Prepare to embark on a transformative exploration of the heart and soul within the realm of faith. The latest episode of the American Reformation Podcast features Doyle Theimer, an associate pastor with a quarter-century of dedicated service, who brings to light the indispensable role of emotional engagement in the church. Our conversation traverses the rich tapestry of Christianity—where intellect meets passion, and where the personal relationship with Jesus as our mediator deeply influences how we live and minister to others.
This session promises an insightful intersection between the science of emotional intelligence and the theology of faith. As we unravel the complexities of mirroring emotions and healthy attachments, you'll discover how these elements are reflective of God's design for us and are essential for leaders striving to forge genuine connections within their communities. The Apostle Paul's teachings on suffering, perseverance, and hope are carefully examined, emphasizing the vital tether we must maintain to Jesus to navigate the storms of life.
Concluding this deeply enriching dialogue, we scrutinize the intertwined nature of spiritual growth and emotional maturity. Understanding that our development in one is often capped by our capacity in the other, Doyle and I share practical steps church leaders can take to fuse emotional health with spiritual guidance. By utilizing models like Townsend's and the Life Model, we delve into strategies that can reinforce family bonds and revitalize church dynamics. As we close, we inspire church leaders to embrace innovation and adaptability, ensuring that the Spirit's fruit thrives on a foundation that is firmly rooted in the love of Christ.
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Prepare to embark on a transformative exploration of the heart and soul within the realm of faith. The latest episode of the American Reformation Podcast features Doyle Theimer, an associate pastor with a quarter-century of dedicated service, who brings to light the indispensable role of emotional engagement in the church. Our conversation traverses the rich tapestry of Christianity—where intellect meets passion, and where the personal relationship with Jesus as our mediator deeply influences how we live and minister to others.
This session promises an insightful intersection between the science of emotional intelligence and the theology of faith. As we unravel the complexities of mirroring emotions and healthy attachments, you'll discover how these elements are reflective of God's design for us and are essential for leaders striving to forge genuine connections within their communities. The Apostle Paul's teachings on suffering, perseverance, and hope are carefully examined, emphasizing the vital tether we must maintain to Jesus to navigate the storms of life.
Concluding this deeply enriching dialogue, we scrutinize the intertwined nature of spiritual growth and emotional maturity. Understanding that our development in one is often capped by our capacity in the other, Doyle and I share practical steps church leaders can take to fuse emotional health with spiritual guidance. By utilizing models like Townsend's and the Life Model, we delve into strategies that can reinforce family bonds and revitalize church dynamics. As we close, we inspire church leaders to embrace innovation and adaptability, ensuring that the Spirit's fruit thrives on a foundation that is firmly rooted in the love of Christ.
JOIN OUR NEW ONLINE LEARNING PLATFORM!
ENTER CODE - 75ULC2023 for 75% off!
Hello and welcome to the brand new American Reformation Podcast. We long to see the wider American Christian Church fall more in love with Jesus by learning from the practices of the early church and other eras of discipleship multiplication. We want to hear from you, make sure you comment and leave a review, wherever you're watching or listening, to tell us what God is doing in your life or how you feel about today's conversation. Lord, have your way in us. Let's dive in.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the American Reformation Podcast, tim Allman. Here. I pray that Jesus is filling your heart with immense joy. A lot of our podcasts recently on American Reformation have been talking about the necessity for the church having a role in caring for the whole individual and for us. Not just left hand brain, linear logic, but the feeling, a part of us. We are not brains on a stick. We are first and foremost feeling things before we are thinking things, and the church should be a place that yes, this isn't just for the ladies either, because you're going to. I got a male guest today. Ladies love to talk about the feelings. Men should get way more adept at talking about what's going on inside of us, especially with other men in discipleship relationships.
Speaker 2:Today I get the privilege of talking with Doyle Timer. Doyle is a timer. I don't know why. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 2:Timer Doyle is a pastor at Christ the King in Kingwood, texas, an associate pastor there for 25 years. He's had a lot of influence in the discipleship there within his congregation. If you're familiar with 3DM and Mike Brain, his congregation has been down that road. But then he got acquainted with the life model for discipleship and authors like Jim Wilder and the book the Other Half of Church. I've spoken on the Other Half of Church for some time, but it's been a minute since I brought that right and left hand brain conversation back to the fore and that's exactly what we're going to do today. Some people may also know Doyle as Roger's brother, roger Timer. So this is going to be fun. You're Doyle, you stand on your own, bro. You are a gift to the body of Christ and it was fun to get to meet you. I'd heard about you, but get to meet you face to face at the LC-MS convention. And thank you for your generosity of time. Doyle, how are you doing today, brother?
Speaker 3:I'm doing great. I'm happy to be here with you.
Speaker 2:I love it. This is going to be fun. So tell me a standard question how are you praying for reformation? Let's get 30,000 feet. How are you praying for reformation in the American Christian Church Doyle?
Speaker 3:Well, tim, if you don't mind, I'm going to read some excerpts of prayers that I regularly visit in my prayer time.
Speaker 3:So I pray, god, that you give our church leadership a sense of responsibility for the extension of Christian faith by assimilating repentance centers, by planting new churches.
Speaker 3:Enable and expand among us the ongoing rediscovery of the identity, accomplishments and mediation of Christ Jesus as our center point of faith, and preserve the original missional DNA of the gospel against the corruption of false loyalties, false ideologies, false social imaginaries. Keep your gospel pure, distinct from our cultural baggage, in order to be maximally reproductive through one group of people into the next. Give us excellent translators and adapters who can penetrate the culture where it is receptive and bring life and new creation. Release that latent energy of the missional DNA inherent in the gospel, that directional flow from the Father to His creation, from the Savior to the sinner, from the church to the nations, to organize us, organize me especially, according to this missional DNA. Provide among us genuinely apostolic leadership that operates out of spiritual and moral authority rather than organizational hierarchy and position. Give us leadership that is adaptive to what is innocuous in the culture but able to lead repentance out of what is idolatrous in the culture. So those are a few of the things that I pray on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:That is a robust prayer man. So much to unpack there. I mean I'll just start with Christ at the center. We're going to be talking about the joy of the Lord and even joy through, count it all, joy as we even walk through hard times, keeping our eyes firmly fixed upon Jesus. The hope of the resurrection we can so often dole get off of Jesus. What is it about the human condition in general that even for those of us that have been in the church our entire lives, sin leads us toward selfishness, self-preservation, and we miss the answer? It's not a what, it's a who right. It's Jesus. What is it up with Jesus? I think there's a resurgence right now in American Christianity as we look at the unraveling, the chaos, the confusion in our world, that if we just center in the wider ecumenical conversation on the person and work of Jesus man, that's just a fantastic place to start and end. Why do we go away from Jesus, doyle?
Speaker 3:Well, I would add to the person and work the mediation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:I think Reformed Christianity misses that, and even within our Lutheran tradition we get so focused on that what happens outside of time rather than what happens in time. Athanasia said that whatever Christ received according to his human nature in time, he received according to his human nature so he can give it to us. You see that in baptism he didn't need more of the Holy Spirit, but he received Holy Spirit so we can be anointed with it. He received identity as God's child, even though he had it from eternity. He received it so he can give it to us. That's where our identity comes from. That baptismal identity, the authority to forgive sins, eternal life all of that stuff is part of the same package of what he mediates to us and that then forms the basis of our doctrine of ministry for the priesthood of believers. So I think that's been overlooked quite a bit.
Speaker 2:I would agree. There's so much mystery that Jesus ascended and as you just talk, mediation, we often think the mediator or the connector as the Holy Spirit. But Jesus, through his person and work and faith in him, he has to mediate even for us to receive the Holy Spirit. That's so well said and you talked a lot about. That sends us now, or re-orients us from death to life. It sends us on this mission, this radical mission, god's love mission for the world. We get incorporated into that mission. You said missional DNA a handful of times in that prayer and you and I are both connected to the Lutheran church. Unfortunately, I don't think we talk about the missio day enough in our church body, which is obviously centered on Christ and him crucified and risen. But then the church's mission today. Why do you think sometimes we even argue around mission? What is the center point of our theology? I don't think a centering on the mission as much as we could and should Thoughts there, doyle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I'm convinced that part of our problem is we have a faulty anthropology. Take, for instance even we talk about the two kinds of righteousness, and that's often expressed as Luther kind of summed it up in his Galatians commentary we live in God by faith and then our neighbor by love. Well, what happens there is we split off faith and love, and Luther did this too. I mean, he would say you know, doctrine is inviolable. If we have to choose between our doctrine and loving neighbor, we need to choose the doctrine. You see, he operated out of that medieval assumption that the intellect is the organ of faith, and that's faulty anthropology. That's just an assumption that he brought into this.
Speaker 2:Say more.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, you know, oswald Byer is a German theologian and he talks about faith as being related to the promise of God, kind of that active word that does what it says. Well, I'm trying to correlate this a little bit with what I've learned from the life model. Jim Wilder talks a lot about mutual mind with God, because mutual mind with others is how we gain access to resources beyond ourself for emotional maturity and spiritual maturity. And if this is the way God created human beings to be influenced by others then it stands to reason that this is how he operates with us. So, if the Holy Spirit who bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children? If that's not mutual mind, I don't know what it is, and I think we would do well to start to define faith in terms of mutual mind with God and something that has worked through the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so say more as. When I hear mind, we're going to dig into the other half of the church here. I hear left hand brain more. So when you say mutual mind, how does that connect to the right hand side of the brain? Our emotional center is specifically the emotion of joy. I'd love to hear you go off on that.
Speaker 3:Okay. So in the life model the flow of energy in the brain is from bottom top back to front and it starts with the attachment center at the bottom and then goes through the amygdala and then the. I think it's the singular cortex, frontal singular cortex, which is that part of the brain that synchronizes with other brains. So through eye contact we develop that ability to connect emotionally and get synchronized emotionally. You see this with a mother who's comforting her baby. So the baby's in distress, the mother mimics the distress to show that she identifies, she regulates with the child and then she brings the child into a joyful, connected state. Well, that happens through that part of the brain that is interactive with others, and so that's how we get from the attachments to the identity and group identity. It's got to be through this capacity for mutual mind with others, which operates in the fast track, not in the slow track, that operates faster than conscious thought.
Speaker 2:Really does and whether you've studied this science connected to theology, whether you're everybody relates with what you just said. I mean, mirroring is a natural human emotion. If I see pain, I will mirror pain and I actually there's something that's so kind of mysterious about human beings and it's I think it's because we're created in the image, the image of God. But I can enter into a room and if I'm attuned, if I'm not just internally focused, if I'm observant, I can read the emotional attunement of that room. Is it anxious, is it? How do we make a response as a leader, understanding what that room is? And you can, you can fall off on either side, kind of do too casual, not getting after it, or two anxious, whatever it is, and a leader could then, can then step it like this is all EQ stuff, this is all emotional quotient stuff. This is why EQ eats IQ for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Speaker 2:You know, if we don't have, if we don't have EQ, if we don't foster that in a safe what you use is such a healthy, healthy word If we don't have healthy attachment to family the church is a type of an extended family, has a huge role to let young people know hey, I'm safe, I'm seen, I'm known. Oh, and your primary attachment. This is the God who fearfully and wonderfully created you. Who smiles, who smiles over you. You know, number six is so huge, doyle.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:They make his face to shine upon you. The face is the emotional, the emotional center and the fact, the simple, meditative fact, that God smiles over me by faith in Jesus. He's proud of me. I'm his kid. He throws a party for me. That's like the fuel of joy in my identity in Jesus. So talk about the emotions of the face just a little bit and how that fans into flame, or not, maybe, that joy center in the brain.
Speaker 3:Well, let me first acknowledge that for years I understood that God is love as an intellectual concept, but I, very I didn't know what it was to experience the sense that I was personally loved by God, and I couldn't get to that without first being in a community where I was personally loved and accepted. And so I had to make some adjustments. My attachment style was wrong. I mean, it was off. I was what do they call avoidant, dismissive attachment style, and you know, I would isolate, intellectualize, and I figured if I had the right answer, problem solved. But no problem is solved without action and without relationship.
Speaker 3:Yes, you know. So. You know, before I ever read the other half of, before the other half of church was ever published, we were working on this in 2016,. My wife and I went to the first drive training where we learned about joy and interactive joy and face to face, simplifying joy with one another. So we were forced to do these exercises as part of the seminar or as part of what we were learning, and so that was a real game changer for me, and even though I was never as rigorous as I might have been in practicing these things, I did grow in them.
Speaker 3:I have grown in them and I tend to think now in terms of micro joy moments. You know those split seconds, if, if I can be a joy bringer and that's actually leadership in that emotional quadrant, you know the stronger brain wins when we're dysregulated. If somebody else is upset and and I'm joyful, I can win that emotional contest. Or if I'm not strong enough, I'll get brought down and I'll be triggered and I will come down to the level of distress. So we, without God and his mind bearing witness with my mind, or his spirit bearing witness with my spirit, we don't have the capacity sometimes to transcend ourselves.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, how is joy? They talk about joy as a supra emotion.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:How is joy like a supra emotion?
Speaker 3:Well, let me backtrack a little bit. You know, I think one of the reasons that we have a society, and particularly within our own tribe, where we simplistically play off objective against subjective, you know, we want to be trusting what is objective and sure versus what is subjective and uncertain. Think part of the reason for that is that we don't have a language, we don't have understanding of how emotion works. Now, within the life model, you've got joy, which is a supra emotion because it's a relational connection. If you're connected to someone else, then that is joy. Joy is that look in somebody else's eye that they're, they'd light up when they see me, they're happy to be with me, and that's joy.
Speaker 3:And it can be there in the presence of the other negative emotions, the big six negative emotions. What are they? Anger, shame, sadness, despair, disgust and something else Fear. I don't know if you said fear, but yeah, fear, yeah fear. So those are six negative emotions, but underneath that is attachment, which is similar to emotions, but it's a whole different thing. It's a force, it's a connecting force. So if we don't have a language about how these things work within their own system, we can't tell the difference between being triggered and having an actual emotion and if I'm triggered, that's stuff. Unresolved trauma in the past and trauma can be resolved in a place where there's ample connection, attachment that's based in joy, not in fear.
Speaker 2:Yes, no, I think that's so, so helpful and that's the only way. The Apostle Paul, I mean a life verse for me has been Romans 5. All of Romans is legit. I love Romans 8. But Romans 5, he says, count it all, join my brothers when you experience all sorts of life trials, knowing that your suffering produces perseverance, character and character, hope. Hope doesn't disappoint because it's centered in connected to relationally tethered to Jesus, to one who, for the joy set before him and you and I, were his, were his joy, were still his joy. God wanted to get all of his kids kids back for the joy set before him, endure the cross, glory and shame and is the risen and reigning one of the right hand of God and man. It's just so amazing it brings, I don't know.
Speaker 2:To go back to Luther, some folks probably are like you just threw did I just catch that? You just throw Luther under the bus, doyle, like what's going on? What's going on with that? You can't challenge Luther Luther. It's like Luther Paul. You know it's Jesus Paul.
Speaker 2:And then in Luther, right, I mean, but to your point, there's a lot of science that has happened since then. And the Enlightenment we have gifts and gaps from the era of the Enlightenment right, and I think we should look with charity and kindness upon those who were leading in those seasons. But yeah, I think we were heavily trained toward linear logic, words, reason, winning, you know, competing rather than connecting and caring and deeply listening and mirroring. And so the conversation. We just needed to have a balance between the right and the left hand side of our brains.
Speaker 2:I got a question here, though, and I'd love to. I know you're going to go back, maybe on the Luther thing but the appropriate use of shame in a very I would say, overly sensitive culture that we live in today, where we may not have those attachments close to us mentors, spiritual father and mother like they use an appropriate level of shame to bring us back into community, they actually shame is actually seen as a negative, a very negative thing, but used in the right way, it draws us back into community and changes our character. Maybe we don't use connected because you've got to be connected in a trust filled relationship to appropriately say here's how shame can be used. You know, maybe on a team, on a church team. That's just not the way we do things around here, and yeah, so thoughts on Luther and shame, even if you can.
Speaker 3:What it would be like to be in my house when I'm thinking through a problem. I've got this intellectual problem going on in my brain. My brow is furrowed, I'm frowning and my wife says he is not happy to be with me.
Speaker 3:Now that is shame in real time. Now what may get triggered is a deeper, underlying wound that maybe I'm not good enough. You know there are shame-based beliefs that we have that are not intellectual beliefs so much as they are identity beliefs and we get embedded with these lies. You know the Father says that I'm loved with an eternal love. But experience has taught me sometimes, like I used to have the lie that I was worthless. That's felt true to me and I probably made that up because I wasn't strong enough or fast enough or whatever. But anytime that lie would get stirred up in me I get triggered. So that could even something incidental, like someone being distracted. I could read more into that because it stirs up this lie-based belief.
Speaker 3:Now I believe that when Jesus says the spirit of truth will lead you into all truth, it's not just, it's not an intellectual doctrinal system I mean it is and it isn't, because it's also that personal side, that you are loved.
Speaker 3:There is nothing that can separate you from the love of God that you are forgiven, that you are accepted, that you're a child of the King and, insofar as God sees it, you are righteous, you're a holy, you are. He sees the perfection in me before it ever even comes into being. He has that ability. And so if I can't see that in myself and I only see these lies that have been embedded in me, sometimes by Satan, he's the liar, the accuser of the brethren. He wants to embed these kinds of identity lies in people that you're no good, you're worthless, you'll never be good enough, you'll never measure up and all that kind of stuff. Okay, so that's toxic shame, but healthy shame is when I'm not listening. Well, and then I get the look and it's like oh, I've been selfish, I should have been listening better. Or there are any number of kinds of moments, those momentary incidents where somebody is not happy to be with us who normally is because we're not showing up like our best self.
Speaker 2:No, that's so good. And what you said I'll politely challenge. I think deep connection, first to Christ and then to one another, is deeply theological, doyle. I think that's the starting point. I don't know what other theology we're preaching If not Christ, crucified and connected to us by faith sign, sealed and delivered through the waters of baptism.
Speaker 2:You once were, I mean we thought we should, as Lutheran Christians, as just Christians in general, and I think this is an olive branch of peace between various branches of the Christian church. We should talk identity, an awful lot, who we once were, we once were dead in our trespasses and sins. It carried along this is Ephesians 2, it carried along by the principalities of this. The heir, the prince of the heir, is how Paul kind of describes him, and it's leading us to all sorts of distorted views about self creation, god, if there even is a God, and now you have been, you who were once far but God, but now you've been brought near by Christ, and then obviously his workmanship there in verse 10. I think talking about emotional connection and attachment is like the starting point for deep theology, and if you don't start there you could end up making right doctrine into an idol, absolutely so say something about that, doyle.
Speaker 3:Well, one of the books that came out just after the other half of church or right around the same time is called Renovated by Jim Wilder. In it he was working through and reconciling some differences between what he had come to believe and operate by as the life model and what Dallas Willard and his discipling program had come up with. And the thesis or the theme of that book is that attachment needs to replace truth as the foundation of our theology. If we get attachment chesed, the love of God at the core of our theological system, then the truth, the willpower, the other things, they fall into the right place. So towards the end of the book he comes out with a really nice little diagram that describes kind of the model of sanctification.
Speaker 2:So I'd love to hear more about that and, as you do, I think, giving Luther some due respect here in his teaching on the two kinds of righteousness, which he doubles back on a number of different times in his preaching and in his writing, a synonym maybe for righteousness, how we're made in a right relationship. So the two kinds of relational attachments. First, it is solely by grace, through the Father's declaration, sign, seal, delivered through the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a trinitarian attachment and then, empowered by the Spirit, set free, brought alive, a workmanship in Christ, living that in right relationship with my neighbor. So I'd love to hear what that sanctified journey with neighbor looks like and any ideas if you've ever made that connection to kind of the two kinds of righteousness slash relationship.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, in Ephesians, chapter 3, paul prays that we would know how wide and how deep and how immense is the love of God that is ours in Christ Jesus. And then Psalm 103, it's not just that our sins are separated as far as the east and the west, but that the Father has compassion on us, that compassion of God that he enters into our weakness, our suffering. So the two kinds of righteousness is absolutely fundamental and correct. And we read that through the New Testament and we read that in light of a better anthropology than Luther had available to him. And in that anthropology we can start to talk about mutual mind with God as his spirit bears witness with our spirit that this is real, that because it's coming from the outside, it's an external word, even though it defies descriptions of objective and subjective, which are oddly enough that they're outdated, after 20th century philosophy. Anyway, you know they're almost meaningless.
Speaker 3:And if you want to know more about how the different spheres of the brain interact and you can look at Ian McGillchrist's book the Master and His Emissary or some other books that he's written he describes the difference as being well illustrated in a bird's brain. So with the right side of the bird's brain, the left eye of the bird is looking out for predators, while the left brain and right eye of the bird is focusing on detail to separate a seed from a pebble. So there's two different operating systems. They're operating simultaneously, each working on different functions, and I think that's a really good illustration of how the hemispheres interact. So you know, we do need the theological confessions to kind of keep us within the right boundaries, but it's got to be also the experience of the love of God, and we often need community to bridge that to us. And isn't that what Luther's Theology of Church is? In this church he daily and richly forgives sins. Well, part of that is just accepting one another, as Christ accepted us.
Speaker 2:Man.
Speaker 2:There's so much here in terms of our gospel witness and I fear I don't live by fear, but one of my concerns is that the church today is in the midst of our polarized culture because we don't maybe have the words to connect and care for those who are walking in darkness in need of the love and light of Christ, those who are confused gender, those who have different, different identity markers in our world.
Speaker 2:Because we've not been attuned especially leaders, pastors, bureaucrats, everywhere in between, we've not maybe been trained to talk about this very well we end up sounding like clanging gongs to a culture who's far from God. We don't lead with love and care, we don't connect. We make these kind of differentiating statements about the type of church that we are and in so doing, we keep all it leads down a legalistic, phariseical track. Very, very quick. This is for all the good church people who have made these identity markers something other than Christ. By the way, according to the law not necessarily according to the gospel we have all these identity markers and it just rings really, really hollow in our world today. So any thoughts on that?
Speaker 3:Well, it does seem to me like we see a lot of voices within evangelicalism and Lutheranism that are doubling down on left brain solutions for right brain problems. Identity is a right brain problem, and you know. So what's his name? I think Carl Truman, is referred to a lot these days as he's kind of unpacked the intellectual developments of this self-expressive culture and how it came to be, and it's kind of like well, now that we know how this all happened, problem solved. You know, we can just explain it to people and they'll be so persuaded that they're going to change. Well, that's the same premise as cognitive behavioral therapy and it leads to a kind of what is that? Moralistic Therapeutic deism theism right.
Speaker 3:Meanwhile, within the therapeutic community you've got dialectical behavior therapy, which is much more focused on the interactivity between the spheres, resolving trauma, practicing mindfulness. So even within culture they're moving out of those left brain willpower solutions that assume that if I think right, then I'll behave right. I mean, that's how I lived for a long time, but it's just not sustainable and it just leads to striving and it leads to brokenness and rejecting rather than trying to love. Jim Wilder said that attaching to our enemies with love exposes our character flaws. So we've got to be able to lean in to some of these relationships and recognize our call to repentance, how we get stirred up. But if we don't have a basis for understanding how that works, I mean to kind of wrap this up a little bit.
Speaker 3:I'll say you know, the whole mistaken identity movement is really all about wanting the fruit of the spirit Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. They want the fruit of the spirit but they do not have the roots. You can't have the fruit without the roots in Christ. And so if we can just tap into that desire that they have attachment systems, they want strong, enduring attachments. They want acceptance and to be joyfully received to somebody to have their eyes light up when they see them, and you know that's that takes maturity, and maturity is another theme here that, if I can just say, this much about it is.
Speaker 3:You know, we can never become more spiritually mature than we are emotionally mature. Yes, trauma blocks emotional maturity. Until we can resolve trauma, we can't get unstuck in our maturity development. And that's going to be a really important discipling move within our churches is understanding how that works. Fortunately, as long as we're working with God, how God wired us, a lot of things will take care of themselves. I could say, for instance, my wife's now part of the Townsend Institute studying to become a counselor through Concordia Irvine. So people fuel by John Townsend is their major paradigm, the Townsend model. No matter, if you just implemented that, you would get a lot of the same results as you would with the life model, you know, because it operates in a way that's consistent with how God made us.
Speaker 2:Yes, this has been so good. So many other we're getting close to time, so many other kind of streams we could run in. We're going to have to have you back to continue the conversation, but what are some next steps that a leader person could take if they realize, whoa, my leadership has been far too left brain centered. What would you kindly invite them into?
Speaker 3:Well, if I hypothetically imagine myself getting called to become a senior pastor in a church somewhere, I would take the leaders, the elders, through the other half of church, but I would use resources like the four habits of joy-filled marriages by Chris Corsi and Marcus Warner to run marriage seminars, because they practice these same skills, their life model, their part of the life model, or the four habits of joy-based parenting. Or for leadership rare leadership in the workplace by Marcus Warner and Jim Wilder. So these give access points for people and say so, instead of starting with hey, we need to build joy, say hey, let's look at this for marriages or let's look at this for parenting. So it's very easy to introduce some of these things, but your leadership needs to have the bigger picture and it has to begin with the leader. You've got to be the change if this is the change you want, and that involves that long, slow road of repentance. You know, you know long. Obedience in the same direction was a book written by what's his name. Who did?
Speaker 2:the message Eugene Peterson.
Speaker 3:Yes, and you could just shift that title a little bit to a long repentance in the same direction. That's what this is going to really take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it and there's so much interconnection. I've been a family systems guy and Edwin Friedman, pete Stanky I've been following those guys Healthy Churches, teaching fish to walk, adaptive leadership change Been following that for a long period of time and what they always come back to is this sounds like self-help and stuff. It's not that. It's. Change starts with me and immediately, deeply, theologically, I realize what is in me apart from Christ and we've located the enemy and it's me. And so, unless I can speak for self and handle myself, give the right amount of, have the right amount of self-awareness to know not just what to say but how to say it and how it shapes the culture of whatever team or congregation I'm leading, like that is that's all right handbrain stuff, that's all EQ, emotional quotient stuff. I'm praying that more leaders become deeply curious. And I didn't even ask questions about creativity, but curiosity and creativity are so central and I said last question maybe this is the last one you and I are part of the LCMS.
Speaker 2:I am the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and this is the podcast of the United Leadership Collective and a lot of our listeners are in the LCMS. I am fascinated as I observe various leaders in our Synod, striving for creativity. And yet, from my estimation, I don't think people inside or outside say wow, you know, the LCMS is remarkably adaptive to meet what's going on right now. I think we have some adaptive opportunities for growth and I don't know these are some very broad statements I don't know that the system of the LCMS now, this is not just pointed at any one person, this is talking about the system or the culture of the LCMS handles adaptive challenge when needing new, creative solutions towards some of our very real challenges churches declining, et cetera. It seems like the system collectively pounces on what feels like.
Speaker 2:And I'll just talk for me. I think a lot of people could kind of look at me and some of the things we're doing and you wanna hurt? Right, you're an outside person who wants to hurt what has been given by God. No, I'm one voice among many who are saying hey, let's talk about our emotions. Let's talk about our very real fears, our losses, our struggles, our joys that we celebrate from our past and our fear of what could happen into the future. Let's be patient and kind with one another. And then, out of deep relationship, I'm praying for council president meetings, our Synod president. Let's work on creative solutions that move from the right brain, deeply embedded in our relationship of love and care, our identity in Christ, to then move to maybe some left brain, logical solutions to some of our challenges as a church. I don't know. I pray that that conversation is happening, but I'm not so certain it is on a consistent basis. Any thoughts there, doyle?
Speaker 3:Well, a lot of different thoughts, but I'll leave it at this. Besides creativity, there's courage. Yes, it takes courage to lead against resistance, and that courage comes from the joy that is set before us, from knowing that we're living in the light of the Father's love.
Speaker 2:In fact, Mike drop, Reverend Doyle, it's timer, right Timer. Yeah, yeah, it's the right time to hang out with Doyle today. This time, flew by brother. You are a gift. You have so much wisdom. The amount of books you're dropping like, oh, I'm a learner kind of like you are, and yeah, you pinged some things in me. I was taking voracious notes. I don't know, listener, viewer, maybe listen to this while you're driving. You should go back and take some notes, because some awesome knowledge bombs and book bombs that you left for us today. How can people connect with you, Doyle, if they desire to do so?
Speaker 3:My email is probably the best way, easiest way DoyleT D-O-Y-L-E-T at Christ4Unet. That's the word Christ, the number four, the letter Unet.
Speaker 2:Love it. I love it. This is Doyle Timer. I am Tim Allman. This is the American Reformation podcast. Sharing it's caring. Please like, subscribe, comment wherever it is that you take this in, and I pray that the joy of the Lord is your strength today. We'll be back next week with another fresh episode.
Speaker 3:No-transcript you, you, you.