"I lost five council members when I tried to make changes."

This candid admission from a church leader captures the real challenges of leading congregations today. In this special Q&A episode, hosts Alicia Granholm, Dwight Zscheile, and Terri Elton tackle your most pressing questions about church leadership and change.

Drawing from questions submitted by listeners in the field, our hosts explore how to build motivation for change, ways to discern God's will as a community, practical approaches to neighborhood ministry for commuter churches, and strategies for building trust while leading through lament. Whether you're facing council resistance or seeking to guide your congregation into God's future, this episode offers both practical wisdom and spiritual encouragement for the journey. Featuring insights on the "five whys" exercise, storytelling practices for building trust, and scripture-based approaches to discernment from Acts 16.

Resources Mentioned:

• “Grounded in God: Listening Hearts Discernment for Group Deliberations” Morehouse Publishing, 1996) by Suzanne G. Farnham et al.
• “Pursuing God’s Will Together” by Ruth Haley Barton, D.D.
• Acts 16 passage on discernment

Mentioned in this episode:

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Alicia Granholm: Hello everyone, and welcome to The Pivot podcast, where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm host Alicia Granholm and I am joined by Dwight Zscheile and Terri Elton.

Dwight Zscheile: If you're not familiar with what we do at pivot, we believe there are four key pivots God is calling many churches to make in the 21st century. They are. The first is a pivot in posture from trying to fix problems primarily to listening and discerning where God is leading a pivot in focus from making institutional members to making disciples. A pivot in structure from a one shape or one size fits all model of ministry, to a mixed ecology of inherited and new forms of Christian community together. And finally, a pivot in leadership from primarily clergy led, lay supported ministry to lay led, clergy supported ministry.

Terri Elton: That's right, Dwight. And today we're actually going to do something special. We're going to answer questions from you, our listeners. We're so excited. We have received fantastic questions about discernment, how to lead change, how to navigate transitions in ministry. And many of those questions touch on what we believe God is calling us to do in our church today, and that is to move from fixing problems in the church to listening and discerning where God is leading.

Alicia Granholm: Yeah, absolutely. So here is our first question. Taking the kinds of journeys you talk about on this podcast seem hard for many churches, because they aren't motivated to do so. I have been trying to do stuff like this, and they're afraid. I lost five council members when I tried it myself. How do you address the motivation question the why?

Dwight Zscheile: This is such a great question, and it's one that we hear so often from leaders and that we have wrestled with very much ourselves and our work with congregations over many years. So I think the first impulse, leadership impulse is always to be curious, where are people at and what are the fears about, and what are their motivations for even being there at church? What do they expect from church? And so when we're talking about doing the kinds of discovery journeys, whether they be experimenting, maybe introducing new practices of spiritual discernment and things like that. Often that involves a kind of renegotiation of the basic social contract that people have for what they expect church to do. And that won't happen. People won't do that renegotiation unless there is a deeper vision or a more compelling vision, which gets us to the question of theological identity. Right. And so a lot of churches are stuck in doing what they have always done, even though it's not working and is obvious to all that it's not working on a deep level because they really aren't clear about their story, their theological identity, and how it's different from the other stories that are out there in the culture. And so as a result, there's a kind of underlying, if you will, theological identity crisis. And and so they they're kind of stuck for that. And how do we get them beyond that stuckness. To me it has to begin with God's Word and entering into the story of Scripture in fresh ways, deeper ways, and experiencing the spiritual transformation that Jesus brings and the power of the spirit. Um, and really wondering about, you know, how people can join in to to discover that that energy and experience God's presence and leadership in ways maybe that they aren't used to in the existing culture of the congregation? So all of that is a big answer in some ways, because those things aren't easy. There's no quick fix to the motivation question. It is actually an invitation to a journey of deeper discipleship, of deeper experiences, of God's presence, and of the scriptural story coming to be the story that shapes our imaginations first and foremost.

Terri Elton: So I think one of the things I want to highlight is this is not the primary work that a lot of our current leaders were taught to do. Like, I think we just have to name that. I think many of us know our why, but we assume we're on the same page. Or that even if we don't have language, well, you know, just, you know, you get it. And it's this vague thing, right? So I think one of the things that we are really working hard at Luther in our courses, especially our leadership courses, is why the church. Right? Why does Jesus matter? Why does gathering on a regular basis with other crazy people, actually, and asking these questions and hearing the word proclaimed and praying for each other actually matter. And what is God calling the church to do? Not what does your denomination say? Is the right form of church right? It's a different, more fundamental question and I'm going to give you a practice.

Dwight Zscheile: All right.

Terri Elton: Take notes if.

Terri Elton: You're at home. One of the best practices I've used and we we teach this in the innovation class. Here is the five whys. So you say so. So our youngest daughter is having her. Her and her husband are looking to have their baby baptized. Okay. You could say, well, why why, why get your baby baptized? Well, both of us were baptized. Well, why were you both baptized? Right. So you you five times ask people whatever the thing is, right? What's the why? And then. Well, what's under that? And my hunch is in my conversations, because we have a Lutheran and a Roman Catholic that have some differences, and they're trying to figure out how to do this to honor their family traditions in the midst of a living God is that they're saying, because faith in God matters and community matters. And we want this experience for our family in the midst, in a church that's welcoming of other people. Like they could get there because they've had to navigate some things. But I think a lot of our church people, we don't ask those hard questions about why. So I think at the next council meeting, at the next, whatever the the decisions, kinds of things, just try it and see what happens. And you could do it publicly, or you could do it in one on one and then say, hey, as you did this, what themes came out. So that's just a little practice, something to do at home. And I think it just takes time. And you got to do it time and time again.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah. And I think just, you know, in the the questioner asked about talked about losing five council members trying to do some of this. And the other thought is, and we'll get to this a bit more in the conversation later, which is where do you introduce some some of these practices or this journey into the life of a congregation and, and what expectations can do you need to meet and which can you disappoint at a rate that people can stand? And so so sometimes people who are on the council, they have very clear expectations of what's going to happen in that, that kind of leadership space. And sometimes you just need to meet those expectations to a certain degree and started maybe a group on the side that can be maybe more open to experimenting. And but I think the other piece I want to add is just the pain points. Right? So congregations that are struggling right now and they're aware maybe of fewer people there, or maybe children and grandchildren aren't there or whatever. Those pain points are actually gifts to begin the journey when you can graciously and not in a shaming way. As a leader, name some of the losses that people are experiencing are ways that maybe inherited patterns are breaking down or not connecting with people. That can surface a different, you know, a sense of motivation. You know, the organizational scholar Edgar Schein talks about two kinds of anxiety in organizations. And one is survival anxiety. You know, will our church make it? And the other is learning anxiety, which is, well, gosh, if I'm going to try something new, I don't know how to do that. I might be incompetent, I might make a fool of myself and shine very wisely says, you always want to preserve the survival anxiety up high where it where it is legitimately and lower the learning anxiety. And our temptation is pastoral leaders in particular, being empathetic people as often to lower the survival anxiety. It'll be just fine and keep the learning anxiety really high. And people then get stuck and they don't ever actually take the journey.

Terri Elton: So are we ready for question two?

Dwight Zscheile: We are. Let's go.

Terri Elton: So how do you do a neighborhood walk to discern when your church is composed of members who aren't in the neighborhood. I think this is a really common thing. Churches are in a place, and many times their members or the people that attend don't live live right in that neighborhood. So how do you do such a walk for people that don't live there? Yeah.

Alicia Granholm: No, Terri, this is a great question because it is very common for people to commute to congregations today. And I think the this question again starts with a different question, right, about location. And if we still believe God has called us to gather to worship in a specific place, because if the place matters, then I would start there. So if we still believe that God has called us to meet at, you know, this address on this block in this particular space, um, then God probably has a reason. So, you know, especially if, uh, you know, kind of walking the neighborhood and yes, praying for the neighborhood, but also as a way of wondering what God might already be up to. It might be a new practice for people. And so I'd start with that actual community and location. Now, if your community isn't particularly called to a specific location, then I would start the other way and begin with discerning, doing, you know, discerning walks where people play or work or live and seeing if there's something in one of those particular locations where there's, you know, energy from the spirit or curiosity about what God might be doing in that specific place. But if if your church is called to a specific location still, and it may have been one day and maybe it isn't anymore, but if you still feel like God is calling you to gather in a specific place, then I would start there And, um, and really just practically right, thinking of practices. Just gather a small group and send people out two by two so that they can, for a specific set of time and, you know, give them a map with specific boundaries of, okay, here's where we're going to walk today. And just that openness and curiosity around what might God be up to and where might we see God in our neighborhood walk. And so you can do that for a specific place. Um, but then it also teaches those individuals how to do that, and they can then take that to where they work and play and live and be curious in their lives in those places as well, I think is something that first comes to my mind.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah, Alicia, I love that. So I hear this vision of a kind of when we do gather as the gathered church, we we get trained in practices that we can then use as the dispersed or scattered church in our daily lives.

Terri Elton: We've written about that actually. Yeah. Just saying. I'm for it.

Dwight Zscheile: Exactly. Well, and so and some of our listeners may not be familiar with this kind of neighborhood walk practice that we're talking about here, which is one of the listening practices that we do in the faithful innovation process. And many churches do have, do and have done these kinds of practices where you're paying spiritual attention as you're doing something as simple as walking around and just being spiritually curious and asking God to show you what God would have you pay attention to or notice. So this practice of noticing, and that's a really powerful practice for congregations to do. And so, so I think the, the ambiguity of our call is to wherever God has placed us, both personally and then corporately, right as a community. I think about Jesus's question he gets asked of who is my neighbor? By the lawyer, right, in Luke ten and he, of course responds with the parable of the Good Samaritan and kind of messes with the categories of who is of who is my neighbor. So I love to have that question be fairly open for people in congregations so they aren't overwhelmed by it. But but through trying on the practice, they can begin to pay attention. And and then when the Holy Spirit is nudging them or drawing them in a particular way, where they get even more curious than to be able to to to go there and rather than think, well, my neighborhood is x, y, or Z and not or my neighbor is this person and not that person. If anything Jesus is teaching would would provoke us to be more open about who is my neighbor? Yeah. So since we're already talking a bit about discernment, let's go a bit more into that. One of our other questions that we received is, how do you know when you have actually discerned or figured out what God wants of you?

Alicia Granholm: Well, this isn't like the million dollar question, right? I think no matter where we're at in our spiritual journey, we we question this at times, like how do we know? How do we? How can we be certain that this is what God is calling us to? Whether on an individual level or corporately as a congregation? And, um, you know, I kind of wonder if it comes down to two things. Trusting in God's faithfulness to lead and guide us today, and having the humility to continue to be led because, um, I don't know if we can know with 100% certainty that we are actually 100% in the will of God by doing X, Y, and Z. I don't know. Uh, but I know from my own experience and the experience of many other Christians, um, that we can be faithfully led, and we do have a degree of certainty around God's leading in our lives. And that humility piece, I think, is crucial, because we do need to stay open to where the spirit may lead and guide us, because it could be a, uh, a six month assignment. Right. It could be a six year assignment. But it's the humility and staying rooted to God and continuing to listen to God and listen to our neighbors. And really, you know, just that in that relationship of loving our God and and loving God and loving our neighbors, as much as we love ourselves that we continue, we open ourselves up to being continually discerning. And so I, I would argue we we don't ever arrive, you know, and I and that might sound disappointing, honestly, because I think a lot of times we want that certainty of, well, yes, we know this is what we're called to. And then when we get out of that place of humility and continual listening. Then we create institutions that have to stay alive for the sake of the institution, rather than continuing to follow where the spirit is leading and guiding. And, um, yeah, I think that's I really I love, you know, we, we use acts 16 all the time, but I think it is such a perfect passage of Scripture to demonstrate what a discernment process might look like, because when you read it, and if you haven't lately, I want to encourage you to go and read it. But it's about Paul and his companions and their journey to Lydia, but by way of Jesus closing doors for them. And, and and then Paul has a vision of a man, and they immediately get up and go. And then they they find Lydia and other women gathering to pray. Um, and so, you know, but when you read the passage and I love to present this to people all the time, but when you read the passage, nobody reads it and says like, oh my gosh, what failures. Like why? Why couldn't they just have ended up at Lydia right away? I don't know. But I know that there's part of our journey with God is is really about who we become on the way. It's not about the destination. And yet there are going to be Lydia, moments and times when it is clear that God is very much leading us to a particular place or people or ministry or what have you. Um, but it you know, we see in that story, um, how it really is us going out and trying and it's the, the act of continuing to be in prayer. Um, you know, with God ourselves and, and communally in prayer and communally discerning and then having that feeling like we can we can risk moving forward in a direction because we trust so much in God's faithfulness to lead and guide us, even in closing doors and redirecting us. And Terri, you recently did a Faith Lead Academy course on discernment.

Terri Elton: I did, I've thought about this. I spent a lot of the summer thinking about this. Um, yeah. Thanks. There's a couple of things that come for me, and I'm going to start with. When I was doing my master's, I worked on a teaming model of of leadership, and most congregations were organizing committees. And they're like, what's the difference? They're both just small groups of people doing work. I go, yes, but the spirit of the two is radically different. And I think oftentimes congregations or communities doing discernment from the outside don't look any different one way or another. I think the difference is, is that discernment is joining God's mission in the world. It's it's believing that God is active and and behind in, with and under us. Right. Like alongside us, ahead of us, behind us, supporting us, all of those things. So first of all, it's believing in the Spirit's activity and then it's seeking to continually be curious. Are we joining it or not? And so the the the center is God's mission, not the church survival or the whatever. The church thing is, we need more confirmation, kids, whatever. We need to be more engaged in worship. Why? Well, let's think about that. Right? What is that about? And I think the focus of committees was like checking off work. And it was on the human agency, whereas team was saying, what's the ministry God's called us to do? And how do we come alongside it? And what are the gifts that we need? So one of the things that I would say around congregations doing this work is man. If God is saying opening up gifts of people within your congregation, probably this is good discernment and God's among you, right? Um, and if doors are closing and you're being redirected and there's some energy that's coming out of that, go with that energy, because my sense is that, um, God uses who we've been created to be, not what we're not God. When I was in ministry, I like, couldn't help, but I just kept falling into teaching. And then then there was this call to, maybe you need to go get a PhD and leave congregational work and follow this. And that was a really big deal. But I was able to discern this actually is my gifts. This actually I do have these questions that I can't do right there. And it was only in hindsight that I was, you know, affirmed in that. But there was this sense of get off the map. Go with this. And and it will come to be. Yeah.

Dwight Zscheile: I think that's so rich. I mean, I'm thinking about the, you know, the ways in which, you know, when we're doing discernment, aligning with Scripture with God's will, as we know in Scripture. And then you know that you use the word energy, another word. I think just that that sense of peace that we experience when we are in line with God's will. And then, of course, the fruit of the spirit that can come out of that as well, that we see in our lives. Yeah. You know, there are some great resources out there for particularly for congregations who want to figure out how to develop a discernment culture, particularly within their leadership. I'm thinking about things like grounded in God by the Listening Hearts ministry, that thin, wonderful, thin little book, or Ruth Haley Barton's work on pursuing God's will together is another good resource of just full of some really simple practices. Because, again, this is one of those things that when you shift into a discernment based model of leadership where we actually assume the Holy Spirit is the primary leader or influencer within the life of the church, then we all need to be about, you know, discerning. And it's it's a very different kind of culture than many inherited congregations have, where we just expect people to leaders to bring the answers, or we're just going to solve them without necessarily going through these deeper spiritual practices.

Terri Elton: There's also the discernment course, by the way, is free. We we created it saying, this is a really going to be a giveaway. And there's a whole bunch of practices grounded in Scripture. Each session has a different scripture, and there are a bunch of other resources. So personally or collectively, those would be other places. And maybe I'll just say Ruth Haley Barton is included in there as one example. Right. So I think I think go for those resources, find them and just start practicing.

Alicia Granholm: Okay, well, let's take this question a step further. Who would you suggest do this work? A congregation, council or other pre-existing teams? A team established just for this purpose. The whole congregation. Should the pastor direct this work or should it be lay led?

Dwight Zscheile: So if you're talking about the work of discernment specifically, or are you talking about the work of kind of faithful innovation more generally and doing some of the experiments to discover a more hopeful future?

Alicia Granholm: You know, when we get questions like this, I think it's both. Yeah, both the discernment question and also. Right, like, who do we who do we engage to go about the work?

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah.

Dwight Zscheile: So I think it's really important to have both a dedicated team whose role is to focus on this work of new practices, and then to introduce and spread the practices into the broader church culture. And that might include the council or church board, certainly at some point it needs to, while also not like hijacking the agenda and expectations of the Church Council. For instance, if its primary role is governance, which it needs to keep, the church does need to keep being governed. So. So I love the idea of having a dedicated team on the side that can really forefront the experimental work. You can invite people onto that team who are really open to trying new things and give them space and protect them from, you know, whatever forces in the congregation that might want to sabotage them, trying to do new things. Not that that would ever happen in your church to anyone, but, um, and and then and then think about how does that team help to introduce these practices more broadly and give leadership to it so that this isn't one more thing for the pastor to have to do and manage? So one of the really important principles in in our faith innovation work that we do here at Faith lead is, is really a lay empowered, lay driven approach, because pretty much all the pastors we know don't need one more thing to manage, so we want to free them from that and then invite them to take a role of spiritual leadership and have really the lay leaders organize and manage the process and lead the practice, you know, embrace the practices, but then report back. And that's the other important piece of this, that if they only do it on the side invisibly to the rest of the congregation, the learnings never get shared. And the congregation, those people in the guiding team or that dedicated team will get transformed. But the church won't be transformed. And we've seen that happen, sadly, in a lot of places as well.

Terri Elton: So this week, little story true, true story. This week I was finishing up my day with some students, and I got a call from one of our alumni who serves not too far from here and wasn't able to take it, but called him back, you know, a little while later and he's like, so I have a question for you. Can we come visit your church? I'm like, sure. Tell me more. Well, I loved this, so I shared this as, like, every, every good story is from somebody else, and you're just ripping off ideas and sharing them. Um, they're working with a subgroup of people to try and reimagine ministry. What does vitality look like? Their neighborhood has changed. Used to. Used to look one way. Churches looking really different. They have really vibrant, um, pastors, an aging congregation, but some young people in the community and opportunities. Right. So they are going to visit other churches, and this is what they did. They called the Synod office. So for those of you that aren't Lutheran, it's their kind of presbytery or their geographical kind of team and said, all right, give me a list of people that have been doing this work that we could go learn from, right? And then they're just going to visit and they're happening to come to our church on a Sunday. So they're going to experience worship and then they're going to stay after and ask some questions of the key lay leaders that were involved in that churches process. Right. So what does it do? It does a whole bunch of things. It's a field trip. It gets you out of your box. You're they're going to walk into a church and be the stranger, which is a hard thing to do. Right? They're going to they're going to learn from the minute they walk in. It'll be curious to see, because I'm not going to tell the people they're coming. Right. The the volunteers that are going to be, you know, welcoming, but also the sense of, of getting to talk with other people that are on the journey, but just a few steps ahead of what. And so they're looking at churches in similar size that would have something to learn from. So what I love about this is be playful, be curious, put your bodies into it. Don't just sit in a room and read books and talk to each other. Learn from each other what it means to be church in this time. And my sense is that just like you said, Dwight, the team doing it will get transformed. They can't help but then talk about it or someone will go, oh, I can't be in choir this week because we're visiting another church. And then the choir member says, well, what? How did that church visit go? Right. There's an organic nature to this that I think can follow. All right. Are we ready for the next question? Ready? It's mine. How can a newish leader guide a community through lament if trust has not been established yet, especially if there's been some past hurt? I particularly like this question because in our group, small groups of students this week in the class I teach, we've been talking about lament, and it's a pretty powerful practice. And it's been really interesting to see what what that has done for our group of students. So I'd love for you to think about. This is a churchly practice that I don't think we lean into enough in congregations. So what do you guys think about this?

Dwight Zscheile: It's a.

Dwight Zscheile: Good question. I mean, I think it invites us to think about how do you establish trust to begin with as a leader? Um, you know, and that's by loving and listening to people first and foremost, meeting them where they are. I love the phrase that our our friend and colleague Scott Kermode often uses. Leadership begins with listening. And if people feel like you haven't heard their story or don't care about them, they're not going to trust you. And certainly they're not going to trust you to take a practice that might be vulnerable. Like lament, if it's honest, always is right. So. So I think, you know, partly to meet people where they're at, meet certain expectations that they have of you, whether it be how worship is conducted or just showing up in whatever spaces they expect you to show up in to establish some relational credibility before you start changing things is really important.

Terri Elton: Could you say that line.

Terri Elton: Again, Dwight?

Terri Elton: Before what?

Alicia Granholm: It's worth repeating.

Dwight Zscheile: Yeah. So? So I mean, again. And there may be all kinds of things that need to be changed, but but the changes you make should be trust restoring. If they've been if their trust has been broken in a, in a particular community and it takes time. But then I think this is also then where Scripture is so important because lament is fundamentally a scriptural practice. And so when you're saying this is not new, maybe if they're not used to doing lament, say this is just part of our shared scriptural heritage and let's let's read some of these, you know, lament Psalms, for instance, or, or whatever that might be, and then and begin to, to acknowledge that it is this is our shared story. They already own this, if you will. You're just going to lead them deeper into it. So so I'm a huge fan. If you're a new in a new leadership role, right in a new congregation or something like that, of just doing a lot of storytelling to start off with things like Appreciative Inquiry, which I think we've talked about on this series before, which is a way of doing visioning through collaborative storytelling that can be great, um, to, to really build trust and for people to hear each other. And often when you do that, some lament stuff may come out. I mean, there may be difficult stories so that then, as you can reflect back as a leader and say, gosh, you know, we've heard some really hard stories and we've heard a lot of pain and suffering. Let's take this to God in prayer through the biblical, you know, practice of lament. What would you add, Alicia?

Alicia Granholm: Yeah, I love that. Dwight. I think trust is really key. I think if you're new while you're building trust, I wouldn't just, like, put lament on the shelf until you feel like you've built it, right. I think you can lead people in an in an individual practice of lament where they're not sharing, you know, in a group setting for sure. Um, and it can be just as meaningful. And so I wouldn't wait. The trust is crucial, particularly if there's any amount of discernment work that might need to be done or obvious changes that like if there's any sort of obviousness about change needing to take place, for sure, I would, you know, lean on some of those practices that Dwight shared. But I also I wouldn't wait on the lament piece. And often, you know, I, I don't think lament gets enough time in congregations and particularly in times of change. So I think it's even, even that much more important when you might be new, um, to, to create space for lament because it changes taking place and likely, you know, if you're coming into a congregation, somebody left who knows how long ago that was. Um, lament probably was not practiced when they left. And so to to be able to do that. And you can do it well. Um, even while you're trying to establish trust.

Terri Elton: Yeah. I want to pick up on the storytelling that you talked about, because I think one of our colleagues does digital storytelling, Mary Hess here, and she just came back from a sabbatical, and it just so happened that she led the faculty. Her her faculty scholarship was leading us through the practices that she had been doing with congregations. And what's interesting to me that ties to this is that she went in. She had really cared about creation and know that it's a it's got a lot of feelings out there. Right. That aren't all on the same with regard to that. So she went into congregations that might have some difference in in thoughts about that. So crafted some prompts around that with each congregation and then had people tell stories in circles. One person told a story on the prompt. One person listened for the facts. One person listened for the feelings. One person listened for the values. And then just listen to the story. Received the story. Three minute story. Not a long story. Then gave those back. And and we did that yesterday around one of the prompts. And what was interesting to me, I did it with colleagues that I've known, but I don't sit and talk about really important things with all the time. And I left with a deeper appreciation of where they saw God in creation in a very easy way. It wasn't threatening. People could enter at the level they wanted to share. Some people shared really deeply. Some people shared at a more higher level. But what was interesting is she couldn't tell. The divisiveness like this was a shared practice. And I think around a community of hurt. Could there be some prompts that would allow people to tell stories, hear each other with some different lenses, give feedback, and then just get to know each other. And how did you feel about that? And it was funny. I'm like, yeah, pretty much. You named when I did my story, you named the feelings and the values that were under that story probably more accurately than I could have at the beginning. Right. And so we can help each other do this work in community. So I think, like you said, Alicia, don't wait. But maybe some of the storytelling practices could help move us together communally to get from that individual practice to a more corporate practice. Well, that's all we have for today. Um, thank you to all of our listeners who've submitted such thoughtful questions. And remember, we have resources on discernment and listening practices in our show notes so you can look for them. And if you have any questions that you'd like us to do on a future Q&A episode, please email it to us at. Faith Lead at luthersem dot edu and Faith lead is all one word.

Dwight Zscheile: And to our audience, thank you for joining us on this episode of pivot. To help spread the word about pivot, please like and subscribe. If you're catching us on YouTube or if you're listening, head to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. It really helps.

Alicia Granholm: And finally, the best compliment you can give us is to share. Pivot with a friend. Until next time. This is Alicia Granholm,

Dwight Zscheile: Dwight Zscheile,

Terri Elton: and Terri Elton.

Alicia Granholm: We'll see you next week.

Faith+Lead voiceover: The Pivot Podcast is a production of Luther Seminary's Faith+Lead. Faith+Lead is an ecosystem of theological resources and training designed to equip Christian disciples and leaders to follow God into a faithful future. Learn more at faithlead.org.