Pastors Supporting Pastors

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, welcome to the Table Podcast where we discuss issues of God and culture. My name is Bill Hendricks. I'm the Executive Director for Christian Leadership at the Hendricks Center at Dallas Theological Seminary. Today we're going to talk about the nurture and care of pastors. Pastors pastor others, but then the question becomes, who pastors the pastor? And I have been looking forward to this time with my longtime friend, Andy McQuitty. Andy, I guess your first title is Pastor Emeritus of Irving Bible Church. And emeritus makes you sound like an old guy, Andy. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah, it makes me sound smart and important too, neither of which are true. 

Bill Hendricks: 

But he is also the founder of the Kaleo Collective, which is an outreach to pastors that I want to use as kind of a model and a platform to discuss this broader issue of pastoring the pastor. So Andy, welcome to the Table podcast. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Thank you, Bill. It's great to be with you, my old friend. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yes, yes. I want to get to Kaleo here in a minute, but you've been a pastor now for what, your whole career basically, right? 

Andy McQuitty : 

I have. I have. 

Bill Hendricks: 

How'd you get into the pastorate? 

Andy McQuitty : 

Well, that's interesting. I went off to Wheaton College back in the day I was going to major in biology and become a missionary surgeon, had that in my heart. And so after my freshman year at Wheaton College, they had a summer missionary project. And I signed up and they sent me off to South America. I was up in the mountains of Colombia, in the rainforest of Colombia. And they said, "You'll be working with Lee Hendrickson, who's a Wycliffe Bible Translator." SIL is their terminology in South America. And they said, "You'll be basically making an airstrip on the mountain ridge there so that the Helio Couriers can come in and fly in and out." This was a primitive tribe, the Kwicere Indians that we were with all summer, and it was a 13-hour hike into this thing, and they wanted to make an airstrip so they could fly supplies in. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Sure, yeah. 

Andy McQuitty : 

I was going down to help them build the airstrip, but they said, "Oh, but you could do some medical work too." machete cuts, snake bites, worm medicine. I could be a doctor, right? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Oh boy. The real deal. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And so it's interesting, the Lord used that whole summer trying to play doctor to call me to the ministry because I was with some of the Indians one day at dusk when it was time for them to go down the mountain to their village. And there was this mom and her two little children, and she was on the porch of this palm slat hut that we lived in, and she wouldn't budge. And Lee spoke to her in her language, said, "You need to go." And she says, "I cannot go. It's getting dark, and if I go after dark, the demons will eat my children." 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow, wow. Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And Lee immediately said, "You can stay here with us. You can stay tonight." And then later he told me what she had said, and it was like God just put a dagger in my heart. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You just saw up close and personal, you've looked over into that spiritual realm. 

Andy McQuitty : 

He said, "Yeah, I want you to be a doctor. I'm calling you to be a doctor. I'm calling you to be a doctor of souls." 

Bill Hendricks: 

A surgeon of souls. Yeah. 

Andy McQuitty : 

So I came back. I changed my major, went a different direction, and wound up going to seminary right here at Dallas Theological Seminary, and then pretty quickly right over to Irving Bible Church where I was the senior pastor for 32 years. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Now, if memory serves me correctly, and I may be wrong, wasn't Chuck Swindoll at Irving Bible Church at one point? 

Andy McQuitty : 

Chuck was my predecessor there. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Not my immediate predecessor. There were two in between Chuck. He was in the sixties, the late sixties- 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's what I was thinking. 

Andy McQuitty : 

At IBC. And I came in 1987, so I came about 20 years after Chuck. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Gotcha. But there were still echoes, I'm sure. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Oh, yeah. And Chuck has been very gracious with me over the years as just following the progress at his old pastorate at Irving. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And you really helped that church grow significantly. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Well, we started with a hundred people in a little old building on four acres down in Old Irving. And when I left, we had a $12 million budget, 70 full-time staff members relocated to a $50 million campus up in Las Colinas. And I don't know how that happened. I just know that God did it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I was going to say, apart from the grace of God. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Truly, I can't explain it, but it's what God did. And it was quite a journey for me, pastorally speaking, because I feel like though I've only ever pastored one church as a senior pastor, and that's Irving Bible Church, I think in my tenure there, I pastored five different churches. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, I'll bet. 

Andy McQuitty : 

The church I went to- 

Bill Hendricks: 

What it became- 

Andy McQuitty : 

... and then all these increments right up until... The one that I left was about five iterations after the first one. So it's been a journey. 

Bill Hendricks: 

And in there, your health went bad at one point, right? 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. Back in 2009, I went in for a colonoscopy and my doctor called me up and he said... Basically, he said, "Look." I'd just gotten off the phone with the golf course. I'd set up a tee time to play golf. And I hung up and then my doctor called. He said, "Hey, bad news about the colonoscopy. He says, "You got cancer in there real bad. Get in here ASAP. We got to take care of this." It turned out to be stage four colon cancer. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

They gave me an 8% chance of survival. But we jumped in and two major surgeries and 18 months of gnarly chemotherapy, and all the while still at IBC and the pulpit and carrying through. The whole church knew. I took them on this journey with me, and they prayed me through it. 2012, they declared me in complete remission, and I have been there ever since. I feel like God healed me. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Absolutely. Absolutely. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And I'm grateful. I'm grateful for that. And when they did declare me in remission, I've immediately felt like an obligation to the Lord- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You've left me here to do something. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... who brought me through this. And so I took a three-month sabbatical, and I wrote a book about the- 

Bill Hendricks: 

The ordeal. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... the whole deal. And basically, that was my offering of gratitude and thanks to the Lord, because the book consists basically of 10 questions that I wrestled with as a Christian when I got cancer, all the way from the first chapters. Why me? And just working through, it's part apologetics, it's part theology. It is a lot devotional. And that book continues to fly off all over the worlds because there's so many people that wrestle with cancer. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Absolutely. We almost want to do another podcast at some point on that topic because you're right, so many people deal with cancer, and it doesn't always come out well, and there's just a whole nest of issues there. But I wanted you to sort of tell that story so that our listeners really understand. I'm going to talk about pastoring the pastors. But that this is a guy who... He's been there. Like, you've seen the movie, and all the different scenes and iterations of what happens in that movie. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah, yeah. It's been a rich experience, and not always easy, as you say. And I would dare say that no pastorate is ever always easy, if at all, but that it is in the grind and sometimes the suffering, sometimes the pain, sometimes the Covid-19 lockdowns that pastors and their congregations find something special about the Holy Spirit and God's purpose for them, both as pastor and congregation in this cultural moment. So I have learned to take it one day at a time as a pastor and to start out with just a plea to God, "Lord, let me have listening ears to what you would speak to me, how you would guide me, and resource me for going in the directions and doing the ministry that you've called me to do." You just make that prayer every day. You have long-term plans, but you keep them short accounts because they can change. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You don't know what's going to happen. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. My tee time that day, I didn't keep my tee time. It changed. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That suddenly became very minor. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It did. But this is life. And really, I've come to find great joy in it because it's only in those gnarly, chaotic, churning times of uncertainty that you can truly experience the full breath of God's grace and love. 

Bill Hendricks: 

When you got nowhere else to turn, he shows up. 

Andy McQuitty : 

You really learn that you are weak. I am weak. These are the three things that I learned. I'm weak. God is strong. Love is precious. 

Bill Hendricks: 

There you go. Praise God. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And it's how it's always been. It just took me a while to get there. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. Well, you mentioned that the pastorate is a difficult job. It's challenging and it has its challenges, but I think part of what led you to get Kaleo going was the fact that the pastorate, it seems like it's become even much harder in the last few years, just recently. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Well, it has. My goodness. I think having several friends in other fields that require leadership... I've got friends that are CEOs of- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Companies. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... Fortune 5 companies. I've got a two-star Air Force general in my Bible study group. I've got a judge in my group, and he leads courts, whole courts. And these are people in the worlds of business, military corporations, law- 

Bill Hendricks: 

The professions, sure- 

Andy McQuitty : 

I've got friends that are in the academy. And they're leaders, and I'm a leader as a pastor for church. But I've always noticed the difference that being a pastor and a ministry leader is from any other kind of leadership. And I think it all boils down to this. Our leadership requires of us to persuade people to follow because we don't have... We've got carrots and sticks as the tools of leadership. Pastors don't have any sticks. I mean, my two-star Air Force general friend has a bunch of big sticks. My business corporate leaders, they can persuade with money or The threat of- 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's right. Or the position or... right. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... being terminated. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, terminated. 

Andy McQuitty : 

But in the ministry, I mean- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You lean on somebody, they may just walk. 

Andy McQuitty : 

That's right. And so it's a mix of wise human interactions and solid leadership principles that I think go back and forth between the church and the corporate world, military world. I mean, leadership principles are the same, but you just have a different perspective and I think a harder challenge as a pastor. And so that's how it's always been, even what we might have termed the good old days back before we entered into this country, into the roiling social upheavals of the sixties and sexuality and with the genders and with racial issues, and then all the stuff lately with wokeism and grooming. I mean, it's amazing to me how rapidly- 

Bill Hendricks: 

These all have come up now. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... these kinds of challenges have snowballed. And pastors, I mean, we're sitting out there in our churches trying to lead our people in this culture that's just coming down on us like a flood. And people are asking, "What do we do? What do we believe? What is right? Should we do this? Should we do that? Who do we vote for?" I mean, the politics going on. 2020, 2022. Oh my goodness. We're coming up to 2024 and it's another presidential election year. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Exactly. And you get it from both sides or all sides. 

Andy McQuitty : 

You do. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You try to speak biblically and pastorally into any issue, and so you say some things. And one person comes up and says, "Pastor, there you go. You're going off on craziness." And then somebody else comes up and goes, "Pastor, I hand it to you that you tried to say something, but man, you just fell far short of what you needed to say. You needed to be much, much more challenging." 

Andy McQuitty : 

This is the other major difference between pastoral leadership and being a general in the Air Force or being a CEO, is that as a pastor, everybody in your congregation feels like they're qualified to preach that sermon or to take that position just as much as you are. And when you deviate from their idea about it, they feel free to tell you about it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You're the worst pastor in the world. 

Andy McQuitty : 

I used to speak at a convention of coaches in Texas. I love coaches, football coaches especially. I'd get with these guys and I'd say, "I really understand what you guys go through. You're down there on the sidelines in a tight high school football game," which in Texas is like professional teams, in some places. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, the competition. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And you make a call. What do we do? It's fourth and one, and we're behind by three, and we're on the 20 yard line. Do we go? And you make a call. Problem is, everybody in the stands think they know what you should do- 

Bill Hendricks: 

And they're going to tell you about it. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And they think they're just a better coach. And I said, that's what it's like for me sometimes preaching and I'm looking out and everybody out there feels just the same way. So I understand you, but it's always been difficult. But I do think Bill, man, through the pandemic and in the aftermath of it, I mean, oh my gosh. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, I think I saw a statistic that you gave. It was 1500 pastors were leaving the pastorate. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Was it per month or something? 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah, at the height of the pandemic, we were losing up to 1500 pastors a month in this country. The churches were locked down. And this is mostly pastors out in the hinterlands. They're not in metropolitan areas where they have a lot of peer communities- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Resources. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... like pastors or resources or whatever. And when they got locked down, I mean, they had no people coming to church. They had therefore no money flowing in. Therefore they had no encouragement, and they were just withering on the vine. We were losing 1500 a month. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

I know in Canada, 600 churches shut their doors permanently, 

Bill Hendricks: 

Never opened. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Never opened again. I don't know how many closed in America. But that's the stat. Here I am sitting in my little retirement. I handed off IBC to Barry not a year before the lockdowns came. And I felt really guilty. I felt really kind of relieved. I'm glad I'm not in that hot seat right now, leading through with masks and in person and distancing and all the stuff they had to go through. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You felt like a president that's served his term and now he goes into the retirement with the Secret Service and taken care of. And the year after he leaves, World War III breaks out for the next guy. 

Andy McQuitty : 

So you feel guilty that you're not in the fray, but you also feel a little relieved it's not me. But all that God used to kind of work on me, it broke my heart. And it was like the Lord was saying to me, "Look, I want you to help. You can do something here." 

Bill Hendricks: 

So tell us, where did that vision for Kaleo come from? 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. Well, basically you started it, Bill. I can't remember exactly when it was. It was a couple of years before the pandemic, but I remember you reached out to me and a couple of our pastor friends here in the DFW area and asked us to come up to the Leadership Center. And just in your boardroom up there, I remember you just threw out to us, "Hey, look, here at the Leadership Center, we're trying to figure out a way to support the guys in ministry that come through here. And they go out, and we want to help them and bless them. And we are just interviewing pastors about your ideas about how we might go about that. 

And I think what you were thinking about at that time was gathering pastors in some sort of ongoing groups or cohorts, and you were just asking us, what did we think about that? Would it work? Would we be involved in all that kind of stuff? And I was intrigued by... I thought it was a great question because I've always thought that pastors ought to have an ongoing continuing education kind of morale and peer group support system all rolled into one. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Their peers who know their world and their situation. 

Andy McQuitty : 

That's right. And so I came to the meeting very enthusiastic, and I don't even remember what I said. I took notes. I said, "Thank you very much." And so that was the last I thought about it until I'm in the middle of this pandemic shutdown, and God is just pounding on me, like, "I want you to do something." And I said, "Well, what?" And my meeting with you up here at the Leadership Center came into my mind. That's what. I want you to get guys together. There've been so many studies. One of the studies that I go to is the Lilly Endowment. 

Bill Hendricks: 

They do a lot of in this whole area. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Back in 2010, I think in 2010, they had been at a nine-year study of what contributes to the flourishing of pastors in their calling. And they spent $10 million. They interviewed a hundred thousand people. I mean, it was a major thing over a nine-year period. They released the results in 2010. And basically, and I quote this on our website, in our little elevator speech video that I made, telling what Kaleo is about, is that they spent $10 million over nine years trying to answer the question, what is it that pastors can do that will help them flourish in their ministry? And they came up with this: being an ongoing peer group for the purposes of support, encouragement, and learning. And not only did they discover that those pastors that were involved in ongoing relationships with their peers contributed to the flourishing of their pastorate, it contributed to the growth of their church, 

Bill Hendricks: 

Sure, which makes sense. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It does. And they studied the churches of those who were engaged in these peer groups and found that there's a direct one-to-one correlation. I mean, you got a pastor who's receiving regular ongoing support, encouragement and leadership training in a community of his peers, and that church is also going to be growing. And it just hit me, okay, this is it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

It reminds me of what Tom Nelson says. Families don't thrive unless their church is thriving, but churches don't thrive unless their pastor's thriving. And so there's a lot of dominoes here that are involved. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Well, one of the things... Interesting that you quote Tommy on that, because I've heard him say that, and he's so right. And when I retired in 2019 from being senior pastor to IBC, I had been kind of kicking the tires of possibly getting into kind of a pastoral consulting kind of ministry and so forth. And I spent a lot of time looking at becoming like a church consultant. I've come in... I've got a good friend, Reggie McNeil, who came in and consulted with us at IBC a couple of times over the years. And I liked Reggie. I liked his style. I liked what he did for us. And I thought, yeah, I could see myself doing that. And then I began to realize that what Tommy said is so true, and that is, "Hey, the church... I mean, you can go as a consultant to help a church thrive, but if you really want to help it at the grassroots, you got to help that pastor because if you get the pastor, the church is going to come along." 

Bill Hendricks: 

And helping that pastor is not just giving them a bunch of advice and technical know-how. I mean, that's always beneficial. But you mentioned earlier, you're really talking about his soul, what's going on inside of him. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. I brought an article here that I stuck in my file a couple of years ago. It's Tish Harrison Warren, great writer. And this is New York Times. She's talking about why pastors are burning out. And this article is 2022. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, fairly recent. 

Andy McQuitty : 

But she quotes the Barna study that everybody quotes that was taken in 2022. They did a huge survey of pastors in America and found that 42% of pastors are thinking seriously about quitting right now. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

This is a year ago. It is pretty serious. And then Tish comments on that in just a couple sentences that I want to read to you that I think really capture our heart at Kaleo Collective for what guys are going through and how we want to help them. She says, "In the Barna study, the top reported reasons for clergy burnout were the same ones that people in the population at large face. This is a burnout, stress, loneliness, and political division." I mean CEO of Exxon, right down here in Las Colinas, he's susceptible to burnout for those same reasons as a pastor. Stress, loneliness, and political divisions. And those are part of the warp and woof of a pastor's challenge and looking out at a sea of faces on Sunday morning. Man, you got divisions. You've got all the stuff that's going on in this cultural moment. 

But then she continues. She says, "But these stressors affect pastors in a unique way." And I think she's right. "Pastors bear not only their own pain, but also the weight of an entire community's grief, divisions and anxieties. They are charged with the task of continuing to love and care for even those within their church who disagree with them vehemently and vocally. These past years required them to make decisions they were not prepared for that affected the health and spiritual formation of their community, and any decisions they made would likely mean that someone in their church could feel hurt or marginalized." 

Bill Hendricks: 

Wow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

This is insight into this unique difficulty of being a pastor, is that not only do you have intellectual decisions to make, financial decisions to make, program and policy decisions to make, you've got spiritual and political decisions to make. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Everything's personal. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It is. And- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Because it's a bunch of interlocking relationships. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah, yeah. And I just think that the pressure of all that is just too much. There is too much demanded from pastors today than what their training and experience has prepared them for. And I'm working on a book right now with another longtime pastoral friend of mine, Dr. Larry Parsley, who was recently ensconced down in Waco at Truett Seminary as a professor of theology and pastoral theology. But he and I are writing this book together. It's called Hobo Pastor, in which we are going back through and realizing all the things that in our long ministries we came to find were essential to success that we never learned in seminary. I hope the walls here at DTS don't close on me. But I came on campus here during accreditation hearings a few times. I don't know why they brought me back, "Hey, how did we do in preparing you for the ministry?" And I lowered the boom a couple of times, but here I am still. And that's not DTS's fault. It's an academic institution. I think- 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's part of the reality of training. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Pastoral ministry is something you can't learn in a classroom. 

Bill Hendricks: 

No, no. And even if we gave you the information at the time- 

Andy McQuitty : 

It wouldn't mean anything. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I memorize it, I take the test, I'm done. And then you get out there in leadership, and suddenly now what was just a footnote in class, now I need a crash course in. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. You're looking back through your class notes saying, "Please let somebody have said what to do." 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's a case of when the student is ready, the teacher will show up, right? 

Andy McQuitty : 

That's exactly right. And the teacher often is hard experiences. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Hard knocks. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah. But the overall motivating factor for me in pulling together the Kaleo Collective is just the remembrance of a peer group of my peers that kept me going here in Dallas for 30 years. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That walked with you for 30 years. 

Andy McQuitty : 

I think it was my experience with my guys, I called them. I've said some of their names before we started this, prominent pastors in Dallas and Fort Worth. We used to just get together once a month and we'd share around. Somebody would put the food on, we'd go all in, close the doors. What happened behind closed doors with all those senior pastors stayed behind closed doors. 

Bill Hendricks: 

That's key. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And we dealt with everything in there. We dealt with moral failures of staff members. We dealt with failed capital campaigns. We dealt with church splits. I mean, I could go on and on. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I'm sure. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And we kept- 

Bill Hendricks: 

People's anxiety, their depression, their grief- 

Andy McQuitty : 

Very transparent. 

Bill Hendricks: 

... their trauma that they remember, all that stuff. 

Andy McQuitty : 

All that stuff. And it was once a month, and it was just senior pastors, we get together. I could have saved Lilly $10 million if they would've just came to me and said, "What helps you?" It's my guys. So when we came through the pandemic and the Lord's tapping on my shoulder saying, "Look, I want you to do something about this." And I'm remembering, I'm remembering that day up at the Leadership Center with you talking about getting pastors together. I'm remembering my own experience in doing that. Not organized, but just us guys. And it went for 30 years. It went for 30 years. 

And I thought, that's all I want to do. I want to find a way to facilitate guys getting together in peer communities where they can deal with soul care issues and leadership best practices, where they can become a band of brothers who have enduring not just relationships, but friendships, that we get together and we go through, "Hey, what are the bent nails that are going on in your ministry?" I call them bent nails. You know when you're pounding that thing and you just can't get... Like, "I can't get a capital campaign launched. I've got conflict on my board. I've got a staff member who's being dishonest." And we bring these up, and we talk about them on a regular basis. Also, the way that we have Kaleo set up, we have a 90-minute Zoom call. And we do this via Zoom so the guys can participate no matter where they are. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So it's not geographically bound. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It's not. I would prefer if it was because- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You always want to meet in person. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... our group was in person. But if there's one thing that pastors in America learned during the pandemic is how to do a Zoom call. So I thought a lot of the pastors that need this most are probably going to be out there. And so by- 

Bill Hendricks: 

They're in a small town or a remote area or- 

Andy McQuitty : 

Exactly. Making the Zoom call an option includes them. 

Bill Hendricks: 

They may not be part of a denomination of any sort. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Right. They may not have any support systems, but they can be part of our cohorts and benefit, the whole thing. So we have a 90-minute Zoom call with what I call our cohort pastor, Kaleo cohort pastor, who's an old guy like me. I've got some friends. I call them sages, ministry sages, successful, experienced pastors. Most of them are not full-time. Some of them are retired like me. Some of them are, and still in the ministry. 

Bill Hendricks: 

When you say successful, I'm assuming by that you mean not so much that, oh yeah, they had this massive church. It's like, no, they stayed the course for 30 years in the pastorate, and they were effective in that role. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And thank you for clarifying that. That is my definition of success, is being a faithful pastor over the years and keeping your family, keeping your own soul together, keeping your family together, and being a blessing to your church and your church and your community. It doesn't have to be big, but I do think that longevity is part of my definition of success, because the best things only come after a period of time. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, and because pastoring, by its nature... I mean, this is right out of the scriptures. In many ways, it's like farming. It's like growing an arbor of trees. It doesn't happen overnight. It's time with people over time and time with families over time. Because you've not only got to build a relationship, but that's how people grow. It takes time to grow. 

Andy McQuitty : 

That's exactly right. That's one of the things that breaks my heart about the fallout from the lockdowns in driving a lot of people out of the ministry because they just lacked what they needed to sustain in there, and thereby killing their longevity. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Is the elephant in the room, I guess I'd say isolation or loneliness? Is that kind of the nut of it? 

Andy McQuitty : 

I think the isolation is the loneliness. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Somebody's trying to do it on their own. 

Andy McQuitty : 

But being alone in that situation, but also I think sometimes feeling inadequate. In the Barna study, they asked about 12 different questions about what is it that is stressing you in the ministry? And the things that rose to the surface were loneliness and stress. But also number four, I think, was a feeling that our church is not doing well, and I can't fix it. In other words, I feel like I don't have the resources to turn this thing around. And in other words, I need help. I need some leadership coaching. I need some shared experiences from others who have faced similar challenges, and what did you do and how did you manage that? 

So yeah, I think the loneliness is kind of the hotbed of a lot of these self-doubt questions that pastors are asking. They're going, "I wonder if other guys feel as blue as I do on Monday after you preach your heart out on Sunday. I wonder if other guys feel like their church is stuck and that they're not going to ever be able to get it unstuck. I wonder how other guys handle specific issues like conflict with your leadership." And they have to wonder all these questions alone, where what we're trying to do in Kaleo is say, "Hey, we're coming into a group here where we're putting all our stuff on the table." 

And what I've learned in my cohort that I've been leading is that this thing just catches fire. Because I have nine guys in my cohort right now, and I meet with them in a personal Zoom every month for 30 minutes and then once all together. But in those personal 30 minute Zooms, I'm getting in the weeds with them. "Okay, what questions do you want to ask me?" I say right off the bat. And man, they come up with, "How do I do that? I got a problem here. This thing's killing me over here." And I'll work through it with them then as much as I can. But then we'll bring it to the group in the big thing. And it never fails. "I just had that." 

Bill Hendricks: 

I was going to say, I bet there's a lot of- 

Andy McQuitty : 

"We just went through that. 

Bill Hendricks: 

"Oh, you too, huh?" 

Andy McQuitty : 

And so it's like- 

Bill Hendricks: 

"I'm not the only one." 

Andy McQuitty : 

CS Lewis said, "This is why we read, so that we know that it happened to them too." I mean, it happens to our brothers in the ministry too. And they become now- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Peer mentors. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... peer mentors. And we're throwing out, "Okay, read this book. Call this- 

Bill Hendricks: 

This person, right. Resource, right. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... fundraising. Do this." We've had a couple of occasions where we had an elder in one guy's church had been basically put on suspension because he had made sexually suggestive statements to the secretary at the church. And the other elders had just put him on suspension. And this young pastor was telling us, and "Yeah, this is my church. What about this?" And one or two of our older guys, they stepped in and said, "Okay, look, you're in the weeds here legally. You've got to back this thing up. You've got to get him out. You've got to call this. You can't just let this thing... try to put it under the carpet. You could lose the whole church in a lawsuit." 

Bill Hendricks: 

You got too much exposure. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And so in that way- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You got wisdom. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... the experience of the group comes in, and everybody's feeling like, I got a stake in your ministry and you have a stake in my ministry. And we're like a band of brothers in this together. And that's the dynamic that I had for 30 years with my guys here. It's the dynamic we want to create in the collective. 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's that feeling of, wow, these guys are for me. They want to help me and see me succeed. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Yeah, yeah. And that is the chief challenge that we have in getting guys to come into the groups as participants. Because most pastors' concept of other preachers and ministers getting together in a group is your average local ministerial association. You smiled as soon as I said that. Everybody knows the ministerial association that meets every month is you get a bunch of the preachers in the room, and it's like everybody's posing and posturing- 

Bill Hendricks: 

It's a gamesmanship thing. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It's competitive and it's gamesmanship. It's who's got the biggest church? 

Bill Hendricks: 

Who's got the political power? 

Andy McQuitty : 

And nobody that I know wants that anymore. 

Bill Hendricks: 

No, no. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And so I'm just saying to everybody, Kaleo is the opposite of that. We are not interested in getting guys in groups so that they can be competing with each other, boost their self-esteem by comparing themselves to others or lose their self-esteem by comparing. That's not what this is about at all. We are here to love each other and to help each other and to pray for each other and to hold each other's hands up. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I would assume that one of your biggest recruiting tools, if you will, are the pastors that are in the groups, and then a buddy of theirs is, "Hey, I got to get together." And they spill their guts and the person says, "Well, man, you should come check my group out." 

Andy McQuitty : 

That I believe is going to be the primary recruiting methodology once we get this thing to a tipping point where we're big enough to have that kind of clout. Right now, I'm relying much on Jeremiah's exhortation, "Do not despise the day of small things." 

Bill Hendricks: 

There you go. 

Andy McQuitty : 

We're very small. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Do not despise small beginnings. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And my main job in these days is I'm trying my best to recruit cohort pastors, older experienced guys who will basically say, "Hey, look." And I'm hiring them as independent contractors to work with me. I'm paying them to do this. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, I think that's an excellent avenue for people who they've kind of been faithful and they've had a pretty decent run, and they're not quite ready to just go play golf all day. They're like, "I want to do something." Well, here's something you could do. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And they have so much to offer. 

Bill Hendricks: 

So much 

Andy McQuitty : 

All those years of experience, much of it in the crucible. They have so much wisdom to give. And so I'm basically just recruiting personally these cohort pastors. And then it's their responsibility- 

Bill Hendricks: 

To go find guys. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... to go and recruit guys to participate in their cohorts. And this process is all on our website and so forth. But I think that... Okay, let me give you my two biggest problems in recruiting cohort pastors and cohort pastor participants into the group. My biggest problems with my cohort pastors is many of them are retired. Not all of them are. And the ones that are not retired that I'm still approaching because I know they could do so much good for these younger pastors, "I don't have time." And I understand that. If somebody- 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, had come to you. 

Andy McQuitty : 

If younger me had approached me back when I was full in the saddle at IBC, I wouldn't even have considered it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

I can't handle what I got on my plate. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Exactly. But what I come back to them with, it hasn't been a successful rebuttal yet, is that you could be a cohort pastor... Basically if you have 10 guys in your group it's only about nine hours a month, and you get paid for it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

But the impact. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And you do some good. 

Bill Hendricks: 

The impact. 

Andy McQuitty : 

So it's not that much time. And by the way, I don't care how many cohorts a guy wants to lead. You can do that. But if you just do one, it's not that much. So for all of you sages out there, I want to put a guilt trip on you. You got a bunch of young people out here dying on the vine. They need your help. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah, they do. 

Andy McQuitty : 

But then to the participants... At first, it was a real hard sell for me to get anybody to join my cohort. And again, it was the time issue. They thought, "I don't have time for something else." I mean, if anything, they feel more put upon than even older guys in the churches. But I think the other resistance from pastors out there that are laboring is they just don't want to get into that old ministerial association thing, and especially if they don't already have a personal relationship with you. Of my guys, the majority of my guys, I already knew them, had a relationship with them- 

Bill Hendricks: 

from the ministry. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And they said, "I'd love to be part of that." But there are a couple that didn't know me before. And man, it took me a long time. And I think it's just because they're a little skittish about committing to some sort of an ongoing peer group that- 

Bill Hendricks: 

They don't know about. 

Andy McQuitty : 

They're not sure they're going to like it or... So I'll just say this, you can get out of this real quick. I mean, give us a month's notice and you're out. We don't want you to, but you- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You're not trying to lock anybody in. 

Andy McQuitty : 

It's not the whole rest of your life. And for those who are interested in kicking the tires a little bit before you commit, I have guests in my Zoom cohort all the time, and we'd love to have you come in for a guest. Call up one of our cohort pastors, talk with us personally, get to know us, whatever. I do think that once this thing gets some wheels to it and we get more cohort pastors populating their cohorts and having great influence and success, I think we're going to- 

Bill Hendricks: 

You get a track record going. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... get to a point where, as you said before, word of mouth, that what's going to do it. But we're in the trenches right now. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Yeah. Well, our time's gone. Andy, this has just been so rich. And I guess I just want to encourage our listeners, particularly pastoral leaders. You said, "I don't know if I want to do that. I don't know if we have time for that." It's like saying, "I don't know if I got time to sleep." I mean, I think it's that crucial to their literal health and their soul's health. And the image that comes to my mind, and we'll finish with this, is just, it's like mountain climbing. And I'm talking like in the Alps or the Himalayas or something. 

You go mountain climbing, you always go with a group of people and they're all tied to each other because it's treacherous up there. And if somebody slips and falls, they've got somebody to belay them and pull them back. But man, if you're trying to do that on your own, I mean, you could fall, and you could fall thousands of feet to your death and nobody would even hear you. And to me, it's that serious. So that's why I'm so thankful for the work you're doing, and I certainly endorse it and encourage it- 

Andy McQuitty : 

I appreciate it. 

Bill Hendricks: 

... encourage pastors to check out the Kaleo Collective. Thank you for being with us today on The Table. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Thank you for having me, Bill. If the guys or gals want to go to the website, it's kaleocollective.org. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Dot org, okay. 

Andy McQuitty : 

And it's Kaleo- 

Bill Hendricks: 

K-A-L-E-O. 

Andy McQuitty : 

... with a K. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Right. 

Andy McQuitty : 

Right. And it's all theological people who should know. 

Bill Hendricks: 

Well, I was assuming that pastors knew how to spell it. 

Andy McQuitty : 

You're right. But I don't make any assumptions anymore. 

Bill Hendricks: 

If they took Greek. 

Andy McQuitty : 

That's right. If they did. So thank you. Thank you, Bill, for having me. 

Bill Hendricks: 

You're welcome. It's been a pleasure. And I want to thank you for joining us today on The Table podcast. You can subscribe to The Table on your favorite subscription service, and we look forward to seeing you next time on The Table. I'm Bill Hendricks. Have a good day.