Transcript: How Two Leaders Moved their Church from Unhealthy to Flourishing Culture // Bob Beckler, Justin Mohr, Central Community Church

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

How Two Leaders Moved their Church from Unhealthy to Flourishing Culture

April 24, 2023

Bob Beckler and Justin Mohr

Intro: In today's episode, we hear from two top leaders of a church describe how they moved from a toxic to a flourishing workplace culture. They describe their staff as having more unity, energy, excitement, and enthusiasm to execute their strategy. Who doesn't want more of that? How do they do it? Stay tuned.

Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of the book Road to Flourishing: Eight Keys to Boost Employee Engagement and Well-Being. And I'm passionate about helping Christian leaders create engaged, flourishing workplaces. And I’d like to thank you for joining us today.

The road to flourishing is not always linear. There can be seasons when an organization is stuck, but as leaders learn and grow, they can move past being stuck to continue to build a healthy workplace culture. And today on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we're going to consider how church leaders can work together to see real progress in a healthy workplace.

And I'm delighted to welcome Bob Beckler and Justin Mohr to the podcast today. Bob's the senior pastor of Central Community Church in Wichita, Kansas, and Justin is the executive pastor. Bob and Justin, welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast.

Bob Beckler: Thank you so much for allowing us to be here. We're excited about this opportunity.

Justin Mohr: Yeah. Thank you, Al.

Al: Well, I'm looking forward to the conversation, and you've got quite a story, as I've looked at your background and your results and kind of the journey that you've been on. But let's start the conversation with a picture of your journey to ministry leadership. Bob, you've been the senior pastor now for ten years. Give us a bit of an idea, brief idea, of your ministry background and how God led you here to Central Community.

Bob: So I was teaching in a Christian high school that was planted right here” at Central Community Church. After the second year there, the senior pastor came to me and said, Hey, how would you like to come and teach a Sunday school class and work here with me at Central Community?” And my grandma, Al, always used to say, “Someday you're going to be a pastor.” I never believed it, but you know how prayers are. Anyway, so I started doing that, and lo and behold, I came on board, I got my ordination, and then I served as the pastor of special projects and also assimilation—I had a Sunday school class—and so I was on staff here for 11 years.

And then the Lord called me to Florida to have a church in Lake Wales, Florida, right on a college campus. And I'll tell you, Al, it was the best of both worlds. Those college kids kept me young, and they kept me energized and going, and man, life was really good there.

And then all of a sudden, the senior pastor here at Central Community resigned. I was visiting my daughter in Germany, and she was a missionary there, with she and her husband. And my daughter said to me, she said, “Well, Dad, what are you going to do when Central calls you?” And I said, “Well, I'll tell them no.” And then, boy, as soon as that happened, the Lord started speaking to me. And, Al, one year from that day I was back at Central Community, and we are now celebrating our 10th year. So we're so thankful to be back. We love this church, and it's been a great journey.

Al: Oh, that's great. Bob, I'll have to say, I think I might be a believer in Christ because of my grandmother's prayers. So and—

Bob: There you go.

Al: —she thought I'd be a pastor, too, but that didn't quite work out that way. But I'm working with a lot of them, I’ll say that.

Bob: There you go. There you go.

Al: Yeah. So, Justin, how about your background? How did you get started as an executive pastor here?

Justin: Well, for me, I actually, my career, my background was in business. I had spent over a decade in banking, built team, led team, grew team, strategy, all of the kind of things that go along with being in the business world. And at the same time, I was attending Central Community Church. My wife grew up in this church, and so I started attending it with her when we got married. And I had volunteered. I had actually served on our leadership board, our council. Some people refer to it elders or, you know, it's different every church. But had the opportunity to serve in that capacity and so been involved with the church and never thought I would actually work at the church, never thought that was part of the plan.

But one day I was driving home, actually, and I felt like God said, “You're going to go into ministry.” And the joke is, I said, I almost wrecked my car because I thought, “What did I just hear? I'm not going into ministry. Who, me?” And my wife and I, we prayed about it for a long time. It was actually in a period where our elder board, our board, you have to step down after a few years and take some time off. So it was in that period that I was not on the board, and we began just to pray through it.

And one day Pastor Bob actually reached out, and he said, “Hey, would you be interested in coming into the church world? Have you ever thought about ministry?” And we just kind of laughed about it. And I said, “Well, you'll never believe what God told me several months ago. We better meet; we better talk about it.” And that's kind of the history behind it. And before long, I had left the business world and transitioned into church world. That was about four years ago.

Al: That's a great story, Justin. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing more about that.

But Bob, you had been at the church for a few years, and then you started working with us back in 2015, as we look back at the records. And, you know, in those early years, there was, honestly, maybe you could say quite a bit of room for improvement in the health of your culture. And you kept after it; you kept surveying; you saw progress. And then about four years ago, we've really started to see some large changes in employee engagement in the church workplace environment, and some of those changes you implemented to move forward, involving getting people in the right places. So talk about what responsibilities you decided to keep as a primary role as senior pastor and based on your gifting, and how you decided what responsibilities to pass on to Justin in that executive-pastor role.

Bob: Well, that was a real easy one. I just decided that I was going to bring Justin on; and anything I didn’t like to do I was going to give him to do; and then I would do the things that I love to do. You know, I would say that, I mean, if we're honest, our church, our staff, we were toxic, and you know we were scraping the bottom.

I remember hearing Bill Hybels talk, and I know it was something that God ordained, and he talked about how he wanted to have a flourishing culture. And I've been a coach, and so culture has been a part of my repertoire. It's been a part of my vocabulary. And I remember he said these words, he said, “It took us five years, but,” he said, “we were going to get it done.” And there was something in there, Al, that just challenged me. And I thought, I want to be a church that not just sets the bar, but we are the bar. I want to be a church where people can't wait to come to work. I want to be a church where people don't want to go home. I want to be a place where we truly love each other and like each other. And so we began that journey. And it was hard at some times.

I'm so thankful for Cary. And, Al, I got to give him kudos because what an incredible guy he is. I've known Cary and his family for a while, but, man, we had some incredible, and I will tell you, we had some tough conversations. But in all of those things, Cary just, he steered me the right way. I mean, he's a man of God, a man of prayer. And so slowly but surely, we began to see changes.

When Justin came on, one of the things that I noticed in Justin, first of all, I liked him. I respected him. I knew that the bank that he was coming from, they wanted to build around him, so I knew that we had something very special there. But I knew that Justin was a man of integrity. I watched him work with people. I watched him talk with people. He’s a guy of character, and he's the kind of guy that says, “I'm going to do what I say I'm going to do.” And that's what I was really looking for, and someone who would tell me the truth and not tell me what I wanted to hear. And that's Justin.

And so as we began to talk about the culture of our church, I began to release more and more of the responsibilities of leading the staff and taking care of the ministries and those kinds of things. So I didn't have to get in the weeds, and I could stay in the visionary position and up the tree, as they like to say. And so that's kind of what happened. We talked a lot, but it's worked out really well. I'm very pleased.

Al: That's a great story, Bob. And to use your words, “we were toxic,” and now you're not.

Well, you know, for the last couple of years now, Central Community Church has improved to be a flourishing workplace. And I don't know that it took you as long as five years to do it, but that was a great accomplishment. And you just kept moving forward, and your scores are now well above peer churches. Many of the FLOURISH factors that we identify are quite strong. So share a couple of changes or steps that you rolled out to improve and involve everybody on the staff as you move forward. What were some of the results? You have such high scores in areas like inspirational leadership and sustainable strategy. What were some of those steps that you took to move forward? Justin, let's start with you.

Justin: So much of it really goes back to just little decisions every day, right, that you get in the habit of and repetitiveness. I mean, we had to make some big changes here and there. Sometimes you have to make decisions on staff and things like that. But, really, what I go back to is so much of it was around communication and giving people the opportunity to be a part of something bigger.

So you think about a lot of times in companies, and the church world’s no different, you get some silos going, and there's not the communication, and so things are not being talked about or handled in a correct way. And so we started having meetings, where we gave people a seat at the table. Instead of it being one group that would always have that meeting, we started bringing in people from other departments and other areas just to listen and to speak into it and begin to really try to form that team feel, that we really are on the same page; we're trying to accomplish the same goals, and if we can come together. And what you started to see is things started going so well out of that, ideas were flowing, and different things that we did around the church, the level of excellence, it was rising, and people are going, “This is awesome to do it together. We didn't even know we could do this together. We thought we had to do it by ourselves.” So I think bringing people together in that.

We've got a great administrative pastor that is great with communication, and we have him lead a couple huddles every week. They're only 15 minutes long, so there's not much to them. But at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week, we go over everything that's going on that week, what they should know, why we're doing it, what to expect, give everyone the opportunity to chime in if there's something that they need to speak into just for the whole team to know, and even just in that 15 minutes every single week, it creates a lot of synergy and unity for the vision and the mission that we're trying to achieve.

And then the other thing, just kind of back to communication, is I think that we've really tried to work hard, especially in those group settings and even in the smaller ones, of just being transparent; having those conversations that, yes, we're talking about the good things, but we're also talking about the challenging things and the hard things; and acknowledging that sometimes we don't know, or we don't have the answer. And I think just opening up and being honest in that transparency, it goes a long way for the team. We know that trust is key to everything that we do, and I think people have appreciated that.

And so, again, just opening up the conversation so that everyone has a seat at the table and trying to open up the door of communication.

Al: There's nothing like sitting around the table and having people participating and coming up with ideas and working synergistically together. I remember I was a turnaround guy in my previous career, coming in to a new office that I was going to be responsible for, and asking some open-ended questions, and people sitting around the conference table, and nobody said anything. And it's like, “Oh, we've got a ways to go here.” But yeah, it sounds like that's what you're talking about, communication, having these huddles, creating synergy and unity, and helping build trust through transparency, yeah, great input, Justin. Thanks.

Yeah. Bob, anything you'd like to add, some specific steps that took along the way?

Bob: Yeah. I would say just what you said, Al. I can remember sitting around this huge table, and I would ask questions about things, and nobody would say anything. And I would say to them, “Why are you guys not talking?” And they would say, “Well, it doesn't matter because you're going to tell us anyways.” And then I thought, “Oh, boy.”

But, you know, one of the things that we hear a lot, and this is what really excites me, is that when we begin to share new ideas and things like that, the very first thing we do is we go to the staff and we ask them their opinion. One of the things that I love to hear is when somebody new comes on our staff and they say, “I can't believe that the leadership is asking what we think, and it really matters. They really want to know.” And so I think that was one of the key areas that we really have been working hard on.

The other thing is just trying to be a better listener. You know, the Bible is pretty clear about that our love for Jesus is going to be seen in the way we love each other. And we had to learn how to love each other the way Jesus loves each other. And the best way to do that sometimes is, I mean, I've seen staff members drop what they're doing to go and help other people because they needed help. And so those were some of the things that we really worked hard. And it was no more of an “I” type of thing: “I'm going to tell you this is what I want you to do. This is the way you do it.” It's going to be it's a “we” thing, so let's come up with the ideas. And you know what? Honestly, it's better for me because I don't have to have all the answers.

Al: I trust you’re enjoying our podcast today. We’ll be right back after an important word for leaders.

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Welcome back to our conversation with Bob and Justin at Central Community Church.

You've learned a lot, no question about it, Bob. Yeah. Wow. And I can't tell you how many focus groups and discovery groups I've been in and will ask questions, and people say, “Well, what difference does it make? My input doesn't count.” I appreciate that. But asking for feedback and being better listeners. I love, of course, we love each other the way Jesus loved. And isn't that the way the church will grow? because people will see that sacrificial love. No question.

Well, yeah. So I know that Cary Humphries is your BCW consultant, and you've already mentioned him, just recently debriefed you on the latest results this year. And you're probably still digesting the report, but, certainly, you have a lot to celebrate. And let me just congratulate you on being a flourishing workplace. I know that makes a big difference, not just the title but the way it actually works out in your culture.

So how do you decide on what to do next? Some people will say, “Well, I've reached this level, so we don't need to bother with this anymore.” You get lulled into pausing with your work. So when you look at your results, how do you approach the next steps in your journey of the flourishing culture? Are there some areas that you want to work on and keep working on based on your results? Bob, you know, your thoughts.

Bob: Just yesterday we had the whole staff together, and we brought in some Carlos O’Kelly’s, and we had a celebration, and we celebrated some birthdays, and we just celebrated the fact that we are a thriving, healthy culture. And one of the things that we're doing now is constantly reminding each other that this is a “we” thing. We've done this together. And God gets the credit, but I'm just so thankful for them.

I think one of the things that we've learned is that, man, we worked hard to get to where we are. When I think back of some of the things, the hard decisions, the lives that had been impacted because of some of the decisions that we've had to make, and now we are where we are, there's something inside of us leadership that is saying, “We've worked hard to get here. Now we're going to have to work hard to stay here.” And the thing, Al, that I love about our staff right now, our team, is that, you know what? they're now thinking, “We need to fight to keep this, what we have. We work hard at it.” And so as we grow, and we have new staff members, boy, I'll tell you, we right away, we understand that one person can make a difference in the staff. And we begin that whole process of setting the table and sharing with them, “This is how we do things,” and just loving each other and holding each other accountable. And so I love the fact that, okay, we've gotten to this place now, but now what do we have to do to stay here?

Part of that, I think, is we know what our strengths are, and we focus on our strengths, but we're also very aware of our weaknesses. And if there are areas that we need to really improve in, one of the things that I love to do now, as my job description has changed a little bit, is I love just walking around and encouraging people, being positive, telling them, “Hey, listen. If you need that taken care of, Justin's the guy. Just go to Justin. He'll get it taken care of.” Or maybe it's Pastor Aaron. “Go to them. They'll take care of it.” And people know that I'm not just brushing them off, but they're going to see results. So I'm excited about that.

Al: Yeah. Yeah, I love that, that you want to work hard to stay there. You want to fight to keep in that flourishing place because you've worked so hard to get there. I hear that over and over.

Justin, how about you? Some of your thoughts?

Justin: Yeah. I’d reiterate some of those. And you mentioned Cary, and as Bob said earlier, Cary has been amazing to work with. We are so grateful for him and what he's provided throughout this process. But he's been really good to remind us that we need to take the time to celebrate. We need to really acknowledge and make sure that that is a piece of it. I think the tendency, I know you talked about some people wanting or maybe falling into that trap of “Well, we've made it, and we can just kind of ride it out.”

I think there’s another tendency, and I might fall more into that camp, of, okay, we won the championship, but you're back into the workout room tomorrow morning, and what else is it that we need to do? And so for us, I think it's pausing, making sure we do acknowledge those wins and those successes.

But for us, I would say it's probably nothing major that we're focusing on. But when you look at your Survey, the Survey that we did with you guys, all of those categories are so connected with each other, right? And so for us, it's going back to each and every one of those and seeing where can the bar be raised just a little bit, and how is that connected to somewhere else? We might be able to improve our strategy, but if we don't communicate it well, that's not going to help. If we don't have the right people that can implement that strategy, we're back in the same place. So they're all so connected for us. I think once you get to that place where it's flourishing, you get in that place of trying to tweak and continue to improve each one a little bit as you go on.

Al: Yeah. And you have the tool to understand kind of what the issues are and what to working on. Yeah.

Well, many of the churches that we work with have had to figure out this dance between the senior pastor and the executive pastor. And we've got both of you here on this podcast. And it's not a simple formula. It's not something that works. There's a lot of chemistry involved. And so as churches wonder how big they need to be to have multiple leadership roles and who does what and what teams report to who, what have you learned along the way? As you each work through to fulfill the vision and mission of the church, what are some of your insights on structure and process that might be helpful to the leaders who are listening? And even we know while you're talking about a senior pastor and executive pastor, it could be like a CEO and an executive vice president or chief operating officer. I mean, these are, obviously, transferable across organizations. But Bob, your thoughts?

Bob: When I first got here, and I had several executive pastors, and part of the issue, Al, was the senior pastor giving up control. We worked hard to get to where we were. And I'm a Type A personality, and I'm a coach at heart, and I know what I want to do, what I want to get done. And so when we began talking about bringing Justin on board, there were a couple of things that happened that I think were key things.

One of them is I trust Justin. I trust him implicitly. He said the magic words to me the very first time when we got together. I don't know if he remembers this, but any senior pastor will know this. And he said, “I don't want your job.” And so we just kind of worked from there.

And I think, you know, the thing that I've learned is that the more that I've been able to relinquish control of different things, because what I learned is that it seemed like the more things that I got involved in, I made a mess of things, and so what I learned to do is to work through other people. I've seen Justin work the skills that he has, his capabilities. I mean, God has big plans for him. And so right now I'm just trying to pour into him as much as I can, give him the responsibility and let him do it his way.

That's probably one of the biggest things that, you know, I've always, I want things done, and I want them done a certain way. I've learned to that I can trust him to do the things, and the way he wants to do it, let him put his own stamp on it, and he does a great job. So I'm, frankly, I'm a little surprised at how I've done in this, but I know it's just something that he and I are continually working on because we communicate all the time, and that's the key. And that's one of the things I love about Justin is he'll come to me, he says, “Hey, can we just touch base about a couple of things?” And we do that on a regular basis. And as long as we do that, we're doing great.

Al: Yeah. And you don't necessarily have a specific time during the week that you have one on ones, but as things come up, is that the way you handle it?

Bob: I think, probably that's the best way that what we've kind of found that works. We’ll set times to do different things. But a lot of times we're meeting in the hallway. His office is next to mine. I'll walk into his; he'll walk into mine. Or he'll say, “Hey, do you have five minutes?” and I'll make time or whatever. A lot of times we need to we'll grab other people on staff. Like, “Hey, let's go grab lunch,” but then we'll just spend time together. And so, yeah, that's the way we do it. It works best for us right now.

Al: Yeah, yeah. Good. Good.

Justin, how about you? Anything you'd like to add?

Justin: Just that trust, I think, is the key component to all that. I mean, for us to be able to trust each other. And any leader to be able to work together with another leader, there has to be that foundation of trust. And I think what I appreciate most about Bob is that we are able to have those conversations with each other. I need his feedback. I need his input. My job is to help carry out the vision God's given him for the church. So it's not my vision that I'm trying to execute or carry out; it's the one that God’s given him. And so him being able to share that and be very candid and open with me what he sees around our staff and our culture is very freeing, and it's very helpful just for us to be able to share those things back and forth and be honest and transparent with each other, knowing how we're going to receive it. We need that from each other.

Al: For a senior pastor to say, “I trust my executive pastor. I’ve given up control,” for a lot of people, that’s the big issue, right there, isn’t it? And yeah, that’s great. Thanks, Bob. Thanks, Justin.

Bob: Yeah.

Al: Great insight.

Bob: One of the things, Al, that I would add to that is that our team, our staff, watches the way our leadership gets along, and sometimes we don't realize sometimes how much they watch. And when they see us working together, it's kind of like parents. When children see their parents working together, it just gives them more stability. And that's what we're finding with our team.

Al: And that's a great word for every listener out there is if you're on a leadership team, your staff are watching, and they know whether you're getting along or not. Whether you tell them or not, they know, just the way things are going. Yeah. Well, these are great insights.

I have to think that the positive energy and growth and engagement of your staff really is influencing the broader church. I've often said the health of your staff today, the health of your congregation tomorrow. So can you draw a connection between your flourishing staff team and your high level of engagement as you're seeing engagement and growth in your church community? Are you seeing any connection? Can you connect the dots for us on that, Justin?

Justin: You know, you absolutely see a correlation, and I think that's one of the most exciting pieces of it. I think that energizes us as leaders, but it also energizes the rest of the staff as well. I mean, when you think about a congregation, they're being poured into by the staff, by pastors, by leaders, by the groups, by everything that's taking place. And so naturally that congregation is going to reflect their leadership and their staff that's pouring into them. And so as you've seen there be more unity amongst our staff, you see more unity in the congregation. You see more energy and excitement and enthusiasm. We're seeing that across the congregation as well.

And I think what's exciting about it is once you get to that place where you're able to have more of that healthy culture, you can start to see that strategy, right, being executed and being able to be carried out, where before it was being shut down by certain pieces of culture, where now it is completely freed up, and you're getting to execute it. And it's exciting to see. Whether it be people coming, whether it be events, whether it be baptisms, we have seen increases across the board over the last few years and just a positive trend as the staff culture has gotten healthier.

Al: Just listening to your words: more unity, more energy, more excitement, more enthusiasm; the strategy is being executed; you're not having people sitting back and not participating; yeah, what a difference. Wow, yeah.

Bob, your thoughts.

Bob: We've had an opportunity to see this in action. We just recently had one of our staff members who is not just here at our church, but around our church movement, just went through retirement, and he has stepped off the stage. And I'll tell you, I am so proud of our staff because the way that we've loved on each other, the way we have walked through this transition together, the congregation has watched this, and many of them are, we're hearing them say, “So that's what it's supposed to look like.” And so it's very obvious. Justin shared a story with me earlier about something that happened between these two worship leaders. And it was just, it was a very touching moment. And, you know, I think that sometimes the church is always looking to their leaders to say, “Okay. Show us how we're supposed to love each other.” And we've had some great opportunities to do that. And our staff has just done an incredible job. And it just sends chills throughout the entire congregation. And they are excited and welcoming to see what God's doing.

Justin: You know, I would add to that, Al, Bob was talking earlier that the staff is always watching the leadership to see how they're interacting. The congregation is always watching the staff as well. So they know what's going on. They know the pulse of it. You'd be a fool to think that a staff could hide what was going on from a congregation. They very much know whether those pieces of love and trust and unity and all those things are there.

Al: As you said, Bob, they're watching, and that's what it's supposed to look like. To be able to have a congregation when they're looking and watching a staff work with each other. And what is it supposed to be like, disciples working together for a common purpose? Yeah. Wow. They’re really saying, “Show us how,” and they’re going to model, much like children model parents, but again, a congregation will model the staff as to how to love one another.

Well, I've enjoyed so much. Yeah, thank you, Bob and Justin. I've enjoyed so much of our conversation. I just, again, am so appreciative for your leadership as you've moved the health of your culture from, as you described it, toxic to now flourishing, and the steps that you've taken and how important communication is. I think that's one of the key things. Justin, you were talking about communication, your huddles, the transparency that you have, the synergy and the unity that you're seeing because you're involving your staff in what's going on. And also, again, you're better listeners; you're seeking opinions. You talk about loving each other the way Jesus loved as a foundation point. But one of the things that gives me great joy as well is that we've actually got something to celebrate and knowing kind of the health of your culture and being able to celebrate the progress that you've made is just a great step. And the dance between the senior pastor and the executive pastor, you really were very clear and helpful on how that chemistry needs to work. But I really appreciate, and let's just end with, the connection between the health of your staff and the health of the congregation, and how, again, the congregation is always looking at the staff. You know, “Show us how it's supposed to look like.” I love that, Bob. Thanks so much.

Well, let me ask, how about one more thing that you'd like to add that we've talked about. Bob, start with you.

Bob: I would say Cary was just so helpful. Al, your team, your staff that you put together are pretty remarkable. They've been very patient with us, never forced us to do anything that we didn't feel like we had to do. But the other thing is Cary spent a lot of time with us just in prayer, just praying about, “God, this is Your staff. It's Your church. You're the One we want to glorify. And so just show us what it is.” And I'll tell you, He did. He made it very clear, and that made some of those tough meetings that we had to have, it made them very easy because we knew it was part of God's will. And so I just very thankful, Al, for you, for your team. And boy, that prayer was so powerful and made all the difference. And so thanks to you guys, and all praise to our Heavenly Father, Who gives us what we need when we need it.

Al: Yeah. Thanks, Bob. Exactly. Yeah.

Justin?

Justin: Yeah. I would just add to that that it's great to have other people come alongside of you. You don't have to do things on your own. And I think sometimes as leaders, we try to. And we don't have all the answers. We can't fix everything. We're not experts in everything. And so if you identify areas, whether it be in your culture, I mean, it might be, I've struggled to hire the right people. It might be I'm struggling with communication. It might be I'm just struggling to understand my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader and how that's perceived by my team, if there’s areas that maybe you don't feel comfortable in, don't be afraid to reach out to someone like you guys or someone to ask for that help to come alongside. You'll be a lot better in the long run, having someone come alongside and help you in those areas. And you guys have been great for us, and that helped us in so many ways. Cary, again, as Bob has said a few times, has done a great job with us. And I would just reiterate that as Christian leaders, the best place for us to lead is from our knees.

Al: A lot of wisdom there. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Well, Bob, Justin, I want to thank each of you from the bottom of my heart for your contributions today. But also, I appreciate your commitment to serving God's Kingdom through the local church, with the vision of leading people in a growing relationship with Jesus Christ. And I love, and kind of what really strikes me , is I love how you're showing your congregation and your community how to love like Jesus loves us. So thanks for taking your time out today and speaking in the lives of so many listeners.

Justin: Thank you, Al.

Bob: Thank you so much for having us. Thank you.

Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.

We'll see you again next week for more valuable content to help you develop strong leaders and build a flourishing workplace culture.

Al: Next week we'll be talking with an outstanding entrepreneur and an expert on fundraising for Christian nonprofits. Join us as Brad Layland, the CEO of The FOCUS Group, links flourishing cultures with growing organizations.