and, honestly, you don't have to add lots of scholarships. There is something to the extracurricular that connects, engages, creates community, creates those small groups and connection that it's not always about the dollars we throw at athletes. Sure, every coach wants to throw dollars to be competitive, so let me get more scholarship money, but it's not a necessity. And so that was one Housing.
Speaker 3:They kept talking about the structural deficit, that the infrastructure didn't have enough housing. Well, there's a large, beautiful part of the land east of the manor, right off 23, several acres owned that any developer at low risk would have done what I'd call a developer funding housing model, where Concordia does not have to put up the funds to build the housing. Now they share in the revenue so they may provide the student life but the maintenance, the housing, the management's provided by the developer and you create a 10, 15, 20 year agreement, depending on how much money you want to keep or give away early on, in which you almost rent to own. So there was a model for the structural deficit that kept being mentioned. There was a myriad of those and to be sure, there were going to be some hard cost cuts. I'm a big fan of the liberal arts. I was a business professor, but I am the whole critical thinking. Connect with our culture. How do we communicate? Unfortunately, today's higher ed does not financially support, through enrollment and class sizes, some of the liberal arts. So, to be sure, would we have had to make some changes in some of those traditional liberal art programs and in staff reductions? Sure, those are the things you don't want to talk about, but the broader whole could have remained intact. So there were those opportunities. There was clearly funding available in the Michigan District and, from what I understand, the Ohio District and Indiana Districts. There was funding untapped that with certainty would have come to the table With uncertainty. We're going to stay on the sidelines, as is common with individuals of wealth. They don't want to jump into the fray too soon. They have other concerns and opportunities going on. So there was a wide breadth.
Speaker 3:But as we got into that, what we realized, that was not the issue at play, that's been the public issue. That's the reason the financial analysis that was done did not look deeper back a number of years, nor did it look forward with the growing health professions. It kept a small, limited window because it became evident, or perspective because of lack of communication. We were stonewalled at every request for information that we wanted to keep the focus on failing financials because there was other broader issues at play. Is the school Lutheran enough? Things that came out. My daughter did not grow up Lutheran, extremely strong in her faith, very proud of her. She would pray for the volleyball team. That evidently was frowned upon as written in one of the board reports that a non-Lutheran would pray and so things that were offensive and you only got those snippets of information. When you're trying to build a business model, it became clear the business model was not at the heart of the issue, or at least that's the perspective.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, it's unfortunate. As one who is a member of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and a pastor in said synod, I'm very sorry for your experience. That is not commensurate with all of our institutions nor, obviously, all of our congregations. And yeah, it's a shift in values and we'll transition to leadership stuff here and you can close and comment on the struggle. Our schools, historically Evan, have been mission-oriented, meaning we exist for the sake of reaching people with the gospel, those who are far from the Lord, bringing them near. And as the culture has shifted and as, frankly, our leadership development pathways have dried up or are drying, we've struggled to have what we feel is appropriate Lutheran representation at K-8s, high schools as well as some of our universities. But that doesn't shift the fact that we're still a mission-first organization. And then the honest thing is we have a leadership development struggle.
Speaker 2:So are we going to come to the table recognizing both of those things are true and we've basically said let's contract, constrict, defend, purify, tighten and then release if we can't see a way for this university to shift, which, for goodness sake, you've got a Ryan Peterson and folks like you couldn't get any more mission oriented, confessional Lutheran than a guy like Ryan Peterson, multi-generational leader in our church body, but unfortunately we've lost our way in terms of mission orientation and I will be on record saying that if people want to challenge your break in the eighth commandment I don't know how else you interpret this story than the die was cast.
Speaker 2:We need more resources. We're constricting our universities, we're purifying them down to one, two, maybe three universities because, frankly, that's all the Lutheran leaders we can handle and they got to be the right type of Lutheran and that gets to our list. The way we generate leaders. You can see I got a fair amount of thoughts on this topic. But yeah, we're hurting ourselves, we're constricting from the inside and missing our mission orientation. That's the simple truth. Anything last to say on that, Evan?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and when I'm working with a new leader, especially a new executive, I used to do a lot of executive coaching. Now, in my role, I'm the business partner to the executive team. One of the things I start with is in your role you have to be able to separate fact from opinion. Both matter, but they matter in different ways. So I'm sure we have strong agreement that Ephesians 2, 8, and 9, for grace are you saved by faith, not of works. Lestest any man should both like. That's a primary doctrinal verse. Yep, I don't think there'd be argument. You and I may disagree on the proper way to take communion, sure, but that's not salvific. And that's where I think this debate got lost was what is fact and what is opinion? And we're now merging the two. And it's always dangerous when a church starts to waver on primary doctrine. But tertiary doctrines are not as critical, and I think we started to waver Anyway. So I will get in trouble of it if I don't just say one thing here.
Speaker 2:I will get in trouble of it if I don't just say one thing here. In a Lutheran context our sacramental understanding is salvific. It's a means of grace, okay, it's a way that God connects to us and we believe in the divine mystery of Christ coming down in the sacrament. We're much closer to our Catholic brothers and sisters than we are necessarily to evangelical America. So I have to distinguish. That is central, no, no, no, that that's. That's kind of central for us. But it's a means of grace.
Speaker 2:My, my friend, dr Joel Bierman, has written a recent article that we have what is a means? It's a means toward an end. And if you miss the ultimate end, which is the mission of God God to get all of his kids back If you put that in front of the ends, then you don't even have the grounds to stand on. God's desire is for the entire cosmos to be recreated, jesus coming back to make all things new. The mission of the church, it's God's mission for us. But we're putting the church, we're putting ecclesiology in many respects, how we do all of these things, and if we move to the how, before we actually get to the big why and then the what which would be in this conversation, the Lord's Supper, the way he distinguishes it, we're going to come across very, very pharisaical rather than evangelical, and that's somewhat of what you've kind of lived into.
Speaker 2:But as it relates to the, there's a lot of Adiaphora in terms of how it gets, um, what does worship kind of look like in these various contexts? We're a liturgical community, uh, to be sure, but we're just. We're just struggling man and I'm trying to be, I'm just grateful that leaders like you are able to step in and offer us a differing perspective. And I have to say too that your daughter not being able to pray with like she believes in the triune God and because she comes from like that is unbelievable and that this would be written up in a report that Lutherans only pray with Lutherans. So in the Wisconsin Synod, like that's not in the Missouri Synod, we've always been much more open with that. So there is a move. There is a move that's not evangelical in our church body and I'm sorry your daughter experienced that.
Speaker 3:I know we can move on, but we'll just say this these are the conversations of why I sent her to a Christian college. I don't want her to. I'm confident in her salvation. I can't be more confident than Jesus himself, but I want her faith to be her own. This is why she goes to a college like Concordia to wrestle with these to understand and to graduate.
Speaker 3:We see record numbers of kids leaving college and leaving the church, leaving faith, and they're looking at leadership failures and communication like this and saying why do I want to be a part of the church? And honestly, that's my biggest fear for the CUAA student body. They saw poor leadership through COVID, their high school career, and now they're seeing poor leadership in the college realm and they're connecting it to the church and I'm saying are we losing a window of leaders from the church? And I really worry about that, because these are the reason you go to debate to understand the question, to challenge, to be instructed, not to just memorize one right answer, but to understand why other answers and perspectives exist in the first place and how to combat them. I mean, it's apologetics on some level.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, totally, evan. So, hey, man, grateful for you and I'd love to just learn. Now, second part of the podcast. When you think of leadership and maybe it piggybacks on this you think of leaders at all different types of levels, in the church and in the marketplace, because the same God is the God over all of these respective vocations. What are your top three non-negotiable leadership values, evan?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I have a three-part process.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 3:I used to be a consultant. I had to make things into processes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do.
Speaker 3:Leaders' number one responsibility is to set clear expectation. Where are we going and why? Make it clear? Jesus made that right. I am the way, the truth and the light period Very clear Resource and remove roadblocks. When people talk about servant leadership, they oftentimes think that means the leader's doing for doing the exact same thing. But I think that goes contrary to. People have unique gifts, skills, talents. They're created with those gifts and skills and talents. Servant leadership doesn't mean well, I can go be hospitable and I can go administer, and it means I put people in those positions and then I resource them and where they run into roadblocks, my service is to remove the roadblocks and then third is to recognize and reward. I believe if a leader can at least get those three things right, they might be an introvert or an extrovert, they might be a great eloquent communicator or a terrible one, but if they can get those three things right, they can still be successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Dude, so I love that so much. I articulate it in a very similar fashion around three kind of questions. If you're a senior pastor, you're leading an organization, right, where are we going? That was your big why. I mean start with why, simon Sinek, it's got to be about that the vision has to be first. With why, simon Sinek, it's got to be about that the vision has to be first Resourcing and clearing roadblocks. What question is that answering? How are we getting there? It's always going to be with people with diverse gifts, and I want the most amazing people who are so diverse than me, like right now.
Speaker 2:I just got to tell a quick story. I got a new principal that just came in who is just asking all of these amazing questions. He's looking with a fresh lens at our K through eight he wants to be a part of. He came here actually because of the vision of growth, right, but he's like in the trenches right now trying to figure stuff out and we just had a conversation. He's like when this, when this new thing happens, will you get my back? Will you? Will you, you know, be there for me to clear roadblocks, if we're talking, funding, people, all that kind of stuff? A hundred percent, dude. I'm a hundred percent behind you. Give me the information. I will champion the you know what out of, out of whatever it is the Lord is leading you to, and then when we win, jesus wins and we win.
Speaker 2:The leader doesn't take any kind of responsibility for that. It's all about Christ and it's all about us. There's no me before we right, and when you get that backwards, there's no vision. We've got siloed different entities, backroom meetings that take place Hello, the conversation we just had. Trust erodes. Some of your best leaders who have been in the trenches with you Hello, ryan Peterson are sidelined. Move, you don't get a voice here. I'm going back to that meeting. I wanted to say this publicly for a while. First, town hall at CUAA and there's a whole group of folks on the platform and Ryan Peterson, as I'm watching, is off to the right. Ryan doesn't get to say much at all. He'd obviously been spoken to prior to. You've got a very small amount of things that you can say. You better support the status quo of the party and evidently he was sidelined. And then obviously he took another position One of our best leaders at CAA gone to St Paul. God bless him at St Paul Praying for you there, ryan.
Speaker 3:St Paul got a general. Their students are blessed now.
Speaker 2:Isn't that right? And so they're in a great spot. They're in a great spot and now recognizing and rewarding. We win together and all praise and glory be to God. So I love those three leadership values. You should be a consultant, evan. You should work in this whole MBA space, and here's why. Not because of the content.
Speaker 3:I was so glad my daughter was learning under the faculty. The questions those faculty in the CUA town hall asked, the manner in which they asked them, the way they talked about the students I listened to the CUW one and nothing against their faculty. I don't know any of them. They didn't ask anything. Poor and they're in a different context. But a lot of their questions was well, what about my program? What about my salary? What about the CUAA?
Speaker 3:And again none of those are inappropriate. There's a time and place for all of those. But the CUAA faculty were. What about my students? How are we going to care for them? What about the thinking? I was blown away and I called my daughter after and I said I'm so glad you get to learn under those faculty and that's one of the reasons we came back for one more year, so good.
Speaker 2:So, leader, executive, leader, pastor, wherever, focus on that big. Why cast big vision, resource, clear roadblocks, recognize and reward People deserve, when they do hard work, to be celebrated. I love those values. Last question here what management systems are most important to you, and what in the church? Let me set it up this way In the church, sometimes you know pastors may say I only do, I do Word and Sacrament right, I do Sunday and those types of things. But there's so much that goes into discipleship and even leveraging today via technology church management system, software, etc. Where we can work smarter rather than harder, regardless of the size of the respective church. So what management systems are most important to you and how could they influence the local church? Evan?
Speaker 3:I'm not going to give you an easy answer.
Speaker 2:Let's go.
Speaker 3:I taught this in all my MBA classes and practice it now. Management systems leadership styles is context specific, Couldn't agree more To put that into a church.
Speaker 3:If I'm a church plant and I'm in a hard to reach area, I'm going to have a different leadership style than if I'm in a well-established, really mature, high percentage of people giving church and so the right management system. So in our company right now we adopted a system called Shingo Think Toyota production system. But the uniqueness in Shingo is that it's culture-based driven. So we're a strong culture. We wanted to cement that and we value our, our front line and it puts the system in the hands of the front line, says the best ideas to improve the work is coming from the people doing the work. That's right for our context.
Speaker 3:That system won't work in other manufacturers Some manufacturers will, but it takes the right context. I wouldn't put that in everywhere I went, but that fits who we are and the stage of growth we're at. And so I think you have your principles. I'm not going to lie. You know I'm going to operate in the tech. You know all those things. Those are principles. But as far as a system, it's context specific. You know you're in a pretty large, mature church.
Speaker 2:I bet you have a phenomenally strong and robust elder board. Well, we have a board of directors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, your board of directors, that board of directors manages different than if I was in a startup church and I didn't have the mature people you know. You probably still have a board you've put from, but they're probably not as much the local church. That's not as strong, and so you're developing and training and discipling to get to that point differently.
Speaker 2:I don't think the systems conversation, evolution ever ends, as the it never. It never stops. You'd never set it and forget it. Like our people management systems, our financial systems, our financial models, all of that stuff. It's a constant conversation and this is, I think, for me one of the most invigorating things about leadership is again, I'm in a church, jesus. Where are you leading, jesus? What person, organization, partner are you going to next put in our path to help us take that right next step as we grow up into you, jesus, who are our head?
Speaker 2:If you're in a senior executive leadership role and you don't thrive with exploration, curiosity and then change management, leadership, adaptive conversations, I'd love to get your take on this as it relates to the leader. For a leader to understand, have you read Leadership on the Line? Leadership on the Line, it's a model of understanding adaptive leadership. The authors talk about how there's servant leadership, to be sure, which is strong, but what needs to come right alongside servant leadership and the values of servant leadership being Christ-like, humility, care for others, et cetera? Vision, you could say, in there, but adaptive leadership, because inevitably there's going to be stuff in the community that messes with said system, said culture. And so how does the leader move from?
Speaker 2:Their metaphor is from the balcony to the floor. From the balcony to the floor so they see the business from above. They work on it and then they work in it or in the church, and so they got to have their Gumby right. They have one foot on the dance floor, one foot in the balcony and they're constantly moving between people, individual struggles, but then looking holistically at the culture, systems and structure of the organization and making strategic changes at the right time. If you don't love change management, do not lead in the local church or in any organization. Just do your thing right.
Speaker 3:So anything more to say about that kind of balcony dance floor metaphor? This is my favorite story to teach in adaptation. Paul's at the Acropolis. And what's he do? He spends the day walking around understanding. He sees all these statues yeah, all these gods. And then he goes to talk at the Acropolis and he says you've got a statue to the unknown God. I know this God. He doesn't start. If he was in a Jewish community that knew better, he would have started what are you doing? He would have probably smashed them down and he'd have come hellfire and brimstone. But he was in a community that didn't. They hadn't experienced, they didn't know better. So he said let me talk about the statute. He adapted his message and his style to the context. He would not have done that in Jerusalem and I used to teach a lesson around that he didn't change the message. He didn't change who Jesus or the God was, but he changed how he communicated it.
Speaker 3:I had a missionary tell me one time, using that story. He said I'm in India, I'm trying to reach Hindus and we believe there's one way to heaven right Through Jesus. He said, of course, but if I start there, they look at me and they go. What are you talking about? And so he goes. But there's multiple salvation stories the guy on the cross that you know, woman at the well, that you know with the malt. And so he said, yeah, there's multiple ways to Jesus, one way to God.
Speaker 3:But he started and I went boom yeah, he never changed the prince of the doctor, him, but he changed how he got there and I think that learning, that adaptation, just like Paul did um, is key for leaders because we get so focused on I have one right way. I'm a basketball fan, I'm in in Indiana, I have to be right. Yeah, you do. Bobby Knight picked one style and the system aged him. Mike Krzyzewski at Duke kept adapting his system to the players and he coached successfully till 72.
Speaker 2:Come on, that's it. That's it, I think. Krzyzewski to go off on basketball. He's one of the most. He is the greatest in the college ranks because of his adaptability. Couldn't agree more. Did you go to the Global Leadership Summit?
Speaker 3:Not this year, no.
Speaker 2:Okay, you've been though before. He was one of the speakers and he told this story about coaching in the US Olympic team and Kobe Bryant was playing in one of the preliminary kind of scrimmage games or whatever, but still, in the international context, kobe's taking these really bad shots this is 2004, really bad shots. And all night he talked, or he was like hemming and hawing over how am I going to tell the greatest player on the planet Like hey, don't take bad shots? And so then he goes. So then I, I get there. I don't sleep very well the night before. I'm really nervous about this, uh, this conversation, and uh, he goes. I sat down in front of Kobe Kobe, what's up, coach? And and he goes. So I just said, uh, kobe, could you stop taking bad shots please? And he goes, okay.
Speaker 3:And that was that he goes.
Speaker 2:That's all it took. He didn't take bad shots. He was a selfless teammate. The rest of it just takes that one conversation, just clear conversation. Adaptive leadership. Coach K man, he really really has evolved beautifully. He's a wonderful example and a Jesus follower, to be sure. So this has been so much fun hanging out with you, evan man, I'd love to have you back, to be sure. So this has been so much fun hanging out with you, evan man, I'd love to have you back to talk further. I'm praying for your journey with Jesus, for your daughter and her transition, for all the students as they explore their next steps educationally and I've said this in a number of different forums it's never too late for confession to win the day, for he or she, whoever has ownership in this struggle, to say you know what we could have done better, we could have been more transparent.
Speaker 2:Please forgive me. Here's the thing the mercy and grace of God is new every day. The mercy and grace of the church, of the local church, like where there's a struggle, where there's the we put on the phrase like we've got it all figured out. When we know behind the scenes there's a struggle, where there's the we put on the phrase like we've got it all figured out when we know behind the scenes there's a lot of very difficult conversations and leaders saying I don't really know what I'm doing. So in those moments, is pride or humility going to win the day? Is humility and honesty going to win the day, or is pride and protection of self going to win the day? The way of Jesus is humility, sacrifice, service and truth. He is the way, the truth and the life, and there's just too much right now that happens behind the scenes and we're praying that there could be reconciliation.
Speaker 2:I don't know if CUAA is too far gone. I mean, when you don't have an athletic program in a student body like that, it's a real, real kick to the gut, if you will, for that university. And I'm speaking of one who, as one who wants my son. So I got a sophomore son, evan, who's playing football. I'm already greasing the skids for him to go play at one of our Concordias, maybe St Paul, maybe St Paul, or maybe my alma mater, concordia Nebraska, seward Nebraska, where I played football and baseball back in the day. There's something special about learning about Volleyball.
Speaker 3:Powerhouse is nothing else.
Speaker 2:They are very good at volleyball, to be sure. So, anyway, I'm praying for a new day for our Concordias we need all of them and praying for reconciliation in this story. Evan, if people wanted to connect with you, are you connectable?
Speaker 3:I am. Probably the easiest way to find me is just on LinkedIn. I'm all over it. I spend a lot of time out there.
Speaker 2:Thank you for your generosity of time. Look forward to meeting you someday in person. In the meantime, continue to lead with the heart and courage of Christ, bro, and be connected to the mission of Jesus in your local church. Praise, be to God. This is Leadership, lead Time Hot Topic Friday, and I hope this conversation gave you a lot of joy and I pray the mid part of the conversation rather than the messiness, yuckiness of the CUAA, the mid part of the big why resourcing, clearing roadblocks and then recognizing and rewarding is what you've written down and want to integrate in your leadership. It's a good day. Go and make it a great day. Thanks so much, evan. Thanks, eric.
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