Lead Time
Lead Time
Rethinking Ministry: The Power of Co-Vocational Leadership in Church Growth
Pastor Robert Balduc shares his journey from corporate life at Ford to planting St. Peter Lutheran Church and becoming an intentionally co-vocational pastor maintaining his role at Volkswagen alongside ministry leadership.
• Coming from a corporate background before entering seminary and founding St. Peter in 2006
• Transitioning to a co-vocational model not from financial necessity but strategic choice
• Reducing staff expenses to just 22% of church budget, freeing resources for church planting
• Integrating workplace presence with pastoral ministry creates connections with unchurched people
• Focusing pastoral energy on three key areas: casting vision, preaching/teaching, and connecting with new people
• Creating an innovative men's ministry featuring "Beast Feast" events that draw non-church members
• Using masculine language and military metaphors to engage men in church life
• Developing a church multiplication model where growth leads to planting rather than expanding services
• Approaching co-vocational ministry from abundance rather than scarcity mindset
• Recognizing spiritual warfare intensifies during periods of significant ministry expansion
God, doubt, and proof walk into a podcast... it goes better than you’d expect!
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This is Lead Time.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Lead Time, tim Allman, here with Jack Kauberg. Jack, are you enjoying life, dude?
Speaker 3:I am enjoying life.
Speaker 2:It's not boring Life is not boring these days, is it?
Speaker 3:No, we've had a really busy day today. Lots of meetings, Lots of. We had some beautiful conversations with people today Met with some students, met with a really influential lay member of our church here that gave us some really beautiful encouraging words, and so it's been a great day, lovely day.
Speaker 2:It has been.
Speaker 2:It has been, and today is made even more lovely because we get to hang out with Pastor Robert Baldu and let me tell you a little bit about him. He's a pastor, founding pastor, planting pastor at St Peter in North Lake, texas, which is a suburb of Fort Worth, and he planted that church in 2006. He was full-time to start with, but then he became an intentional co-vocational pastor and we're going to hear more of this story. He worked before going to the seminary and graduating from Concordia Seminary in St Louis in 2005, he worked for Ford and since now, 2014, he's worked as a training performance manager at Volkswagen. So this is the one and only Robert Baldu. How are you doing, brother? Good.
Speaker 4:Thank you, real excited to be a part of this. My friend nominated me so I'm going to get him later, but that's okay, ron.
Speaker 2:Bendick if you're watching.
Speaker 4:Shout out to you my man.
Speaker 2:Everybody's got a story to tell, and I'm glad we get to hear yours today. So tell us your ministry story and how you were led to be a co-vocational pastor there, Robert.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I grew up in Detroit. I was baptized Catholic. My mom and dad got divorced when I was two and we didn't go to church. My mom remarried, my dad remarried, my dad remarried a woman who was Missouri Senate, who had three kids from a previous marriage, and I was going to an elementary school a couple blocks from my house and my dad's wife's kids were going to a Lutheran school and in fourth grade this was in the 70s they started to do desegregation and I was going to get bused into downtown Detroit and so my mom and my dad didn't want to see that happen. So not because of racial reasons, because of safety.
Speaker 1:You, know security reasons.
Speaker 4:So my dad said well, why don't you put Robert my mom put Robert in this Lutheran school where my new wife's kids go. So in fourth grade I started going to Lutheran school and, as a result, started going to the Lutheran church. And then in eighth grade confirmation, as the story is often told my pastor pulled me and another boy aside, said you should think about becoming a pastor. So planted the seeds, graduated from Michigan State with a marketing degree. We had a big win last night You've got to watch it on YouTube over Maryland. Last second half-court shot won the game actually.
Speaker 2:No way, that's awesome.
Speaker 4:Three-quarter shot actually, Come on.
Speaker 2:Were they down when the shot was made or was it tied? It was tied. It was tied, yeah, and.
Speaker 4:Scott Van Pelt who's a Maryland grad from ESPN. He was there and he had to report on it afterwards but it was good. So anyway, went to Michigan State, got hired by Ford Motor Company. Out of college got reloaded to Carrollton, texas, became part of Prince of Peace in Carrollton. Steve Wagner learned tremendous amount about ministry from him. In fact he married. I met my wife there at church. He married us and has been a great mentor. We're there six years, had our first son. Then Ford reload us to Atlanta, became part of a church there with Kevin Ellsrold.
Speaker 4:Open Arms was the first open arms church plant in the country, the Dr Scuderi model of starting with daycares with a great room plant churches Learned a lot there. Got involved actually as a layman in preaching and just developing more. And then after four years there got involved actually as a layman in preaching and just developing more. And then after four years there got reload back to headquarters with Ford and was at St Luke's in Ann Arbor Incredible ministry there. But actually as a layman worked with the Michigan district to plant a open arms church plant after I'd just seen it in Georgia with CEF, michigan CEF, and that thing got going and at that point we're looking at calling a pastor and we were getting the magazine to the seminary in St Louis because I think I was serving with the Michigan district.
Speaker 4:And in March of 2002, my wife came to me because we had four little kids. At this point she's a stay-at-home mom and I always said, well, god wants to do something, he'll speak to her. Because he wouldn't call me to something he wasn't calling her to. I just thought I'd work at Ford for 30 years and then maybe do something in the church. But God had other plans. So in March of 02, she brought me the magazine from Concordia, st Louis and at this time about half the men going to seminary we're second career, so the seminary was doing a great job administering the wives and children so the men can do their studies. She's like, hey, they're having this open house, if we're going to do this, let's do this while the kids are little. So ended up going to seminary. Got blown away over that weekend.
Speaker 3:What year was this?
Speaker 4:2002, march of 02. And came away, thought, okay, march of 02, maybe fall of 03, get our ducks in a row, we'll make the move. Well, two weeks back at work I was mentally checked out because I'm kind of an all in all out person. So I went to my boss at Ford and said, hey, I'm going to leave the company after 14 years. And he was like, are you serious? And I'm like, yes, he's like well, I'm glad you told me I'm getting ready to submit a list of names to HR for voluntary separation packages. I'll put your name on the list, which he didn't have to because I'd already told him I was leaving. So got a buyout from Ford, put our house on the market. It sold for full list in two weeks, right before the housing market crashed in Detroit.
Speaker 4:We were at seminary in August of 02, five months later Didn't work. For that time period God provided all the resources, which is a great Hudson Taylor quote. Missionary to China, says God's work done God's way will not lack God's resources. And God provided for us. And I'd been at some great churches and you know you go into a church that's existing and they're not doing anything wrong. But if it doesn't fit your leadership style. There's a lot of pain in trying to affect change and so, as hard as it is to start a church, you start with a clean sheet of paper and that's the beauty of it. So ended up wanting to plant a church and got called back down to Texas and planted St Peter. In September of 06 is when we launched. We were portable for four years in a rec center, set up on Saturday night, tear down after church on Sunday morning before they opened the doors, kind of the wilderness experience tabernacle. And then in 2010, we built our. We bought eight acres, built our first building, started our preschool with four classrooms and I'm and I'm all this is all with me being a fully funded you know pastor at this point. And then in 2012, we planted our first church in grapevine, texas.
Speaker 4:And uh, and then about that time, um, really where, where I was at was I was kind of suffocating in the church bubble. I also wanted to free up resources because we had just gone through that church planting experience and it was. I should have been rejoicing in it. But you know, you kind of get in the scarcity mindset instead of an abundance mindset, especially if your personal financial situation is tied to the church. And then we had those four little kids getting ready to go to college. So I didn't want them to be buried in student debt. So I went to my leadership we have a policy-based governance model and basically I took them to the scriptures which we'll talk about here, I think, in a little bit and just showed them that this is not really. It's an old concept. I mean, it's a new concept, but it's really not.
Speaker 4:And so in 2013, I kind of dusted myself off, went back out into the automotive space and the biggest thing I had to do was to say because I was busy but you know, busyness and effectiveness are two different things I filled my day and I said what are the things that I can only hold on to and I can't release to anybody else? And what I came down to was three things and I said it's casting vision, it's preaching, teaching and it's connecting with new people. Those are the things. Everything else gets offloaded. Now we had full-time staff, dce and full-time administrator and so forth.
Speaker 4:So I did that for a year, because I always think leaders should do something first before they ask other people to do it. So I did it for a year and people were freaking out a little like, well, what about baptisms, what about weddings, what about funerals? And I'm like, look, I'm not sitting in the church with my bad phone and if you've got a smartphone and you're organized, and people began to see there was no effect on my pastoring of the church and in fact, it made me a better preacher and I was living the life they were living and put me out in the real world and connecting with people I never would have connected with. So I did it for a year and then in 2014, we did a staffing strategy shift where we made everybody co-vocational and, of course, you move some people's cheese. That was a little bit rocky, but the end result and we can talk about that here too a little bit incredible benefits.
Speaker 4:And then at that point, we got rid of the office space and we created a fifth preschool classroom. So we monetized the facility for another classroom space. We then planted a church in 2020, and we're getting ready to plant another church this year and at the same time, we're getting ready to build a new 24,000 square foot education building to expand our preschool. But what I'm really excited about is we're starting a K-5 elementary school, because school choice is coming to Texas starting in the 26-27 school year and you guys I'm so jealous of you guys in Arizona because you've had school choice since, like the early 90s, you're in the early 90s.
Speaker 4:Yes, the promised land here, yes, yeah, so. But I really believe that's where the battlefield is now is in the classroom, and the schools really can drive so much in terms of advancing the kingdom of God. And so I planted St Peter. I've been involved now in two, now three, church plants. Planting a school is incredibly harder than planting a church. I'm just going to tell you that much. But it, but I think it's going to be even more powerfully effective for the kingdom. So that's my story, man.
Speaker 2:Wow man, there is so much there. Yeah, I'm so glad you're in the LCMS. A couple, a couple of followup things. You mentioned the Robert Scuderi model of church planting. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And for people that don't know, robert Scuderi not necessarily in open arms, it's now you can correct me but it's like tied to him is like the largest church planting network that we've seen, multiplying movement in the entire world Like this he's like the most. I've listened to him speak. He's kind of like the most unassuming guy, but he's been going on the multiplication journey. So sometimes people say, well, it's impossible for us to raise up X amount of leaders over X amount of years Like this guy. And you can give me the specifics he has thousands of churches that have their origin back to his kind of leadership development. Isn't that right, robert? Tell that story a little bit. It's incredible. He's the godfather.
Speaker 4:He's the godfather, he's Italian, he's the godfather. No, I mean, and you know, I just know him from the open arms piece but, like you said, he wrote so much foundational teaching and theology around mission multiplication foundational teaching and theology around mission multiplication from which was the bedrock to build upon this open arms model, which was really, you know, in some ways it's a high risk deal because you're investing all this money up front to build a building. You got to run it properly to make the money and then you build it with a great room and then you worship in the great room and then you fish for the families that come to the daycare. But you start with the building. And you know what?
Speaker 4:I know people like the concept of house churches and so forth, but the North American, especially the American model of church, is still heavily tied to space and place and you can holler at the moon. All you want and say the church is the person, not the building. Well, you know what? But people still, the reality was when we were portable church for four years, we were in a much better financial position than we were when we built the building. But people felt more secure when we got into a building because they thought, well, you know, the circus could leave town at any moment here. But now we got roots and we've got the foundation.
Speaker 2:So how many churches? I mean, am I right, Thousands of churches?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, no yeah, Like you say, he's the godfather.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, let's be about that, jack. We definitely have potential to launch more schools here. That's definitely in our future.
Speaker 4:That's the next thing, I think is starting schools. That's our vision, yeah, starting schools, yeah, and that's one thing we're actually good at. We're not good at a lot, but we're actually good at that we excel at it.
Speaker 3:It's uh, you know it's. It's interesting if we talk about, you know, um, the uh, was it good to great? And he talks about that triangle, right, the things that you're passionate about, the things that you're best about, the things that can be an economic engine for your ministry like, well, within a typical, you know, lutheranism. We are passionate and really, really good about education. I don't know that. We always leverage that in terms of ministry and it pays, especially if you can get into a state. That's school choice. It has the potential.
Speaker 4:And a lot more potential with the current administration. But I will say that I can say this as a pastor I've always been and I'm not throwing barbs here but I've always been way more impressed with the educators in our church body than with pastors in our church body in terms of their skills, their drive, their leadership, their abilities, because they have to compete, you know, I mean they're competing in a way that in some ways we're not on the church side and I really think I mean the level of talent we have on the education side of personnel wise is amazing to me.
Speaker 3:Savvy business people who also have a personal heart.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And our principal right now shout out to AJ Amling he just came, Don't put him on a list, please. He's very committed, thank you.
Speaker 4:Not you, robert. We're homegrown, we do ours homegrown here.
Speaker 2:Let's do it, let's do it. Well, that is the ideal, praise God. So what would you say to somebody who says this whole co-vocational mumbo jumbo, like the church is meant to have full-time workers, like Paul said, the labor is worthy of his or her hire and so if you're not full-time, package benefits, et cetera, compensating, you're somehow being disobedient to the mission of God. And we've heard this conversation. I don't know. For me it's kind of like everywhere For the church of the grassroots to get going early on Paul Tentmaker, et cetera.
Speaker 2:You can't tell me that in the economic engine of the early church in Corinth, with 50 believers and 150,000 people, that there was a right up front economic model that's going to full time support, benefit support Like this is all. So I'm already answering my question, Robert, I'll let you. But this is all a Western move toward monetizing ministry. Money is not bad and taking care of people is not bad. Like Jack, you and I are full-time supported, but to think that we're somehow more faithful because we're full-time supported by the church than you are, Robert, like this, is ridiculous. I don't know where this argumentation comes from. I don't think it comes from the early church model. So anything more to say on that, Robert?
Speaker 4:Well, I think there's a key word that once you flip the word, it may unlock people's paradigm and mindset. Because this isn't about time, it's not about being a part-time pastor or a full-time pastor. It's like I'm a dad, I'm a husband. I don't measure that based on how much time I spend. Now, obviously you got to spend time and all that, but I'm not a part-time dad or part-time, I'm not a part-time pastor. Replace the word time with funding. That's all this discussion's about. Are you fully funded by your ministry or are you partially funded? But you're the pastor of the church.
Speaker 4:But going to your point about, I mean, I'm not a historian so I'm not sure there are other people. But look at, yeah, paul obviously was a tent maker. We use that example often. And then I did pull, I did have a quote that I pulled from a church father to Tullian around the early third century, where I'm just going to read one moment of it, one piece of it here. He says for we ourselves, besides our attention to the word of the gospel, do not neglect our inferior employments, for some of us are fishermen, tent makers and farmers, so that we may never be idle. So I mean, the history of this was in the early church until Constantine. You know, early fourth century stopped the persecution of the church, which was good, and then at the end of the fourth century really made Christianity the state religion of Rome. And that's probably when the professional clergy really started to take root and what happened was a separating of sacred and secular, which Luther tried to kind of bring back together in the Reformation priesthood of all believers. Right, but he couldn't close the Grand Canyon gap that had been now in place for a thousand years.
Speaker 4:But really it's just coming back to this and I think there's some pitfalls. And again to your point, workers worth their wage. So everyone's got to do. But I think this is going to become more the norm for a lot of reasons, especially in our church body. The latest stats I looked at we've got about 5,800 congregations in our church body. 11% of those right now are classified with part-time pastors. We know the other stats 75% of the churches worship less than 100, 50% of the churches worship less than 50. If you're worshiping 50 people and you're expecting a fully funded Concordia plan benefit at six figure plus, I mean I don't know, unless you got really rich people, I don't know how that's. So this is going to happen regardless. It's happening and the key with vision is being able you can't see everything, but if you're a leader and vision's seeing a little bit further out than everyone else, so that you can proactively, in a very calm, deliberative manner, make the moves before the moves have to be made, because now you're in crisis mode and the February Lutheran Witness just came out this is so timely about small congregations and one of the brothers wrote an article and I'm not disparaging him, but he talked about he called it bivocational ministry, but I like the word co-vocational for several reasons.
Speaker 4:In fact, I am co-vocational because I'm Volkswagen, I'm pastor at St Peter and I'm also a stipend mission strategist for Church Extension Fund in Texas, so I'm actually doing three things. But he wrote in there a very nice article and I appreciate it and he tried to frame it in the end of his article about you know what God can bless this? It's a cross you carry. But I just felt like the mindset of it was this is a it's kind of a sad reality that we just need to do versus like in my case, my church could afford me. We were not under any financial stress at all. The church absolutely could afford me.
Speaker 4:This was an intentional decision for expanding ministry and I think there's pitfalls and I was falling into some of these. I think there's some pitfalls in professional ministry when you're in there, I think. First is martyrdom mindset, I think, where we think our job is harder than anyone else's. Well, I'm sorry If someone's a border agent, I think their job's a little bit. I'm not worried about getting killed every day, you know.
Speaker 4:And again, you know, I think there's a martyr. I think we get kind of a woe is me attitude and my job's harder? And then what happens is there's a shift where now the sheep are taking care of the shepherd more than the shepherd's taking care of the ship. And again, pastors should be honored, pastors should be cared for. So let's have a complex conversation, not a simplistic one here. But people fall into that trap of martyrdom mindset and I think also you can get compromised If you. You know, if Jack's the biggest giver in my church and I got to have a law conversation with him, but I don't really want him to leave the church because that could impact.
Speaker 3:I just have to add here I met a pastor at the BPM who was he had a successful business and so he took no money at all whatsoever from his ministry, and actually what that meant is a large amount of that money was being given away to impact the community, and he said this is so freeing.
Speaker 4:It is freeing it's freedom. I don't need.
Speaker 3:I don't have to worry about a paycheck dictating any of my decisions as a pastor and how I'm pastoring people. Right, it was. It was fascinating.
Speaker 4:Yeah, carla and I are one of the biggest giving families in our church and we're not at 100% yet in terms of. I mean, I do draw a partial salary, but our giving covers about 80% of what I'm receiving right now and our goal is to cover 100% of it. But I also think it just gets to, you know, when you're full time and you're in the boat of that, that you rise or fall with the finances of the church. I think that you can get a financial focus, cause the reality is, if you can't take care of your own family, you know you're you're going to be focused there, which you rightly should, more so than the family of God. So I think there's some pitfalls and this frees you from all of those things.
Speaker 4:You know, I read a stat that said that staff expense should a guide would be, maybe if you're at 50% of your budget. So now maybe it's higher or lower, I don't know, and then maybe you have 35% debt that you got, and then the other 15% is mission and ministry At St Peter. Right now we're at our staff expense. Uh, and I'd encourage the people listening to the podcast go back and do the numbers for your own church, you know, but, um, we're at 22%. Our staff expense is 22% of our budget, which means we can plant with with joy. We can plant churches, which means investing people, which means offerings are going out the door. But if you're going to plant churches, you got to have mature Christians to do that. You can't do it with people that are flaky, and so you know it is freeing, and I think this is going to be an inevitability. And what it also does is, besides having that abundance mindset, it also opens up incredible doors for staff selection, and what I mean by that is I may have a really gifted lay person who can't, it's not going to leave their job to do something at the church. But if I say, hey, I've created a position that's 10 hours a week, maybe they can do that, and you stipend them and, plus, they're going to stick because you know what, if you're a called worker let's face it there's more open, there's supply and demand here, and you know what, if your principal Tim you heard his feelings or something and he knows he's talented and he knows the grass can be greener elsewhere, he can put his name on a call list. I mean, I'm just getting real here about, let's just be real about all this stuff.
Speaker 4:And then priesthood of all believers which we espouse this really encourages that no one can tell me they're too busy, you know and we get greater engagement of laity, I think, through this. And actually we had a man, his wife came, we baptized him, but one of the things he shared with me when he found out I was co-vocational, he, he, he came from a big box church and and, uh, and he really saw the church as a big business and then when he found out I was co-vocational, it really lowered his defenses because he was like, oh okay, it's not a it's. I mean, it is a business, but you know he was wrapped up in that mindset of the money and that's all it's about and so forth. So you know there's a lot of benefits proactive benefits to being co-vocational and again, we can do both. I mean there's callings for both. But I think more and more of our churches are going to seriously need to look at co-vocational based upon just the numbers upon just the numbers.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so yeah, let's go down this path To come at this from a place of abundance rather than scarcity, from a place of opportunity rather than loss. And I'm not trying to put words in your mouth and I haven't read the article, but I would from the Lutheran Witness, but I would from the Lutheran Witness and I will read it. But was it from your perspective framed and kind of it's just, it's a hard day to be the church and we're just walking through a lot of these difficult things, and I guess we got to do what we got to do, you know, and rather than no, this is a great opportunity for us to identify men who are out in their community, who have established themselves, who are great leaders, who are elders, and let's find ways to raise them up into pastoral ministry. That seems like a very reasonable, hope-filled thing to do. And then you get away from the loyalty. You get the loyalty struggles or the martyrdom mindset, or the extra. Oh my gosh, we got to do everything because, nah, they're there, they understand the times, and we can start with the 30 to 40 to 50 people and grow from there.
Speaker 2:He's going to need some theological training, to be sure, but he's in, this guy is all in, and I don't know right now that we're recognizing the amazing opportunity. Right now, at least, in the formation space, I think we're struggling to see this as not a major gap but a major opportunity. I don't know how else to look at it, because our God is a God of abundance, not fear and control. He wants to release us, to see things in a new way. So anything more to add there, robert?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, again in the article it kind of creates, it tells a fictional story about the pastor's meeting with his board of elders church council. They're going through the budget and then the sad reality is like we're not going to make it next year and then the pastor says, well, maybe I'll have to get another job. I mean it's a defeatist. And again the author really brings it to the end about that's a cross and it can still be meaningful and a blessing, but it kind of is a defeatist attitude. You know, like this is a. This isn't the norm, this, in fact I'm.
Speaker 4:I'm going to be talking with the Hispanic church planters in Texas through the district later this year because a lot of them have that same mindset Like well, I've got to be fully funded. You know it's like no, no, you don't have to be fully funded. In fact you really it's not gonna be healthy for you to be fully funded and so but but to seminary, and they're like, well, yeah, robert, but you were second career. I'm like, okay, time out. You're educated, presumably you have emotional intelligence, presumably you're a good communicator. You're telling me you can't monetize that.
Speaker 4:I'm not even saying co-vocational doesn't mean you have to get a full-time corporate job like what I have. You could go deliver pizzas 20 hours a week, I don't know. But you get something else. There's a family in our church that's in our church because he's a colleague of mine at Volkswagen. It's like you going out co-vocational in that sphere isn't like somehow you're not doing ministry. It gives you a greater platform to do ministry and it also financially brings a lot of benefit to you and to the church as well, and bringing the sacred and the secular back together is what we're really talking about here.
Speaker 3:How many pastors actually have a network of people that they know that are unbelievers and unchurched?
Speaker 4:right I mean, and it's not because people don't have a network of people that they know that are unbelievers and unchurched.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean, and it's not because people don't have a heart for that, it's just you get caught up in the bubble. You're in the office, you're doing visitations, right, so you know what you're not doing is you're not visiting with unbelievers.
Speaker 4:And I think it's really made me a better preacher. It's made me a sharper preacher, a better preacher, a more believable preacher, because I'm sharing the stories, I'm living the life. This isn't theory, so there's so many benefits to it. And co-vocational doesn't again mean you have to go out and get a full-time corporate job. It just means you go do something else, though, and you monetize that. But you're also talking with different group of people than you were before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean. This points out how important really it is to equip the priesthood of all believers. Even in a context where, hey, we're committed, we're going to have full-time pastors here, well, you know people that they don't know, and in order for this church to be effective, this church has to leverage the relationships that you have. Every single person, every single believer who comes to church has relationships with people outside the church and we have to be equipping the membership to really be entering into authentic faith conversations that invite people to come and know Jesus.
Speaker 4:And again, I would just strike the word time from the. It's not time, it's not full-time, part-time, it's just fully funded or partially funded.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, another way to think about it is that seems to unlock people's brains a little bit. Yeah, another way to think about it is you're a pastor going into a workplace and bringing that pastoring with you.
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh, yeah, and I mean everyone in Volkswagen knew I was a pastor. You know they didn't treat me weird. You know they just talk with me and you know we, you know it's, it was, it was, it was eyeopening, it was, it was awesome. It's been awesome Well.
Speaker 2:I just have one question Does Volkswagen have a job for me here in Gilbert Cause?
Speaker 1:maybe well, you know, it's's funny.
Speaker 4:You know what's funny, tim is? I pastor a Lutheran church, a German church, and I work for a German automaker and I'm not even German.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, very German. That's so good. Anyhow, let's shift. You guys are known a lot for your men's ministry. Tell us about what God's doing in your men's ministry, I know, and it really piggybacks because you get to identify men and call them up as the priesthood in their respective vocations. But how are you guys doing that in creative ways to reach men?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, look at, everyone has the men's breakfast and you know, whatever it's evening events and so forth we call our men's ministry gatekeepers. You know you're standing in the gate, you're guarding that Satan's got to come through you to get to your family, your church family, your community, so forth. So you know we use that kind of the masculine. But I would say the one thing I'd share with you is you know, a lot of churches will have a men's dinner, steak dinner night or whatever. And we started out, I seen that at churches we would do it, we'd have an event, we'd pay for a big name speaker to come in and we'd all steak. Now, one of the things we do at our church, we do brew beer and we do have a tap wall in our barn, love it. So there's a little bit more going on for us. But what I saw with that model is and I saw at churches where their men's dinner, their big once a year event, it would kind of it would go this and then it would kind of and I'm all about sustainability Like what I want to do things that are sustainable. I don't want to do things that we can't continue. You know, now we are into birth and bury and all that. What we learned was don't make the event about the speaker. You're going to get a good speaker, but find a local speaker. Find someone who's a local, like a high school football coach or someone in the military or in law enforcement or an entrepreneur or restaurateur. Have them come and they'll do a talk and share their life experience and some principles, and then it's not a sermon. Then you can come underneath that. But what you make it about is men connecting together. That's the draw is men, because men isolate so much. And you know, we got the music going, we got funny commercial, we got sports going on. It's like a big sports bar Got, you know, a pig roast beforehand shrimp oil. Then we bar got a pig roast beforehand shrimp oil, then we'll do the steaks and it's just high energy. And the other key is that don't go hand-to-hand combat. Don't sell individual tickets. Get your guys to buy a table, a table of six, table of eight, and they can go in with some of the other guys at church, say, look, this is an invite event, hey, you want to eat, you want to drink, you're going to hear a good message, and then have them fill their table with people outside the church. So now you're selling tables, you're not selling seats. And to me, the two big things, if you're looking at doing a men's event once a year or you have one, the two big things is don't make it about the speaker, don't spend all that extra money. Make it about the camaraderie. Find some local talent, like this coming beast. We call it Beast Feast. It's coming up always last Friday in April because Easter can't be any later than that. We got a guy this year who is a retired DEA border agent who's going to be speaking about fentanyl and all that's come across the border. And I mean so we've done again. You find a local person but then you make it and sell the tables.
Speaker 4:Those are the two big insights I can give on, you know, on men's ministry. And then we talk a lot about church militant and within the church. You know I've read about this, the feminization of the church, and you know we're not here to be cavemen, we're not putting camo and a deer's head on the altar, but what I've read at least is that women are comfortable in masculine or feminine environments. I mean, whether they go into Home Depot or Bed, bath and Beyond. Men do not do well in feminine environments and the church has in some ways. You can just look at your architecture, look at what you got hanging around, look at the songs that are being selected, and thankfully, the songs. I think contemporary music's gotten better, but if you can replace the name Jesus with a girl and then song makes total sense. You know, singing love songs, singing love songs to another dude, is not something that men are comfortable. So language and so you kind of want to create that masculine environment.
Speaker 4:And we talk about deploying. You know that the church is like a forward operating base. It's not a hospital, because the hospital is too limiting of a metaphor, you know, because then it's just dealing with brokenness and weeping and hey, you got to get, you get hurt, you get healed. But a forward operating base and, jack, you speak more of this to me because you're in the military but like, like a forward operating base, it's like you're right outside the battle lines, you're right out, you're in enemy territory and while there is a hospital, there's a mess hall, there's training, but the whole point is then you get deployed out onto the battlefield and I think that's the more holistic, comprehensive way to look at the church. We're the church militant and I talk a lot about the spiritual battlefield.
Speaker 4:You got to talk a lot about Satan, especially like during COVID. I said guys, this is a spiritual attack first and foremost. What is it? Satan is pouring insecurity or fear into people about this virus. He's also isolating people and then he's creating idolatry. Go to the government. The government can save you, and so we can't engage on the battlefield if we don't first understand the schemes of Satan and looking at things in that lens. So we talk a lot about that and you know, let's face it, adam was the first passive male. Right he's standing right next to Eve. He didn't protect his wife. God gave the command to Adam, not to Eve. Satan went to the weak link and Adam just sat by.
Speaker 4:I always say every church I'm sure your church is the same You've got more women and children in your church than you do. So then you say, well, why is that? Are men less spiritual? Well, look at the religion of Islam. Which gender dominates that? Because Satan knows if the men coalesce, the church becomes even stronger, and so he's trying to keep men on the sideline. That's kind of been our mindset all along, about men.
Speaker 4:If you get the man. Here's the thing If you get the man, you get the whole family. How often do you see a dad and his kids at church without the mom? Hardly ever. How often do you see the mom and the kids at church without the dad? But see, satan also knows that same thing. If you get the man, you get the whole family, because at some point the mom gets tired, worn out, she can't keep getting the kids. The kids are going. Why don't dad go? I don't want to go, dad, I mean. So we got to raise up these men. And you know I know you're going to talk to me a little about this too, maybe but I think men are needing community because men isolate. Men need to connect with another man. So many men don't even have a buddy, you know, and when men isolate, they get themselves in trouble in a lot of ways, and with social media it's even escalated.
Speaker 4:Yes, right, that's not community. I mean we're incarnational, like we stream our services but we celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday. I tell people, the stream thing is not church really, it's you got to be here, plus, you're going to see people, people are going to see you. You take the Lord's Supper.
Speaker 4:I think also, men we're all posing. Men lack confidence in their identity and their worth and their value and their posing, and what that does is it makes them passive and it sidelines them because they don't feel like they can step out onto the battlefield. And I think what men really need is to be challenged. That's what gets their juices flowing. I mean, you know, like being on a sports team or being in the military, it's that band of brothers and then men lose that. So I think, going on that faith adventure and being challenged in their callings of life, you know men like that here's the thing. Does Jesus want a personal relationship with each person? Of course he does the vine and the branches, but he doesn't say in the gospels Of course he does the vine and the branches, but he doesn't say in the Gospels hey, peter, come have a personal relationship with me. A guy is going to be like I want a personal relationship with another dude. But Jesus, he doesn't say that he uses masculine language. He says come follow me, yeah.
Speaker 3:That's masculine, that's what we say in the military follow me right. That's a soldierly term right now.
Speaker 4:Right and, as a dude, I'm only going to follow someone who I perceive is stronger than me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, and look at who runs most Sunday school programs, which we don't even have Sunday school anymore, but it's generally women, which that's fine. So these publishers, they create these curriculums to sell to these people who are making the buy decision. And so Jesus turns into this camp counselor. You know that's not who he is. You know he's the. He's the, the most masculine man that ever walked the earth. So I think now you know, and then of course the culture went down, toxic masculinity and it's kind of coming back. So back, and when a man's really living out their role, I mean women love it, and so I think those are just some of the insights. As you're thinking about your own men's ministry, how you're calling men not to be broken and crying and all that, I mean that's a part, but ultimately, hey, now we got to go.
Speaker 2:Robert, I love it. Trey Cox, Dr Trey Cox calling Trey Cox. I need a beast feast now, let's bring.
Speaker 3:And a beer tap. I want a beer tap, oh my gosh, in the Life Center right over there.
Speaker 4:And we probably so. Our guys get tables right over there and we probably so we get with our, so our guys get tables. We have. We have way. Probably 70 of the guys there don't even go to our church and a lot of guys don't even go to church and they come and their minds blown because they're like, oh, this is what I thought church was could be right, yeah, and it looks and this is what christian community looks like like the greatest. The best way to live your life is following jesus.
Speaker 2:It's the most fulfilling way, it's a fun way you know and we got, yeah, no, we got to what you want.
Speaker 4:to finish the thought no, we got to portray it that way. We got to invite people into that experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, jack, I was curious. Do you know our male to female demographic day? I think we're pretty. I mean, I'm just doing the eye test on a respective Sunday. Now the thing that's complicated is we are a multi-generational church and we have a lot of widows right now in our traditional service and so traditional may skew slightly more female for that reason and maybe others, but I think our contemporary or modern worship service is pretty down the middle and you can always do things to get better. But I think there's a revitalization of men's ministry taking place right now across America and hopefully in our LCMS congregations.
Speaker 4:Anything more to say about yeah, not to interrupt you but the young men? Yeah, but young men in particular are gravitating to the more liturgical churches because they want something ancient, they want something that's rooted. They don't want this show, they want something that's mysterious, which goes right to our wheelhouse. And you're beginning to see that that men are wanting to gravitate towards something of substance.
Speaker 2:Amen. How is men's ministry evolving, though? What are some other things you talk about? You do a one is that once a year kind of gathering for the big event once a year, once a?
Speaker 4:year and then we'll, then we'll have a gatekeeper. We'll have gatekeeper gatherings, usually in the evening, like a Monday night, Like we'll. We'll look around football season too, but because we'll put the game on after but we'll cook it's. You know it's a much smaller gathering, it's not the big event, and then we'll do time. We'll do time in the word. We'll have some beers, we'll eat and we'll do that. You know the men's breakfast as well, but also just again in worship that we're really thinking about. You know the language and the environment that we're creating for men to feel comfortable being in service.
Speaker 2:Well, say more about that. What are you doing in your worship space to make it more inviting to men?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So again, I think the music selections are important and we have a band, you know, and so we now we'll rework hyns too and then we use contemporary music. So you know, thinking about thinking about the song selection. You know, at the end of service, of course, we say deploy advance, and then the congregation says serve the Lord. You know talking about in the messages.
Speaker 4:You know you can pretty much talk every Sunday about how Satan's at work in some form or fashion and the spiritual battle. We talk a lot about the spiritual battlefield and one of the things we talk about in that respect is, I always say look, if you're at a resort with your buddy sitting by the pool drinking a Mai Tai and he keels over, you're going to be shocked, saddened, but shocked. Now, if me and Jack are in Afghanistan taking incoming and Jack gets clipped, I'm going to be sad, but I'm not going to be shocked because I know my environment and what the devil does is he tries to frame your understanding of where you're at as this should be a resort. And so then, when something bad happens in your life, blame God. Right, god's not taking care of you, god's not watching over you. But I mean, the church has always said we're the church militant. I mean, that is the definition of who we are. Right now we're on the battlefield and so we should expect the attacks.
Speaker 4:Storming the gates of hell. Yes, right, we're on the offense. We're on the offense, though Gates are stationary. We're storming the gates under the leadership of Jesus. We're the ones depopulating hell, we're the ones taking ground. So I think you know my, my degrees in marketing. I think words matter. Like we never use the word need in church. God doesn't need anything. Now, maybe you now use the word need and like you need to do because for your own soul. But you know it's opportunities. But we always, we never talk about like. Like when we do a men's or a women's event, we don't say it's a men's retreat.
Speaker 4:No, you never I always say I always say it's. I always say it's a men, I always say it's a men's advance.
Speaker 3:There you go.
Speaker 4:We're always. We're always advancing, we're always advancing, we're always taking ground. Of course, the greatest way to do that, I think, is in church planting or school planting or ministry multiplication, because you're taking ground, you're establishing a new beachhead, a new demarcation of where the church is now present. And so using that advanced language, not retreat, and so, yeah, using those military metaphors really resonates with people.
Speaker 2:Robert, I love your passion. I would love that I am in. I want to be a part of your church man. This is so good, you're going to be fired up.
Speaker 3:You don't want to be part of my church.
Speaker 4:trust me, we got all the other stuff too that's present in church. Trust me, oh dude.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk a little bit more about spiritual warfare and maybe how Satan is coming after Maybe we'll kind of close it with this how Satan is coming after individual leaders. I didn't put this on the question sheet.
Speaker 4:Sorry about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fine, but how Satan is coming to individual leaders and then how Satan is coming at us kind of as a church body, because we got room for growth in both individually and collectively, I think, in our beloved church body. So anything personally, like what leaders should be aware of who are in the trenches and I hear you going back to your co-vocational conversation I don't have any kind of shame because I'm full time I think you should be open. You should be open Like what does the church need in this season? That's all I hear you saying. And there could be multiple ways for us to go about advancing the gospel, and co-vocational pastorship and just leadership in general could be one of those ways that we could explore so that we have and this is what I'm taking from it so that we have more resources to create other beachheads, to create other ministries, right.
Speaker 4:That's right here, or the church is closed, which is what's happening Churches are just closing.
Speaker 2:So if 50%.
Speaker 4:If we have 11% of our churches now with part-time I'm using their language part-time pastors and we have 50% of our churches with worshiping 50 or less and declining, I mean I could easily argue we should have 50% co-vocational pastors out there at a minimum. But the problem is, if you go to seminary, your mindset and what you've been told is you should expect when you get out you're going to get a fully funded Concordia plant. I mean for me to call a guy at seminary and say, hey, you're going to be co-vocational. That's why you got to raise guys up in your culture, because you can't.
Speaker 3:You can pick and choose Exactly.
Speaker 4:Supply and demand.
Speaker 3:So I just have to unpack this here, because if we had a system that opened that up, that somebody local let's say it's a small church with 30 people in it hey, one of you guys could be called to be the pastor and we've got a system in place to train you and you're not going to have to move and it's affordable and, yeah, you're going to end up pastoring a tiny little church and you may have to continue to work. A lot of guys would do that. A lot of guys would do that because a community of 25 people is not an intimidating ask on top of what they're already doing, even if there's like, especially if they're an established leader in the community and some of those are going to blow up, some of those in a really good way, meaning because there's somebody there taking leadership, doing word and sacrament, bringing people in the community, because it's staffed. We may see some of those grow and revitalize and become larger churches again, but right now that opportunity is not happening.
Speaker 4:And I appreciate you guys have not once asked me like, okay, well, how big a church you know, cause sometimes we're like, well, yeah, but how many people are you worshiping? So you know, pre-covid we were worshiping over 200 and we planted a church. That of course your numbers go down. Post-covid we're at about 160. Right now we're getting ready to plant another church and people go, but the numbers are irrelevant in terms of whether I preach to 10 people or 1,000 people. It's the same amount of effort you're putting into the ministry. Right, and casting vision is casting vision Connecting with new people. Of course more people come in that, but we've just you know we've got.
Speaker 4:If you look at the back of our bulletin, we probably got about 15 people listed as staff. Some of those don't receive anything, some receive stipends, but all of their positions have been instead of having it this wide. You know they're specialists, not generalists, which means that if they leave I don't have as big a hole to fill and it's easier to find people to plug and play. In those ways I got bigger audience to recruit and I'd rather do it from within my church, because they already have the DNA and the culture. Let's face it you interview all you want, but it's a crap shoot bringing someone in from the outside. You're never going to hit 100% 1000% in HR.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. I mean so often in conversations with. We get in these conversations quite a bit with people that are reaching out to us right To have a model that says you can raise up every different leader and you can build a team, but so often it goes to money. But so often it goes to money. It goes to money Like I don't have. Like there are people on your team that want to be in the trenches helping with spiritual care, ministry, with leadership development, with strategy, all that kind of stuff. Like Jack, if we actually put all of our like coaches and leaders and people like our staff page would be you know way down, because we're a leadership development.
Speaker 2:About 85 volunteer leaders 85 people would be on that list, right. Maybe we should put that that's our staff right.
Speaker 4:When you have the professional, it's tough. What I say for staff is that staff is not about being funded, it's about the level of accountability. If I say you're a staff person and you accept that role, that means I'm holding you accountable in a way that I'm not going to hold you accountable if you're not on staff. It's about ownership, right? Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2:And commitment. How amazing if we had this mindset for the congregation worshiping 50 people with a part funded. I love that. I'm going to change my language. Yeah, no time.
Speaker 4:Don't use time. Time is irrelevant. You could be spending eight hours, in fact, like when I manage people at Volkswagenkswagen. If they, if they tell me, oh my gosh, I had to work 80 hours this last week, like they're thinking, like they're kissing up to me like it's a badge of honor. All I'm thinking is, you don't know how to do your job. Yeah, because you're just, you're just, you're just. You're just shooting at everything, hoping you hit some, hit the target somewhere. You know, I'd rather you tell me I spent 20 hours this week working. I don't don't people confuse activity with results. Yeah, it's not about activity, it's about results. That's all it is.
Speaker 2:Now you're speaking like one of those corporate mumbo jumbo leaders Results.
Speaker 4:First article. First article truth, right, yeah Well that's it.
Speaker 2:And Jesus was after results. He's still after results. He's still after results. And churches need to be more accountable toward reaching people and multiplying ministries. I love in your story because, yeah, who cares how big churches are, it really doesn't matter but that you had that mindset hey, we get to 150, 200, 250, whatever we're launching, we're sending, we got to go New things, reach new people. Is that kind of in the DNA? Yes, so when?
Speaker 4:we planted the church in 06, you know you're just looking for bodies you got to have critical mass, just if you can fog a mirror, I want you. So we had. We came out of a church, a great church, great planting church, in Hearst, texas, peace Lutheran and I took a core group out of there. We planted St Peter. So we started with two services. We had our traditional music and then our contemporary, and it was so often. And then we got in the building so often happens.
Speaker 4:You know, the later service was more highly attended for various reasons, and we just weren't doing the first service that well. And so we made a decision that we were going to unplug the first service and we were going to go to one service. And that was a big decision because even though the attendance was smaller, the giving was disproportionately greater coming out of the first service, and we knew there were other churches in the area could do this a lot better. And so we, hey, we want you to go somewhere. So we took a little bit of a step back when we did that. But since we've gone to one worship service, the unity of our church has gone off the charts, because I believe worship is what creates the unity. And we can't create the unity, but we can defend it and we can guard it.
Speaker 4:And I think I grew up in the eight, nine, 30, 11 o'clock model. I mean all this. And again, I'm not here judging or despairing. I think you're kind of setting yourself up a little bit for division, because if you have three services, you got three churches with different values and different focuses and you could be going to the same church 20 years and if you never go to another service, you wouldn't know if that person was new or not. So what we've done to your question, tim, is we have committed to we're only doing one worship service and when we outgrow our space which we could probably get up, we have a 300 seat worship center right now. Now this new building will have a gym so we could migrate there. But all we're going to do is, when we get where we can't do more than one service and we can only do one service, we're going to multiply. We're just going to plant. That's our and we've said that we're just going to keep planting churches.
Speaker 2:That's our, and we've said that we're just going to keep planting churches, new churches, yep. And how are you raising up leaders for those plants?
Speaker 4:Well, thankfully, we've got a great church planter in our area, travis Harchin. Oh yeah, travis is great and he has planted three churches in 10 years and we've partnered with him. We did bring a vicar in 2012, john David Mull and he lived with us for a year and then took a core group out to Grapevine. But it's a combination of either raising up guys within our own church or if someone's in the area that we can support, and then we freely say, hey, if God taps you on the shoulder, you need to go, which is hard in the flesh to do that, but you can't out give God and it's a great experience to try to do that.
Speaker 2:Hey Robert, what a joy to get to meet you. This has been so much fun and challenging.
Speaker 4:I will say one thing real quick, I will wrap in here.
Speaker 4:Tim, you asked about the spiritual battlefield. Here's the thing Satan is not God. He doesn't have unlimited resources, doesn't have unlimited ammo, so he's going to wait until the opportune time to set the trap. So when I always tell new ministry leaders, don't be surprised if you get attacked now because you've stepped up on the battlefield in a greater way, but as a ministry for the ministry leaders who are listening to this, as you're preparing for something big in your ministry, like planning a church or like us building a building too, that's when the attack's going to happen. Just know it.
Speaker 4:And in the 18 years I've been doing this, it's like clockwork. Whenever we're getting ready to plan a church or we're getting ready to build a building or do something significant, an attack happens. But then the good news is Satan can't I mean he, he can't sustain it indefinitely. He runs out of ammo. Then he'll regroup and then he'll figure out another way of attacking. But but to me now, obviously, if you're being attacked because you're being stupid and sinful, that's one thing. But I always tell people to being attacks a badge of honor, that means you're doing something that Satan is taking notice of and it's messing with his kingdom notice of and it's messing with his kingdom, and all that does is drive you closer to Christ. All that does is drive you closer to Christ, so it all backfires on them.
Speaker 2:That's it. If people want to follow you, Robert, how can they do so?
Speaker 4:I'm not on any social media so I am completely off the grid, but my email rbalduc B-A-L-D-U-C at stpeterfworg. I love it or yeah.
Speaker 2:This has been an invigorating conversation today. We pray you found a lot of value. If you did, please comment like subscribe and all of that. That really helps get the word out. Jack, any kind of closing comments on the chat today with our brother Robert? It's been great.
Speaker 3:No, I love this approach and it's been a fascinating conversation talking about what's possible when we open our minds and don't think too narrowly about what it would look like to fund people in ministry, and think about what it looks like to plant people in ministry and actually give resource allocation for that. So we need this type of innovative thinking. I'm really thankful for you, robert. Amen.
Speaker 2:Amen, it's a good day. Go make it a good day. What?
Speaker 4:you're doing too training up for ministry in alternate ways, and it's going to take root, in fact. Tim, I'll just share real quick. I nominated you for the Guido Merkens Award at BPM, but you didn't get it, so I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:You know, the funny thing is about that award. I've been going to best practices since I was a pastor in Colorado and the first year that that award came out I won it about 14 years ago.
Speaker 4:Oh well, that's why you didn't. I nominated you this year, that's why you already won.
Speaker 2:So well, I don't, geez, who cares? Winning an award in ministry is like, yeah, it's kind of, it's kind of sad. People should be honored and thank you for that, that's very kind. But yeah, that's probably one of the reasons why and that was for actually the table which is still going in Colorado. I'm really grateful for that, and La Mesa is its kind of sister ministry partner down here in Phoenix. But man, so much life has occurred since since the Guido Merkin experience, uh, but that's, that's, I think. Uh, who did win it this year? It?
Speaker 4:was a songwriter Someone. Yeah, yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 3:Yeah, kip Fox.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for his songwriter stuff. So yeah, shout out to Kip Fox in the Following them and the new, wonderful Lutheran biblical new songs that are being written. You're really missing out. It's the Songwriter Initiative. And why am I doing a blank on the name of the group? If you look on where you get the songs at, jack, don't you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know I'm drawing a blank on the name too, but it's all stationed out of Concordia, irvine, where they're doing that work. Come on, man. Well, this is going to.
Speaker 2:This is going to I don't know. Well, it's called. It's called the Songwriters Initiative.
Speaker 3:Songwriters.
Speaker 2:Initiative. I don't know why. There's so many different acronyms, the WALL-E like worship arts, so sometimes I get it. Yeah, it's a good day. I pray. The joy of Jesus is your strength as we're bumbling to the finish line. But you were not bumbling at all, robert. It was fantastic. Thanks for blessing our listeners and we'll be back next week with another episode of Lead Time. Thanks so much, jack. Wonderful work, robert.
Speaker 1: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.