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SPEAKER_01 0:15

Welcome to another episode, the place where we talk about kids' ministry and take a peek behind the scenes. We try to share a little bit of what we've learned that works for us and some of our failures so you can avoid them. We release a new episode every Friday, and this is your Backstage Pass to see the magic or disaster that happens behind the scenes of our kids' ministry. I'm your host, Gabe Baker, and today I'm joined by Brother Brian Krischer. How's it going? It's going good. How are you? Good. I'm glad to finally get you in here.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

I know. It's been... The legendary

SPEAKER_01 0:46

evangelist, Greg. Help us, Lord. Well, what are we talking about today? We are talking about raising the flag. Raise the flag. So many of us are Sunday school leaders that maybe listen to this podcast, and we control the direction of the Sunday school department or the team, etc. So here at our Sunday school, we're given all kinds of freedom to be creative and move the ministry forward. But I believe that it is our responsibility as Yeah. Yeah. vision. The other thing is, it's much easier to get excited and proclaim your own vision and goals, but I feel like we have the responsibility to champion our pastor's vision and use whatever influence we might have to help spread his goals, his mission for the church. So today, that's kind of what we want to talk about is championing your pastor's vision.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Yeah, absolutely. First off, I just want to say I'm super honored to be a part of this. You know, I feel like I really, I'm a direct result of the effectiveness of children ministry. If you don't mind, I might just tell a little bit of my testimony. For sure. So when I was six years old, I was in a church in Kennewick, Washington at the time, and there was a Sunday school teacher who, man, she just, she really plugged into what she was doing. She just taught about the Holy Ghost to me in a way that really clicked with a six-year-old's mind. Okay, yeah. And I And at the time, I can remember my parents had been working with me on understanding what the Holy Ghost was, understanding baptism in Jesus' name. But just somewhere down the line, it clicked from a Sunday school teacher. Oh, that's awesome. And so it was in a children's church setting where we had a special children's church service. And God filled me with the Holy Ghost in a children's church setting. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, that's cool. And so- So Sunday school definitely has a special place in my heart specifically because of that. And just knowing that, man, what you're doing in Sunday school is, is direct impact for a person's eternal impact. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

That's awesome. I didn't know that. That's really cool. You know, I can't remember how long ago, I think it was brother Arter and I, a while back on the podcast, we claimed some responsibility for you and Joey in, in Sunday school. We're like, yeah, because we're trained staff. And so now they're, Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

In fact, this is somewhat of a rabbit trail, but to talk about that point, going on the field, I've realized that a lot of my thinking about just scripture and stories and all of that is directly affected by how we've done it in children's church. And so when I think of these stories, I don't think of it maybe the same way that people would normally think about it. I think about it in the sense of, well, this could have happened and this could have happened. All the peripheral characters. All the peripheral. Yeah. So it's awesome. That's

SPEAKER_01 4:23

good. Yeah. All right. Well, so I just, I wrote a few notes here and we don't have to stick with these, but just to kind of kick it off, your relationship with your pastor, you know, and I know that every church is unique. Every pastor is unique. We're blessed here. Our pastor is a big believer in children's church, children's ministry. And I blessed to be pretty close with our pastor and we have a really good relationship and so I know that there's dynamics are different some Sunday schools are ran by a woman a lady you know and so the dynamics of the pastoral relationship obviously are going to be different but I still think it's important that you develop a relationship that's open absolutely where your pastor where you can talk to your pastor about issues or whatever with the children's ministry, but also where he can speak to you openly.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

Yeah. Constructive criticism is very key because really a lot of people, they have stunted growth in their ministry without feeling like they can receive that constructive criticism. If that's not a part of their life, if they reject any skepticism or criticism at all, then likely they're not going to grow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Yeah. And I welcome feedback. It's funny because we just recently, you know, did a big event or a big Christmas thing. And so we just wrapped that up. Yeah. And a few times Pastor Burgess would talk to me about like something we were doing. And he's like, well, I think it should be this way. And it was different than what I thought or what I conceived. But he he's our relationship is such that he would say, now, I don't want you to just say, OK. Right. He would say, I just. one what do you think right obviously he has the call ultimately you know it's his call but he values we value each other's input you know and so he would be like I don't want you to just be a yes man

SPEAKER_00 6:30

right right yeah and there's a place for the yes sir oh absolutely but I do agree 100% about the just that openness being an open book with your pastor is so so important and having been on the road for a period of time now I've seen different examples where it feels like some people are a little bit you know nervous of their of their pastors you know really what I think it is they're they're afraid of the authority right it's kind of a something that intimidates them but really at the at the bottom at the bottom line at the end of the day your pastors is meant to be I mean he's got the vision from God yeah so he's going to be leading the ship so to speak yeah and And, you know, he's not out to smash you with this giant

SPEAKER_01 7:22

thumb. unique culture somewhat in that our pastor is not afraid to give away leadership. I mean, he is, he's constantly delegating. Yeah, exactly. And so, and that's why we have all the autonomy that we do is he, he's basically like, you know, take this thing and run with it and go.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah. See how far you can go, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Yeah. Yeah. And so I think that that's one area where when he supplying criticism, constructive criticism It truly is constructive. It truly is like a redirection. Like, hey, I think this needs to be fixed, or this could be better, or maybe do this instead, or whatever. Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah. In fact, I'm going to use a little bit of a scriptural reference, if you don't mind. No, we can't do that on this podcast. No Bible. No Bible. And I've preached on this in places, and to me it's revelatory, but when Elisha was following Elijah You know, it wasn't a direct shot straight to the mantle. But if you read the story, he's actually going and dealing with a lot of what we would consider to be obstacles on his journey of following Elijah. So he finds himself in Bethel. And in fact, before Bethel, Elijah says, hey, Elisha, just stay here. You know, you don't need to go any further than here. But he says, no, I'm

SPEAKER_01 9:12

following you

SPEAKER_00 9:13

and And so he gets to Bethel. The Bible says there's a school of prophets that were there, and they started to discourage him, and they said, you know, don't you know your master's going to be taken up from you today? And he says, yeah, I know it. What is that to you? Every place that he would go as they were getting ready to leave, Elijah would give him another opportunity to stay there. He would say, all right, I think you should stay here. So if you look at Bethel, I mean, that's – And so a lot of people, when they show up to the house of God, they're kind of just interested in just staying at that place, just showing up, not being involved. Jericho, and I'm not theologian, but I mean, Jericho, you could almost think of it as a place of taking dominion, almost an elevation of your ministry and of what, you know, going beyond just showing up to the house of God. In other words, you know, being involved in Sunday school ministry, this is the land of Jericho.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Yeah. Going that extra mile, being in service, not just being a receiver.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Right. And the same thing takes place. There are offenses that take place in Jericho right so there's times where in the Sunday school department right if you're if you are running this ministry and it goes back to this constructive criticism subject where the pastor says all right hey this needs to be different I know you've put a lot of work and effort and time into maybe this but if honestly this has to change right and so but you can allow that offense to keep you from moving forward right yeah or you can just say alright I'm going to keep following and so then as the story goes on basically Elisha follows him all the way to the Jordan River after having all these obstacles and it's at the Jordan where Elisha parts or rather Elijah parts the water ends up on the other side and he tells him when you see basically when you see me go

SPEAKER_01 11:36

when you see me leave

SPEAKER_00 11:38

then that's when you've asked a hard thing when Elisha asked him I want a double portion of your of your spirit. You've asked a hard thing, but you got to see me. You got to see me go. So I kind of look at this and I think basically following your man of God to the very end of the vision.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Right. Because Elisha ends up seeing what Elijah saw at the very end, which he makes the statement. Maybe I won't quote this verbatim, but he says something about the chariots and the horsemen of Israel. He is basically proclaiming that I'm seeing you I'm seeing you grow

SPEAKER_01 12:37

up. big picture and while we might need to be a quote unquote specialty you know contractor we need to specialize in the children's ministry we need to understand the big picture of what we're doing and that we are following our man of God and if he says we're not going to have children's ministry I mean whatever you know you're following the man of God and because he's following God and we're following him and being right there with him. Yeah. And so I think that's definitely all in cultivating that relationship with your pastor. You have to have that closeness. You have to have that trust. You know, we know that we're supposed to trust our man of God, but it's a lot easier if you have a relationship with him to have that trust. Absolutely. It's hard to be broad and know what people, you know, the dynamics of their church or their pastor. And so we We can speak from what we have here. But I think that a practical thing is just knowing that when you are providing your own feedback to your pastor is doing it with humility. Absolutely. And doing it to provide value. Yeah. You know, instead of, it's not just like, well, I want it my way because I like it like this, but to provide value and say, well, you know, I think it should be done like this because And then allowing for that, you know, being very flexible, allowing for that to come back. And he's like, well, no, it's not. I shouldn't be like that, you know, or whatever. Right. And I don't know. In all of this, I'm almost making it sound like there's a lot of disagreements. There's not. Right. Exactly. I'm just talking about those times of conflict. Yeah. Remembering your place. Absolutely. Your pastor is your head. That is your leadership. Absolutely. Okay. Well, before we get too far along, the other side. of it is presumably you have a team or people that are quote unquote under you, you know, if you're a Sunday school leader. And so developing a relationship with them on a different level, but having that same, you know, I think I put a note, let me see here. The people you lead should trust you and know that your direction is in line with your pastor. That's huge. Yeah. And so if they, if people know, you know, people see like my closeness with And so they know, for the most part, that when I'm saying, hey, this is how we're going to do this, they know that either this is something Pastor Burgess mandated or said, or they can have a pretty good feeling that this is in line with what he's thinking because we operate so closely together. And so there's that trust there. But you have to develop, and I fail all the time at this, but you have to develop relationship with your team. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 15:44

that's good. Yeah, I really feel that, and you kind of already stated this, but if someone doesn't trust that you have a good relationship with your man of God, they're certainly not going to follow you very far. I mean, they may follow you to a certain place, but if you're really trying to amp up whatever you're doing, if it's kids ministry, this really bleeds into everything. So many.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Every

SPEAKER_00 16:15

area, every facet of the church. And I've seen it to where, I've seen it to where people, they, they lost their trust in a leader that was under them. And because, because that's something, you know, it's really dangerous. You, you talk negatively about your pastor to those that are, you're over. Yeah. It's, it's, that's dangerous territory. You instantly, you can cause a lot of damage as

SPEAKER_01 16:39

a leader. Yeah. And that's something, yeah, you, you disqualify yourself if you do Absolutely. pastor's vision so the thing is is it's easy to when you have a vision or an idea you know that you want to do your grandiose idea it's kind of easy to be the salesman for that you know because it's your idea yeah it's you know but when your pastor has an idea especially if it's one that you're not super keen on you know you're like oh okay that's what you want to do

SPEAKER_00 17:40

all right you know and I'm sure most Most

SPEAKER_01 17:44

of us have been there. Right. And I work in youth ministry as well. Yeah. And one of the things that I've tried to do, so I think I've mentioned this before, but I'll mention it again. So way back when my wife and I first took over the youth many, many years ago. A long

SPEAKER_00 18:29

time

SPEAKER_01 18:29

ago. Yeah. We took it over, we retired, then we got called out of

SPEAKER_00 18:32

retirement. Called out.

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah. So we got called back into it. But many years ago, it was a little bit after we got married, when we took over the youth, I would have these quote unquote cool ideas. Sure. catch that vision, that season. What is my pastor focused on, you know, this year or right now in this season? He's focused on evangelism? Sure. Okay. With our youth ministry, that's what we're going to focus. We're going to build everything around that. You know, he's focused on, you know, discipleship. Okay, we're going to build our youth ministry around that. We're going to focus on that. And that is, that I believe just was kind of a maturing of my, you know, just me, I guess, developing a little bit. And so that's how we need to be with our ministry is, and that's, that's about, that's what vision is about or, or understanding our pastor's vision is all about or championing our pastor's vision is what direction, because it's not going to be the same every year. I mean, we're, yeah, we're moving in the same direction, same message, all of that, but there's seasons. And so maybe you're in the middle of a building program. Sure. And I mean, you know, we're always in the middle building program. We've been there and we're still there. Yeah. And so, but you know, whatever, what is it that your pastor is focused on? What has God, you know, laid on his heart? And then how can I say, okay, that's it. I'm with you, pastor. This is, this is where you want to go. Here we go. Let's do it. And, and then passing that message along and saying, Hey, you guys, this is where we're going.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah. Causing excitement. I think, you know, the scripture says without a vision, the people And I don't necessarily feel like it's always because there's a lack of casting the vision. But I think there's a lot of times a lack of

SPEAKER_01 20:54

receiving. Yeah, well, the latter part of that verse, I think it's Proverbs 29, 11

SPEAKER_00 21:09

says, but happy is he that keepeth the law. Casting. Yes. Casting what's been casted to you. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

And it's like I said, it's hard. It's harder to get excited about somebody else's vision.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Right. Right. Making it yours.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:29

Yeah. I think that's that's a key phrase is make your pastor's vision yours as much as you can. And obviously, there's always going to be the little things that you're like, oh, you know, if I was if I was in his shoes, I'd do it differently. the thing is is there are so many so many elements of things that are taking place all the time that most of us aren't aware of and he is aware of yeah

SPEAKER_01 21:52

we don't see the dynamics yeah yeah and I've had it where he's opened my eyes before where I'm like you know because of our close relationship I would never voice like well to somebody else I would never voice like well if I was him I would do this right I don't I just I don't ever do that I don't touch that right but to him we're in a place where I can kind of do that in a way like well why don't we do it like this and I've had it where I've had it both ways I've had it where he's not going to tell me why but I've also and I respect that yeah but I've also had him tell me well here's what's going on

SPEAKER_00 22:33

yeah

SPEAKER_01 22:34

and I was like oh makes sense oh wow okay yeah I never I didn't know the watchman

SPEAKER_00 22:42

yeah the watchman on the wall Exactly. Sees things we don't see. Yeah. You know, there's two places where that statement was made about the chariots. I think, I think I remembered it as we were talking, but it's, it's my father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen thereof. So the first place is where the mention that I, that I brought up earlier with Elijah and Elisha, the second place that it's mentioned in scripture is such a unique statement. And I haven't, I haven't really dug enough into it to know all the connotations there is with this, but it's made by King Joash with Elisha in Elisha's latter days. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Oh,

SPEAKER_00 23:21

wow. And so he was actually, the Bible described he had been getting sick. He was getting close to his death. And this is so incredibly impacting to me. But King Joash shows up. What's interesting is when Elisha made that statement to Elijah, it was in the last moments of Elijah's

SPEAKER_01 23:40

life.

SPEAKER_00 23:41

And it was the same thing with Joash. When he made this statement with Elisha, it's in the last days of Elisha's life. And so he makes this statement to Elisha and he walks into the room. He makes this statement. My father, my father, the chariots of Israel, the horsemen thereof. And immediately Elisha goes into this procedure and he has Joash take a bow and arrow, shoot the bow out the window, puts his hands over his hands, which is so, that's, that's so, I mean, you're a man of God's hands being on whatever you're doing. Man. that'll preach oh that'll preach right there you just let him help you shoot that bow but so he shoots the bow and then we get to the part that's often preached about and that is when elisha tells him smite the ground

SPEAKER_01 24:28

yeah

SPEAKER_00 24:29

and so my my personal feeling is joe ash was not tied in enough to elijah's or rather elisha's vision that he he stays at

SPEAKER_01 24:40

three times okay yeah because he He didn't have that closeness or he didn't see that.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

He didn't see. He didn't realize that when your man of God says to just do it, you don't just stop halfway. You do it until he says, okay, enough's enough. And so when Elisha realizes he stops, he says, oh man, you should have kept going. And this is almost showing us that our effectiveness in whatever ministry that we're doing can be affected in a good way or in a negative way based on how far we're willing to follow his vision. I know that was kind of a little bit of rabbit trail based on what we were discussing, but it really just gets into making your man of God's vision yours.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Yeah, making it your own.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Meshing it

SPEAKER_01 25:36

with yours. I think that it is easy, if you're not careful, it is easy to fall into the trap of getting excited about something you hear on a podcast or something you read somewhere or something that somebody else is doing in some other church. It's your church. It's your man of God. Do what his vision is. We do Sunday school a certain way here because that's what we

SPEAKER_00 26:02

do. Absolutely. I think one thing that's evangelizing somewhat opened my eyes on is that every region is different. And I've heard some men of God say before that you know a person when they when they church plant or when they when they start a church they've got to figure out what works yeah in that particular region right and so i've been in metropolises where there was you know multi you know millions of people in a particular area then i've been in places there where there was only you know a couple thousand maybe in the city right and and different ethnic groups and and all sorts of factors

SPEAKER_01 26:42

yeah different dynamics completely.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Completely. And so there's a lot of ways to reach people, a lot of ways to do things, obviously with the right foundation. But a lot of times your pastor has dug out what works.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Yeah, exactly. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Way before, you know, you may have came on the scene in whatever ministry you were wanting to do. And so now I understand there might be times where you bring something up that you've seen at another church and it may work incredibly, but then again, there are factors

SPEAKER_01 27:18

that he's aware of. He's aware of. Yeah. And I do think that that's, I've done that, you know, um, I think that when you are exposed to other things, you know, something, maybe some other church does, I think it's totally fine to bring that up, but always, again, always with humility and understanding, like, you know, maybe my pastor's seen this. and doesn't like it or maybe he's never heard of this before and you know he'll say yeah let's try that or maybe he'll see something like that that dynamics not going to work here yeah so I definitely think it's good you know we always want to be better we always should be getting better your pastor always wants you to get better but better sometimes is defined differently by the pastor than it is by us right and so right when we bring an idea or we Where you bring something and say, hey, over there they do this. You know, thinking about trying it. And we need to approach that with humility and totally, you know, be okay with what he says.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Oh, man. One thing that keeps popping to my mind when we're discussing is offenses. Right? An easily offended person. I mean, the Bible talks about a brother offended. It's not a good thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And if you're easily offended, then you really don't have a place in leadership anymore. Absolutely. Absolutely. Because you're going to be offended by your pastor. Absolutely. And you're going to be offended by the people

SPEAKER_00 28:47

under you. Those under you. You're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place. But offenses, man, in fact, I want to say that that scripture has something to do with a rock, but a rock of offense or something like that. But applying that to children's ministry, I really feel, and I know you absolutely have this vision, and probably a lot of the reason why I feel strongly about it is because I've had leadership from you in this particular realm. But Adolf Hitler made an interesting quote. And when I was looking up these quotes, there were some different ones. And so I'll just kind of give a few different.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Are you saying that I led you like

SPEAKER_00 29:28

Adolf Hitler? No, not at all. Not at all. But speaking about a passion for children, right? Yeah. The potential that there are in kids. Adolf Hitler, he said, give me your children And in 10 years, I will change the society. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 29:45

yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

And so it's kind of realizing the great importance of what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Of what we do, yes. In this. Yeah, such an impact. And the other thing that's cool about it, I guess, is the return on investment. Absolutely. You invest in an adult that's been on drugs. And we need to do that. We invest in those people.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Certain paradigms, right? And perspectives that developed as a child. Oh, yeah. You know, if we get into just their thoughts on maybe on religion. Well, when I was a kid, I went to such and such church and such and such happened and it was dead or whatever. And then a lot of times that keeps them from ever wanting to show up to the doors of the church

SPEAKER_01 31:07

ever.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

But it's all because of experiences as a child.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

So if we can, I guess it goes back to, this is how vital, how incredibly important this particular segment of ministry is, is you're reaching into a sponge and you are inserting things that could never be as easily inserted into the life of an adult.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Yeah. Well, and what, yeah. And what we're doing, hopefully that sponge, hopefully we're the flip side, you know, of, of that memory when they, they're like, I remember I went to this. Absolutely. Apostolic Church when you know brother Philip Booker on his podcast just I don't know a couple weeks ago or something he mentioned he said something like if you know God forbid anybody were to backslide but his hope and prayer he was talking about like this some of the songs I think they do and the salvation chant I think that's what it was the salvation chant is they're 40 years old backslid and they wake up in the middle of the night with that in their head and they remember I gotta find a, you know, church. I mean, I mean, that's what we want to do is we want to plant that seed in, in them. And so, uh, we're backstage here and right here is a, we got a poster. Um, well, it's a vinyl. What is that? Yes. It's about eight feet tall.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

It's much bigger than, than larger than life. Yes. It's

SPEAKER_01 32:34

about eight feet tall and three feet wide or something. And, and you're on it. You and, and brother Keith, our legendary bad guy. Yeah. And so this is from. Okay. This is from summer 2016. My goodness. So this was our spy theme. Yeah. And so that picture right now, do you remember when we took that? You know, I feel like it was outside. It was at the library. Okay. In Chehalis. And it was getting late and you didn't have, I can't remember what you had on for a shirt, but it didn't like work. Sure. And so you're wearing my sweatshirt. And you're like, you're bigger than I am. That's right. And so that sweatshirt's just a little bit small. I don't think people notice if you're wearing my sunglasses. Yeah. Yeah. I was. And we had you, I think you were running around a corner or something. And then we cut out the background and put that in there.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

Well, so I, you know, this particular poster has been seen by people that have come to our conferences that I appreciate their church. And they're taking pictures of it. and they're like hey look it's brother Kutcher and I'm like oh lord no don't let them see that it's just you just have to see it if you know it's quite a deal it's quite a deal

SPEAKER_01 33:55

yeah it's funny because we have it backstage here and so we a few of our conferences I think we had our forward conference back in October and the backstage the two doors I leave them open yeah so they I think they oh they had vendors up here that's what it was they had some vendors selling clothes and stuff and so That's right. And then you and Brother Dawson were in the storyline. You were twins. Right. And he was an evil twin or he was a bad guy and you were the good guy. Right. So you guys were the alter ego. Exactly. As twins. And so, yeah, that was cool.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

I remember it just being, you know, obviously I was, you know, main character, which kind of might help you enjoy it a little bit more. But I think what was really awesome was a lot of the pictures that we got to take of the characters we'd have. Yeah. Yeah. Kroger, who was the bad guy with his big old eye patch on. Eye patch and army clothes and stuff. And then he was on the flip side. He was a good guy. He was like a spymaster. Spymaster, right. Mr. Bishop. Mr. Bishop. Yep. That's right. But to this day, I'll tease him about, man, you should just put that Kroger costume back on. He looks so menacing, kind of like a pirate. Yeah, I think he had that scar, too.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Yeah. It was like a scar that glued your skin together. I mean, it was a major- It was incredible. All right. Well, I think we are out of time. So call this a wrap.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Sounds like a plan. It's been a privilege to be on.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

Yeah. Thanks for coming.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Absolutely.