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"I'm Going to Die Here": False Summits, Confession, and Getting Unstuck | Rodney Adams
29 Plays7 days ago
Rodney Adams did everything right. Rural West Texas upbringing, every sports team, church every Sunday. And by his mid-twenties he was managing a liquor store outside Lubbock, looking at the men twenty years ahead of him on that same path, and thinking: I'm going to die here.
What followed was a Marine Corps career where he "never had a bad day," a Goldman Sachs seat that left him asking "what have I done?", and a quiet stretch reading Scripture in a parking garage at dawn while his peers rode the elevator up without him.
In this conversation with Todd Pinkston and Steven Neuner, Rodney — now an executive pastor in Tulsa and a WayForward board member — unpacks how he got unstuck, and why it wasn't a single burning-bush moment. It was a thousand small yeses. He gets honest about the confession that "unlocked an entirely new section of Eden," what his wife actually needed from him during the lean years, and the one-page tool he uses so no one on his team is surprised by a hard conversation.
If success has started to feel hollow, this one's for you.
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Rodney Adams
00:00:56
Todd Pinkston
right, here we are with Rodney Adams. Rodney spent some time serving the country with the Marines, did a stint with Goldman Sachs, and is now within in his second stint being an executive pastor, now at a church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Asbury Church.
00:01:10
Todd Pinkston
Rodney, excited to have you here. Thanks for your time.
00:01:12
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you for being here.
00:01:13
Rodney
Yeah, it's cool. I'm glad we got the link up like this. It's fun.
00:01:16
Todd Pinkston
You bet. Hey, let's just start out with your story. You know, the milestones, memories, what's shaped you to make you into the man you are today.
Rodney's Upbringing and College Struggles
00:01:25
Rodney
So I grew up in rural West Texas and you know, was in church every Sunday, youth group every Wednesday, was on every sports team, you know, at the school and really had the all American like upbringing, did everything right, had, you know, was was hardly ever in trouble, got good grades, you know, really high school came easy to me.
00:01:54
Rodney
Church life came easy to me. It's just kind of what we did. And i would say if I look back on my on my childhood, you know, or my my relationships and just sort of some of the things that happened in childhood, like we...
00:02:13
Rodney
My family was a family of integrity. Like we, there wasn't any weird like drama in our family. My dad was a man of integrity. Like I said, we were all in church all the time doing the right things.
00:02:25
Rodney
And, you know, we, we struggled a bit financially here and there. And when I say we, I mean, I'm a kid, like I'm not earning anything to contribute. This is my parents, you know, busting their tail to, to try to provide for us.
00:02:38
Rodney
But, you know, there were some pretty lean years there. And I would say that that's really where like formation started for me.
00:02:47
Todd Pinkston
Thank you.
00:02:47
Rodney
It's where our whole family environment really started to affect me. Why I bring that up is, you know, i went off to college, went to undergraduate school at Texas Tech and you know, was on the extended plan at Tech. I mean, i it took me six years to graduate with a pretty easy undergra a pretty easy degree plan. I did everything but go to class. Part of it was because...
00:03:16
Rodney
you know, I was smart enough to get by without putting a lot of effort into it. but this was my first introduction to like untethered freedom.
00:03:28
Rodney
I wasn't really prepared for, you know, life and what we thought of as the big city
Transformation in the Marine Corps
00:03:34
Rodney
at the time. And, and, I ended up pretty wayward in college and,
00:03:41
Rodney
those were some pretty dark times again i had no language for any of the stuff that i'm telling you i didn't know that limits and boundaries are what actually give you freedom i didn't know that purpose i didn't know anything about that kind of language and so i was pretty undergraduate school was pretty dark for me I was really envious of friends of mine who were focused, like they knew what they wanted to do. They were interested in the news or politics or the markets, or they had ideas like I didn't.
00:04:21
Rodney
i i didn't have I didn't, I just didn't know what I was for. I didn't know what I was, what I was made of. And i tell you all that because it just, it just began this spiral.
00:04:33
Rodney
And by the end of it, I had, I worked at a liquor store in Texas or, you know, outside of Lubbock for most of my time there kind of had worked my way up and then became a manager there, which was a big deal. I'm a manager now of this huge liquor store.
00:04:51
Rodney
And I'm looking around and all the other managers were in their late forties, early fifties, none of them on their first marriage.
00:05:03
Rodney
you know, all of them were closing down the bars with us, you know, once, when work, when work finished and we had 30 minutes left to go hit last call, they're all there with us.
00:05:16
Rodney
talking to the same girls that all the 20 year olds, 22 year olds at our tables were talking to. And I just said, man, I'm going to die here.
00:05:27
Rodney
And I remember, I remember thinking, I gotta get out of here. Like I can't, this is my path. Cause I'm not really valuable anywhere else, but right here just professionally.
00:05:40
Rodney
And so, it wasn't really on a whim, like I'm telling it now, but just for time's sake, like I joined the Marine Corps, because I just knew
Life Post-Marine Corps: Marriage and Goldman Sachs
00:05:49
Rodney
I had to go. Like I needed to, I sold, I sold or gave away literally everything I owned and just left and joined the Marine Corps, went to bootcamp at the recruit Depot in San Diego.
00:06:02
Rodney
And that started an eight year career in the Marine Corps, but also a transformation. Like I feel like the Lord, i didn't realize at the time that God was doing something with me.
00:06:17
Rodney
But I began to, he just recalibrated everything for me. I saw the world a different way. I had a responsibility and a purpose. I was good at it. Like I felt like I was made for it.
00:06:30
Todd Pinkston
Mm-hmm.
00:06:31
Rodney
I was an infantry officer, did combat deployments, like, but I never had a bad day. There were hard things for sure, but not bad ones. Like I feel like I was, I woke up and I just was doing what I was supposed to be doing every day.
00:06:45
Rodney
Got out of the Marine Corps in 2013. We were, Emily and I had gotten married along that along the way and were pregnant with our first child. and The wars were allegedly winding down and we just, the timing was right for us to get out and kind of move on and do something else. And in the in the military, I think a lot of guys would affirm this. there's There's a window in time where you need to get out and retain some of your marketability to kind of make that that transition, that career transition. you either need to be a junior officer or you basically need to be retired because once you're in that, there's a point at which you become too old to start at a good firm at a junior level, unless you're going start your own business or something. And, but, or you become too experienced, like you're
00:07:45
Rodney
You don't have the, you don't have the, you're too experienced in military stuff. You really can't start at a junior level at a firm, but you also have, you don't have any corporate experience. So you can't start at a senior level, like commiserate with your age. And so there's kind of a window in time where you've got to get out and kind of move on.
00:08:05
Rodney
So I did that, uh, got my MBA, uh, from Indiana university and then joined a Goldman Sachs and worked at Goldman for four years and.
00:08:16
Rodney
About two years into it, I was like, what have I done?
00:08:19
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
00:08:21
Rodney
Like, I'm not like any of these people. i don't, I actually don't even care about this work. Like I don't, I could care less what's going on in the markets, much less what is going on in other people's portfolios or with, you know, whatever.
00:08:34
Rodney
I just, I was kind of lost again and had really started to pray, Lord, like, am i Am I supposed to be a light in a dark place or did I just like, am i is there a misalignment here? Like, am I not even supposed to be here? Like, what am i what's my deal?
00:08:52
Rodney
So I went through about a two year period of prayer where I'm just trying to figure out what the Lord wants me to do. So I wasn't even asking questions from the Lord, you know, in the preceding eight or 10 years.
00:09:10
Rodney
But now my wife and I, because we have our first child, like we start going back to the faith, back to church. Like we start to kind of, you know, come back into the picture with our faith again.
00:09:23
Rodney
Well, the Lord really just like slammed into us like in a new way. I mean, we we felt just this tangible presence of the Spirit constantly. the lord I felt like the Lord convicted me that if I'm going to do His will, if I'm going try to seek His will and do it, I need to be a man of the Word. like i And I know that sounds so basic for you know talking to a couple of Christian guys, but It wasn't that basic for me at the time. And and so I started just reading scripture every day.
00:09:59
Rodney
Well, with a young family and you're working hard and running and gunning, like the only time for me to really do that was in the parking garage underneath Goldman's building, you know, early in the morning before I get to work.
00:10:11
Rodney
Well, when you're relatively junior on Wall Street, like it matters if you're the first one in the office. And so it's like so dark when all the young guys are getting there. But I was reading the word because I felt like that's what the Lord wanted me
Transition to Faith and Church Work
00:10:24
Rodney
to do. and And I'm not saying that to make myself look great. It's just it's the time I had to do it.
00:10:30
Rodney
Well, I distinctly remember then all my peers are like passing me, like passing by my window and getting in the elevator. And and I felt that was significant because I was trading something for for something else.
00:10:48
Rodney
And a few years later, I got let go as part of a downsize. And it wasn't because of my faith, but it was because of the choices I was making. I was making new choices. I got to a place where I stopped doing cocktail parties.
00:11:01
Rodney
I stopped doing things that started to like challenge my faith sensibilities. And ultimately, that started to separate me from the business quite a bit.
00:11:13
Rodney
And anyway, i get let go as part of a downsize and I'm trying to figure out what, what, what the Lord wants next for me. And I'd been helping our, my church with, with some leadership stuff. And I did other consulting jobs as freelancing, doing some different things for some Goldman clients. buddy of mine and i two guys had, and I had set up an RIA. We were going to basically build a multifamily office with some of our clients and had a whole bunch of plans.
00:11:42
Rodney
Well, the pastor of my church, Andrew Forrest, who work with now, and I were working on some leadership stuff and we knew we needed an executive pastor. We didn't have one, our church was growing. And so I kind of helped to build all that out. I just, so okay, i'll but I'll write up the job description and I'll find, you know, I'll kind of come up with a budget and help do some recruiting. And and I did all that while I was on my severance at Goldman.
00:12:04
Rodney
And at the end of that period, we couldn't find anybody. We interviewed some guys, didn't work out. And he was like, I think you should do it. And really up until that moment, I had not ever considered working for a church. I grew up in a rural area. Nobody worked for a church. The pastor worked for the church. That was it. There was one guy that worked for the church.
00:12:26
Rodney
And so it kind of came at a time where we really needed that. Like we needed to move. I needed to make a move and kind of seemed like something I could do. yeah, looking at the job description that I wrote, by the way, like, yeah, it does kind of seem like some stuff that I'm good at.
00:12:40
Rodney
So I said, okay, I'll keep all my other irons in the fire just in case we don't like working with each other or this doesn't work or whatever, but I'll do this for a few months. And if it doesn't work, I'll find the the right guy.
00:12:54
Rodney
that was in a spring of 2017 and I've never stopped. I mean, it's, it's, I sold all my stuff. we had to, it was a significant downsize from an income perspective. Like, like I was making a third of what I was making at the firm to start at the church. We sold our home, we sold cars. I mean, we've, we're like, okay, Lord, like this is, I guess this, is this is what
Role as Executive Pastor and Personal Growth
00:13:18
Rodney
you're doing. This is what we're doing.
00:13:20
Rodney
And, Yeah, that was that was almost 10 years ago, I guess, nine years ago. And it's the best thing that's ever happened to me. and And I feel like I've grown as much in the last five years as I've grown in the preceding 10. I mean, it's just the Lord just continues to like challenge me and pour out blessing on me but that's the that's the nickel tour so as you said i'm the executive pastor here at asbury church in tulsa oklahoma i was actually todd you don't know this i was ordained as a pastor on pentecost of this year so up until this point i had not been ordained and i'm an ordained elder in our church as of pentecost of this year so again it's just
00:13:59
Todd Pinkston
Come on.
00:14:00
Steven J. Neuner
That's awesome. All
00:14:08
Rodney
further up and further in the Lord just continues to, to draw me into more of his, his life. And it's been cool. It's been real good.
00:14:16
Todd Pinkston
Dude, that's rich. thanks for Thanks for sharing that.
00:14:18
Steven J. Neuner
right.
00:14:20
Todd Pinkston
Hey, so you would say college was the time where you started maybe searching outside the church for for something. And then that kind of led you through the Marines were good years.
00:14:29
Rodney
Yeah.
00:14:32
Todd Pinkston
Like you felt like you were doing something meaningful. You felt like it was clicking, but maybe spiritually was still in a place where you weren't on track. What like what's your headspace during that time?
00:14:44
Todd Pinkston
Like trying to find purpose apart from the Lord. like if you can go back in and describe, you know, how did you think about life then compared to how you think about it now?
00:14:56
Rodney
So I've never had a moment where I didn't believe, if that makes sense.
00:15:00
Todd Pinkston
Yeah, for sure.
00:15:01
Rodney
Like I've never been apart from God in the sense that like, well, maybe all faiths are valid or, or, you know, maybe this is all a waste of time. I've never really had that. It's more just a feeling of like dryness. Like you're just, you're not practicing and you're in the desert. Like you're, you need a You need a drink of water and you don't know how bad, like it's more, like it's more like that.
00:15:26
Rodney
The Lord started working on me in bootcamp. You know, on Sundays, the drill instructors don't mess with you too much and they have to give you, I guess, a half a day or something for for rest and practicing your faith.
00:15:38
Steven J. Neuner
Yes.
00:15:41
Rodney
So there's all these like little chapels and different services going on on boot camps. Well, everybody goes because the drill instructors can't mess with you there. So, you know, even if you're not a believer, like you're going to church, you know, on Sunday morning because it's peaceful and quiet. I was going because I was a believer, but I was mostly I was half as least halfway going because i didn't want to get messed with like everybody else.
00:16:03
Rodney
Well, in the worship, which is which had been foreign to me at the time, the style of worship, like, I mean, every Sunday, you're just like emotional, like tears are going flowing and you're like, you're just like broken every single Sunday.
00:16:15
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:16:19
Rodney
And at the time, i thought maybe it was just the contrast, like the the contrast of of the difficulty of the week of being in Marine Corps boot camp and then Now you're in this like church service is so different.
00:16:32
Rodney
You just body can't handle it. What I know now was that the spirit of God was moving like in that place and definitely
Impact of Upbringing and Parenting Reflections
00:16:39
Rodney
moving in me. And I feel like it sustained me. Like I wasn't, I wasn't practicing in the sense that I wasn't going to church every Sunday, like throughout my Marine Corps career, but like there was a, like a,
00:16:53
Rodney
moral foundation that's rooted in like God's design that was still present. And even though I still was making wayward choices, like it, it was still there.
00:17:05
Rodney
I remember having conversations about God with, with my Marines on our first combat deployment, just cause like you're staring finality, like in the face at times. And so you're talking about this stuff.
00:17:33
Steven J. Neuner
Thank
00:17:44
Rodney
And so, again, it's just these things that you file away and you're in your head or, you know, like Mary in the Gospels, you know, she says she treasured these things in her heart. Like, it's kind of like that. Like, you're just like, huh, OK.
00:17:57
Rodney
There's just a little a little drip from the Lord kind of sustaining you. It really wasn't until we got out of the Marine Corps and just felt this like intense prompting to to get back in the house of the Lord and and really kind of grow up a little bit.
00:18:16
Steven J. Neuner
Rodney, if I could, I'd like to actually just go just a touch back further and actually connect it where you're at today. So you're a husband, you're a father of how many now?
00:18:28
Rodney
Four. 12 down to two.
00:18:28
Steven J. Neuner
Four. Awesome. Well done. Right. That's so cool. I guess like it sounds like you had a you know what most people describe as the perfect picture of of growing up, right? I'm curious how you think about entering college, going wayward from that to, to where you ended up, you know, how are you thinking about preparing your children for maybe what you didn't have when you entered the, entered those environments? Is there, there are lessons, you know, not, not a knock on your parents, but is there are there other ways that you're thinking about the future differently because of your experience?
00:19:08
Rodney
100%. And and i won I don't have any knocks on my parents either. I think every
00:19:16
Rodney
I used to be cynical about this, but now I think if if the next generation doesn't grow up having learned something from the generation before them, both what to do and what they'd like to do differently, then something's wrong.
00:19:30
Rodney
like like I hope my son has his own ideas about...
00:19:30
Todd Pinkston
Yeah.
00:19:34
Rodney
about you know ways that he would like to to take on his his you know kids and their future. And if i had to if I had the choice between taking my upbringing or rolling the dice and getting some version of anyone else's, I'd take mine. I wouldn't... Like mine was awesome.
00:19:52
Steven J. Neuner
Sounds wonderful.
00:19:53
Rodney
it was awesome. It was like Mayberry. i mean, you know, you're biking around town with your buds and, and it's just, you know, playing sports and messing around. It was awesome. Worked hard.
00:20:03
Rodney
I mean, you know, I've literally, I think I'm in year 30 of filing a tax return, which is, depressing, but I mean, from 15, you know, I've been, I've been working.
00:20:11
Steven J. Neuner
people say thank you.
00:20:15
Rodney
So it was a great upbringing.
00:20:19
Rodney
But I was unprepared for for particularly city life, particularly party college life, particularly just any responsibility outside the home. I was i was unprepared.
00:20:34
Rodney
I think what if I could go back and critique my parents, my coaches, my youth group leaders, whatever it would be, if I could ask one thing of them,
00:20:46
Rodney
it would have been to make a specific handoff to some college ministry or some church in the college town.
00:20:47
Steven J. Neuner
Sure.
00:20:55
Rodney
Like, I think that could have changed a lot of things. Now, I don't get into these games where like my life would be different. I don't want my life today to be any different.
00:21:06
Rodney
Like i I love my life.
00:21:06
Steven J. Neuner
Sure.
00:21:08
Rodney
So, but at the same time, I wonder what the Lord could have done in other, if other things would have played out. So we didn't have a lot of money. i had to go to work right away and I knew how to work. I was a hard worker. That wasn't a challenge for me. but you're a product of your environment when you're, when you're, I was a leader on my sports teams, but But I knew the system, like i knew how to be the quarterback of a sports team, of of a football team.
00:21:40
Rodney
I knew how to be the captain of a basketball team. I didn't know how to be just a guy that nobody knows paying rent and trying to get a job. i didn't self-leadership was, was, was not something I knew how to do.
00:21:52
Steven J. Neuner
It's a very sad thing that I didn't do.
00:21:55
Rodney
And so.
00:21:55
Steven J. Neuner
And so what you have found, you have found that people have found that one of those key members, like in the world, there was a very sad place, like I was saying, in 1970, I don't know how to do it.
00:21:57
Rodney
you fall in with who you fall in with. And i fell in with the liquor store crowd. And those are the groups of, those are the guys who were affirming me and wanted me around and you're, you have rapport with, and that turns into now you're gambling through a bookie on the weekends that turns into you're on the golf course, you know, on a Tuesday morning, instead of going to class, just cause you can, that turns into, you you know, closing down the bars on a Wednesday night, just cause you can. I didn't know a single like church person, my entire college career, literally not one.
00:22:42
Rodney
and that's a huge miss. I mean, that's a massive miss.
00:22:46
Steven J. Neuner
Yes.
00:22:46
Rodney
And, you know, the stuff that we were kind of talking about before we started recording, like how the environments I want my kids to be in. And, you know the The reason why I'm on the board at WayForward is because i want I want to surround myself with those kinds of people, with you guys, with the the the most inspiring people at WayForward, by the way, are the young people.
00:23:10
Rodney
like
00:23:11
Steven J. Neuner
it
00:23:12
Todd Pinkston
Amen.
00:23:12
Rodney
I can't get enough of being around the 21 year olds that are out there. And I want my son to be one of them. Like I want my daughters to be one of them.
00:23:22
Rodney
And so I think just to tie all that up and be more specific, I would, I would curate that environment a little bit harder than what was done for me.
00:23:34
Rodney
And
00:23:34
Steven J. Neuner
for me and doing this little time I'm reaching out to the places that would like when I can't speak or not and being face to face and like
00:23:36
Rodney
what I'm doing is literally reaching out to the places that I would like my kids to end up and meeting them face to face. And
Importance of Faith and Spiritual Practices
00:23:42
Steven J. Neuner
if one of you had a dream place and we had a drive or we would like to come here and then like putting in a man's toys or to drive and like I wish someone would have done that for me
00:23:43
Rodney
like, if my little pipe dream plays out, I'm driving Owen to Del Norte and I'm, and I'm like putting him in Todd's arms and driving away. And,
00:23:56
Rodney
Like, I wish someone would have done that for me when I went off to college, but they didn't.
00:24:01
Steven J. Neuner
That's good.
00:24:01
Rodney
And so, you know, it I paid for that. Now, it's not their fault, but that's what I would do.
00:24:05
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
00:24:08
Rodney
That's what I will do with my kids. And that's what I'm trying to do with our student ministry here in our church. We're trying to establish some relationships with the most likely landing places for all of our students so that we can make these handoffs.
00:24:21
Steven J. Neuner
good
00:24:21
Todd Pinkston
good.
00:24:21
Steven J. Neuner
thank you
00:24:22
Todd Pinkston
Yeah. So you're in the, you're in the parking lot at Goldman Sachs longing for something.
00:24:26
Steven J. Neuner
And you can't do it by saying it's the issue for something.
00:24:29
Todd Pinkston
And I think that's a place where, you know, so many folks, whether they're, they're listening here or they're going on trail or they're, you know, showing up at strategic coach, like there's, there's this longing that's met unfulfilled and we can look back and we could try to be critical, but the reality is like, we're right here in this moment.
00:24:29
Steven J. Neuner
And I think that's a piece of it. You know, so it's all for the work that listening.
00:24:41
Rodney
Hmm. Hmm.
00:24:47
Todd Pinkston
What, can can you just kind of talk through and even give some encouragement for like, what, what does that look like to start finding it on your own? Like, I think sometimes we're looking for like the one, two threes of like, Hey, this is how you figure it all out at 30 years old, but, but it's not that way.
00:25:03
Rodney
me
00:25:04
Todd Pinkston
And so, you know, your, your practice was start reading your word, but man, what's your encouragement to yeah folks that are just looking for, what is it? There's gotta be something more than this.
00:25:15
Rodney
I mean, again, i know that, that the most likely audience, for this show or whatever is guys in their thirties and forties, there's probably a mixture of believers and guys who are either not believers or on the fence or whatever, and that's fine.
00:25:30
Steven J. Neuner
This is probably a big story.
00:25:38
Rodney
for the guys who are not believers, I'm sorry. I just feel like it would be a waste of, of, of, time. If I came on here and didn't tell them that like, like the creator of all things like made you and, and as you're like nested in his purpose.
00:25:52
Steven J. Neuner
things like being here and getting this here and asking that this practice is so does that mean if you don't even know what they're doing and just tell me what it's true.
00:25:58
Rodney
So it doesn't matter if you believe me or not. I'm just telling you like, it's true.
00:26:02
Steven J. Neuner
And it's very good for me.
00:26:04
Rodney
And his word, like the Bible, like you've got to marvel at the fact that this thing has been around for thousands of years, no matter how many people have tried to do away with it, burn it, discredit it, whatever, it's still changing lives. So to minimum, it's a fascinating piece of literature that's worthy of your time.
00:26:22
Rodney
But like, the Bible is the story of God and, it's not a like user manual.
00:26:31
Rodney
You know how we used to have those green manuals that you would buy to fix your truck with, you know, and it tell you like everything that, yeah.
00:26:37
Steven J. Neuner
The Chilton's Chilton manual.
00:26:39
Rodney
Yeah. I got real familiar with those. I never had a truck that worked.
00:26:41
Steven J. Neuner
I did too. That's what you do when you're broke.
00:26:42
Rodney
Yeah.
00:26:43
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:26:44
Rodney
Yeah.
00:26:44
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:26:45
Rodney
Yeah. You're you learn about alternators and starters real quick.
00:26:50
Todd Pinkston
Oh.
00:26:50
Rodney
That's not the Bible, right? Like that's not, it's not a, it's not a how to manual, but it, but if you have the eyes to see it, it's you, you're spending time with the risen Lord and you're getting to know his character and what he wants and what he's always wanted, not necessarily what he wants for you individually, but what he's always wanted.
00:27:07
Steven J. Neuner
and loading the markets, and loading the place over there. And it does defend the money, and it does defend the money, and it does defend the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects the money, and it affects
00:27:14
Rodney
So I think you've got to be in the word. And if you're stuck, First of all, if you're stuck, you should take everybody's advice, really. I mean, because you obviously, whatever you're doing is not working if you're stuck.
00:27:27
Rodney
Even if you're not a believer, like you should just start reading the word, like start and, and you know, reach out to Todd Stephen whatever, and they'll tell you where you should start.
00:27:29
Steven J. Neuner
So just like, you know, I start and then, you know, I'm trying to talk to you.
00:27:30
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:27:33
Steven J. Neuner
going to tell you where you start, like, you know, go to the beginning of it.
00:27:35
Rodney
But like, you've got to be in it every day, even if you don't understand it.
00:27:38
Steven J. Neuner
And then, you know, I think I want to say, you know, how to talk is just that I retain it and I think it's really a bit of a feeling and it's something you want to
00:27:40
Rodney
And I'm telling, I mean, that's just... I have tangible proof that it's worked for me and so many other men, believers and non-believers alike.
00:27:47
Steven J. Neuner
I realize that what you want to add is like, like, if you really want to add something, you know, learn, like, the greater new things you and it's better than that.
00:27:49
Rodney
Like if you want to get unstuck, you got to learn like the the creator of all things purpose for you and then start doing that thing. And through reading the word and then through prayer every day.
00:27:59
Rodney
And if you're a believer, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not like, start with like, God, if you're real, like, I just need you to speak to me through this process because I'm lost and just be done.
00:28:02
Steven J. Neuner
So that's kind of like, just made it as a sweet to me, that's the other side, because I don't want to feel like I'm
00:28:10
Rodney
Just call it a day. to Be done with that.
00:28:12
Steven J. Neuner
you say this feeling, you can't do it as much as you know.
00:28:13
Rodney
But then when you start receiving these promptings, which you will, like there's going to be these little nagging like, hey, like you need to reconcile with that. that person in your family or you know you've been kind of putting this off and your wife has really needed you to get to it.
00:28:30
Rodney
And I don't mean like mowing or patching some drywall.
00:28:32
Steven J. Neuner
I that's one of the biggest things that you haven't gotten to and everybody must be able to know all those things.
00:28:32
Rodney
I mean like like there's probably big stuff in your marriage that that you haven't gotten to and everybody listening will know what those things are.
00:28:38
Steven J. Neuner
And for the end, it's a way to think about the end of it.
00:28:41
Rodney
whether it's a, uh, an unhealthy habit that they need to kind of rid themselves of, or, a piece of responsibility in their family that they're not taking.
00:28:43
Steven J. Neuner
But thinking to kind of affect those things and it's way out there.
00:28:53
Steven J. Neuner
and then they have to get a job
00:29:01
Rodney
they may have a good job, but they're not really on top of their spending. And while your wife like needs security, you might think you could live under a bridge if everything's goes south. She does not think that.
00:29:14
Rodney
And like, and like my point is like, so if you're in the word and you're learning about God and who God is, and you're kind of communicating with him and you're like, okay, Lord, like what do I do here over time? And it doesn't even take that long. You're going to start getting these little nagging promptings like, Hey, deal with this, deal with that.
Marriage Dynamics and Personal Growth
00:29:33
Rodney
That's the thing you have to do right now. Like deal with that thing right now. So obedience is like the, is like the trigger that fires the gun. Like obedience is what makes everything work. And, you know, you use that word with non-church people and that's kind of, well, what else is there? I don't really want to, I don't like the word obedience.
00:29:56
Rodney
I'm sorry. Like obedience is what's going to be required if you're stuck. And another thing I'll talk, I'll say about
00:30:05
Rodney
what I like about how I've spent my time the last few years, particularly with the people I've met through way forward and different groups, like you've got to, nothing worth having is risk-free period. It's just not all the business guys know this.
00:30:23
Rodney
Nothing is risk-free. And you know, even the risk-free rate in the marketplace is like nothing, right? Like it's not worth anything. It's like the lowest possible rate there is.
00:30:32
Steven J. Neuner
It's risky.
00:30:33
Rodney
Yeah. Like, like nothing is risk-free. So you're not going to know what's on the other side of this obedience.
00:30:41
Steven J. Neuner
So fundamentally it feels a little risky or probably a high spot for two of them.
00:30:41
Rodney
So for one, like if it feels a little risky, you're probably in the right spot for two though, like you're going to have to cultivate some form of vulnerability.
00:30:46
Steven J. Neuner
Like you've got to have to cope with the extreme, but it's hard to think about how it is.
00:30:51
Rodney
And what I mean by that is you're going to have to be able to share some of this stuff that like you're struggling with, you need a community of guys or whatever.
00:30:53
Steven J. Neuner
You're going to have to be with the same as what is that they're struggling with the end to being together as whatever.
00:30:59
Rodney
For me though, what I have found is, is when I have cultivated the habit of confession,
00:30:59
Steven J. Neuner
For me, what I'm offended what I have called
00:31:05
Rodney
The humility and the and the the awareness to look inside and say, okay, that's not from the Lord. Like the Lord doesn't want this for me. Confessing that and getting it out, even though it might be risky to do so.
00:31:17
Steven J. Neuner
getting out even though you're gonna speak into yourself.
00:31:20
Rodney
And then reconciling or making amends with the people who have been affected by this area that I'm confessing.
00:31:21
Steven J. Neuner
And then look back and suddenly you're making amends with the people who have been affected by this area that I'm addressing.
00:31:27
Rodney
it's like these entirely new areas of Eden have opened up for me and particularly for my, for my marriage.
00:31:28
Steven J. Neuner
It's like these internal factors of care that we've been doing.
00:31:33
Rodney
I have a good life. And I thought, I mean, I would have, I would have rated my life a nine of 10, two years ago.
00:31:45
Rodney
And now I would have rated that part of my life as like a six of 10 now knowing what's actually possible.
00:31:47
Steven J. Neuner
That's good.
00:31:53
Rodney
And so, I don't even know if I got off track or not, but that's, if you're stuck, man, I'm telling you, it's, it can be that formulaic. And if you just run that play for a month, something's going to happen.
00:32:07
Rodney
I mean, something's going to happen that I'll take that to the bank.
00:32:07
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:32:11
Todd Pinkston
Hmm. That's good. And so you talk about this last five years.
00:32:16
Steven J. Neuner
I can't really bring it to the end of the tip.
00:32:16
Todd Pinkston
what's What's been the last five, like what has made the last five years as rich as it's been?
00:32:24
Rodney
Again, i would have rated our marriage an eight of 10, nine of 10, whatever, right? Like my wife will never listen to this probably.
00:32:35
Steven J. Neuner
is pretty busy.
00:32:35
Rodney
So I guess I can give it something other than a 10 of 10.
00:32:36
Steven J. Neuner
I guess I could give it something in the middle of town, too.
00:32:44
Rodney
We had a good marriage.
00:32:45
Steven J. Neuner
OK?
00:32:46
Rodney
But I think we would both admit that like there was some, there were some areas that the Lord probably needed to do some work.
00:32:47
Steven J. Neuner
Very good, very much. There were some areas that
00:32:54
Rodney
Not probably. I mean, I'm, I'm hedging for sure. We knew this.
00:32:58
Steven J. Neuner
There were steps of the man that wrote the listener to take and put the letter in them to reach out that way.
00:32:59
Rodney
There were steps of obedience that both of us needed to take both with the Lord and then toward each other that we were passive on.
00:33:06
Steven J. Neuner
was
00:33:10
Rodney
And there were some barriers to
00:33:10
Steven J. Neuner
something that was to
00:33:14
Rodney
Like I was for sure not taking financial stuff, responsible, you know, taking responsibility for just like, we had the money we needed.
00:33:14
Steven J. Neuner
Like, was first from Montana, financials, financials, you know, technical responsibilities. I just, like, would help the money to me.
00:33:22
Rodney
Sometimes things were tight.
00:33:23
Steven J. Neuner
And sometimes things were telling me, sometimes they were like, I did that for while and it was done.
00:33:24
Rodney
Sometimes they weren't, but like what I did not realize then was that
00:33:30
Rodney
my wife needed a plan.
00:33:31
Steven J. Neuner
Like, my area was like, I feel like I'm $10.
00:33:32
Rodney
Like she wanted to know that I had a plan.
00:33:34
Steven J. Neuner
I don't want to go for it.
00:33:34
Rodney
She believed that I was going to take care of our family, but it seemed like I was just fighting off my back foot all the time to her.
00:33:36
Steven J. Neuner
I feel like was going to take care my family, but it was like, was just fighting my back then.
00:33:43
Rodney
here's what I now know.
00:33:47
Rodney
So headship, again, if you're not a believer, like there's this idea that like,
00:33:47
Steven J. Neuner
So I had to do whole thing about building it. Like there was this idea that like, that they were going to manage the same headship like movement.
00:33:55
Rodney
the that the male in in a marriage assumes headship like over the house.
00:34:01
Steven J. Neuner
I mean, so this is like, remember the second one, like Kevin House, right?
00:34:01
Rodney
And you see this language everywhere, by the way, in the secular world, like head of household, right? Like this this all comes from somewhere.
00:34:05
Steven J. Neuner
Like this all comes from somewhere. just have forgotten this, you know, the second one.
00:34:07
Rodney
We just have forgotten this, you know, in the secular world. But headship is not telling your wife what to do all the time.
00:34:10
Steven J. Neuner
But headship is not a topic of movement.
00:34:17
Rodney
Headship is taking is taking primary responsibility for the environment that she lives in.
00:34:21
Steven J. Neuner
and sometimes you don't like, you're feeling like, that's the amazing thing. And like, you know, as far as I don't think of a, like, can't feel this kind of, you know, to be a female that I'm like, I don't think.
00:34:27
Rodney
That like you are taking responsibility for all the conditions that allow her to be fully who God made her to be. And so if you do that, all of a sudden you
00:34:37
Steven J. Neuner
And so, if you do that, you start to see
Overcoming Challenges with Faith
00:34:41
Rodney
start to see security provision, all these types of things, long, long-term security, literal physical safety, all this kind of stuff.
00:34:41
Steven J. Neuner
what's that kind of,
00:34:51
Rodney
her time, her burden, how much of a burden is she carrying? You start to see all this stuff differently. Well, where am I going with all this?
00:34:58
Steven J. Neuner
saying.
00:34:59
Rodney
Like, i i I think for one, you need to put all your chips in the center of the table on your marriage. it like like you are it is it is the It's the tree of life at the center of Eden.
00:35:15
Rodney
it is It is the thing that will cast that will bear fruit and cast shade on everything. it it affects your kids. It affects your neighbors. It's the best thing you can give your kids is is a healthy marriage. and it will pay you back a hundred fold. There's nothing better than living in a good marriage.
00:35:42
Steven J. Neuner
like all those strangers living together.
00:35:44
Rodney
and I don't know a whole lot of men who are married that wouldn't, that wouldn't want a little bit more physical intimacy with their wife.
00:35:56
Rodney
but she needs an environment to where that can, that can happen with regularity and not just so that she can then have literal like space on our calendar to tolerate you physically, but like she, she will come to actually want to be with you in that way. Right. So it's going to pay you back in certain ways, but,
00:36:19
Rodney
why I'm saying all that is my wife and I have, have really come, come to this, come to this over the last like four years or so. And it's changed everything. I mean, it has totally changed everything. And now when we counsel other people and their marriages and stuff, we, see we see it everywhere that there's a, it's like a Physical intimacy when it's healthy is like a deep, cool well that you're drawing water from.
00:36:44
Rodney
if and when it's not healthy, it's like, again, you're just in the desert going from pool to pool, looking taking a little tepid you know drink of water here and there.
00:36:55
Rodney
And I would say that's been the largest growth area of our of our last five years for us. And for me personally, it's like cultivating that. And it's been the thing that has borne the most fruit in other people that we've talked to over the last few years too.
00:37:08
Steven J. Neuner
I love that.
00:37:08
Todd Pinkston
awesome.
00:37:09
Steven J. Neuner
Hey, Rodney, is it kind of a follow just so we can learn from from your experience? You made the comment that, you know, you We may be okay living under a bridge, but your your wife maybe isn't. You talked about a you know reducing your income by a third.
00:37:26
Steven J. Neuner
Obviously, we can spiritualize these things, but i would love to just learn like what that what the learnings were through that process for yourself in your marriage.
00:37:33
Todd Pinkston
Thank you.
00:37:35
Steven J. Neuner
Because we have people listening here that... that due to their business, due to the economy, due the environment, they experience these swings, some believe or some not. like I just would be curious your wisdom, what you've learned walking through something like that.
00:37:51
Rodney
hidden
00:37:53
Rodney
so it took me a while ultimately we've just we've landed on we would prefer my wife not have to work outside the home while our kids are little you know i'm my primary responsibility or i'm primarily responsible for provision so on and so forth so that's just as a framework like this where we landed we weren't really there then part of it was out of necessity but also part of it was just
00:38:12
Steven J. Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:38:19
Rodney
We just we thought we both needed to work out of the home. And
00:38:23
Rodney
there were some pretty lean years, to your point, whenever we whenever our salary or my income was reduced quite a bit. There for a little bit, my wife was making more than me.
00:38:34
Rodney
And I'm not, I'm not making a moral judgment on whose income and this and that, or even women working outside the home. That's on, that's up to you guys or whoever's listening to figure that out.
00:38:48
Rodney
But something happens when.
00:38:52
Rodney
when when she begins to assume part of his responsibility, like something happens and it doesn't just happen to him. it happens to her too. Because what what Emily and I have noticed is that there can if if safety and security and provision is in question, there can be some control things that pop up on her side trying to Uh, secure all that for herself.
00:39:23
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah. No, I actually share your experience, right?
00:39:24
Todd Pinkston
Thank you.
00:39:26
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:39:31
Rodney
So it was actually unhealthy for both me and her during that period for us to be in kind of some lean years and for her to be making more than me. Like it was, it was, it was, there was a misalignment in sort of what we believe to be our design, what we were designed for. It was taking her away from,
00:39:50
Rodney
what she believed was her primary responsibility, which was creating a nurturing environment at home for our kids. And it was taking away sort of my part of my agency and my ownership of our ultimate provision. And just, you know, it didn't kill us spiritually, but it was definitely had us in a place where we were feeling stuck.
00:40:10
Rodney
Again, in the word, in prayer, like, Lord, like, we wanna go here, like but it doesn't seem like we can get
Spiritual Experiences and Anointing
00:40:21
Rodney
there.
00:40:22
Rodney
like we We now have an idea of what we think you want from us, but but the math doesn't work to get there. like How do we do this?
00:40:29
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:40:30
Rodney
And so ultimately that set off a series of just steps of obedience over time where you have one little breadcrumb, one little thing that you can release from her plate.
00:40:43
Rodney
one little way that you can take responsibility, you know, if you're not making the the kind of money your wife wants you to make or whatever, and I'm not talking about like,
00:40:54
Rodney
people who may have unreasonable expectations. I mean, you're trying to do the right thing and you're just you know trying to make ends meet. like What you can do is know exactly how much you spend every month and you're not spending stuff on like frivolous things that are gonna cause her stress. I mean, you can do that. like you Revenue is not the only side of the of the equation.
00:41:16
Steven J. Neuner
Right.
00:41:18
Rodney
you know It's like, hey, we're really trying to make ends meet, but I really enjoy that elk hunt. this may not be the year for you to, for you to go on that guy's trip, you know or whatever. Right. Like, so there's just stuff like that where, where we learned to sort of strip things away that, that ran counter to what,
00:41:36
Rodney
I believed was my responsibility. And then the Lord showed up in these strange ways again, through the, through his word, through prayer, and then kind of these steps of obedience. I had phone calls come out of nowhere. Like, Hey, do you do consulting? We, we heard you did consulting and we, we need you to help us solve this problem. You're like, yeah, actually I know how to do that. And so we kind of had these random things that are difficult to explain that came along and sustained us. I don't think it was just getting lucky. I mean, i think I think the Lord will weave your story into his story. You know, it's like, you know, someone that knows someone that needs exactly what you're an expert in and is willing to pay for it at a time that you need some cash. Like those things happened a ton, you know, 10 years ago.
00:42:23
Todd Pinkston
Rodney, it seems like you're talking about if you if you seek the Lord, if you are putting yourself in front of Him, in a way that you're controlling the things you get to control.
00:42:28
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
00:42:33
Todd Pinkston
You open yourself up to the things he can control. and it And it relates a lot, I think, to you know some of the stuff you went through last summer. of you know You went off to the to the retreat out in California, followed up by some time on trail, reading a book. like can you Can you share a little bit of like what yeah what unlocked in you during that time around anointing?
00:42:55
Rodney
Yeah, so
00:42:58
Rodney
it's hard for me to start from this place, but When I started working for the church, I did not have the language that I have now, but I had a similar feeling as when I was in the Marine Corps and I had never worked for a church. I know i had no training, I didn't know anything.
00:43:18
Rodney
But the day I walked in the door as an employee, like it's like the Lord infused me with what to do. like Like I knew what to do.
00:43:31
Rodney
i saw it clearly. i saw I saw all the problems. I saw all the the the positives. I saw the people, the roadmap, the strategy. It's like I just knew.
00:43:42
Rodney
And I know that was the Lord. I never done that work before. I never thought about it. And but everything just made crystal clear sense to me.
00:43:51
Rodney
And even day one, people are like, hey, we got this thing coming up. What do you think we ought to do? And I knew i mean, literally day one, my first day of work, hadn't even signed all the papers yet. So what I what I know now is anointing.
00:44:09
Rodney
Anointing is like when God when god like pours out his Holy Spirit like on on your specific gift set. and like And what you put your hand to comes easily, even even if even if there's challenges and you don't always get everything right. But it just seems smooth. like It seems like everything is clear.
00:44:30
Rodney
Why I learned that because i went on this i went on this retreat with a bunch of pastors in California last year, and one of the pastors, Andy Woods, who's the the senior pastor at Saddleback, he took over for Rick Warren.
00:44:44
Steven J. Neuner
for quarantine.
00:44:47
Rodney
He did this session on anointing, and it's not really something I'd really ever thought about. And it it was really good. And he hit some had made some great points. And he's like, if you really care about this topic, you need to read this book. And he he had a whole stack of them on this table.
00:45:01
Rodney
And this book is written by R.T. Kendall, which is he's in his 90s now. He's an old pastor, grew up in Kentucky, but most of his ministry was in the U.K. not really a household hand name in America, but he is over there.
00:45:13
Rodney
And it's called The Anointing, Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.
Confession in Marriage and Spiritual Renewal
00:45:16
Rodney
And it's really, he kind of uses the Saul David kind of story as as the underlying message. But he starts talking about how do you know when you're in your anointing or what what lane is, how do you know when you're in your anointing? And then if you are in your anointing, how do you lose it?
00:45:35
Rodney
Like how how do you, how how can you lose your anointing and ultimately is through disobedience? well, all of that was just flooding, flooding me at that retreat and on the plane ride out to the mountains.
00:45:50
Rodney
And then, I got to a place in the mountains where I was spending time with the Lord and he just hit me like a ton of bricks where I saw my own anointing through the work of the church.
00:45:53
Todd Pinkston
Thank you.
00:46:05
Rodney
I saw it as something I could lose through disobedience. And I saw that very clearly. And there had been a thing in my marriage that I had been needing to get to for a pretty long period of time, and I had just not done it. It was around confession and some stuff that had happened earlier in my marriage. There wasn't an an infidelity issue, but there was a a situation that needed to be brought to the light just so that my wife and I are all on the same page. And and I just, I've been putting it off, putting it off, putting it off.
00:46:38
Rodney
And then eventually you get to the place where you're like, why would I bring this up? Like my marriage is good. Like, like this is only going to like cause problems. And the Lord just put his finger right on that thing.
00:46:51
Rodney
As I'm learning about losing the potential of losing God's favor on your gifts. And i just knew like, this is a thing I've got to walk away from here and deal with. And so I made all these strategic plans. I'm going to,
00:47:08
Rodney
start talking to her about this and maybe in a few months, i'll like, and the second I walked into the door of my house, like at midnight or whatever, my wife's like, you seem like you have something to tell me just out of nowhere.
00:47:21
Rodney
Like, okay. All right, Lord. All right. Like, yeah, so I did.
00:47:24
Todd Pinkston
I get in
00:47:27
Rodney
And we stayed up till like three in the morning, just talking through this stuff and it was painful, but yeah,
00:47:31
Todd Pinkston
it.
00:47:32
Rodney
but beautiful at the same time. And she's a godly woman. And, I use this language earlier. It's like it unlocked an entirely new section of Eden that I didn't know existed because when things are in the light, they're untouchable, like by the enemy, like they're done, like it reduces the enemy enemy's like tool that he has to use against you.
00:47:41
Todd Pinkston
That's
00:47:45
Todd Pinkston
right.
00:47:55
Rodney
and, And it's the first time in my life I have felt fully free, like free and I have a men's group that meets every Wednesday morning and we actually started this quite a bit before this experience, but we end every one of our sessions with confession.
00:48:18
Rodney
We do it in a certain way. You know, I've got a bucket and they kind of write down on some papers like they go to the Lord in prayer and then they kind of crumple them up and throw them in the bucket. And it doesn't solve, it doesn't actually take the place of confession because there's no risk involved.
00:48:34
Rodney
But it it's a tool, it's a discipleship tool to start cultivating the skill of of hearing the voice of the Lord and looking inward and saying, okay, this is something the Lord is asking me to deal with. And over time, it's like kind of writing the same thing in this bucket, you know, throwing it in the bucket every week. I need to deal with this.
00:48:52
Rodney
And I've come to believe it's the it's the most like freedom offering gift of the church is the gift of.
00:49:03
Rodney
confession and cultivating the humility to give everything over to God, even if it's risky. And so, yeah, that, that just blew my doors open in this, even in this past year.
00:49:16
Rodney
And so my wife and I have had the good fortune of walking with a few marriages who are, who are, had been in a tough spot, but the, the doors are now flung wide open and the, The stuff is out there and and hard times are ahead for these families because now they're dealing with some stuff they didn't realize they had to deal with.
00:49:29
Todd Pinkston
Yeah.
00:49:36
Rodney
But
00:49:36
Todd Pinkston
Yeah.
Embracing Full-Time Ministry
00:49:37
Rodney
freedom is on the other side.
00:49:38
Rodney
And so that's that's been fun.
00:49:38
Todd Pinkston
Yeah.
00:49:41
Todd Pinkston
That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that.
00:49:45
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you. Kind of shifting gears a little bit, I want would love to just tap into your wisdom and maybe have some experience. Oftentimes we we've had guests that have been maybe in the opposite way, even like they were in ministry and they felt God call them to be who he created them to be and not be in ministry to actually do something else, right?
00:50:09
Rodney
Thanks.
00:50:20
Steven J. Neuner
it's specifically for, for the, for, for the, the guy or gal who might be listening to this, who is a believer and they're trying to walk in faith. not by sight, and they've got to make decisions that aren't always easy to discern. Like how how do you fire someone in Jesus name?
00:50:38
Steven J. Neuner
How do you come to those types of decisions? How do you walk that out? And I know the the thing that you know I was blind to for a long time is you know an executive pastor enters way more of that oftentimes in the teaching pastor. And so I just would love for you to share how you think about it, what you've learned, what God's shown you just for for the benefit of those listening.
00:51:01
Rodney
Well, specifically for the pat the path part of your question, this is going to sound Sunday school, but we've just made like 500 yeses.
00:51:16
Rodney
to the Lord and now we're here. Like there's, you know, we didn't, we did ask actually a million times, Lord, is this what I'm supposed to do with my life? But ultimately it was like, deal with this area of sin, deal with that relationship.
00:51:34
Rodney
Don't treat this person that way anymore. Like, and it was just yes, after yes, after yes, after yes. And the Lord shaped the environment that has led to now me being in full-time pastoral ministry.
00:51:48
Rodney
I've been an executive pastor for, for several years now, almost a decade, but I've, being a part of christ church in the ordained pastoral sense where i'm now like charged with taking responsibility for teaching the scriptures and admonishing the flock like that's new but it's we had no we weren't making designs to to end up in this place 10 years ago kind of like i mean i didn't think i would end up here one year ago the
00:52:19
Rodney
the the part where they ask you in your ordination vows, are you sure that this is God's call in your life? Like I am because I've just made so many yeses. Like I'm, and he's just been drawing me further and further and further in. And and I have infinite energy for this job. Like it's not a, it's not a grind. i don't wake up, you know, my my gifts function easily in this lane. And so i know it can make me sound arrogant a little bit to say it like that, but yeah.
00:52:47
Rodney
if you're in a lane where you're constantly worn down and and something's off, right?
00:52:52
Steven J. Neuner
Mm-hmm.
00:52:53
Rodney
like Like you're not fully alive if you're constantly worn down and it feels like you're in waste deep water all the time.
00:52:54
Steven J. Neuner
Mm-hmm.
Leadership Insights and Organizational Balance
00:53:00
Rodney
So maybe the Lord has something for you, but what he's probably not asking you to do is, look on indeed. He may, but what he's probably asking you to do is say yes to the things he's been nagging you about. The Holy Spirit has been prompting you about for the past five years. Start with those. You already know, that you already know you need to. And clarity and joy are probably not that far around the corner.
00:53:24
Rodney
And he may end up, I think what most people are afraid of is that they need to have this one idea of what they're supposed to do with their life. And then they're afraid of it because it may be too big of an idea or it's going to be now I got to sell all my stuff and move to India. And I just don't think that's how God works.
00:53:40
Steven J. Neuner
The the but we talk about in the book with the burning bush concept, right?
00:53:40
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:53:43
Steven J. Neuner
It's like the, you know, the, the idea that there's going to be this one big thing. Right. And so I think you you really nailed that.
00:53:49
Todd Pinkston
Hmm.
00:53:51
Rodney
Yeah, but but but Moses, he's wandering around and these ladies are just trying to get some water. and And he's like, okay, well, that's not right that these guys are messing with them. So I'm just going to go deal with that right now.
00:53:51
Steven J. Neuner
But.
00:54:03
Rodney
Like like Moses was made of the right stuff to even receive the burning bush moment. Like you it was...
00:54:09
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
00:54:10
Rodney
the burning bush moment started way before that. So, I think i can't over, i cannot overstate the importance of just saying yes to the little things that are right in front of you.
00:54:22
Steven J. Neuner
So good
00:54:22
Rodney
Go, go get on. What is it? Monarch or some little app and, and like get a handle on your finances for the sake of your wife's like peace of mind, right? Like stuff like that.
00:54:37
Rodney
I don't totally remember the second part of your question because I got all fired up about my path.
00:54:39
Steven J. Neuner
The second part was for for leadership in making hiring and firing decisions, how like how to walk that type of out.
00:54:51
Steven J. Neuner
And discern that just some of your experiences around that.
00:54:58
Rodney
Okay. So let's just say hiring and firing. within the church. And this will, this can spill over into other areas, but the church is both organism and institution, or organism and organization, right?
00:55:08
Steven J. Neuner
Cut.
00:55:20
Rodney
So this kind of Abraham Kuyper, who is a Dutch pastor back in like the late 1800s came up with this. And I believe it. So it's both the organic, like living, breathing body of Christ.
00:55:35
Rodney
And also it's a material institution because Christ has given us authority to, to consecrate the work of our hands toward his, you know, kingdom building project. So this whole, the church isn't the building it's the people is wrong. It's it's it's,
00:55:51
Rodney
it's not the building it's the people and it's also the buildings and just like, just like, like my body, like I am both body and spirit, right? Like, like you, you cannot have the spirit apart from the body and vice versa. It's not biblical, like it's not how God made us. And so the church is the exact same way. So,
00:56:13
Rodney
Doing material things, doing your your your forecasts and your spreadsheets and your and and you know painting the painting the walls and all that, those are not unspiritual.
00:56:25
Rodney
these are They're just part of part of life of the church. The same thing in your business. like If you're in the marketplace... There's not a bifurcation between like your, your, so your secular life and your spiritual life. It's the same thing. Like you're, you're, everything you're doing is to the glory of God to include, you know, hiring your, your property management company and, you know, silicone coating your roof and getting your car washed. Like they're all, they're all the same stuff.
00:56:58
Rodney
let's take hiring and firing like for the church. it's okay to fire people. And in fact, it may be the most, thing that you can do for them and for the, and the most like culturally healthy thing you can do for the rest of your staff.
00:57:17
Rodney
What, what, What happens when you don't fire well is everybody around you already knows that this person is not on board with the mission, isn't doing a good job, and you're holding them to a different standard than you're holding everybody else and it'll kill your culture. And it's wrong.
00:57:36
Rodney
I read this book last year, it was called, predictably irrational or something like that by this guy named Dan Ariely is a social scientist. And he has this idea that like, that, there's social norms and market norms.
00:57:54
Rodney
A social norm is like, you know, you open the door for a lady when she's walking through a door. If someone is having car trouble in the rain, you pull over to help them, you know, whatever.
00:58:06
Rodney
A market norm is you pay for a service. So you pay for someone to do work for you, you pay a restaurant to give you food, whatever. Well, when those collide, it makes things really weird. And we can't handle that in our, like humans can't handle that. So like the example he gives is like, if you go to your mother-in-law's house for Thanksgiving dinner and she makes a great meal and then you like write her a check, you're like, oh, that was awesome. Here's $150 Like,
00:58:34
Todd Pinkston
Okay.
00:58:34
Rodney
It would it throw everything off. You would like She would never invite you back. It would be the worst thing you could possibly do because you've like you've like introduced this like social norm to this market norm and it screwed everything up. The church is like that every day.
00:58:48
Rodney
Like people have in their mind this idea of what the church is and is supposed to be. And yet they also like their paychecks and their health care and and. And when those things come in conflict with each other, we have a problem when we have to release someone from the team.
00:59:05
Rodney
But ultimately, ultimately it's okay to let people go. It's okay to hold them accountable for a performance standard.
00:59:16
Rodney
And it's, tension comes when, when you can't tell the congregation, all your HR problems, uh, they just have to be in the dark and they have to be okay with that sometimes. And so that's hard, but,
00:59:30
Rodney
Letting someone go is not in from a company is not inherently a sinful act. Just because they get upset doesn't mean that you committed a sin against God. And so i get i could talk for hours on this topic, but generally speaking, if someone in your audience is feeling like because they're Christian, they're supposed to be too nice to let people go from their company.
00:59:57
Rodney
God is a God of order. And the creation story begins with him bringing order to chaos. And everything that followed is him trying different ways to reestablish Eden on earth through his people. And he gives them the law and he gives them order and he gives and they constantly get outside that order. And so ultimately, order is a blessing and disorder is not.
01:00:26
Rodney
And as the head of your company or your church or your team or whatever, your job is to establish order. and And order is an environment where people can flourish. And if they choose not to, that's that's on them.
01:00:40
Steven J. Neuner
Love it. Thank you. And where I see it, just to be clear, the most often, I think, and again, it's i work with all different people from all different backgrounds, but where I see it most often, I guess, is where people hang on beyond too long in this you know cycle and it ends up wreaking chaos in the business, in the personal life. And so I just appreciate your youre thinking on that.
01:01:07
Rodney
Why do you think they hang on too long? let's take Let's take a secular job. Like, why do they hang on too long?
01:01:14
Steven J. Neuner
Well, again, these are faithful people. So I think sometimes it's the it's it's it's grace. It's this idea of mercy. It's sort like, and where, well, i'll I'll just say for myself, how about this? I'll just share my my own is like where where I have, where I struggle the most is where I have a great person. Okay. Like values align,
01:01:37
Steven J. Neuner
you know, like like fits the culture of the company. Awesome human being.
01:01:43
Rodney
Mm.
01:01:44
Steven J. Neuner
but they struggle with capability. Right. And so like, I think that that's where I often, uh, myself struggle. I also think I see it often with other believers, but they have man, this great person and they move into this spot and they move into this spot. And then eventually like they're, they're like literally hurting the rest of their team.
01:02:03
Steven J. Neuner
They're not providing the business, what it needs for it to be able to go and flourish. and so what I've had to do for myself, my own just experience share here, since you're asking is I've had to separate those things. So there's like, what does, you know, like they're they're together, like you said, but for me, like, and this is a blessing and a luxury to be able to do easier than it was back in the day, but it was it was a greater sacrifice sacrifice, but literally it's like, okay, this is what I believe the order needs and this is what the business needs and the culture of the business needs. And this is like what we need to be able to move the organization forward.
01:02:39
Steven J. Neuner
And this is how I'm going to treat the person. So we've we've paid people for long periods of time. We've paid people to search for jobs. We've we've done things. So to me, walking out that person and treating them in a Christlike manner is being able to disconnect those two in a sense of like what is actually needed for the business and then how are we going to treat them?
01:03:02
Steven J. Neuner
Right. And so right or wrong, that's the way that I like.
01:03:03
Rodney
Yeah. I think, yeah.
01:03:06
Steven J. Neuner
It's it's helped me be able to do that. Like said, the sacrifice was much greater in the past. Now it's easier. We have more resource to be able to carry people longer. And it's just out of our own, but it's not business funded.
01:03:17
Steven J. Neuner
It's literally, we just make the commitment that we want to, we want to, we feel called and convicted to treat people a certain way.
01:03:23
Rodney
Yeah. and And ultimately, like we we live in a broken world. And so heartbreak is a part of it. And it really stinks when people can't get out of their own way.
01:03:33
Rodney
It stinks when you know their family and and you feel like, man, this guy or this lady, they're hurting their family right now because they're just not performing or whatever.
01:03:44
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
01:03:45
Rodney
i know that you guys are whiz bang at this stuff. But if I do you mind if I offer like a little tool that that we
01:03:51
Steven J. Neuner
would love it.
01:03:53
Rodney
So what I started doing was, and this is simple, I just did it on a piece of paper with a marker, but like i make this eight and a half by 11 sheet and I draw a quadrant on it.
01:04:06
Rodney
And in the quadrants are like, what are you good at? What are you bad at? What gives you energy in life and what sucks the life out of you? And I make everybody who reports to me fill that out.
01:04:20
Rodney
And then i go in and i I overlay their job description on there. And if there's any gaps, I make them place some of their stuff from their job description in that quadrant.
01:04:33
Rodney
And That has been a helpful tool for me for conversation because now literally everything is in their own words. like Like, you told me that you were really good at this and this is in your job description, but this is where the this is where your performance has been. So where do where do you think that gap is coming from?
01:04:59
Steven J. Neuner
Right.
01:05:01
Rodney
or you said this gives you energy and gives you life, but you haven't gotten to it in the last six months. So like, why tell me where the gap is and,
01:05:13
Rodney
I mean, we have almost no mismatched expectations for the people who report to me because they've they've clearly communicated. Now, if half their job description is in the I hate doing this category, this is probably a fit issue.
01:05:29
Steven J. Neuner
Sure.
01:05:31
Rodney
But they can see that because they wrote it. And so that that has just been a a tool that has helped me ease some tensions with conversation because, you know, you want to treat people well.
01:05:42
Rodney
And ultimately,
01:05:46
Rodney
the hardest people to work with are the ones that are deceived about themselves. And so if they think they're really good at something and it turns out they're not, that that can be complicated. But for the most part, this the tool has really helped just smooth some of that out.
01:06:01
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah.
01:06:02
Todd Pinkston
That's good. Rodney, you started started the conversation by by talking about, you know, upbringing and then lacking in like self-leadership.
01:06:12
Todd Pinkston
i want to I want to wrap back up there and and this will be the last question. I just, you know, you are you are one of the best leaders I know. Like you are, you're thoughtful, you're intentional, you bring, you know,
01:06:12
Rodney
Mm-hmm.
01:06:26
Todd Pinkston
the the The horsepower that you know would be it like a Goldman Sachs from the from the strategic and analytical standpoint, you also are a deep well. I mean, just like incredibly spiritual in tune with the what the Lord's doing. you know You sit in a sage role on the Wayford board and bring so much wisdom there.
01:06:46
Todd Pinkston
you know, when when you do the leadership class for the well folks, like they just come away raving. They rank you at the top every year for, you know, what they took away from that time. You've said some amazing things, you know, throughout our time here about managing finances and vulnerability and, you know, seeking the word. But what are you working on right now? You know, in terms of self-leadership, you take care of yourself, you you know, you do jujitsu, you work out, you're a family man. You know, you work hard at work, but what are you doing right now to, to you know, continue to grow as a man in your own self-leadership?
01:07:21
Rodney
Hmm. Well, thanks for the kind words. I, I know some of the people, you know, and I don't know.
01:07:25
Todd Pinkston
I didn't even get into talking about your jawline, but that's for another time, you know?
01:07:28
Rodney
Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:30
Steven J. Neuner
Here we go with the jawline.
01:07:30
Rodney
Uh, cult cultivate a strong jawline. That's what I'm kind of working on.
01:07:34
Steven J. Neuner
Yeah. we Give him a few more minutes.
01:07:35
Todd Pinkston
you
01:07:36
Steven J. Neuner
He'll be talking about your hair. So like, just like get to the answer, Rodney, get to the answer.
01:07:38
Todd Pinkston
Amen, dude. I mean, i there's jealousy all over the place, you know?
01:07:38
Rodney
Oh,
01:07:42
Steven J. Neuner
Todd started way forward just so he could wear hats.
01:07:43
Todd Pinkston
Amen. Amen.
01:07:48
Rodney
oh
01:07:52
Rodney
what i'm What I'm currently working on is I'm kind of trying to recalibrate a personal diligence in prayer.
01:08:02
Rodney
The last time that you and I were together, Todd, i I talked a little bit about this field guide for daily prayer thing that I like to use.
01:08:07
Todd Pinkston
Yeah.
01:08:10
Rodney
I'm trying to, you know, you got one there? Yeah. Heck yeah. I just this little pocket guy that has a morning and evening liturgy and, and it kind of helps me stay centered.
01:08:27
Rodney
so I use it a couple of times a year. I'll do it for a month or two. It's, it just, it's like a little Kickstarter for me.
01:08:36
Rodney
You know, I'm like everybody else. I start off projects with good intentions and then over time, like they, things crowd in and I got to recalibrate. And so I'm kind of on that right now, like recalibrating what the Lord showed me.
01:08:51
Rodney
i mean, literally this last weekend, I'm still like processing. I had a, I had a, excuse me, pretty major spiritual moment. in church this last weekend
01:09:03
Rodney
i i can i can the enemy of the lord does work on me when i am sort of in like a liturgical spiritual practice like with our people so if i'm presiding over holy communion or if i'm i feel like a tangible it's almost like a panic attack And I'm not an anxious guy at all. I'm not an emotional guy. we grew up in an era where that wasn't even a term. Like it just it.
01:09:32
Rodney
This is if anybody knows me, they know they could not imagine those words even coming out of my mouth. But it happens to me sometimes when I'm like literally administering the like sacramental life of the church.
01:09:46
Rodney
Well, this particular weekend, this last weekend, I had a pretty intense negative spiritual experience. And then if like I prayed through it and it felt like the Holy Spirit came and like met, I felt like the spirit of God and the spirit that's working against God are like having like a a territory war, like in me, like with like physical manifestation. So if any of your non-believers haven't stopped listening by now, they're probably checked out and done. But it was very strange.
01:10:15
Rodney
Well, what it what it led me to do is I went back to my office and i had some obligations in other parts of the church that I just didn't do. And I went back to my office and prayed for a while. And the Lord sort of was like, okay, what I need you to do is like,
01:10:33
Rodney
basically he told me I need to start journaling in my prayer life. I've never done that.
01:10:38
Todd Pinkston
Mm-hmm.
01:10:39
Rodney
I've tried a time or two. I'm like, I don't really want to do this. I'm not a good writer. Like I, like I don't, it doesn't come naturally to me, but the Lord is like, you got to do this. And so, you know, I put a few pages down, just like, just literally writing things that the Lord is putting in my head. I think that's the next frontier for me.
01:10:57
Rodney
And that's something that I've got to start working on. And I don't totally know why, like, this again is one of these obedience things where the Lord is not just laying out like all the ways he's going to use this, but I'm sure it's him saying, I need you to start doing this. I need you to handwrite the things that I'm telling you and the things that you're struggling with, the things you're wrestling with, the things that you've seen me do testify to those things. And I need you to write them down. And so,
01:11:26
Rodney
this will hit your listeners with a whimper and not a bang. I don't know what the Lord's going to do with that. I just know that that's the thing I'm supposed to do.
01:11:35
Rodney
my wife and i are really trying to lean into the, the intimacy thing and, the and, and how it sets a stage for other things, in marriage for our couples that we're walking with.
01:11:37
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
01:11:49
Rodney
So we're kind of developing some teaching on that and some different things. I've started a sub stack last year called the field manual for church leaders that I just wanted to start writing down things that I think are true and have proven to be true about church leadership. I don't write a ton. I mean I've literally only done like two podcasts and a couple of posts. That's not, I don't care if anybody goes to it. I just,
01:12:16
Rodney
i need I need a repository of of information that I just feel like the Lord has given me so I can put it somewhere. And that kind of goes hand in hand with some of the writing stuff. Like I'm really trying to work to be a better better writer, to be able to communicate my thoughts and sort of codify them. So those are just some things that I'm working on. They're painful for me. They take...
01:12:37
Rodney
lots of time. It doesn't come naturally to me to write this stuff down. And when it comes out, it's not very good. and It has to be edited. So, it's an, it's an area of my life that I, the Lord says you need to work on this. And I, and I also have no time to do that. So I've got to make time. So that's part of the self-leadership thing is like, okay, what's got to go so I can do this thing. I'm just, I'm in real time trying to figure that out.
01:13:01
Todd Pinkston
Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
01:13:02
Rodney
If you have any good journaling, prayer journaling practices that you think would be helpful, I'd like for you to shoot those over to me because I don't know anything.
01:13:11
Todd Pinkston
I will. I mean, to me, it's it's it's literally carrying it around with me. And and it's it's a hard practice. And I'm like you, I kind of come and go. And and when I do, I find it more fruitful.
01:13:23
Todd Pinkston
and And it's just like, it's like anything else.
01:13:23
Rodney
Yeah. Yeah.
01:13:25
Todd Pinkston
You know, if you want to if you want to get in the gym and work out, show up at the gym and work out. And it's, you know, doesn't have to be the perfect workout. It's just get in there and start doing it.
01:13:34
Rodney
Yeah, that's a good word.
01:13:37
Todd Pinkston
All right, Rodney, how do they find this sub stack?
01:13:39
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you.
01:13:39
Todd Pinkston
If they want to start following you.
01:13:43
Rodney
Uh, gosh, I don't even know the website. It's called field manual for church leaders. I think it's Rodney Adams, all one word dot substack.com.
01:13:54
Rodney
And again, i don't, I'm not trying to generate a following. don't write very much, but the stuff that I do write, I try to put it out as quality and, something leaders can take away, you know, right away. Like this is something that I, that I can go to my church or my business and do.
01:14:11
Rodney
And, I've got a whole stack of things I want to get to, but again, it just takes me a while to do it. So yeah.
01:14:16
Todd Pinkston
yeah
01:14:16
Rodney
Field manual for church leaders.
01:14:19
Todd Pinkston
There you go.
01:14:20
Steven J. Neuner
Thank you, Randy.
01:14:21
Todd Pinkston
Rodney, thanks for your time today. I've got a page full of notes just listening to you. And I love getting to to do this with you. I love getting to glean wisdom from you. You're an intentional dad.
01:14:46
Todd Pinkston
So thanks for thanks for what you do. Thanks for letting me be a part of it with you. And thanks for joining us today.
01:14:51
Rodney
All right. I appreciate you.
01:14:52
Steven J. Neuner
Thanks, for Rodney.
01:14:53
Rodney
Good talk. See ya.
01:14:53
Steven J. Neuner
Appreciate it.
01:14:54
Todd Pinkston
You bet.