Restoring Shalom: Markus Watson's Insights on Leadership, Peace, and Hope in the World

Markus Watson: 00:00:00

it's because we associate the church, let's say,

Markus Watson: 00:00:04

or Christian community with a God who we believe to be good, right?

Markus Watson: 00:00:10

And when this church or Christian community fails us or turns on

Markus Watson: 00:00:17

us, it's like a betrayal, right?

Markus Watson: 00:00:20

It's not just a hurt, it's a betrayal, because they are supposed

Markus Watson: 00:00:24

to be a community of love, right?

Tim Winders: 00:00:39

Hello, everyone.

Tim Winders: 00:00:40

Welcome back to Seek, Go Create.

Tim Winders: 00:00:41

This is the podcast that challenges the status quo and explores

Tim Winders: 00:00:46

unconventional paths to success in leadership, business, and ministry.

Tim Winders: 00:00:50

I'm your host, Tim Winders.

Tim Winders: 00:00:51

I'm an executive coach.

Tim Winders: 00:00:52

I'm the guy that gets to ask the questions.

Tim Winders: 00:00:54

My favorite seat to be in.

Tim Winders: 00:00:56

And I'm so excited about my guest today.

Tim Winders: 00:00:59

I've got, I consider him a friend.

Tim Winders: 00:01:01

We're, we've been hanging around each other, I guess, for the last

Tim Winders: 00:01:04

three, maybe almost four years.

Tim Winders: 00:01:06

So let me just go ahead and do a quick intro and we're going to go

Tim Winders: 00:01:09

ahead and dive in Markus Watson.

Tim Winders: 00:01:11

He's a Presbyterian pastor called San Diego home, and he resides there

Tim Winders: 00:01:15

with his wife and his Children.

Tim Winders: 00:01:17

And he just has a lot of things going on that.

Tim Winders: 00:01:22

Intrigued me to reach out to him.

Tim Winders: 00:01:25

So he's an author, has a podcast.

Tim Winders: 00:01:27

I'm sure we'll get to all that, but let me just tell you the bottom line.

Tim Winders: 00:01:30

He's redefining success in ministry, and we're excited to hear his

Tim Winders: 00:01:35

inspiring journey and insights.

Tim Winders: 00:01:36

Markus, welcome to Seek, Go Create.

Markus Watson: 00:01:40

Tim, thank you.

Markus Watson: 00:01:41

I'm so excited to be here.

Markus Watson: 00:01:42

yeah, it's fine.

Markus Watson: 00:01:43

We're just saying before we start recording, I'm excited to get to

Markus Watson: 00:01:45

hang out with you for an hour.

Markus Watson: 00:01:47

So this is great.

Tim Winders: 00:01:48

Yeah, I know.

Tim Winders: 00:01:48

And I've actually, I'm a little bit late starting this morning.

Tim Winders: 00:01:51

I've still, I've got my second cup of coffee with me.

Tim Winders: 00:01:54

So it's going to be like, we're just sitting having a cup of

Tim Winders: 00:01:56

coffee talking and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:01:58

But I don't want to get totally off track from my schedule.

Tim Winders: 00:02:01

I want to ask my first question, even though I know this answer, but we're

Tim Winders: 00:02:06

going to pretend like we just met.

Tim Winders: 00:02:09

I bump into Markus, we're on a plane, I'm in church or something like that,

Tim Winders: 00:02:13

and I say, Markus, what do you do?

Tim Winders: 00:02:15

When someone asks you that, what do you tell them?

Markus Watson: 00:02:18

in terms of a job, I would say that I'm a pastor, but so I'm a pastor

Markus Watson: 00:02:24

and a podcaster is what I would say.

Markus Watson: 00:02:26

I'm, as you mentioned, I'm a pastor at Mount Soledad Presbyterian

Markus Watson: 00:02:29

church here in San Diego right now.

Markus Watson: 00:02:31

I'm, I do spiritual life and leadership podcast, which is part of

Markus Watson: 00:02:34

the church leadership institute at fuller seminary, but that's just like

Markus Watson: 00:02:38

the, that's just the stuff, right?

Markus Watson: 00:02:41

But really deep down when I think about what I do, I love

Markus Watson: 00:02:45

to help pastors and churches.

Markus Watson: 00:02:47

especially if they're having a hard time, right?

Markus Watson: 00:02:50

That's, and that's a lot of churches, right?

Markus Watson: 00:02:53

so like when I think in terms of my podcast about my audience, I think

Markus Watson: 00:02:56

about pastors of smaller and mid sized churches who are like, this world is

Markus Watson: 00:03:01

not the world that I was prepared for.

Markus Watson: 00:03:05

seminary didn't teach me how to lead in a post COVID world, in an

Markus Watson: 00:03:08

extremely politically polarized world.

Markus Watson: 00:03:11

I, and a world where people can think of a thousand other

Markus Watson: 00:03:14

things to do on a Sunday morning.

Markus Watson: 00:03:16

and they're not, they're just not looking for church.

Markus Watson: 00:03:18

And so, you know, whereas you used to be able to just Start a church

Markus Watson: 00:03:21

and people would eventually come, if you build it, they will come.

Markus Watson: 00:03:23

That's that is not the world we live in anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:03:25

So anyway, so even in my work is I'm an interim pastor right now,

Markus Watson: 00:03:29

even in that work, I think in terms of I just want to help churches

Markus Watson: 00:03:32

and pastors, become who they were.

Markus Watson: 00:03:34

meant to be.

Markus Watson: 00:03:35

I think that, that God has every church exactly where God wants that church to be.

Markus Watson: 00:03:42

And, and then it's up to us to figure out why we are where we are.

Markus Watson: 00:03:47

Like, what exactly is our calling in this place at this time?

Markus Watson: 00:03:50

And, so anyway, so there's, that's what I think of when I think of what I do.

Markus Watson: 00:03:53

That's a long answer.

Markus Watson: 00:03:54

I don't necessarily tell somebody that at the airport, but, that's what I

Markus Watson: 00:03:57

have in mind when I'm saying what I do.

Tim Winders: 00:03:59

So I've come to believe, this is me kind of opening up a little

Tim Winders: 00:04:02

bit, it's really a bad question,

Tim Winders: 00:04:05

don't you think?

Tim Winders: 00:04:08

Because most of us do respond in what I would call the superficial stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:04:15

Titles, whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:04:17

And I went through this evolution after we had gone through some challenges

Tim Winders: 00:04:21

where I was trying to dig deeper on more like who I am versus what I do, but it

Tim Winders: 00:04:28

still came back to, I'm a husband, I'm a father now, I'm a grandfather that

Tim Winders: 00:04:33

sounded better, even put that on all my socials at one point, but I've actually

Tim Winders: 00:04:37

considered I could run this by you.

Tim Winders: 00:04:39

Cause you're a buddy.

Tim Winders: 00:04:40

I've actually considered when people ask a question going like hyper Existential

Tim Winders: 00:04:49

and saying something like I exist as a child of the most high God to perform

Tim Winders: 00:04:55

and achieve the assignment that he has for my life on a minute by minute

Tim Winders: 00:04:58

basis.

Tim Winders: 00:05:00

What do you think about that is that

Markus Watson: 00:05:02

that's great.

Markus Watson: 00:05:02

It would scare people.

Markus Watson: 00:05:05

I think a

Tim Winders: 00:05:05

you got scared, even you got scared just

Markus Watson: 00:05:08

I just want you to say I'm fine.

Markus Watson: 00:05:09

everything's good.

Markus Watson: 00:05:11

I'm going to work tomorrow.

Markus Watson: 00:05:12

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:05:14

Yeah,

Markus Watson: 00:05:14

That's great though.

Tim Winders: 00:05:15

I do think it's part of what we're doing here, which is redefining

Tim Winders: 00:05:19

success and what does it really mean and who are we and what's our purpose.

Tim Winders: 00:05:24

And that's what you're doing over there at spiritual life and leadership.

Tim Winders: 00:05:28

and then you've got this great new course we're going to talk

Tim Winders: 00:05:30

about shortly on Shalom, but.

Tim Winders: 00:05:32

I've got to tell you, Markus, this is the reason why I reached out to you.

Tim Winders: 00:05:35

And I thought you'd been with us before, but let's go ahead and dive

Tim Winders: 00:05:38

into the deep end right out of the gate.

Tim Winders: 00:05:41

You and I have been around each other a long time, and we've seen each other

Tim Winders: 00:05:45

in some, business y settings with

Tim Winders: 00:05:48

masterminds for podcasters and Christians and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:05:52

And sometimes we'll have our serious face on, sometimes

Tim Winders: 00:05:54

we'll be laughing and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:05:56

I know that, That all of us as leaders have been through some junk and I

Tim Winders: 00:06:05

know you have, I know your story.

Tim Winders: 00:06:06

We may get into a little bit of that

Tim Winders: 00:06:07

shortly, but over the last, say 30 to 60 days, I've seen you

Tim Winders: 00:06:12

do some videos on social media.

Tim Winders: 00:06:15

I've seen this course pop in on Shalom and I could just see a piece in your eyes and

Tim Winders: 00:06:22

your demeanor that I haven't seen before.

Tim Winders: 00:06:25

And I said, I want to talk to Markus, so why not do it as we're

Tim Winders: 00:06:30

recording and let everybody listen in.

Tim Winders: 00:06:33

having said that, what's going on?

Tim Winders: 00:06:36

Is that a good observation, Did I just catch you on a good day where you got

Tim Winders: 00:06:41

some good sunshine on you or something?

Tim Winders: 00:06:43

what's happening.

Tim Winders: 00:06:44

you got a great look to you.

Tim Winders: 00:06:45

You got a little scruffy

Tim Winders: 00:06:46

going

Tim Winders: 00:06:47

And

Markus Watson: 00:06:49

that's super encouraging.

Markus Watson: 00:06:50

I'm really glad to hear you say that.

Markus Watson: 00:06:52

Yeah, it's interesting.

Markus Watson: 00:06:53

So it has been, so I won't go into all the details, but you can ask

Markus Watson: 00:06:58

more and then we can, if you want to.

Markus Watson: 00:06:59

But I had a really rough go at a former church.

Markus Watson: 00:07:03

what is it?

Markus Watson: 00:07:03

It was 20, 2016.

Markus Watson: 00:07:06

I got voted out of that church after a year of crazy stuff.

Markus Watson: 00:07:10

And, and it was really hard, really painful.

Markus Watson: 00:07:12

Thought I'd never be a pastor again.

Markus Watson: 00:07:14

worked for a nonprofit for about two years.

Markus Watson: 00:07:17

And then eventually started working for, a very small church in rural Southern

Markus Watson: 00:07:23

California, between Mexico and the Salton Sea and between the mountains in Arizona.

Markus Watson: 00:07:28

So this little part of California that almost nobody knows exists.

Markus Watson: 00:07:32

and, and it was so good, right?

Markus Watson: 00:07:33

And I began to experience some healing there.

Markus Watson: 00:07:36

And after about three or four years there, I moved to a church closer to home.

Markus Watson: 00:07:41

I felt almost, I almost needed a place to be far away, from home.

Markus Watson: 00:07:44

I needed a church that I could serve where we had really clear boundaries.

Markus Watson: 00:07:47

We had mountains between us.

Markus Watson: 00:07:49

And, and so now I'm closer in another church and I feel it's just been this

Markus Watson: 00:07:54

ongoing journey of healing, from a kind of trauma that I experienced.

Markus Watson: 00:07:59

The podcast, which I started now over five years ago, just over five years

Markus Watson: 00:08:02

ago, which is amazing, has been a part of that healing process and then

Markus Watson: 00:08:06

starting to do some online courses.

Markus Watson: 00:08:08

And so it just feels, it does feel like.

Markus Watson: 00:08:10

Just a little more, I'm embracing who I'm being called to be, as a leader

Markus Watson: 00:08:16

of leaders, to some extent, right?

Markus Watson: 00:08:18

a leader, someone who can, who has learned from some really hard things

Markus Watson: 00:08:23

and, and has learned from some really good people, and just to share that

Markus Watson: 00:08:26

with whoever it would be helpful for.

Markus Watson: 00:08:28

And so in terms of what you're maybe seeing on social media, I

Markus Watson: 00:08:31

think it is a little bit of an embrace of, I can be that, right?

Markus Watson: 00:08:35

I can be that.

Markus Watson: 00:08:35

It's not it, right?

Markus Watson: 00:08:36

And it's not even I can do that.

Markus Watson: 00:08:38

It's I can be that.

Markus Watson: 00:08:39

In a lot of ways, it's a, it's about identity.

Markus Watson: 00:08:42

can I see myself being that person?

Markus Watson: 00:08:44

That happened actually with me even becoming a pastor.

Markus Watson: 00:08:47

My dad was a pastor and that was always his thing.

Markus Watson: 00:08:50

And I resisted that for the long time, longest time because I

Markus Watson: 00:08:53

couldn't see myself being a pastor.

Markus Watson: 00:08:54

And then finally I had a moment where Anyway, I was

Markus Watson: 00:08:57

like, okay, Lord, I'm all in.

Markus Watson: 00:08:58

And so I think it's part of that journey.

Markus Watson: 00:09:00

It's the journey of me embracing more and more who God is calling me to be.

Tim Winders: 00:09:06

that original

Tim Winders: 00:09:06

question I asked,

Tim Winders: 00:09:07

it's what do you do?

Tim Winders: 00:09:09

It seems to me like you're, and we're all going through this, I

Tim Winders: 00:09:14

think, as we go through our lives.

Tim Winders: 00:09:16

And I, at times I'm wondering what it looks like.

Tim Winders: 00:09:18

I think you ever seen these circles, where it keeps circling and moving more

Tim Winders: 00:09:22

towards the middle, the bullseye, it seems like our life journey line has been

Tim Winders: 00:09:27

like that, maybe it's a rollercoaster.

Tim Winders: 00:09:29

Maybe it's,

Markus Watson: 00:09:30

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:09:30

and sometimes it's like this too, right?

Markus Watson: 00:09:34

Eventually you get in.

Markus Watson: 00:09:36

Oh, there we are.

Markus Watson: 00:09:37

All right.

Tim Winders: 00:09:39

But there's another thing you did.

Tim Winders: 00:09:40

I want to go ahead and ask this now, and then we may back up and get just

Tim Winders: 00:09:44

a brief story to get some context.

Tim Winders: 00:09:47

But you also did something that I've seen some people do, and I've seen kind

Tim Winders: 00:09:55

of some changes every time I've seen people do this 500 mile hike over in

Tim Winders: 00:10:01

Spain where they find themselves or whatever.

Tim Winders: 00:10:05

I mean, there's, and the, and literally it's called a.

Tim Winders: 00:10:07

Pilgrimage, and I was interacting with you before, and I saw you do it, and I watched

Tim Winders: 00:10:13

a little bit while you were doing it.

Tim Winders: 00:10:14

did that have anything to do, or was that just a hike

Markus Watson: 00:10:17

oh no.

Markus Watson: 00:10:18

It was a transformative experience for me.

Markus Watson: 00:10:21

100%.

Markus Watson: 00:10:21

And I can, there's a whole story there, if you want me to tell it.

Tim Winders: 00:10:24

it, I'd love to, and the name of it, it's like Carmen de San Diego, or

Markus Watson: 00:10:27

it's the Camino de Santiago, right?

Markus Watson: 00:10:30

Camino means the way of Santiago or Saint James, right?

Markus Watson: 00:10:32

Santiago is Saint James.

Markus Watson: 00:10:33

And it's a pilgrimage and, the most common route, starts in southern France

Markus Watson: 00:10:38

and goes along the north of Spain and ends in the Town of Santiago at the

Markus Watson: 00:10:42

Cathedral of, Santiago de Compostela.

Markus Watson: 00:10:46

It's called, I don't know what Compostela means, but that's what it's called.

Markus Watson: 00:10:49

we did the, so we meaning I and a group of other, ministry leaders did a group

Markus Watson: 00:10:53

of, that did, the Portuguese route.

Markus Watson: 00:10:55

So we started in the South.

Markus Watson: 00:10:56

We didn't do all 500 miles.

Markus Watson: 00:10:58

We did about a hundred miles.

Markus Watson: 00:10:59

so it was about eight days of hiking.

Markus Watson: 00:11:00

I would love to do, and I will one day do the full thing.

Markus Watson: 00:11:04

and so I can't wait to do that.

Markus Watson: 00:11:05

I first discovered the existence of this Camino, this pilgrimage, right after

Markus Watson: 00:11:11

I got voted out of my church, a friend of mine, Learned about it somehow.

Markus Watson: 00:11:14

And there's a movie called The Way with, Martin Sheen, directed by Emilio Estevez

Markus Watson: 00:11:19

and, just a really great movie about the Camino and about the kind of just

Markus Watson: 00:11:23

these characters on their path and the kind of transformation they experience.

Markus Watson: 00:11:28

Anyway, as soon as I learned about it and having just been through a really

Markus Watson: 00:11:32

traumatic experience at a church, I was like, I want to do that, just the

Markus Watson: 00:11:36

idea of getting away and, and just walking and being with Jesus, for

Markus Watson: 00:11:43

30 days or it turned out to be eight days, but it was wonderful, right?

Markus Watson: 00:11:47

the one, eight of the best days of my life and, but I just, I wanted to do it so bad.

Markus Watson: 00:11:53

and, had never quite gotten around to it, but I knew eventually I would literally

Markus Watson: 00:11:57

the first Sunday that I was, serving at Mount Solon at Presbyterian church.

Markus Watson: 00:12:01

where I'm at now.

Markus Watson: 00:12:02

so about a year and a half ago, the worship leader there who I actually

Markus Watson: 00:12:06

already had known, he said, Hey, I'm doing this Camino, the Camino with

Markus Watson: 00:12:10

a group of other guys, in the fall.

Markus Watson: 00:12:12

Do you want to do it with us?

Markus Watson: 00:12:13

I was like, yes, I do sign me up right now.

Markus Watson: 00:12:16

And so it was a really great experience.

Markus Watson: 00:12:21

and so here's the story of transformation that I experienced on that path.

Markus Watson: 00:12:25

first of all, being with these.

Markus Watson: 00:12:28

These people, only a couple of which I already knew.

Markus Watson: 00:12:31

it was just like one of these, community building experiences where

Markus Watson: 00:12:35

we're at the end of the day, we're all walking sometimes together,

Markus Watson: 00:12:38

sometimes, separately alone, but.

Markus Watson: 00:12:40

At the end of the night, we come together and we just share where

Markus Watson: 00:12:43

we at spiritually personally.

Markus Watson: 00:12:45

What are we processing today?

Markus Watson: 00:12:47

What was our experience like today?

Markus Watson: 00:12:49

And it just created this bond, and just on Tuesday night I went up to Orange

Markus Watson: 00:12:52

County and met up with Five of them four if there were five of us together and

Markus Watson: 00:12:56

it was just right so these new friends that was so good But then here's like in

Markus Watson: 00:13:02

terms of the trauma and healing from that On the very first morning of walking,

Markus Watson: 00:13:09

we started in the town of Ponte de Lima, in Portugal and, we stopped by the

Markus Watson: 00:13:14

cathedral, every town has a cathedral.

Markus Watson: 00:13:16

And so we went over to the cathedral and, I sat down in there and

Markus Watson: 00:13:20

it was beautiful and I was just and I started talking to God.

Markus Watson: 00:13:24

I was like, okay, Lord, here it is.

Markus Watson: 00:13:25

I'm doing it.

Markus Watson: 00:13:26

This is what I've been wanting to do now for, five years or six years or

Markus Watson: 00:13:31

whatever it was ever since that church.

Markus Watson: 00:13:33

And then I cussed that church bleeped me, and, obviously silently, nobody heard

Markus Watson: 00:13:40

me say that, but that's what, those are the words that, that I was thinking.

Markus Watson: 00:13:43

And, and I just felt so angry and all this.

Markus Watson: 00:13:48

energy inside of me, this angry energy, this frustrated energy,

Markus Watson: 00:13:53

this, outrage sort of energy.

Markus Watson: 00:13:55

And I was just like, I got to go, I got to get up.

Markus Watson: 00:13:58

And so a couple of the guys were hanging out there, grabbing, having, sitting in a

Markus Watson: 00:14:01

cafe, having some coffee to start the day.

Markus Watson: 00:14:04

And I was just like, all right guys, I'm off, Buen Camino, the Buen Camino.

Markus Watson: 00:14:08

And, and I just started walking and I was just like, Hoof in it,

Markus Watson: 00:14:12

and and I, it's like I needed that.

Markus Watson: 00:14:13

I just needed to walk.

Markus Watson: 00:14:14

I needed to be alone.

Markus Watson: 00:14:16

It's like I was burning off all this energy that I was feeling.

Markus Watson: 00:14:20

and the second day, so I walked alone the first day.

Markus Watson: 00:14:23

I caught up with a couple of guys for the last hour and that was

Markus Watson: 00:14:26

great, but but alone most of the day.

Markus Watson: 00:14:28

And then the second day I walked alone again and, but about halfway through that

Markus Watson: 00:14:33

second day, it's like my energy changed.

Markus Watson: 00:14:34

It's like all of a sudden, and I wasn't like hoofing it anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:14:38

I was just walking just a steady pace.

Markus Watson: 00:14:42

And, in the evening, as we were debriefing together the day, I shared

Markus Watson: 00:14:46

with them what I just shared with you and a little bit about my history with,

Markus Watson: 00:14:50

my experience at that church and stuff and I said, I walked alone these first

Markus Watson: 00:14:54

two, two days, but I realized today I don't want to walk alone anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:14:59

I want to, so I want to walk with someone tomorrow.

Markus Watson: 00:15:02

afterwards, one of the other guys is I'll walk with you tomorrow,

Markus Watson: 00:15:04

Markus, and so it was good.

Markus Watson: 00:15:05

I maybe had an hour or two where I would walk alone, throughout the rest

Markus Watson: 00:15:08

of the time, but most of the time I was just walking with these other guys

Markus Watson: 00:15:11

and it was just so good and helpful.

Markus Watson: 00:15:13

But then near the end of the week, second to last night, I think it was, we're

Markus Watson: 00:15:18

in the town of, Armentera, I think.

Markus Watson: 00:15:21

So we did what was called the spiritual route.

Markus Watson: 00:15:23

you, there's kind of two options at one point the spiritual

Markus Watson: 00:15:25

route breaks, breaks off.

Markus Watson: 00:15:26

It goes up into some mountains and then down back to the coast, but you

Markus Watson: 00:15:32

stop in a town with a monastery there.

Markus Watson: 00:15:34

And We got to this town with a monastery.

Markus Watson: 00:15:36

There's a service of blessing for pilgrims led by these sisters.

Markus Watson: 00:15:40

and so it was really beautiful.

Markus Watson: 00:15:43

We did that in a small chapel, but then there's also a larger

Markus Watson: 00:15:46

cathedral as part of the monastery.

Markus Watson: 00:15:48

This is like a thousand year old monastery, 1200, something like that.

Markus Watson: 00:15:52

Really old, which is super cool, right?

Markus Watson: 00:15:54

You don't get that in the U S here, you don't find old things.

Markus Watson: 00:15:58

So just amazing, all that history.

Markus Watson: 00:15:59

So we go into the cathedral again and I'm sitting in there.

Markus Watson: 00:16:03

And, It was, I said to God, I said, okay, Lord, boy, this feels a little bit like

Markus Watson: 00:16:06

that first morning, and here I am again sitting in a cathedral, but I don't feel

Markus Watson: 00:16:13

the same way I felt that same morning.

Markus Watson: 00:16:16

And, and I said, yeah, and so I just start, I was talking to God and I,

Markus Watson: 00:16:23

And it just came out of me, Lord, just be with that effing precious church.

Markus Watson: 00:16:31

And, and so I was able to write a kind of forgiveness, a kind of healing for sure.

Markus Watson: 00:16:38

a kind of letting go surrendering, and, yeah, and it was just what I needed.

Markus Watson: 00:16:44

it's ever since that experience with that church, it's been like

Markus Watson: 00:16:48

an onion, you peel away layers of.

Markus Watson: 00:16:50

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:16:51

anger, layers of anxiety, layers of frustration and hurt.

Markus Watson: 00:16:55

and this was a big layer.

Markus Watson: 00:16:56

So this was like, I'm sure there'll be more layers, over the years, but it was

Markus Watson: 00:16:59

a big layer and it just changed, my, my own inner energy, so to speak, when I

Markus Watson: 00:17:05

think about what happened there, I don't

Markus Watson: 00:17:06

think of it quite with the same intensity and.

Markus Watson: 00:17:10

anger that I once did.

Markus Watson: 00:17:12

I still don't like it, but but I don't, but I don't, it doesn't feel, I don't

Markus Watson: 00:17:16

feel as broken because of it anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:17:18

I don't know if that makes sense.

Tim Winders: 00:17:19

yeah, it does, and it I don't know if this is a theory, or a theology,

Tim Winders: 00:17:23

or just a thought, you can respond in whatever way you want, but I've got this.

Tim Winders: 00:17:28

Thought from studying scriptures, from stuff I've been through in life too.

Tim Winders: 00:17:33

And truthfully, we could probably interview, I think just about anyone,

Tim Winders: 00:17:39

Markus, you'd interview people.

Tim Winders: 00:17:41

I interview people and they've got a journey and they've got

Tim Winders: 00:17:45

a situation that occurred or an event or trauma or something.

Tim Winders: 00:17:50

And I hate it.

Tim Winders: 00:17:51

And some we rank, some, we say that this one is worse than the other one, but I

Tim Winders: 00:17:56

think everybody's got their own journey.

Tim Winders: 00:17:58

I think it's

Tim Winders: 00:17:58

there.

Tim Winders: 00:18:00

Journey, right?

Tim Winders: 00:18:01

And and I think what it does is it actually can and does damage

Tim Winders: 00:18:06

our souls, takes a chunk out of it or leaves a big scar, sometimes

Tim Winders: 00:18:12

a dang open wound that we have.

Tim Winders: 00:18:16

And so I think part of our life is trying to protect our soul, but I think we

Tim Winders: 00:18:23

still have to get out there and do stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:18:27

But then I think the rest of our life is restoring our soul

Markus Watson: 00:18:33

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:18:33

and maybe even preparing it for What we'll call eternity, which to

Tim Winders: 00:18:40

me, I've come to believe that is, we're really preparing our hearts that our

Tim Winders: 00:18:44

time here is getting our heart ready for.

Tim Winders: 00:18:48

I don't think it'll be static when we leave here, but I think it is a

Tim Winders: 00:18:52

workout for the heart for eternity.

Tim Winders: 00:18:55

So you, I know you're deeper theologically than I am.

Tim Winders: 00:18:58

What are your thoughts on that?

Tim Winders: 00:18:59

Especially with the story you just told?

Markus Watson: 00:19:03

I think, if I'm hearing you correctly, I think I agree in that

Markus Watson: 00:19:07

it's it's almost like we need suffering in our lives and it's so paradoxical, right?

Markus Watson: 00:19:14

Because Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:19:14

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:19:14

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:19:15

we weren't created for suffering.

Markus Watson: 00:19:17

It's like God didn't create a world in which he's I want people to suffer.

Markus Watson: 00:19:21

That's the exact opposite.

Markus Watson: 00:19:22

And I think it's the opposite of what is in store for us.

Markus Watson: 00:19:26

But there's something about suffering.

Markus Watson: 00:19:29

And I think the cross reflects this.

Markus Watson: 00:19:31

There's something about suffering.

Markus Watson: 00:19:33

that is transformative, right?

Markus Watson: 00:19:35

And that shapes us into who we were actually created to be, right?

Markus Watson: 00:19:41

We get clear about what really matters, what, about Things like, I don't need

Markus Watson: 00:19:47

to meet other people's approval, right?

Markus Watson: 00:19:50

That's not the most important thing.

Markus Watson: 00:19:52

I don't need to present this version of myself.

Markus Watson: 00:19:55

one of the, one of the, one really helpful book that I read was called

Markus Watson: 00:20:00

Falling Upward by Richard Rohr.

Markus Watson: 00:20:02

And he talks about, life in terms of first of half of life and second half of life

Markus Watson: 00:20:06

and, and the first half of life is he uses the image of building a container, right?

Markus Watson: 00:20:12

You spend the first half of your life building your container, and,

Markus Watson: 00:20:15

and it's and that's appropriate.

Markus Watson: 00:20:17

He says you need to, uh, of yourself.

Markus Watson: 00:20:21

You need to accomplish some things.

Markus Watson: 00:20:23

when you're a kid, you need mom and dad.

Markus Watson: 00:20:25

Hey, look, mom, no hands, that's first half of life stuff.

Markus Watson: 00:20:28

but you need that.

Markus Watson: 00:20:28

Oh, way to go.

Markus Watson: 00:20:29

Great job.

Markus Watson: 00:20:30

But if you stay there, if you, where all, where you're just constantly trying

Markus Watson: 00:20:35

to build your container, it's like you stay, you haven't fully developed as

Markus Watson: 00:20:39

a human being, and so at some point, you have to move into the second half.

Markus Watson: 00:20:44

And usually that happens through a really difficult experience, right?

Markus Watson: 00:20:48

For me, this experience at that church was the transition for me into second half

Markus Watson: 00:20:51

of life where it's, no longer about me.

Markus Watson: 00:20:54

And I'll be honest, I wanted to be an impressive pastor.

Markus Watson: 00:20:58

I wasn't the pastor of a big church, but I wanted to be, and

Markus Watson: 00:21:03

I, or at least a growing church.

Markus Watson: 00:21:05

I wanted people to say, man, Markus is doing such a great job at that church.

Markus Watson: 00:21:08

What a great pastor, And then everything fell apart.

Markus Watson: 00:21:12

And I was like, what was all of that for, And it just put me in this place of.

Markus Watson: 00:21:17

Reflection, deep reflection.

Markus Watson: 00:21:19

okay.

Markus Watson: 00:21:20

I'm going to, I'm going to share a moment with you that was I if I had to point

Markus Watson: 00:21:24

to a moment where I made the transition from first half of life to second half

Markus Watson: 00:21:27

of life, and by the way, second half of life, now you've got your container, but

Markus Watson: 00:21:32

your purpose now is to pour out, right?

Markus Watson: 00:21:34

You've got a container and now you pour out of your container.

Markus Watson: 00:21:37

You're not trying to build your container anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:21:39

You pour into other people.

Markus Watson: 00:21:40

So for me, that moment was, So I was accused of some really terrible things,

Markus Watson: 00:21:45

and, and I didn't know who was making these accusations, and our presbytery was

Markus Watson: 00:21:49

not following the right processes, we, one thing, presbyterians don't do everything

Markus Watson: 00:21:54

great, but one thing they do is they have some good processes when people are

Markus Watson: 00:21:57

accused of things, to protect the innocent and to protect the accuser, and so there's

Markus Watson: 00:22:02

some confidentiality involved, but anyway, they were not following the process, so

Markus Watson: 00:22:06

I was left pretty vulnerable in this.

Markus Watson: 00:22:08

So And, and the kinds of things I was being accused of are the kinds of

Markus Watson: 00:22:12

things that people go to prison for.

Markus Watson: 00:22:14

And so I was.

Markus Watson: 00:22:16

Sitting on my patio, and I was spending a lot of time reflecting on the Psalms

Markus Watson: 00:22:21

of Lament, during that time, and so I just spent some time in one of the

Markus Watson: 00:22:24

Psalms of Lament, and then I was just sitting there, and and thinking, and

Markus Watson: 00:22:29

reflecting, and an image came into my mind, and I was just thinking about,

Markus Watson: 00:22:34

all the things that I could lose, and I was like, man, I could lose my

Markus Watson: 00:22:38

job, which I did eventually, right?

Markus Watson: 00:22:40

I could lose, my reputation.

Markus Watson: 00:22:43

And that for me was almost the worst thing, because people would believe,

Markus Watson: 00:22:47

all these friends and colleagues would believe this thing about

Markus Watson: 00:22:49

me that wasn't even true, right?

Markus Watson: 00:22:51

I could lose my ordination as a pastor.

Markus Watson: 00:22:54

I could lose my family if it looks like this is true.

Markus Watson: 00:22:57

I don't actually think I would have, but those, that's where my

Markus Watson: 00:23:00

mind was spiraling into, right?

Markus Watson: 00:23:03

I could lose, due to the nature of these allegations, I could become a

Markus Watson: 00:23:06

registered sex offender if it looks like this is guilty, I'm guilty of this, and

Markus Watson: 00:23:12

everywhere I go, someone is going to, people are going to believe this thing,

Markus Watson: 00:23:16

and I'm going to have to say this thing that isn't true about me, and then I

Markus Watson: 00:23:19

thought, spiraling, I was like, I could go to prison, and I had this image of

Markus Watson: 00:23:23

myself sitting in a prison cell, All by myself, having lost everything, my job,

Markus Watson: 00:23:28

my ordination, my reputation, my family, my belongings, my house, and, and I'm all

Markus Watson: 00:23:33

alone, and then it was like I, I sensed God say to me, yes, Markus, you might

Markus Watson: 00:23:38

lose everything, and I didn't know yet, I might, I'm that, my future was unknown,

Markus Watson: 00:23:43

said you might lose everything, but you will never lose my love for you, and I

Markus Watson: 00:23:47

was like, like, that's the only thing No one can ever take away, and I was

Markus Watson: 00:23:52

like, Oh, And all of a sudden I was like, yeah, that's the only thing that matters.

Markus Watson: 00:23:59

And, and it changed the way I think I thought about myself.

Markus Watson: 00:24:03

Like my identity changed in a sense in that moment.

Markus Watson: 00:24:05

I believed in God's love.

Markus Watson: 00:24:07

I preached God's love, right?

Markus Watson: 00:24:09

God's unconditional love.

Markus Watson: 00:24:11

But it's like I didn't get it really until that moment.

Markus Watson: 00:24:15

And, so all of a sudden, I was no longer, again, thinking about what do you do, my

Markus Watson: 00:24:19

identity didn't become primarily I'm a pastor or a husband or a podcaster, which

Markus Watson: 00:24:24

I wasn't yet, but any of those things, my primary identity is I'm God's beloved.

Markus Watson: 00:24:29

And that's it.

Markus Watson: 00:24:30

And everything else is just an expression of that belovedness.

Markus Watson: 00:24:34

and it changed the way that I thought about ministry.

Markus Watson: 00:24:37

It changed the way that I thought about, being a pastor.

Markus Watson: 00:24:41

I was reading some really great books at that time.

Markus Watson: 00:24:43

One of them was, Life of the Beloved by Henry Nowen.

Markus Watson: 00:24:46

And he says in that book, And I'm paraphrasing here, something like,

Markus Watson: 00:24:50

once you discover yourself to be God's beloved, you just want everybody else

Markus Watson: 00:24:55

to know that they're God's beloved too.

Markus Watson: 00:24:56

And I was like, yeah, that's exactly how I feel right now.

Markus Watson: 00:25:00

I just want everybody to know.

Markus Watson: 00:25:01

And so when I think about my work as a pastor, I don't try to convince people

Markus Watson: 00:25:06

to get their theology right anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:25:08

I'll teach from the Bible, and here's what I think, this is what I think this means.

Markus Watson: 00:25:12

but the most important thing, I just want people to know that they're God's beloved.

Markus Watson: 00:25:16

And if I can, if I want to convince anyone of that's what I want to convince them of.

Markus Watson: 00:25:21

And that doesn't happen by teaching good doctrine, right?

Markus Watson: 00:25:24

that might play a little part in it.

Markus Watson: 00:25:26

But really it's, do I love the people, that I'm interacting with?

Markus Watson: 00:25:31

Do the people in our church love each other and love their neighbors, right?

Tim Winders: 00:25:36

I think so often, we, we've got it in our head, you go to

Tim Winders: 00:25:41

seminary, I went to Bible school, we got all this stuff in our head,

Tim Winders: 00:25:44

but at some point it has to pierce through that soul and get to the heart.

Tim Winders: 00:25:50

And I hate that we have to go through Usually crappy situations.

Tim Winders: 00:25:57

It seems like it was for me.

Tim Winders: 00:25:59

It sounds like for you I'm sure somebody listening in I do not want to dive deep

Tim Winders: 00:26:04

into this But I know that probably someone listening in is going to say so what was

Tim Winders: 00:26:08

the deal i'm going to Give what I believe is a synopsis and then you could correct

Tim Winders: 00:26:13

or whatever and then we'll move on because you've told this story on other things

Tim Winders: 00:26:17

you were accused of having some images on a laptop

Tim Winders: 00:26:20

that would not be

Tim Winders: 00:26:21

appropriate but everything was checked out after a long drawn out

Tim Winders: 00:26:24

process and you were exonerated you didn't have any of that.

Tim Winders: 00:26:29

It

Markus Watson: 00:26:29

I was exonerated by the

Markus Watson: 00:26:30

FBI,

Markus Watson: 00:26:31

by the way, right?

Markus Watson: 00:26:32

They

Markus Watson: 00:26:32

searched my entire yeah, they searched my entire laptop.

Markus Watson: 00:26:35

They said there's nothing here,

Tim Winders: 00:26:36

the FBI now, do they report to the Presbyterian

Tim Winders: 00:26:39

church or how does that work?

Tim Winders: 00:26:40

What's the, I'm

Markus Watson: 00:26:41

that's I know right?

Markus Watson: 00:26:43

but that's

Tim Winders: 00:26:44

I'm laughing

Markus Watson: 00:26:45

Yes, I know.

Markus Watson: 00:26:46

it was horrific.

Markus Watson: 00:26:47

I couldn't believe I was being investigated by the FBI.

Markus Watson: 00:26:50

But it was also a gift because when they said

Markus Watson: 00:26:53

case closed, okay, thank you.

Markus Watson: 00:26:56

All right.

Markus Watson: 00:26:56

and I didn't have to wonder, nobody had to wonder anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:26:59

And the only reason I got voted out, I think in the end was

Markus Watson: 00:27:02

because, there were, it was only by a margin of two votes, right?

Markus Watson: 00:27:06

so 50 50 split plus two on the side to vote me out.

Markus Watson: 00:27:10

And I think the reason is there were some people, there were some

Markus Watson: 00:27:13

people who, I don't know, just didn't trust me and wanted me out.

Markus Watson: 00:27:15

And then there were, I think there were a lot of people who were like, I don't

Markus Watson: 00:27:18

know, and maybe it's just better if we.

Markus Watson: 00:27:20

Get a new pastor, and so I get that, but I had a lot of great supporters as well who

Markus Watson: 00:27:25

were like Markus were with you and some of them actually come to my new church now.

Markus Watson: 00:27:29

So that's nice.

Tim Winders: 00:27:31

So here's a weird, this is a weird question about this.

Tim Winders: 00:27:34

And I know you've reflected quite a bit.

Tim Winders: 00:27:38

Do you think God wanted you out?

Markus Watson: 00:27:41

Oh yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:27:42

Good question.

Tim Winders: 00:27:43

Which then of course, wait, while you're thinking about that, which

Tim Winders: 00:27:46

then of course leads down this rabbit hole that I don't like to go on, but

Tim Winders: 00:27:52

what was God's part as this was going on?

Tim Winders: 00:27:55

You talked about suffering earlier.

Tim Winders: 00:27:59

I've always said God did not bring on the downturn of 2008

Tim Winders: 00:28:04

when we had companies and businesses.

Tim Winders: 00:28:07

But boy, I sure do know he used it to get to me when it happened.

Tim Winders: 00:28:11

So

Tim Winders: 00:28:12

then and then of course we start studying job, which don't go

Tim Winders: 00:28:14

down that rabbit hole there.

Tim Winders: 00:28:15

We don't know

Markus Watson: 00:28:17

so when I think about that, I don't think that God caused it.

Markus Watson: 00:28:21

I think that sinful people caused it.

Markus Watson: 00:28:25

and they have free will and, the person who made these initial allegations,

Markus Watson: 00:28:30

came, I think, from her own brokenness, and, anyway, and so no, so I don't

Markus Watson: 00:28:35

think that God wanted me out.

Markus Watson: 00:28:36

I would say no.

Markus Watson: 00:28:38

I would say that God wanted to be with me whatever happens, right?

Markus Watson: 00:28:42

And, I think that if I had stayed.

Markus Watson: 00:28:45

The transformation had already happened in me, and so I would have led differently

Markus Watson: 00:28:50

even if I had stayed in that church.

Markus Watson: 00:28:52

I don't even know that, I don't think I would even say that God

Markus Watson: 00:28:55

wanted me to go through that.

Markus Watson: 00:28:57

Although, it's also hard to say, this is the paradox, right?

Markus Watson: 00:29:03

Where I don't think God wants me to suffer.

Markus Watson: 00:29:06

But he's also there's going to be suffering, Markus,

Markus Watson: 00:29:09

because this is a broken world.

Markus Watson: 00:29:11

And, but I will be with you, right?

Markus Watson: 00:29:13

In the midst of that suffering.

Markus Watson: 00:29:15

and it scares me a little bit to think that there's going to

Markus Watson: 00:29:17

be more suffering in my life.

Markus Watson: 00:29:19

I'm going to lose people I love.

Markus Watson: 00:29:20

That's part of life, and all of that.

Markus Watson: 00:29:22

And, but God's going to be with me in all of that.

Markus Watson: 00:29:24

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:29:26

Yeah,

Tim Winders: 00:29:26

I don't I have to be cautious going down this thought process Because the way

Tim Winders: 00:29:31

my mind is wired and we've got leaders listening in and you work with leaders

Tim Winders: 00:29:35

all the time We like to be optimistic But at times We have to be realistic

Tim Winders: 00:29:43

But then at times I think we have to be pessimistic And I think our challenge is

Tim Winders: 00:29:49

knowing when to turn it on and turn it off because I'll give you a quick story

Tim Winders: 00:29:53

that happened to us just the other day.

Tim Winders: 00:29:55

Our son travels, lives in his RV, just like we do.

Tim Winders: 00:29:58

And he has a trailer where he carries.

Tim Winders: 00:30:01

Now he has two motorcycles that he carries with it and he parked his

Tim Winders: 00:30:06

rig near a trailhead up almost at the Canadian border in Washington State.

Tim Winders: 00:30:12

Not much around there and he'd gone camping with some people,

Tim Winders: 00:30:14

had one motorcycle with him.

Tim Winders: 00:30:16

Came back, someone had stolen one of his motorcycles off the back of his trailer.

Tim Winders: 00:30:22

And you know like, Like we were talking about, something happens,

Tim Winders: 00:30:24

it kind of, you know, you lose faith in humanity, and he waited a couple

Tim Winders: 00:30:29

days before he told us about it.

Tim Winders: 00:30:30

He reported it to the police and stuff like that.

Tim Winders: 00:30:32

We called us up and my wife is wired.

Tim Winders: 00:30:35

She does not like to be stolen from.

Tim Winders: 00:30:37

She is.

Tim Winders: 00:30:40

I think when she was young, she had a father that, anyway,

Tim Winders: 00:30:43

we've all got issues that we

Tim Winders: 00:30:44

deal with.

Tim Winders: 00:30:46

So 24 hours later, somebody had called and found his motorcycle.

Tim Winders: 00:30:52

Someone just put it in a ditch.

Tim Winders: 00:30:54

Didn't really damage anything.

Tim Winders: 00:30:56

They didn't have the keys to it.

Tim Winders: 00:30:57

And some girl and her dad were out camping.

Tim Winders: 00:31:01

And this girl was a teenager, was maniacal about dad.

Tim Winders: 00:31:04

This is somebody's motorcycle.

Tim Winders: 00:31:06

We got to find who it

Tim Winders: 00:31:06

is.

Tim Winders: 00:31:08

So

Tim Winders: 00:31:08

he gets a call.

Tim Winders: 00:31:08

So yesterday, 36 hours later, he goes and picks up his motorcycle, all good.

Tim Winders: 00:31:15

And so now he says he's, he was just praying and said, Lord, what

Tim Winders: 00:31:17

do I need to learn from this?

Tim Winders: 00:31:18

Did I do something that, and we don't know.

Tim Winders: 00:31:21

I mean, I, you know, our prayer was just that God would show off our son

Tim Winders: 00:31:24

and help build his faith and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:31:26

But I don't even know why I brought up that story other than, I think we're

Tim Winders: 00:31:31

all, And I hate to use the, we're just in a fallen world and stuff's going on,

Markus Watson: 00:31:36

That's right.

Markus Watson: 00:31:37

That's right.

Tim Winders: 00:31:38

but we are.

Markus Watson: 00:31:39

We are.

Markus Watson: 00:31:40

We are.

Markus Watson: 00:31:40

yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:31:41

And, when I, again, I think about the cross, like when I think about

Markus Watson: 00:31:45

Paul saying, I have been crucified with Christ, that was one of those

Markus Watson: 00:31:50

things that I, that occurred to me as I was going through that.

Markus Watson: 00:31:53

And all of a sudden I'm like, Oh, wait, he means literally in a sense, figuratively,

Markus Watson: 00:31:58

but literally, I, my experience of life is one of being crucified with Jesus.

Markus Watson: 00:32:06

And we might even say Jesus being crucified with us, right?

Markus Watson: 00:32:10

I think there's something about suffering that can unite us with Jesus in a

Markus Watson: 00:32:16

way that we can't if we don't suffer.

Markus Watson: 00:32:19

I think part of the reason Jesus came is, sometimes I wonder, Could Jesus

Markus Watson: 00:32:24

have rescued us without the cross?

Markus Watson: 00:32:26

Maybe.

Markus Watson: 00:32:27

if God is God, He can do whatever He wants, At the same time, If he's really

Markus Watson: 00:32:33

truly going to identify with humanity, so that I think we can then join him,

Markus Watson: 00:32:41

be united to him, God, as the man Jesus, had to experience suffering, and an

Markus Watson: 00:32:50

intense, extreme kind of suffering, right?

Markus Watson: 00:32:52

The, it's the worst suffering, perhaps, than, Most of us

Markus Watson: 00:32:58

will ever experience, right?

Markus Watson: 00:33:00

and that gives me, that, that makes me love Jesus.

Markus Watson: 00:33:05

It makes me love God to think that God doesn't understand some suffering

Markus Watson: 00:33:10

simply because he's omniscient, he understands suffering because

Markus Watson: 00:33:13

he actually experienced it, right?

Markus Watson: 00:33:15

And so that when God, when I go through something really hard and God says,

Markus Watson: 00:33:21

I know what you're going through.

Markus Watson: 00:33:22

He's not just saying that because he knows everything.

Markus Watson: 00:33:24

he's saying that because he went through something really hard too, and, that makes

Markus Watson: 00:33:29

me wanna belong to this God, wants me to stay connected to this God all my life.

Tim Winders: 00:33:35

you mentioned layers of onion earlier and it it's that way for me.

Tim Winders: 00:33:37

I think every experience that we have reveals to me that

Tim Winders: 00:33:45

he's drawing me closer to him.

Tim Winders: 00:33:49

And as long as I'm not just, All out resisting it, which at times I'm

Tim Winders: 00:33:54

sure I'm not totally cooperating,

Markus Watson: 00:33:56

Yeah, sure.

Tim Winders: 00:33:58

I want to ask one more thing before we kind of move.

Tim Winders: 00:34:00

I want to really get into some discussion about Shalom

Tim Winders: 00:34:03

because.

Tim Winders: 00:34:03

I think this is where all this is leading because I think when we get

Tim Winders: 00:34:07

to the place where we understand this or at least try to grasp it a little

Tim Winders: 00:34:10

better is where we get closer to this place where we're at rest or Shalom, but

Tim Winders: 00:34:15

I do want to I do want to say that my observation about we'll just call it.

Tim Winders: 00:34:24

Bad stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:34:25

Trauma.

Tim Winders: 00:34:26

there's so many words that are used.

Tim Winders: 00:34:29

I actually, the word trauma, I still struggle with.

Tim Winders: 00:34:32

I don't know why.

Tim Winders: 00:34:33

So when we went through our financial situation, it was financial primarily,

Tim Winders: 00:34:37

but a big chunk of my identity was wrapped up in, I'm a business guy.

Tim Winders: 00:34:41

I'm good at

Tim Winders: 00:34:42

this.

Tim Winders: 00:34:43

And you mentioned earlier that part of your just, your thought

Tim Winders: 00:34:46

process was, what if I lose my job?

Tim Winders: 00:34:48

which wasn't really a super spiritual.

Tim Winders: 00:34:52

You know, thought is like, Oh no, what if I don't have enough money

Tim Winders: 00:34:54

in my bank account to pay my bills?

Tim Winders: 00:34:56

It's like, uh,

Tim Winders: 00:34:57

I think there's scriptures for that.

Tim Winders: 00:34:59

And I knew all those scriptures and I know you did too, but yet still,

Tim Winders: 00:35:02

that's the thought we have.

Tim Winders: 00:35:03

So that was pretty rough for us.

Tim Winders: 00:35:05

But then a few years later, we were, our souls were being restored.

Tim Winders: 00:35:10

We traveled around.

Tim Winders: 00:35:11

We are, one of our experiences where we were in New Zealand.

Tim Winders: 00:35:14

It's far away, geographically.

Tim Winders: 00:35:17

As we could be from Atlanta, Georgia, where we were going

Tim Winders: 00:35:20

through a bunch of our stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:35:21

And it's like the Lord started ministering.

Tim Winders: 00:35:23

I don't even know if I want to go down the

Tim Winders: 00:35:24

geographic aspect

Tim Winders: 00:35:26

of what you did with your hike and stuff like that.

Tim Winders: 00:35:28

I think getting away from things is important.

Tim Winders: 00:35:32

When we went to Bible school, we were so excited because we were going

Tim Winders: 00:35:36

to be hanging out with Christians.

Tim Winders: 00:35:39

And we were going to be studying the word, four or five hours

Tim Winders: 00:35:42

a day and stuff like that.

Tim Winders: 00:35:43

that experience ended up being more, I'll use the word traumatic,

Tim Winders: 00:35:50

than even the business experience.

Tim Winders: 00:35:53

I don't know if we let our guard down.

Tim Winders: 00:35:55

I don't know if we had

Tim Winders: 00:35:55

different expectations.

Tim Winders: 00:35:57

I don't know what it was.

Tim Winders: 00:35:58

But, I'll give the quick synopsis.

Tim Winders: 00:36:01

it wasn't as if I was kicked out, but they told me they didn't want

Tim Winders: 00:36:05

me to come back for the third year.

Tim Winders: 00:36:07

And as far as accusations and things, Markus, I have no idea because no one ever

Tim Winders: 00:36:14

talked to me or said anything about it.

Tim Winders: 00:36:16

I didn't realize how that impacted me until as I kept going, I'm

Tim Winders: 00:36:20

like going, wow, but why is it?

Tim Winders: 00:36:22

And I know you've now have interacted with a number of people.

Tim Winders: 00:36:26

I think there's levels of trauma,

Tim Winders: 00:36:29

levels of situations, and how challenging is it because This is getting uglier

Tim Winders: 00:36:37

and uglier for people that are going through this type stuff in what we

Tim Winders: 00:36:42

would think as, air quotes for those listening, those watching can see it,

Tim Winders: 00:36:45

spiritual or Christian environments.

Markus Watson: 00:36:49

Yeah, so I, the only real experience of trauma, if we're

Markus Watson: 00:36:56

going to use that word or, I think the reason trauma is good is because

Markus Watson: 00:37:01

later on, I think of trauma connected to triggering and there are things

Markus Watson: 00:37:05

even now that trigger me and I'm like, Oh, it's because of that trauma.

Markus Watson: 00:37:07

So anyway.

Markus Watson: 00:37:08

That's why I like the word, but, this was my only really big experience.

Markus Watson: 00:37:13

So how does it compare to other kinds of suffering?

Markus Watson: 00:37:17

if it does hurt more, and I think it probably does, I think it's because

Markus Watson: 00:37:21

we associate the church, let's say, or Christian community with a God

Markus Watson: 00:37:28

who we believe to be good, right?

Markus Watson: 00:37:31

And when this church or Christian community fails us or turns on

Markus Watson: 00:37:38

us, it's like a betrayal, right?

Markus Watson: 00:37:40

It's not just a hurt, it's a betrayal, because they are supposed

Markus Watson: 00:37:45

to be a community of love, right?

Markus Watson: 00:37:48

There's, we're supposed to be able to trust them.

Markus Watson: 00:37:50

We're supposed to be able to, turn to them with our hard questions or

Markus Watson: 00:37:55

hard challenges and find support and love and not be judged.

Markus Watson: 00:38:00

Jesus said stuff about that, right?

Markus Watson: 00:38:02

And, and so when, our church, our community becomes, an experience of

Markus Watson: 00:38:09

judgment, of a rejection, of betrayal.

Markus Watson: 00:38:14

I think it hurts all the more because it's not supposed to be that.

Markus Watson: 00:38:18

it's one thing if, if you're a kid and the bully at school is mean to you, but that's

Markus Watson: 00:38:23

what you expect from the bully, right?

Markus Watson: 00:38:25

You don't expect that from the people of God.

Markus Watson: 00:38:28

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:38:29

yeah, from a board member of your church or from

Tim Winders: 00:38:32

a, a director of a Bible school or it's like, Whoa, wait, what?

Markus Watson: 00:38:39

We're supposed to be in this together like what and there

Markus Watson: 00:38:42

are ways to if you have questions about me or concerns, right?

Markus Watson: 00:38:46

Jesus talks about if you have something against your brother or sister, here's

Markus Watson: 00:38:49

what to do, And so often we don't do that.

Markus Watson: 00:38:52

We just make snap judgments

Tim Winders: 00:38:53

but yet we've got great examples.

Tim Winders: 00:38:55

I'm hanging out in the book of John right now.

Tim Winders: 00:38:57

And I'm, I don't know, I'm on chapter 10 or something like that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:00

I'll read two or three chapters and then just

Tim Winders: 00:39:02

meditate on it, marinate in it for a few days or something

Tim Winders: 00:39:06

like that.

Tim Winders: 00:39:08

And I might have shared this with you.

Tim Winders: 00:39:09

I could see that Jesus probably communicated with three groups,

Tim Winders: 00:39:13

the sheep, his disciples, and then what we'll call the wolves, which

Tim Winders: 00:39:19

That was the church

Tim Winders: 00:39:20

people

Markus Watson: 00:39:21

leaders.

Tim Winders: 00:39:22

the,

Tim Winders: 00:39:22

Pharisees.

Tim Winders: 00:39:23

And I've been reading through some dialogue where it's oh my goodness, you

Tim Winders: 00:39:27

know what I went through at bible school?

Tim Winders: 00:39:29

Pales in comparison.

Tim Winders: 00:39:32

we talk about

Tim Winders: 00:39:32

suffering.

Tim Winders: 00:39:33

It's Jesus, what would it be like to be okay?

Tim Winders: 00:39:37

I'm the son of God.

Tim Winders: 00:39:38

he knew that he was

Tim Winders: 00:39:39

confident in that I'm here and they're going, we gotta get rid of this guy.

Markus Watson: 00:39:45

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:39:46

And it's, it is interesting, isn't it, that the only people that Jesus actually,

Markus Watson: 00:39:51

attacks is maybe not the right word, but.

Markus Watson: 00:39:54

resists or preaches against are the religious leaders.

Markus Watson: 00:39:58

he doesn't do that against any other group, but which always makes me feel like

Markus Watson: 00:40:04

I'm in the wrong group or I need to be a different kind of a person in that group.

Markus Watson: 00:40:08

Nicodemus, was, was in that group and yet different or Joseph of Arimathea.

Markus Watson: 00:40:13

And anyway, I need to be one of those

Tim Winders: 00:40:15

There were just a couple of them there.

Tim Winders: 00:40:16

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:40:17

I think that's one of the things I think, at times I could be pretty, because

Tim Winders: 00:40:21

I was saved in a business setting.

Tim Winders: 00:40:23

I don't know that a church setting would have been that

Tim Winders: 00:40:26

inviting to me.

Tim Winders: 00:40:27

I mean, just the way my makeup was.

Tim Winders: 00:40:30

And so I could be a little bit critical of kind of structure and things like

Tim Winders: 00:40:33

that, but then I think we need to be because Jesus obviously was pressing,

Tim Winders: 00:40:40

but somewhere along the way, Markus.

Tim Winders: 00:40:43

This word shalom started entering into your vernacular and things like that.

Tim Winders: 00:40:49

At what point, and there's a great course we're going to link to it and

Tim Winders: 00:40:53

we'll talk a little bit about it here, but at what point did that word shalom

Tim Winders: 00:40:58

start being more of your vocabulary?

Markus Watson: 00:41:02

you know it happened I don't remember exactly where I started

Markus Watson: 00:41:05

to pick up on it, but it started, it started to be something more meaningful

Markus Watson: 00:41:10

to me around that time that all that terrible stuff was happening.

Markus Watson: 00:41:14

and I'm pretty sure it was before, before I got voted out of that church,

Markus Watson: 00:41:17

but I started to, just think, I started to realize in some way that

Markus Watson: 00:41:24

shalom and maybe, so that shalom is at the heart of God's mission.

Markus Watson: 00:41:29

What's shalom?

Markus Watson: 00:41:31

I came across the definition somewhere, and I don't remember where, and I would

Markus Watson: 00:41:34

love to find out so that I can give proper credit, but I even googled it, I typed in

Markus Watson: 00:41:39

the exact definition, which I saved from somewhere, and I cannot find it, I can't

Markus Watson: 00:41:42

claim it as my own, but I don't know where it comes from, but here's the definition.

Markus Watson: 00:41:46

of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:41:46

Shalom is not just, so it's peace.

Markus Watson: 00:41:49

It means peace, right?

Markus Watson: 00:41:50

And that's a good translation into English.

Markus Watson: 00:41:54

it was a greeting, that they use still today in Hebrew.

Markus Watson: 00:41:58

but a good way of thinking about what Shalom is that it is a comprehensive

Markus Watson: 00:42:01

state of well being that touches every aspect of life, right?

Markus Watson: 00:42:06

So your spiritual life, your family life, your physical health life, your financial

Markus Watson: 00:42:13

and economic life, your nutritional life, your neighborhood life, right?

Markus Watson: 00:42:18

Your political life, your civic life.

Markus Watson: 00:42:21

so every aspect of life.

Markus Watson: 00:42:23

That's what Shalom is.

Markus Watson: 00:42:24

And I came to this sort of realization that You know, that's

Markus Watson: 00:42:30

what God created the world to be.

Markus Watson: 00:42:31

God created the world to be a world of shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:42:34

The creation story in Genesis doesn't use the word shalom, but

Markus Watson: 00:42:38

what is depicted in the garden is, an existence of shalom, right?

Markus Watson: 00:42:44

Harmony is another good word, right?

Markus Watson: 00:42:46

It is a, everything was as it was meant to be.

Markus Watson: 00:42:49

There, there was peace, there was goodness, there was love, and, there

Markus Watson: 00:42:54

was care, Adam was charged with caring for the garden and to work.

Markus Watson: 00:42:59

I love it.

Markus Watson: 00:43:00

So work was there.

Markus Watson: 00:43:01

Work is part of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:43:02

There's a difference between work and toil, right?

Markus Watson: 00:43:05

But, but work is part of Shalom, doing things that matter as a

Markus Watson: 00:43:09

part of the experience of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:43:10

so I came to this.

Markus Watson: 00:43:11

Understanding and, when I was working with Flor San Diego, I learned about

Markus Watson: 00:43:14

the fourfold nature of Shalom, which is that we were created to experience

Markus Watson: 00:43:19

Shalom and four key relationships, between us and God, between us and

Markus Watson: 00:43:24

each other, between us and the created order and, within our own selves.

Markus Watson: 00:43:29

So an inner kind of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:43:31

and when you look at the creation story, you can see all four of

Markus Watson: 00:43:35

those relationships of Shalom and At the fall, when sin enters the

Markus Watson: 00:43:41

world, Shalom is broken in all four of those key relationships.

Markus Watson: 00:43:46

Shalom is broken between human beings and God, right?

Markus Watson: 00:43:48

As soon as they eat the fruit, they hide, right?

Markus Watson: 00:43:52

They don't feel safe with God anymore because they're ashamed.

Markus Watson: 00:43:55

And God comes and He says, Where are you?

Markus Watson: 00:43:58

Where are you?

Markus Watson: 00:43:59

you?

Markus Watson: 00:44:00

know, it's like I've never had to look for you before.

Markus Watson: 00:44:02

Shalom has been broken.

Markus Watson: 00:44:04

there's a lack of well being at that point between God and human, human beings.

Markus Watson: 00:44:08

shalom is broken between human beings and each other, right?

Markus Watson: 00:44:10

why did you eat the fruit?

Markus Watson: 00:44:11

she told me to eat the fruit.

Markus Watson: 00:44:13

that thing told me to eat the fruit, right?

Markus Watson: 00:44:14

And so there's finger pointing and they're ashamed.

Markus Watson: 00:44:17

they, all of a sudden they realize they're naked.

Markus Watson: 00:44:19

At the end of chapter two, I think it says they were naked and they felt no shame.

Markus Watson: 00:44:23

That's not a physical statement.

Markus Watson: 00:44:24

That's a theological statement.

Markus Watson: 00:44:26

They were able to be free and open and exposed and there be

Markus Watson: 00:44:30

their true selves without hiding anything and not feel ashamed

Markus Watson: 00:44:33

about anything about who they were.

Markus Watson: 00:44:35

And that's lost, between Adam and Eve, between the human beings.

Markus Watson: 00:44:39

There's brokenness, broken Shalom in, in their relationship with the created order.

Markus Watson: 00:44:43

I think that's what the curses are about.

Markus Watson: 00:44:45

It's that now, childbearing is going to be painful, whereas perhaps

Markus Watson: 00:44:49

it wouldn't have been before.

Markus Watson: 00:44:50

I don't know, but there's a brokenness.

Markus Watson: 00:44:52

the earth is not going to cooperate with you when you work the earth anymore.

Markus Watson: 00:44:55

you're going to have to put a lot of effort and sometimes it won't work, right?

Markus Watson: 00:45:00

So there's a broken really, again, I think this is a lot of it is

Markus Watson: 00:45:03

figurative and metaphorical.

Markus Watson: 00:45:04

There's a broken relationship between us and the rest of creation.

Markus Watson: 00:45:07

And then there's a broken, inner shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:45:10

And that kind of goes back to shame again, where they.

Markus Watson: 00:45:12

They feel ashamed about who they are and what they've done and what they've become.

Markus Watson: 00:45:17

And, and then the rest of the Bible is all about God.

Markus Watson: 00:45:20

we have New Testament, Old Testament, New Testament.

Markus Watson: 00:45:22

That's one way of breaking up the Bible or dividing it.

Markus Watson: 00:45:25

You can also divide it into Genesis 1, 2, and 3, which is creation

Markus Watson: 00:45:29

and then the loss of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:45:30

And then Genesis 4 to the end, Revelation 22 is all about God working

Markus Watson: 00:45:36

to restore shalom in the world, right?

Markus Watson: 00:45:38

And so what I love about that is that it's not just about, it's not just about

Markus Watson: 00:45:43

salvation, in other words, trying to get people to go to heaven when they die.

Markus Watson: 00:45:48

That's part of it, because that's part of the restoration of

Markus Watson: 00:45:50

shalom between us and God, right?

Markus Watson: 00:45:53

but what God wants to do is all of it.

Markus Watson: 00:45:55

He also wants to restore shalom between us and each other.

Markus Watson: 00:46:00

God, God wants to restore shalom between Ukraine and Russia.

Markus Watson: 00:46:03

I don't know what will happen or how that'll work, or between races that

Markus Watson: 00:46:08

don't get along with each other, or even political parties that

Markus Watson: 00:46:10

don't get along with each other.

Markus Watson: 00:46:11

It would be God's desire to restore shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:46:14

there's a lot of lack of shalom in our world today.

Markus Watson: 00:46:17

Anyway, so restore shalom in that way.

Markus Watson: 00:46:19

and so all these different kinds of ministries that I think churches and

Markus Watson: 00:46:23

Christians do, all of those are part of God's Plan and one is not necessarily

Markus Watson: 00:46:27

better than the other because they are all working to restore Shalom, Yeah,

Markus Watson: 00:46:31

and so that's become really helpful to me and really meaningful to me

Markus Watson: 00:46:33

And I think the more that churches can lean into that and recognize that

Markus Watson: 00:46:38

not all of us are Not every church is wired for, on the street evangelism.

Markus Watson: 00:46:44

And not every church is wired for creation care.

Markus Watson: 00:46:48

But both of those are important, and both of those are a part of the

Markus Watson: 00:46:52

restoration of shalom in the world.

Markus Watson: 00:46:53

And so how are we called to participate with God in restoring Shalom in the world?

Tim Winders: 00:46:59

I remember sitting, it was back during a little bit of the turmoil

Tim Winders: 00:47:02

time when we were at Bible school.

Tim Winders: 00:47:05

We had a little apartment there and we, the balcony sat looking out over,

Tim Winders: 00:47:11

it wasn't like a highway, but it was like a four lane road that came into

Tim Winders: 00:47:15

this little town we were in Colorado.

Tim Winders: 00:47:18

And this particular morning I was spending just time I think it was prayer.

Tim Winders: 00:47:22

I don't know.

Tim Winders: 00:47:22

Could have been whining, could have been complaining, but for, that was my prayer

Tim Winders: 00:47:26

at that time.

Markus Watson: 00:47:28

I've done

Tim Winders: 00:47:28

and it, there was a good bit of

Tim Winders: 00:47:29

traffic on the road.

Tim Winders: 00:47:31

It was going by and I was just talking about this topic.

Tim Winders: 00:47:34

I'll use the term rest at times and sometimes Sabbath.

Tim Winders: 00:47:39

Which is lumped into this and in, in the novel I wrote, I actually wrote one of

Tim Winders: 00:47:46

the three principles was being at rest or being at peace and the word Shalom.

Tim Winders: 00:47:50

I think I threw in that description.

Tim Winders: 00:47:52

So that's why it's near and dear to me.

Tim Winders: 00:47:53

But when I was sitting there.

Tim Winders: 00:47:56

Just talking about to the Lord about all that's going on in the world and all

Tim Winders: 00:47:59

the stuff and the junk and all that and I felt as if the Lord said, as someone

Tim Winders: 00:48:08

who is part of my kingdom, he says, you should be able to walk out into all of

Tim Winders: 00:48:16

the chaos of this traffic, this road.

Tim Winders: 00:48:18

Now there's a physical issue there.

Tim Winders: 00:48:20

I don't want to get run over by a car, but all the noise, all the chaos

Tim Winders: 00:48:26

and still be at rest or at peace.

Tim Winders: 00:48:30

And shalom.

Tim Winders: 00:48:31

Now, I got to tell you, Markus, I don't think I've gotten there.

Tim Winders: 00:48:36

There's a lot of stuff on and all of that.

Tim Winders: 00:48:40

But I do think what I love what you said, it's almost like we're

Tim Winders: 00:48:44

going through this process of being restored to the shalom of creation.

Tim Winders: 00:48:50

And as long as I, you know, we were talking earlier about we're being

Tim Winders: 00:48:54

drawn into God, drawn into his sphere, closer, closer, getting our

Tim Winders: 00:48:58

souls healed, all that type stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:48:59

As long as we're doing that, We are at a better place of Shalom rest.

Tim Winders: 00:49:07

And then I want to the thing, and then I'll let you just respond to whatever

Tim Winders: 00:49:11

you want to do there is I do think there are people, this is where I

Tim Winders: 00:49:15

jump on the prosperity gospel message, which I spent a good bit of time in the

Tim Winders: 00:49:19

prosperity gospel, but I actually believe

Tim Winders: 00:49:23

that a lot of first world churches are prosperity gospel churches.

Tim Winders: 00:49:28

Without knowing it because they have this awesome God mindset.

Tim Winders: 00:49:32

if we go to church, if we check the box, do certain things, then

Tim Winders: 00:49:35

we've got money in the bank account.

Tim Winders: 00:49:37

Life is good.

Tim Winders: 00:49:37

Life is awesome.

Tim Winders: 00:49:38

Which is the prosperity gospel, by the way.

Markus Watson: 00:49:40

yeah,

Tim Winders: 00:49:40

and I think you can probably admit that's, there are some that are

Tim Winders: 00:49:44

hardcore prosperity, but then there are some that, and also having said all

Tim Winders: 00:49:49

that, just, what do you want to respond?

Markus Watson: 00:49:53

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:49:53

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:49:54

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:49:54

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:49:54

So again, going back to the paradox of suffering, sometimes God can

Markus Watson: 00:49:59

bring Shalom out of suffering.

Markus Watson: 00:50:00

That was my experience.

Markus Watson: 00:50:02

And sometimes I think God can bring even greater Shalom out of suffering

Markus Watson: 00:50:06

than, again, God can do whatever he wants, but I think we experience

Markus Watson: 00:50:11

greater Shalom having been through a time of suffering than if we never go

Markus Watson: 00:50:15

through any kind of suffering at all.

Markus Watson: 00:50:17

In other words, and Shalom again, inner wholeness.

Markus Watson: 00:50:20

true connection with our Creator, being able to have compassion on those

Markus Watson: 00:50:27

around us and thereby more united with those around us, a unity with those

Markus Watson: 00:50:33

around us because we have been through something hard and challenging, right?

Markus Watson: 00:50:38

Again, the paradox, God restored Shalom in the world by means of a crucified

Markus Watson: 00:50:47

falsely accused person, and that person became a savior, and a healer

Markus Watson: 00:50:51

and a restorer and, and a comforter.

Markus Watson: 00:50:54

yes, he and the spirit are one, right?

Markus Watson: 00:50:55

So Jesus and the spirit are both comforters, right?

Markus Watson: 00:50:58

And, Yeah, so prosperity gospel, keeps us at a very, I think, shallow level,

Markus Watson: 00:51:03

whether, whether intentionally or unintentionally, unknowingly, it keeps us

Markus Watson: 00:51:07

at a very shallow level of spirituality.

Markus Watson: 00:51:10

this victory minded kind of spirituality where you got to win.

Markus Watson: 00:51:15

If we're not winning in some way, then God must not be with us or we're

Markus Watson: 00:51:19

not being faithful or we have to.

Markus Watson: 00:51:21

Increase our goodness or whatever it is, and I think part of what we learn

Markus Watson: 00:51:28

when we go through hard things is that we don't have to be good enough.

Markus Watson: 00:51:33

We don't have to be successful enough.

Markus Watson: 00:51:35

God doesn't care how successful I am.

Markus Watson: 00:51:38

He just cares about me, right?

Markus Watson: 00:51:40

He doesn't care about whether I'm a good pastor or, or a good podcaster

Markus Watson: 00:51:45

or even, I hesitate to say this, but even a good husband or dad,

Markus Watson: 00:51:50

he does care about those things.

Markus Watson: 00:51:52

but that's, but if I mess up, if I, Say something I shouldn't have

Markus Watson: 00:51:57

said or even give a look to my kids.

Markus Watson: 00:51:58

I shouldn't have given that doesn't change anything in terms

Markus Watson: 00:52:03

of my relationship with God.

Markus Watson: 00:52:05

And I can be forgiven and I can be restored.

Markus Watson: 00:52:08

And, and, and you get a certain humility when you go through something really hard.

Markus Watson: 00:52:14

And so then I'm able to reconcile, when I need to reconcile.

Tim Winders: 00:52:17

One of the things I love about the conversation we've

Tim Winders: 00:52:19

had is that I can almost circle back to my first question, which

Tim Winders: 00:52:25

is, I asked, what do you do?

Tim Winders: 00:52:26

And then we got off on, maybe it should be, who are you and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:52:29

And to me, what I just heard you say was understanding who we are, our position

Tim Winders: 00:52:38

is probably the foundational root of that Shalom being at peace and rest.

Tim Winders: 00:52:44

And I don't know that I've always understood that.

Tim Winders: 00:52:46

I still am not sure that I totally grasp it, because we are programmed

Tim Winders: 00:52:51

for conditional love, and that is total unconditional, and I think

Tim Winders: 00:52:57

we're uncomfortable with it at times.

Tim Winders: 00:53:01

it's like this is an unconditional love.

Tim Winders: 00:53:03

And what you just said is I don't, I think what, when you were talking

Tim Winders: 00:53:06

about being a, does God care if you're a good husband, father and all that.

Tim Winders: 00:53:09

I think he does care, but it doesn't change your position

Tim Winders: 00:53:13

with him if you suck at it.

Tim Winders: 00:53:15

if you're like bad dad.

Tim Winders: 00:53:18

Whatever, you hate to say there's paths we could go down here

Tim Winders: 00:53:20

that would be not appropriate.

Tim Winders: 00:53:22

but he still, we had somebody on the podcast, MarKus, Quan Huynh years ago.

Tim Winders: 00:53:29

And I asked him the most, every time someone asked me the seminal moment

Tim Winders: 00:53:34

of the podcast, it's this one moment.

Tim Winders: 00:53:36

He had pulled the trigger and murdered someone, spent time in

Tim Winders: 00:53:39

prison and had been released.

Tim Winders: 00:53:41

And now he's in ministry going back into prisons.

Tim Winders: 00:53:44

And I asked him, I said, Quan, do you think that God forgives

Tim Winders: 00:53:48

you for killing someone?

Tim Winders: 00:53:51

Now, we could rank sin if we want to.

Tim Winders: 00:53:53

We could rank, the pornography like, and other,

Tim Winders: 00:53:57

business stuff.

Tim Winders: 00:53:58

We could rank it all.

Tim Winders: 00:53:59

But I think most of us would say that taking someone else's

Tim Winders: 00:54:01

life would be high up there.

Tim Winders: 00:54:03

And there was this nice pause and he said, yes, Tim, I believe that

Tim Winders: 00:54:08

God has forgiven me with that.

Tim Winders: 00:54:11

And that is some

Markus Watson: 00:54:12

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:54:13

shalom because I still go through, I think a lot of it's

Tim Winders: 00:54:18

being cleared up and a lot of that soul type stuff we're dealing with,

Tim Winders: 00:54:21

but so what do, so I think that what do we do and who are we is that root

Tim Winders: 00:54:27

of Shalom, but you've written a course around this and I've been able to go

Tim Winders: 00:54:32

through some of it, but not all of it.

Tim Winders: 00:54:34

Tell us about that course and how that came to be.

Markus Watson: 00:54:37

the course is called, it's called becoming leaders of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:54:41

and, it's interesting.

Markus Watson: 00:54:42

it developed that title over time.

Markus Watson: 00:54:44

That was not my initial title.

Markus Watson: 00:54:45

I was, I gave it to some friends for feedback.

Markus Watson: 00:54:48

And, one of them said, that's not, I think I called it transformative leadership.

Markus Watson: 00:54:52

He's that's not really what it's about.

Markus Watson: 00:54:53

Although anyway, and I focused a lot on adaptive leadership.

Markus Watson: 00:54:57

That's part of it.

Markus Watson: 00:54:57

Anyway.

Markus Watson: 00:54:58

As I'm working through this, I'm like, this is really about how do

Markus Watson: 00:55:01

we become leaders of Shalom, leaders who bring well being into the world.

Markus Watson: 00:55:06

and so And I, and, I'm thinking about pastors in particular, but this

Markus Watson: 00:55:10

could apply to all kinds of leaders.

Markus Watson: 00:55:13

so I spent some time in the course talking about the challenge, that

Markus Watson: 00:55:17

we're facing in the world today, in a world that is different from the one we

Markus Watson: 00:55:21

experienced some lack of shalom, because we feel disoriented in the world today.

Markus Watson: 00:55:26

We feel in a state of disequilibrium.

Markus Watson: 00:55:29

Exile is one of the ways that I talk about it, and these are words that we

Markus Watson: 00:55:33

want to feel balanced, we don't want to feel unbalanced, we want to feel at

Markus Watson: 00:55:36

home, not in exile, and yet, there is good that can come out of all of these.

Markus Watson: 00:55:41

This is what we've been talking about, when you feel like you're in exile,

Markus Watson: 00:55:44

like you're just not at home where you are, you don't feel settled.

Markus Watson: 00:55:47

God can do some good things out of that.

Markus Watson: 00:55:50

when you feel in a state of disequilibrium, unbalanced, this comes

Markus Watson: 00:55:55

from a book called Surfing the Edge of Chaos, which is a business book

Markus Watson: 00:55:58

actually, and they talk about how organizations need to go through times

Markus Watson: 00:56:01

of disequilibrium because it makes them stronger and more resilient.

Markus Watson: 00:56:05

And they talk about systems in general, ecosystems, human body systems need to

Markus Watson: 00:56:10

go through periods of disequilibrium to become stronger and more resilient.

Markus Watson: 00:56:13

we talk about that, talk about the mission of God and God's mission of

Markus Watson: 00:56:17

Shalom and how then to lead in, in the world when you don't have the answers.

Markus Watson: 00:56:22

This is what we call adaptive leadership, and that's part of,

Markus Watson: 00:56:24

I think, leading with Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:56:27

What do you do when you don't have any experts who know the answers, right?

Markus Watson: 00:56:32

we lead with some, we lead with confidence.

Markus Watson: 00:56:36

But knowing that we can just try stuff and fail, right?

Markus Watson: 00:56:39

Anyway, and then I talk about the inner Shalom that we need to experience and

Markus Watson: 00:56:44

leading from a place of wholeness.

Markus Watson: 00:56:45

And, I talk a little bit about, self differentiation, which I don't know if

Markus Watson: 00:56:49

you know that kind of language, but it's the idea of I can be who I am because

Markus Watson: 00:56:54

I'm a child of God created in the image of God, and you can be who you are, and

Markus Watson: 00:56:58

we don't have to agree on everything, but we can move through this challenging

Markus Watson: 00:57:02

circumstance with confidence, and then I talk about some spiritual formation

Markus Watson: 00:57:06

stuff in terms of spiritual practices, anyway, that's an outline, but really

Markus Watson: 00:57:11

my hope for the course is just to start the journey kind of a course, right?

Markus Watson: 00:57:17

and so how do we begin to think about, I want to help leaders begin to think about

Markus Watson: 00:57:20

how do we respond to challenges in our lives and ministries or workplaces, right?

Markus Watson: 00:57:25

How do we lean into, I think even if you're a business leader, you're

Markus Watson: 00:57:29

still called to be a restorer of shalom in the world, right?

Markus Watson: 00:57:33

And one of the ways we do that is by providing Goods and services that bring

Markus Watson: 00:57:37

joy and hope and peace, and provision for your employees and, all of that.

Markus Watson: 00:57:43

That's all part of the restoration of Shalom.

Markus Watson: 00:57:46

and I just want, I want people to lean into that, right?

Markus Watson: 00:57:49

That my role as a leader is to participate with God in restoring Shalom in the world.

Markus Watson: 00:57:56

and here's a roadmap to get us started.

Markus Watson: 00:57:58

That's what this is.

Markus Watson: 00:57:59

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:57:59

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 00:57:59

I loved when you were talking about, the, is it Camino de Santiago?

Tim Winders: 00:58:05

Did I get

Tim Winders: 00:58:06

that

Tim Winders: 00:58:06

Camino de Santiago?

Tim Winders: 00:58:07

You it sounded as if you were doing some wrestling, but yet

Tim Winders: 00:58:12

you were at a place of Shalom.

Tim Winders: 00:58:14

And my thought that came to mind then I'll bring it up now is why can't we do that?

Tim Winders: 00:58:21

Where we live and work instead of having to go, because I've been the same way.

Tim Winders: 00:58:27

like I mentioned, we were on the other side of the world in New Zealand, and I

Tim Winders: 00:58:30

think our goal it is to experience that shalom, that peace, that Sabbath, and so

Tim Winders: 00:58:39

this course, I've hit a few of the videos.

Tim Winders: 00:58:42

I like it's good, short, concise.

Tim Winders: 00:58:44

I do want to mention to people it's free too,

Tim Winders: 00:58:45

correct?

Markus Watson: 00:58:46

that's right.

Markus Watson: 00:58:46

It's free.

Markus Watson: 00:58:47

A hundred percent free.

Tim Winders: 00:58:48

Yeah, and we'll, in just a little while, I'll let you

Tim Winders: 00:58:50

tell people where to find it and all of that kind of stuff, but so

Tim Winders: 00:58:53

just give us a quick, what is a way?

Tim Winders: 00:58:58

And you may not know

Tim Winders: 00:58:59

the answer to this,

Tim Winders: 00:59:00

but what is a way that we can experience some of that Camino de

Tim Winders: 00:59:06

Santiago experience in our regular day to day life, because I think that's

Tim Winders: 00:59:13

what we're all trying to look for.

Markus Watson: 00:59:15

Yeah.

Markus Watson: 00:59:16

Oh, man.

Markus Watson: 00:59:16

Good question.

Markus Watson: 00:59:17

Good question.

Markus Watson: 00:59:19

I think, in some way we need to create space in our lives.

Markus Watson: 00:59:22

So the reason I say that is the most one of the wonderful things about

Markus Watson: 00:59:27

the Camino was that there was very little decision making involved.

Markus Watson: 00:59:32

There are little yellow arrows, all along the path and you

Markus Watson: 00:59:35

just follow the arrows, right?

Markus Watson: 00:59:37

Turn here, go straight that way, turn this way now, right?

Markus Watson: 00:59:41

and there was a little bit of, culture shock almost or some kind of shock coming

Markus Watson: 00:59:45

back because I'm like, Oh my gosh, I gotta start making decisions again, right?

Markus Watson: 00:59:50

so what the Camino did was it gives you space to not have

Markus Watson: 00:59:54

to make decisions, but then...

Markus Watson: 00:59:58

You have space to reflect on all the things that God wants to do deep down.

Markus Watson: 01:00:02

And so I think if we can create space in our lives, I love hiking.

Markus Watson: 01:00:07

There's some, trails nearby, just going for a hike about once a week.

Markus Watson: 01:00:11

sometimes I'll do go stand up paddle boarding, and it doesn't have to

Markus Watson: 01:00:13

be like an active kind of a thing.

Markus Watson: 01:00:15

It could be just a time of scripture, prayer, silence.

Markus Watson: 01:00:19

Or even, you know what, so one of the things I talk about in the course is

Markus Watson: 01:00:23

a rule of life, developing a rule of life, which is basically a framework

Markus Watson: 01:00:27

for your life, for spiritual growth and a rule of life means I'm going

Markus Watson: 01:00:30

to include these things in my life.

Markus Watson: 01:00:32

scripture, prayer, calling mom and dad once a week, going to the movies.

Markus Watson: 01:00:37

I used to have that as part of my rule of life, but it created a

Markus Watson: 01:00:39

little bit of space for me to enjoy, do something that I delighted in.

Markus Watson: 01:00:44

And then going in, I'd be like, okay, Lord, thanks for this

Markus Watson: 01:00:46

story that I'm about to be told.

Markus Watson: 01:00:47

And it just created some space in my life, where I didn't have to decide anything.

Markus Watson: 01:00:51

I could just get a story from someone, anyway, I think the more that we can

Markus Watson: 01:00:54

create space in our lives, the more we can be open to the shalom that God has for us.

Markus Watson: 01:01:01

I think it helps us to see the things that we do, with a healthier perspective.

Markus Watson: 01:01:09

sometimes we see, oh, I'm doing this thing and it is actually not bringing

Markus Watson: 01:01:12

Shalom into my life or my family's life or my employee's lives or the

Markus Watson: 01:01:17

people we serve or whoever, right?

Markus Watson: 01:01:19

and then we can get some clarity on those things.

Markus Watson: 01:01:21

So I think that's what I would say is just create some space in your life.

Markus Watson: 01:01:23

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 01:01:24

I like that.

Tim Winders: 01:01:25

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 01:01:26

Because I, the thing that I heard when you were over, over there doing

Tim Winders: 01:01:30

the Camino was that you didn't have a lot of distractions for eight days.

Tim Winders: 01:01:34

probably weren't checking your phone.

Tim Winders: 01:01:37

You may have had it with you, but hopefully shut it down.

Tim Winders: 01:01:40

And my wife and I talk about this all the time, that we want to start taking

Tim Winders: 01:01:44

Sabbath from devices because these devices, I think they're awesome.

Tim Winders: 01:01:49

we're on one right now.

Tim Winders: 01:01:50

Someone's probably listening in on one

Tim Winders: 01:01:52

and they can nourish our soul, but I also think they could eat away at

Tim Winders: 01:01:55

it and take chunks and distract us.

Tim Winders: 01:01:57

So I love that create space.

Tim Winders: 01:01:59

And the thing about that is Markus, I think every leader, every person, every

Tim Winders: 01:02:04

individual has to find their own way.

Tim Winders: 01:02:08

Down that path, you and I could, we could sit here and say, okay,

Tim Winders: 01:02:10

here's the three ways to do it, or seven, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

Tim Winders: 01:02:14

But I think everybody's got to have some quiet, still time to find it.

Tim Winders: 01:02:17

And I love it.

Tim Winders: 01:02:19

I look forward to diving into the course more.

Tim Winders: 01:02:20

Markus, where can people find the course and anything else you got?

Tim Winders: 01:02:24

Go ahead and let us know now, and we'll include some things down in the notes.

Tim Winders: 01:02:27

So people can just click through.

Markus Watson: 01:02:29

So the course, you can get by going to,

Markus Watson: 01:02:32

MarkusWatson.com/LeadersofShalom and it's Markus with a K, right?

Markus Watson: 01:02:38

Not Markus with a c.

Markus Watson: 01:02:39

Markus with a k MarkusWatson.com.

Markus Watson: 01:02:42

And if you just go to MarkusWatson.com, you can also find my podcast there.

Markus Watson: 01:02:45

You can find information about my book.

Markus Watson: 01:02:47

You can find all kinds of other stuff there as well.

Markus Watson: 01:02:49

Yeah.

Tim Winders: 01:02:50

Yeah,

Tim Winders: 01:02:51

very cool.

Tim Winders: 01:02:51

Check out the podcast.

Tim Winders: 01:02:52

That podcast spiritual life and leadership is a great, I think it's a good compliment

Tim Winders: 01:02:57

to what we're doing here, because you are primarily people in the ministry circle

Tim Winders: 01:03:03

and we do a lot with business, but I see emerging truthfully of a lot of that.

Tim Winders: 01:03:07

And I think we don't need to have walls between the

Markus Watson: 01:03:10

That's right.

Tim Winders: 01:03:11

and, you've heard me

Tim Winders: 01:03:12

preach on that.

Tim Winders: 01:03:13

So

Tim Winders: 01:03:13

anyway,

Markus Watson: 01:03:14

That's right.

Tim Winders: 01:03:15

I think the more we reach out and assist and help

Tim Winders: 01:03:19

each other, then there's going to be a lot more Shalom out there.

Tim Winders: 01:03:22

Hey, Markus, we are seek, go create those three words.

Tim Winders: 01:03:25

I'm gonna let you choose one and tell me why seek, go or create,

Tim Winders: 01:03:30

which one do you choose and why?

Markus Watson: 01:03:31

I think I'm gonna go with Seek, because I feel like I have

Markus Watson: 01:03:37

learned a lot, I have sought a lot over the course of my life, but I'm

Markus Watson: 01:03:40

still seeking, I don't know everything in terms of my relationship with God.

Markus Watson: 01:03:45

I've learned a lot about God, but the more you, it's like the more you

Markus Watson: 01:03:47

learn, the more you realize I have so much more to learn about God.

Markus Watson: 01:03:50

So I'm still seeking, I'm still seeking how to best participate with God in

Markus Watson: 01:03:58

the restoration of Shalom in the world, And so I'm always thinking about, I

Markus Watson: 01:04:03

don't want to sound like I'm always like, dissatisfied, but I am seeking.

Markus Watson: 01:04:06

I'm like, okay, Lord, where are you leading now?

Markus Watson: 01:04:07

Where are you leading now?

Markus Watson: 01:04:08

So I go with seek.

Tim Winders: 01:04:10

I go

Tim Winders: 01:04:10

with it too.

Tim Winders: 01:04:11

I like what Paul says.

Tim Winders: 01:04:12

You know what?

Tim Winders: 01:04:12

I've just learned to be content, but I don't feel like Paul was standing still.

Tim Winders: 01:04:16

He was moving forward.

Tim Winders: 01:04:17

And so there's

Tim Winders: 01:04:18

that

Tim Winders: 01:04:20

balance.

Tim Winders: 01:04:20

Markus Watson, thank you for this conversation.

Tim Winders: 01:04:24

And I, like I said at the beginning, I can tell that you are moving

Tim Winders: 01:04:29

in that direction of Shalom.

Tim Winders: 01:04:31

And it's one of the reasons I wanted to reach out.

Tim Winders: 01:04:33

And this was a nice, good, deep conversation that I think will be helpful.

Tim Winders: 01:04:37

Make sure if you've listened in.

Tim Winders: 01:04:39

Go to MarkusWatson.Com.

Tim Winders: 01:04:41

Markus with a K.

Tim Winders: 01:04:42

I spell it with a C too

Tim Winders: 01:04:43

much.

Tim Winders: 01:04:44

I was typing it earlier.

Tim Winders: 01:04:45

go check that out and get all those resources.

Tim Winders: 01:04:47

Definitely sign up for this course on Shalom.

Tim Winders: 01:04:49

I believe it'll be a blessing.

Tim Winders: 01:04:50

I think the world needs more Shalom.

Tim Winders: 01:04:54

And so start with leaders, start with people listening in here.

Tim Winders: 01:04:58

I'm also going to ask you a favor.

Tim Winders: 01:04:59

If you've been listening, share this episode with someone

Tim Winders: 01:05:03

because I think we all needed it.

Tim Winders: 01:05:06

But I also think that you probably know someone else that did.

Tim Winders: 01:05:09

So take a screenshot.

Tim Winders: 01:05:10

If you're on YouTube, just share the link to the videos

Tim Winders: 01:05:13

and clips and things like that.

Tim Winders: 01:05:15

I think it'll be a blessing to people.

Tim Winders: 01:05:18

Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create until next time.

Tim Winders: 01:05:21

We've got new episodes every Monday until next time, continue being

Tim Winders: 01:05:26

all that you were created to be.