Transcript: Why Staff Engagement is the Key to a Thriving Camp & Retreat Ministry // John MacDonald, T Bar M Camps

Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast

“Why Staff Engagement is the Key to a Thriving Camp & Retreat Ministry“

March 31, 2025

John MacDonald

Intro: What if the biggest obstacle to a thriving workplace isn't external challenges, but internal culture? Well, in this episode John MacDonald shares the critical steps he and his team took to transform the culture at T Bar M, fostering trust, transparency, and alignment with their Christ-centered mission. Learn how intentional leadership, open communication, and a commitment to investing in people created a flourishing workplace, where employees feel valued, engaged, and empowered. Don't miss this conversation filled with practical wisdom for any leader seeking to build a healthy, mission-driven culture.

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: Hi, I’m Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author of Road to Flourishing, the go-to research-based, Christ-centered guide to building a flourishing workplace culture. And my passion is to equip Christian leaders like you to create engaged, flourishing workplaces, where people thrive and organizations make a Kingdom impact. And if you'd like to learn more about me, my book, opportunities to have me speak at an event, this podcast, or recent articles I've written, I invite you to visit allopus.org—that’s A-L-L-O-P-U-S—dot org. Let’s journey together toward building workplaces where your faith, leadership, and organization flourish.

Well, I’m delighted to welcome John MacDonald to the podcast today. He's the president of T Bar M Camps in Texas.

Throughout our conversation, you'll hear John share about how small daily acts of faithfulness shape lasting leadership impact, how the power of transparency can transform a workplace culture, how practical ways to invest in and develop your team, and why a strong mission-driven culture leads to long-term success. I hope these takeaways will encourage you to embrace faithfulness in your daily leadership and cultivate a workplace that truly flourishes.

I think you're going to love this interview with John MacDonald. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey, the largest Christ-centered employee-engagement survey available. Don't wait. This month, even now, is a perfect time to gather insightful information from your employees to assess the health of your workplace culture. As our guest, John MacDonald, shares, the Best Christian Workplace Survey was a game-changer for his organization. He says, “It gives us the clarity that we needed to identify areas for growth, celebrating strengths, and taking meaningful steps toward a further, healthier Christ-centered workplace. The steps we gained helped us build a stronger, more engaged team that is fully aligned with our mission.” So, are you ready to transform your culture? Well, visit workplaces.org to learn more and to start your journey to becoming a flourishing workplace today.

And hello to our new listeners, and thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating a valuable episode like this.

Let me tell you a little bit more about John MacDonald. John is the president of T Bar M Camp since 2022. And prior to that, he served on the board of trustees for the camps. He started his career in engineering and has 20 years of experience in progressively more-responsible roles. And he's a graduate of Texas A&M University.

So, here’s my conversation with John MacDonald.

John, it’s great to have you on the podcast. I'm looking forward to our conversation today.

John MacDonald: Yeah, thanks, Al. Man, it is great, indeed. Excited to talk about things I love: Jesus, T Bar M, fun. Man, it's good to be here.

Al: Yeah. Glad you’re here, John.

Let's start with your own journey in leadership. You spent the first part of your career in engineering and management—

John: Yeah.

Al: —and then moved to camp ministry a few years ago.

John: Yeah.

Al: So, there's got to be a story there. How did you see God lead you in this journey to this role?

John: Yeah. People ask me a lot that question specifically, because when I tell them, “I was building ships prior to this,” they just give me that funny look of, wait, what? God's been teaching me something different, and I think it's that He is faithful. I feel like we try and often answer that question, or I often try to answer that question, by these big events. Particularly when I was a college student, there's nothing more than young Christians want than that Moses moment of the bush lighting up and, oh my goodness, here's the calling from God. I'm on point. Let's go do this. And for me, 20 years went by. And so when I look back over those 20 years, in light of this question, it's often easy to think of, well, let me tell you these big milestones. I was in offshore facilities, and I got to ride helicopters to oil rigs. And people like, “Oh, that's pretty cool. I've never been in a helicopter,” and certainly shipbuilding, very few people hear about the shipbuilding industry, and people are super curious about that, so they ask a lot of questions, and it kind of makes me feel good. Like, I have a story to tell. This is pretty cool. And these are so often the milestones that we would talk about along our, you know, kind of God's leading or epic journey, if you will.

But I tell you, Al, what God's been teaching me kind of lately is that I think these are imposters compared to just being faithful in the work day in and day out and in the daily life: updating budgets, coaching soccer. Who hasn't been through a hundred resumes trying to find that right candidate? Date night with your wife, trying to get that scheduled in. I guess it's really those flat areas that God taught me to trust. Kindness, patience, joy with what I have, self-control, love. They didn't really get answered in those moments.

And so back to your question, I do see the way God's leading me, but more often than not, it's looking back on, I'm in a situation now; we're building a CRM. It's not going great, to be honest with you, as software projects can. And I remember, oh, you can't do this without a flow chart. Let's go back. Or when I get into conflict, I squared off with a few union bosses in the shipyard, and nothing I do here at T Bar M is going to be like that. But God was writing a story because at the same place, we all want to be respected. We all want our voice to be heard. These are common things.

So I guess my answer to that question would be, have I seen God lead you in this journey? No doubt, but maybe it's not so much the big milestones as, man, just be faithful where you are, serve the church, steward the work in front of you well, make sure God is the core of what you're doing.

You know, I lead a camp. So, of course, camps have themes, and our theme verse this summer is 2 Chronicles 16:9, which is God's eyes are looking throughout the whole earth for those who are faithful. And He's talking to King Asa. King is also a pretty cool title. I mean, people read about him for the rest of his life, right? Like, these are the kind of stories you want to hear when you talk about God leading you along the journey, setting up those stones. But, really, in contrast to the king, God was saying, man, I'm just looking for people who are faithful.

So, long answer. We tend to look at the big moments, but looking back, I think it's just about being faithful in the planes of life, in the day in, the day out. And God will use that in His season.

Al: God will guide our steps is what you're saying, John, isn't it?

John: Yeah. So we plan our ways, and God directs our steps, no doubt.

Al: Well, you and the team at T Bar M have been using the Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey now for several years. And your team has made great strides—let me congratulate you—great strides in workplace health over the past few years. And you've worked on organizational culture. So what are some of the first steps that you and your team took to implement change to really move the needle into the healthy range?

John: Yeah. Al, can I advertise for you a little bit, because if you're listening to this, hey, this is actually the strengths, one of the biggest strengths, of the Best Christian Workplaces. The score is great—I brag about that—but to be honest, the summary document was more valuable than that score at the end of the day. Doug, who's been working with us, Doug Waldo, the hours I had with him after the Survey were absolutely priceless. When he helped us unpack that data, look at the score from top to bottom, and say, “Okay, guys. Here's the trends I'm seeing. Here's the areas you need to focus on.” So honestly, we didn't score very well, as you've alluded to, in our early sessions, and so we were—it hurt, if I could say that. We got our first score back, and we're not even on the charts, and Doug was like, ooh, personally. And so we said, “All right, Doug. How do we wade through this?” And he said, “Well,”—he helped us set up what we call, or he called, feed-forward sessions with our staff. So this was kind of—the first step we took was take the Survey. The second thing we did was feed-forward sessions. We picked out three topics that were clear in the Survey and asked our staff the question, what would this look like if we were healthy in this area? And I love the way Doug framed this is we've got to start looking forward at what would work and not looking back at what hasn't been working. And so just for us, it was celebrating staff and the work God is doing. It was bringing clarity in our roles and clarity around our goals. Those were kind of the big three.

And so we made something up from there. We were already doing staff coffee every Monday. A lot of what we do is coffee and Jesus kind of runs us. And so that was an easy transition to say, let's write down our goals, and let's present them to staff in staff coffee. Let’s create documents, which we call clock-building documents. There's a legacy there for us. And then, let's celebrate. And so literally we sit at coffee and tell God stories, we celebrate anniversaries, we talk about what God's Word has been teaching us, and these are—none of this is scripted. It's just open the floor. Who's got something they want to share? I want to say move the needle, and I chuckle at that because I started this answer with that little speedometer. It really isn't the heart of what we do. So, I mean, those things are unique to T Bar M culture. But I would say this, take the Survey, celebrate the strengths with your team, and for sure ask about the weaknesses. And they'll tell you.

Al: So, what advice, John, do you give somebody, a leader who is actually afraid to wade into that water of asking employees because they might not like what they hear, maybe even feel hurt as a result? What's your advice to them?

John: Yeah. There's a meme I saw recently, and the start of that flowchart is, “I want to do something, but I'm scared.” And there's two arrows coming out of that. The first one is Don't Do It, and the second one is Do It Scared. And I think that's such a great summary for young leaders who are finding themselves scared to ask that of their staff. My opinion is it will be their crutch to not hear from their staff. When I took over this role in October of ‘22, the first thing I did, and it took me, I said, “Okay. It's going to take me six months to meet one on one with everyone.” I had this structured set of questions. And one of the questions was, where are we excelling? Where are we failing? And boy, did I get a lot of answers. It took me a year to actually meet with everyone, so I didn't meet my deadline. But that time has been more valuable than probably anything else I did in my time here. And there are some things I can't fix, and I have to have those conversations with people. But I think not asking is a much, much bigger downfall for leadership. So do it scared.

Al: Yeah. Two arrows, yeah. All right. Well, thanks for sharing that.

And, you know, your staff's motivated to put in extra effort, and that's one of our definitions of engagement, actually, where staff are willing to put in extra effort. And they feel like they are listened to and encouraged to innovate, which is really important in the camping world. So how do you balance your need for employees to be involved in decision making that affects them and then, also, maintaining your strategic course and mission focus?

John: Oh, yes. Great question. And honestly, I only get this one right—50% would probably be kind to myself, if I'm honest with you. It's, like, one of those things. How do you face the hard questions? Well, you have to do it scared. So I think this is a tough one to get right all the time.

What my staff has told me is, hey, just be transparent about that, about how the decisions are made. When I miss, apologize. I had one of my senior leaders come to me two weeks ago and literally that conversation, hey, you had a meeting on this topic, and I think I should have been there. And I had to look at her and go, “You're absolutely right. I am so sorry. I will make that correction going forward.” I think one of the biggest things we found is creating an environment that is safe, no matter your title, to bring up those criticisms and allow your staff to look at you and go, “Hey, I think you handled that wrong. Let's talk about this.”

And I think, again, the last thing goes back to what we were talking about. Man, you better understand what your people in your organization do if you're going to know when to involve them and what decisions to involve this in. So, man, another example just from last week, actually preparing for this podcast and asking some of the questions. We had a board meeting coming up, and one of my staff asked, “Hey, how can a group of people that are so distant from T Bar M make decisions? Like, that doesn't seem fair.” And I had to look at them and go, “Actually, you're right. That's not fair. And in fact, that's not how the board works.” And so from that, we actually went back to our staff coffee and sat down and took five minutes and said, “Guys, our board is an oversight board. The decisions that are being made are made by the senior leaders, your friends, your peers, the people in this room who are connected to what you're doing every day.” And everyone kind of said, “Oh, well, that makes a lot more sense than the original question I asked.” I think the crux of that was the freedom of any one of our staff to come up and even challenge the board and say, “Hey, I'm not certain how the board does things is right.”

So, man, one other thing maybe to add to that is I also ask my staff a lot, what are we going to stop doing? We get busy, there are reasons we're doing all the things we're going to do, but there is a limit on our attention; there's a limit on our resources. So if I'm trying to balance that, hey, where are my employees involved? And what's the strategic course? I often have to ask that question, what are we going to stop doing? And I find that that's contagious. Goals, where people are spending their energy, no matter what we have written on paper, that just, it involves people, it sucks up time, it sucks up air. So make it that good oxygen, and ask your team from time to time, “Hey, what are we not going to do today? Okay. That’s the right decision.”

Al: John MacDonald's five steps for employee engagement. That's what I just got out of that conversation. Be transparent; apologize where you need to be; to create a safe environment; to involve people in communication; and questions, much like your board question; and then, ask them what to stop doing.

John: What to stop doing, yeah.

Al: That's great advice. Yeah. Something I'm looking at right now. When we all have so many positive opportunities to go forward, we have to make time to do what's even better by stop doing some of the things that we're doing and that we're used to. No question.

John: Yeah.

Al: Yeah.

John: Very much so. It was interesting as an engineer, and particularly in shipbuilding, ships have this, you know, you can only generate so much power on a ship. And if the systems draw more power than you have, well, something's got to give, right? So rather than the whole ship going dark, they have these systems that will actually back down and say, hey, I don't need the heaters right now. Hey, I don't need this system right now. And they call it load shedding, and it's this idea that's kind of stuck with me in leadership that, man, our attention is limited. At times we’ve got to load shed to be able to focus on our priorities.

Al: Load shedding.

John: Yeah.

Al: That’s a term that they know in South Africa, but let's move on, yeah.

John: Yes.

Al: Your camp offers retreats and family camps. You're interacting with all ages, but particularly with youth. And as I prayed at the beginning, you really do make a difference in so many lives, particularly as youth come to your camps and your overnight camps. The camp experience can be life changing for young people. I remember camps as a teenager myself, and I remember them vividly, and I know many of your students and many of your campers do, too. And your summer staff are young adults, and they're passionate about Jesus, and that's really important. So you've got a wide range of ages and experiences on your staff team, all with this common mission. So what I want to get to is Christian character is such a foundation for the work that you do, from top leadership all the way through your year-round staff and then the hundreds probably of summer staff that you have. So in our research in inspirational leadership, it's that Christian character that really is critical and kind of the beginning of leadership. So what are some key ways that you and your team models and builds a culture of Christian values and character amongst your staff? How do you do that? You do a great job at it.

John: I love that question, Al. The team and I have worked so hard on that. Christian character is indeed foundational to who we are. It's written in our core values, and it's written in our mission. Ten years ago, we actually merged our for-profit and our not-for-profit businesses, and we found ourselves in that position where the two cultures simply did not mix well. And we have really been working since to figure that out, to right that ship, because it negatively affected our culture. As I said, our scores were pretty low a couple of years ago. And so what we've done is we've kind of latched onto this concept what we call the path of least resistance. And I think Robert Fritz originally wrote a book about that. And then it's been pulled into our servant-leadership curriculum written by Herman, Dave Kuhnert and Hermann Eben, and these guys. And the idea is it's more than about what's written. In fact, what's written really doesn't matter if it's not the easiest thing for your staff to do. And so if your staff is desiring a Christian culture, that has to be the path of least resistance to move to those things.

So I've talked about staff coffee. That's something we did at T Bar M. We get together every Monday and simply practice our spiritual rhythms together. We not only pray at our meetings, that's pretty typical for a Christian organization, but we pray. We do a Bible study. We break up into what we call covenant groups, which is where a place where we can share personal stories, our personal challenges, pray over business and personal items with our team. Of course, we get to do staff Bible studies regularly throughout the day and throughout the week. And then, we also encourage people to stop and talk about the work God is doing in their lives. These are all practices that we want to look and feel normal for staff. When I walk by as the head guy of T Bar M and staff looked at me and felt, “Oh, the head guy is here. Everybody, quick, look busy. Look like we're being efficient,” then clearly the culture would be about efficiency; it would not be about relationships. And that's the tension you've got to wrestle in.

So this idea of path of least resistance is not just Christian culture, but it really holds for all the things you value as an organization. Excellence; servant leadership for us; having fun along the journey, obviously at Christian camp and conference center. This is—the idea of the covenant group, interestingly enough, was actually a play we stole from our camps team. So as you said, we've got about 60 full-time staff, over 500 summer staff, and we impact almost 20,000 people every year to present Jesus Christ and teach His ways. And what we found several years ago when we merged is that our small camps team, about 10 people in the entirety of that organization, were living that Christian culture life, and the rest of us were living a business life. We had to change that. So we borrowed that play of covenant groups, of dedicated practicing the spiritual rhythms together, and now we do that from the bottom of the organization, where I sit, all the way to the very top of the organization, where the people really impact our customers and our guests.

Al: Yeah. So, practice spiritual rhythms; pray; Bible study; covenant groups, so you're breaking into smaller groups, sharing life together; and then, continually sharing how God is working; and keeping a balance on focusing on relationships while the work gets done.

John: Yeah. How do those things become comfortable for your staff? How do those things become easy to do? More easy than not sharing, being closed in, and not getting stuff done. That’s also a piece you have to balance, obviously.

Al: So, a path of least resistance. That's an interesting way of thinking about that.

Well, along that line, running a camp involves a lot of operational issues and practical day-to-day activities. So how do you keep, then, culture top of mind while also managing the tyranny of the urgent?

John: It turns out the tyranny of the urgent is the path of least resistance, unfortunately, Al. Honestly, the tyranny of the urgent is the path of least resistance so many days for me. I wish I were better in this space than I really am. I get distracted a lot, and I honestly give myself more grace for this than I do for other misses in my leadership quiver, if you will. I find that the older leaders, those guys and gals with 30, 40 years of leadership experience, just have this gut feel of what's a mountain and what's a molehill. I'm so jealous of that because it's hard to see.

So for T Bar M, how do we manage culture versus the tyranny of the urgent? Well, our business is relational. That's the core of who we are. So. I have to make relational time the path of least resistance. Even though it may not be my priority, the person that's coming to me with an issue is my top priority, and so I will often give time to them.

I would say two thoughts on managing culture versus the tyranny of the urgent. What I found is that between 9:00 and 4:00, my schedule is controlled by others. My calendar is full, my doorway is always full, and I think that's okay. I think Jesus set an example of this, of subjugating His time and His plan for the people and the needs of people that showed up. But you can only take that idea so far because it does turn out we've also been called to steward this business. Ministries by their nature are very, very flexible, but we have to recognize that we subjugate sometimes those perks and those benefits to the commitments we've made to the organization. What we found is that, man, simply missing a commitment not only hurts trust, but can actually cause chaos and just kind of the cogs of the business pieces that have to run together. We're all adults, we trust you to manage your day, and we ask that you meet your commitments, even if that means giving up some of the perks of the business. I guess I found in my experience as I started this, I'm not certain I do it well. But I will say that if we meet our commitments, so often the need for the tyranny of the urgent decreases. So do your best is what I'd say to balance those two.

Al: That's very thoughtful, John. Thanks. Yeah. Meet commitments, which sometimes we get involved in conversations and we overlook meetings that we have on the calendar, you know, as an example.

John: Yeah. That's a great example. And in a relational ministry, we need to do that because that person is so often the ministry. It's just finding that balance and giving yourself grace to say, Hey, I've also made a commitment, and so how do I find time to do that as well?

Al: Yeah. Great, John.

Well, so you've been in your role now for several years, and what would you say to a leader who's listening that's new in their role, for example? What did you learn about workplace culture in your first year of leadership that you might help a new leader with?

John: Yes. Man, actually the first company I worked out of college had one of the strongest cultures I've ever worked for. It wasn't a Christian culture, but it was a culture of engineering excellence. And so everything they did focused on this excellence and what we do. And so that's where I developed a lot of these ideas. The first one is just an easy one: get to know the people that work for you. Knowing is the gateway to trust, no matter what industry you're in. Whether you're dealing with a union boss in the shipyard or an engineering client over some data, man, know the people that work for you. Build trust with them.

Second, if you've ever seen the Disney movie, Ants, I think it's a beautiful analogy of this idea that you don't control as much as you think you do. As a young leader, you feel that weight of responsibility. And so what's your immediate response? Ooh, I'm going to control the outcome. I'm going to micromanage. I'm going to be involved. I'm going to make sure this reflects my level of excellence. And the more you try and squeeze that egg, right? the more people run away and the less you actually get accomplished.

A great book, one of my favorites, a guy, Malcolm Gauld, presents this idea of set high expectations, but let go of the outcomes. And that's so hard for a young leader who's feeling that weight of responsibility. It was so hard for me. Let's just say my early feedback sessions with my bosses might've revolved around that very idea. “Loosen the grip a little bit, John.”

The third one, particularly coming out of a Christian background, learning how to do conflict well. A lot of what you do in your leadership career will be conflict. Conflict doesn't have to be the bad screaming, yelling. It's, hey, someone has a different idea, different understanding than I do. And therefore, our path is in conflict with what they think. Understanding where people are coming from is so much better than winning an argument. And that is a skill that you have to practice. So take some time. Crucial Conversations is a great book that has helped me. There's other great, there's a ton of great books out there on understanding how to do conflict well. But do practice that. It will make a huge difference in how you lead and how your people feel it.

Al: You know, as I started working with Christian organizations over 20 years ago, I noticed that there weren't those kinds of crucial conversations because we just want to be nice as Christians. And so there's a conflict that happens, but it just gets pushed under the rug. And there in the dark, that's where the evil grows. And then, it all always comes up, and if it's not dealt with, it just gets to be a bigger issue.

John: It does. I have a quick story on that. Here at T Bar M, particularly when I started working here, we had a problem with gossip. And as I did my one on ones with staff, they'd say, “We have a problem with gossip. You've got to get this problem under control.” Obviously, it's not Christ-like. There's not a Christian culture that promotes gossip. And so learning how to do that conflict, what you talked about there, what I found in our organization was that when you don't give those hard conversations a space, a safe space to go up, then they are necessarily going to go out. They're going to go to our peers. And so that same idea of not only doing conflict, but giving people a safe space to vent where, “Hey, I don't understand this decision, I don't,” that resolved, in a lot of ways—we're far from perfect—but our gossip problem. Because people weren't needing to talk to their peers, they can come into my office. They can go to their supervisor and say, “I have an issue with how that decision was made. Can we talk about that?” “You bet, let's go. Let's do conflict.”

Al: Yeah. Yeah, great.

Well, one of the highest scores in your Employee Engagement Survey is having fun at work. And I love that question. I've gotten a lot of pushback over the years about that question. But no, it's core in organizations that people need to have the joy or the fun that comes from their work. And of course, that's really important in a camping environment, where fun is kind of one of your products. But even in such an environment, your staff works hard and also has to work through all of the regular challenges of a workplace every day, such as resolving conflict, which we've just talked about. So what are some practical ways that you and your team incorporate fun at work and creating a fun-at-work environment?

John: Sure. Al, I'm a little bit guilty in answering this. I work at a camp. We are literally surrounded by fun. So I'm afraid I'm cheating a bit when I answer this question. But it is true. Not everything we do is fun. We still have conflict. We still open five or six spreadsheets a day. We still have budget meetings. Those are all things that we all face. But one of our core values is don't waste fun. We say this a lot. And so practical ways, and I'm actually going to tell you an unpractical way. We scheduled a weekly Don't Waste Fun.” And this was an event Thursday afternoon, people’s schedules are light, and we would literally get on the field and play kickball or disk golf or ping pong. We have a game here called Gnip Gnop, which is just ping pong backwards. It's crazy fun. And it failed. It didn't work at all. Staff hated it. Three people were having fun; everybody else was miserable. And so ultimately, we had to cancel Don't Waste Fun, which was personally hard for me because that's literally one of our core values. How can we cancel this?

I guess what I've come to learn and my tip would be practical ways is the nature of fun just requires a bit of spontaneity. It's hard to schedule that. What we do now is we schedule lunch and learns, and we put some games at the end of that. People love getting together to eat. They love to sit around and talk. You've got a natural crowd; just tag on a game at the end of that. We brought in pinatas, laughed like crazy as people spun around, blindfolded. Pin the Tail on the Donkey was a big hit. These are adults, yes, that I work with. But what I found is that, man, the younger generation, the Millennials, really enjoy a good old classic quiz game, you know, where you ask questions and you give scores. They love Bingo. They just like sitting around and having fun. But it requires a bit of spontaneity.

So as you know, and you've mentioned, celebration was one of the key ideas we looked at. Our zip line, we're having to tear down our zip line because we're expanding onto a new property. And so spontaneous fun. “Hey everybody, the zip line is going to be open at 10 a.m. Let's go. And one last zip line, and we're going to talk about all the kids who came to confront their courage, who came to confront their faith on this zip line.” It was a blast.

So, yes, I'll say camp-minded people make it easier, but my advice to young leaders would be try something. If it fails, okay. Fail fast. Try something else. And you'll sort of work toward that, bringing fun into the culture. What's the path of least resistance?

Al: But sometimes you just can't schedule fun is what you're saying, John.

John: Sometimes you just can't schedule fun. It just doesn't work in the calendar, which is funny because every marriage counselor will tell you, “Schedule a date night.” I don't know how the paradox between those two bits of advice, but I would say, yeah, man, try something again. Fail fast. And if it didn't work with your staff, try something else. I think part of that, actually, the way we say our core value is have fun along the journey. And I think sometimes we lose sight of the journey piece in that criteria. Man, go on an epic journey. Try to crack open a pinata with friends. It will be fun.

Al: Yeah. That’s great. That's great. And have fun along the journey. So that's one of your values at T Bar M. Yeah, great.

Well, John, we've learned so much from our conversation. This has just been a great, great discussion. Going back to talking about even your first experience with an Employee Engagement Survey and how it actually kind of hurt a little bit. But yet, you move forward from that, and you really focused on some of the things that came out of that and that Doug Waldo did such a great job helping you with those positive forward-looking questions, and you came out with a focus on goals and clock building and celebration, and you just went from there. How you've really done a great job of involving employees in decision making, and your five keys to helping create that environment where people feel like they're involved and will go the extra effort, that it’s necessary to help the camp be successful, from being transparent or apologizing or creating safe environments and so on. And then, the building in of Christian character. How the path of least resistance was a key to really practicing spiritual rhythms on a regular basis. That was a great conversation. And how you keep culture at the top of mind and really focus on the relationship aspect and how your first-year advice for new people and people in leadership positions, number one, get to know people. Number two, you really can't control as much as you think. And then, learn how to do conflict. Great, great advice. This has been great. Yeah. So John, this has just been great.

How about a bottom line or something you'd like to finish with, considering all that we've talked about?

John: Yeah. This was great, Al. We've talked about some of my favorite things: Jesus and T Bar M and having fun. First, it's easier when you have a great staff, which we do at T Bar M, great men and women who are themselves pursuing God. And that's what my bottom line would be. God is faithful. Maybe just a reminder to leaders that it's really less about the peaks and valleys, the things that you're really going to remember that you think mark your life, and just more about the faithfulness in the fields, the day to day, being consistent, being transparent, being honest, being vulnerable, all the things Jesus Christ taught us to do.

Al: That’s great.

Well, John, thanks so much for your contribution today. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to providing an environment where people—what was the number? Twenty thousand—

John: Almost 20,000 guests, yes.

Al: Guests each year.

John: Every year.

Al: —come and experience an environment where they can learn more about God in their lives. So thanks for creating that, and thanks for taking time out and speaking into the lives of so many of our listeners.

John: So, Al, that’s great, man. Of course, it's easier to do when you have such a phenomenal staff like we do at T Bar M, who are just fully committed to Christ. But man, you guys have really helped us see the hard spots in our culture and go after them. We're so very thankful for what y'all have set up and the tools y'all have given us to make a difference here at T Bar M.

Al: Well, it's our joy and our pleasure, and it's our vision that Christian workplaces set the standard as the best, most effective places to work in the world. And we believe that when that's the case, where people see staff loving one another in a positive culture, that that draws more people to Christ. So thank you so much.

John: Yeah. It’s that path of least resistance, right? You’re absolutely right. When people see that, when that's the easiest thing for them to do, we watch them time and again go after it. It's good. God is good.

Al: They're drawn to it. Yeah. Thanks, John.

John: Thank you, Al.

Al: Thanks so much for listening to my conversation with John MacDonald. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

You can find ways to connect with him and links to everything we discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.

And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions on flourishing workplace cultures, please email me, al@workplaces.org.

And as John MacDonald shared, creating a thriving Christ-centered workplace doesn't happen by chance. It requires intentional leadership, transparency, and a commitment to investing in your team. And if you're ready to take the next step in strengthening your workplace culture, start by assessing where you are today. The Best Christian Workplaces’ Employee Engagement Survey can provide the clarity and insights that you need to build a flourishing workplace organization. Visit workplaces.org to begin your journey toward a healthier, more engaged team that is fully aligned with your mission.

So, keep listening to our weekly podcast as we continue to learn from leaders who are proven inspirational leaders exhibiting Christian character and excellence in their leadership. Next week, you won't want to miss my conversation with Best Christian Workplace consultants, Cary Humphries, Giselle Jenkins, Tara VanderSande, and Doug Waldo, where they share about stories from the certified 2024 best Christian workplaces.

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.