Lead Time
Lead Time
The Value of Walking Together: How Church Plans Protect Workers
Jim Sanft, President and CEO of Concordia Plan Services, breaks down the differences between single-employer church plans and multiple-employer denominational benefit programs like CPS. He offers crucial insights on how CPS's governance structure provides strong protection for LCMS workers' retirement security.
• Addressing a recent Wall Street Journal article about problems in church retirement plans
• Why CPS's planned retirement contribution increases demonstrate proactive governance, not underlying problems
• The economic and ministerial benefits of investing in church worker wellness initiatives
• How CPS's multiple-employer approach provides protection and advantages individual congregations couldn't achieve alone
• Upcoming district health strategies that will bring wellness initiatives to the local level
• The importance of lay leaders creating a culture that supports worker wellness
• Jim's announcement of his planned retirement at the end of 2026 and the succession planning underway
Connect with Jim at jimsanft@concordiaplans.org to learn more about CPS services or to discuss church worker wellness initiatives.
Join the Lead Time Newsletter! (Weekly Updates and Upcoming Episodes)
https://www.uniteleadership.org/lead-time-podcast#newsletter
Visit uniteleadership.org
This is Lead Time. Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. It's a great day to be alive, jack. How you doing Loving life, dude.
Speaker 2:Doing fantastic, sir. It's a wonderful day. Wonderful day, yeah for sure. Beautiful time in Arizona.
Speaker 1:It is delightful right now, for sure, it's very cold in other parts of the country and my wife since you bring up cold and different or I bring it up my wife was just in Crookston, minnesota, and it was negative 20 for a high up by Canada.
Speaker 2:The high was negative 20. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1:That is very, and then she flew down here. It was like 100 degrees different. She lands there, it's like 80 degrees, like on the other side of the world that's like a shock to the system. Right it is. It is a shock, but it's a shock to the system, right it is. It is a shock, but a good shock. Coming back here, we love being here minus about three, four months out of the year.
Speaker 1:So today we get to hang out with the president CEO of Concordia Plan Services. His name is Jim Sanf and over time Jim has become a good friend and partner in the gospel. I pray for you and appreciate everything that CPS does for us in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. It's a unique organization. I just love hanging out with you, jim. You have a great disposition, you're fun to hang out with. The joy of Jesus is on you. You're a churchman and you have gifts Just as why I like hanging out with you too, jack. You have gifts that the body of Christ definitely needs as an actuary and a numbers guy all that kind of stuff. You're just awesome, jim. So how are you doing, buddy? Thanks for hanging out with us.
Speaker 3:I'm doing fine. Thanks so much. Your eyes are very gracious. I am just humbled to be able to serve God, his church, his people in this capacity. It's just a real pleasure. Real pleasure to serve. So thank you for the kind words.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure, From the heart for sure. So let's get into what's most current. You sent me an email just today. Front page of the Wall Street Journal there was an article on church worker retirement plans. You said it was not all that positive. So let's just start with normally. We start with good stuff. Let's start with some harder stuff, though. Jim. Tell us about the article.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, you know, and actually I don't think it is bad stuff you know, when you get to the headline and you go through it and see what's the substance in the article, there's a story there that needs to be told. And then I think it's just really important that we understand sort of that compare and contrast, so what's going on in the story versus what's going on in our world. And so I thought, with the timeliness of this podcast, it might be something we want to, you know, want to lean into. So you can see sort of the tone of it right in the headline church retirement plan sidestep federal oversight and employees pay the price. So that's a pretty captivating headline. And you know, the Concordia retirement plan is a church plan under federal law and we can get geeky in a lot of the details.
Speaker 3:I'm an actuary, not an attorney, but we can get into a lot of the different regulatory environment. But it's important to understand that our church claims do operate in a different legal regulatory space. It's important to understand that our church claims do operate in a different legal regulatory space. You know we are a multiple employer denominational benefit program under the governance of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. When you go through this story and what I'd say is there have been some bad actors and bad cases in this regulatory space. They tend to be predominantly a single employer and specifically Catholic hospital systems, and at the core of it is they're trying to run a business, they're trying to run a hospital rather than manage a retirement program. And so when you look at this body of legislation as put in the 1970s, you know, you know Congress saw that there are those you know in the corporate sector who weren't paying enough attention to their retirement programs and said you know, we need to put some boundaries in here and some guardrails. And so they enacted a Risk and Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and that governs most.
Speaker 3:You know, pension plans in the United States. There's plenty of entities though that are exempt state. You know municipal plans and you know, and so on. You know regulation is an interesting thing, you know. Once the regulations start, then they start to get into the operations and tell a corporation how they need to operate their retirement plan. This is not our primary sort of defense, but ultimately you do get to a bit of a separation in terms of perhaps a requirement from the government to conduct our business a certain way way and we have the opportunity in the First Amendment to say no, we're going to operate it the way we feel that it's appropriate for us to run and to structure it. We don't have a central HR department, for example. But that's not really the primary argument. The primary argument is that church plans were existing in some cases for centuries and we've been running them well these multiple employer denominational benefit plans In the case of our plan. And we've been running them well these multiple employer denominational benefit plans In the case of our plan. And you know we work closely with our counterparts in other denominations.
Speaker 3:There's a separate Concordia Plan Services Board who are also trustees of the Concordia Retirement Plan. We just came off two days of meetings with them. This is their sole focus is to act as trustees on your behalf, guarding the integrity of the trust. They're not trying to operate a hospital or any other such type of business. This is what they focus on. You know, I think in one of my recent conversations with you, you know we talked about that rate increase right that was coming into the Concordia retirement plan 1% a year for the next three years. I'm going to submit to you that I think that rate increase is not evidence that there's a problem. That rate increase is actually evidence that it's working right. We don't have a current emergency. We see probabilities of problems down the road and so the board says you know, we need to bring more cash into the plan now. That is evidence of them doing their due diligence work right. It's not evidence of a problem in a plan.
Speaker 3:So, as you look at these stories that are in the Wall Street Journal, they're real stories. Real people got hurt. There's tragedies here. Right, there is more than just a grain of truth in Theo Francis' article. It's just, you know, they only told part of the story, right? So in our case, what we really try to differentiate when I'm on Capitol Hill or other places and I'll go back to you know he interviewed me, but it was after he had submitted his draft and gave it to the editors, and you know I really worked with him to talk about and understand the difference between the single employer and the multiple employer. Virtually all of these situations are in that single employer space where they took the eye off the ball, and we're just frankly not doing that.
Speaker 3:I want to talk about transparency. Senate Board of Directors appoints our board 100%. They put experts onto our board. Chief Financial Officer of Senate sits on the board. He sees every one of these reports and he's got the bandwidth to understand, absorb. He knows exactly what he's reading. President Harrison has his representative on board. Reverend Dr Roger Pavla. Harrison has his representative on board. Reverend Dr Roger Pavla, you know a second career guy. You know, former hospital administrator, brilliant business side, still great theologian heart for the church. You know these guys aren't coming in giving a pass. They understand very clearly what's at stake. Financials are, you know, fully disclosed. You all can get copies of our audit financial statements. So there's daylight everywhere in this whole thing, plus our process review, outside experts taking a look at this thing. The process, process, process.
Speaker 3:This thing is locked up tight and so it's just very different than the facts and circumstances in the cases that you saw there. I'm going to say, with one exception, they do bring up in the article sort of a real-time case and that's the African Methodist Episcopalian Church, which, I'm going to say, maybe a year, year and a half ago, so they announced that they had a significant issue. This is still being investigated, but there is a likelihood that there's criminal activity, you know. So you can't regulate away criminal activity right. So they broke laws. They would have broke regulations. So you know that's going to run its course.
Speaker 3:But I think what's really interesting is the AME church stood up and said you know we're going to stand by these retirees and these members and make them whole and they're working hard to do that as best they can.
Speaker 3:There are some who were involved that there is litigation going on there where they're looking to secure, you know, funds to help with that promise.
Speaker 3:And then Westpath, which is the retirement benefit provider, sort of our comparable organization with the United Methodist Church, they're stepping in to help create retirement solutions on a going forward basis.
Speaker 3:Obviously they can't bring funding in to restore the past, but they are stepping up alongside another Methodist denomination and the point really here is their church is stepping up to own the issue, which is also very different than what you see going on in those single employer cases. So you know my real key here is you read the story, differentiate those single employer versus our multiple employer denominational plans and then please understand the great due diligence and governance that goes on to you as Concordia Retirement Plan members and to those you work with, that you know we're dedicated to that process and bringing the professionalism investment experts, actuaries, finance attorneys you know, and I guess I could put it this way, none of you can do that on your own, but together we can do that right and bring in that group of experts to manage it, which brings you back again to what an honor and privilege it is to you know steward these resources of the church on behalf of our, so many of our church workers.
Speaker 1:Amen, thank you. Hey, was CPS actually mentioned in the article? No, no, we're not in the article and the way that the reporter came to me is.
Speaker 3:you know I mentioned our work with other denominations, specifically the Church Alliance, 34 different organizations like Concordia Planned Services. I have the honor of serving as chair of the Church Alliance, and so my interview with Theo Francis from the Wall Street Journal was in my role as chair of the Church Alliance, not in my role as CEO of Concordia Plain Services.
Speaker 2:Was there Church Alliance plans listed in that article that went out with the Wall Street Journal? No, no, no, that's interesting.
Speaker 3:All of the difficult situations are those single employer which they would not be eligible to be part of the church alliance, the AME. They would be eligible to be in but they are not a member of the church alliance.
Speaker 1:All right, well, just real quick Tim.
Speaker 2:I just want to share how thankful I am that we have an organization like Concordia Planned Services instead of thousands of LCMS churches trying to figure this out on their own, and just imagine the mess and the inconsistency. And, like you said, the problems are with these single employer entities. Right, trying to figure out how to create a retirement plan, that is a tall order for a very small entity to try and figure out. And you know, other than doing like a 401k, I don't know how they would get their head wrapped around doing something like that. That that is right. That is quite an ordeal, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know you can buy a you know retail 401k or savings vehicle, but the fees are going to be so exorbitant because you have no leverage. You know, as we take our you know investments out there in the marketplace, we have $5 billion plus of assets under management. That means we can go in and negotiate like you can't do individually too. So just because you can get a product, it's just nowhere near the kinds of things we can do walking together, which maybe, tim, I'm going to use that as a segue in what we wanted to talk about originally you know, is that church worker wellness I, you know think is a place where we can say you know, we can really demonstrate that value of walking together and the value here in this whole area of church worker wellness.
Speaker 3:So I don't think. I'm as the guest supposed to do that but, I, think.
Speaker 1:I just handed the host the segue. Yeah, yeah, that was a good segue.
Speaker 1:Well done. No, before we do go fully there, I you know people may have certain perceptions of me because of the struggles we have around church worker formation and we're in a long conversation in the same direction there, in a long conversation in the same direction there, and I value highly the strategic national alliances such as LCEF, cps, the foundation I'm sure I could go down a list of other kind of national RSO groups that help us just work better together nationally. That there's no way. And, jack, you and I talk scale an awful lot, like you have leveraged because of the breadth of the workers that you care for, the power of scale and it's benefiting the entire body. So, yeah, let's work through a lot of our you know all this kind of stuff, but let's do it in a way that's going to keep the resources and the primary resource being people, the asset being people, who are in all of our schools and all of our churches, being cared for through ministries like CPS.
Speaker 1:So I'm a strong fan, brother, so good. So let's get into church worker wellness. Why does CPS care about church worker wellness at all? Break that down for us, jim, because I see a lot of great things, a lot of great approaches, incentives, et cetera coming through CPS toward church worker wellness. Talk a little bit there from your heart. Well, you know.
Speaker 3:I think you know. Let's just go right to our synod constitution. One of our objectives for forming a synod, one of the reasons we come together specifically Objective 10, is to care for church workers.
Speaker 4:So wherever that?
Speaker 3:got put into place, it was recognized that scale does matter, that we can be better together. It is one of those objectives and I like to share with my friends. You know, dave Fiedler with Bart Day they don't get an objective of synod, but I've got an objective of synod with Bertie Plank. That's all men in jest. I love those guys and they're doing great work. But there we are. We're in there as an objective, but that's not really, I think, where the core power is in this right. It really is in that power of aggregation and the things that we can accomplish where we're bringing tens of thousands of people together and can do things a little bit differently. Right, we're running this all through self-insured trusts. We're not bringing in the bureaucracy of the insurance company Now we use them to do administrative work for us, but we're really insuring each other. It really is that church walking together and so if we invest in our church worker health and wellness, we are reducing costs over the long term. Insurance companies are really only looking for that short-term gain because they know that business turns every few years. I'm not going to invest in the long term because the reality is I'm saving my competitor money down the road. So we will invest in these things because we know you guys are 10, 20, 30, 40, 50-year customers and so if we bend the curve a little today, we're reaping that for decades. And if you look at our history of rate increases, they are way lower than market.
Speaker 3:Right, we're seeing that those who get involved in health and wellness programs are lowering the cost. That means there's more dollars staying in ministry, I get this stuff as expensive You're probably writing. The biggest check you write to is probably the Concordia Plains services. But in the self-insured trust, what it means, we're just paying the claims of church workers, right, you don't have the big overhead, the bureaucracy, those kinds of things. This is the care our workers are demanding. Let's make sure we take care of it. But that investment, then, in health and wellness not always in our DNA it's why we come together but it does reduce cost over the long run.
Speaker 3:We can come at it another angle too. Corporate America Line will find out. You know, if we invest in the health of our workers, we see enhanced productivity, we see enhanced satisfaction, you see enhanced morale. People are healthier, more vibrant. Right, we can keep top workers. That's what the secular world does, and to me in a church setting man. We should be all over that right. We should be leading with our people. I know that's the last thing I got to, but it's the most important right.
Speaker 3:Ministry is done by people.
Speaker 3:It's done by you guys there in the trenches and I haven't been there, but I can see with my friends.
Speaker 3:Ministry is hard, and so what are those things that we can do to help you be stronger, more resilient and oh, by the way, it does reduce costs in the long run.
Speaker 3:Tim, you talk a lot and understand about ministry formation and that pipeline of people coming in, but you know, this work and wellness is a way of keeping you healthier and keeping you in the game right, so that if we can keep more people in the game, that's fewer people you have to replace. So this is also this entire recruitment and retention strategies that we have working together as a church at large. And so, yeah, I get excited about this, because where else can an actuary apply all of this math and all of this stuff to a group of people that I dearly love, the ministries I love and really see great work impacting the kingdom going forward. That's what we get a charge out of here caring for workers serving our ministry so that the word of God spreads. So you guys don't have to worry about this stuff and you can be about your ministry there in Arizona and helping influence people across the whole church body.
Speaker 1:Love that. Thank you, Jim. Tell us more specifically what CPS is doing to encourage church worker wellness.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So you know you as members of the plane, you see a lot of the programs that we have in place. You know we have robust sets of health and wellness tools. We have things we call point solutions. You know sort of which is physical therapy that you can do. You know from your own home those kinds of things. You know from your own home those kinds of things.
Speaker 3:Some of the more interesting things that sometimes looks a little bit like, you know, are they really spending money on the right things. It's something like vitality that tries to give some incentives to you to try to get individuals to take a look at this, to get engaged, to start doing those things. There's a measurable difference not a small measurable difference either between those who participate in the vitality and those who don't in terms of healthcare claims. We have our financial educators, we have our health and wellness educators, we have webinars all trying to get you to get involved.
Speaker 3:One of the real exciting things that we're going to be rolling out or we started talking to district presidents about this is we're going to be rolling out district health strategies. We presented some samples right now of some district scorecards. We'll be able to start working in some financial incentives and the idea being to try to get some of that encouragement out of St Louis right, because you can only push so hard from St Louis If we can bring that local and connect a little bit more. Okay, here's the behaviors of the workers in our district and here's what it's doing to our cost in the district and how do we help bring that a little bit more local. We're also excited that this work is going on in partnership with Tiffany Maynard and others in the Office of National Mission. So've got a great partnership within the church and I think these district health strategies are really going to help us. You know kind of blow this up in a good way, you know going forward in terms of making some of the incentives real.
Speaker 1:I love it. So shout out to Mike Gibson and the PSD let's go, mike. Let's make the PSD healthy again.
Speaker 4:Let's let's mow this thing up.
Speaker 1:man, I'm all in, I'm all in. Anyway, we'll have to work on the branding of what that looks like for us.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I mean the health and wellness and all honestly because of Robert Kennedy and the work of the Make America Healthy Again. I think health consciousness is becoming more of a thing today and as Christians, we should be at the table, at the very least, our trumpeting. This body is a gift of the Holy Spirit. We're fearfully and wonderfully made and we're so complex the way our brains work and govern our gut I mean I just get, I'm not going to go, I'm going to resist going here, but geeking out in terms of what we can do, strategies that we can do to be more well, like getting enough walking, sunlight it's unbelievable moving our bodies, obviously like just working on the basics. So I'll just bring this like if, if your morning rhythms are tight, meaning you're getting adequate water because you've not had water for hopefully seven, eight hours or so while you've slept and you're moving your body and you're getting sunlight, if you just do like those three things early in the morning, your immune function skyrockets. It skyrockets. All the research is showing it right now. So we should have ambassadors like CPS that are promoting these very simple things and I love vitality and incentivizing it for those who need the carrot on the stick, kind of waving out front hey, let's give it a go right. We should be incentivizing it, rewarding it appropriately.
Speaker 1:Anything more to say? But the devil loves to fight against the simple invitations of a life filled with rhythms of rest to work and rhythms of soul care, self-care, so that we can pour out to other people. I don't know that we talk about it enough in the church and that's why I was pumped to get you on, because it needs to be more of a normal. It's not because we're Lutherans, it's not going to be filled with guilt or shame or any of those types of things. It's just like take your right next step to be well. But man, satan loves to cripple us into a scarcity mentality. I can't. I'm getting old, blah, blah, blah Like no man. Let's go While you have air in your lungs, move your body, get your water, get your sunlight, and off we go into a day of ministry. So anything more to say there, jim?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I think there's only going to be so much that we can do, you know, from the health plan perspective, because it really ends up being sort of an instrument of the law. But you don't really change the heart and it just seems, as Lutheran Christians, as we come at this understanding who we are, whose image we're created, in the gift of stewardship of self, we're coming into a different motivation that really comes, I think, as an extension of our faith and our beliefs and who we are, not because, oh, Concordia Plains is going to ding me or I'm going to get slapped on the hand or something like that. Right, it can and should really be led by our theology of the stewardship of self.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Luther talked about.
Speaker 2:the reason to discipline the body is so that we can be more effective at serving our neighbors. Right, yeah, ultimately not about self-preservation. It's about how we serve the community and if we're healthy and we discipline ourselves and that's really the reason why we do it that it becomes an others-oriented thing. We care for ourselves to care for others.
Speaker 3:Yep, yep, absolutely.
Speaker 1:As we end, I want to talk about your future here. The last little bit of our time, sure, but what is your number one prayer as you lead CPS and you look at all the church workers out? What is your just heart cry? Prayer for every single church worker, jim, from your seat, yeah.
Speaker 3:So a couple different things there as I contemplated this question is I think my prayer would be that Lutheran lay leaders begin to rise up and understand their obligation in creating that culture of care for their workers and setting expectations that it isn't just hey, pastor, it's okay for you to go work out, but no, we're requiring it right. We need you to do this. You know my good friend, reverend Dr Greg Walton, right with Grace Place. You know former Florida Georgia district president. Every time I see him he's saying this I want to make sure I'm not like, hey, greg, if you're listening to this, I'm not stealing your idea because you're passionate about this. You know you'll say, jim, we've got to get to the lay people, we've got to get them right in encouraging, because I even think there that can be where we're coming at it from the gospel, not saying, hey, pastor, you know you need to go out and start doing these things, but, lay leaders, what's the role that you can do to help lift up and support and care for workers?
Speaker 3:So my prayer would be that at all of our ministries we have that culture of care, that community holding up the prophet's hands. Right Now I'm stealing from Bruce Harton. He knows what I do here. I take from others, holding up the prophet's hands and caring for our workers, that each one of those workers would be in that kind of community. And then I think to them individually and this has been really on my mind a lot in the last year since I published my book Joshua 1.9,. Be strong, be courageous for the Lord. Your God is with you, and that would be then my prayer for the workers themselves right is that they're strong and courageous as you all go forward in your ministry, knowing God is with you.
Speaker 1:Let's pause for a second on your first point. I love Joshua 1.9 for sure, so nothing to take away from that. That is our cry. But I lament that there could be congregations where maybe it's elders or board or just the everyday labor, that they would look at their pastor like a hired gun, that you can kind of think of him like a stallion, like he's a. He's a stallion Right and we're going to ride. We're going to ride him until he, until he breaks Right and and that's not helpful Like we're, I'm so grateful to be in a place where worker wellness is encouraged, that day offs are respected, that there's good boundaries.
Speaker 1:There's why and I'm actually I have a sabbatical this summer but I'm I have a meeting tomorrow working on a holistic church worker renewal strategy with a group of lay lay folks. So October isn't just like pastor, it's all church worker appreciation and we can get strategic at different times of the year where we recognize our staff and then even set up a rhythm Jack, this is you and I haven't even had this conversation but then set up a rhythm with, for us, summer kind of shut down. I think there should be a certain percentage of our staff that are cycling through at least a month to a two-month sabbatical type thing in the months of June and July here. So what does that kind?
Speaker 2:of look like yeah, I'm sure you'd definitely be in.
Speaker 1:Okay, the last shall be first, jack, yeah, I think you're going to be last in that line.
Speaker 3:Anyway, no, I'm just kidding, you're out of time.
Speaker 1:Take July and August, because that's when you want to go to Kirkston, guys, yeah exactly, but anyway, I'm just grateful to be in a place where we do have a culture, where those that work teachers, administrators, pastors leaders, central operation executive directors at work, teachers, administrators, pastors leaders, central operation executive directors we're encouraged to take rest, and I hope that's true in all of our congregations. Let's talk about you as we're coming down the homestretch. What is God doing? Just get us behind the curtains of Jim Sam's life right now. What's God doing to mess with you in a good way as a leader.
Speaker 3:What's he teaching you right now, jim? How are you being stretched in this season? So you know, as I, you know, I know you know your listeners may not know that I've announced my retirement at the end of 2026. And it's been things. I've been in conversation with my board for a while and it's just, you know, a great sort of weight is lifted once you can start talking about it and, and you know, get it out in the out in public.
Speaker 3:I think the way God is messing with me right now is is in this way of really having me think about.
Speaker 3:You know, do I really believe those things that we say in our theology?
Speaker 3:Now, I know that's dangerous and teaming up to a pastor, but I think about this ride that I've been on and this wonderful journey of serving Concordia Plan Services, you know, for 26 years. The CO is 17 years, and I think our theology says that God planned for all time for me to serve in this role in this time in this place, for these reasons, and I can't get my head around that. I can talk about it in a black and white way, but I just can't believe that the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe chose for me to lead in this time and have the experiences and gain the friendships and serve. It's overwhelming that he would reach down and take this goofy kid from Minnesota by the way, I know Crookston Cold and prepare me to serve in this role in this time, in this place. It's overwhelming. I cannot get my head around that. It has been such a privilege and I look forward to you know the additional time I have. I'm not done, but it's an overwhelming thought.
Speaker 1:You know, the posture of gratitude is one of the best things we can do for ourselves heart, body, mind, spirit and that's why I mean that's one of the reasons I really respect you so much is you are, you exude gratitude in everything you do. You try to find the best in people and you recognize there's. I mean you may have a prideful bone in your body, I don't know it. All I've experienced is the humility of Jesus, your approachable, kind, and out of that humility you look at life not as kind of a burden, but it's a beautiful blessing. It's a divine adventure to follow the God who calls you up and out into a life of service to other people. That is, at the end of the day, like that's it, like the kingdom of heaven has come to you in the person and work of Jesus and he's infused your life with meaning and all you have to do, like, what did you do to earn it? Like Jack, and we did Jack squat.
Speaker 3:We did Jack squat to get anything worth, anything right.
Speaker 1:What we deserve is sin, death and the devil, and the wages of sin is death and separation from the promises of God. And yet the kingdom is broken into the present, and all we do is say thank you, thank you, god, man. And so, yeah, thanks for mirroring that posture of humility. If you get into, let's talk, even transition, though. So you've got a couple years, a little less than a couple years, left. How are you strategizing to transition? Because every leader is in transition. I don't care if you've been there a year or 20, 30 years, like. We're all in transition. There's going to be a next, a next up, right? So how are you doing to transition?
Speaker 3:Well, at CPS, jim you know, I think it really begins with the good, honest, open conversation with the board at a point where I'm seeing, okay, you know, we've got to start looking at a date and because I've been CEO for so long, it can be easy for the board to say, okay, jim's going to be there, jim's going to be there and I can start to paint a picture, you know, of wait a minute, there's going to be a point here and I'll say from my standpoint it's seen that I've got a great team, we've got a great board, we've leaned in and solved some of these things in terms of getting the retirement plan. You know, back on that track like we've talked about, and say this is a good season, then you know to say, someone's up next, there's a lot of things that I haven't been able to accomplish. There's a lot of things that I haven't been able to accomplish, and so what it means is either God doesn't want them accomplished or someone other than Jim has to get it done, because Jim wasn't able to get it done. So it's just time. And now the board needs to look and say, okay, we have to work through a process and we want it to be a good and orderly process and so, again, we just met the last two days.
Speaker 3:This is a topic where the governance committee trying to work through that project plan of okay, you know, we're going to bring in a search firm that does work through the synodical process right, we're not circumventing, but the work with the process and then you start to go through that cadence of okay, you have to have the concurrence with the synodical presence. So being an open conversation with President Harrison, secretary Sias, from the process, making sure that all those steps are being handled. And we're talking about it early in the process, not late in the process, so everybody understands. When would potential interviews go on? When would then a decision be made? And the board has expressed its desire for a one-year overlay. So really that means they need to, you know, be getting their decision here by the end of 2025, which now says, well, wait a minute. That isn't necessarily a lot of time as you look at potentially a six-month process right to find, you know, an executive leader. And once all this stuff comes out, you know there's no secret.
Speaker 3:So I wanted to get that statement out there just so people heard it from me right up front. It was early in the process. It seems like a long time period, but not when you kind of put the one year for that overlap that the board would like to have and you look at the length of a good prudent process. The length of a good prudent process, you know, it kind of worked itself into sort of that almost two-year time period.
Speaker 3:And so now a lot of what I'm doing is just, you know, helping my team to be prepared for, you know, jim not being here, hopefully communicating to you all, you know, the stakeholder community, that this board is taking the search very, very seriously. They, you know, want to make sure that you know, by God's grace and his direction and his wisdom, that they, you know, find a person that he's already identified, who's going to be a leader. He knows who the next leader is. It's their process of discerning his will and all those things going through in a good way. And so again, for you all as stakeholders, as members of the plans, to understand that this board is taking that very seriously and has a very thoughtful, engaging process.
Speaker 1:Well, praying for the process and for that right next leader, working side by side with you for a year. I think that's organizationally wise, especially in a complex ministry like CPS. I think that's very, very good and you'll be a wonderful mentor for he or she. Does it have to be a guy, or could it be a gal? I don't even know what the other rules around. Does it have to be a male? So?
Speaker 3:there's rules, but let's talk about what the rule is yeah. The rule is that my physician must be a member of good standing of an LCMS congregation. Uh, so there's no male, male, female, uh, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, great. Um, yeah, I'll be. I'll be praying about who, who that is and whether there are. I'm sure a lot of people will be kind of curious. Is it someone that?
Speaker 4:you've raised up.
Speaker 1:This is leadership podcast raised up from internal, or is it someone that comes in outside? That's beyond, beyond me, but praying for the board as you go on that discernment, discernment journey. Last question what are you most looking forward to, jim, in your next season of of life and leadership for the church?
Speaker 3:So for life. We are blessed with four incredibly beautiful. I can share pictures, if y'all like grandchildren and I am looking forward to just having space to go fishing and just be there for them to do carpool pickup and, you know, be engaged in their life. We're blessed that. You know my wife watches, you know, all four of them at different times. Oldest is in first grade, you know, so he's not at the house as regular, but to be really engaged in their lives is something important to my wife and I. To be really engaged in their lives is something important to my wife and I.
Speaker 3:I'm trying to seek, you know, guidance. What does God want me to do? How can I continue to serve? I'm not done. I'm retiring, but I'm not done serving. I just don't know what he's looking for. I want well, I don't want to limit what God's going to say to me, but but I I'm hoping that it's going to be more direct with people. You know, working at a high level.
Speaker 3:Sometimes you're detached from people, which is why I'm so excited, you know, when I get to meetings with members and that that that just you know, connect. You know I'm I'm involved in my church, doing my new member class, you know, teaching some Bible studies, and I really enjoy connecting with people who are at a very different, you know, spot in the journey. I'm lifelong, you know Lutheran right, you know born and raised and all that, and it's just humbling and I learn so much from people who you know they're walking and they don't know anything. You know they don't know Jesus, let alone Luther. And in the new member class I have an opportunity to kind of come in beside them and just see different stages of life. I mean, you guys know, so you see this regularly and so you know it could be that there's going to be some opportunities to do some more service there, local congregation or whatever.
Speaker 3:Or you know, what can I do from a leadership standpoint? I do get calls here and there from different people wanting to talk and, you know, maybe there's some coaching, mentoring. You know relationships, you know I'd like to think that I've learned some things and will there be time for me to? You know, pass them on somehow. So you know, pass them on somehow. So, um, you know, pray for me, pray for the discernment, uh, you know me and you, you think, you know, are there opportunities for me to use those gifts, um, while still leaving plenty of time for me to take the grandkids fishing, amen.
Speaker 1:Well, this has been fun, jack. Any closing comments.
Speaker 2:No, I just uh. This is, uh, an area where I'm just extremely grateful and thankful for your leadership with this organization and the proactiveness. I know it's tough, you know, as we're walking through a higher contribution rate for retirement, but I'm so, so thankful that the leadership at CPS is being proactive on this issue and making sure that church workers aren't being left in the lurch. You know, and you know, it's pay now or pay later, and this is one of those abilities where you get to pay earlier and mitigate any of the concerns from forecasts and all that kind of stuff. So I totally get where you're coming from. I'm so happy about your concerns about church worker health. You know, building the bench and keeping the bench in place Right, that's really what it boils down to and I love this, this idea that you have with the connecting with the district. So I look forward to seeing that unfolding.
Speaker 1:Amen. Yes, it's an awesome privilege to call you a friend and partner in the gospel Jim. If people want to connect with you and CPS, how can they do so? Want to connect?
Speaker 3:with you and CPS. How can they do so? Yeah, jimsamft at concordiaplansorg is the best way to still get me until that retirement date at the end of 26. So again, jimsamft, s-a-n-f-t at concordiaplansorg.
Speaker 1:And you are so accessible to anyone. Thank you for modeling accessibility and modeling that responsive nature for the rest of your team, because you guys are doing a wonderful work. So it's a good day. Go make it a great day. Jesus loves you so much and let's focus on moving our bodies, being well and be grateful for all the respective RSOs in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. Praise be to Jesus. Thanks so much, jim. Wonderful work, jack. God bless guys.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 4: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.