Lead Time
Lead Time
Video Preaching in the LCMS...Yea or Nay?? | Aaron Engelman
Aaron Engelman shares his journey of discovering meaningful roles within the church beyond traditional pastoral work, emphasizing the importance of technology and innovation in ministry. The conversation explores the changing landscape of church work, where professionals can leverage their skills to serve the gospel effectively while fostering connections within the community.
• Aaron's background and journey to vocation in the church
• The impact of the LCMS Youth Gathering on church involvement
• Exploring new roles in church beyond traditional paths
• The importance of technology in modern worship experiences
• Balance between video sermon delivery and in-person pastoral care
• Navigating challenges and rewards of working in a church
• The future of the church in adapting to innovative practices.
Breaking down faith, culture & big questions - a mix of humor with real spiritual growth.
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This is Leetard.
Speaker 2:So we get to hang out today with Aaron Engelman. Let me tell you a little bit about him. He serves as a systems technician at King of Kings in Omaha, nebraska. King King's Lutheran has been around for quite a while. Greg Griffiths has been a guest of ours in the past. Mark Zender, longtime pastor there really kind of a spiritual father for me in many, many respects. So a lot of respect for what the Lord has done over really multiple decades there at King of Kings. In previous years he was a production director at King of Kings. He grew up in Kansas, lifelong LCMS follower of Jesus. He's had some other professions that we'll talk about. He's married to an awesome, awesome lady by the name of Hannah. We heard about her. She's a Lutheran school teacher at Concordia Schools there in Omaha and she's an instrumental major and teaches worship arts there. And they have three young boys. So the Engelman home is filled with a lot of energy, a lot of energy, aaron. How are you doing, man? Thanks for hanging with us.
Speaker 3:I'm doing fantastic. Tim Jack, it's an honor to be on the show. Thank you.
Speaker 2:No, the joy is ours. So tell us your journey of kind of finding full-time vocation in the church beyond being a pastor. And when you reached out to us we got connected. You kind of for many years didn't think there was much beyond maybe a pastor and a secretary. So tell that story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I enjoy telling stories, so buckle up.
Speaker 3:There's lots of points here, so, as you said, tim, I grew up in the Lutheran church. Out of the hymnal, divine service can sing every baseline that's that exists there, and, uh, every member of my family for a number of generations has been in that in that same book, and so I I had the privilege of growing up in a home that was centered around church. It was uh, centered in the, in the Lutheran church, as, as far as the I can see, devotions at home, um, grandparents that read the portals of prayer, and we practiced reading using the Bible, um, it's just a uh, a happy childhood that I will treasure uh, forever, and that's um, uh, that's. That's as much a part of my story as the, the the modern church as well, so I want to make that uh really clear.
Speaker 3:Uh, my family is the type that just they show up and do stuff. Like uh, I called home a few months ago and and chatting with my mom, I was like hey, where's dad? And uh, she said, well, he's in at the church mopping the gym floor because preschool has a concert tomorrow. I'm like, mom, that's like, if that's not our story, right.
Speaker 3:Like that's just, if you need something done, you know we, we do it and that's and it's not you know, for our glory, it's for the glory of God, and that's just been an, an understood part of serving in the church. It's not about you.
Speaker 3:It's just you show up and do stuff because Jesus is worth it. And so, as I grew up in the church, 17 years old I went on a mission trip to West Africa with our associate pastor at the time, dan Ramsey, who's in the Nebraska district, now in uh uh, I forget somewhere out West. Uh, he was a missionary in West Africa for a lot of years and went back on a uh teaching trip to a pastoral school in Dupont, togo, and I I went with him just for just for fun, for the experience. What experience? What I didn't know at the time Tim is drawing into context of what I've learned from consuming your podcast is Dan was my mentor, I was his Timothy first in a series of mentors that got me into the church, a series of of mentors that that got me into the church.
Speaker 3:But, um, what I, what I learned from that trip is I did not want to be a pastor, um, and that's, that's not to just to disparage uh, me or pastors. I just I learned from spending a great deal of time with pastors and missionaries that I wasn't suited for that. I didn't feel the calling in that time in your life, where that's where you feel it the most, and so that was kind of a period on the end of that sense. I just didn't want to be a pastor, but I knew Jesus was awesome and Luther's my homeboy, as the old Lutheran swag says. So what do I do then? As you said, to work in a church. You're a pastor, or maybe a part-time secretary or accountant or whatever part-time whatever Professionals just didn't work in the church outside of those parameters in my mind and my mind for many years to come. So the next step in that story, then, is the LCMS Youth Gathering. So I went as a participant in 2004. Fantastic experience it was my first plane ride. I served in the gathering gathering choir.
Speaker 3:It was a mountaintop experience uh fantastic as it is for you know, thousands and thousands through the ages, fantastic and uh, fast forward to 2012. Ish, I already have an undergraduate degree in uh broadcast journalism. Basically, I'm in grad school and I'm looking at videos of the upcoming gathering 2013, which would have been in San Antonio, and I just started writing some emails. I'm like, hey, how do I get involved in this? And ended up talking to well, first off was Phil Grimpo at Inspire Media and Lincoln. If you're not familiar with Phil, you should. He's a yeah, I know he's a. He's a genius and a standup guy and just does a lot for the LCMS and I appreciate him so much. Uh, turns out, I would go to work for Phil for a while, uh later on in life, but uh, he sends me to uh a good friend of his, norm Schaefer. That puts me on the media team for the gathering. I'm like what is this Norm's like? Hey, you seem like a good dude, come make videos with us. So I did so.
Speaker 3:Media team at the youth gathering. If you're not familiar, it's a very behind the scenes type of type of team. If you've been to a gathering or can imagine this, there's just dozens of teams of planners that make an event like that happen, right? If you have trouble, you call the little 800 number on your wristband and you talk to someone, right? Someone has been planning to talk to you on the phone that way for months and there are teams and people from all around the country that do that, and they do it well, because we're well prepared and the media team does that. Um, with you guessed it media. So social media. Uh, we used to produce a dvd that you all got. Uh, afterwards it's, it's spearheaded and led by, uh, the full-time staff there in in st Louis. So Meredith now, and Mark, of course, yep, mark Kiesling, mark Kiesling, the coolest dude ever Yep, and the media team at the gathering Boots on the Ground.
Speaker 3:Gatherings. There's stuff going on out in the interim years between the gatherings, right, but we all come together and and do what we do best, uh, to the, to the glory of god and to the support of that event. So, uh, for me it's video, for others it's photography. It's uh, uh, social media. It's instagram, the tiktoks, all the like. There's a, there's a body in that room, for all of the different avenues there, and what I discovered there is wandered into this activity. That was fantastic and a joy to serve that way. But also I learned then, tim Jack, that there are other people like me in the world, lifelong Lutheran or not. They're there, they love Jesus, luther's their homeboy, and they're like we have skills that we want to apply to the church and we found an avenue for that, and so what that did for me in 2013 was kind of reshaped. It gave me a community. There were people in the world with, with skills, professionals like me, that would be like hey, we want to, we want to, we want to serve our church in whatever way possible and it was. It was life-changing in a variety of ways both just to support the event, continue to support the event for the next what are we on round four or five now? But just to have that perspective at that point in my life was crucial. So youth gathering will come up later.
Speaker 3:But the next step in our journey is a job that I did not get, and normally that's not a major part of your story, right, but for me it was. It was 2014. I applied and did not get a job at St John Ellsville, which is now Pathfinder. But what did happen is I went through the whole interview process, went to St Louis and hung out with them for a weekend. Pastor Dion and Steve Auer were still senior at that point and meeting that staff, seeing that worship being a part of that interview process, was not to be dramatic, but it was life-changing.
Speaker 3:Behind the scenes of of a church and again I'm divine, service him, led everything up to that point and, um, it was wildly different. It just changed my perspective dramatically and I was. I was not right for the job. I told Dionne in our last chat before I left campus. I'm like, if I'm not right, don't hire me. Right, this needs to make sense for everybody. But even if this was life-changing for me and I appreciate you for it. So then, fast forward to 2016,. Through a connection, norm, who I mentioned earlier, from the youth gathering, I moved to omaha to work, to work with norm uh for the university of nebraska. So then we got into church here, divine shepherd, just across the way over there, um started learning worship music. Didn't know that existed for a long time. Modern praise praise in my mind since Smitty and Amy Grant, like nothing had happened in the church music world besides DC Talk, which we're not going to do that in church, right?
Speaker 3:Jesus freak man, classic, wrapping that on the playground in grade school man, that's right. But we spent time at a new church with a with a different perspective, um, on on worship, and it was there that I spent time with, uh, mentor number three for keeping track, dan ramsey, norm shaper, and now deb. Deb went he's a good friend of mine. I've worked with her at two different churches now went kind of three. I don't know how you do the math, but, um, I just we spent a lot of time. I became a, a tech volunteer and she was coordinating all of that. We spent so much time together talking about church media, worship, how to, what it's like working at a church, all of those things. Like she was on staff there and she mentored me, like she is, she is a, she's like a sister to me in a lot of ways and, um, kind of from that.
Speaker 3:So I kind of wrapped it all my, all my thoughts of I called a manifesto. It wasn't that dramatic, it was like a four or five page document. It was like, hey, I have a basically a master's degree in mass communication and this is what I see as far as communication goes in this church. Let me lead a team of volunteers to support some of these things. Like I can help out on the website, I can, maybe not so many fonts and all the things that you print, like all of those things written up in a document. I gave it to the lead pastor and was like, hey, this is here, so my thoughts, you know, let me help, and nothing for a while. But then a few months later he was like, hey, why don't you just come work here? Hmm, right, I'm like, well, that's neat. Uh, I can, I can work for a church. Yeah, sign me. I don't, I don't care what I'm doing. Like, uh, sign, sign me up.
Speaker 3:So I did some communication. My role was communications coordinator officially, but ended up just like sporting everything that plugged into a wall, but ended up just like supporting everything that plugged into a wall. And so worship technology that we expanded the preschool into a childcare and did support of church management system and their payment systems and like anything that needed to be done in tech world. I did it and I and I loved it. I was on staff there for a couple of years and then went to work for Phil I mentioned earlier at InstraMedia, went to Lincoln and did events with Phil for for until COVID took all the events away and I started looking for other work and then landed here at King or King. So COVID took me away from a job that I loved, working with Phil and Laurie in the group there.
Speaker 3:But all these things all these doors, every one of these little steps just led to the next thing, and for me in this context was directing production at this church here. Hey, yeah, go ahead. I didn't know that this profession existed and through a series of God things like here I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man. Well, I love your story for a variety of reasons. One, the church, especially in this day and age, has to re-understand the roles to which it pays experts to run. We can't rely, jack and I'm glad you're on right now we can't rely on and we're having some tech problems, by the way, but we'll persevere we can't rely on a whole bunch of serve team members to run the church website or to run the app Like there's a lot that goes on behind. Or, if you're in a medium to large size church, to run the finances Like the finances in our organization are very, very complex. So there are all of these other roles that are church work roles.
Speaker 2:I think, jack, one of our the joys is seeing people one like an Aaron say, hey, I can work in the church and it's going to be different. There's a lot of similarities, but it's going to be different. I'm a minister of the gospel here in this place for the advancement of the kingdom of God. I think, when that shift comes and I'm even and this is what I love about your story too, jack is that I'm a theologian. I know you're a theologian too, aaron, but you're a theologian, right? I mean we want to talk about and help shape how the gospel gets communicated and what is actually shared. So, like 20 years ago, a lot of these roles didn't exist. It's an appropriate spirit-led evolution to understand the times and do whatever it takes to get the gospel into the heart and ears of people. Jack, any follow-up on that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know, I often get a lot of opportunity to talk to churches about the importance of operational roles in the church, and what I like to do is I like to encourage pastors and other church leaders to rethink what it means to be a deacon. If you go back to the original story, acts, chapter six right, the apostles are struggling with managing their benevolence program. Right, the distribution of resources to widows and orphans, and people are concerned that things are unfair. And the apostles are struggling on this, saying this is going to be a huge time constraint on us, and we're supposed to be preaching the gospel. We need help. And so what's interesting is I kind of show two different versions of this text, saying, hey, we shouldn't be neglecting the ministry of the word in order to wait at tables, but other translations say we shouldn't be neglecting this in order to manage finances, right, and so what's going on there? Is this a hospitality issue or is this a resource management issue? And the answer is it's both.
Speaker 1:It's table work right.
Speaker 4:Table work is hospitality. Table work is working on a ledger and making sure everything is transparent. And so they sought out people full of spirit and wisdom, and spirit is our faith. But wisdom is how does this computer work, how does this network switch work right, like, how do I run this spreadsheet and how do I run this accounting software? And how do I run this church and how do I run this accounting software and how do I run this church management system? So we need to think of these people, these people that are serving in these vocational roles as deacons of the church. That's the way I like to encourage people to think of them and it gives, I kind of think, a fresh insight on the importance of that and the intentionality behind that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amen. There's some controversy right now and there have been for probably decades. I don't know how long National Youth Gathering goes back, but one of the reasons NYG was so kind of powerful at a certain period of time is because the technology, the worship expression, while still very liturgical, very Lutheran, it was different for a lot of kids and they're like they kind of saw and I mean I'm a product of going to well. I'll mention a couple things here Promise keepers Now again, we're not fully into all the theology that went through promise keepers, but there was this mass event, feel there, like all of these people praising Jesus. It was like heaven, every tribe, and like all of these people praising Jesus, it was like heaven, every tribe and tongue gathered around the throne praising Jesus. That was formative, very formative for me when I was 13. And then another formative experience was going to Atlanta when I was 17 for the National Youth Gathering and I actually got to be on an arts team, one of those small little teams that do creative dramas and stuff like that. Our district was chosen to be a part of putting that together. That was a major part of my maturation as well. But on the tech front, nyg was always like way out in front, and I think there's a component of the church you know are maybe smaller churches and more and I don't use this pejoratively at all but more conservative churches, midwest churches, that just look at that form, how they're engaging with technology or story or drama, the arts in general, and kind of scratch their head and say, is this allowed? Can we do this?
Speaker 2:But in Christian freedom, the LCMS over the years has said well, yeah, absolutely Do, things need to be done well and in good order. But yeah, there's right now, how about the printing press, tim? How about the printing press Exactly? But we're struggling right now. I know a number of folks have said NYG is struggling to get the right folks to be, approved, to be and I don't know the right folks is right, but the wide breadth of leaders within the LCMS to be approved just to make NYG happen. So this is, the church is kind of seeing NYG as a I don't know a dividing point and I think that's very unfortunate and here's why it hurts the next generation's understanding of what it means to be a Lutheran in 2024 and beyond, because they're watching, they're definitely watching and can the older adults kind of figure it out together and I pray we can. Aaron any kind of follow-up on NYG, kind of the controversies and really how NYG led on the tech front Any follow-up?
Speaker 3:It is a beautiful expression of the church, tim. I agree with everything you just said. It pushes boundaries of technology, of production. It's beyond what a lot of young people see. The only other place they see it is a big concert or a big ballgame or whatever. Why can't we elevate the church to to that level? You know, if we put so much into into sports and concerts and all of this, like why can't? Why can't Jesus be that big too? Like that's exciting to see that on such a scale and to see 20 plus thousand of your friends doing the same thing at the same time. Like it's a, it's a big deal for my life you just mentioned it formed yours. Like how multiply that by thousands upon thousands over generations and it's, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Amen. Well, let's talk technology. How is King of Kings seeking to be kind of innovative, using technology to reach people with the gospel right now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I am a, I'm a facilitator at. At heart, tim, I. I take ideas of others and I put them into practice. That has been my role for basically my entire life. I always I need someone there beside me to say, hey, try this, what about this, what about this? I'll be like, yeah, let's do that. Also, let's not do that. That costs too much, all of those kinds of things.
Speaker 3:Right now in this season, multi-site church is on the forefront at Canoe King. So what does that mean? It means we are going to people in their neighborhoods planting campuses not individual churches, but campuses and people will worship there. That is their church. There's live local music, there are people shepherding there in that location, but we are delivering a video message, so the teaching part of worship is delivered from our broadcast campus. This is not a new practice, tim. Like everything at Apple and Cupertino, they're not the first to do all these things. They're just trying to do their best to make that product the best. They're like I'm going to take this thing and I'm going to make it the best. So that's what we're trying to do here.
Speaker 3:We're trying to adapt a multi-site model, this kind of technology, uh, to fit what we're. What we're trying to do here. Uh, it on the tech side of things, that's, it's, it's delivering a message. Um, so on our end on the broadcast campus lighting, video, audio systems have to be more precise than they maybe were in the past to deliver that well, because if you're on the other end watching somebody talk to you on a screen, if that doesn't look good or it doesn't sound good, most of all you're going to check out immediately Like there's not a, there's not a human in front of you physically present. So to do that subpar means that you're taking a critical part of of worship and their Sunday experience and and just making it okay. So from the very beginning of this, the, the, the technology played a huge role in that. Like you can, you can do it well, or you can maybe not. So for us, we use a service called Resi. It used to be Living as One. It's a church focus.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you guys are familiar with that, but the technology is different, like it's not just a live stream from here to there where maybe it'll buffer, maybe it'll do this. There's an encoder and a decoder that uses proprietary technologies and video up to the cloud where it repacketizes it, sends it down on the other end. If I lost you there, that's fine. We have a well-lit, well-framed, audible human on this end sending the word to the other end, and we can guarantee that every frame of video is going to be there and it's going to sound good. So, from the technological side of things, that's how we are supporting gospel message here in our multi-site endeavors.
Speaker 2:I love it. Hey, how? Because churches are making a variety of choices. Right now, we have live preaching here. How is it being received in terms of a well-produced video message from Greg, maybe Zach Zender, et cetera? How is that being received by these other campuses?
Speaker 3:We had a lot of reservations, even from our like. We're into this sort of team. What is it going to be like watching someone on a screen instead of in real life? And how Greg puts it, I completely agree. Like if you're sitting in our room here, are you looking at me in real life? Are you looking at the screen that's on the wall, the iMac screen on the wall? We're more used to that than we think, tim Jack, we do it all the time. It's not unusual for us. It's just a different context and a different way of thinking about what we're doing on Sunday mornings.
Speaker 3:So I understand the reservations, but the people that have been doing this for a year we launched our second campus, if you will, last October, october. They, they love it. They, they know that they will get quality teaching and that that will be there and that's solid and they can then connect with their community. Um, the actual people in the room. Like that's that's a priority too. Like uh, but, but we can share resources. You mentioned this earlier, jack.
Speaker 3:Um, if every one of your campuses has a pastor and they're preparing a message, even if you're sharing ideas and the core is the same, how many hours is that person putting into preparing that message. If you consolidate that resource and say, zach and Greg are fantastic teachers, let's use their gifts to teach, what does that free up on the other end? Does that make sense? Like, how many man hours are we saving? If you want to look at it very pragmatically, how many man hours are we saving? If you want to look at it very pragmatically, how many man hours are we saving by more people not preparing messages? Kind of wandered into that one, but you know what.
Speaker 2:I mean no, I mean we're definitely considering it right now as a part of our future strategy, and you know as much as I want to believe that everyone and it is such a balance here. I'm so sensitive to this topic because we speak to consumers, we preach to consumers. If it's not like this, there's a part of me that wants to say, well, shouldn't the word just be enough? And yeah, it's absolutely enough. But to your point, aaron, some preachers have been more gifted with communication skills, connecting skills. And if a campus pastor here's a justification for what you're doing If a campus pastor in partnership with, kind of, the overarching ministry, if a campus pastor, even on Sunday, doesn't have to think about the message, what are they thinking about? The people that are coming through the doors trying to engage them spiritually and maybe meet with them in smaller groups, trying to pour into more leaders? I mean spiritual development, leadership development can even take place a little bit more readily if that campus pastor doesn't have to worry, at least every Sunday, about a respective message. So, yeah, I think there's ample room for conversation here. I used to be much more bullish on this and I've become and maybe COVID did something to me with this because we're just so.
Speaker 2:Where is church? Well, the church has radically been deployed. You know what does it mean to pastor? I view this as a part of my pastoral responsibility having Jesus-centered, godly conversations, disagreeing agreeably, growing up into Christ right. Pastoring today is different than it was 100 years ago because of duh technology, and so we've got a number of different people that are helping make that happen, and I think it's something the church should explore. Slow, well, tech goes fast, but we should explore it with sensitivity and thoughtfulness. But maybe there's some convergence here into the future between churches, especially like a King of Kings and Christ Greenfield. Anything to add to that, jack?
Speaker 4:Well, I think one of the things that might get you know, certainly within Lutheran circles, kind of like question marks might be popping up as well. How does communion work if? The pastor is in some other location and he's not the only pastor.
Speaker 2:He's not the only pastor.
Speaker 4:Exactly, so I'm just kind of curious how that works yeah.
Speaker 2:So Jack, just popped off. How does it work? How does it work with communion at those places? I mean, I assume you can have a called and ordained servant of the word who isn't the primary proclaiming preacher every single week. Is that right, aaron?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, and we're exploring that at our third campus, which will go live in January, a town close to us, fremont. Faithful congregation there, 70 years. Good shepherd faithful congregation there of 70 years. Good shepherd uh was kind of the typical LCMS story at this point worshiping less than a hundred, discussing financial viability in the future, and uh came to King of Kings and said hey, uh, can we? Can we be a campus? And that's an oversimplification of a of a very long and thoughtful process, tim.
Speaker 3:But campus, and that's an oversimplification of a very long and thoughtful process, Tim. But that's a good summary and we're like sure, let's do that Part of that process. We'll be hiring a pastor to serve there, but they will not be teaching every Sunday of the year, maybe once a quarter. And that's okay. We just got to find the right person. That's okay with that, because you guys are bred to teach. That's what you've been working for. I don't want to put words in your mouth, tim, but that's what you've been studying for for a long time. Put words in your mouth, tim, but that's what you've been studying for for a long time. And to step aside and say that teaching can come from someone else, not because I can't do it, but because? What can I do instead? That's what you said earlier, jack. What can I do instead? I can be with my people more. I can concentrate on this, this and this outside of teaching.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't mean you can't lead a. There's a difference between proclamation and and teaching. Like, you can have multiple Bible studies in that during that week that the pastor ends up offering. So it doesn't mean that they're not teaching, it's just they're not doing the primary preaching on a Sunday, Isn't that right?
Speaker 3:For sure. Yes, of course, and I don don't. I don't want to. Greg griffith says this so eloquently uh, discipleship happens in in circles rather than rows. Rows, that's right. I don't know if I quoted that exactly right, but the the concept is there, like why not focus that that person on the circles, not not the rows, right? How can they equip people to talk to each other? The small groups, the Bible studies do that, instead of everything happens on Sunday morning.
Speaker 2:Hey, this has been fun. It's funny. On a technology podcast we've had technology issues, but we've persevered, all right, just two closing questions. If you just give issues but stuff, we've persevered, all right, just two closing questions. If you just give me you walked through. You were very transparent about walking through a more difficult season of of burnout, um in ministry. How did you, how did you make it through?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I'll try, and I'll try and summarize this. Yeah, because it's. Look, I think it's important to just tell stories. Revelation said that testimony is important, but I can get caught up in, hey, look what I did. Look at all the things that I could accomplish. Because here, so set stage, king of Kings, we started talking about multi-site and all and all of the goals were there that we've been talking about. Uh, the technology has to be in place to do that, and so I said, hey, aaron, I've, I'm a video professional, I've, I've been in, uh, an integrator of sorts. Um, I can, I can install all this technology. This will be hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of upgrades here and I am capable of doing it. Can we just handle all of this in-house? Basically was my pitch Should we hire it out? And the pragmatic side of it that Jack will appreciate is, if we hire an integrator, we will pay them, you know, premium to do that job and that's, and that's fair, that's business. Uh, but in this context, I'm like we could save a couple hundred thousand dollars if, if I design it and put it in. That was an option, and so we, I went after it. You know that uh has.
Speaker 3:Mentor number two, norm, said this is a project of a lifetime, like all the things leading up to spending time with the broadcast engineers at K state, like being in studios. Being a part of broadcast workflows like this has prepared me to do this job Right and it and I loved every minute of it. But I spent a whole lot of time doing this project, designing it. Months on end I would fall asleep with my laptop at home, planning this and that and the other, and then we got the boots on the ground of like we're going to move this projector over here and we're going to put cameras here, we're going to move the tech booth over here, and then there's new carpet, and then there's new this and we're hanging all these lights in the ceiling. And I had a had a bunch of very dedicated volunteers. I had a 19 year old kid at the time that was just just getting after it. He was punching above his weight in a bunch of different ways and for months on end about a year I was doing this. So to put that a little bit of perspective, on Zach, my young helper, on his spring break he logged 45 hours of overtime. That's all the time like we were. We were just at the church and I was there when he got there and I was there when he left, every every day and that was, and for for months on end.
Speaker 3:There was one point where I told hannah, like don't expect me any night of the week until summer. Like three or four months from now, like when all this is over, then I will spend time with my family, and that's. This is not a hooray Aaron story. Honestly, like I'm not sure it was worth it. I'm glad we did it, we got it done and on time. The systems were there, they were usable, we launched in October and that that part of it worked out and I'm very proud of it. I loved every, every minute of it. Right, uh, project of a lifetime.
Speaker 3:But my, my little dudes that poked their head at the door just now cause I don't know what if it punched the other or something like I wasn't there for for them. You know that was before baby number three for them, that was before baby number three, but I, if you want to put it in this term, I forgot my first calling and got very excited about something else and that's not healthy overall and so I hung it up, just to kind of wrap up that story, cause, um, I was like what can, what can be the message out of this? Uh, I, I left, I left, uh, king of Kings, the best job I've ever had in the 85% of the way through, the best product I've ever done, best product I've ever done. I was like I gotta, I gotta go hang out with my kids and I was like bye, bye, friends Somebody. Part of that was I was trying to hire another full-time person for about eight months, couldn't find the right person, and then God brought us a person at just the right moment. I was like, hey, sorry, I want to work with you, but can you just take over? Just the right moment I was like, hey, sorry, I want to work with you, but can you just take over, cause I'm out, bye. And I had the.
Speaker 3:I had the flexibility to do that because I'm not a pastor. I didn't study for eight years to do this one thing and do this forever. I had, I had options. I went and installed TVs and residential homes, like uh and I, and that was 40 hours a week and I just hung out with my kids more. But I missed it. I consider this a calling. I want to work in the church.
Speaker 3:I for years wanted to work in a church and so this spring that opportunity came back up and I was like, yeah, I took a nap, I took a break, sign me back up. And I was like, yeah, I, I took a nap, I took a break. Uh, sign me back up, because this is, this is the work I want to be doing. But now I just do it much more intentional. So, uh, patrick, the guy I work for that has my old job, if you want to look at it that way. Uh, he's got four kids. I have three kids. That's our calling. We understand that. That's what we're after first, and then we can have excellence. We can do our work very well for the glory of God and technology in this place.
Speaker 2:Every leader walks through that point of getting to their limit. If you're passionate about something, you're going to eventually get to that limit, and your wife is often because you didn't talk about Hannah, I'm sure she said some things I remember. Every pastor that is driven to love people gets to that point, hopefully, where your wife says hey, how many nights are you out this week? How's this working? My wife just recently told me it seems like you worked harder when you were in Colorado and I was like, really, she's like you're not, you're home a little bit more now. And I was like, but my responsibility is exponentially more and I guess I guess it. You get to that point, hopefully, where you build team trust, time and we're locking arms together so that I can release more things rather than control, control more things and I can develop better boundaries and I can look at the past, tim, and say, yeah, that wasn't going to work forever, but I still have that same passion. I don't want to ever lose that drive. I never want to give in to laziness, et cetera. I just learned to work in team and I learned to set better boundaries. That's the leader's journey over time and I'm glad you've gone on that journey and that you're still working in the church.
Speaker 2:This has been a lot of fun. And there goes Jack. Jack just popped off, off goes Jack. So one last question. We're at time, but what is your prayer for the LCMS? Just going back to kind of our earlier conversations around NYG, what are your prayers for our church body, aaron?
Speaker 3:Man, I pray that it continues. The LCMS has brought me peace over years. I don't know how else to describe it, the theology, the apologetics of it. It appeals to my engineering brain, the apologetics of it. Just it appeals to my engineering brain Like there's, there's so much about the church body that I I love so much. But can we, can we think outside the box a little bit and not not all at once, not all at once, friends, we don't need to jump on every uh fad and run with it.
Speaker 3:That's, that's not what we're after. But can we be intentional about everything that we're doing? Let's, let's, consider everything that we do every week and be intentional about it. That's does it? Does it line up with scripture? Does it line up with theology? Is it intentional for the uh, for the rent of the kingdom?
Speaker 2:That's, that's what I'm after, um yeah, Well, that's what we're after here as well. Jack, you made it back. This has been quite a. I've never had you pop off and on. I can't hear you if you're watching. Okay, there you are. There you are Closing thought on this conversation with Aaron Jack.
Speaker 4:No, I'm just so thankful to hear the perspective of the vast majority. Majority of the time we got people on, they're in pastoral roles, and I think it's excellent for us to highlight more people serving in other roles, what I'd call other types of deaconing roles, other roles that actually have a tremendous amount of impact on ministry. I mean, think about how, let's say, even in the example of live streaming, how many people are going to be impacted by that and we don't necessarily acknowledge that enough and talk about the importance of that enough, and I think the church needs to continue to lean into that. So, thank you, aaron. I appreciate how you're being a minister in a very different way.
Speaker 2:Amen For sure. If people want to connect with you, Aaron, how can they do so? Email or whatnot? Sure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, aaron, at kingofkingsorg, just A-A-R-O-N, just like Moses' brother kingofkingsorg.
Speaker 2:It's a good day. Go, make it a great day. Please, like, subscribe wherever it is. You're taking this in YouTube, follow us there, spotify, et cetera, and get the word out. We're trying to set up kind, challenging, courageous conversations for the present and the future of the Lutheran Church. Missouri Synod that we would lead, that we would lead very, very well, all for the sake of those who know Jesus and invite them into the mission to go and reach those who don't. It's a good day. Make it a great day by the power of the Spirit. Good work, jack. We made it. Good work Aaron.
Speaker 1:Thanks. 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 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.