Elevate Springfield featuring Eddie Lowen: Elevating Through the Power of Faith, Mission, and Authentic Community

Summary

In this conversation, Robert Ferriell interviews Eddie Lowen, the lead pastor of Westside Christian Church. They discuss Eddie's background, his journey into ministry, and the evolution of Westside Christian Church over the years. Eddie shares insights on leadership, the importance of a servant heart, and the role of elders in church governance. He emphasizes the significance of community service and the impact of God on church growth, reflecting on the church's mission and values. They also discuss the various initiatives and missions of West Side Christian Church, emphasizing their commitment to community service and church planting both locally and internationally. Lowen highlights the importance of practical love for the city, the church's active engagement in various ministries, and the significance of the Rooted discipleship program. Lowen also shares insights on personal growth, the value of authentic community, and encourages those curious about faith to explore it further. He concludes with advice on personal productivity and community engagement, stressing the need for a positive approach to criticism.

Takeaways

• He pursued a career in ministry after being influenced by strong youth leaders.
• Westside has grown from 1200 to approximately 3800 attendees over the years.
• Eddie emphasizes the importance of a humble and servant-hearted leadership style.
• The church's leadership structure includes a group of elders for oversight.
• Eddie believes that God plays a crucial role in church growth.
• He values community service and staying true to the church's mission.
• West Side has remodeled several public schools to show love for the community.
• Community service initiatives have included giving away gas cards.
• The church is involved in international missions, particularly in Kenya and Myanmar.
• Church planting is a key focus, with efforts in cities like New York and Paris.
• Rooted is a discipleship experience that fosters community and personal growth.
• Authentic community is essential for spiritual growth.
• Personal growth involves continuous learning and seeking relevant content.
• Curiosity about faith should be pursued without fear of judgment.
• Criticism should be approached with discernment and positivity.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome to Elevate Springfield, where we will dive into strategies and stories that help you rise to your full potential. Each episode, we'll talk about how you can take intentional steps to elevate your life and your business while making a meaningful impact on those around you. Along the way, we're going to bring in the change makers from our community that are already elevating. We'll bring the actionable strategies, you bring the discipline and follow through, and together we can elevate Springfield. Alright, let's go, Springfield. Time to 10X your life, your business, all of it. Time to crush those goals, time to get after it. Let's go. You are listening to the Elevate Springfield Podcast. Robert Farrell here, certified 10x coach, speaker, and mentor, here to bring you actionable strategies. You bring the discipline and follow through. And together, we're going to Elevate Springfield. We're coming to you again from beautiful downtown Springfield in the Big Dog Construction Studio. Hey, we've got so much going on in Springfield right now. Make sure you are participating. Get out there, network with folks, be a part of the community, support local businesses, support local nonprofits, and let's go, we can all grow together. So, hey, another great episode for you today. We're gonna get right to our guest after the break. Hey, Springfield, when it comes to reliable, high-quality roofing, you don't want to leave things to chance. That's why you should reach out to Acosta Angeli Ruffing, your local roughing expert serving Springfield and surrounding communities. From quick dependable repairs to full replacement, from residential to commercial, they are your trusted pros. Call them today at 217-993-2748 or visit their website to book your free quote and inspection. Don't wait. A little leak now could lead to major damage later. Trust the local experts, protect your home, and get peace of mind with Acosta Angeli Roofing. All right, and we are back. Joining me in the studio now, Eddie Lowen, the lead guy, what they call him, at Westside Christian Church. Eddie, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 2:24

I'm doing great, Robert.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

Thanks. Appreciate you coming to downtown Springfield and hanging out with me for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

I love having a reason to come downtown. And uh it's just different vibes than anywhere else in the city. So it's great to be here. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

I love these old buildings. They're just there's something about them. I'm I'm partial to them.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, I really appreciate the folk who invest in downtown and always appreciate a good space when I'm able to get into it.

SPEAKER_03 2:47

So I'm looking forward to talking about the church, of course. We've talked about it a number of times on the show when my wife was on and my daughters and everything, but I'm looking forward to talking about the church with you. But before we do that, let's learn a little bit about Eddie. Tell us about your background.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Well, I grew up in Virginia, and when I say that in Illinois, some people say, Oh, I've been to Virginia's speaking of a little town, but I'm from the Commonwealth, the state of Virginia. And uh I grew up in a little paper mill town there. My dad worked there for 44 years. That was his whole life's work, and met my mom there, and that's where they raised my sister and me. And I got involved in the church probably when I was about 10 or 11. And I had some really good student ministers who were part of my life, and they had a big influence on me. I ended up going to Bible college, and I decided really, I was on track to be in ministry before I went to college, but I I decided while I was in college, I would definitely do that. So I've either worked for a church or for a couple of years I worked for a Bible college. But I've been in working in churches most of my life.

SPEAKER_03 3:47

Pretty much your entire adult life then.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:50

Yes. So the the paper mill that your dad was in, was it still rolling when you guys when you went to move, or did it finally close down and move somewhere else?

SPEAKER_02 3:58

Well, they went through the transition to a lot of automation. So I don't know what the numbers are, but I suspect they have a lot fewer employees, even though their production is probably as high or higher. But my dad, my dad was there for a long time, except for some years that he spent in the military. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 4:13

What did he do there? What was his role?

SPEAKER_02 4:15

The the term that I re recall hearing is that he was an oiler. Okay. And I don't think that meant that he walked around with an oil can, but I think that meant that he was helping to maintain machines and he probably had a lot to do with the old school machines. And my impression was that as he got into his later years, it was it was more of giving guidance to other people and he got more freedom and flexibility, even though it was within the context of the plant itself. Uh so he he turned down the opportunities to become part of management because he kind of wanted to stay with his boys.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah, absolutely. So was there any other idea that you might do something different ever in your life that you think you might do something outside of the church, or was once you had that impact that that's that's what I'm gonna do and that's how I'm gonna spend my life?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

I don't think I don't think I spent as much time thinking about any other role, but really throughout high school, I thought a lot about law. And I think it was a comp I had a completely unrealistic view of what it would be like to be an attorney because I only knew being an attorney from the TV shows. Sure, sure. And an attorney's life is always exciting in a in a TV show, and it can be very different. I've had a number of attorney friends and people I've met in churches I've served, and I I know that their world is a little different. But I thought about that for quite a while. I just liked, liked that idea, but I never focused on anything quite as consistently as I did ministry. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

So how important is that early on? Like you said, you had some really great, you know, youth leaders. How important is that to have people in your life at that age to be able to draw you toward that?

SPEAKER_02 5:50

It was a really big deal for me. We actually my mom took us to church as little kids, but it wasn't consistent. And then when I was about 10, my sister was invited to church uh by a friend who happened to be the daughter of a pastor who had moved to town, and that pastor happened to be connected to the church that we had gone to as children. And so a lot of the things my mom built into me early on, and the church built into me in early years, um, they were still there. Uh, but then I was very consistently involved uh in the church from that point on. Actually, I was jealous because my sister had been invited to this church activity one evening and I wanted to get in on it. So I basically invited myself along.

SPEAKER_03 6:33

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

I got baptized that week and got connected with the church, and and really that that determined the direction of my life. I got to speak for my church's, I think it was 100th anniversary some years ago. Cool. It wasn't long after I came to Westside, which has been a number of years. Uh, but I got to thank them for the influence they had and the patience they had with me. I was just a normal, typical, precocious kid. And I I I would have been early junior high when I first went there. And uh I was very busy and had a lot to say, and they did a great job guiding me and and seeing the upside of who I was. Sure. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 7:12

Let's talk about some of your early roles, like right out of school. What were some of the churches that you worked at, some of the things you did?

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Yes. My first couple of jobs in churches were I served as both the worship minister and the student minister. And once I was my first church, I was single. And once I got married, my wife really she has a lot of gifts for children's ministry. So she took that off of my hands to a large degree. And I focused more on students, junior high, senior high, young adults, which is where I really had more passion and uh felt more comfortable. But those those were smaller churches than West Side, but they really played an important role in my life. And uh I worked with really good preaching ministers. I was not the lead pastor at a church at that time, but the guys that I worked with built some really good things into me. A lot of growth, and I look back on those opportunities with a lot of gratitude.

SPEAKER_03 8:11

Awesome. Take a step back. I don't know that a lot of people know what kind of education or school you might go to if you're wanting to be a pastor. I mean, what what kind of school did you go to? And is that typical of what folks go to?

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah, I went to a small school. Um, you know, a lot of times Christian liberal arts school, like some of the ones that I think of in Illinois, are Wheaton. My son went to Olive Nazarene University. Those are kind of schools, they have ministry programs, but they also have a number of other programs and degrees that you can pursue. I went to a school where everyone majored in Bible, and then you minored in some area of ministry, maybe it was preaching ministry or student ministry or music ministry or counseling. So that's really in a in a small school, the structure was simpler and it it was appropriate for the size of the school. So it was a four-year school. And then later, probably in my late 20s, I pursued uh a master's degree, a graduate degree from a different school. I just because I wanted to deepen my biblical knowledge and skill set. And it was really not a lot about leadership. Leadership, I think I've learned from peers and mentors and experience, but the the biblical theological training, those things I really got in school. And uh so it was a small school, um, still friends with the faculty and staff who are still living, who who taught me. And then I worked at that school for a couple of years doing recruiting.

SPEAKER_03 9:40

Okay. So I have a teaching background too. And you always tell we always talk about, you know, in education, school, in school to be a teacher, you learn your content, but you don't learn how to be a teacher necessarily very, very well. So do they teach you much how to how to run a church, how to run the kind of the backside of a church?

SPEAKER_02 10:01

Yeah, there were there were some practical courses that were taught by people. And one thing about that school was the faculty, they they were paid, but they they weren't paid handsomely. And so a lot of them had weekend ministries where they preached to churches and they and they had another job just in order to make things work out. So the good side of that was that I had professors who were actually preaching on the weekends in churches and managing, you know, church leadership challenges and pastoring people. And so it was it was a great combination of academic and practical stuff. But there were a few classes that were focused primarily on, I remember a class that was just simply titled Minister's Life and Work. And it was taught by probably the most experienced uh faculty member who went through a lot of things. And it was, it was, it was a good foundation. Like I still remember and apply one of the lessons that he taught. I remember we had a discussion about what to do when you get into a situation. Maybe you've preached at a church, you're having Sunday dinner with a family, and then the guy says that he loves the football team. You're gonna watch a football game with him later. I still remember the professor in that class saying, if he asks you who you're pulling for, don't ever say you don't care, because that's the biggest insult to a sports fan. Yeah. So you either pull with him completely or you pull against him.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

I like that.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

And uh, I just thought that was great advice. And it, you know, it was it was a little bit of an integrity lesson of you know, don't be afraid to express a point of view or a preference or an affiliation that someone else may not have. So go go all in or go go all against them. Love that.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Love that. Is that in the back of your mind when you're doing your Super Bowl sermon?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

You know, I think it has come to mind. Yeah. Because that that is definitely a time and an occasion where you don't please everyone. Right, right. Uh some people are very disappointed that I didn't choose their team, but most people are really good natured about it and they they kind of sense the spirit behind it.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

No, my daughter loves that. She's a football fan in terms of she she likes the Chiefs and she likes the Super Bowl, but we don't watch it, watch it much during the during the year, really. But Super Bowl, she gets really into it and she absolutely loves your I can't remember how you phrase it. Uh I call it the bad Bible interpretation. Bad Bible interpretation.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Super Bowl prediction. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 12:21

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

She absolutely Yeah, I'm always a little concerned about first-time guests on that day because we get up there and our team, you know, the guys who do the tech stuff and some of the environmental things in the in the room, they like to have fun with it. And so they have the big announcer's voice and they have the graphics going on. And I kind of want to say I didn't really ask for all this, but I want them to have fun doing it just like I'm having fun doing. Shoot up the fog and stuff or something. The whole thing. And one year they said, Yeah, should we have some cheerleaders? I'm like, no, let's not have any cheerleaders. We'll never hear the end of that guy. So I do like the fact that, you know, fun is one of our values, and that's one of the things I try to bring to Westside. And I just, I told them when I came, you know, I was 37. It was my 37th birthday when I got to Westside, my very first Sunday at Westside. And so I had learned some things about myself. And I think I was able to kind of give them a head start on who I was and what was important to me. And obviously, there are some things when you're leading a church that are fixed, they're set, you know, they're they're biblical, they're foundational. But there are lots of other things that can depend on the personality of the person or even the personality of a church. I think every church has a personality. So the Super Bowl prediction is one of the things that just kind of flowed out of the personality that I and some other fun-loving staff members have.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

Absolutely love it. That's very cool. No, it's one of that's one of Ellie, my older daughter's favorite ones. I'm glad that connects. She loves that. She loves that.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

And of course, we have everybody wear their jerseys. Oh, yeah. So that's fun too.

SPEAKER_03 13:47

Yeah. So after those first couple of smaller churches you were at, what was your next step?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Well, my step into being the lead pastor and the guy who preached most weekends was when I moved from Virginia to Ohio, Columbus, Ohio. And church there uh hired me. I was 28. I think I turned 29 shortly after going to that church. My wife and I had not had kids yet. Our both of our kids were born in Columbus, Ohio. I was at that church for eight years, and that was a great ministry, also. I had churches in our tribe are led by a group of elders. They're all volunteer leaders, and I was one of them, but I was also accountable to to those guys. And that's, you know, that's the biblical model for how a church should be led. Uh, but that church, I think, I think they were 350 or 400 folks on average on the weekends when I went there, and we saw some growth and had to build some buildings to accommodate people. And I I learned a lot, and they they were very encouraging to me. And I still have friends. You know, I've been at Westside for going on 26 years, and I still have friends that I stay connected with at that church.

SPEAKER_03 15:00

Wow. Wow. So, what brought you to Springfield in the first place then?

SPEAKER_02 15:03

Well, that was really interesting because uh they reached out to me right after I'd gone through a search process with a church in Indianapolis to which I did not go. And I really hadn't had no sooner closed that conversation that I got a call from one of the leaders at Westside, and my predecessor, whose name was Von Beaman, was retiring and they were looking for someone and they wanted to know if I would talk about it. So I talked with my wife, prayed about it, thought about it. I really just was not ready. You have to invest, the church has to invest a lot of energy in those conversations, and so does the candidate. And since I'd just been through it, I really felt like it was too much distraction and too high a price for the church I was serving at the time. So I just thought, no, I I need to stay put. And so they actually went through the search process with a person or two. And then probably five or six months later, they came back to me and they said, we still haven't found our person. One of our one of our guys was actually in town and he just said he he just felt prompted to call me and we had a conversation, and so it started again, and it was it became pretty obvious pretty quickly that it was what I would call a good ministry marriage. Really a wonderful set of conversations that I had with him.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

So it was that second time around that really kind of sealed the deal for you a little bit to at least open up the door rather than not go through the first time.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

And you know that, I mean, that is such we've all had that experience, but that is just such a great reminder that when we're when we have dis disappointing conversations or when circumstances don't unfold the way we want, the way they handled that first set of conversations, the way I handled that first set of conversations, it left the door open for us to talk again in the future. And sometimes when things don't happen on the schedule we prefer or that we hope, sometimes it's easy to be frustrated or maybe even be a little disrespectful to people who are on the other side of that conversation. And if either of us had done that, then I I think it it would have probably made the latter conversations difficult to have.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

So after that conversation started, how long was it until you were in the seat at West Side?

SPEAKER_02 17:13

Yeah. I I think the whole process probably was somewhere around four or five months. I think I think that was in the late winter, probably that they came back to talk to me a second time. And then we had some conversations. And at that time, the church would vote on the new minister. And so they introduced me and I came and I did some Q ⁇ A's with people, had some meetings with other leaders, preached for the congregation one Sunday, and then they had a congregational vote. Oh, okay. And and um we don't vote on staff members now at our church. That's that's not our governance at this point, but they did it, they did it well, and and the congregation really, I think supporting the leaders and trusting their leaders was the primary reason. I mean, they were certainly evaluating me by the sermon I preached, by the conversations I had with them, but I think it was primarily that they trusted the leaders and took the recommendation.

SPEAKER_03 18:11

So did you said the sermon that you preached, did you have to preach a sermon to everybody prior to getting voted in? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yes. And that's kind of the old school model. Sure. Uh, and some churches would would still do that today, and it'd probably be wise, even if there wasn't a vote. It would be wise to introduce someone probably prior to their, hey, this is our new pastor preaching their first week at the church. It's probably better to have some process there.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

You remember what you spoke on that day?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

I could probably pull it up, but at the moment, no, I don't. I I do recall that my first series was from the life of David because I've been looking at doing a series from the life of David later this year. And I haven't gone back to that series to look at it to see what I think of it at this point. But usually when I look at sermons in the past, I'm not tempted to reuse the the material or the sermons. But the the first week I really don't know.

SPEAKER_03 19:05

I was curious if you recalled it. Yeah. So that was 26 years ago, right? Yes. So 26 years ago, what was what was West Side like? I mean, everybody sees West Side now, you know, large congregation, one of the biggest churches probably in in Springfield. What was Westside like then?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

West Side was also one of the larger churches in Springfield at that time. And I'm guessing probably about 1,200 people weekly worshiped at West Side at that time. And they were in what we now refer to as the auditorium, which was they relocated in 1996 and 1997. I came in 2000. So a few years before I arrived, they relocated to our current site and they built a worship center. I I think just because of the timeline and because the school year is the school year, they have a they have a K-8 school. So I think they actually built the wing that houses the school first. Maybe they occupied that in 96. And then I think that the church occupied space in 97. And they actually had a three-year period. They sold their building out from under them, sold it to the Springfield school system, and they met at Springfield High School for worship for three years. Really? And they were a 90-some-year-old church at that point. Wow. And so it it was a it was a pretty bold move by them. And I believe there was a church in town that housed the school during the time before the school wing was built. So they actually they became after many, many decades of having their own space, they became a portable church and did that for about three years. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

I hadn't heard that story. That's really cool. So they at Springfield High, I would imagine just in their auditorium is what they used.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Yeah. Yes. And I think they used some some of the ancillary, you know, spaces for other things that were going on. And I want to take a guess at what church housed the school, but I I'm not sure I know that. So I won't swing at that.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Right. No, that that's really cool. I had I hadn't heard that story. So over these over these years, how has the how has the church grown?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Well, it really has grown steadily. You know, we've had we've probably had four or five years that the church has grown by and by four or five hundred people in average attendance. There have been some of those years, kind of breakthrough years or just years where things came together. Sometimes churches like a lot of other organizations, businesses, sometimes you invest and you build the foundation for a long time. And, you know, it's just like if you're building a building, you know, you're spending time, you're being very intentional about the foundation. And then sometimes the structure will go up so quickly that it will surprise people. And West Side was a healthy church when when I arrived, but I definitely brought a different leadership style and some and a different emphasis probably to the church. And it took a little while for those things to take root, but we we grew all along. Long. And then we had some years that were just growth spurts for us. So probably from about you know a church of about 1200 on average then to I I don't really have a current number in my head, but probably an average of about 3,800 people on a Sunday morning now. And of course there was no online church back then.

SPEAKER_03 22:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 22:19

Um that that started but much more recently. But we have on average, I think our average is probably about 2,200 people who join us online.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Wow. Okay. So you said you might have had some different uh different emphasis or maybe some different priorities early on. What were what were some of those?

SPEAKER_02 22:36

Yeah, I think I think most of it was was generational. And you know, there were a lot of reasons for West Side to be to be proud of the ministry and the and the church, but I really wanted us to take a posture of of just humble service in the community and stay on mission. But I just I just didn't want us to have large church swag. I I really I really wasn't interested in promoting that. So I think I think that was uh was probably uh you know one of the open differences. And the way I lead the staff and the way we organize the staff, you know, when I came, there were a lot of non-staff leaders who were giving oversight to staff because my predecessor was really about evangelism and preaching and those kinds of things. But I I'm actually very interested in the structure, leadership of the church, and and the organizational health of the church. And so I probably came just with more passion and more interest in those things. And that's allowed our elders to really, I think, occupy the the space, the level, the responsibility that the Bible kind of lays out for them where they really are truly overseers. And so they watch over the health and the doctrinal health or or what we teach, you know, how it is we approach the Bible and what our real core message is, they watch over that. They watch over the health of the church and watch over me because they give me a lot of influence. And I think anyone that has that kind of influence needs a source of accountability.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

So for maybe somebody that hasn't been a part of a church and doesn't really know what an elder is, how do you become an elder and dig in a little bit more to their responsibilities?

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah, that it's a it's a Bible term and it's a term that the Bible uses for a seasoned mature leader who, not individually but collectively with other leaders, will take shepherding responsibility and oversight for the church. So obviously, if there is a major disruption of some kind or a major misstep by a leader, then obviously it becomes a pretty intense time for them because they have to step up and take responsibility for it. But in normal times, what they'll try to do, and again, this is a biblical model, they'll appoint someone who is going to lead the ministry, and then they oversee that person and that person's health. They try to care for that person and shepherd that person, provide some accountability for that person. So, really, uh, the term elder is simply uh a New Testament term for a mature leader who would, along with others, collectively shepherd and oversee the church. And one of the things that makes a church healthy is when that those people view themselves as one entity together and not as five or six sheriffs who are in in charge of the same town.

SPEAKER_03 25:30

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

And that's one of the differences between healthy and unhealthealthy churches. Unhealthy churches, you have people competing for influence and power and who's going to make the calls and all of that. Healthy church, you have people who have a servant shepherd heart and who make sure they're in sync with other leaders, and of course, that everybody is following the instructions given in the New Testament for what a church should be about.

SPEAKER_03 25:57

Absolutely. So, as in a leadership role, that servant heart, how do you how do you drive that home to staff, that servant heart? Is it easier in a church atmosphere, or do you think it's more difficult in a church atmosphere compared to maybe another business out there?

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Yeah. I mean, there is a side of me that would that would love to say, yeah, in the in the in the church, we don't struggle with that as much, but there's as much human nature in the church as there is anywhere else. There are lots of people who are in church leadership who have deep character flaws and things they haven't addressed. And sometimes that comes out. I do think that over time we have developed some conversations and simply some processes, some launching habits. We've found ways to ask questions and to figure people out. So I don't I don't think anyone bats a thousand when it comes to selecting people to be on your team. But more and more over time, we have learned how to discern whether or not someone really is coming to the table with that. And that doesn't mean that we don't have people who are not strong leaders. We we have we have outgoing, even strong personalities on our team. But when the when the spiritual maturity and the emotional maturity and the emotional self-awareness, when those pieces are in place, then you can benefit from the upside, the positive side of the coin. Every personality type has the positive and negative side of the coin. And when you can benefit from the positive, but the spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, the self-awareness all allow the other side of the coin to be suppressed and to not be the dominant side, then that's where you can get places. And I think, quite frankly, people who have really learned a lot about building a culture in a workplace or in some other organization have learned the same things. Now, there are ties to all of these things scripturally, but you know, I think I think all wisdom originates with God. And so we can find these things in the Bible, but other people discover these things. And one of the things I like doing at times in my preaching is showing people how things we have learned as a culture actually tie back to scripture and were revealed to us thousands of years ago. But we might have lost touch with them and then we relearn them, and then we find out, oh, we were actually told this, which is kind of like life. We say that about our parents, you know. My parents tried to teach me that, but then I had to go out and learn that lesson myself. And so there's a lot of that in life.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

Any of those we could we could talk about now that you think of?

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Just in terms of those lessons you mean? Well, yeah, you know, the humility piece that we've talked about, it is not only is it more inviting and more attractive and more compelling for other people when they sense humility in us, it is actually an empowering quality for an organization to possess uh in its culture. And it just makes so many other things possible. For example, feedback. When we lack humility, it's hard to take feedback and it's hard to not feel attacked by feedback. And when we possess humility and when we don't have the need to assume that we know everything or do everything in the best way or that there's nothing that we can learn, it just opens up so many opportunities. And that's why I was differentiating earlier between strong personalities and uh, you know, the character trait of humility. Because we have had really strong people on our staff, but because they possessed humility, they were teachable and it just makes all the difference.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Right. So you're talking a minute ago about asking the right questions, about the servant heart and everything. Any company out there is looking to grow their, you know, grow the skill set of their team and everything. How do you do that within the church? How do you keep your bench stocked, I guess?

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Well, like so many other types of organizations, one of the things that we do is try to connect with people who are demonstrating excellence and who have been some of the places that we would like to go. And for us, that doesn't really look like copying everything that we see in the hottest or or latest church, but it is, you know, trying to get behind the dashboard and see how those churches are wired and weigh some of those strategies and some of those approaches. So time with other leaders. I was just in Dallas a few weeks ago and I was meeting uh with peers that some of whom I've been meeting with for a couple of decades now. We get together and we just exchange best practices, we talk through some of our problems, and it's so interesting that many years when we do that gathering, there are people who are dealing with some of the same dynamics. Like some of them are cultural, so everybody's facing them no matter where they are. And and then others, we're almost surprised. We shouldn't be surprised at this point, those of us who've been at it for a while, but we're almost surprised that we're dealing with some of the same dynamics. And so I think spending time with peers uh is really important. So I do it on that level where I may I go to a conference or two every year uh with other peers. I also have three other pastor buddies that I've been walking with and staying in touch with uh for about a 25-year period now.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:21

We were just texting this morning. So hardly a day goes by that we're not texting. Certainly there is not a period of two or three days that goes by where we're not texting. We're in touch a lot. We try to retreat together once a year. Every now and then we manage to do that two times a year. Last fall we got together and we brought our wives. And so that was a little bit of a different gathering. But those connections and those relationships are really the answer to how we keep the axe sharpened and how how we just just avoid uh groupthink in our setting or or convincing ourselves that what we've seen in our limited set of circumstances is the end all. We just we just don't want to think that way.

SPEAKER_03 32:05

Aaron Powell What do you attribute the growth of West Side to, you think, over these past 26 years? I mean, seeing a lot of growth. Anything you could point to for that?

SPEAKER_02 32:15

Well, we really do believe, and it's not just a throwaway line. We believe that God is the one that makes things grow. It's a the biblical concept. But I think God is willing to make a lot of churches grow, and not every church is experiencing growth. And so simply trying to align the values of our church and the mission of our church and the character and the disposition of our church, trying to align it as much as we can with who Jesus was and what God laid out for the for the New Testament, for the church to follow. And I think most churches would say that they are trying to do that. And I'm really not an expert at why some churches don't grow and others do, but I believe it is that desire, and I think that's a genuine desire for us, that has really been at the heart. We believe that God created and imagined the church to grow. He intended for it to grow. And it certainly began that way. It exploded with growth and not in favorable circumstances. The the culture, the city, the religious assumptions of the people where the original church created, none of that was going for the church. It really was the power of the message and the power of God, the sincerity of the people that that really helped the church to advance and the devotion of the people to that mission. And a lot of people who were living for a lot of other things concluded there really is nothing better to live for than this. So we're we're gonna give ourselves to this. And even though they were imperfect, and even though that was obvious, I mean, you read through the book of Acts and you find that people in the church are doing terrible things. But when the church is healthy, the church confronts that in the right spirit, in the right way, with the right level of determination and the right tools. And uh, that allowed the church to continue growing, even when disappointing things happened and even when leaders were the source of the disappointment.

SPEAKER_03 34:06

Well, through that growth, West Side's certainly been able to make a tremendous impact here locally and abroad. So talk to us a little bit about everything that Westside has going on, all the different missions that we're part of and different things that can happen right there on campus as well.

SPEAKER_02 34:21

Well, one of the things that we really wanted to do more of was just love our city in practical ways. And it took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do, but I think we've now helped remodel three or four area schools. And honestly, what we gave mostly to that was just leadership and organizational prowess. I think we have some people on our team who just love to be able to coordinate resources and coordinate projects and manage those things. And then we have a lot of people with a lot of connections, you know, from construction to who knows what. Right. And then we just have a lot of people with willing hands. So starting here in town, probably some of the more significant things that we have done would be the remodeling of public schools. One reason we wanted to do that is because we actually have a Christian school that is affiliated with West Side, Springfield Christian School. And we thought that it would make a statement to the city if we showed an interest in and a love for the students, the parents, and the staff and faculty of some public schools. Uh, because just because we have a Christian school doesn't mean that we aren't for the public schools and all the families that depend on them. So we have done that several times. And that that I think that actually grew out of an emphasis that we had a few years prior to that, that we called the Church Has Left the Building, where we just went out across the city and tried to serve the city in big ways. I was on a team that went to a gas station on the north side of town and just handed out free gas cards to people. And of course, some of the conversations, I mean, you have people, you know, pulling in there with$2 in their pocket, trying to figure out how to make life work and lacking the resources to do it. And, you know, you're standing there, and this was a number of years ago, gas was a little cheaper. You know, you're standing there with a$10 gift card. Uh, and I have to say, I slip, I slipped some people some extra$10 gift cards. But um, it, it, that's an example of the kind of thing that we did. And so it just grew, and then it became these larger projects with the schools. And so uh we look for ways to love the city and we want to impact the quality of life in our city and help people. And then then we're involved in places overseas like Myanmar and in Kenya. Back in 2007, I went to Kenya with uh several friends, and uh there was a Kenyan husband and wife uh who had not grown up in the slums of Nairobi, which for which Nairobi is really infamous, the slums there, they they had grown up in better circumstances, gone to college, and really they were in college before they found out what life was like for people in the slums and just became a tremendous burden for them. And so they they decided that they were gonna spend their lives serving people in the slums. Well, since then, dozens of schools have been started, dozens of churches have been started. They're primarily in Kenya, but they also have expanded into some of the neighboring countries. I think the last number that I heard was something like 24,000 kids are going to these schools, uh, tuition free. This is primarily supported by churches and believers uh in America. I went when they had, I think, I think it was about 280 kids uh at one location in a in a if you if this is even a thing in the poorest part of one of the slums, that's right where they went. They wanted to go to the worst part. And I was really drawn to that neighborhood. So our churches invested specifically in that neighborhood and we help construct facilities. And so what they do is they not only have school for the kids, but they provide meals for them during the day. And then they send out teams to their homes that are essentially social workers with uh a biblical Christ-center motivation. And so they're they're going into homes and they're trying to help people with all of the problems and challenges that people face when they're living in a slum and trying to raise kids on not enough resources.

SPEAKER_03 38:28

So really trying to make a kind of a wraparound effect of all the different services that they might need.

SPEAKER_02 38:32

So that's awesome. And so we are involved in those kind of ministries, but the other thing that we do is we love to plant churches. And we have specifically over the last 15 years tried to plant churches in cities where there might be lots of church buildings that people go into and tour, but they're not necessarily churches that are thriving in terms of ministry and people coming in order to be fed spiritually in order to worship God. And so we've helped plant churches in New York and we've helped plant churches in Chicago, and uh we helped plant a church in Miami. We're currently helping to plant a church in West Palm Beach. One of our staff members, two of our staff members who are married actually left and they're planting a church in Sarasota, Florida. I actually preached for their church this past weekend as a guest speaker. We've helped, we're now helping to plant our second church in Paris, France. There are gorgeous church buildings in Paris, but a large church in Paris would probably be a church of more than 50 people. And so we helped a church start. They met in a movie theater for a long time, and now they're meeting in the chapel area of a Christian school there in Paris. And uh, we're now starting another church that is also meeting in a movie theater. And the pastors of these churches uh are one is French and one has lived in France for a long time, and they're amazing people that we love partnering with. And we partner with a church planning organization that kind of helps coordinate all this and train these people. And the church planning organization really invites churches to give significantly to these projects. And really, for a church in a place like Paris, it really takes a seven or eight-year runway for them to reach the self-supporting place. And so there are a number of churches giving significantly in order to help that happen. And then little by little, they're able to take financial responsibility for themselves. And then we help lead the church early on, but then we step out of leadership as local leaders within the church are growing and maturing in ways that allow them to be able to take up the responsibility of being elders and shepherds in the church. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:36

That's interesting. That organization like that. Because I was just about to ask you, how do you what comes first? How do you pick the either the place where it's going to be or do you have the people picked out that are going to lead the church first? And then you pick the the location or the area that it's going to be in, but you work with that organization to be able to find those places?

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Yeah, I think it happens different ways, but the planters, the lead church planter, that it, you know, that resource is the most difficult to find. And so there are actually other ministries that are devoting themselves to identifying and equipping and helping to raise up lead pastors for churches and places.

SPEAKER_03 41:13

And many of these churches face real challenges like that, they'll probably never own a building because real estate is so expensive in large cities here and in in those that you mentioned, Miami and Paris and all these places, that's going to be expensive real estate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

Now, two of the churches that we're helping to plan in Florida right now, older churches whose whose ministry strategies aged out, who whose message was still the message, but their strategies and their ministry style was no longer reaching young families and young people. They they did very unselfish things. Both of these churches, West Palm Beach and Sarasota, the churches gave their facility to a church planning organization. So the church planning organization found the lead planner, put together the funding, and launched new churches in those locations. So now a church that was running 25 people in Sarasota um a few years ago, now they're a church about 220 people. I I when I was there last Sunday, I think they said they had 241 people who are in church. So you've got a new church, fresh vision, fresh strategies.

SPEAKER_03 42:21

Love it. Let's hop back into Springfield here. If you want to say a typical week at Westside, there's so much for people to do, to get involved, to learn more about God, to get into the whole thing at Westside. Walk us through what a typical week at Westside looks like.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Well, uh it really would depend on the person on our team as to what a typical week would look like. But in general, for the week, uh we we have a work week, our team, just like other folks do. And since we work on the weekend, we don't require people to be there, you know, Monday through Friday. Our team is working during the week. And Sunday's game day for us, you know, just like it is for an NFL team, I guess. And so we're we're always preparing for Sunday. And in the most obvious ways, those who are leading the music are preparing, and those who are teaching are preparing. And then that's happening in student ministry, and that's happening in preteen ministry, and that's happening in kids' ministry. And all of the teaching for those environments, all of the worship music for those environments has to be planned. And then, and then there are groups, you know, we have rooted on Tuesday nights. We have a number of different support groups and care groups uh that are meeting to help people through especially difficult seasons in lives, or helping people through loss, or helping people through addiction. There's a lot of that going on. Uh, there are people who come to our building during the week, and our cafe is open most days of the week for limited hours. And there are people that make their way in and they'll they'll work in West Sides Cafe and grab a latte or cappuccino or Whatever they need in order to keep the caffeine and the energy. Sure. You know, let there you go, right there. Yeah. So there are a lot of different things going on. It just depends on the season. And student ministries, they're very active. They're very out and about. They're going to camps. They're going to conferences. They're doing all kinds of things in the summer. But during the school year, they have more consistent things that are happening on Sunday evenings and during the week and for some on Sunday mornings.

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Yeah. I'll tell you, my younger daughter, she was at Amplify a week and a half, two weeks ago, whatever it was now. But yeah, that that was a great experience for her. She's done it the last couple of years. Saw the video of you doing the uh rock'em sock'em robots. That was fun. That was fun. Yeah, I got I gotta tell you, everybody was rooting for you. We were we were in we were in there watching it, and uh all the kids, you know, because they had us uh they had us select if we they thought Eddie was gonna win two to one or you know, things like that. And there was a chant coming from the kids, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. So I don't know if you heard that yet, but they they were chanting for you to win your rock'em sock'em robot.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

I had not, I feel like they probably should have been pulling for Jeremiah in there, but uh I appreciate the support. They were that's good.

SPEAKER_03 45:12

They were they were team Eddie that day, so it was fun. It was fun, but I love hearing that. Yeah, my daughter Adeline, she she loves that, and my wife um, of course, was was serving during that whole weekend too. She leads one of the groups there, and then um Adeline's also excited about camp this summer. So so many great opportunities for um for the kids in that kid's ministry. It's just phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Our church really genuinely across the board, and every church would want to say this, but I'm just able to say genuinely that our church loves uh loves young people. Just it, you know, in addition to our normal programming and the way we fund it and the way we staff it. And in addition to that, if there's ever a need, like we have people who come to us and say, if there's ever a kid who can't go to camp, let me know. People who are just not willing for kids to miss out on, things like that. And um, you know, one of the things I love about Westside, I've been there 26 years, that sounds like a lot. We've got people who've been there 70 years and 80 years. And obviously they've seen a lot of things change stylistically for the church. You know, we do have a traditional service that sings, you know, the older music, but we're, you know, we're doing newer stuff and, you know, it's a different generation. And so some of the, some of the strategies and some of the expressions of worship change. But our folks have just been incredible about just staying on mission and not expecting younger generations to do everything like older generations, but just having a heart for them. And they're they're super supportive. And I love here here's a here's a great example. So we built some new buildings five, six years ago. And one of those spaces actually became our traditional worship space. Well, we continued to grow in our kids' ministry, and the original intent of that particular room was that when we needed it, it would become children's space. Well, before we ever expected it to happen, the church grew, kids' ministry grew. We needed that room. And so we we come to really the oldest folks in our church and the ones I don't I don't think anyone has a right to say this in a church. But if anyone has a right to say this in a church, it's the people who've been supporting the church and making the church work, you know, for 70 or 80 years. Sure, sure. And they and we said, you know what? We need more space for kids. And so we would like to move you to a different space. Here's what we're going to do for that space. And in some ways, the space that they had been was perfect for them. But but they just really gave it up because they're just they're just on mission and they're all about they're all about young families and they're all about kids, and they're they really are the real deal.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

Love it. Now, both my daughters have have stepped into service in the kids' ministry as well. So you know on Sundays during rooted and then on Tuesdays during some of the groups, they're in there with with the young kids and they're with the infants and taking care of the taking care of the youngins.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

I love hearing that. That that is a big deal. For parents to be able to know that they can leave their kids in safe hands is a very big deal. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 48:09

No, it's great experience for them. They they have certainly loved it. So you mentioned the traditional service that the early morning went on Sunday.

SPEAKER_02 48:18

Yes. So we actually have two services that are going on simultaneously at eight o'clock. And I preach, you know, about 70% of the time. Whoever is preaching on a given Sunday morning will go in at eight o'clock to the traditional service and just say hello to everyone at the beginning of the service. So that person is in the room with them. Then they will sing more traditional songs and they'll have communion announcements, other elements. And then about three minutes after the sermon begins, in the other service is played by video in the traditional service. And again, those folks didn't grow up with video, but they're perfectly happy with that. And so we have those two venues going on on Sunday mornings. And even though in the big room, the contemporary service, even though that's the smallest of the three contemporary services, having that additional service at eight o'clock makes the most sense because then we have the parking and the concourse space and all the space that we need for people who come to the other services.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Absolutely. So you mentioned rooted a moment ago. I'm finishing week 10 this coming weekend. Yeah. So I'm in that right now. No, Robert. But uh tell everybody what rooted is. What is that?

SPEAKER_02 49:25

Yeah, rooted is some people refer to it as a class, but we like to call it the rooted experience because really what it is, is helping people who have a faith who just haven't learned how to groove that faith into their daily routines and to own it and to practice it naturally. It just helps people figure out how to do that. And so it's grounding people in some uh basic beliefs of the Bible and really what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And then it's helping people, you know, all of us have struggles and and challenges. I think Rooted calls them strongholds, things in our lives that have just become not positive habits, but just negative habits, obstacles, hurdles we can't get over. So there's a breakthrough week that teaches people the principles behind breaking through something in your life that really does have a stronghold on you. And then uh there are weeks to learn how to pray and the weeks to challenge people to be more generous. And what happens during that time is really just the magic of community and the magic of relationship because so many people go through rooted together and they look across the table week one and they don't know these people and they're wondering, how am I ever going to talk about personal things in front of these people? Then they get to the end of week 10, they do celebration, they're hugging each other in the hallway and they're saying, hey, we've got to keep this going somehow. So rooted really is an ex, it's a discipleship experience. And all that means is this learning to follow Jesus is relational. It's not just propositional. So it's not just someone talking and saying, it's this, this is the truth, this is what you should do. It is people talking it out and then helping each other and then relating to each other and communicating with each other outside of that environment. And that's what grooves our faith uh deeper into us, which is really the reason. I mean, we kind of come back full circle here. It's the reason that God created the church. It was his original design and idea. He knew that our faith would grow better in community. And that's why when people say to me, Well, I can believe in God without without going to church. Well, if you're approaching it as a minimalist believer, you know, what's the minimum I can do and what can I justify not doing? That's never really going to serve us well in our faith. It's like getting married and saying, What's the least I can do and stay married?

SPEAKER_03 51:50

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

People who take that approach to marriage do not thrive in marriage. They're not the people you hear saying, I love being married, I love my spouse. No, it's when we go all in and we're trying to do everything that we can that God calls us to do and that Christ modeled for us. So that the community piece is just huge. And we don't believe in counterfeit community, we don't, we don't believe in performance community, we believe in authentic community. It's easy to say that, it's hard to practice that. And so all of us have to just kind of keep coming back to that. And one of the reasons I tell stories on myself, and one of the reasons I do that is because even though I don't portray myself as super Christian, sometimes because I'm on a platform speaking, there are people who who sort of tend to want to view me that way. So I I'll tell stories about myself and confess things about myself. And like, you know, and I and I tell more stories about myself than my wife. But, you know, I told the story of how we were on vacation and my wife joked with me that she might have to throw one of her kids off a bridge. And I told that story, and I said this, it sounds like a joke, but I said my wife got fan mail for that. But what she got was messages from other moms saying, I have those feelings too. Obviously, no one's doing that, but every parent can identify with that frustration. And so we're trying we're trying to be authentic. We're trying to be authentic followers of Jesus, but we're also trying to be authentic in the fact that we can't do it perfectly.

SPEAKER_03 53:24

Love it. No, Rudd, it's been great for me. Like you mentioned, don't know anybody when you're going in. I went in with one friend. We decided to do it together. So I knew him, but didn't know anybody else at the table.

SPEAKER_02 53:34

That's a good way to go.

SPEAKER_03 53:35

Yeah, we've all we've all grown close together since then. We did our serve experience over at Refuge Ranch. Okay. Moved a moved a mountain of mulch, I guess you could say. We mulched their uh their playground area. So they had a big giant mountain of mulch out there for us, and we got it all moved into the playground area. So it was great to serve with that group of guys that day.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

There is a lot of hands-on work to be done at that ministry and some others around town.

SPEAKER_03 54:00

Absolutely. Well, a lot of great stuff about the church. Let's talk briefly about uh the personal side. Anything you do to elevate your life personally?

SPEAKER_02 54:09

Well, these connections that I have with peers, you know, that really, that really is a lot of it. And then I have always just had a mental image of I, as long as I do what I do, I really want to be pushing the rock up the hill. And I don't want to be on cruise control. I don't want to be on coast. And so I I simply try to improve at all the aspects of my responsibility and my internal world just as much as I can. Obviously, podcasts are a great resource for doing that kind of thing. That's really your intent behind this podcast to make it easier for people to do that. And so I access podcasts. Really, I I have learned this, and I sort of learned this by trial and error. For me, it's become much less about how much information and content I'm hearing or watching. It really is, it really is about trying to find content that's relevant to where I am, or whether that is where I am in my personal life or where I am emotionally or where I am spiritually or where I am as a leader or a communicator. I'm really, really just looking for excellent resources that I can draw a few things out of. And I have stopped expecting myself, you know, to read 70 books a year or or to listen, you know, 10 podcasts a week.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

Right.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Um, I think I think it really is about quality because I think most of us are on information overload, and it really is the application piece that we need most.

SPEAKER_03 55:44

Absolutely. So you mentioned earlier a little bit about your traveling. Have you traveled very many places that are Bible related that would that were really cool?

SPEAKER_02 55:53

Thanks for asking that question. So I tried to go to the Holy Land three different times, and every one of those trips has been scuttled by world events or war. And one of them might have been something that was going on in one of our families. But all of my trips to Israel have have been postponed or canceled because of one thing or another. Then last year, I I went to Greece and Turkey to see places where Paul had planted churches. I did that with some pastor friends. And actually, in a couple of months, I'm taking a group of 40 Westsiders to those places. We'll be in Athens, which is a very significant place for Paul. And uh Mars Hill is one of the places where he preached a really just groundbreaking sermon uh in Acts chapter 17. And then we'll we'll be in Corinth and Philippi and Berea and Thessalonica, and all of these places have Book of Acts uh references, and some of them are places to which Paul wrote letters, you know, Thessala. It's now Thessaloniki is the modern uh pronunciation, but Thessalonica was a town, you know, and there's first and second Thessalonians in in our New Testament, first and second Corinthians. And probably uh the one that is most significant just in terms of the amount of ruins that are there is Ephesus.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 57:17

Uh Ephesus, the what's there, what's been uncovered is huge. I think they've only excavated about 15 or 20% of it. Um, there's a massive Colosseum, there's a huge library, there are just amazing things that you can walk through the city and see. And it's very high impact to see places that tie to Bible stories that we've heard for a long time or to things that we've been reading. And so we'll visit those places. We'll actually have Greek and Turkish guides who will take us through those places. And then at a number of those key places, I'll do teachings for our group while we're we're still on location.

SPEAKER_03 58:01

That's gonna be an amazing trip. That's gonna be phenomenal.

SPEAKER_02 58:03

I'm really looking forward to these folks going. And I I I really hope it's something that I have a chance to do again.

SPEAKER_03 58:09

Well, Eddie, maybe there's somebody listening out there today that's never really tried out any kind of church, never really had God in their life at all. What would you tell them today?

SPEAKER_02 58:19

Aaron Powell Well, first of all, if they've been listening to our conversation for more than a few minutes, I really appreciate them wanting to listen in. I think that curiosity is actually tied to an identity and a need that we all have and that we all need to pursue and be aware of and develop. And I absolutely understand how somebody could grow up in our world. And maybe it's through the influence of what others have said, you know, and doubts that they have about the existence of God or the legitimacy of the Bible, which we're doing a series on right now at our church. Or maybe it's just the disappointing ways that some people who have claimed to be believers speak and behave, the way religious things have been exploited by some people where there's um a superficial statement, you know, about God or Jesus or religious things, but then you find out that the motive behind it is different. There are lots of understandable reasons that someone might stumble over the idea of God, the Bible, Christians, the church. There are also lots of people who have encountered those, some of them are facts, you know, some of them are legitimate concerns, who have wanted to make sure that just because of the disappointment or the poor representation that one person has given of who Jesus is or who God is or what the church is did not stop them from discovering what was real. And uh, we're not in this because we like being religious. You know, one of the things I've said to people before is I'm not really and overtly, I am not a guy who's looking to be religious. But I want people to know their creator and I want people to know their savior. I want people to know that there's hope for them, not only in this life, but in eternity. Most of us just instinctively know that this life can't be all that there is. I want people to know the lengths to which God has gone, to make sure that even our own mistakes and the worst parts of us don't stop us from having an eternal relationship with Him and that it doesn't have to be fake. It doesn't have to be pretend. It can be authentic. And so I would say if if there's any curiosity, then I just encourage you to pursue it. And if there's not curiosity, I always challenge people. Like I've had people who are unbelievers tell me there was a guy who was baptized just last year, and he started coming to West Side. He did not come into the room during our worship services, but he would sit outside and he would listen to the music and he would listen to the teaching. And simply having an opportunity to hear the Bible and to hear the Bible explained and applied, and having an opportunity to see people who are just genuinely practicing their faith and not pretending, you know, to be religious superstars, it made an impact on him. He decided to dig into it and he confirmed beyond any question for himself that it was all real and he wanted to. I just encourage people to give that a chance. You don't have to decide the outcome, but even if you're pretty convinced there's nothing to it, there there can be no harm in exploring it and investigating it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

Absolutely. Phenomenal stuff today, Eddie. I'd like to close with these last couple of things. Let's give the audience a piece of advice, one on the personal side, one on the professional side to help them elevate their life or business.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

Okay. Well, on the personal side, I I I guess I want to talk to people who are productive people because those are probably the kind of people who are more prone to listen uh to your content. And I think those of us who are productive, it's just very difficult, maybe impossible to be productive without a list. And it's really easy to make lists of things and it's hard to make lists of people. But all of us are going to make a greater impact and our lives are going to count for more if we are somehow impacting, influencing, and encouraging other people. So all of us should look for a mentor to be influenced by. We should look for someone to mentor. I don't think either of those relationships should be forced. You know, if the other person doesn't seem to have the same level of interest, I think that's just an indicator that's how to move on. Just resist the urge, if you're a productive person, to make a list of things and to leave no room for people. And then the the other thing that goes with that would just be learn to embrace interruptions. Now, there are some interruptions that you really have to find a way around as quickly as possible so you can really get on with what you're about. Sure. But there are so many interruptions that really are about people. And it's it's really vital if we're going to live well to embrace those interruptions and and to make sure that we are making room on our list for people.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:08

Love it. And is there anything we can do community-wide to help all of us here elevate Springfield and the surrounding communities?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

I think my primary and probably strongest encouragement would just be to restrain our criticism. And by that, I am not asking people not to be discerning and not to evaluate and not to be thoughtful, because I think we should be all of those things. But I think the expression of our criticism and our complaints, and even when we have legitimate reasons to be opposed to maybe certain movements or decisions or trends or even certain leaders, this need that we have to express it and to harp on it, it's counterproductive for us and it's counterproductive for the people who live with us and it's counterproductive for our community. And again, I'm not saying don't be discerning. And I'm not saying that critique is wrong. I'm saying that a spirit of criticism is absolutely counterproductive. It's destructive, and it it also destroys and deteriorates within. We are not accomplishing what we think we are accomplishing when we are obsessed with criticizing.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Great stuff today, Eddie. Somebody wants to learn more about West Side, where do they go to do that?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Well, wschurch.org is our website. But I invite anyone who wants to check us out. You can find us online. We actually have an easy to remember online service, trychurchonline.com. And we broadcast our services at 8 o'clock, 9 30, and 11 o'clock. And that's central time for anyone that might be outside the time zone. And so that's a great way to check us out. We actually had a lot of folks who checked us out during COVID.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:53

Oh, I bet. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

And then as COVID was easing, just every week, people were showing up and telling us uh that they had found us online and they wanted to check us out. And there are just some great stories of people who have really taken off spiritually and relationally because they found us online first. So that's a really non-threatening way. If you walk into our building, you're going to be welcomed. You're not going to be put on the spot. It's a very welcoming environment. You can go to the cafe, get some coffee, make your way into worship service. Some people come in quickly and get out quickly and then stay a little longer as they become more comfortable with it. But check us out online if you're not ready to come find us in person yet. At the movies is a series we do every summer. It usually starts around mid July, and it's a really unique way. Rather than illustrating a message like I would normally do verbally, I use movie clips to do that. It's really something that a lot of people have found that they can identify with, even if they don't heavily identify with church to start with. And then it's really far out at this point, but Christmas at West Side is just something that we do for our whole city, our whole community. And uh I believe if you'll come and join us, you'll find it meaningful.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:11

Completely agree. Both those times are absolutely phenomenal out at West Side, just like they are all year though.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:17

Well, thanks for saying that. I'm really am glad that you can say that. And I can tell it's sincere. And if anyone does have questions about the Bible, you know, we're about to do our fourth and final week of a Bible series, and all those things are available on our podcast and through our website, and you can find those. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:33

Well, Eddie, appreciate you spending some time with me today. Had a great time.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

I did too. Thanks for wanting to host me and uh thanks for the encouragement your family has sent my way and West Side's way. We're just so glad you guys are a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:45

Awesome. Happy to be there. So we're gonna let Eddie, the lead guy over at Westside Christian Church, get back to Elevate in Springfield. But for the rest of y'all, we'll be right back. Looking for expert tree care with hometown integrity, look no further than Sangamon Tree Service. They're your trusted local pros, delivering quality workmanship, exceptional customer service, and fair, honest pricing every time. Whether it's trimming, removal, or storm cleanup, their team brings professionalism and care to every job, big or small. Call the name your neighbors trust, Sangman Tree Service, or visit them today at SangmanTreeService.com. Sangman Tree Service, rooted in quality, built on trust.

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SPEAKER_03 1:08:02

Well, thank you for joining us today, everybody. Appreciate you making us a part of your day. Hey, don't forget while you're out on social, check ours out. You can check my personal one out at RobertFarrell at everywhere. Check out those Elevate Springfield pages, those big dog business coaching pages as well. Check us out over on YouTube. Give us a subscribe, give us a like or a follow on any of those channels. We would certainly appreciate it. So, hey, take what you learned today. You bring the discipline and follow through and together, as right, y'all. We're gonna elevate Springfield. Be great. Looking for personalized insurance with hometown care, David Hilst, American Family Insurance Agent is here to help you protect what matters most: your family, your home, and your dreams. Whether it's auto, home, life, business, David and his team are proud to serve the Springfield community with trusted advice and reliable coverage. Local service, real relationships, peace of mind. Call today or stop by their office. They can build your dream protection plan together. Call 217 726 6343.