Unified Mission, Radical Intentionality, & The Future of Church Planting | The Soma Story: Part 4

Yeah, there are so many that, that you could mention as a, as a thanks.

I mean, Amanda definitely had, uh, newly discovered organizational ability.

Uh, you know, I think that was her-- that was the first time she'd ever been in an organizational role, and it turned out that that was just how God has gifted her, and she was a huge blessing.

Uh, Pam Collier, same way.

There was a-- She was...

You really could have given her a firefighter uniform, uh, and just-- she just put out so many fires and untangled so many, so many crazy strings just to, to, to put the organization back on a, just a clear, clear footing and, and for things to be done in a, in a transparent and, um, business-like fashion and, and, man.

But to me, the biggest reason that Soma could make it through a crisis like that is the work, the emotional work that had been done, Jeff.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and I think you modeled it, you modeled it for the rest of them.

You, you definitely modeled it for me for years, and I, I don't know that we would have made it through a crisis like that if we hadn't done the emotional work that we, that we did as, as leaders, and the ability to, to be okay in those situations where things were-- had an element of, of fear.

Um, you know, places where we're, we're-- we were not sure how it was gonna work out.

We were not sure that the relationships that we valued were going to continue.

Um, you know, we were not sure that the work that, that we had put in to build this organization was going to have any sort of long-term effect.

And so it-- you could see why people would be defensive.

Uh, and there were enough mistakes that all of us made in those, in those early, uh, early to mid years that, uh, I, I could see why we could be ashamed of that for the mistakes that we made.

But I, I think, I think we faced those things, and I think you'd faced those things, Jeff, with some real, real courage and real strength because of the emotional health work that you had done up to that point.

And I think similar to this podcast, um, at, at a follow-up to the retreat when all the leaders got together in Austin, and you took, took an evening just to, to go through the Soma story, and people could ask questions as you're going through different things.

You know, the, the things that maybe-- the events that had happened that, uh, the relationships that had been severed over the years, you know, whatever the issue was that you were gonna be frank with them and tell them what happened and what you regretted and what you would do different going forward.

I, I think, I think that kind of thing built trust in the organization.

And I, I don't know when it, when it started, but there was a point where I began to s- began to see the 10X strength that comes when you are emotionally healthy.

Mm-hmm.

I, I think there was this-- I've seen so many church plants die, and I've seen way too many leaders fall.

And so when you enter a situation that's difficult, uh, I think, I think it's natural to get a little twitchy after all that.

But, but when you see that people have done their work, their emotional work, and they can handle fear, and they can, they can process shame and everything else that goes along with emotional health, you-- when you go into a hard situation, you don't-- I, I personally don't have that same level of fear.

I, I, I think, "Okay, well, we can talk this through.