“Life Update” with Chris & Eddie

Show Notes:

Today’s special guest on The Weight is none other than co-host Eddie Rester. Eddie has some big news about what’s been going on in his life over the past few months, and he and Chris have a candid and thoughtful conversation about leadership, leading through the hard times, and the importance of finding your tribe of people. 

We’re excited about this next step for Eddie and his wife Audra, and we’re also excited that The Weight Podcast will be going with him.

Transcript:

Chris McAlilly 00:00 I'm Chris McAlilly.

Eddie Rester 00:01
I'm Eddie Rester. Welcome to The Weight.

Chris McAlilly 00:03

[INTRO] Leadership today demands more than technical expertise. It requires deep wisdom to navigate the complexity of a turbulent world, courage to reimagine broken systems, and unwarranted hope to inspire durable change.

Chris McAlilly 00:03

Today we're doing a special episode. It's just Eddie and me, and we're doing a life update. Eddie's headed to Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas, and today you're gonna get to hear about it.

Eddie Rester 00:31

As Christ-centered leaders in churches, nonprofits, the academy, and the marketplace, we all carry the weight of cultivating communities that reflect God's kingdom in a fragmented world.

Chris McAlilly 00:42
But this weight wasn't meant to be carried alone. The Christian tradition offers us centuries of wisdom if we have the humility to listen and learn from diverse voices.

Eddie Rester 00:52
That's why The Weight exists, to create space for the conversations that challenge our assumptions, deepen our thinking, and renew our spiritual imagination.

Chris McAlilly 01:02
Faithful leadership in our time requires both conviction and curiosity, rootedness and tradition, and responsiveness to a changing world.

Eddie Rester 01:10

So whether you're leading a congregation, raising a family, teaching students, running a nonprofit, or bringing faith into your business, join us as we explore the depth and richness of Christ centered leadership today. Welcome to The Weight. [END INTRO]

Chris McAlilly 01:26
Well, I'm here today with my special guest, Eddie Rester.

Eddie Rester 01:31
Probably the greatest guest you've ever had on this podcast.

Chris McAlilly 01:35
It's amazing. Yeah, I don't know that we've done any episodes like this. I'm excited to do it,

Eddie Rester 01:42
We've done... Yeah, I think we've done some life updates in the past, but...

Chris McAlilly 01:45 Yeah, we got a life...

Eddie Rester 01:46 Not just a...

Chris McAlilly 01:47
Life update episode coming at you.

Eddie Rester 01:49
Here we go. Life update. So...

Chris McAlilly 01:52 Tell me.

Eddie Rester 01:52
Yeah, thank you. Things are changing for me.

Chris McAlilly 01:53
Tell me, Eddie. What's happening in your life right now that needs, that we need to know about.

Eddie Rester 01:58

Well, today, actually, I'm in Dallas, Texas. We've been here for almost a full week, buying house, and meeting with staff and leaders at Lovers Lane, also onboarding my replacement at Cargill Associates. So a lot is happening right now.

Chris McAlilly 02:16
So you're moving to Dallas. This is... How am I just hearing about this?

Eddie Rester 02:21

Well, we've tried to keep it from you, Chris. We don't trust that you could have kept it a secret. And we just, you know, just want to make sure that people didn't find out who didn't need to know ahead of time.

Chris McAlilly 02:33

So you're stepping back into the local church, and I want to get to that, but maybe for folks who don't know you who've been listening to podcast for many years, and maybe for folks who are in the Dallas area that may be hearing your story for the first time, I wonder if you might go back and kind of talk about the steps that led you into ministry and kind of just give us a little bit of your background.

Eddie Rester 02:57

Yeah, glad to do that. It's for me, and I don't know how it is for you, Chris, but it's always good sometimes to think back about my call story and what led me here. I think for most pastors, it is. From time to time, we need that, that moment. I grew up in a little town in Mississippi, Ackerman, Mississippi, an incredible place to grow up. Only about 1500 people, but we were part of the United Methodist Church, Ackerman United Methodist Church there, and it was formative for me in every possible way, from children's ministry, doing musicals for children's ministry. I did my boy scouts troop, my Boy Scout troop met there. Youth Group was amazing. When we were there, we'd go to Lake Junaluska in North Carolina. We'd go to Camp Lake Stevens for retreats.

Eddie Rester 03:46

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I began to hear God say, "you're made for ministry. You're made for ministry." And I pushed back on that for a long time. I was supposed to be a doctor in my mind, and went to Ole Miss as pre-med, still knowing somewhere that I was probably going to happen ministry, but I made a deal with God, which is always a smart thing to do.

Chris McAlilly 04:11 Always smart.

Eddie Rester 04:12

Always smart. I may deal with God that if I did well as a pre-med student my first year, that meant that God wanted me to be a doctor, and if I didn't do well, then obviously I needed to be a preacher. I did very well, and so I assumed that what I was supposed to do, but I went to work at Clarksdale First United Methodist Church that summer, just as the summer youth director, because I needed a summer job. And I remember one morning I was walking through the sanctuary to my office, beautiful morning sun, delta sun coming through those stained glass windows. I remember just hearing this, "This is what you're called to do."

Eddie Rester 04:56
And so went back to Ole Miss that fall, eventually dropped out of all my pre-med stuff, kind of burned the ships there, and pursued ministry. Went to seminary, came out of seminary, went to burned the ships there, and pursued ministry. Went to seminary, came out of seminary, went to Parkway Heights, after 17 years in different spots at Parkway Heights, including being the lead pastor. I ended up in Oxford, where I really struggled with my associate pastor.

Chris McAlilly 05:19

Yeah, it was a it was a struggle. The struggle was mutual. I do want to back up for a moment before we get to the time that we work together. Youth ministry. As we work together, I realize a lot of your frameworks for thinking about ministry I do think emerged as a youth minister. I think youth ministry in America, in culture, through the 80s, 90s, 2000s put you in conversation with people who are being formed and shaped by something other than the gospel. And that's one of the... What was it about youth ministry that helped formed your imagination for ministry?

Eddie Rester 06:01

That's a great question. I think couple things come quickly to mind. One is because it's youth ministry. It's the part of the church where it's easy to find outsiders who show up. So you find people who don't know Jesus, don't know the church, or whose families are disconnected from a church somewhere. And so you get to see these people just come alive in their faith. And I think for me, that's one of the things that continues to be a front edge for me in ministry. How do we do the work in a way that invites people in--people who aren't already there, people who aren't already invested, people who don't know the good news? And I think youth ministry can be that place.

Eddie Rester 06:45

And for me, it was for me, we we saw every kind of kid in youth ministry. I did youth ministry, knowing at Clarksdale, but I got to Parkway heights, in Hattiesburg, I was doing youth ministry. Did some youth ministry while I was an intern in seminary. And I think that always... When people would suddenly show up and keep coming back, because they found something in the community that was being built, the way we talked about Jesus, that was important.

Eddie Rester 07:10

I think the second thing is that with youth ministry, it's very pragmatic. You got to do what you got to do. And there's not a lot of high-minded, long-term thinking. It's what do we have to do next week?

Chris McAlilly 07:24 Right.

Chris McAlilly 07:28

Yeah, yeah, I like both of those, and I've seen those play out in your ministry. This focus on the outsider, the one who's not yet in the group, and making sure that, from the language that we use, to the way that we talk about what we're doing, to what we're doing, that it has an outward focus. That's something that I think carried forward for you. I think another, I think you're right. Not holding... Being practical and pragmatic in your leadership style and approach, willing to shift and change in order to meet the moment. I think that's something that I see as well.

Chris McAlilly 08:02

And then the third is just creativity. I think that's something that is a hallmark of your leadership, that I came to really appreciate, is your willingness to innovate and to try new things. How did that emerge out of the context of youth ministry? I think of youth ministry as almost like the R and D department of local church ministry. How did that emerge for you?

Eddie Rester 08:27

I think the way it emerged was I didn't know what I was doing when I went to Clarksdale First United Methodist Church that summer. And then they kept me on. I would drive over on Sunday mornings, and I had this great group of adults with me. You know, Charlie and Diane Estes, at the heart of it, but others as well who were willing just to do whatever it took.

Eddie Rester 08:47

And so we would come up with ideas for a lock in, and suddenly these adults would just charge forward and do that. Or we had this idea about going to a deer camp over across the levee, and people would jump in and do that and help think through that and plan that. And I think for me, creativity became not just about what could I dream up, but how do we dream up things together, and how do we get people excited about pursuing those things? Because creativity is great, but if nobody's willing to latch on and join the ridiculousness or the new thing, then creativity can become a burden for an organization.

Eddie Rester 09:31

And yeah, just it's fun. Our podcast a couple weeks ago when we had David McDonald on, when he said, and this is true for him, "I never repeat an idea." Now that's too much for me. David and I will have have conversations about that later on, but that's kind of the... What do you have to do to begin to engage people? Not just to entertain in the sense of fun, entertain, but entertain in the sense of draw in like you entertain people in your home.

What are we doing two weeks after that?

Chris McAlilly 10:03 Yeah.

Eddie Rester 10:04 How do you create space?

Chris McAlilly 10:06

I love that. So those are things that emerge from youth ministry. But most of your career has been in a lead role and a lead kind of executive role within a church, as a lead pastor, senior pastor. You did that at Parkway Heights. You did that in Oxford. You did it in Jackson. Over the course of the time that you served in kind of the executive leadership role as a senior pastor, what would you say are your kind of top gifts in that role and what are the things that that you lean into within pastoral ministry?

Eddie Rester 10:39

I'm not... A couple months ago, I'm not sure I could have answered that, but I got invited to do some consulting with a church staff in Tennessee, and they had done Patrick Lencioni's "Working Geniuses," and when I had to take that, because I was going to talk to the staff, work them through that. And mine were one, invention, and number two, enablement, the two things that I enjoy most. And when I think about what gives me energy and excitement in leading, I love to do that creative work: Here's the issue. How do we begin to think creatively around that?

Eddie Rester 11:21

I think one of the funnest things when we worked together at OU Chris was the very first year we went to Oxford High for Easter. It was a huge, huge shift, a huge moment. And just dreaming that up and being able to figure out how to put the right people to dream their part of it was a lot of fun.

Eddie Rester 11:43

But then the other one is called enablement, and it's not a negative enabling, but I love helping other people do their role well. And so that means if someone on staff has something that they're attempting to do, even if it's not my lane, I want to make sure they have the resources, the time, the people, to be a success at pulling that off. I'm going to... And I think, as I reflect back on when I've had the most fun in ministry and when I've really enjoyed the moment the most, it's been when I've been able to invent and when I've been able to help other people achieve what God was calling them to do.

Chris McAlilly 12:27

I love that. One just word of encouragement that from leading us to go to Oxford High School, which is off site for us, something that's still uncomfortable, you know, it's still something that we have to we're gearing up for it right now, getting ready to get a team together and get a plan together. But we're going back, and we'll have a huge turnout. And it's a space for folks who are not connected to our church, who may or may not feel comfortable walking in the doors of a church, any church, but who will come to Oxford High School on Easter Sunday.

Chris McAlilly 13:01

And let me tell you a story. This is amazing. This afternoon, actually, we're recording this on a Thursday, and a little after four o'clock, I'm meeting with a young woman who came to our church. The first Sunday she came was on Easter Sunday last year, unchurched. She came because her boyfriend invited her. And then she started coming to church with her boyfriend. And then one Sunday, her boyfriend couldn't come, and she said, you know, "I felt like I should go. I wanted to go, not so that could be with him, so but so that I could be at church, so I could worship God." And over the course of the year, she's met people, and she's deepened her sense of peace and her joy and her sense of identity and purpose, and she came a couple weeks ago and wants to get baptized, and so we're having a conversation about getting baptized. And so this is a college junior, and we're going to do a baptism on Sunday for her. How amazing is that?

Eddie Rester 13:54

That's incredible, let me tell you. And those are the stories that I love. And here's the moment I knew that we had accomplished so much. Because if we had said for Oxford University, I will say it's one of the most incredible churches, not just in Oxford, not just in the Methodist Church, just period. It's an incredible church all the way around. But if we had, the first year we were there, said, "Hey, we should go to the high school for Easter Sunday," we would have been running out of town. I'm not sure how bad the beating would have been.

Chris McAlilly 14:28
Yeah, it's a traditional church, downtown, we got a great organ. Everybody loves being on their

pew with their family.

Eddie Rester 14:34

Yeah. But I knew that it was probably year seven, because during construction, that's when we took the moment. We took this moment where we could and did it, and we came back on site after construction was over, and we're starting to have the conversation, what does Easter Sunday look like? How did we squeeze 1500 to 2000 people back on site? And we were meeting with our leadership, a guy named David is sitting there, and we're having this conversation. How do we do this? How we're going to do 77 overflows, and, you know, string children from the ceilings? It's gonna be crazy. And he said, "Didn't we go to Oxford High School to take down barriers for people on Easter Sunday?" And everyone was like, "Yeah..." "So why aren't we doing that now? Why are we talking about this?" And everybody else in the room, everybody else in the room, just kind of nodded, and then suddenly we were going back to Oxford High School on Easter Sunday.

Chris McAlilly 15:29
Yeah, the culture. It was a culture shift.

Eddie Rester 15:32

It was an incredible culture shift that it just took, and it took time. But the value in that story that you just told me is proof that the culture shift works. And maybe that's part of what I love as well, is this long term... I've been in places other than in Jackson, long term, in terms of at least in the Methodist Church, 17 total years in Hattiesburg, eight years in Oxford. And I love seeing years down the road, because you can do flashy things early, but it's the conversations that you get to have, 3, 4, 5, 6, years down the road that you know that things have begun to shift in a way that the values that are important for the Kingdom have taken root in people and are growing in people, and people are seeing ministry in a way there's no longer internal, but external.

Chris McAlilly 16:22

Yeah, two things I learned from you. One is, don't be afraid to try something new. Let me say three things. That's one thing, don't be afraid to try something new. And, you know, if I came to you with an idea, you would say yes. Most of the time. There are times where you would say no.

Eddie Rester 16:38
Every now and then, yeah. But not often.

Chris McAlilly 16:41 A lot of times, yes, yeah.

Eddie Rester 16:43

And one of the things when I went to Christ John Methodist Church in Jackson is they needed... They were kind of stuck, and they knew it. And the thing that we did early is we just threw stuff against the wall. And I encouraged people throw. Do something. I don't care if it's a failure, if it wastes some money, whatever, just if we're gonna create movement, it's not gonna be because we have a 12-month plan to get something done.

Eddie Rester 17:12

There's a podcast I love, Simon Sinek. I can't remember who he interviewed, but they talked about first pancakes. I tell this story all the time. The guy said, "Nobody eats a first pancake. It's terrible. But if you don't make the first pancake, you never get to the third pancake. You never get to what's worth eating." So...

Chris McAlilly 17:28

Yeah, that's awesome. So that's the first thing. Don't be afraid to try something new. Culture, the importance of culture building, and that's healthy staff culture, healthy lay leadership culture, just the importance of taking the time to build a culture and to do that well, and then the systems and the processes that lead to make a culture sustainable. Those are three of the things that that I think I learned from your leadership when we had the privilege of working together. And I, you know, I wanted to thank you for that, and also, I'm excited to see you do that again as you move to Dallas.

Chris McAlilly 18:02

I wanted to shift and ask you about obstacles within the context of being a senior pastor or a lead pastor. Because I know that, you know, it's not always new things and fun things, and people are getting baptized and everything's awesome. Through that period of time you're multiple decades-long time of being a pastor, your long experience, I know that you've experienced obstacles, hardships, trials. For somebody who's out there, who's leading, and maybe is in a hard season, and I know that you know what that feels like. What are the lessons? Some of the lessons you learned from that?

Eddie Rester 18:42

I think the first lesson is, is that those hard seasons end. I think sometimes when you're in the moment, it's hard to believe that the pain, or maybe people have left. And let me say this out loud, I don't think people will ever understand how painful it is for a pastor when people that you've poured into, loved taken care of, buried their mama, married their kids, suddenly aren't there anymore. So they're these... But God is the God of newness. And if we trust that God is a God of resurrection, then you'll always know that the next is coming.

Eddie Rester 19:28

And you know, one time, something pretty horrific happened when I was in Hattiesburg in our church. Because of that horrific thing ended up on the news, and another pastor called me, I'll never forget what he said. He said, "Eddie, you just have to make it for 48 hours. And everybody has moved on." And in that moment, I couldn't feel that, I couldn't see that, but he was right. And I often... I think one of the things I learned is I often carried the pain and the weight and the burden of things much longer than anybody else did. And that's, I think that's the trial of kind of the key leader, the lead pastor, the executive level, is that you carry it longer and it will be better if you carry it long enough and let it go.

Chris McAlilly 20:22 Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Eddie Rester 20:23 And that's hard.

Chris McAlilly 20:24
Oh my gosh, that's so hard. If you get that figured out, and you can teach that other people...

Eddie Rester 20:30 I'll let you know.

Chris McAlilly 20:31

Please do let me know. You know, that makes me think of Andy Crouch, his book, "Strong and Weak." He talks about the concept of hidden vulnerability is one of the dimensions of executive leadership. You can see issues, vulnerabilities, weaknesses that are out there for the organization or for the church or the entity that you're working for long before maybe everybody else and long after everybody else has moved on beyond that. And I do think there's this thing that can happen where you carry the weight of the responsibility of the institution or the thing that you're working on maybe too much. I think I've done that. I know that I've done that. You've coached me through times where I've done that. And you know, that's, I think it's just a good word and a good reminder for both of us, as we continue leading, as you step back into a new role. Just remember, carry it for as long as it needs to be carried, but then let it go.

Eddie Rester 21:29

Let it go. Lay it down. I think the other thing that I've learned, and you really helped me learn this, is the importance of moving through with a tribe of people. You got to have your tribe. And pastors, it's a lonely profession in a lot of ways, because the people in the pew can be your friends, but you're also still their pastor. And it's a weird line that gets moved back and forth sometimes. And early in my career, I did not value, let me, I'm just gonna be honest. We've joked about, people joke with me about this. I didn't value the power of going in the Methodist world to Annual Conference. And people still joke with me about that. I would do whatever it took. I'd plan a mission trip out of the country to avoid Annual Conference, because I saw it as a place of meaningless business. And what I missed is it's the place of meaningful connection.

Eddie Rester 22:27

These are the people understand exactly what you're going through. These are the people who will mock you mercilessly for the ridiculous things that you do. These are the people who when it all hits the fan, who are going to call you and text you and check on you and make sure you're okay, until you are okay. And I think early in my career, I didn't see the necessity of that, and I fell into the trap of trying to do it alone, or trying to do it with just a very tiny circle, and my life has been so much better when I've let my circle be large.

Chris McAlilly 23:12

Amen to that. Amen to that. Thank you for sharing. Yeah, I think the thing when there's an obstacle and there's a trial and there's hardship that comes in any season of life, and wherever it is that you find yourself trying to navigate, that the weight of that, I think the thing that I hear you saying is that the hard season is going to come to an end and lean into your tribe.

Chris McAlilly 23:39

And then, you know the phrase that you said over and over and over again that I hold on to, particularly in difficult moments, is just the power of unwarranted hope. Hope, hope that comes from the the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Resurrection hope. The Pentecostal power of the Spirit of God that has brought the kingdom close, not fully, but very real anyway, and that will one day complete the work of God and make all things new. Unwarranted hope. Where did that come?

Eddie Rester 24:11

That came from Aubrey Lucas. Aubrey, if you're from Mississippi, you may remember him as the president of the University of Southern Mississippi. He was a church member in Hattiesburg, just one of those unbelievable leaders in the state of Mississippi. And when we were going through that hard season at Parkway Heights, there was a Sunday morning, I guess he could look in my eyes and tell that I was somewhat defeated, and he grabbed me, pulled me into the kitchen at Parkway Heights, and he said, "Eddie a leader's gift is unwarranted hope." And he released me back to do the Sunday morning. I never forgot. It changed how I led, because I understood that if I couldn't lean into the hope we had in Jesus Christ, hope that makes no sense whatsoever, then the people I was trying lead would not know that hope that they needed to make it through difficult times.

Chris McAlilly 25:07

So thank you for sharing that, and I will continue. I'm glad to be reminded of it, and I will continue to remember it. I want to shift to this kind of time in the wilderness that you've had, where you've left the church and you've gone off to do other things. And it hasn't been wilderness. It's been meaning. It's not been meaningless business. It's been meaningful connections and meaningful work that you've done. So tell us about what you've been doing and maybe what you've learned from this season where you stepped out of church leadership for a time.

Eddie Rester 25:35

Yeah, the church I served went through the vote, like a lot of United Methodist churches did, they decided to disaffiliate. I felt confident that my calling was within the United Methodist Church, and so in that moment, I just prayed, "God, what do you need me to do next?" Am I supposed to... Do I need to go back to the church right now? We had a couple options to return to the local church in Mississippi and beyond, and prayed about it, prayed about it, and just didn't get a sense of peace that I was ready to return to the local church at that time. And so I began to think about, what would it look like to be helping the church, to be church adjacent to be in a work that allowed me to speak into the lives of pastors and church leaders from some of what I've learned and experienced?

Eddie Rester 26:27

And so an organization, Cargill Associates, I've been familiar with them for a long time. They do church fundraising and leadership development, and they were looking for a president. And so it was a very natural fit for who I was, what I'd experienced, what I'd learned. And so in March of 2024 I started working with them. And one of the joys was simply working with pastors. And one of the things, because I was a pastor myself, that I could do was sit and listen and hear where pastors were. I got to see churches that were struggling. I got to meet with churches who were doing just unbelievable things, who had made stunning, risky decisions that were paying off for the kingdom in unbelievable ways. I got to work with churches who had made bad decisions, but were trying to make good decisions. And so it really, it kept me connected to the work of the Church of Jesus, and it allowed me to see again from a different vantage point, the way God worked in churches.

Eddie Rester 27:32

And so I am forever thankful, and will be forever thankful that a guy named Derric Bakker, who's the CEO of the company, invited me to lead that division. They've hired my replacement, a guy named Rob Flint. He... It's such a story. I can stop there, but let me tell this bit of it, and then I want to... It kind of bridges to what's next. So as I began to feel this nudge back to the local church, guy named Rob Flint reached out to the CEO. Rob had been the other finalist to be president of Cargill, but there were a lot of things in his life. He just wasn't ready yet, but he wanted to maybe get connected, maybe do some consulting for us, and so 8:30 on a Thursday morning, Rob and I and the CEO, Derric BakKer, met with Rob, and we talked to him for about an hour what he could do.

Eddie Rester 28:26

And it was this great, incredible conversation. And at that point, I knew that there was a good chance I might be getting appointed back to the local church. And it was this incredible affirmation that there was someone else who could step right in and do the job that I was affirmation that there was someone else who could step right in and do the job that I was doing, and he had skills to take it from where I had led it to something completely incredible. It's just unbelievable. His skill set is different than mine. He's such a joy. And I've spent the last couple days onboarding him, getting him ready, but later that same day, the bishop of the rising conference, Bishop Ruben Saenz, called me and said, "Are you ready to go back to the local church?" And we were. And I called my boss, and I was like, "You need to call Rob and hire him right now." And that's what that's basically what he did.

Chris McAlilly 29:19

That's awesome. That is so awesome. So tell me, as you consider, as we kind of wrap up our conversation--so that's the life update: Eddie Rester is headed to Texas. Audra Rester, headed to Texas. Going to Lovers Lane United Methodist.

Eddie Rester 29:34
She decided she's gonna go with me. Lovers Lane,United Methodist.

Chris McAlilly 29:37

Yeah, this is a surprise to everybody that Audra is following you to Texas. But we're grateful to her, always, for tolerating you and also being with you and guiding you and shepherding you through life.

Eddie Rester 29:52 That's right. Yeah.

Chris McAlilly 29:53
But as you move to this new church, tell me what you're excited about.

Eddie Rester 29:58

Yeah, so Lovers Lane United Methodist Church. I've known of Lovers Lane. It's not on Lovers Lane anymore. It's on Inwood and Northwest Nighway. So if you're in Dallas, we'd love to see you. But it's been pastored by one of those people you just kind of know when you're in Methodist circles. It's been pastored by Stan Copeland for 27 years. He's done amazing work there. The church has led in so many ways in the denomination, and I'm grateful that Bishop Saenz and the leadership there saw in me what's necessary to be the next lead pastor.

Eddie Rester 30:39
What I'm excited about is that they are ready to look forward. What's God got for us ahead?

And you know, as we talked at the beginning of the conversation about me being inventor and enablement, it's going to provide, I think, a place for the team that's assembled there, both the lay team, the staff team. I've spent some time meeting with staff while I've been in Dallas this week to really begin to dream God's dream for Lovers Lane in this next season, and to begin to figure out, what does that look like? Where are we going? How are we going to impact the world around us?

Eddie Rester 31:17

And you know, it's all these little things along the way. When I got in the car for the very first time with a member and his wife at Lovers Lane to go to an appointment, one of the songs, the song that was playing as we got in was a Lauren Daigle song that was important to my family. Some things happened across that day that were so significant that said...Just, I always look for little nudges of the Holy Spirit, and so many things past that point that were important. And I had a time to have conversation with some of their leadership, and everything that they shared made me excited. The scary stuff about, you know, challenges that are ahead for that church, but also the the resources that they have to really do a significant work in the Dallas metroplex.

Eddie Rester 32:13

So I'm just excited. I feel like a kid in a candy shop right now. And Audra, you know, she's excited that I'm excited. And I just... We talked with Chancellor Khayat, we talked about our affections, pursuing our affections. And I've thought about that since he talked about that. Because I think when I stepped out of the church, I wasn't sure if the church was, the work of the local church, was what I had affection for. And I think what I've learned, particularly the last two or three months, is that I do. That's it. That's my work. That's my life's work.

Eddie Rester 32:58

It took me a minute to figure that out. I'm 54 now, and so I'm still figuring out what God wants me to do when I grow up. And, but I, yeah... I'm excited. Every day I wake up thinking about different things and that's the pain of an inventor, is that we do that. So, yeah, that's kind of what I'm excited about and looking forward to. And, yeah.

Chris McAlilly 33:25

Well, I am excited for you. I'm excited that you have an opportunity to lead again, a local church. I'm excited for that group of people and their staff. They don't know how much fun they're about to have. And, yeah, it's just gonna be really cool to see you guys take this church into a new season and a new chapter. And then I'm also excited. You have that spark in your eye that I saw, you know, over 10 years ago, when we first started working together. And I see your intention and your conviction for what's ahead and I'm pumped to see where that's going to go. And I'm excited that we're going to keep doing the podcast.

Eddie Rester 34:08

Eddie Rester 34:08 I am, too.

Chris McAlilly 34:08
And we'll have opportunities to talk shop here. You know, if you guys like this episode, we might do some more of these kind of conversations as well.

Eddie Rester 34:18

Yeah, we've got some things that Chris and I've talked about. We'd love to just share some what we both learned and how we approach ministry. We may be doing that some more. One thing about the podcast is, and there's a guy named Brent who's probably listened to this episode. The very first time I had conversations with anybody from Lovers Lane, we kind of got to a done point in the conversation. And Brent goes, "Can we talk about the podcast for a minute?" He said, "If you come here, are you going to keep doing the podcast?" And the answer is, I think I'm more committed to the podcast now than I've been in a couple of seasons. And that's not say I haven't loved the last couple of seasons, but I think I'm beginning to see more and more of the impact that it has on me and my life, and hopefully on the lives of people who are listening and sharing it.

Eddie Rester 35:08
[OUTRO] Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast, the best way to help us is to like, subscribe, or leave a review.

Chris McAlilly 35:08

Yeah, so you know, our hope is that if you're a Christ-centered leader, if you're working in a church or in a nonprofit or in the marketplace, or whatever sector you're in, we're in the middle of it, just trying to... We're practitioners. We're trying to figure it out. We would love for you to come on the journey with us. And you know, we'll be trying to gather in as many awesome people that can help resource us as we're navigating the challenges that we're working on. And we hope that the byproduct of that is that we all gain a larger tribe, a better conversation, hope for the journey, particularly the hard seasons, that they will indeed come to an end, and unwarranted hope so that we can all be inventors and we can empower and enable the work of the Kingdom and those around us, so that the world might flourish. So thanks, Eddie, thanks for taking time to do this life update. And hope you guys enjoyed the episode.

Chris McAlilly 35:48

If you would like to support this work financially, or if you have an idea for a future guest, you can go to theweightpodcast.com. [END OUTRO]