Welcome And Guest Introduction

Announcer 0:06

Welcome to the Leading Conversations Podcast, sponsored by the Excel Leadership Network. On each episode, JD Pering 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 episode of Leading Conversations with the Excel Leadership Network. Today, we're very privileged to have with us the great and powerful, the wonderful uh Dustin Bannister from North Carolina. Dustin, thanks for being here. It's my pleasure, my friend.

Small-Town Roots And Returning Home

J.D. Pearring 0:48

Tell us uh what town you live in and what's great about it.

Dustin Bannister 0:52

Yeah, so I live in LeGrange. Um, you probably haven't heard of this particular LeGrange, although Z Top did have a catchy tune years ago about a Texas town. Um we'll uh we'll just say Lagrange, North Carolina is a place that has my heart. Um, I grew up here. Uh my wife and I actually moved back here five years ago thinking we would not move back. Uh what is great about this town is that I can take my golf cart anywhere within the city limits and I don't have to crank my car up.

J.D. Pearring 1:22

So do you do you drive? Is it a golf cart or a golf car?

Dustin Bannister 1:27

Golf cart. Um, so we uh about six months ago, my wife and I had really just had the the the the push to get a bigger golf cart because we've got so many kids that are over here. We have three kids of our own, and every time we would get on this little easy go we had, there was two or three extra bodies, and that little easy go was not easygoing. Um so we went and we got this really cool golf cart, and now I take the kids to school on it. We go to the grocery store, uh we'll just ride around town. So we are the uh blue golf cart family here in LaGrange, which is a town of about 3,000 people, so it's very small and uh very rural.

J.D. Pearring 2:05

Well, great. Do you love it, or it's okay, or what where are you in it?

Dustin Bannister 2:11

You know, love is an interesting thing. Um, the the quick answer is yes. There's a longer answer that says there was a lot of memory in this town that when we left uh 15 years ago, didn't think we were gonna come back to. Uh, but five and a half years ago made the decision to move back here, and it was the best decision that we have made thus far. Um, so yeah, we we do love it. I uh I appreciate this town for everything that it is, and there's just something about the the stories that could be shared and the possible stories that will be shared.

J.D. Pearring 2:45

Well, good. Well, I'm glad you're back

Faith Story And Call To Ministry

J.D. Pearring 2:48

in your hometown. Speaking of your hometown, tell us what it was like growing up and how you came to Jesus and all of that.

Dustin Bannister 2:53

Yeah. Um my maternal family was very strongly connected to a church here in LaGrange, uh, LeGrange's first Free Will Baptist. Uh, and I can't remember a time where we were not, you know, Sunday mornings, uh, youth groups, Bible studies, revivals. Um and so at at some point as a preteen, uh, made a profession of faith. Uh later in kind of my 14, 15-year-old range, um made another profession of faith. Um, I don't I don't know that the first one had any sort of it was what my friends were doing. And so I don't know that it held me to any sort of a standard, although how much um do we hold, you know, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-olds for their actions. I mean, wasn't a bad kid, didn't do things that were, you know, strongly impactful in a negative or positive way. Um, but in in my teenage years, um, got really connected in some youth group spaces um with our church and a few others, and um just eventually got to a point where the people around me said, we think God is calling you to to do something in ministry. And as much as I wanted to ignore those voices, I couldn't. Um and so I tell people the the way that I kind of said yes to ministry was not this like Damascus Road experience. It was more like I did a lot of little things, and as good as I could do those things, they didn't bring joy and satisfaction, like doing ministry-related things did. Um, and so I I kind of came in that way. Um, just nothing else worked, nothing else fit.

J.D. Pearring 4:36

Well, and that sounds like that's your call.

Dustin Bannister 4:39

How did you pursue that? So in our faith tradition, it it really starts with kind of a public profession. Um for me, it was walking up to the the pastor of the church at the time and saying, I think I'm caught into ministry. And I did. I that started the process. Um, we have a licensured ordination pathway that takes roughly five years. Um, and so started in that process, ended up going into a private Christian school, uh, Mount Olive College at the time, now as a University of Mount Olive to study. Uh, did a bachelor's in religion. Um, and that was kind of how the early pursuit of the call was.

J.D. Pearring 5:18

Um, you

Free Will Baptist Beliefs Explained

J.D. Pearring 5:19

talk about your faith production. Can you tell us what is a free will Baptist?

Dustin Bannister 5:25

It was a slanderous name hundreds of years ago. Uh, but in essence, we we believe in an atonement that one can say yes to and can say no to. Um, we come out of a general Baptist, if if anybody on this call knows what the general Baptists believe theologically, um, we were not the particular Baptist or the kind of reformed Calvinistic approach. We fall into a more Arminian space. Um, so free will was a nickname given because you could freely accept the grace of God or you could freely reject that same grace.

J.D. Pearring 6:02

Okay, can you walk away from it? Can you lose your salvation in the free will Baptists?

Dustin Bannister 6:07

Uh in according to our faith tradition, yes, there there is a way you could surrender back the gift of grace. Um, it it would not be something that you did um on accident, it would be just as intentional as you said yes to it. It would have to be a very intentional saying no to that same gift. Um and that's kind of all the explanation that that we have. Like freely given, freely can give back.

J.D. Pearring 6:34

Okay, great. Well, thanks for that theology lesson. We appreciate that.

Pastoring Conflict And Being Uninvited

J.D. Pearring 6:39

So you go to college, you get your degree, then what?

Dustin Bannister 6:46

So honestly, undergrad was about as far as I could think ahead until I met a very motivated young woman named Danielle, um, who would eventually become my girlfriend, fiance, and wife. Um, she was far more motivated than me and was in pursuit of graduate school before I really even had a grasp on what undergrad would look like. Um, so I ended up actually following with her to Campbell, um, Campbell University Divinity School in Buoys Creek. Um, she was going into the pharmacy school at Campbell. Uh, we got married. Uh she was 20, I was 24, so we were young-ish. Um, and uh that was kind of the next step. Um, it it also was a step that required us to move a little further away from where we grew up. She grew up in a town just next door to us, and we we moved out to Benson and then ultimately settled in Newton Grove, where I took a role as a pastor of a church that was a little over 100 years old. Um, it was Oak Grove, original Free Will Baptist um in rural Newton Grove, North Carolina. Um, North Carolina has lots of rural communities, um, and Newton Grove is one of the smallest ones. Um, there's about 500 people that were living in the Newton Grove area at the time I went in to be pastor of this church. And so that was that was kind of next step post um undergrad um and pursued that for the next five years. Um I uh had an opportunity to go to and serve a church in Mount Olive for a season. Um that did not end the same way that um the Oak Grove pastoral tenure ended. Um so 18 months into my pastoral tenure at the church in Mount Olive, um, and due to some conflict um that I had not done well to mitigate, um, some of which was probably not aided by decisions made along the way, um, the church uninvited me to be uh there with them. Um and and I don't I don't blame them for that. I don't hold them in any sort of negative space for that. Uh, but it is the reality that after 18 months of being in that pastoral position, um, the direction we were going and what I felt like was my leadership, it it was losing its compatibility. And so uh we ended up stepping away from that position. And uh for the the years following, um, I actually went to work in the nonprofit field.

J.D. Pearring 9:21

How difficult was that to you know have a church do something like that? That's it. I mean, you're still a young guy. What was that like?

Dustin Bannister 9:32

It was one of those moments where you you feel like a rug's been pulled out from under you, or you're jumping out of a plane and the parachute is on your back, but you're just not quite sure. There's an element of faith and trust, right? Like you we believe that God is gonna take care, we believe that God's gonna give the next up, but in that moment, it kind of felt like that that that Saturday pause uh between the cross and the resurrection where we have this kind of confidence, and and here I am 10 years plus removed from that story, and so I see the story more fully now, but um, in those days and weeks that led up to and then followed, um it was a lonely time, real, really lonely.

Nonprofit Ministry And The Expectation Gap

J.D. Pearring 10:22

Wow. So you you went into the business world, secular world for a while.

Dustin Bannister 10:31

Yeah, so I had a really good mentor and friend who at the time was the president of the university, and he was the board chair for a nonprofit that most people have heard of, some have worked with called United Way. Um United Way tends to operate in their own kind of local community, and so United Way of Wayne County had a position that was available. Um, he kind of recommended that I apply. I applied and was hired. Um, and so I worked in that position for about two and a half years. Um that was I I don't know that it was a business feeling, but yet there was more business to it. But also ironically, uh more ministry. Um, there was much more community involvement, community engagement, seeing what nonprofits could offer that really the church had claimed like, hey, we're we're offering these things, we can do these things. And yet the the actual kind of rubber meeting the road, if you will, was that United Way and its partner organizations were doing the work of ministry, um, doing the work of the kingdom.

J.D. Pearring 11:44

Wow. Well, that's that's interesting. I mean, I've obviously heard of it. Don't really know what uh United Way does, but uh was there a call back into ministry from then to I mean church ministry?

Dustin Bannister 11:59

I don't know that there was ever a call away from ministry. Oh, okay. I think I had always thought of ministry as somebody that had the title of pastor and that their name was on a sign or a bulletin that was associated with particular church. Um I saw what I was doing at United Ways Ministry. Um, I had also entered into a graduate program um through Abilene Christian University, a uh a doctor of education and organizational leadership that focused in the conflict resolution field. And what I saw myself doing um at United Way, and and then eventually we'll jump ahead. I ended up getting a job at the University of Mount Olive. I saw it as ministry. I just didn't see it as ministry in the way that I had done for about 10 years before. Um, it was ministry that walked alongside. Um, it was ministry that supported. Um, it was ministry that oftentimes could challenge more directly than what I could have ever done when in the pulpit. Um, in particular, the the doctoral work through Abilene helped me to understand, research, and then process what had occurred with me. And in doing that, there was a community of people who had kind of come out and said, Look, we've we've felt this before too. Um, in particular, there was this notion that what we see as our role from a pulpit perspective may not be how that role is viewed from the pew. And so there's a gap between how a minister may perceive him or herself and how a congregate perceives that same role. And, you know, that that type of research led me to really begin to explore what it would look like to offer support to clergy who themselves really don't have anybody to support them. You know, when that that church had had given me the opportunity to step away and kind of uninvited me to be the leader, there were other ministers who came and said, Hey, we've experienced this too, and it wasn't talked about. Or if it was talked about, it was usually kind of an off-gest, like, oh yeah, that church did this, or oh yeah, I experienced this too. But to actually dive into that experience was a lot of work. Was that your um was your dissertation on that? Or it was. Um, I called it the expectation gap. Um, it has a much longer title, as you know, dissertations do, but it was that perceived role of the minister versus the perception of that role from a congregate. And the wider the gap, the more the space for anxiety, the more the experience of burnout or even compassion fatigue. And so that um that research actually was what led us when when I did end up getting a job at Mount Olive, um, I was hired as a grant writer. And we got an opportunity to write for and received a Lily Endowment Grant in uh a little area known as the Thriving in Ministry Initiative. Um and in particular, what Lily was looking at was that very thing, the pastoral experience. What was it that helped ministers move from you know surviving, drowning, to thriving? Um, what was that characteristic that helped them move there? And and how might a a project and intervention um address that and help more ministers get into a space in which they were themselves thriving?

J.D. Pearring 15:41

Do you have uh you know a couple conclusions on that? What what are a couple practical things you would say help pastors?

Dustin Bannister 15:51

Uh the presence of an interpersonal, um semi-professional but empathetic group. Um so uh having a space in which you can express your experience with people who can genuinely empathize. Uh the other the other characteristic was the presence of a mentor, the the presence of someone that you could um learn under that could pour into you, um, and then also the presence of someone that you were mentoring. So this this kind of follow me as I follow. Um those were really the characteristics that set apart ministers who were able to be in a healthier, um, more thriving environment.

J.D. Pearring 16:39

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um kind of what we're trying to set up with with Excel. So so you're at Mount Olive, and uh now you're doing something different.

Renewal Work Without A Blueprint

Dustin Bannister 16:52

Yeah. Yeah. So in that role, I was working across a very large ecumenical space. Um I continue to believe God's called me to be an original Free Will Baptist minister, and I continue to realize that the kingdom of God and whatever heaven looks like on the other side is not gonna have a uh original free will baptist only sign, and then everybody else going somewhere else.

J.D. Pearring 17:17

So what's what's original about it? I mean, what's uh why the original in there? Is there a lot of fake groups out there? Or I don't I I guess because we got to pick the name first.

Dustin Bannister 17:26

Okay. So just like First Baptist is first Baptist, and because they were there first. So okay. I interrupted, but uh No, you're good, and it's a fun question I'm sure we could explore with someone who has a deeper depth of history than than I do. Um, I have my suspicions, um, and we have what's written in textbooks, but uh yeah. But in in that ecumenical space at at Mount Olive, um there was a lot of need across across Christendom, um, especially in rural communities. Um larger churches, I don't really know um because I didn't do any research into larger churches, and I don't have a lot of large church experience, but in rural communities, the minister is oftentimes the only paid staff person. And the expectations, um, as we kind of found within the the research for the the dissertation was it's all on him, it's all on her. And when it's all on that one person, um, they have to wear so many hats that when they're feeling the pressures, when they're feeling the anxieties, when they're feeling like they need somebody to turn to, they don't they don't know where to go. Um and so we we did that work for um several years. It's actually where I met you at was at a conference in Indianapolis um through some of that work that that Lily had funded across the uh the country. And so did that for a couple of years. Um we uh we got an opportunity uh to write for a couple of other grants, um, in particular a grant in the world of parenting and caregiving, um, and a grant in kind of congregational and community development. And uh both of those were uh eventually awarded. Um, and so we we had a lot of um resources to to do that work with, but um, we won't get into much detail on it. But in in that same process, um I had found that I had a lot of responsibility on me. Um I had a lot of of opportunity. Um, and sometimes the weight of opportunity and responsibility leads you to make decisions that if if you kind of look back and say, if I could do that differently, I would. Um and and that's where I was. Um, and and so in 2024, uh just over two years ago, I I left the university. Um, took a little bit of time to really get to get my head and my heart back on, you know, who who am I in light of what God's calling me to be? Um you know, what does success look like? What does it look like to make the next right step in the kingdom? Um, and ultimately that led me into the space that I am now, um, which is the director of church planting and renewal for our denomination, the original uh free will baptists. Um, and so this nonprofit that is commissioned by our convention really has the focus of helping establish healthy original Free Will Baptist churches and to help established Free Will Baptist churches move towards healthier ministry. And so, from much of the work that I had done, this ministry really aligns with being that space and system of support, encouragement, um, helping create models and opportunities for these things to happen and to grow the kingdom.

J.D. Pearring 21:12

Well, you're a you're a learner, you're um very smart, brilliant study guy. You've stepped into the church planting world because you you weren't really involved in it before, were you?

Dustin Bannister 21:25

Yeah, I wasn't. Um, other than to say when when a church uninvites you um to be their minister um and you don't jump back into a pastoral role, you have to find a place to go. Um and so my wife and I had actually been uh a part of a church in Goldsboro, North Carolina called Hydrant. Um, and Hydrant Church was a church plant. Um, it was specifically a church restart. Um, but in the kind of world of church planting, you could get nuanced in between those. But suffice it to say that the the difference between a replant, restart, and A fresh plant, um, it would take a while to explain those details. But that was the first experience that either my wife or I had had with something called a church plant. Um, my faith tradition had not done much in the way of church planting um up to that point. And so there wasn't a wealth of knowledge to pull from, like this is how you do it, this is what you're looking for, this is how we think this thing's gonna go. And so, yeah, my my experience was very limited.

Church Planting Anxiety And Two-Year Vision

J.D. Pearring 22:32

Now that you've jumped in for a couple years, uh just give us some some observations because that's kind of the type of guy you are.

Dustin Bannister 22:41

Yeah. So the first observation I have is that it's really, really nice to talk about. It's not always fun to take the next step after talking. We talk about wanting to plant churches, we talk about wanting to see the kingdom grow, we talk about this being a part of the Great Commission, we talk about the early church model of planting, the early church model of churches birthing churches. And that is fine and good in a sterile environment. But when you start making really practical next steps, it begins to raise a bit of anxiety in and around people. Um I I think I think we're good if we do that somewhere else. It's less threatening, it's more um acceptable if we talk about planting somewhere that it's not going to impact me. Because one of the perceptions, um, rightly or wrongly, is that church planting would further reduce those who were already currently in a church. So if your church has a hundred people in it, the collective kind of aggregate perception is well, if we open up a church plant, well, then we're gonna lose a percentage of those people, and then we're not gonna have enough for us. That's probably my first observation. Um the second observation that I have is church planting is a specific call. It is it is not a I'm just gonna go get this job and do this. Like you genuinely have to feel the call.

J.D. Pearring 24:26

It's not a good job. It's not a job. It's a call. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Well, uh, to address the first thing you said about the uh the anxiety, you know, uh talk about just the stages of reproduction. So many people are at the resisting stage. I mean, seven percent of churches in America or in North America reproduce, and half of those are not on purpose. So that's you know, that's kind of where we are. But we move from resisting to oh talking about it, and then saying maybe later, or you know, down the road. And I'm just starting to realize maybe later means when our church dies, the building will go to the denomination, or maybe they can use part of it for planting a church. That's the uh typical involvement. But uh, yeah, yeah, both of those, both of those are true. How has it been for you? Is it fun for you to be in the church planting world these days?

Dustin Bannister 25:34

I have spent a long time going where there's not a blueprint or an instruction manual. Um that is the way that my mind is programmed. Um, my wife is not like that. We we sometimes find ourselves in these conversations where she wants predictability and stability, and I'm like, I would just whatever is next is next, and I'm here for it. Um, the world of church planting, the world of even the renewal side of what I do, um, there is no instruction manual, there is no step-by-step. Um and and I can appreciate that. There's days where it does feel as if um not much is accomplished. Um, and I think that that's the spot where I have to find balance in in places within this job and even beyond, because sometimes there's a lot of work that's going on to lay a foundation, and that's just not the pretty stuff. Um my uh my neighborhood has had about 50 houses built in it over the last year and a half, which I know probably doesn't sound like a lot for you in California. But well, for a town of 3,000, that's a lot. But it is. Um, it is a lot, and there's a lot of site work and prep that has to go into these things. And so oftentimes what you see is a barren field, and then it's a barren field that's got this kind of squared off, um maybe elevated, uh, a little bit of plumbing, a little bit of concrete, and it takes forever. Um, but then the framing of the house takes like five minutes, it looks like. So you go from field to what looks like a house, and you're like, oh, what happened? But to get it to the point where that framing and everything else would have stability, there's a lot that needs to be done on the foundation. And that's where we've been at for the last year and a half, and still in some ways are is making sure that the foundation that we build on has the ability to be stable enough to support what God is helping us to see is the next step, is the next part of this development. And so, you know, there's parables about that, right? The, you know, the wise man built his house upon the rock, and you know, we sing that song as kids. Um, but the foundation matters. And so a lot of what I've done over the last year and a half, and probably will still be doing for a while, is building those resourced and network connections, um, establishing trust, um, kind of testing the water out with partnerships and trying to discern, okay, who are the right people, where are the right places. Um, so that is that's fun to me. Um, but sometimes you look at it and you get to the end of the day and you're like, well, what did I do today? I took three phone calls and I answered six emails. Um, and then other days it's like, wow, look at all this that's got put up. But the only reason that that was even able to stand was because there was foundation work that occurred leading up to that.

J.D. Pearring 28:33

Yeah, yeah. So uh just a vision. Two years from today, we have this conversation. What would need to be in place for you to feel like you're making good progress? What's your vision for two years?

Dustin Bannister 28:47

Yeah, so we've we've got a vision five years out. Um, but to to kind of work backwards as one does with getting to that kind of god dream. Um, and that's a a plug for a really good book and a really good thought process of vision. But um, from two years out, I I would say that success would look like us having established at least two individuals um who are called to plant churches who were in the pipeline. Um one of those has begun. Um, I don't even know if you and I have had this conversation, but we've actually got a church planter who is in the pipeline. Um he's currently going through a residency with one of our partners, um, Passion for Planting. Um, it's a hybrid residency model um based here on the East Coast. And so the the goal in in about 18 months is that his church will be launched. Um, I would say two years from now, I'd like to see at least two more. Um, two more people who have said yes to this call who are called and who are working through that process. Um my hope is that they would say yes tomorrow and that two years from now they would be launching their church. But in the space of reality, I would like to see two individuals who feel called in that space. Um, the other side of things, um, and you've met Pastor Nelson Ramos, we we do have some Spanish-speaking church planting work that has been going on for some time. And I would like to see at least one more congregation established out of his work at House of Restoration. And so that model has been the more successful side of things where we've had uh an established church that has birthed two other churches. Um, one, unfortunately, um, due to uh a leadership death, um, did not make it through that transition, as I imagine happens frequently in church planting. The other still is in um existence, it's still striding forward. But my my goal would be another established Spanish-speaking church out of House of Restoration.

J.D. Pearring 30:55

Oh, good,

Rural Church Realities And Slow Change

J.D. Pearring 30:56

good. Give us some insight on the rural church. Uh, those of us who are more from city, you know, in our country, our culture, the rural gets passed over. What's what's going on in the rural church these days?

Dustin Bannister 31:12

Well, I think you just named something that I think is going on. There's there's a feeling that we're passed over. Um, there's this feeling that energy resource um consideration often goes towards a more urban space. Um, and and so that passed over feeling, it it does a few things, right? It creates a suspicion. Um, you know, things that are not from us are suspect, but it also creates a resiliency. Um, it it creates a model in which the the kind of old adage of pull yourself up by your bootstraps, you know, roll your sleeves up, let's get to work. Um, there's a resiliency and a toughness with within rural spaces. Um, sometimes that can you know be shown as kind of hard-headed and stubbornness, maybe even to our own demise. But I think rural communities, um, and again, I've lived in rural communities for pretty much my entire life, they they are a place where change happens on the back end, oftentimes, of what um I think Rogers calls it the diffusion of innovation, um, where the front end you've got like people who they're willing to go no matter what. Uh, in the middle, you're trying to convince people. And we we oftentimes find ourselves on the the back end of that. Um, you know, we uh it was funny. I'll give you an example. Um, so we were at a church planning conference this week at a church in Greensboro, and they had live music, uh, very, very good band. Um, and the songs that they were singing were probably well known by people in urban areas. They were newer worship songs. Of those songs, only about 25% of them we knew. And and I had a couple folks with me who have strong music backgrounds, and on the way home, I kind of mentioned that fact, and they were like, Yeah, we we didn't know those songs. Um they had good theology behind them, they were catchy. We appreciated being able to sing along in worship, but they're they're not at our church yet. Two years from now, they might be. Two years from now, the songs that we sing at this conference will probably become normal in the rotation of some of the churches in more rural spaces. And so that's what I mean when I say sometimes the the change that's occurring, we're on the back end of of picking that up and adopting it. Um, and and I think that's not always a bad thing, um, because sometimes change has consequences that we can see before we even have to dip our toe in it. And and at the rapidity by which the world is changing, today and tomorrow may be very different than next week and next year. So we can kind of sit back and say, all right, well, is this good? Does this work for us? It gives us a chance to kind of adapt it into the frameworks. Um so I think there's there's more more trust and loyalty because of that. So I don't know, it's a great summary of rural, but at least in my experience, that's kind of what I've seen.

J.D. Pearring 34:27

Well, if you sit back and you skip a few of the changes, um, they come in and out so quickly, you didn't have to bother with them. Um

A Leadership Lesson On Listening

J.D. Pearring 34:36

hey, uh uh let me just ask you for a leadership tip. You've been doing this, you're the researcher. What's your leadership tip for people? For leaders.

Dustin Bannister 34:49

Yeah. There is oftentimes more collective wisdom in a space than one might realize. And I know this sounds silly, but listen deeply before you speak. I'm always I'm always taken aback by being in spaces where you have kind of strong um at-type personality leaders who really what they want to do is they want to sell you on their idea, but they're not willing to listen to others' ideas. Um and one of my uh my mentors would oftentimes look at me and stop and go, listen, listen to what they're saying. Um early in adulthood, and I don't know, you know, depending on where viewers find early adulthood, I'm 39 now, so 20 years ago, I was the the kind of bull in a china shop. Let's get in here, let's wrestle this thing out, let's get on the other side of it and keep going. I've learned that listening um has a few advantages. First, sometimes people come to their own conclusion and their own answer without you ever having to say anything, and they'll give you credit for it. Man, thanks for listening. I I I needed this. Um, we've heard that before. Uh the the other thing is is that if we uh if we find ourselves trying to answer a question before the question's been finished, we may miss the point of the question. Um there there's sometimes where uh leaders just need to be in the space and be present, and people are grateful for it. But listening to those folks in there will build trust. Uh it it builds a connection. Um, and so that would probably be the the lesson of leadership that's been the hardest for me to learn and the one that I try to help people uh grasp is sometimes we just need to sit and listen. And uh, you know, as people of faith, you know, God's involved with that in everything. And sometimes God figures things out and works things out without us ever having to say or do a thing. And that's okay too.

J.D. Pearring 37:16

Yeah, that's good. That's a good good word. I think we uh are a little too quick to jump to our conclusions, or we just want to say our stuff. So I appreciate that. And uh I appreciate you. Thanks for um what you're doing, thanks for the research, thanks for plugging away uh at uh you know your your historic denomination and in the rural the rural scene because I don't think it's going away. You know, I don't either. Um and we need we need churches there.

Final Encouragement And How To Connect

J.D. Pearring 37:52

So if you're listening to this, you're thinking, you know, God's calling me to rural North Carolina, uh contact Excel and we'll get you in touch, and you'll be one of those two churches in the next couple years. So thanks for your time, Desta.

Dustin Bannister 38:06

Thank you so much, Jenny, and appreciate you all for listening.

Announcer 38:11

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