Jerry Kuntz, a strategic account manager and devout Catholic, discusses the profound intersection of faith and work. Within the framework of our series, "The Whole Church Job Fair," we explore how his religious convictions shape his professional life. Kuntz emphasizes the importance of fostering positive relationships in the workplace, articulating that the essence of work transcends mere transactional interactions; it is fundamentally about community and support. By sharing his insights, he illuminates how theological principles can manifest in practical, everyday scenarios, prompting a critical examination of the relevance of seminary discussions to real-world occupations. This episode invites listeners to reflect on their own faith journeys and the ways in which their beliefs inform their professional endeavors.

The dialogue between Uncle Jerry Kuntz and Joshua Noel serves as a profound exploration of how faith intersects with the realm of professional life, particularly through the lens of Uncle Jerry's experiences as a strategic account manager. Throughout their conversation, Uncle Jerry articulates the significance of maintaining a steadfast commitment to his Catholic values in a corporate environment. He emphasizes the necessity of fostering supportive relationships among colleagues, echoing the Church's teachings on community and service. This episode serves as a poignant reminder that one's faith can be a guiding force in navigating the complexities of the workplace, urging listeners to embody principles of compassion and integrity in their daily interactions.

Moreover, the conversation delves into the relevance of theological discussions in shaping everyday experiences. Uncle Jerry reflects on the challenges of integrating theological concepts into practical applications within the workplace, advocating for a closer alignment between theological education and the realities faced by church members in various professions. This dialogue underscores the importance of church leaders engaging with the lived experiences of their congregants, ensuring that theological discussions remain relevant and applicable to the diverse contexts in which individuals find themselves. The episode ultimately encourages listeners to contemplate how their faith can inform their professional choices, inspiring them to create a culture of empathy and support in their respective fields.

As the episode unfolds, Uncle Jerry's insights into the dynamics of the corporate world reveal the complexities of maintaining one's principles in a fast-paced, results-driven environment. He shares anecdotes that highlight the importance of prioritizing relationships over mere productivity, advocating for a work ethic that mirrors the teachings of the Church. This discussion serves as a call to action for listeners, inviting them to reflect on their own professional lives and consider how they can embody their faith in tangible ways, fostering a workplace environment that aligns with their values.

Takeaways:

• Jerry Kuntz emphasizes the importance of building one another up in both faith and work.
• He articulates that effective communication is vital for successful teamwork in account management.
• The podcast explores how theological discussions can be applicable to everyday occupational challenges.
• Uncle Jerry reflects on the significance of maintaining a positive attitude amidst workplace negativity.

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The Music in this episode is "Day by Day" by the Porter's Gate Collective. We received written permission for use of their song in this series and hope everyone will consider going over to hear the full song for themselves.

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Check out all of the other shows in the Anazao Podcast Network:

https://anazao-ministries.captivate.fm

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Don't miss any of the episodes we've done in this series so far:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/660c787f-d176-4587-b3b1-1e8fce4df217

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Check out more from TJ on Systematic Geekology:

https://player.captivate.fm/collection/642da9db-496a-40f5-b212-7013d1e211e0

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Check out Joshua's Kingdom Hearts substack, The Kingdom Key:

https://thekingdomkey.substack.com/

Mentioned in this episode:

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Day by Day, by The Porter's Gate Collective

Check out the full song and listen to other music by The Porter's Gate Collective - a music ministry with similar ecumenical goals to our own!

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Carpenter, you frame a house for those who need protection. Laborer, you lift a heavy burden for the weak. Leaders, build a city that our children may rejoice in. May God's kingdom come on earth.

His will be done.

Ephesians 4, verses 25, 29 in the Christian standard Bible. Therefore, putting away lying, speak the truth, each one to his neighbor. Because we are members of one another, be angry and do not sin.

Don't let the sun go down on your anger, and don't give the devil an opportunity. Let the thief no longer steal. Instead, he is to do honest work with his own hands so that he has something to share with anyone in need.

No foul language should come from your mouth, but only what is good for building up someone in need so that it gives grace to those who hear. In the book of Ephesians, St. Paul is explaining what it means to be the church.

Before this pericope, Paul wrote that the church is to work together in all our different roles. Here, St. Paul insists that the church builds one another up in word, in deeds, and he even ties this to our occupational lives as well.

Uncle Jerry Coutts, how do you think the way that we, the church, present ourselves and work might tie to this idea of building one another up?

Wow. Jumping in the deep end of the pool here, huh?

Always.

Well, I think there's a lot of opportunities to build each other up, and we try to do that with our teammates at work. I don't know if everyone does, but I certainly try on a daily basis because, you know, we all have problems, issues, downfalls.

You know, we have things that go wrong, and sometimes it gets frustrating and sometimes it can get negative. And, you know, negativity is. You know, everyone likes to join around the water cooler and they jump in and the negativity grows.

And we're going to kind of stop that and put a positive spin and acknowledge that it is real. But, you know, at the end of the day, we gotta keep moving because we gotta feed our families. And we do that by keeping our jobs.

And waiting doesn't help.

Yeah, for sure.

Lo be close to us, Lord. Have mercy on us, Lord, please.

Hey, guys, welcome to the Whole Church podcast. Doing again the whole church job fair. We're asking people about their. Their daily lives, what do they do at work?

And this can be a really fun episode. You might notice TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell, the inventor of podcasts, is not here with me today, but I'm really excited.

I have a very special guest, my uncle, Uncle Jerry Coons. Everyone is to call Him Uncle. It's his first name. Just like, you know, Phil Coulson's first name is Agent. His first name is, in fact, Uncle.

Uncle Jerry. How's it going?

It's going real well, Josh. Good to talk to you again.

Yeah, I am excited to have you on. This is your first time on the whole church podcast, so it's kind of fun. We.

It's fun because, like, I feel like we've done this for years and we're like, try not to just make it our family and friends and, like, be real serious about it.

And then we did this thing where we're talking about, like, people's jobs and we're like, yeah, now we're going to bring in all of our family, not all of our friends. DJ has family coming in. I'm gonna have my brother and my sister in law on also. Just like, yeah, we're just gonna do it. We're just gonna do it.

Now it's five years. They're. If they're either with us or they're not at this point, you know.

Exactly. And you got a big family, so you get a lot of different jobs to choose from.

It's true. It's true. And yeah, I'm excited for this too, because Uncle Jerry is my first. I can say this, confident.

Actually, my first interaction at all with the Catholic Church was getting to know Uncle Jerry. So we talk about ecumenical work or church unity. Yeah, that's the thing. Catholic church and Protestants haven't always been best of friends.

And I feel like. I feel like we get along pretty well. So we can talk about some of that while we're at it today.

So it's gonna be a lot of fun trying to remember how to do TJ's parts. I'm never good at it. Make sure you guys check out the other shows on the Anazole Podcast Network.

It's the network we're a part of, so it has shows like Systematic Ecology, Kung Fu Pizza Party, My Seminary Life. So we got a lot of fun stuff over there, so check that out.

Also, feel free to rate and review our show on Podchaser or GoodPods or Apple Podcasts or Spotify or, you know, somewhere that'll get us attention so that whenever people search things that we might come up, trick the algorithms into thinking we're important. It'll be great.

Yeah.

Yeah. So all that said, Uncle Jerry, you might not know this, but there's a sacrament we do on this show. It's sacred form of unity.

That is silliness, actually.

Okay.

Because you can't not be united when you're being as silly as I like to be. And this is a weird one we're doing for this series.

So in our Facebook group, we asked everybody, like, what the most talked about theological topics are at their church. We could see whether or not it's relevant to people's lives. And for some reason, someone threw up. There is a hot dog, a sandwich.

And then a lot of other people voted for it. I'm like, well, I feel like we have to include it, but I. I don't know where to include it. So I was like, that's the silly question now.

So, Uncle Jerry, let us know. Impart your divine wisdom on us. Is a hot dog sandwich.

I'm gonna say, if it's on bread, it's a sandwich. It's gotta be all right, we just eat a bratwurst and be done with it.

I mean, Bratworth's a good option, too.

So without bread, I can eat it on a stick.

Yeah, man. So now we need another family get together. We can cook out.

That's right.

But in what ways, if any, do you think this question could possibly be relevant to your life that a hot dog is about to sandwich?

Appreciate the heads up on that one, Josh. And. Well, it's relevant for a lot of reasons, you know, because the doctor told me to get more vegetables.

So my wife, who is a great cook, she made hot dogs the other day, but she added chili and onions and cheese. You know, in Cincinnati, they call that fish five way, I think. Well, five way would add spaghetti. You got bread, you don't need spaghetti.

But, yeah, part of a well balanced meal.

Definitely. Definitely. All right.

Well, with that, the reason we're doing this series for those listening is because a lot of our listeners are pastors, theologians, people who attend seminary, other kind of church leaders.

And we believe it's important that our church leaders hear more from people that are working in other occupations, you know, who aren't just, you know, in academia or in ministry, but who are in the real world, seeing what life is actually like. I think it's important that we hear from other people. So that's why we're doing this. I think it's been beneficial to me so far.

Hopefully, others are getting a lot out of it.

Uncle Jerry, you're not only the first Catholic I ever knew, because I think I've known you literally since I was born or within that first year at some point, but you're also who I've kind of held up to, comparing everything I heard growing up Pentecostal, you go to church camp or something, someone's always going to be like, well, Catholics say, or Catholics would do this. And I'm always, always like, uncle Jerry's not like that. What are you talking about? I'm always like, hold on, have y'all ever met a Catholic?

So, but, you know, there's a lot of comparison and a lot of like, oh, well, they're like this.

Could you maybe unpack a little bit like your history with the church for our listeners and then maybe address some of these stereotypes that maybe you've run into concerning, you know, the other side or anything like that? I know you kind of married into a Pentecostal family, which is pretty wildly different from the Catholic tradition.

So, yeah, you unpack some of that for us maybe, and maybe dispel some of these rumors.

Well, you know, gosh, it'll be 30 years. No, I'm sorry. It was 30 years that.

Well, actually, actually we met before your parents met and we dated for a while and they just got to the altar quicker than us. And so I've been part of this family for a long time and I've carried you on my shoulders when you weighed a whole lot less. Yeah.

About seventh grade you got bigger than me. So I, I stopped all that silliness and.

But anyhow, so a group in it, in, in a very isolated world, I guess because the city I live in has so many Catholics in our grade school, we had our own football league and we played eight or ten other Catholic teams. And then I went to Louisville, Kentucky and Louisville, Kentucky has even more Catholics than, than where I.

And there are dozens of really, really well respected Catholic high schools. Boys, girls co ed, all the rest in the grade schools and whatnot.

And so I went to Catholic preschool, kindergarten, grade school, high school and college. And University of Louisville was my first pagan institution. And it kind of blew my mind. I kept.

People were asking me to join their church and Hare Krishnas and, and all the different other Protestant religions. I was really kind of blown away because in my Catholic world, no one ever asked me to join the church because I was already part of the church.

And proceeded for, you know, it went on, went to church, you know, ran around my circle of my Catholic friends were it. Even when I joined your family, I, I went to one church, they went to another. I went to their Mass.

You know, Brother Ledford was a fantastic preacher and I really enjoyed his homilies were heartfelt and, and, you know, well researched and in, in scene, you Know who doesn't like to sing? Well, I like to sing.

And really what kind of caught me was I took a job in a city in western Kentucky, and one of my co workers came in and he would just quiz me every day and he would say, you know, we studied about the Catholic Church on our Wednesday night Sunday school, and you'll do this wrong and this wrong and this wrong. And. And, you know, I never encountered anything like that.

And like, well, you know, I went to Catholic schools for more than 16 years, and we never discussed any other religion.

And the fact that they were getting together on Wednesday night, Sunday school to talk about what the Catholics were doing wrong kind of blew me away. And in some respects, it made me start digging deeper into my faith and what we believe and why we believe so that I could defend my position.

Until a priest told me, you know, there's no point. Well, there may be no point in defending your position because most people don't want to know your position.

They are just waiting for you to stop talking so they can tell you their preconceived notions. And you just take turns talking about why you're right. So if you come at it from a. What you really want to understand is, what do you believe?

Why do you believe it? You know, what's right or wrong about it? That's a whole nother conversation. It's not some sort of ninja evangelical gotcha. You know, it's.

It's, hey, how can we grow closer to God? Because really, that's what this is all about is actually, you know, the goal is to get to heaven. Right. So how are we going to get to heaven?

What do we have to do? And there's a lot of good things and a lot of good churches.

And so if anything, I have learned, not that I learned to be more acceptance and learn more acceptance of it, but in the Catholic Church, I know what to say, when to say it. I know all the songs, I know all the words. I know that you know the prayers. I know when to stand, when to sit.

And when I went to my wife's church and.

And actually even your parents church because they lived in so many different cities, I've noticed that different cities, some are more vocal, some are more reserved. And it kind of blew my mind because it's not the faith that I've been practicing. But I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it. It's just.

It's just different.

Yeah. Yeah.

I found it really interesting when I started going to more high liturgical church Just like, I don't know, since I'm like, I don't know what's going on, you know, those kind of stuff, I feel like, aren't as big a deal. The stuff you're talking about, though, like, it's interesting.

I really haven't heard it the other way around either, where, like, I do hear a lot of Protestant churches who are, like, equipping people in case a Catholic, you know, or if a Jehovah Witness comes to you, what should you say? Or a Mormon or, you know, insert here.

And I think some of them have good points, you know, understand what you believe, so you're ready if someone, like, talks to you. But a lot of it just does bother me because a lot of it is, here's what they believe and here's how you get them. And. And even.

We actually interviewed a Mormon family on our show, and it was so interesting how many times people are like, here's what you need to ask them. This will really get them. I'm curious what they'll say about. About Jesus being God. They'll never have an answer for that.

And we ask them, and they're like, well, yeah, of course Jesus is God. And I'm like, well, they said you'd never have an answer for that. And you just said, of course. And I was like, now what do I do?

The fact that, like, oh, go ahead.

No, well, I didn't want to interject. One of my roommates in college was Mormon. And I'm telling you what, one of the greatest guys you'll ever meet.

I mean, humble Christian, he did everything right. He really did his best in everything he could do. His religious beliefs and mine were not in sync at all. But, yeah, he was a great guy.

Still is a great guy.

Yeah. Yeah. And someone on my floor in my dorm, it wasn't a roommate, but, you know, very, very similar situation.

I think the thing that still blows my mind, every time we have someone who is of the Catholic tradition on our show, I'm inevitably, in the next week, someone's going to be like, do they still, like, do they call themselves Christians even? And I'm like, like, yeah, they were the OG Christians. What do you. What do you mean?

Thank you. Yes.

Started it.

That's kind of how we see it, right? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's my thing.

Like, there are differences of opinion, differences of belief still, but, like, how you go about it, I think makes a really big difference. On our other podcast, Systematic Ecology, we're doing a series called Finding the Good.

And we're taking different things that we disagree on and actively trying to say, if I was the other side, how would I present this? And I think that's probably more helpful than defending yourself against them. Just kind of think empathy. What do they believe? Why do they believe it?

How are they raised? Where are they coming from? Rather than, here's what they believe and here, how I going to ask a gotcha question? That stuff's just.

It's just silly, really. Like, you know, like, I don't know. To me, that's just not what Jesus was about. But anyway, I digress. I digress.

I do want to ask, since you married into the family you kind of touched on a little bit, how would you describe the way for listeners that you've navigated your faith in the family?

You married into tradition when it comes to stuff like weddings, kids, baptisms, you know, the church you attend, even, like, how do you kind of navigate that?

Well, you know, what we try to do is we try to. My wife is such a good Christian, I'm never gonna pull over the Catholic faith, you know, and. And she's probably never gonna pull me over.

You know, we're both kind of headstrong and we both have our beliefs, but I go to her church a lot, and she goes to my church a lot. And, you know, she doesn't get as much out of mine, and I don't get as much out of hers.

Of course, in her church, they're singing songs that are on the radio. Pop. Pop Christian songs and. And I don't know any of. When they have the words on the screen, I sing along because I like to sing and I'm.

I'm part of it. I really enjoy the. Her preacher and his message and a lot of that. Now some of the things.

Some things are really blowing my mind and I don't mind bringing this up. Random people speaking in tongues in the middle of a service, very loudly. Yeah, we don't. We don't do that. Yeah. You know.

Yeah, And I say that, but I'm from the Midwest, I'm from the Bible Belt, and, you know, we're conservative, you know, by nature. I have family in Florida and in their Catholic churches, they are more. They're more vocal. Yeah, but it's a different set of people.

I mean, you know, they've got international people. People come to Florida.

Right.

And they live there and it's great weather and.

Yeah.

And you can make a lot of, you know, Kentucky said, well, you know, it was 20 degrees two days ago and it's 60 degrees today and it's going to be 100 degrees in August. And you know, we just trudge through our misery and, and, and deal with the weather. So it's just a whole different world.

I mean, Kentucky is better during the summer than Florida. I would argue Florida's unbearable in this.

Well, you know, the one thing I got to say about Kentucky is our tap water comes out of the ground at 55 degrees. So you can pour a drink out of the sink and enjoy it.

Florida, every time I visited I pour tap water and it's like, did you get this out of the swimming pool? I mean, what is this?

Yeah, and it's got sulfur in it. I don't know. All of Florida's water just tastes like sulfur anyway.

Yeah, yeah. Fountain of juice, right?

Yeah. I don't know. But yeah, I mean it's just interesting. And I'll say for myself because I'm curious your kind of perspective on this too.

When I was still attending my parents church, I kind of changed my way of beliefs before I stopped attending just, you know, stuff I studied and learned and talking to different people. And it come to a part where like they would say stuff about the Bible or something. I'm like, that's not, it's not true.

Or they'd be like, everyone always believes this. I'm like, no, actually they don't. And you know, they start making points and I'm like, I don't agree with that.

And for me it became really hard not to focus on those things, you know, because like my parents pastor is great, he still says and I'm still friends with him. There's still a lot of stuff that he says that I do agree with.

But sometimes when you sit in a sermon like that, you're like, it's hard not to let go of the fact that you just said something like Paul. Whenever Paul's name got changed, it was because I'm like, Paul's name never changed. Hold up. It was Saul, whose name is also Paul.

That's actually just in the text. Like it says that you just got to read it. And it was really hard for me not to harp on stuff like that.

Do you ever have that issue where like something comes up and it's hard not to harp on that because you seem like you still really appreciate the message.

Yeah, there are a few things. You know, I was at a service not long ago and they were talking about, you know, boast. You know, I can't boast in my deeds.

Can only boast in the Lord at which we believe. And they said, I mean, think about all Jesus's brothers. And they didn't boast that, hey, my brother's Jesus.

And kind of caught me, I was like, wait a minute, do you believe that Jesus had physical brothers? Because we don't. We say, you know, there were brothers as the same as hey brother, you know, I love you brother, and this and that.

But in our faith we believe that Jesus was an only child and so there were no brothers.

So slight theological things like that, but that doesn't take away from the fact that Jesus is God and he's consubstantial with God and the Holy Spirit and he's one. One with God is God and that the only way to salvation is through God, through Jesus Christ. So that doesn't change the goal.

The way I like to say it is we're on the same team, you know, we just have slightly different rules. If you ever played Euchre in Indiana, it's like you're making this stuff up. You know, they just played their card games are different.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, maybe even like, like when you go from one league of football to the next, I feel like it's really confusing for people if they're watching because I watch a lot of college football and like, wait, that guy was out. Both feet weren't inbound. He only needs one foot of bounds.

It's like.

What do you mean, like football? That's how it works. That's right, yeah. Still football. But anyway, so this is our job fair, the whole church job fair.

So before we get to any of the other stuff, for people who maybe don't know what you do or don't understand what the job is, you are a strategic account manager. What is that? And how would you address anyone who might be interested in pursuing that kind of career?

So this is the largest company I've ever worked for. 32 million customers, 100,000 employees. So it's a really big company.

But to put it in perspective, AT&T has 250,000 employees, which, you know, they're the 800 pound gorilla in the room. So I'm in the same business as AT and T.

I work with, I work for Spectrum and competitor would be Comcast, but not really because Comcast is a different market. So we don't compete with each other actively. And AT&T is there too. But so what I'm getting at is a lot of sales jobs.

You go, you sell, you do this and that. As an account manager by Definition, I work with customers who are already customers.

I work with a defined customer base, and even if I have friends who want me to help them, I can't help them if they don't fit into my defined customer base. And. And that's what the strategic part is about, is I work with governments and schools.

Some of my friends work with hospitals, some work with hotels. Some work with Fortune 500 companies, so they have their own strategic group.

So my strategic group is government and education, and I'm an account manager, meaning I work with existing customers as opposed to some people on my team who go out and call on new schools, new governments, ones that we're not servicing yet, and they try to bring them into the company. So at the end of the day, it's a sales job. But I have limitations and I have goals.

So yours is more about satisfaction and retention with current customers.

Well, that and growing the base, because as we grow, we're offering more goods and services and have to work with these customers to let them know, hey, you know, we do this too. We do this really well, and this is what might benefit you.

Okay. Okay. A little bit of upselling. I like it. Yeah.

You know, when I was in college, I was waiting tables and someone had a great meal. Would you like to finish off with some cheesecake?

Yeah, but that's what I was like. I was like. Like, it's like if I see someone who comes in every day at Chipotle, you know, that's where I work. And, you know, sometimes.

Have you tried our queso? Sometimes I might even give them a free queso. Maybe next time they'll start ordering the queso. You know, that's what I was thinking.

I was like, okay, that sounds like.

Your case was pretty killer, so why not?

I enjoy the case of all that. But so what if somebody was like, hey, I kind of want to do account management, office job kind of stuff. That's why they're trying to get into.

What would your advice be as far as getting into it?

Goodness sakes. Well, a company like this, you would have to have sales experience, so you'd have to be doing something somewhere and show that you can do it.

You know, my daughter has a job, and she. She. Well, both my daughters have jobs, and her resume was all about. I went to this school. I made these grades, I got these awards.

I made these accomplishments, which is great for your first job, but in your second job, what they want to know is, what'd you do at your first job? School's important. A little Bit, but they want to know, okay, now you hit the ground running. What have you done?

So the first thing you've got to do is you've got to have some sales credentials and haven't done things and it wouldn't hurt to get on with, try to get on with a bigger company. So do you understand some of the bureaucracy?

I mean, when you have more than a hundred thousand employees, you've got to understand, here's HR department, there's, here's what they do, you know, here's engineering and here delivery, and here's customer service.

Because the thing is, I'm not customer service when a customer has a problem customer willing to talk to tech support or billing support or some kind of client services. And that's frustrating for me in a way because I've always worked for smaller companies and I've been able to help my customers everywhere I can.

But with billing, I don't have access to the billing records. So how can I help them with something that I can't see? So where I compensate for that is I say, call me.

Let's work together, figure out who you need to talk to. Even if I can't help you, I can help you not spend four hours on the phone trying to find.

Let's get you the first to the correct group the first time. So adding some more people did that?

Yeah, yeah, I wish our WI FI people did that here. I've been on the phone with them all day. Oh man.

But so what are some things that you would say are normal in your occupation that maybe other people might not think about? So like in the restaurant, you know, you have like the back of house versus the front of house kind of rift.

Is there anything in account management that's like maybe just stuff that we wouldn't think about?

Gosh, there's a, there's a thousand things. Well, the number one issue I face every day, not, not every day. We have a lot of customers I've worked with for 10 years.

I've had some customers I've worked with for 30 years and they've worked with me at different companies I've gone to and they call me all the time because they know that I've established with them that I am here to help. Let's try to make this work. How can we make your life better? And you know, this is a for profit company, so we're going to make a profit on it.

But it's not like we're going to gouge you. We just, we, you know, we need to be paid for our time. Because I can't hire engineers to help out if I can't pay the engineers.

And if I can't pay the engineers, they're going to go to someplace else that will pay them and we're left hanging. So I guess I'm trying to say is one of bigger frustrations is the people don't know you're their partner. Because really, we're here to partner.

Yeah.

Now, does everything work out? No. Sometimes it's not a good fit. You know, sometimes. Do you like this service of ours? But that service doesn't make any sense.

But we can at least talk about it and see if we can move forward and if it makes sense to go on like that. So that's the other side that really most people don't know about is the backside.

You know, when I work in restaurants, you know, hey, we want to sell all the salmon. We want to sell a snapper, and then we 86 it, like, well, crap.

I just told this table how great our snapper is, and you've 86 it, and there's none to be sold. So, you know, it's communication with the back end. There's a lot of things, too, on the back end, too, that we'll never see.

You know, in a restaurant, if you've got a table of eight people, you want eight entrees, come out at the same time.

Yeah, that's. That's rough.

So, you know, if you bring out one, what do they do? Sit there and wait till it's cold and be polite and have a horrible experience? Or do they eat it while everyone else watches them?

That's another horrible experience. There's a lot on the back end.

And so part of it is we, you know, being a waiter or bartender or whatever you do on the front of the house, you can't see what's going on in the back, and you don't know what the problem is. So you have to have some blind faith. So that's where communication helps.

You have to say, hey, these people all at the same table and they want their food at the same time. Or here's an appetizer, someone's going to eat their appetizer as their main course.

So this appetizer doesn't come out first, and he's come out with all the other entrees. How's it cook going to know? Unless you tell them to communicate with them. And so we have the same thing going on here.

In my industry, you know, when people are making changes or they're going to do an upgrade or going to add a service or maybe discontinue a service.

If you cut off their Internet because they're going to a faster Internet and you cut it off two weeks before the new Internet comes on board, that's a nightmare.

And that means your next two weeks are going to be filled with angry phone calls and not able to help other customers because you're having to put out fires. So what you want to do is you want to communicate with the back end. And that's what a lot of people don't get is.

And this is one of my real pet peeves is the people on the back end are not your enemy. They're your teammates, they're your peers. And let's treat them with respect because you can't do your job without them. And, and they remember that.

Ten years later, they remember, hey, that's Jerry. He's not a jerk. He might have screwed up, but he's trying his best. And I'm trying my best too.

So that's part of being a Christian and being in a modern workplace where even though things are results driven and numbers driven, you still got to work with other people.

Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.

Well, another thing when I saw, because you already mentioned like the restaurant stuff, so, you know, like at our house, me and my wife both worked in restaurants, so sometimes, you know, Tiffany will be like, oh, hey, you make the bed. I'm just heard. And for us that's normal, but for other people it's like, did he just say herd? Like, you mean you're going to do it? Like, what do you.

It's like, oh, that's just what you say in a restaurant. And like, even today, if I see some pictures that are like, you know, really like overexposed or like really red.

From my time working at Shutterfly, if I see something that looks red tinted, you know, most people are like, oh, well, take the red out. My first thought is like, I look at it and I'm like, oh, you just got to add some green to that.

Exactly.

It's like that makes no sense to anybody else. Yeah. Um, is there any, like, language specific stuff from your job that maybe, like, people don't wouldn't know about?

Like, first think about, like, as far as, like, how do you talk?

Everything we do is a three letter acronym, A tla unless it's a four letter acronym. And that's one of my pet peeves. And I like to say that my. One of my main jobs is, is interpreting geek speak.

To plain language so that the finance director, the HR director, the CEO understands what we're trying to do. And one thing is, I'm gonna bring up phones because it's one of my favorite thieves.

Everyone's used to a phone and everyone's got their cell phone and their landlines and everything. Well, traditional landline is a POTS line. Pots. And POTS is an acronym for plain old telephone service. And I died laughing. I learned that.

I'm like, you mean you actually came up with a four letter acronym to replace instead of saying a phone line, it's a POTS line and plenty of telephone service. But.

And so when we're in a meeting and our engineers say, well, those are POTS lines and we need to go to SIP or VOIP or something like that, everything we have is, is a three letter acronym.

Yeah.

And the best acronym is Twain Compliant. That's from my days back in the computer business.

There are many theories what Twain means, but the prevailing theory is Twain stands for technology without an interesting name. It is a thing. And so you ask your dad, he probably knows about it.

Oh, man, I love that though. That's so funny. Oh, so I love, I just love hearing like some of like the, the language stuff because it's always interesting.

Like people just speak whole of languages at work sometimes and you just would never know.

Well, and not just that we change our, we change our acronyms. We used to sell fia, and now it's dfi. But before was it was dia and then fia, and then now it's dfi and it's the exact same product.

But there is logic while the name changed and I'm not going to bore you with it, and it makes perfect sense and it's what we're using nowadays. But you know, over 20, 30 years, products change and evolve.

And DFI is a more accurate, more complete description of the product that one of the products that we're selling.

All right, all right, I dig it. I'm going to have to use Twain at some point, though. I'm going to have to find an excuse to.

That's right.

So for part of the chunk of these episodes, what we really wanted to do, so I mentioned earlier, we asked our Facebook group, what are the things you hear when you're at seminary, when you're at your churches that are being argued about by our pastors, our theologians, our professors, podcast even.

And we wanted them to come up with 12, so we gave them a bunch of stuff on Facebook, the top 12 we were putting up on here of what they think people are talking about to see whether or not these topics are actually relevant to everyday life. So I'm going to run through these 12, and for each one, I just need you to tell me if you find it somewhat relevant. Not relevant, really relevant.

Or you could say, I've never heard of it, which would be an even more interesting answer, honestly.

Okay.

All right, so if you're okay, then I'm gonna go ahead and start with the first one here. All right, Uncle Jerry, let me know what's relevant. Soteriology, the nature of what it means to be saved.

That topic doesn't come up very often in my church.

All right. Free will versus predestination.

That's what we studied in theology class. And my nephew studying it in theology class and has never been discussed since.

All right. Atonement models.

Atonement models, you'll have to just never.

Heard of it works. I think that's a fine one.

Well, no, no, see, I mean, if you're going to atone for your sins, you know, you're going to understand the word, understand the concept. You know, we have confession, but with the priests, and we don't do burnt offerings, you know, So I. I guess I don't understand the. The framework.

Atonement models refers to the. The different models people believe in of how Jesus atoned for sins. Whether it was by his death, his resurrection, by beating up sin.

Christ is victorious is one. For some reason. There's a lot of interesting, weird theories on how it actually works.

Yeah, that exact phrase has never come across my desk.

So that's great to know. All right. Continuationism versus cessationism. When it comes to, like, the gifts of the Spirit speaking in tongues, that kind of stuff.

Say that again, please. Continuation.

Yeah, it's continuationism versus cessationism. The argument of whether, like, the gifts of the spirit speaking in tongues still exist today or not.

I'm failing this test.

That is not a test. It's, you know, it's helpful for us to know what people are actually. You know, what's actually useful to think about Christ? Christology.

Just the study of Christ.

The study of Christ. Christology. Yeah, that's not a word that we use very often.

All right. Is God's nature relevant to your regular life?

Is God's nature or character?

What about social justice?

Social justice is brought up a lot. And traditionally, the Catholic Church has been very liberal. I mean, that's why we invented the university system.

And you look at all the Catholic hospitals and all the orphanages and all the things that we've done. And when I was a child, you would say that to be Catholic you have to be a Democrat. When all that changed was abortion. Abortion is a non.

Now, I know Catholics that don't have a problem with abortion, but the official church position is no abortion. You also can't just row. You can't, you can't kill people.

Yeah, yeah.

Not to harp on it since I know we're just running through these really quick, but yeah, I, I think that's one of the interesting things is how often people are like, well, Christians are. If they're against abortion, why aren't they against death row?

And you know, my thing, it's always been interesting because I'm like, well, Catholics are against.

So.

But there's a lot of inconsistency.

And I know we're going through this list, but I mean, the thing is that you see some things in the news and as a human, as a father, and I imagine if these things happen to my family, my daughters, my sisters, you know, whatever happened, you just think, you know, that putting them to death would be the best thing. But as a Christian, the church's position is this. Jesus is more interested in your future than your past and gave you someone's life.

You rob them of the opportunity for salvation. So maybe they're never going to be saved, but what if they got saved?

What if they're going to get saved next year, but you took their life this year, so now they're going to burn in hell because they never had a chance to recognize Jesus. And so that's what we have to be against it.

All right, I'm going to put social justice really relevant then. All right, next, the doctrine of imago dei, being made in the image of God, is that relevant to your life?

You know, not speaking for the church, speaking for me personally. When I was at a non Catholic mass or service the other day, they sang a popular song.

They talked about, you know, something like, I want to be like Jesus or I'm going to be just like Jesus. And I had to think back to the Bible. They said, you know, being like Jesus is nothing we should ever strive for. I mean, it shouldn't be possible.

We're not saved by being like Jesus. You know, we're saved because of Jesus and our belief in Jesus.

And I kind of think it's heresy to say I want to be like Jesus because that's not what we're called to do. If we accept Jesus, then we're going to want to be a better person.

And if we're a better person, we treat other people better, we treat ourselves better, we have a better attitude. But how are we ever going to be like Jesus? That just kind of weird me out. But again, I'm not speaking for the Catholic Church.

I'm thinking as Joe schmo, who is one of 8 billion Catholics, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.

So is that created in the image of God? Not relevant there.

Well, I think that we are created in the image of God. And. And because the Bible tells us that we are, but that means that. That trying to be like God is. Is even something different.

Okay, all right, next one. Is the nature of Scripture.

Or what.

What. What is Scripture? Is that relevant to you or not relevant? Very relevant.

Yeah. So again, that. That's just a very Protestant thing to ask, you know, so Sola scriptura, we can go into that.

Whether that's ripe or not, or the, you know, the. The. We read the Bible, we believe the Bible.

If you understand the Catholic Mass, you understand that everything is biblically based, and we could really get down to the nitty gritty. But. But that would bore you.

So the Scripture is very important, but there's also, in our faith, there's the tradition, and, you know, we believe that the apostles and the Pope, you know, that St. Peter was the first Pope.

And so part of this is a relationship, because in assembling the Bible, there are a lot of really good texts that didn't make a cut. It's not that they were wrong. They weren't. It wasn't heresy. It's just they didn't make the cut, and there's a lot more to it.

Yeah. All right. Okay. Someone relevant, then. Ecclesiology and missiology.

So that's just what it means to be the Church and, like the theology of what the Church does out in the world. Is that relevant to you? Not relevant. Somewhat relevant. Where are you putting that one?

It probably should be more relevant, but somewhat.

The thing is, you know, as much as reading Bible every day and trying to be a good Christian and practicing our faith, we've also got a mortgage and, you know, car payments and a job, and, you know, hopefully I'll retire in a few years and I can focus on that, which is a horrible thing to say, because we need to be focused on that now because we never know the day, the day, the hour, you know, we don't know. Yeah, you have to be prepared.

Definitely. Definitely.

All right, well, that might get us into the last two for your year, then the study of angels or the study of demons, is that relevant to your life in the least?

The study of them is not relevant to my life, but the belief in them is.

Okay, yeah, all right, I'm gonna put that as somewhat relevant then. All right, last one. Never relevant. Somewhat relevant. Really relevant. The study of the end times, eschatology.

The end times.

Yeah, we might be in them.

So yeah, you know, gosh, no one knows that they or they are. Right. You know, to me, in some ways, the study of the end times, and this is just me personally, this isn't a faith based thing.

It's kind of irrelevant because we don't know when it's coming. We don't know if it's a million years from now. We don't know if it's tomorrow. So we have to be prepared today.

Okay.

And, and you know, it's like, you know, selling Marvel comics, it's really interesting. Yeah, but, but it doesn't, it doesn't feed my family, doesn't get me into heaven.

Yeah, yeah, it's interesting how many people would just straight up said that the last two, like the angels, demons, eschatology, they're like, yeah, that stuff's not really relevant. Like everybody just kind of like that's not relevant. I like your take of like. Yeah, but we don't actually know when the end times. When is the end.

So could be relevant. Relevant the next second. Yeah, yeah.

So if you had to pick one of those above 12 that we mentioned to talk just a couple sentences about a little bit more about that you thought was relevant, which one would you pick?

Well, I'm gonna go off, off script here and, and change the subject.

And the thing is that, all right, the things you're asking are, I mean, you know, Judy is in a study, you know, Judy, we both know and love Judy and, and she's studying theology. So the questions to me are questions that a theologian will ask another theologian. And you know, and, and you know, really deep.

And what I'm talking about is, you know, the, the, the, the, the boots on the street, the real people.

And one of the biggest things that has, I have seen in my personal life is people saying, and this is in many religions, don't get anything out of church service. I don't get anything out of mass. I don't get anything out of this and that.

And yeah, they might go on, the might sing and they might have a good time or they might go to their service and their, your kids or grandkids are up on the altar and they're singing and, and, you know, and it's entertaining, but I don't get anything out of our church. Service, to me, is the biggest problem we face today.

And the reason why is because we're Americans and we're spoiled and we're used to YouTube and we're used to, you know, Facebook and things and sitting back entertainment. We don't go to church to be entertained.

A friend of mine had a new preacher, came from another country, really hard to understand, and he was struggling because he wasn't getting as much out of the service because he didn't understand what the guy was saying. And my point is this. We don't go to church to be entertained. We go to the church for the single reason.

To give love, honor, worship, glory to Jesus Christ, to God our Savior, and to give praise and thanks. So we don't go to get, don't. We're not going to be entertained. We're going to give worship, honor, glory. We're not going to get.

We're not going to become entertained. And if you go to service and if you, you know, engage the right way, you're going to get a lot more out of it because you're given more.

When you're given more, you get more. And that, to me, is the biggest problem today.

Yeah, yeah. No, I like that. I think that does get a little bit into, like, what it means to be the church is like, what are we doing? What is the point of this?

Right. I guess what's gnawing at me with this series, right, is like, you said those things, those are the things that we're talking about in seminary.

Judy's probably studying when she's doing theology, all that kind of stuff.

And I know originally, and I think it's probably still part of the idea, if you really depress someone on it is like these things, we're studying them so that we better understand God and all this stuff so that we can better be the church. Not necessarily entertain, but, you know, equip people to talk about God and to understand their faith.

And that's supposed to enrich their relationship with God, I guess. But then a lot of it, like, when you look at it just face value, you're like, but how, how is that doing that?

You know, we talked about before, you know, in Protestant camps, a lot of people are like, okay, so if we crack the code of revelation, I'm going to figure out that the Antichrist is really someone in Russia and his name is. You know what I mean? Like, like.

And it's like, okay, but like, how does it actually, like, when you go to your job, you're trying to pay your bills, does that actually make any difference at all? Like, and like you said, like, we go to give to God, and I believe, you know, we don't go to give so that we can get anything from God necessarily.

But I think that relationship with God matters and it should impact every part of your life, even your work life. So I just feel like that maybe there's a little bit of a disconnect when we're looking at all these kind of things. What do you think about that?

I think that's a good idea. There's a big disconnect. A lot of things we're doing and a lot of. Okay. I mentioned this to your dad 30 years ago.

Yeah.

For most of history, you think about kings. You, if you were so bold as to look up at a king, you could be beheaded. We are arrogant Americans living in an, in a technological age.

And I just think that we have to be careful because I think that we've got a certain arrogance. We look at you, I'm looking at your house.

You've got electric lights, presumably, you have central air, obviously you have an animal, you know, I mean, obviously a microphone beside you. You are, I mean, think about 150 years ago, you are more affluent than, you know, 99 of the population.

And so that arrogance lets us think that we are somehow important, more important. And, and we're not. We're just people. We're here for a short period of time. We're going to go away. But God is eternal. He's beyond time.

And I just think that we have to kind of sit back and think, you know, you know, really who are we? And in our relationship with God, a lot of it has to do with, hey, you're the man, please don't abandon me, and I believe in you and I love you.

And I just think about that a lot.

Yeah, I like. You keep using the word relationship. I like that a lot. And trying to kind of like, tie some of these loose thread ideas together for myself.

I think a lot of the times when we focus so much on theology in the west especially, I think a lot of it is almost, maybe no one would say it, but I feel like it's almost that subconscious level of arrogance of like, if I just crack the code and I know my theology, good Enough. Then my life's going to be great because I'll have this great relationship with God. But we never think of our other relationships like that, right?

Like, I never think, like, man, if I just learned the favorite kind of material that Uncle Jerry likes in his T shirt, then all of a sudden I'm gonna have a great relationship with my uncle and everything's gonna be awesome, right? Like, you don't think, like, I don't think about that with my wife. I don't even think about that with my dog.

I'm not like a man if I just study him good enough. I have a great relationship with my pets, right? Like, no one thinks like that.

That.

And yet it feels like that's what we're treating God like if we crack the code, all of a sudden, the relationship's going to be great. And maybe we just need to have a relationship and not try to, you know, treat it that way.

Maybe, you know, I mean, when we look at, again, the Catholic Church, so you. We have the doctors of the church, most of those came from the third and fourth century.

And understanding, you know, the relationship of God and the church and things like that, and, and I think that was important, but you had largely uneducated global population. And, and I understand the need for theology and, and, and I agree with theology and study and pursuing and trying to understand better.

But you just said it yourself, or. Well, that's what I understood you to say. You know, this is really about you and God.

And because knowing you can know God, you can know all the rules, you can know all the theories, that's not going to get you into heaven. You know, there's only one way to heaven, and that's through Jesus Christ. And. Yeah, and you can be a, an idiot and get in heaven.

So if you learn that, that's great and if you can use that to help draw people closer to God, that's. I, I think that that's a worthy cause. But I don't know that knowledge for knowledge sake is going to help you in the long run.

It's not going to help me in the long run. Now, I'm still going to read because I'm interested. You know, I want to know. I want to know more. I want to know why and, and how.

But knowing that, again, knowing that, it's not going to get me into heaven.

Yeah, well, I mean, even tying it back around to, like, you know, still got to pay my bills, got to work my job, you know, no amount of theology and even relationship with God is Going to change those things. I think theology just kind of fill up your head.

But I think a relationship, just like when you're going through a hard time, it's good to have family, friends who, you know, are there with you. I feel like it's even better to have God.

And, you know, if you look through the Bible and you actually read it, you're like, oh, well, you know, a lot of these people maybe knew a lot about God and still had some pretty crappy lives, right? Like, some terrible things happened to some of the prophets, but God was still with them. So I think that's a.

Maybe that's a good takeaway, is really learning to focus on that relationship.

I heard a speaker the other day, and we're getting off the subject a little bit, but he was talking about in psalms, and I wrote it down. I don't remember which one it is. I don't know, maybe 55. But he was going on.

He's like, God, because, you know, because of my relationship with you, I've lost my wife, I've lost my family. I've lost the farm. I've lost. You know, people hate me, people discourage me. You know, know, I'm just so angry with you and any other.

The point of the talk was that this guy was really upset with God and he settled us to God. And yet it still made the cut. It's in the Bible, which tells you that it is okay to be angry with God.

And things might not go well because of your relationship with God. And I was like, that kind of blew me away. Because, you know, in our modern world, you know, the. On tv, you hear the. The gospel of prosperity.

If you will just send me, you know, $50, you know, then you're gonna get that job you want. You're gonna have that new Mercedes. And it's not just not that way.

Yeah. Oh, man. Good stuff.

Well, Uncle Jerry, one thing we're doing for all this series that we're asking everyone, you know, everyone sees the world through different eyes. That's something we believe. And I mentioned earlier, a lot of our listeners are pastors, people in seminary, that kind of stuff.

Is there anything you think that in your work as an account manager that maybe something that you see that our pastors, church leaders and theologians might not be able to see for themselves, that they'd benefit from learning from?

Well, you know, I don't know that it's anything that not everyone sees. I just think that the something that you learned is that people aren't always honest, taking things at face value, sometimes not.

I'll be good, but I can't live my life being cynical.

I like to think that I give people the benefit of the doubt and I do my best and I'm going to be honest with people, and I like to think they're the same. And I get burnt sometimes, but most of the time I don't. Most time I end up up finding good people. I find difficult.

People sometimes are difficult because of things that they've experienced before. Real things. Maybe not real to you or me, but real to them. And if we can find a way to connect, you know, we can develop great relationships and.

And then also knowing that there are a few of the people who just aren't going to. To like you no matter what you do, and it can't ever be trusted. But you know what? Don't always have to work with those people.

You can say, no, thank you.

Why wipe the dust from your feet following that.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. Good stuff. All right, well, we're getting near the end here, and we. We always like to give someone. People something tangible.

I think end of our episode, there's nothing practical they can do.

So we just kind of wanted to ask everybody if someone in the church or the church themselves were listening to this and they were thinking about, like, what could they do to help benefit or to just be there for someone who is in your job.

So, like, if, you know, someone in the church is like, man, I just want to do something for a strategic account manager that's in our church, what's the most helpful thing that maybe they could do for them?

For me, just, let's talk. Let's sit down and talk. I'm not talking about business. I'm talking about. Let's just talk. Let's have, you know, let's.

Let's find new and kindle new friendships and. And grow and become better people and because, you know, this. Your job stressful, but at some point your job ends and you need people and.

Yeah, I'm so looking to meet new people.

Yeah, yeah, good stuff. Stuff. I like it. Well, what if everybody did that? If everybody just took the time to have conversations, you know, to.

Not about work or maybe not even about ministry, just to talk and to be there with each other. What do you think we might see change in the world around us, that people started doing that more?

I think, Yeah, I think the world could be a lot better place.

Yeah, probably. I like to think so.

Yeah.

Oh, man. All right. Well, with that, we do end our show. We call our God moment segment where we just share somewhere. We've seen God recently in our own lives.

Mine's really easy. This week, my dog Copper, who, you know, he's been through a lot. We talked about on the show before he.

Yesterday, the day of recording this, got his muzzle off, and, man, I took him on. I was just happy to see his face. You know, something about just seeing his face without that thing. This is great.

I took him on a walk and he sniffed everything. He was just shoving his face up on stuff because, like, he was just so happy to act like a hound dog again. And I'm like, I don't know.

Did my heart good. And, you know, just seeing God in little things like that, I guess. Yeah. Uncle Jerry, what about you? Where have you seen God recently?

I've seen God recently. My goodness, I see God everywhere.

I was at a men's conference at church, and I saw some friends who I hadn't seen in a while, and I saw God, and then I saw God. I spent some time with Lily this weekend, Judy's daughter, and my gosh, what a refreshing child. Just restores your faith and just.

The whole world is new and the whole world's exciting. And I saw God in her.

Yeah, yeah. You know, life just gets crazy the older you get and you get so busy.

And I feel like one of the first times I've really got to spend time with Lily was at Rachel's wedding last year. And I'm like, she really is. She's such a delight. And sometimes just children exemplify God more than anything, I think. No, not because of theology.

Just kind of like a. Yeah, it's great. It's great, but. Well, thank you so much, Uncle Daria, for joining us today. It's been a lot of fun and very enlightening.

So I thank you for all of that and just for agreeing to talk with me. Trying to remember how to do TJ's part. He wants everybody to share this episode with a friend, an enemy, me, or a cousin.

I have at least two cousins who are Jerry's daughters. I'll just share it with both of them. That's my job. I don't know what you guys are gonna do, but. So thank you all for listening.

If you want, you can subscribe to our show Captivate, Apple Podcast, or Patreon. You get some extra content on there occasionally. We've not been great at that lately because I've been busy moving, but we do update it sometimes.

Also want to tell you guys to take the chance if you get it to check out the other shows on the Amazon Podcast Network. I mentioned that earlier. Kung fu pizza parties over there. So that's a lot of fun. My seminary life. Let nothing move you.

It's a Bible podcast, if you like the Bible, so maybe that's a good one. Check out. We hope you all enjoyed the show. Next week we're going to be joined by Kristen Tiedman, co owner of Tidy Studios.

She's going to be joining us to talk about her job and how. How her faith tradition impacts her daily life as an event planner as well as a producer.

Then we will be interviewing Officer Thurman about how his faith impacts his life as a police officer in South Carolina.

And after that, someone with the last name Blackwell, not sure who, is hopefully going to be joining us to talk about how their life impacts how their faith impacts their life as a welder. Yeah, DJ's family's largely welders, so someone from TJ's family is going to be on too, guys.

And finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on.

Perhaps he doesn't know about it, so someone has to tell him or I sign a petition, send him a letter, something, you know, we got to keep doing the bit. So that's where we're at, doing the bit. And thank you all again for listening. Until next time.

Be close to us, Lord have mercy on us Lord Please put your hand on us day by day, Lord Be close to us, Lord have mercy on us Lord Please put your hand on us day by day.