Imagine the transformation that could unfold within the American Christian Church if unity prevailed. Reverend Dr. Darrell Zimmerman joins me to shed light on this pressing issue, emphasizing the potential for the Church to exemplify Christ's love amidst societal divisions. Our heartfelt conversation traverses the challenges of harmony, both among congregants and leaders, revealing the necessity for a ministry that radiates with unified purpose. Sharing anecdotes and wisdom, we uncover the methods of overcoming conflict and the beauty of an orchestra-like church, with Christ as the conductor guiding a diverse yet harmonious melody.
The solitary road of pastoral ministry can be treacherous, often marked by loneliness and the struggle to maintain balance. In this episode, we navigate these choppy waters, touching upon the 'three periods of rapids' faced by pastors and the indispensable support systems that buoy us through. I open up about the crucial role my wife Carol and our congregation play in my life, and how setting boundaries has been key to preserving my spiritual and familial well-being. We also discuss the need for adaptability in embracing technological advancements, supporting pastors through transitions, and the uplifting tales of those who have weathered these changes with grace.
Joy, often an overlooked resource, proves to be the wellspring from which ministry flows. Reflecting on John Piper's insights, we discuss the Holy Spirit-generated emotion as a barometer for our emotional health and its significance in recognizing Christ's beauty in our daily lives. With the story of Elijah as a touchstone, we conclude this episode with a reminder of the perils of misaligned priorities and the power of joy and wellness in sustaining a vibrant ministry.
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Imagine the transformation that could unfold within the American Christian Church if unity prevailed. Reverend Dr. Darrell Zimmerman joins me to shed light on this pressing issue, emphasizing the potential for the Church to exemplify Christ's love amidst societal divisions. Our heartfelt conversation traverses the challenges of harmony, both among congregants and leaders, revealing the necessity for a ministry that radiates with unified purpose. Sharing anecdotes and wisdom, we uncover the methods of overcoming conflict and the beauty of an orchestra-like church, with Christ as the conductor guiding a diverse yet harmonious melody.
The solitary road of pastoral ministry can be treacherous, often marked by loneliness and the struggle to maintain balance. In this episode, we navigate these choppy waters, touching upon the 'three periods of rapids' faced by pastors and the indispensable support systems that buoy us through. I open up about the crucial role my wife Carol and our congregation play in my life, and how setting boundaries has been key to preserving my spiritual and familial well-being. We also discuss the need for adaptability in embracing technological advancements, supporting pastors through transitions, and the uplifting tales of those who have weathered these changes with grace.
Joy, often an overlooked resource, proves to be the wellspring from which ministry flows. Reflecting on John Piper's insights, we discuss the Holy Spirit-generated emotion as a barometer for our emotional health and its significance in recognizing Christ's beauty in our daily lives. With the story of Elijah as a touchstone, we conclude this episode with a reminder of the perils of misaligned priorities and the power of joy and wellness in sustaining a vibrant ministry.
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 the joy of Jesus is upon you today as we get to buckle up and lean into a conversation of learning, holistic growth today centered in Jesus. Jesus equals joy. As I get the joy and pleasure of sitting down with hanging out with Reverend Dr Darrell Zimmerman, let me tell you about this brother. He served, I think, over well over 30 years as a parish pastor in St Louis, saginaw, michigan.
Speaker 2:In the fall of 2012, daryl became the first full-time program director at Grace Place Wellness Ministries and that's where he impacted me and our congregation here a number of years ago. So profoundly, so grateful. He holds an MDiv and doctorate of ministry at Concordia Seminary, st Louis. He's also the author of the book Reclaiming the Joy of Ministry. A few years ago, daryl led a staff retreat for us and highly, highly blessed us, like I said, and also now he just told me after Christmas he is serving as an intentional interim at Cedar Hill Lutheran Church. Praise be to God, daryl. How are you doing today, brother? I'm doing great Tim.
Speaker 3:I'm delighted to be with you.
Speaker 2:Oh, this is going to be fun. So opening question for this podcast how are you praying for reformation in the American Christian Church, brother?
Speaker 3:Well, that is a great question. I think we pray out of the passions of our heart, the places where our heart break, and for me it's unity in the church. You know we live in such a fractured society and what an opportunity it is for us to shine the light of Christ into a dark, dark world by exemplifying who we are, that we are united in Christ. And so I pray for the Holy Christian Church on earth. I pray for the Holy Christian Church on Earth. You know that we would be united as Jesus prayed, but I pray for even inside our denominations and right down to the local level.
Speaker 3:My experience with churches is that when unity is absent, when there's conflict in the church, that the ministry of the gospel just comes to a halt, it just stops, and we know that well, they will know that we are his disciples by the way, that we love one another. And when there is unity inside our congregations, you know when, especially beginning with pastor and people working together or members of a ministry team working and living together with trust and respect and love, the way that Jesus intended, then great things are happening. You know and I see it over and over again, that our churches that are flourishing and reaching out with the gospel. The first mark that you see there is this harmony in the body, where we're living out the unity that Christ gave us, and where it's lacking, everything is paralyzed.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, oh, man. Well, this is a podcast of the Unite Leadership Collective and we're praying for the exact same thing that we can have diverse context. Well, we live in diverse contexts, but we can rally under the banner that Jesus is Lord, say I stand by, I have pledged my life to promote the gospel and to stay within the common confession of the Lutheran confessions, which are a correct exposition of scripture. But then I can also say that I trust my brother, in his respective context, to carry out the works of ministry and I pray he extends me the same grace. And where we have, uh, diverse understandings or we've even heard gossip I heard you say this or you said this to someone. We have the challenging conversation.
Speaker 2:Where I'm, where I'm struggling right now, is, I don't know that we're talking to one another. I think we're, I think we're triangulated and we're building a caricature of one another which is never, never the truth. And so anything more to add on triangles, triangulation and really mankind's, I'd love to just, we'll say, 30,000 feet. What is it about? Even leaders who just love to avoid conflict, pastors, even that just are repulsed by conflict.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what is that about? Well, you know, I've always felt that the only people who love conflict are people who are a little bit psychopathic or sociopathic. Fair enough.
Speaker 3:You know, I mean you know, nobody likes it but just wrestling with human nature, with being the human beings that we are. We see it in the lives of the disciples, we see it in the in the book of Acts that, yeah, we're not going to disagree. We come from different backgrounds, we have different perspectives and that's part of the mix of the body of Christ. But to be able to look at each other and say, in our differences we still have this unity, but we're going to live it out in harmony. You know, like a symphony orchestra to say, wow, you're playing a totally different instrument than I am and I don't even exactly understand the sound. But when we can figure out what harmony is, you know the lived out application of our unity, then I can look and say, oh see, god is doing something bigger than what I'm doing. So how do we seek to understand, how do we seek to learn, how do we seek to just appreciate the different voices and the different sounds that make for that harmony in the body?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's such a good analogy for sure. The orchestra, the cacophony of sounds, as they get kind of tuned up right, I love going to the orchestra and it just is whoa, it's dissonant. But then the director let's go a little bit deeper here the director starts to play the song. Who is the director of the church? I would say it's the Holy Spirit who points us to saving faith in Jesus and helps us sing the tune of the Holy Spirit. And yeah, the oboe is very different from the strings, you know, but we need the oboe.
Speaker 2:Some of us that's probably as kids are looking to different from the strings, you know, but we need the oboe. And some of us that's like that's probably as kids are looking to play in the orchestra. That's not probably an instrument that many would say oh man, I got to play the oboe. My next door neighbor actually was an orchestra player in the El Paso Symphony Orchestra and she was the first chair oboe player. So I like bringing up the oboe. But what a fantastic, fantastic sound that the oboe brings to life. Well, maybe it's the super, super mission oriented, you know, pastor, who's thinking microchurch and you know, raising up folks and like that looks foreign, he's just playing, he's just playing the oboe, and it's the same Holy Spirit who's directing, directing the symphony, anything more to go deeper on that analogy?
Speaker 2:I think it's really, really helpful. It's just another way to talk about the unique gifts within the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 and Romans 12, right.
Speaker 3:I think of a mutual friend of ours, dominic Rivkin, and he was assigned to our congregation in St Louis as a seminary student. As a seminary student and I was in the middle of a real turnaround congregation, a real unhealthy place that was trying to rediscover itself, and and it turned out to be a wonderful journey. But Dominic came along in the early years of that and he just the whole time, the whole four years, he was with us. He just shook his head, saying, daryl, how can you, how can you live here? Was with us. He just shook his head, saying, daryl, how can you live here, how can you survive? And I said, well, this is my calling, this is my passion, this is what makes my little heart go pitter-pat. Then, when he graduated and he was assigned to be a mission developer in Southern California, I said, well, thank you Lord. I mean he would die in a place like where I was serving. So we just had to figure out this appreciation for each other's giftedness.
Speaker 2:And yeah, that is so good. Let's look at your early years of being a parish pastor, go back to your first years. What could the seminary this is not to disparage the seminary at all, but what could the seminary not prepare you for Darrell?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I graduated in 1982 and got my first call, and it was unrealistic expectations that I was not prepared for, the demands and the expectations that the congregation would have for this young pastor walking in, or even now, you know, just walking into a new congregation a couple of months ago with 42 years under my belt, two years under my belt, still, I walk in and I whoa. It's just an interesting phenomenon where churches receive their pastor and expect that they have every gift and every answer and have an unlimited capacity for serving. And so that it was that combination of the unrealistic expectations, both from the congregation and then, internally, the expectations that I have for myself, then combined with my tendency to over-functioning for failing to work within my capacities, that led me right up to the border of burnout over and over again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how did you, how did you work through that? What is that story like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well, between the Holy Spirit and my wife, carol, I learned some lessons about understanding what your capacity for service was all about. And then it was lay people, members of the congregation, who stepped up and helped me to understand look at, daryl, you can't do everything, you aren't everything, you aren't gifted in everything and helped me to discover that I could learn to say no, that I could learn to balance these things out, and that's not always easy for pastors. I was in a staff situation. The senior pastor had been there a long time and he had extremely unreasonable expectations of the assistant pastor.
Speaker 3:I was the eighth assistant pastor in 16 years, so the average lifespan was about a year and a half and guys would bail out, you know. And I ended up staying there five years and somebody in the neighborhood said well, that's some kind of a record, isn't it? But that was the main learning for me was how to survive in a congregation like that, where the expectations were so unreasonable, and to just start putting caps and limits, making family a priority, making time with God a priority, my own spiritual life, because I was getting so depleted.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean the shift now I'm getting back to 30,000 feet here the shift that's taken place in the American church since the mid 80s, which was still a largely Christian America, and are no disparaging to my grandpa's generation. So we'll go one generation before. But I remember hearing stories about him he was a pastor, you know 50 some year pastor of how much he did, how many hours he worked and he kind of wore it. Grab it, tell me about, tell me about ministry. Well, it was about 80 hours a week, son, and I, you know I got there early and my well, ruthie, that's my grandma, ruthie, she's doing the bulletin and like we're, we're just making it happen for God's people.
Speaker 2:It, it's almost. It's almost like we created, if you will, in the American church this consumer mentality unintentionally by trying to serve so profoundly that maybe all the gifts within the priesthood of all believers weren't utilized for maybe a generation plus. You think of the. Then go back a few generations, like the adventurous spirit of the early years of the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod, and it takes every person to come along to build the church, to build the family etc. But then once we had all the infrastructure kind of built, well, pastor, you just kind of do your church thing, you just kind of maintain this thing and let us don't mess with us too much there. Pastor, I'm paying with a broad brush, but I think culturally there's some, there's some truth there. Any response to that, daryl?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's really true and and a lot of my classmates and I who are reaching retirement age now. You know we graduated in those early eighties and mid eighties, like you were talking about, and we see this transformation that's happened. You know. You learn to function in a certain fashion just for the sake of having a long ministry career. What my generation experienced with the COVID crisis was guys retiring early. Experience with the COVID crisis was guys retiring early.
Speaker 3:The people who hit 55 and said if this has to be completely reworked, if we have to learn a whole new kind of ministry, I don't know if I can do it and they were bailing out. And somebody talked about this was some research done in the Covenant Church. They discovered these three periods of the rapids. That ministry is like rolling down the river, but you hit the rapids three different times and the first one was the first time you realize six or seven or eight years into ministry. That seminary didn't prepare me for this.
Speaker 3:Okay, there's a lot of learning to happen early on. The second period of the rapids comes about midpoint in ministry, where a pastor says I'm exhausted and now I'm 15, 20 years older than when I started. How am I going to find the capacity for another 15 or 20 years of this. And in the third period of the rapids is when you hit the home stretch. You're looking, you know, I say, ok, I got 12, 15 years left in ministry, or maybe even less, eight or 10 years left in ministry, and you realize I have to be completely reinvented for this new world. And those are those crisis points where pastors have to stop and just reassess everything, where everything I know goes out the window. And I can see that especially with a cultural shift that we've seen in my lifetime in ministry.
Speaker 2:Man, it's like learning an entirely new language. Yeah, and I have so much empathy for brother pastors that had to walk through and I'm just going to say I think you weathered the storm well, just looking macro, like a lot of our churches. Sure, there's some decline, but there's not this like epic breakdown that's taken place. There's still pastors that engage and we learn some new things, technology et cetera, to try to serve and care for our people. And and so, yeah, well done let's. Let's continue to tell the stories, the beautiful stories of perseverance in those three seasons of and I agree with those three seasons of Rapids.
Speaker 2:I'm firmly in the in the mid, mid rapid stage right now, right In your early mid forties, when you're like, whoa, this is, I'm no longer young, energy could be not what it used to be. I'm hopefully moving from a doer to a developer, hopefully gaining wisdom. But what got me here is not going to take me there into the older father, even pushing, you know, a decade plus grandfather type of season. It's a different thing, to be sure, and I think, pastoral, since you've walked through and I love this book, by the way, you talk about loneliness. Being a pastor, especially a doer for all of God's people can be an exceptionally lonely journey. Talk about pastoral loneliness.
Speaker 3:A little bit, darrell. Yeah, you know, there there is this thing about professional distance with the members of the congregation. I remember they played it up real big when I was at the seminary. You know you can't get too close, you can't have any friends in the congregation and I think that's kind of extreme. But there is some truth there that in order to be somebody's pastor, it's difficult to be completely intimate with the members of the congregation as we are with other folks.
Speaker 3:I was reading Gilead a while back and there's reflections of his pastor at the end of his life in this novel. And there was a phrase in there, excuse me, he said the members of the congregation expect the pastor to be I think this is what he said Somewhat apart, somewhat apart from the members of the congregation. So, and there is this, you know, our intimate friendships are based on this openness, the willingness to share what's going on inside of our hearts and minds, our dreams and our fears with those with whom we develop intimacy. And pastoral confidentiality hinders that. It's even a problem for our marriages that we come home and our wives say so how'd it go today? You look a little down and you say I can't talk about it. You know so it puts a barrier even into our marriages.
Speaker 3:So I think it comes to so many of our pastors start out in small churches in small towns where the minute you show up you end up with your picture on the front page of the weekly. You know the township newspaper and everybody in town knows who the new pastor is, down at the Lutheran church or whatever. And it's so hard for people to make friends. This is especially hard on our wives. We at Grace Place saw the number one challenge in pastors' wives of being loneliness, even more so than pastors, and so we developed some bad habits early on. So it's really a challenge of how does the pastor develop intimate, close Christian friendships in an appropriate way, and it's challenging, it's not easy an appropriate way.
Speaker 2:And it's challenging, it's not easy. No, no, it's not. And I could. Now I'm thinking protecting confidentiality right now. How much can I, how much can I share? You know, I could, I could say this through COVID and different opinions, Some relationships that used to be safe were no longer safe, that's probably the best way to say it. And there's a grief there, there's a loss. What once was no longer is, and I think it's embracing I think it's Henry Nouwen right the wounded healer paradigm. Um, I get to speak and, uh, people know way more about me or any pastor than the pastor can know know about them. And so there's this the mutual exchange that takes place in a, in a even friendship just is very hard when you're platform, pulpit, et cetera, delivering not just your words but God's words. There is an otherness, there isn't a partness to it. So what are some of the tips and invitations that you've given to a lot of pastors? To find those deep soul friendships, possibly outside of the parish, right? How does that?
Speaker 3:work. Yeah, I think it goes to our first conversation about unity, and where often the church is most fractured is in pastoral relationship pastors and their relationships with other pastors, our, our systems, that we have in our church body. We, we gather the pastors together into clusters and say you guys need to meet regularly and be a fellowship of the saints for one another. Sometimes that works extraordinarily well, sometimes not so well. We know many of these groups only meet every three years to elect a delegate to the national convention, you know. But even within that we've got to be able to find one or two guys that we can connect with and that we can be brutally honest with each other and open with each other and build those trusting relationships.
Speaker 3:It's kind of heartbreaking, but one of the trends that we heard in our retreats was pastors saying I met a pastor from another denomination and I asked him do you know anybody from my church body, any other pastors? And this fellow you know, presbyterian or Methodist or something would say no, I don't think I really do, and the pastor would respond oh, do you think we can get together for lunch? Because they're trying to find a safe spot to connect with somebody who understands what the life of ministry is all about the stresses and strains, and so they have to go outside of their church body. So that's less than ideal. I should mention. The one exciting thing I've seen in the last 10 years or so is I'll ask young guys, recent graduates from the seminary, who are your closest friends in ministry and they whip out their phone and they say I've got this text chain that we started while we were seminary students and now nobody is within 800 miles of each other, but it's still going. That's a real good thing.
Speaker 2:It's so good. Yeah, I know of my lead with Zach Zender. Shout out to Zach Zender and the Red Letter Challenge. I get to go to Alabama, the Robert Trent Jones Trail. They're playing golf, daryl, with 16 other pastors 16 other pastors are going.
Speaker 2:This is a group called Oasis that was created long, long long time ago and it's soul care for one another. We spend yeah, there's golf in the afternoon and things but the whole morning is spent with soul care, praying for one another, relating to one another, and I'm on one of those really long, ridiculously long texts. We use WhatsApp, so that's helpful because the text chains can get pretty pretty long, but pretty raw and real, like pastors are just people. You break it down. We need we need those mutually beneficial friendships and thank you for cultivating that at Grace Place over the years. Let's get into the book just a little bit and talk joy. Joy, you say, is fuel for ministry. I totally agree. Would you define joy and how you get and maintain it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we found out early on. Carol and I attended the first Grace Place retreat way back when in 2000. And so I had worked with Grace Place in the early years, leading some retreats and before I came on board as the first full-time program director. But Dr Eckrich, our founder, quickly identified that joy was the first and easiest indicator that somebody is doing really well in ministry, that if you can find joy and the absence of joy was the indicator that something's gone horribly wrong. So I looked all over, I tried to define joy and I looked all over to get some help and after a couple of years search it was John Piper. Are you familiar with John Piper?
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 3:He's got a definition of joy. That really rang true. He said I got to try to get it right here. He said joy is a good feeling in the soul and that's important. It goes really deep into our core, deep, you know, into our core. Joy is a good feeling in the soul, produced by the Holy Spirit as he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world. And that just rang so true to me that joy is the fruit of the Spirit, that this is a gift from God. But it comes from seeing Jesus doing what Jesus does.
Speaker 3:And what we found on the retreats was, you know, we would ask people so what's God up to in your life, what is God doing in your church? And we get these blank glazed over stairs and people just couldn't see it any longer. And it's always happening. You know, wherever the word is proclaimed, the spirit is at work, changing lives and doing great things. But when we lose that joy it's hard to go about ministry.
Speaker 3:But on the positive side, if you can look around every day and just say Jesus did that, jesus did that, jesus showed up here today and he did that, then that's an indication that we're walking by the Spirit, we're attuned to what God is doing rather than be so caught up with what I'm doing or what I'm not doing or what I'm unable to do. But if we can look and see the signs that Jesus is here and he's making things happen, um then that will keep you going. I mean, you know, compare the difference between Elijah coming down from Mount Carmel and collapsing in the wilderness, compared to Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail. You know, and they're singing and you know, beat to pieces and bleeding all over the place, and still they've got the joy because they could see Jesus did that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you read the other half of the church, daryl? No, I don't think so. The brain science that we often in the church are left brain imbalanced.
Speaker 3:This is where words and logic.
Speaker 2:You know, linear thought occupies and we miss that. It all starts on the right hand side of the brain and the seat that keeps us from moving down into our fight flight responses or our amygdala hijack. That takes place in stressful situations. Joy is what moves us away from that and actually leads us to the peace. Of Christ, which surpasses understanding it's mind blowing, and then moves us toward the logos. Christ which surpasses understanding, it's mind-blowing, and then moves us toward the logos, toward the Word made flesh and then the ability to reasonably think through what the problems are, to strategize etc.
Speaker 2:But the author makes the case that we in the church have over-prioritized left-hand thought and disregarded the emotions, and I would make the case in a Lutheran context. We've almost theologically justified it because to talk about the emotions could lead toward emotionalism and obviously we know that it's all about passive faith. You don't have to ascend or feel anything for God to show his love and mercy and grace, which is very, very true. But that leads us especially for pastors, I think to have a stunted relationship with the full range of emotions that occupy the human heart, the human soul, if you will, the center of us. It has to start with the emotion. So talk a little bit more about any of that that I just said yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the first thing that struck me in Piper's definition. You know, when I found it. He says joy is a good feeling. And you go, wow, how else could you have an explanation of joy? You know, because it is, and it is pure emotion and there's no other way to describe it or to get around it. And it's just a slap in the face for us who are functioning out of the wrong side of the brain to say, wow, if joy is the fuel for ministry and it's what Jesus prayed for us, that we would all have.
Speaker 3:But there's no other way to describe it except to say joy is a good feeling, deal with it, okay. And then we can go on and say it's in the soul, it's the fruit of the spirit, it comes only by seeing Christ at work in the word, christ at work in the lives of people, doing what the spirit does in the church. Yeah, okay, we get all that. But joy is that good feeling that comes from being invited into the work of the kingdom and to witness it and to say, wow, I get to be here today. You know I had a funeral on Saturday and it was with a lady I'd only known for a few weeks, you know, being brand new at this church, but I was at her house, visiting with her in her final days, and I said something and she giggled. You know, she couldn't even hold her head up, slumped over in a chair, and yet she was able to giggle when we talked about heaven. And you know, deal with it, joy is a good feeling.
Speaker 2:Could it be that soul care and I'm going to go back to your point of unity soul care and I'm going to go back to your point of unity Could we unite around the need to care for one another's souls, to enter into one another's fears, to name our fears, to offer them to the Lord and then to remind one another of the joy of Jesus who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross, scorning at shame, and is now seated at the right hand, and to speak over one another. What is Jesus joy, daryl, it's you.
Speaker 3:It's me.
Speaker 2:You know he went to the cross for you and for me to give us that amazing, amazing joy. We are his treasure. He smiles over us, he delights in us and I think if we talk more about soul care, we would. We would unite around our need for confessing our fears and living in the joy of Jesus. Anything more to say there?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I I always go back to you know when I'm at a complete loss for how am I ministering to someone? Or if I meet somebody brand new, you know, and I don't know what else to say. You can always start with tell me what God is doing in your life. And I'm amazed at how many times I'll meet with somebody and say just tell me what is God doing in your life. And just watch the tears well up and people say you know, I haven't thought about it a while, but in an instant when I think, just for a moment, what is God doing for me, and they think of all the blessings and they think of the way that God's word is at work in my heart and my soul, it brings that gift of joy. And just to help people to be alert, help people to have their antenna up and say just watch and see what Jesus is doing. It changes everything.
Speaker 2:It really does. It really does. So let's come down the home stretch here. This is so much fun. Talk about the Grace Place Wellness Wheel. That was a really really helpful tool for me and our team to think holistically about soul care. Talk about that a little, darrell.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the Wellness Wheel was created by the this is good. The Inter-Lutheran Coordinating Council on Ministerial Health and Wellness Okay, cool, council on Ministerial Health and Wellness Okay. Some people from the different Lutheran synods got together back in the 80s Dr Eckridge, the founder of Grace Place, was a part of that conversation, and some others and they said what are the components, what are the touch points of a person's life where we need the healing touch of Christ? And what I like? This? And you see all kinds of wheels. The Gallup organization they've got a five-part wheel that they work with and I've seen wheels with 16, 16 with 21 different segments on them.
Speaker 3:What I like about the Lutheran wellness wheel is they start at the hub of the wheel with this comment about baptized new creation in Christ. So the hub of every aspect of our life emotional, relational, spiritual, financial, whatever they are all begin at baptism. Then the rim of the wheel around the outside is spiritual wellness. So those two, the core of the wheel and the rim of the wheel that hold it all together, are our life with God. We start with look what God has done for you in Christ. So spiritual or baptismal, the first touch of grace in our life, and then spiritual being fed and nurtured lifelong by word and sacrament. That's what holds everything else together.
Speaker 3:Then there are six other segments. We kind of lumped them together in two categories. We said there's the relational part, what has to do with life and the body of Christ, and that would be relational, intellectual and emotional well-being. Are we living in harmony? Are we communicating well? Are intellectual being curious about the people around us, not just curious about books?
Speaker 3:And then the other part has to do with our vocational life. So if I'm not physically able to get up and go do the work of ministry, I'm not going to do well, and if my finances are a distraction I can't focus on ministry. And then the vocational. So those three kind of go together. So we talk about life with God, baptismal, spiritual life in relation with other people, relational, intellectual, emotional and then the life of ministry, doing the work of ministry, being physically and financially fit so I can follow up my vocational calling. What we like best about it is it serves as a little assessment tool that at any given time when I get out of balance, I can just walk myself around the wheel and say, well, how am I doing? How am I doing? And touch on each of those and see what kind of alarm bells go off and say, ooh, that's where I'm out of balance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it so good. Identity wrapped up in your baptismal identity, wrapped up in Christ. I have to be in right relationship with others who care for me, love me, challenge me, and then then I'm kind of tethered with I'm facing outward on that, wheel out to serve out, to give out, to sacrifice and even suffer for the sake of those who are around me. But if the center point and this is what I think is so huge for Lutherans to bring into the conversation today the justification and the identity, baptismal identity, they are like hand in glove right now and I pray that more Lutheran pastors are speaking into the identity in Christ, baptismal identity. It's come to you. You didn't grab onto it. Jesus is carrying you and he gets to say you're believing lies. When you believe anything other than you're a child of God, right, and your definition is totally that. Say more on the identity piece, daryl.
Speaker 3:This is a real problem, I think, for clergy. And what I love about the wellness wheel is that our vocational identity, called to be a pastor in the church, forms one of the segments, one of the little spokes of the wheel. I think that's where a lot of pastors get in trouble, when their vocational identity as a pastor in the church starts to supersede their baptismal identity in Christ, and it leads to a lot of confusion. And I think that's where Elijah got into trouble. There's an interesting phrase in the Elijah story where, you know, chapter 19 of 1 Kings is where everything unravels and he runs in the desert and he collapsed. That's it. It's over Walter Meyer. In his commentary in 1 Kings he points this out that it's actually in the prayer on the top of Mount Carmel where it's Elijah's turn to pray and he says Lord, god of Abraham Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel. You know so we're good so far. But then he says and that I am your servant.
Speaker 2:Ego.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that, whoa Elijah. Where did that come from? How does this contest on the top of Mount Carmel start to become about you and your identity as the prophet of the Lord? And then you see in the next chapter, where Elijah collapses. And what's his lament? You know this, repeated verbatim two different times, word for word. He says it twice. When the Lord talks to him, he says I'm the only one left. I'm the only one left, which is interesting because chapter 18 begins with his conversation with his friend Obadiah, who is known for hiding prophets, you know, keeping prophets hidden in caves. Elijah forgets all about him. The Lord speaks to him and says first of all, you're not all alone. Go get Elisha. But there are 7,000 who have not bowed down to Baal. Okay. So when we get so wrapped up in our calling as the prophet of the Lord, we forget our primary identity as the baptized child of God, a member of the body of Christ. And that's where we see pastors get in trouble.
Speaker 2:This is so good man we're about at time, but I want to go off on the call for humility.
Speaker 2:And I think you hear Jesus speaking to this. I mean the humility of Christ to take the low place to the point of death on a cross and in Jesus' last week. We're recording this in Holy Week. He'll be released after Holy Week, but you hear him chastising the Pharisees. Why, because of their pride and putting heavy laws on others, they're not willing to bear themselves. And then let no one. I think this is so fascinating. I think it's Matthew 25, right when Jesus says let no one call you father, for you have one father. Let no one call you teacher, for you have one teacher, like these titles.
Speaker 2:Prophet, pastor, I don't know, it's toxic to your soul to live as the only one who is God's man here in this place. This is the clarion call for the priesthood of all believers to be utilized. You're important, pastor, you have a very important function, but it is in partnership with the body of Christ to release all of the gifts of the body of Christ and to have people around you who care for you and pray for you, just as a human, caring for, yes, leading, but hopefully leading with other leaders, people to the source of life, the humble one. Jesus, the Christ, you're never, you're never alone. So that's so so good. I think last question here a lot of times, daryl, okay, respond.
Speaker 3:No, nol, let me interrupt Okay respond no, no, no I love it, I love it, go ahead. I don't think there's any other lesson that anybody learns in the Bible other than humility. Take every story in the Bible, yep, and it's always the same lesson. I'm God, you're not.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, yes. So the opposite of pride is humility, yeah, and the opposite of fear is love, yeah, can we live in love, joy intimately connected to love and can we live with humility, recognizing our desperate need for Christ in one another? It's as simple and yet so hard to live. Live that out, because that that Wiley won the liar. He really, really does a number to the ego for a lot of pastors. And then on the other side of the ego is often this radical insecurity. Our self-talk can be so, so bad. We're playing the comparison game, we're competing with our brothers. No, no, no. You're a child of God, you're loved by the crucified and risen one and he's proud of you. He smiles, he smiles over you.
Speaker 2:Self-care is hard for pastors. I don't know that. You look at the American. There's a lot of data on this. There's been a shift in the last generation or two in pastors not being probably looked to as the healthiest of humans on planet earth. Right, and I think sometimes we can even justify a lack of soul care, uh, physical care, um, taking the first hour or so of the day maybe two hours if you get up early to care for the soul, um, care for the body, which is all of a one thing. Right, we're not Gnostics. So to just lift the burden of any pastors who maybe feel guilty for spending time taking care of heart, body, mind, spirit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, it's the oxygen mask speech on the airplane, isn't it? It's so simple that that we have so much to do and this calling is such a great calling and so many opportunities to serve. But, um, it's having enough humility to recognize I am no good to anybody sitting on this airplane with me until I get my own oxygen mask on first. And I would just encourage everybody to absolutely make use of the wonderful resources God has given us in the psychological community. That good Christian counseling has been a treasure in my life and just rescued me over and over again when I would call my friend, al, my counselor, every five or six years and say, al, I think I need a few sessions again.
Speaker 3:Take care of your physical well-being. Being a steward of the body is huge. That sleep is the secret weapon for all of us. That sleep is the secret weapon for all of us. But really it goes back to just being people of the word, to just being constantly fed by the word of God.
Speaker 3:And remember Piper's definition of joy, that when he causes us to see the beauty of Christ in the word and in the world, so it's not only looking around and seeing day by day. Jesus did that that gives us the joy that keeps us fueled. But it's on every page of the scriptures to see what a marvelous, wondrous, amazing, loving, caring, compassionate, forgiving God that we have. And just being fed by that and I think the secret there is. We get so clinical sometimes in our study of the word. As church work professionals, you know that we have to stop and just let Jesus love you. Just shut up and sit and bask in his grace and don't argue with him all the reasons why you shouldn't love me Jesus, but just remember that he does and and just welcome, and and bathe in the love of Christ and that's how he heals everything that's broken in us.
Speaker 2:That is it. So, he is Daryl Zimmerman, a Reverend doctor. Nonetheless, reclaiming the joy of ministry is his book. Can people find it on Amazon?
Speaker 3:Yeah, amazon is the best way and just type in my name and pops right up the book, and then there's some companion workbooks, also an addition to the book, for commissioned ministers, especially for non-clergy.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. Do you have a website, email, any other way to contact you if folks would like to?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can get me at DarylZ23 at gmailcom. Daryl, with two R's and two L's, darylz23, gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Man. Daryl, you're the man. Thank you, blessings to you and your work at Cedar Hill, thanks for staying engaged and thanks for the generosity of time today Blessing me and all who took this in. This is American Reformation Podcast. We'll be back next week with a soul-enriching, joy-infusing conversation centered in the joy giver. His name is Jesus and he loves you so much. It's a good day. Go make it a great day. Thanks, daryl, thank you.