Welcome: 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations podcast sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, jd Paring will have conversations with church planting pastors and leaders from around the country. You can learn more about how to connect with Excel at the end of this podcast. Let's join JD now and listen in on this leading conversation.

J.D. Pearring: 0:29

Welcome to another rendition of the Excel Leadership Podcast Leading Conversations. Today we have the privilege of having with us all the way from San Diego, california. The great, the mighty Brendan P is with us today. Thanks for being here, brendan.

Brendan Prout: 0:47

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

J.D. Pearring: 0:50

Yeah, how's San Diego right now? What's the weather?

Brendan Prout: 0:54

It's been hot. It's been consistently hot. We've had a little bit of thunderstorms out where we live, in East County, which is unusual for this time of year. But I'll take it. Where in East County do you live? We're in Lakeside, so we're right at the foothills where the valley ends and the mountains start.

J.D. Pearring: 1:13

I was with a gentleman this weekend who was with the Border Patrol and he said at one point he stopped somebody trying to sneak in and he said where are you trying to go? And they said, uh, La Casita. And he said there's no place San D in iego called la casita. He said, yeah, la casita, that's where I'm going. And he said write it down. And it was l-a-k-e-s-i-d-e, La Casita, california. you're in I will own that.

Brendan Prout: 1:45

That sounds fantastic.

J.D. Pearring: 1:47

I mean, Lakeside sounds pretty cool. La Casita does too. So hey, tell us your story. Go back to the very beginning. How did you come to Jesus?

Brendan Prout: 1:58

I grew up in a Navy family. We moved 17 times in 21 years, oh my goodness. Yeah, kind of lived all over the place and it was a little bit of. A couple of spots were repeat back and forth and we'd visit other places in between. My parents if you've ever seen my big fat Greek wedding, that's kind of their story my dad was Irish Catholic, my mom is Greek, and so depending on where we lived, we would either go to a Catholic church or a Greek church, whatever was closer or available. Sometimes it was just a Navy chapel that was available. But our family was quasi-religious. You know very, check off the box, go to church and you're good with God. That was kind of the ideal. When I was in high school I started going to a Christian youth group because that's where the pretty girls from my school were at.

Brendan Prout: 2:56

And it happened to be in rural Virginia. It was a very kind of legalistic church. I very quickly learned that electric guitar was the instrument of the devil and I almost didn't get to go to church. The first time I went there I was wearing denim, blue jeans and kind of a rocker t-shirt and a denim jacket, and the usher stopped me, said where do you think you're going, son? I said well, I'm going to church. It's not dressed like that. You're not wearing your parents. I think they're in bed and he goes. Well, how did you get here? I walked, well, all right. Well, you, you can come in, but sit in the back so you don't distract anyone. But you know, there were pretty girls involved. So I was committed. I kept going, um, fast forward.

Brendan Prout: 3:41

Another year we moved cross-country out here in san die Diego and a Christian friend of mine invited me to his church and youth group and you know same sort of thing. Hey, we do fun things. We got pretty girls. Great, I'm there. And when I showed up there was a rock band on stage and I thought, oh, wow, you know I don't want to be here and get in trouble when the pastor finds out that this is happening. So I turned around and started to leave and my buddy goes where are you going? I said, well, I know about you, Christians and rock music and I don't want to be here when this gets found out and you all get in trouble and somehow the blame will come on me because I'm a musician, so I'm out. And he said no, no, no, no, no. The pastor is on the stage playing guitar. And I went oh well, this might be my kind of church.

Brendan Prout: 4:30

And I started going and it was very different from anything that I've ever experienced. People were talking about having a relationship with Jesus and wanting to read the Bible, to know God more, not because somebody was making them and there was a program, and just very different the way people related to one another and I thought, all right, well, either this is a cult or God is real and he's in this place and I need to figure this out. So I went to my dad. Dad, I need you to come and be eyes and ears here. I don't know if this is. You know what's going on here, if this is a cult or if this is like a legit church. So he came, started coming with me. Just fly on the wall for a youth group listening, and after a few weeks he said well, look, they're teaching you the Bible, they're teaching you to follow Jesus. They're teaching you to follow Jesus, they're teaching you to obey your parents and be a decent human being. I think this is okay. You should keep coming to this.

Brendan Prout: 5:28

So, with his blessing, I kept going and after months of hearing and experiencing, I went on a retreat with the youth group, cornered a couple of the pastors for about four hours to ask them questions about Jesus, and at the end of that I made a commitment to follow Jesus. And it's kind of been all downhill since, but I was very fortunate that church had a tremendous discipleship program. When I made my commitment to follow the Lord, I was immediately you know, oh, you're going to follow Jesus, great. Well, here's what we do Start reading the gospel. Let's start with you, know the book of John and walk through that with you. Let's talk about what it means to be a disciple. Let's talk about what it means to follow Jesus. And, by the way, that does mean you're going to be serving somehow. So well, I'm a musician. That does mean you're going to be serving somehow. So well, I'm a musician. I could go do this worship thing. And they said no, no, no, no, no, no, you're too new at this, but we can get you involved in serving behind the scenes. You can learn sound and lighting and be a stagehand and learn what it means to serve before we're throwing you on a platform. And I was very grateful for that later when I realized how important that was. But, yeah, served for about six months. Eventually they said, all right, well, you can start playing guitar in the worship band with the youth group and get your feet wet.

Brendan Prout: 6:58

And maybe about six months after that we had an incident where the worship leader. After that we had an incident where the worship leader, five minutes before service, had an emergency and he said I have to leave and, brendan, you're leading, and I'd never been on a microphone before. So I said what are you talking about? I'm not leading, you've got other people that sing. I'm not doing that. He said no, no, no, I hear you behind me singing your heart out every week. You know the words, you know the songs. You just gotta step forward like five feet and get on the microphone and it's you. You're the person. So, um, I gotta take care of this. It's on you bye. And he left and I led and it was horrible. But uh and I know it's horrible because they recorded it I still have the recording. Do, do you really? Yeah, but he came back the next week and he said hey, how did it go? I said it was awful, it was terrifying. When can I do it again? And he started to coach me as a worship leader.

Brendan Prout: 7:59

When I went off to college I started leading worship with InterVarsity. After college I started leading worship with InterVarsity. Very quickly found a little cavalry chapel that you know they operate differently than big churches, I would say even the big ones. A friend invited me. I show up. Pastor says hey, yeah, so-and-so has been telling me about you. I understand you sing and play guitar. I'm like, yeah, he's like well, we have a guitar here. Would you mind doing a few?

Welcome: 8:29

songs this morning. All right, sure, really.

Brendan Prout: 8:30

So I get up, I do a few songs little calvary chapel in uh in Galita, California, and get done he goes. That was great. Could you come back and do that every week? So I ended up being worship leader at Little Calvary Chapel during my freshman year of college. Where did you go to college? Well, I couldn't give up the military moving thing.

Brendan Prout: 8:53

So my freshman year was at UC Santa Barbara and I failed out colossally. I was a terrible student. So they invited me to not come back the next year. I ended up having to go back home and say, hey, that was kind of a disaster. What next? And my father very graciously said well, I can either drive you down to the Navy recruiting depot and you can go enlist, or, you know, you can go move out on your own and try to figure this thing out. Or you can move back in home with us. But you're going to get a job, you're going to pay me back for this freshman year debacle and you're going to go to community college and get your grades up and in return I will house you and feed you and clothe you. All right, that sounds like a great deal. So I moved back in.

Brendan Prout: 9:39

Family ended up moving to Hawaii. So I went to community college in Hawaii for about a half a year. Got into Hawaii Pacific University, went there for a semester, got back into UC Santa Barbara, went there for a couple of semesters but it was on my dime at that point and I figured out how expensive college was. So then went to Santa Barbara City College to get my GEs out of the way at a cheaper cost. In the process, joined a band, started touring doing worship things all over the place, relocated to San Diego, started going to school at UC San Diego and that was when my father was killed in the line of duty in the Navy and that kind of twisted a lot of things around, brought my world to a lot of changes. Talk about that. What happened?

Brendan Prout: 10:39

He was the admiral in charge of the Carl Vinson battle group, so we had a carrier and a whole bunch of ships under his command, and while he had been a surface officer most of his career, once he was in charge of the aircraft carrier he decided well, I'd like to learn to fly and know what all these people do. So he did that and he was doing a checkout flight in an F-18 flying across country. The training officer, from what we've been able to ascertain from the investigation report, decided to do what a lot of the other flight officers did when they had the Admiral, and that's play a game of let's scare the Admiral. A game of let's scare the admiral. So instead of flying up through the clouds and getting above the mountain peaks, he was doing this bit in between mountains, in the middle of a snowstorm, and flew them right into the side of a mountain at 700 miles an hour. So up until the moment that he passed, I'm sure he had a smile on his face and was enjoying the experience. But you know, just like that he was gone.

Brendan Prout: 11:46

Yeah, yeah, it was very tragic, unplanned, unexpected. It was not a time of war. He was simply flying from San Diego to St Louis on this training flight and, you know, went down in the mountains near Taos, new Mexico.

J.D. Pearring: 12:06

Well, that's prime airplane crash territory right there, and this is at the San Gregorio mountains. I know a lot of pilots take that a little too unseriously and there's a lot of problems there. I flew over that in a CESA once and I was being explained about. Well, that's terrible. That happened to your dad. So you're raised by an admiral he's kind of a hero guy and then he is taken away.

Brendan Prout: 12:40

Yes, indeed. So that caused a lot of changes. I've been living out on my own. I moved back in with my mom and my little brother and sister, kind of get the family under one roof. I had been serving in youth ministry at the time and worship ministry and, just being real, I had a very immature understanding of my relationship with the Lord.

Brendan Prout: 13:00

At that point. I thought we had a deal, like I serve you, you bless me, and that's how this works. And when my dad was killed, this was kind of the final straw in a series of losses I'd experienced in a short period of time. One of my close friends had been raped and murdered. I lost four friends in a drunk driving accident and then another friend fell asleep behind the wheel driving home from college and she was killed. And then my father was killed, all within about four months. So I acted out. I was like, oh, you're gonna do that to me. God see what I'm gonna do now.

Brendan Prout: 13:38

So I went off the rails. I started getting really heavily involved in street racing. I was one of those hoodlum street racers like Fast and the Furious, running from the cops every Saturday night, and doing that Started drinking, started inappropriate sexual relationship with a girlfriend. I mean just kind of everything that you should not be doing as someone in ministry, let alone youth ministry, and having high schoolers and junior hires looking up to you.

Brendan Prout: 14:17

So after about a year of really self-destructive behavior and I was at a big, mega church that had zero accountability, so I was doing all this under the nose of this church that was supposedly, you know, a very big, healthy church I realized that I was really only hurting myself church. I realized that I was really only hurting myself and God was very patiently waiting for me, kind of like going all right, are you done? Having your temper tantrum, can we now talk like adults? And I came back to the Lord and said all right, you know, I'm sorry, I need to get right with you. So broke off that relationship, stepped aside from ministry in some areas, kind of handed off the baton, really wanted to refocus on my relationship with the Lord and had to get myself out of debt because I'd gotten in massive debt over my race car and was working two jobs to pay off my bill. Sold my car, did a lot of things to just kind of get right in every matter that matters. What kind of car was it, by the way?

J.D. Pearring: 15:20

What did you have?

Brendan Prout: 15:22

It was a little hot hatch Volkswagen called a Corrado

J.D. Pearring: 15:27

Corrado

Brendan Prout: 15:29

Yeah, a weird, rare car.

Brendan Prout: 15:35

They only made them for a few years back in the early 90s. But it was, yeah, the little Volkswagen that could beat up on Mustangs and Camaros. So you know, had fun with it.

Brendan Prout: 15:44

Anyway, yeah, I was kind of in that mode of resetting and restarting when I started serving in a college ministry that I helped start. There was not a college ministry at the church I was at. Ran into one of my buddies. I had to start over at college too. I dropped out of college during this period of time, so I'm starting over at college. Ran into a buddy at this church Is there a college group here? He's like no, you want to start one? Sure.

Brendan Prout: 16:14

So we started doing a Bible study on Sunday mornings and there was three of us the first week and then word got out, there was 12 of us the next week and about three weeks later we had 25 of us. We outgrew the room. So we go to the elders of the church say can we have a bigger room? They gave us a bigger room Pretty soon. There was 50 of us. We outgrew that room. A few months later there were about 150 of us in this college ministry because word got out that oh, there's actually a college ministry now at this big church, great, cool.

Brendan Prout: 16:44

So I was leading that and doing worship, getting back in the groove, and then this girl named Susie showed up on a Sunday morning and that's the woman that would become my wife and I didn't want to be that guy that immediately dropped in on the fresh girl who showed up the new girl. So I ignored her for a long time. But then, you know, things happened. My birthday happened to be on a Sunday morning. I thought I've been serving at this church for a while. They're probably going to do something fun for me. I'll show up and it'll be a great day.

Brendan Prout: 17:18

And there's a big banner when I walk in saying happy birthday Susie. And I was like what the heck? And it was her birthday. We had the same birthday. So like that was my end. I'm like all right, I'm going to go meet her and I'm going to pursue, and it took me an entire summer of pursuit before she agreed to go out with me, but that was how I met my wife, my parents, have the same birthday and growing up as a kid I thought, hey, the girl takes the guy's last name, the guy takes the girl's birthday, as should I have thought.

Brendan Prout: 17:53

That's how it works. So we started serving together. I got recruited by a little church plant to go be their worship director and Susie came with me. We were not married yet but she was really interested in doing the community outreach that they were getting started. So we went over there about 60 people in this new little church plant and over our seven years there that was when I first had a pastor identify in me a call to pastoral ministry. We'd gone through some hiccups, we'd seen some disasters in ministry there. Their worship pastor fell out of ministry after having an affair with someone in their children's ministry and that immediately thrust me into the role of being the worship pastor.

Brendan Prout: 18:45

Because I had been doing the programming, I'd been working with the band, I'd been doing all the behind-the-scenes stuff and the lead pastor said well, this guy can't lead worship anymore, he's disqualified. How would you feel about stepping into that role? And I said well, you know, sure I'll do it. And after operating in that for about six months he said you know what? I think you've got the pastoral gene in your blood and I was coming toward the end of college. My undergrad at that point said you should seriously consider going to seminary and getting ministry training, and if you do feel like that this is a call you'd like to respond to then we will invest in you as a church and create an on-the-job pastoral internship track for you to learn how to be a pastor while you're going to school to learn how to be a pastor, and that was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. Honestly, it was great. So over two years they put me in every different area of ministry in the church to learn how to do all the things, and I got my first ordination at that church. We were at a church that had been a church plant and over the time we were there grew to about 1200 people and the goal was to plant daughter churches, to plant new churches. So I was supposed to be in the first church plant team.

Brendan Prout: 20:12

Unfortunately, shenanigans ensued. We found out years later what the root cause of the shenanigans were, and that was there was somebody that was embezzling money, but there was a building project. We had bought a property, we were building a sanctuary, we were doing all these things and one day I came into a budget meeting for the next year and I found out that they didn't have budget for me and the three other pastors also got laid off that day. That sorry budget for the build has gone out of control. We can't pay you. Truthfully, they had already not paid me for six months. Every month they'd been saying, sorry, we don't have money this month, we'll catch you up next month. So we kind of ate through our savings. At the end of that six months I was at a place where I was just about ready to say, hey, I need to go find another job because I can't work for free, and then they let me go.

Brendan Prout: 21:07

So that was kind of our first big ministry disappointment and hurt walking away from that and I wish I was the last, but we've had some, some roller coasters within ministry over the last 30 years well, how did you get over that?

Brendan Prout: 21:30

a colleague of mine that I'd gone to seminary with and I was still in seminary with at the time said hey, I'm so sorry you're going through this. We were in an accountability group together. He said why don't you come hang out at my church and just rest and recover and heal, and when you're ready to jump back into ministry we'll send you out with a blessing? So we were there for about a month just kind of resting on the sidelines when his worship leader had a knockdown drag out fight with their elder team and got fired. And he came to me and said hey, you're here. Would you mind just picking up the guitar and helping us out on Sunday morning? I won't ask anything else of you. And I said sure, I'll do that. And then about two months later he said I lied, I really need you on staff here. What would you think about joining our ministry team? And I said no. I said no, I don't think that's what God has for me. I'm happy to do just worship for you right now, but I really feel like God's got something else for me. So I said no. And then, about two months later, god changed my mind on that and I walked back in and said all right, fine, you got me.

Brendan Prout: 22:45

I served there for three years and then my wife had some pretty severe medical troubles at the time pretty severe medical troubles at the time and I had raised up a Timothy, a little young man that I was mentoring as a worship leader and a potential pastor. I was ready to hand off the baton to him and I was able to step back out of ministry, hand it over to him. We remained at that church for another six months but I really felt like my job was done. It was like a duck to water, it was perfect, and that young man has actually stayed at that church for many, many years.

Brendan Prout: 23:21

He's just now and this was 2005, 2006, I think, no 2007. He's just now moving on from that church all these years later, so that I feel like that was a big ministry win. But we hung out there for a while and went through some getting our act together as a family, helping my wife recover, getting a better place where she was healed and able to do things, and then we felt like we were released to move on. So we searched around some other churches, found one down the street that seemed like a good fit for our kids. I did not intend to join the ministry staff. Actually, it kind of ended up being our home base for a couple of years, while I did interim pastorships at various churches around the area.

J.D. Pearring: 24:16

It seems like you never intend to join the ministry staff, right, you know?

Brendan Prout: 24:22

It's interesting, god brought me around on that. But yeah, they sought me out. I was at the church. I was interming at another church, but I was going to this one church, just as kind of my home base, where I could just go and be ministered to and hear the word and not have to do anything. And the executive pastor who was mentoring me and their original founding pastor who was also mentoring me I'd connected with them while I was in seminary said you know, we could use your help, would you consider joining our team? And after a good seven-month vetting process, they invited me to be a pastor there. We went through some catastrophic ministry changes there as well. About a month after I was ordained at that church their current lead pastor, I was ordained at that church, their current lead pastor, whose backstory and testimony was that he had been a con man, gone to prison, met Jesus and came out and started serving in ministry.

J.D. Pearring: 25:23

Well, it turned out he wasn't so reformed and he had been embezzling from that church for 10 years and he went back off to prison. So I got— yeah, actually two embezzling stories, a bunch of other stuff. You did finish college right.

Brendan Prout: 25:40

I did, I did. I finished my bachelor's in psychology. I got my master's of divinity did finish that out.

J.D. Pearring: 25:51

How did the church planting bug by you? I know you mentioned that you're part of a church plant. How did that happen?

Brendan Prout: 26:00

So the original, that first church that I joined staff with that actually paid me, which ended up being the one that let me go because they couldn't pay me. Ironically, that one had a core value of church planting. It was the first time I'd really heard about church planting. It was a church replant itself. They had been geographically in La Jolla, which was down by the coast, and they had replanted in Tierra Santa, which is about 15 miles inland. When I joined them there were about 40 or 50 adults and it grew a lot while I was there, part of the ministry team, but their whole value was we don't want to be a megachurch, we want to plant new churches in San Diego and I was bit by the church planting bug. Then I really wanted to be part of a church plant. I loved what we were doing and I wanted to see that duplicated in the area.

Brendan Prout: 27:03

The church that I joined in Mira Mesa after that was a church plant that I got to be a part of. They were meeting on a college campus, didn't have their own facility. I got to see them grow over. They were meeting on a college campus, didn't have their own facility. I got to see them grow over the time I was with them for three years we doubled, went to two services, started to the process of getting our own facility. I moved out during that process but moved to Community Bible Church, which had been a church plant, and their founding pastor mentored me, taught me and talked me about what it was like to grow as a church plant. Through all their various stages of life the church planting thing has been pretty consistent involved with my ministry career, if I'll call it that, with my ministry career, if I'll call it that.

Brendan Prout: 27:59

And then the Lord brought us out to Indiana for a couple of years and I got connected with the Send Network while I was out there and it kind of bit me new. I was like, oh, I want to do church planting again. I want to be involved rather with an established church. Let's do this. So I was intending to move back to San Diego and plant a church End, ended up connecting with another of my seminary colleagues who was doing another church replant. Hey, it's a little church, they're about to die and wink out of existence. Why don't you come help me with this, relaunch it and then, when you're ready, we'll send you out. You plant your church. So that brought me back to san diego. We got that church in Alpine up and running, went from 40 people to over 300 in about four years. And then, well, there was a change of events and I did end up moving on from that church to launch my church, but it was not in the timing that we had really expected, but that that we could talk about that another time.

J.D. Pearring: 28:52

So what are you doing now?

Brendan Prout: 28:55

What is Brendan doing now? I am multi-vocational, so I work full-time for the Navy as a civilian employee to fund my terrible ministry habit. We launched a church in Lakeside two and a half years ago without the support of any church planting organization or local church or denomination. And I will just say that is absolutely not not how anyone should do it. You need a community, you need a tribe, you need support, you need other people alongside you in the trenches. So do not do this.

Brendan Prout: 29:31

And I think the Lord blessed us in spite of ourselves for a period of time. But we went through a very rapid climb and growth and then a downward trajectory. Within about a year we lost our facility. We ended up moving to meeting in people's houses and a lot of people right in that period of time were ejecting from California. They were leaving the state, moving out.

Brendan Prout: 29:59

So we of our families that we had, I think we lost the vast majority of them to moving out of California. And now we are at a place where we're ready to consider reincubating, relaunching, at some point in the future. But we're going through the process of assessing with various church planting organizations, relationship with local churches that could be our tribe and be our local support and have accountability and have local coaches and mentors and do it the way that it really ought to be done best practices so that we could be successful if this is what the Lord wants. So we've kind of come full circle on this, to where we really should have started off with a couple of years ago circle on this to where we really should have started off with a couple of years ago.

Brendan Prout: 31:02

Well, thanks for sharing that. Why did you do it on your own? Oh, I felt a lot of pressure. We had been operating within the Southern Baptists Association and our departure from our last church was not healthy. We worked for a very unhealthy leader who was abusive and terrible to work for. He did a great job of driving away anybody that would have a dissenting opinion from whatever it was that he wanted to do, and it was not a very good experience for us. But after one particular staff meeting where one staff member up and quit in the middle of the meeting and walked out and another pastor said well, I guess now is as good a time to let you know that I'm only here for two more weeks. Today's my two weeks notice. I'm gone because of this sort of abusive behavior.

Brendan Prout: 32:00

I met with that lead pastor and he said well, I guess you're going to have to do a lot more stuff since they're leaving. And I said well, you know, I'm willing to help carry the load, but we need to re re-examine what, what's going on here and what we're doing, and try to figure out how to move forward in a healthy manner. And his response was to fire me. So we were living in a parsonage on campus at that church and found ourselves in danger of being homeless because he wanted us gone at the end of the month. And uh, while I was in the pipeline learning how to be a church planter with the Send Network, we were nowhere close to being ready to launch, so we were kind of under the gun.

Brendan Prout: 32:47

We very quickly lost our ride, so to say, with the Send Network. Well, if you don't have a sending church, then you can't plant with us. Okay, but I need something to do. I need a home, I need a job. I don't want to be homeless on the street just because I happen to work for a narcissist who didn't like a dissenting opinion and I had a family that had previously been at the church that had left because of this. Guy said well, we've been really wanting to plant a church, why don't we do this together? And we came together, found a facility, figured out how to make it happen and just went for it without any support, without anybody backing us. And yeah, it was very much under the pressure of if I don't do this, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like all I've done for years is ministry, I don't know what else I can do. And you know you shouldn't enter ministry because you feel pressured to enter ministry.

J.D. Pearring: 33:50

Now it sounds like you've had some really good experiences. You've had some really bad experiences. Why are you wanting to jump back into this? Why not just go be in the Navy?

Brendan Prout: 34:07

I think it was DL Moody that said if you can do anything other than be a pastor, go do it. Go sell ice cream. People don't get mad at people who sell ice cream. Go do that. You know there's something about the call.

Brendan Prout: 34:22

I can't not do it and even when I've tried, I leaned into trying to do something other than ministry for a pretty long time. All right, I need a job. I have a certain amount of mechanical skill. I'll go be a technician for a while and I couldn't get a job working at an auto shop because I don't have the licenses. I did find an air conditioning company that was willing to hire me and let me be an HVAC technician for a season and that was really hard, grueling work but it didn't actually pay our bills.

Brendan Prout: 34:57

And the Navy thing came onto my plate. It's been a godsend. It's actually been a really healthy environment for me to work and pay mostly pay our bills. But I've still had to do multiple things because just the Navy job doesn't actually pay for the living for a family of four in San Diego. It's crazy how much it costs to live here. So I've had to do multiple strings of employment.

Brendan Prout: 35:22

So I write articles, I've co-written books, I've got a YouTube channel, I travel and I speak at conferences, I do the Navy thing and I've been an interim worship pastor at another church in addition to doing our own church, just to kind of keep the bills paid. Now, all the while, I've been trying to like, all right, god, do you really want me to be in ministry? Is this really what you want, or is this just a thing that I'm pushing for? And every time I've tried to step back, there's been something that has kept me involved there and I'm like all right, well, I think I just need to lean into the call.

Brendan Prout: 36:03

I've been doing this for 30 years now and see what the Lord would have for us. So there's always the hope. I think you have probably noticed the pattern that we serve at a variety of different churches over the years. We haven't had the experience where we've had one church for 20, 30 years and that's kind of been our dream, our hope to have our forever church, and it seems like that hope, combined with the church planting bug, seems to be where the Lord is going to provide that at some point in time. All right, well, let's dream into existence what the Lord has given us through our experiences, both positive and negative, and bring it to fruition with something that might give us that community that we can lean into for the next 20, 30 years of ministry life.

J.D. Pearring: 36:56

next for Brendan and Susie.

Brendan Prout: 37:01

Well, we are getting ready to hand off the baton for that church where I've been serving as an interim for a couple of years and within our own church plant, as I mentioned, we've kind of gone back to a very small group.

Brendan Prout: 37:16

I'm going to be taking an intentional six months. Well, we're going to start with six months of sabbatical where I'm not actively doing and leading ministry so that we can seek the Lord and see what he wants us to be doing, really leaning into my mentors and my ministry coaches to be able to help guide me along the way. And then we'll see what God wants to do with us six months to a year from now, whether it's we start the process over, we look for like minded people to start a church plant and we go for it, or who knows what God wants to do with us in a year. But we're looking to start over from a healthy standpoint and really lean into the time to learn and grow, be able to reflect on many of our experiences, both positive and negative, and use those in a manner that would be God-glorifying and encouraging for others that we run into in our circles.

J.D. Pearring: 38:22

Well, that sounds really wise at this point and I'm glad you're able to do that, and we'll keep praying, we'll keep looking with you toward the future. How are you going to keep on the sabbatical from you go, you slip into a church hey, here's a guitar. Lead the day, because that's the. How are you going to keep that from happening?

Brendan Prout: 38:47

That's hard. One of my coaches from the Excel network is going to be at the church that we're intending to go and just be at, so I'm hoping that Brett will keep me accountable on that. So accountability and people asking me you know, are you sure? Is this really the best thing? I think Proverbs says it's in the multitude of counsel that you find wisdom and safety. So I'm going to be leaning into that multitude of wise counsel in this time. And it is hard.

Brendan Prout: 39:25

I have seen some of my own mentors go on sabbatical and get bored halfway through their sabbatical and end up serving as an interim pastor somewhere and that leads into a long-term pastorate. One of my mentors, jim Bays he was at Ocean View Church in Chula Vista for 30 or 40 years went on a sabbatical, started guest speaking and that happened. He's been the lead pastor at First Baptist in Coronado for now seven years I think, as a result of a sabbatical. So I have to be open to what the Lord wants. But it's going to be hard. I'm just going to be real. I don't do nothing easily. I've got ADHD. I like to stay busy. Hopefully my wife speaking into my life reminding me hey, you said you weren't going to do this stuff. We'll see, reminding me hey, you said you weren't going to do this stuff.

J.D. Pearring: 40:18

We'll see. Well, hey, thanks for sharing your story the good, the bad, the ugly. Do give us a leadership tip. You've been through ups, downs, all arounds. What's your leadership tip for leaders out there?

Brendan Prout: 40:37

Kind of going back to that proverb having multiple people that can provide you with wise counsel and being willing to listen to them and be coachable, be teachable, be humble you might have experience, but your experience might be the exception rather than the rule. And being able to ask the right questions and have questions asked of you that you can consider thoughtfully, prayerfully, soberly and honestly, that's going to really be very helpful as we lead. We want to be healthy leaders. We want to be healthy leaders. We want to be teachable. We want to be correctable. Just because it's my idea does not mean it's a good idea.

J.D. Pearring: 41:27

Well, hey, I appreciate that and I'm impressed by your desire to listen to wives' counsel, to take a step back, to make sure you're doing what God's calling you to do. You mentioned some health issues for your wife. How's she doing?

Brendan Prout: 41:43

Well, as I mentioned, she's fighting cancer. She's got a chronic form of leukemia. She'll have it the rest of her life and the Lord sovereignly decides to heal her. But she's doing well with her treatment. The cancer is under control and she's able to get back to semi-normal life, so we're thrilled with that. Every day is a gift and our family is together. I've got both of my kids here. One is in college and one is finishing her senior year of high school. We try to walk with gratitude for what the Lord has done and over the last couple of years going through really difficult circumstances with ministry and finances, god's been very faithful at providing the whole way backward, at that track record of how he has provided for us, not just in the last couple of years but really over our entire history together as a couple and as a family, has made it a little easier when the hits come to go. Okay. Well, this is another hit, lord. How are you going to provide through this?

J.D. Pearring: 42:52

Yeah, Well, I'm glad that she's doing better. Hey, thanks for sharing your story, thanks for sharing your perseverance story. You're hanging in there, your next step, and I know God's got something really good for you. I also know that this sabbatical is really important, so we will be anxious to hear hey, how's it going? What are you doing, what are you not doing? And we appreciate you being here today. Thanks so much.

Brendan Prout: 43:23

Thank you, JD. Appreciate the opportunity to share.

Welcome: 43:27

Thanks for joining the Leading Conversations podcast. We hope that you found it both helpful and encouraging. At Excel Leadership Network, our focus is on the church planter rather than the church. At Excel Leadership Network, our focus is on the church planter rather than the church. If you'd like to find out more about us, visit our webpage at excelnetworkorg. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss any future episodes. See you next time with another leading conversation.