In this episode, we chat with Mark Davis from Westwinds Community Church in the community of Cloverdale in Surrey, BC. Mark is the lead pastor there, as well as being a full-time professional firefighter and chaplain. Mark has had unique experiences and training that help him see healthy leadership through a different lens. Emotional health and resiliency in leaders is a big passion for him, both inside and outside the church walls. Check it out!
In this episode, we chat with Mark Davis from Westwinds Community Church in the community of Cloverdale in Surrey, BC. Mark is the lead pastor there, as well as being a full-time professional firefighter and chaplain. Mark has had unique experiences and training that help him see healthy leadership through a different lens. Emotional health and resiliency in leaders is a big passion for him, both inside and outside the church walls. Check it out!
Welcome to the Multiply Network podcast, a podcast created to champion church multiplication, provide learning and inspire new disciple making communities across Canada. Hi there, welcome to the Multiply Network. My name is Paul Fraser. So glad that you tuned in today because I'm excited to introduce you to a new friend to the Multiply Network. His name is Mark Davis. He pastors at Westwinds Community Church in Cloverdale. That's in Surrey, British Columbia. He's senior pastored over six years there, but has actually been on staff for over 20 years. So he knows the community really well and has a unique position in it. He's also a full time professional firefighter who does chaplaincy as well. So full time firefighter chaplain, plus full time pastor. He's a co vocational leader. And we love that because we've been talking about that in the Multiply Network, that that's going to be a big part of our future. So as the chaplain, he took some resiliency training to help with the chaplaincy in the fire department. So we talk about what resiliency is, why we need it, how to build it, and he gives lots of practical advice and steps. You're going to love this interview because he comes from a different perspective than maybe we would in ministry world. But he brings them together and it's wonderful advice for all of us. Stick around, because it's coming up right now. Thanks, Mark, for jumping on the Multiply Network podcast for this month. Thanks for having me. It's so great. Heard you at our international office chapel that we have every Tuesday. We bring in guests and sometimes we have people in our office do the devotions. Great chat, great talk on resiliency. We're going to get there in just a little bit. But why don't you first tell us a little bit about yourself and some of your story, where you're working, what you're doing. And just for those who may not know, just catch us up. Yeah, so well, again, thanks for having me, and I really enjoyed being at the chapel last week. It was a lot of fun. And my big concern is for leaders in their health and mental health for sure as well. It's all connected, physical, mental, spiritual. And so I really enjoyed doing that. It was something that I talked with Dave for years about. Always deal with it. But part of my background - Well, I mean, I grew up in the church at Abbotsford Pentecostal, as far as teenage life - Back in the day when we had Crusaders, just before teenage youth group --. I remember Crusaders, yes. I was a Crusader. That's right. You can't do that anymore, but..(laughter) But no, you totally can't. It did change my life. And prior to that, though, is growing up in a little town in Langley called Aldergrove. And there was a local community church that was just down the street-- actually had more of a neighborhood, more of on our street. Not a lot of people went to it, but really cool VBS they had there. And I my mom was a pastor's kid, so we always had kind of a connection to church, but not -- it was always loose. And then the bus ministry picked me up, took me to took me to the Baptist Church and I got saved and all that good stuff. And I always had a concept of God. And then as I got into my teenage years, I started going to Abby (Abbotsford) Pentecostal. And the youth group there was really good for me. And I got a call to the ministry, but I've always been a practical kind of person. And not to say that Pentecostals aren't practical because they are. But I, I want to do something. And so for me physically, I need to jump in and hands on. I'll pray. But then I'm like, I feel like God saying get in there and do it now. Right? And I love people who pray. And if that's a gifting that they have in their intercessory prayer, that's very important. So I never think that that's a negative on people who are praying. But for me, I need to see it. I want to be a part of it. And so as I was involved in youth ministry as a teenager and then went to Bible College, went to good old WPBC, back in the day -- I'm dating myelf here-- I met my wife, not a Bible College, but because I was interning in a youth group in this church actually in Cloverdale at Westwinds. It was called Cloverdale Pentecostal back then. I met her. Long story short, married, got into ministry. And then as I was in ministry, I'm like, you know, I love serving the church, but what do we do in our community? And as time went on, I said to my wife, I got to get involved in community and I have no idea how. Back then there weren't a lot of people given resources on how to do that. So I opened up the newspaper -- That was this thing made out of actual paper that you would hold and read -- Oh yeah -- it was something you didn't scroll? Like, even sometimes when I get a paper magazine, I'll rub my finger on the paper to see if it'll move up.(laughter) Yeah, right? So I actually had to touch it. And you got the ink on your hands --(laughter) Yeah. And it smells funny. Yeah. Yeah. So it said on there -- Literally, I'd been having these conversations with my wife for the past week -- and it says, do you want to be involved in your community? Become a volunteer fireman. And I went Yeah, let's do that! And so my wife was like, are you crazy? Firemen do dangerous things. You're not doing that. And I'm like, well, I've been looking for a thing. And this says, get involved in your community. So I think we should go for it. And she's like, well, he'll look into it, you won't do it and whatever. And then I went in. And turns out one of the chiefs was a pastor -- or sorry, was a member of the church I was in Crusaders with. He was the head crusader and he knew me but didn't tell me. So anyways, long story short, he brought me in as a volunteer. And then as we move forward, they trained you to become a career firefighter, but they don't give you a job, they just give you the seals, like a red seal, but it's for firefighting -- and it's PA standards - there's national fire protection and all that kind of stuff. So he helped me get that. And I just thought it was to learn the trade. And then I came out to Langley, because I was working at Cloverdale, so I moved. And they wanted a chaplain, but they said, so we want a chaplain, but we want you to become a career suppression firefighter - you have all the education. And then you can be our chaplain. So I went, Oh, OK, sure. But I got to go through the process and I have to -- it's a competition and I got to beat people out. So I got in shape and did all that stuff. And long story, that's a long time ago. And here I am, still a full time firefighter, full time pastor at the church. I've been at this church for over 20 years and it's been great. My wife supports me and I support her. And yeah, the kids are grown. They're adults. So we pretty much do whatever we want. It's pretty awesome. So.. (laughter) And that's so great. And just really embodying that co-vocational pastor model. As we talked offline just before this, we think -- I think -- that's a big part of our future, certainly when it comes to church planting. So you pastor a church. Professional firefighter, you're pastoring a church. So obviously you're in the community, you know what's going on. And so you're aware of the conversations, the needs. How are you leading your church in that? So obviously you're modeling it. But other than that, like, are you encouraging them or you started getting them on things like how how have you brought that community mindedness to the church? Because it's a it's a fairly like old church, in a sense that it's been around for a while. Yeah, it has. And you know, when I when I first took over lead-- about five and a half, six years ago, whatever that is -- my big deal was we were going to be the church in our community. And that doesn't mean we plant a building here. It means we actually get involved. And so prior to that, you know, we were loose. Most of the community didn't know who we are and other churches didn't really know who we are. And that's not a judgment on my previous predecessor because he is a great man. But that just wasn't our thing. And so my personality is that way. I want to be involved. I want to get in there. I want to get messy and dirty and do all the work. So our slogan, for lack of a better word, became go and be the church. And that meant get involved in the community. So because, being a fireman, I get to go -- And people don't phone a fireman and say, hey, can you just come over for coffee and we'll have a chat? They call 9-1-1. We go there and it's a horrible event, usually it's never-- you know, sometimes it can be very minimal -- But a lot of the times are calling 9-1-1 because they're in a rough situation. Like, do you ever pull a cat out of a tree? Because that seems to be like a such a stereotypical firefighter thing. It is. It is. And you would think that it's just on TV or the cartoons, but I've done it twice.(laughter). No way! (laughter). Actually, our chief said we don't risk a million dollar apparatus for ninety nine cent cats. (Laughter) But I have to say in both situations the owner- or the owner's daughter - climbed up the tree to get the cat and couldn't come down. So we had to go up to get her, and while we were up there we got the Amazing! Sorry to interrupt but I just thought I'd jump in there with the with the stereotypical firefighter. But you're leading the community. You're leading your church into the community. Yeah. So in Cloverdale here, there's a lot of need. There's some low income areas, there's a lot of homeless and there's people who need food. And so what we do here is we're involved in our in a community kitchen, which is run by another church, but it's a separate entity and we get involved with them a lot. The other thing we do is -- So my wife and I, when our kids were in kindergarten -- when my son was in kindergarten actually -- there was a young boy who his mom was a single mom. She was having a tough go of everything. And never had a lunch, couldn't do hot lunch day - you know, hot dog and all that kind of stuff. And so we would always secretly buy him this these lunches. And if we found out he needed shoes or a jacket, we would do that. So we'd get them lunch or we'd get them whatever. One day we were at General Conference in Ottawa and one of the special speakers came in and talked about this lunch program they did in New York. And I can't remember his name, but it impacted both of us, but we didn't tell each other. And we're walking on the way back to the hotel and my wife goes, we need to start a lunch program. And I'm like, oh, we do. Right? So we did it. And now after -- So we build relationships with the schools and now we do over two hundred lunches a week out of our church here and supply these young kids in elementary schools lunches. And so it's grown from we had - I think we did 20 a week to two hundred now, over two hundred. And we do Christmases. We do their grade five graduation because when my kids were graduating from elementary to junior high-- I don't know how it works everywhere. But so we pay for their graduation, for that little party and set it all up. But we haven't done it in a while because of covid. But yeah, we'll get back on track with that. But we'll do hampers for Christmas and we just we just try to -- And honestly, the people jumped on it. Everybody wants to be out there doing something, but they don't want to necessarily lead it. So it's up to us as leaders to provide something for them to do. And so my wife runs the whole lunch thing and she also has her own full time job. But she runs the lunch program. And every single worker who comes to to make those lunches has a job. And they don't want to think. They just want to do their job. And they know what they're doing. They know why. We had a few people say, well, you know, these kids should be happy with whatever we give them. And our motto is, uh-uh, if you wouldn't give this to your kid, we don't serve it. So we make sure that it's top quality food. We make sure it's done well. And my wife calls it a mom lunch- one when your mom would give you. Right. Your mom wouldn't just throw a bunch of junk in a thing and send it off. So it's all healthy, nutritional. And for the kids. Because a kid can't learn if the kid's not eating. And where's the future. Yeah. No, I love that. Man, that's so good. And you know, when you talked about sometimes they don't like people don't know where to start, they need to be led. It's the idea of being a travel agent leader or a tour guide leader. Travel agent just says go do this, go do this, go do this. But a tour guide actually takes them on the mission, takes them on the tour. And I actually think that's a great way to do it. Want to transition a little bit to chaplaincy. And some of the training you've been taking or have taken is on resiliency. And so for the remaining time we have, we want to kind of dig into a little bit of that. Why don't you -- Well, first of all, what led you to resiliency training? So, I mean, all the fire department stuff that we do, like we see some pretty horrific stuff. So body parts, like real nasty stuff. And I always have to be careful not to give too much information because vicarious trauma can happen that way when I talk about stuff. But I've seen it all. From babies to old people, in all sorts of situations. And so we needed something for for the firemen because guys were either committing suicide. And there's been a lot locally in our communities here - police, ambulance, all of them, but I mostly focus on fire. Or just going off on leave or they can't turn their brain off and they just see these events all the time. And so they call a critical incident stress management. And so I joined the critical incident stress management. I became the head of it for our fire department. Because I was the chaplain, I can kind of weave in and out of all sorts of different areas and have a little bit more freedom. And so I got all this training from the International Critical Incident Stress Association. So I got certified with them in a bunch of different things. And then the Federation of Fire Chaplains is a bigger organization, and then I'm part of the B.C. Fire Chaplains. So all that is all part of our mental, spiritual health. But a lot of guys didn't know how to deal with it. And there used to be this mindset in the old fire ways and even in policing too, and ambulance. It's kind of like, well, that's just the way it is. You suck it up and you move on. You don't talk about it and only weak minded people will talk about it. That was the same view of counseling, right. So it just kind of came over into this. And so we created a peer critical incident stress management team. And then from there, when a bad event happens, one of the representatives would go and talk to the individuals that were involved in that particular horrific trauma accident. So I was sitting here one day, and when you look around you, you start to see pastors burning out. We've heard about burnout since the 90s. I've heard about it since the 90s. Pastors were burning out. What happened to him? Oh, he burnt out. Or Oh, he got into pornography, he burnt out -- All this kind of stuff, and they start using things to cope with their stress. And then I started comparing firefighters to pastors and I went, wow, these are very similar situations. So you can, as a minister, you can do a baby dedication, and a sermon, and then you do a funeral, and then you get a call Monday morning that somebody died and on and on and on and on. And if you are a person who wears your emotions on your sleeve and is a sensitive person to that type of thing, you'll wear that and it'll go with you. And I'd -- By then I had already seen some pretty horrific things and knew how to deal with them as a firefighter. But I'm like, what about pastors? How how could they --? And when I say pastors, I mean church planters. I mean anyone who's doing ministry . Just leaders. Anyone who works with people. Yes. And in this can be stretched over any position - volunteer, career, whatever. It doesn't matter. But I always say, Pastor, because it's in my head. But yeah. So as I was thinking about the comparison of them both, I realized -- Because we used to talk in my staff meetings - prior to me becoming pastor, my senior pastor would say, man, all the people I went to Bible College with are out of ministry. They either burnt out or in moral failure. And we would just sit there and go, oh, that's that's horrible. What can you do? Right? And then we'd move on with the ministry. And then I started realizing, putting two and two together, and going, wait a minute, I don't know if we're doing anything about this. And now we have EAP programs like employee assistance programs within the PAOC. Right. So we have you can call a counselor. You get so many visits and all that kind of stuff. But we still don't really use them for these things, right? For stress. We don't use them for stress. And I think it's getting better. Yeah it is. But at the time, it wasn't. Yeah, well, I mean, you raise up so many great points there about that. And you're right, counseling is becoming more acceptable, encouraged. I certainly would encourage. I've gone to counseling. It's been a game changer for me just to be able to process these things. But one of the things you mentioned is the actual resiliency. So you talked about what led you to that. What is resiliency and why do leaders need it and maybe more so in this pandemic? OK, so resiliency is really the ability or the willingness - So there's a -- sometimes we don't want to, because we like to sit in our, you know -- It's true. It's true. In our messes -- Yeah, And we feel more comfortable there because we either we have low self esteem, we don't feel good enough to get out. But, it is the ability or the willingness to adapt. Right. To like hold things loosely. And as pastors we think we need to hold things tightly. We always feel like we have to hold everything to our chest. And we're either hiding things from the board or hiding things from the people or whatever. We put up all these walls because we're the leader and we're super strong. Well, yeah, you don't want a leader that's like wimping out all over the place. But at the same time, you want a transparent leader. We used to call it -- I know David Wells used to use- oh, he used to use a really good saying. I can't remember what it is right now, but it's about leaders. And it was we felt that we had to be something we're not. And Dave was always saying no, like be you. And throughout my ministry, I always fought that because I didn't think that. I came from a very poor upbringing, single parent, my mom was. And I didn't -- never felt worthy enough. So I was trying to prove something. And so I had to put up this wall all the time. And it's taken me into my forties here to actually drop that wall down and go, I'm just going to be me. God called me. And he'll work on me, right? Like, he'll work with me. But the resiliency to hold on to things loosely is really important. And that's not a flippant, I don't care. But it can look like it. Right. So you have to be able to let go. And that's whether it's your stuff, whether it's other people's stuff. You have to be willing to let go. So we don't want to hold onto these things, other people's problems, because then we carry our problems and their baggage. And how much baggage can you carry? I've been doing squats lately, but my legs aren't that strong. I can't carry everybody stuff. Right. I got skinny legs. I was born with them. They're chicken legs. I can't do it. So I have to figure out a way to get through all of this. And so I look at it as, we need to gain control over our mind. And how do we do that? Well, I mean, there's all sorts of ways we can we can practice the Sabbath. What does that look like to you? Like, everybody has different -- I said at chapel, everybody has different things that really make them relax. Find out what that is and do that. Because if you can't turn it off, you're going to have trouble. I send out scriptures. During the pandemic, I've been sending out scriptures every morning - just one scripture to the whole church. And I take themes throughout that month, so they get 30 scriptures every month on -- This one is about our ability to do something. Like, it's up to us to actually step up and do something. So those kind of things. And people are saying, Oh, I really needed that today and it's not me. That's Scripture. I didn't -- Yeah, you didn't write it. (laughter) Exactly. And that's the Holy Spirit, right. And I think too that we find that that our generations, our younger generations, have - and some part of GenX too - have lost the ability to differentiate between anxiety and adversity. Because adversity is a good thing. Right. We learn from adversity. If we don't go through some difficult times - well, you know how will we grow,right? I mean, there's so many illustrations on stress on something makes it stronger. And we can look up all those all the those. All the leadership gurus are spewing that stuff everywhere. But the fact is, we stretch, we grow, we get stronger at adversity. But anxiety is where we haven't let go or we don't want to let go or we can't let go. And we've got to figure out a way to do that. And the church -- I would say with church planters, I mean, they're going to have more stress. I guarantee you. It's different stress than me, because they're planting from nothing. Right? They don't have the same stress as I have because I've got something that has culture and history and I don't get to change it unless I slowly - we talked about icebergs off recording- and it's slow. But you've got to be willing to make those changes. So how do you get through that and how do you have a strength to make it through and be resilient through all the different ups and downs? And so that's what got me into resiliency to decide the difference between a pastor and a fireman or an EMS worker. There is no difference. There really isn't. It's all the same stress. Stress is stress, right? Stress is stress. It's a great summary. I know this is like a 10 hour teaching you're doing. Yeah, I know it's like a long teaching that you walk through leaders with. But wonderful summary. Just a couple thoughts jumped out to me. Is that letting go piece of things. Anxiety and adversity are different things. Well said. So you talked about Sabbath as one thing that that leaders can do. You're talking to church planters, leaders, multipliers. What can they do to build resiliency- or can you build resiliency? Oh, for sure. For sure. Well, like we talked about with adversity, you have to go through stuff. So each time you go through something, you need to kind of reload. You need to prepare. So in the fire department, what do we do? We drill. Right. So if I bring you in as a firefighter on your first day, I would be like, OK, the very first thing you're going to do is I'm going to show you the gear that you're going to wear that's going to save your life in a flashover or a fire environment. And I'm going to say you're going to know the inside and outside of that thing, you're going to know every stitch and you're going to be able to put it on in 30 seconds. I want you to put that on and you're going to practice all day, right? There's no fire. You're practicing, right. And then you're going to put on your air pack because that's the most important thing. That's your lifeline is your air pack. And so you're going to do that in under a minute. And we're going to drill and drill and drill. And we do everything by drilling. In the church, when have we ever practiced for a pandemic? Sword drills.(laughter) Yes, right? Because it's Crusaders (laughter). And Genex is the best generation...no, I'm kidding(laughter) Sorry, I just had to throw that in.(laughter) Right, but no, not very often. No, true. Not very often. We don't plan for anything. Like, we don't plan for crisis intervention. We don't plan for it. Because we just take it as it comes. And pastors do not plan and church planters and leaders do not always plan for things to go sideways. Who would have thought that every country in the world would shut the border down because of a tiny thing you can't even see? Nobody would have thought that. Not me. So you have to practice. So what does that look like to you? Well, I mean, and people are going to want something practical, right? So. Well, first of all, I mean, it sounds it sounds like a given, but your devotional life. Once your devotional life is off kilter, anything that comes into your life is going to throw you for a loop and you're going to get frustrated. We like to go to scripture when we're in trouble. And I say that's too late. Now, it's not too late for God. Yeah, I know. But I know what you mean, though. Yeah. Why are you doing it every day? And again, I struggle because I get busy. I'm a busy guy. But I have to take the time to at least take in some scripture and think on it and quiet my mind. So when I wake up in the morning, I don't think about what I'm doing. I don't think about what I have to do. I open up my phone and I look at my I look at my Bible app and I go through my scriptures. I don't do it for a sermon. I don't do a for a sermon series. I don't do it for my next Bible class. I don't do it for any of that. I do it just for me. Because it's too easy to get into this habit of looking at everything for a sermon. Do you feel like any spiritual discipline really will do that? Like build resiliency? Oh, of course. I mean, that's why they're there. Yeah, that's why it's an example. But we, we're busy so we forget. Like, you pick up your phone. How many how many Instagram, Facebook, and all that nonsense do you get. Right. And then all of a sudden we're like, oh, what are they doing today? And then you get sidetracked. So distraction. Get rid of the distractions in your life and get on to your devotions. I would say, for people who want-- Find out strategies and tactics on how to take your your mind off emotional thinking. And start thinking, try to be logical. Now, every decision we make is emotional. But get control of your emotions. And again, we don't have enough time to get into how to do that. But, you know, I like to write lists of pros and cons. This is a very simple way to do it. Pros and cons of what I'm going to make this decision. And then I look at the outward pressures that are making me make this decision. Do I need to do this right now? OK, I'll write it out. But do I need to make the decision now? I don't. I don't. Most of the time I don't. So we wait. But emotionally, you might feel like you need to. Of course because I want it done. I'm a doer. I need it done now. And actually I needed it done yesterday. So why didn't someone help me get it done yesterday.(laughter) Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Part of my part of my counseling journey -- It was one of my, I don't know, one of the first sessions or first couple-- when my counselor said to me that emotions are just information. They're pointing to something. They're a symptom of something else. They're a response to something else. And so if you're just dealing with the emotion - so, for example, if you're just angry, well, I'll just get rid of anger - and not actually look logically at the thing that's driving your anger. You're just going to continually focus on the symptoms. You're going to manage the behavior without actually addressing the real need. And that's why emotions are wonderful. They're not to be ignored. Because they're going to help you point to things that are maybe off or not where they need to be. And obviously, this pandemic has brought a ton of emotion. Rick Warren said in a podcast with Carey Nieuhof - and I'd encourage everyone to listen to it. It was fantastic, Rick Warren said there's a tsunami of grief coming post-pandemic. And churches that aren't prepared for it are going to miss out on an incredible opportunity. Oh, for sure. Any thoughts about this tsunami of grief and how the church can respond maybe from your perspective? Yeah. So from from my perspective, if we're not healthy first, we're going to struggle. It's true. We're going to burn out. We're going to fry ourself right out. And we need to get our ducks in a row now. And you know, it's never too late. But in my mind, it's like, we should have been thinking about this a long time ago. And as leaders, we need to-- Some people aren't going to be ready to move too quickly when they come back. And you know what they're also going to do? They're going to come with a whole bunch of problems they had before the pandemic, when we were meeting together, and problems when they were online. And they're going to come with all those and they're going to remember them, they're going to remember them. And whatever those complaints or problems or issues, who they take it out on? The biggest target they can find. And that's the church, usually. Right. And then now -- in B.C. right now and probably all across Canada, we're going to have even more pressure because of what has just happened in our indigenous communities. I mean, it didn't just happen. It was just found out-- Yeah, just found out. And people don't know the difference between the Catholic Church and our church. They don't know. So they just blanket blame everything. And so those issues are going to be coming in and we've got black lives matters and we got a top Asian hate and we got all these things that have been building up for fourteen months. And there's been no release. And now, when people start getting out in public. So how are we going to deal with all this? So, you know, my suggestion is, is that we prepare ourselves. We get the resources in line. Because I'm not a professional counselor. So there's going to be times that it's out of my scope. So we have a list of people we can refer people to for professional assistance. And most churches probably have that. But if they don't - if they're a church plant, maybe they don't have that yet. So that's something they should be thinking about, knowing their limits. And also being able to say in some cases that they can't help. Like pick some really, I don't know, three important - three to five things you can do really well as a church to address everything coming out of the pandemic or whatever. Like we do the lunch program, the community kitchen, and we focus on on university Christian missions-- what are they call that campus ministries? Yeah, campus ministry. Yeah. I'm dating myself again. You guys keep changing names. Stop doing that. (laughter) You know, I can relate because I'm a GenX-er too. There you go. (laughter). You know, you ripped off about four important things that I just want to make sure everyone heard. That, you know, how do you prepare for the tsunami of grief? Get healthy. Know your limits. Get lists of people that you can bring on to help you - professional counselors, you know, doctors, all of that. And then, I was just thinking, the last thing you said is so important. You're not going to be able to solve every issue. So, hey, recognize them. You know, all those things that you listed are just things that have been building for a long time. Church needs to speak out on those things. You know, no doubt in my mind. But you're not going to be able to address everything. So what are the -- You know, go to God and find out what are the three or four things that you can address this, you know, this summer and fall that's going to, you know, help with that tsunami of grief. Really great wisdom, Mark, there. Just as we're wrapping up, could you speak some encouragement to leaders before we go? You know, just maybe what's on your heart. And yeah, just encourage other leaders out there that are maybe needing it today. Well, you know, first of all, you know, you've been put in a position to lead where you are. And God placed you there. God is the one who promotes. Right? And you've been put in a place of leadership, no matter what it is, no matter what it looks like. And that's important to recognize. We don't listen to, unless they're trusted advisers, but we don't listen to the nonsense out there. God has told us what we need to do and you're doing it. The reason why you're either listening to this podcast or you're in leadership is you're doing what God is asking you to do. I would say -- so that's the first thing. The second thing is do not be so hard on yourself. Good grief. No, don't do it. Good. Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying that. Well, it's so easy to beat yourself up. I'm my worst critic. And, you know, when somebody-- As a pastor here, if somebody comes up and they don't have a very nice word for me, I've actually learned over the years people are very creative with their insults. And sometimes I'm like, wow, that was impressive. You took time to craft this insult and I appreciate the time you took to hurl this at me. So good on you. Right. And I don't take it any more. But I used to take it personally, like I'm no good. I can't speak well, I can't do this, can't do anything right. And then you think of Moses. Wow. He had trouble. Right? So everybody has trouble. If you're a leader, you're going to have trouble. And my old pastor used to say if somebody is not mad at you, you're doing it wrong.(Laughter) So it's like, well, I don't know. OK, I'll take it, right. And honestly, have fun with ministry, because even in my worst fire scenes that are horrific, I enjoyed because I was the one who was there that could maybe, maybe piece this thing together for somebody and help them. You know, Jesus had a rough go in his ministry. Every single apostle and prophet, they all struggled. Jeremiah's the weeping prophet. Like, that wouldn't have been fun. I don't want to cry all the time because the people are being ridiculous. Right. But but he did. And he was where God placed him. And his ministry wasn't that great, right? he did what he was told to do, but it didn't work. So, you know, to a point. But he did what he was told to do. And that's where we need to be. We need to realize that we are called, we're supposed to be here, and we can't be so hard on ourselves. And then have realistic -- This is my last point. Promise. -- Have realistic optimism in almost every situation. So a good way to control your mind is to have resiliency of your mind is to have this realistic optimism. Because I was raised-- and my mom's passed now -- but I was raised to be negative. I was raised to think everybody is against me. I didn't do it right, or quit. Don't do it anymore because it was hard, all that kind of stuff. And I, I decided to go a different way. And honestly, we can look at every situation, no matter what happens, we can be flexible. We can look around our area and be like, is there another way to look at this? Right. Is is there a different-- Instead of me thinking it's a negative look on me or the situation is all about me or whatever, we have to have some realistic optimism in the fact and be flexible with the possibility that it's not just us or we didn't do anything to cause this. Yes, we have to look at it. Is it accurate? Is that is it true? Is this situation actually true? And we need to look, is there more information that I don't have to consider? So when you look at people's reaction to you and that's impacting you -- now, this is when it comes to the reaction of other people, but it can be put in any situation -- Is there something else? Most of the time if somebody is upset with you or whatever, it's that 20 percent that you know, and there's 80 percent -- It's like an iceberg. Right. There's so much underneath. You don't know the full situation. So that can be either professionally, that can be in your personal life when when you're having struggles. So we sit there, we're in our head so much. We sometimes can't get out of it. And you were saying earlier you've been -- everybody's been locked up. Right? So when you get out there, everyone is going to be super hypersensitive, including the leaders. So let's be realistic and be optimistic that everyone's not out to get us and that these things aren't all that bad and all this stuff is not -- Youy know, we can chip away at it. I've always said if you want to eat an elephant, you've got to take out one bite at a time. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have hope. If there's one thing the church has is hope. And even in every situation and some of the most difficult, dire situations, we have this great hope. And thanks for that reminder. I do think, you know, certainly being, you know, less critical of yourself is going to help you be help you be more resilient. And there's no doubt about it. So much good here. Mark, thanks for taking time with us. Thanks also, thanks also for being a first responder. Appreciate that. No problem. Yeah, we appreciate you. And we appreciate the fact that you are the ones that run to a crisis. And don't run away from it. When I know that there's times that I would want to run from it, you guys run to it. And grateful for fire, ambulance, police. Who am I missing else? That's a first responder? Search and rescue, you name it. Search and rescue and -- Nurses, doctors. Yeah -- Everybody. Honestly, yeah. All EMS workers are wired just a little bit weirdly. So.(laughter) Yeah.(laughter) And for that, I'm thankful. So thanks for serving there. Thanks for serving in the church. Thanks for being Jesus in difficult situations and thanks for taking time with us today. Thanks for having me. God bless you.