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ValleyChat
The official podcast of Shepherd of the Desert Church, Scottsdale, Arizona. Faith, life, and wisdom in the Valley of the Sun.
ValleyChat
Navigating Life's Journey Through the Lens of Encouragement
Imagine having a heart-to-heart with two pastors who have wisdom to share about life, friendships, family, and the power of encouragement. That's exactly what you'll get with Pastors John Karolus and Scott Seidler in this episode of Valley Chat. This soul-stirring conversation unravels the importance of male friendships, the role of family encouragement, and the profound power of sincere conversations in sustaining your spiritual journey. Whether you're a pastor, a church goer, or someone embarking on their spiritual exploration, you're bound to gain insights into the importance of longevity in relationships and the significance of family support.
Now, let's talk about you. How do you give and receive encouragement? Are you an extrovert who thrives on uplifting others, or an introvert who finds solace in quiet motivation? In this episode, we reveal how different personalities perceive encouragement. We also touch upon the joy of being an encourager, the exhilaration of creating dynamic loops of encouragement, and the importance of paying it forward. Pastor Scott, with his wealth of experience, shares his insights on how to nurture these relationships and be a catalyst for positivity. So, tune in to reflect, learn, and most importantly, to be encouraged. This is not just a podcast episode; it's a conversation that promises to inspire and uplift you in more ways than one.
Hi everyone, welcome back to our Shepherd podcast Valley Chat. I'm Pastor John Corollus here with my senior pastor, scott Sidler, here at Shepherd of the Desert, and today we're excited to talk to you about encouragement, and really talk to each other about encouragement, because in conversations I have with pastors who graduated seminary around the same time I did, we stay connected over the course of the year through weekly chats, through emails, phone calls, texts, and one thing that comes out is that everybody is in need of encouragement. That encouragement takes all those kinds of different forms of communication, but one thing is true we all need it in order to remain in a sustainable ministry, in order to remain plugged into what we do. So, pastor Scott, have you had any sort of similar realization in your early years as a pastor, or maybe later on in your career?
Speaker 2:Well, yes, the short answer. Yes, Number one, number two I think that the farther I get into ministry now, you know, kind of in the sunset years of my ministry I just turned 53, I've got about 12 more good years left, maybe a bit more. But as I talk with my colleagues who've been in ministry for a long time, I think encouragement may even be more important, because the context of ministry today is so much different than it was in 1996 when I started as a pastor. So, yes, encouragement matters and I would fight you, for I need more encouragement than you need more encouragement.
Speaker 1:This is not a conversation about the education we receive at the seminary, preparing us well for the ministries that we step into. And we could have all kinds of conversations about what is the ministry in the mind of the seminary when they're preparing students. What kind of ministry is a student best prepared for as they step into ministry in the real world? But I think you're right, there's a similarity in there being change over the course of time. For somebody who started in one context and the world has grown to be something entirely different, as well as for guys just starting out who were prepared for a particular kind of ministry and they find themselves in a vastly different kind of place. So maybe it is what they expected, but they're further away from the people that they know.
Speaker 1:They're not as readily able to see their family over holidays or to visit with friends, because they might be in the middle of the western United States and not know anybody within an hour or two, and so that isolation, that tends to be something that garners this need for encouragement. But as I've had conversations with church members and even just people connected to a preschool or whatever all these kinds of different forms of pastoral ministry it's become clear that this isn't a need just for pastors, or just for young pastors, or for sun setting pastors, as you would say, but something for everybody at all kinds of stages in life, whether they be somebody that lives at home and isn't able to get out much because of their age, or maybe they're plugged in and locked in on their career and growing their family, maybe they're a young professional who is just starting out, bought a first house. Whatever it is, everybody seems to be facing different struggles, and so the need for honest, for real, for significant encouragement seems to be extremely, extremely needful, extremely necessary.
Speaker 2:Well, and I would say this. So let me throw in a couple of thought bombs that just exploded in my own head. First of all, let's just talk about men for a second, because the isolation that men are feeling these days of all ages, the hard task of getting male friends, means that you have a hard task of getting male encouragement. And it's one thing to give encouragement generally, just as a human being, but it's, I think, very important that men are encouraged by men, and there's just something a little bit different, maybe experientially, culturally, that goes into that. So just keep that in mind. And I think the second piece of the puzzle is in Christian ministry again, a lot of the pastors we know male pastors, a lot of pastors generally are men, and so you double down on we have a hard Christian ministry and we're men. Now we're doubly hard pressed. How do we get encouragement as Christian male ministers? It's a big ticket. I mean. That is a huge hill to climb and this topic of encouragement really just becomes that much more important.
Speaker 1:I think you're totally right about that. You have that double level of difficulty, and so it becomes double as important, I think, to seek out those kinds of relationships instead of just expecting that it's going to manifest for you in your own life. According to how the world works and that's probably true for most people as well it's like the idea that a therapist, a clinically trained therapist, still needs to have their own therapist, especially if they're seeing clients, because now they've got to process what they're processing with all of their clients, and even though the therapist knows what their caretaker, what their therapist, is going to tell them, it's really, really important for them still to receive that kind of sustainable, renewing conversation, processing place where it's safe for them to lay out everything that's going on and to receive those same kinds of comments, support and really encouragement that we need. So pastors need pastors, therapists need therapists. Maybe everybody needs a therapist.
Speaker 1:I'm a big proponent of counseling and therapy. I agree with you. But outside of professional relationships, where do you point people or where have you found the most strong forms of encouragement for yourself, and where do you point people when they ask you for some advice on that?
Speaker 2:Oh, John, I am an awful answerer to that question. I just need to be honest and I think it's symptomatic of the fact that encouragement can sometimes be that hard to find. For me, my encouragement comes most significantly from the people who know me best, and that is my family, Renee. After 28 years of marriage, I mean she is the encourager. She knows me best. We have known each other our entire lives, so longevity matters in that regard. It just can't be Pollyanna, little nice, courteous affirmations like the old SNL skit with Stuart Smalley I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and, gosh darn it, people love me. I mean that just kind of sugary, sacriny encouragement doesn't count. You've got to find who's been with you the longest, who's known you the longest. I think that's for me the hardest Because I mean we've known each other for a couple years. You're a great encourager. I hope you feel the same about me. But you learn the deep history. You know what kinds of encouragement matter.
Speaker 2:Gary Chapman wrote the book Love Languages. Encouragement comes in different forms. Sometimes for me it's words of affirmation. Renee can slather that on thick, but for other people it may just be time spent. Quality time is an affirmation of a different kind. Gifts, encouragement, so those all come into play. And what about you? How do you navigate that really hard question that I can't answer, except I just did for four minutes.
Speaker 1:I think it's important to recognize that it is challenging. Even if you're somebody who's lived life, who's led organizations, who's had career moves, who seems to be well-established and has life pretty much going on a reasonably stable track, that doesn't necessarily mean you've got these kinds of supportive, resilient relationships that are pouring into you constantly and you can just turn to your counsel of encouragement and receive exactly what you need. It's hard to find that, because sometimes what is most pressing on you, most personally difficult for you. It takes a lot of strength and courage to reveal that to somebody, and so it needs to be somebody that you're willing to go that far with and then who you can trust to speak positively into you, supportively into you, and how you're handling whatever that situation may be or that great fear, that great question may be for you.
Speaker 1:For me, the encouraging people again, like you said, the people that know me best, the people that have known me the longest my brother, who we've shared a room since he was born.
Speaker 1:That's been a longstanding relationship. That's somewhere we can go and be honest with each other and just say what we're feeling and sometimes encouragement is a nonverbal communication. As well as the guys that walked with me through seminary and we find ourselves in similar situations, pastorally, in our first or second call, trying to figure everything out. And, yeah, and the closest person in my life, kaylee, my wife, who, as we are better learning to understand each other in our early days of marriage, early months of marriage, we're learning what those paths of encouragement, of sincere and really like tangible encouragement, are. Because, as you said, if you just say something that you think somebody wants to hear, you're gonna see right through it and if you just hear somebody say you're doing great, really appreciate you, thanks for being you, it doesn't really help. If you're seriously questioning whether you've got it together, whether the strengths that you've had are really your strengths or whatever questions you might be struggling with, those are where I turn.
Speaker 2:You know, as you're talking and I just again think about our working relationship over these past couple of years you have a real extroverted quality. You know, to you you live outwardly. I tend to be a lot more introverted and so, as you're answering that question, I'm sitting here thinking to myself gosh, I wish I could be like John when I grow up, because I have noticed that about you. You have so many relationships. I listen to you. In the next door office you're talking, you know, with your seminary classmates having a round table discussion about stuff, and I commend you for that.
Speaker 2:You know there is that extroversion, introversion offset. I have to work harder to find time and allow people to be an encourager for me, and so you know introversion, if you're an introverted person like I am, you're gonna have to do a little bit more work to find who those people are that you trust to encourage you. And then you actually gotta talk to people. You know introverts tend not to wanna, you know, maybe, interact with a lot of people all the time, and that's certainly for me. I get pretty exhausted in ministry pretty quickly If I've gotta be around crowds. It sounds odd, but that's again another thing just to think through if you're finding yourself lacking encouragement, you find yourself being more of an introverted personality type. What is the action plan by which you're going to increase your circle of trust right? Meet the Focker's reference and have that ability to have people speak a word of affirmation and encouragement to you.
Speaker 1:I think there's an element here too, where somebody might be asking themselves well, I don't know if it's encouragement I need, but I'm feeling exhaustion because of my work or I'm feeling stressed because of certain relationships I have in my life, and there's a press where the lack of encouragement can pour into these other areas, and so different indicators of burnout or indicators of anxiety or stress or even just kind of a depressed state can help. You can kind of be a trigger or a flag for you to say Are there people that speak honestly to me about what I'm doing? Is there somebody I can go to with struggles? And so it may be kind of a barometer, kind of a check that you can run on yourself Do I feel encouraged? Do I feel like there's people that believe in me and what I'm doing? And on the converse side of that and this is where you know that scripture reference we've been throwing around as we were putting this episode together from First Thessalonians. It says, therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact, you are doing Paul is instructing the Thessalonians to be in encouraging relationships.
Speaker 1:And so, as we hear that, not only do we hear that we need them, but then also we hear we're supposed to be participating in that. Who am I supposed to be encouraging? And that may be helpful on the path of trying to find your encouragers. Who is it that God has placed me into a position to encourage in that meaningful, trust-filled, just sincere way where they can trust me that what I'm saying is true, not just something I'm trying to puff them up with or keep them going for my own benefit? Who am I supposed to encourage? Do you have any thoughts on how you've identified those people that you encourage?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, in theory and I don't mean to be glib, but you and I get paid to be encouragers, right? I mean helpers like pastors or counselors or doctors are meant to be encouraging as part of our profession. I don't have to work too hard to find people who I can encourage. I love helping people and so for me it's not so much being an encourager because I have to do that as part of my job, but what really gives me joy is being able to provide surprising encouragement.
Speaker 2:For instance, yesterday one of our music and worship leaders over here at Arshae Campus was telling me that he's getting ready to go to Broadway in New York and to try out and to try to make it on Broadway in New York, and it made me think of a contact that I have here in Phoenix that's actually been on Broadway very successfully, and so I didn't see that coming, that cold conversation with our worship leader, and I mean, as soon as he said I'm going to Broadway, I thought of the contact that I know here in Phoenix that's been on Broadway at the highest level of success, and I was able to say guess what?
Speaker 2:I get to have a Zoom meeting with you two in order for me to help you achieve your dreams on Broadway, hopefully. Who knows what's going to come of it, but those are the things that, for me, gives me joy is surprising encouragement. When I'm in the supermarket aisle and there's a five foot two inch 90 year old woman trying to reach the pineapple juice at the seven foot level of the shelves, can I help you? Surprising, didn't see it coming. It's done and we're moving on. Those kinds of taking the bull by the horns when you see an opportunity, sees it, because when you give encouragement as a human being, god gives you encouragement back and that's just a really cool thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's that. There's that cycle of I'm taking a step towards somebody just because there's a need that apparently I think I've labeled a fill. And it doesn't have to be very complex. It could be as simple as a grocery store assist, or taking something out to the car, helping somebody carry bags or whatever, and in their thank you or even just appreciative look, all of a sudden, is that gift of God, encouragement back to you? And you know we're all familiar with this concept of paying it forward, of feeling rewarded when we give something away.
Speaker 1:But there's there's a, there's a very real value to that that's important to just express and get out there. So if you're somebody who's kind of looking at your life and you're thinking about whether you've got encouragement, whether you've got supportive and resilient relationships, hopefully this conversation has been able to help you think through. How are the ways that I can assess whether they exist in my life, pray about and search out somebody who can help me identify where they might be and who I can encourage in a way that creates almost a dynamic sort of encouragement loop back and forth with each other? Pastor Scott, thanks for your wisdom and your insight on this. We hope to see you next time as we join once again in having a valley chat conversation for people, for Christians everywhere. We'll see you next time.