I have this deep passion to see other people released, taught,

developed, Encouraged, comforted, whatever, so that they are becoming

what they were meant to be.

I think if you ask me what makes me tick.

on my good days, that's it.

It is awesome to welcome Mike Baer back to the seat.

Go create podcast.

Mike was our guest in February, 2020.

now he's joining us again as we celebrate our 302nd episode.

Mike is a veteran of the modern business's mission.

We're going to call it BAM throughout this conversation movement.

He's an experienced pastor, entrepreneur, theologian is actually

attached to his name and executive.

He's led and taught BAM on nearly every continent, well traveled.

He's also a prolific author, speaker, and the founder of Third Path

Mike, welcome back to SeekGoCreate.

Hey, Tim, it's good to be back.

I can't believe it was the February of 2020 we had our first interview.

That's staggering to me.

So, it's great to see you.

so we're releasing this.

It'll probably be released in March of 2025.

We're recording it towards the tail end or middle of February

to put a timestamp on it.

So it has been right at five years

It's amazing.

And we just keep getting better looking, brother.

I tell you what, for those that are listening to the audio, you have got

to go over to YouTube and for, you know, 30, 45, 60 minutes, check out,

what's amazing is that we gave up all that money doing all the modeling

and acting and things we could have done to, to serve the kingdom, right?

We sacrificed.

We paid a big price, man.

And the world is better for it.

Absolutely.

Well, I shared with you, Mike, this is kind of fun.

You know, our episode 300, we interviewed AI and had a long conversation with that.

last episode was 301.

We had Jim cook, who was originally in January of 2020.

Valley veteran and, you know, great conversation with him.

And, now you're coming back and I love the conversations we have.

The biggest challenge we have is that we can't do the three and a

half hour, you know, Joe Rogan style.

We've got to keep it to, you

We should, but no one would listen.

I mean, if anybody's listening in and they're like going, you know what?

love to hear these guys talk for two or three hours.

Let me know.

I could arrange it.

I could do it.

I'd love to do it.

we'll do it live.

How about that?

We'll do it live.

I bet your guests don't remember that we actually worked together

almost, what, 30 years ago?

And we got really close and we had incredibly fun conversations about

business, about God, about the kingdom.

And yes, we can do it.

We can go for three hours without a problem.

Yeah.

One thing we'll do, we probably won't circle back to some of those topics

from February of 2020, but we're gonna include a link back to that

episode down in the notes on YouTube.

And, so one of the things we wanted to do here, this is what I was excited

about when I looked back and said, what do we want to do to celebrate?

300. I say, you know what?

going to, I'm going to go back to some of my favorite conversations.

They did well, downloads, all that kind of stuff.

But I want to just kind of catch up, and let people listen in.

So let's, let's put a mark on what was going on in February of 2020.

Do you recall what was happening with

yeah, the day the music died.

Yeah, that, of course, we all know that February, March, 2020 is when

the world came to a standstill.

Over COVID and just probably, probably two weeks after we had our podcast interview,

I was on my way to Jamaica to host a company celebration trip and got turned

back mid trip because of the pandemic.

we didn't even know what we were dealing with, but that, I'll tell you

one quick memory from that day, and I know we don't want to go back there,

but I can remember in the early days, none of us knew what was going on.

I was on my trip home, and I was in a Delta, Sky Club, we used to

call them Crown Room back in the day, but a Sky Club, and I sneezed.

And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, everybody had these spray bottles of

stuff, and it's like an old Western movie where everybody pulls out

their six shooter, you know, it was like, what in the world's going on?

And we didn't know at the time, the fear and the anxiety and the

lack of knowledge that would drive our world for two or three years.

So, yeah, that's when this was.

Yeah, we, we had, we were in Colorado, our first granddaughter

was born, early February.

Glory had come back from a trip to Berlin that she just sort of collapsed

in my arms with some sickness that we weren't quite sure what it was.

Probably she had, she had her company and had an all hands from people all

over the world, Asia and everywhere.

And then, and then, I'd gone to a podcasting, PodFest conference

weekend of March, like, 7th, 8th.

And then, a bunch of us, me and my son and my son in law, they were with me.

We went to, Disney World on March 9th.

We went to the Star Wars experience at the, it's not MGM anymore.

It's whatever the studios is down there.

And we were there packed in, you know, grabbing the rails, which

is massive numbers of people.

No one had a clue then March 13th, that Friday, the 13th, of course,

is when the country shut down.

Yep.

And I think we're clear.

all of that situation now, but when, when you look back on it to two

learning points, what did you learn about yourself, about Mike as a leader,

business person, man of God, whatever.

And then second, what did you learn about the world and organizations,

leadership, whatever, just so

Wow.

micro learns and then macro learns,

no, that's a great question.

The, the, what I learned, it was a very sort of, simplistic

answer for me, but it, it stuck.

It was powerful and it was life changing.

I can remember when this first hit, you know, and everybody was, I, you know,

people were starting to get sick and we were beginning to see hospitals fill up.

And I can remember saying in a very childlike sort of prayer, like, Lord,

I don't know how to deal with this.

So here's what I'm gonna do.

If you want me to get it, I'm gonna get it.

If you don't want me to get it, I'm not gonna get it.

If you want me to get it and die, I'm gonna get it and die.

If you want me to get it and survive, I'm gonna get it and survive.

Point being, I can't, there's nothing really I can do.

Not that you shouldn't, choices, I'm not, you know, not being a magical

thinker here, but that was what Took me very quickly from the potential

panic to peace that I'm going to walk.

I'm going to make wise choices.

I'm going to do what I need to do, but I'm gonna do it in the

context that my father in heaven.

Is all powerful loves me and I can rest in that that was my personal

learning and I will tell you Tim That truth guided me for the next two or

three years Not just in the pandemic world, but in it became a north star

That's why I say it's childlike, but I do kind of remember jesus saying You

become like a child you're going to understand the kingdom a whole lot better.

So it was a that was a real personal revolution for me on a on a more macro

level What I saw and and I think this holds true today even you know, it's 2025.

We're dealing with a new administration we could get all political we're

not going to but We're seeing the same tendency of the sheep to panic.

And you know, the term that came out during the pandemic

was the term sheeple, right?

And, and I'm not slamming anybody.

I'm not being critical or negative here.

I just saw how easily frightened the general public, all of us at some

days, or on some days, all of us at one point or another are easily frightened.

But I saw how quickly masses of people, Can fall victim to fear and if you're

a dune fan like I am Frank Herbert wrote in there Fear is the mind killer

And it is it just freezes your brain.

It freezes your ability to think and choose John put it in First

John, fear has torment, right?

Fear is a terrible thing.

And so I just came to grips with the, the tendency of human beings

in bold relief to, to be fearful.

Translate that into leadership.

I saw that what people need is not dictatorial, strong men.

They don't need, but they don't also need a bunch of fear mongerers.

You know, what they need is people that know who they are.

they know their purpose.

they can.

Articulate that purpose in a way that other people can begin to find

some stability and when the normal human being begins to find stability.

Their fears start to subside and that stability becomes

theirs and not mine any longer.

Does that make any sense?

I saw the ability of a leader to share their confidence in a way that wasn't

controlling, wasn't manipulating, but it was liberating and comforting.

so there's a word interesting, it came up last week when we were in Episode

301 talking to Jim Cook, sort of in a different way when we were talking

about the Silicon Valley culture, the word that kept popping in my head

was the word risk, and, you know, you talked about it personally, you had

some fear initially and you weren't through it and I think that I did too.

I have this weird personality that I, maybe it's delusional that I, I

wouldn't admit it, but I was probably facing it too because we had traveled

and we were in an RV and it's like, man, a lot of weird stuff was going on.

But I've often wondered if we have become an incredibly risk averse culture.

And how that feeds into us individually, personally, and then

also into business and and government.

one of the things that came up last week, I think I recommend people

go listen as Jim was talking about.

When you bring in a Silicon Valley, high risk, culture into Washington DC, which

is what we're seeing with Elon Musk.

It's like, boy, there's going to be a clash.

Yeah.

have to get off on talking about that.

talk about the word risk in relation to what you just shared with all that we've

been through over the last five years.

Yeah.

I, and I think you just connected the past and the, Present

beautifully because risk is life.

Life is risk.

And we cannot take a step.

We cannot get in a car.

We cannot go to a restaurant.

We cannot marry somebody.

We cannot have children.

We cannot get a new job.

Show me a way to remove risk from any of those things and it

doesn't it's not there, right?

So the first thing you have to grasp and this is what I dealt with for the

Lord's like look there's risk I could die here So I'm gonna deal with risk

the best way I know how and that is take my hands off of it go forward Trusting

you and I think that when I think about risk I'm not a big risk taker.

I'm not like I'm not going to skydive.

I'm not going to mountain climb.

Maybe I'm a wimp, but for me Risk is not something you take.

Risk is something that's simply there and you cannot avoid it.

So how do you learn to deal with it?

comment on the political scene.

this is a non partisan critique of government I am a libertarian at

heart my t shirt says underneath this says I love Rand Paul.

I love Ron Paul his dad, right?

I mean I'm going to Argentina in a few weeks, and I'm really hoping I

get to meet the president down there, the ultimate, the uber libertarian.

But these are people that recognize that you can't govern risk out of life.

You can't legislate risk out of life.

You can't executive order risk out of life.

Quick analogy, when I used to work in France, I discovered that the

word bureau, from which we get bureaucracy, means desk, right?

And so a bureaucracy is government for people who sit

at desks, a nice, safe desk.

And so they're trying, and I think most of them are well intentioned,

deluded, but well intentioned.

They are trying to legislate and regulate risk out of life.

At which point they take life and turn it into death.

Remember C. S. Lewis in the Four Loves book he wrote?

He said there is a place where you can be free from the fear of losing through love.

It's called a casket.

Lewis, classic, you know, but what a point.

so yeah, to me, I have to recognize that I'm going to live.

I now see it in my kids.

You have kids.

I have seven grandchildren now.

One of them's about to graduate high school and go off to college.

and I'm wavering because I can't control the risk that these kids will face, but

I'm having to go back to that, Okay, God, I've got to give it back to you.

And call me simplistic, many have, they would be probably right.

My response to risk is to want to control.

And control is one of the ultimate illusions.

What are you really in control of?

What are you and I in control of?

Nothing, pretty much.

And so, I learned to live, I deal with risk by keeping my hands open.

If we go back five years, I've put some thought into this and it's kind of

feeding off that control word you just brought up, which all this is kind of

weaving together really beautifully.

I like it.

I know I have a high degree of desire to control.

Maybe a lot of humans do.

I think there's some people that just have a natural child likeness,

you know, and in some ways might, those could be people we call sheep.

and so I don't criticize them.

I actually have in the past and I need to repent of that.

Because there is something to.

Just saying Now I think you need to, whatever Lord should be that instead

of whatever government, whatever boss, whatever, you know what I mean?

you need to align yourself with what you're going to follow as

a sheep if you're doing that.

And I, I think I need a little more sheep ness in me than, than

shepherd because I'm trying to control and monitor and all that.

If you look back years ago, and kind of where you were on the

control scale, you know, 10 out of 10, nine out of 10, whatever.

then five years now look at where you are on the control scale.

You mentioned grandkids and you know, you probably used to be able to kind

of keep, know, your arms around your family and now they're spreading out.

is your control gauge changed over the last five years?

Mine has

Yeah, that's a good question.

So I think about it.

Remember an exchange I had with my oldest daughter when she was a

teenager, and she was mad at me about something which was Pretty normal.

she said, you're such a control freak.

I said, I am not.

Go to your room.

And that was the, because I was, and I've discovered that by habit, that

whatever, the world, the system, my own frailty, control is what I want.

And it's, it's what I, that prayer with God was giving up control.

I had no control, wasn't giving up something.

It was really acknowledging the reality.

So I would say the last five years for me, you know, and I'm pushing 70.

I turned 70 in two weeks.

And so I think part of it comes with age, Tim.

Honestly, there's the longer you live, the more you realize there's

very little you can control.

And then you start to realize you really had no control over even that.

so part of that is that, but I think for me, the need to control it's no less.

It's, I don't think that, that habit of wanting to be in control is gone away.

I think what has changed is the, the speed with which, or maybe the

comfort with which I'm being able to bring it back to God and say, all

right, Jesus, here's another thing.

That you're in control of and I'm not so I think that yes, it's been a journey and

I know you and I were both wired that way.

We're both achievers.

And 1 of the things that drives an achiever is control because it's this

belief that once I achieve ABC or X, Y, Z, I will finally be in control.

And of course, that's not true.

So I, I'm looking and learning about achieving without being

driven by the need to control.

Achieving for achievement's sake.

Achievement for the sake of the person, You know, I'm

serving Versus this unconscious.

Hey, I'm in control now That's you know, I learned that every

time I get on an airplane, right?

And you recognize the moment you walk through the TSA window You are no longer

in control You are in the matrix and you are no longer in control But when you

step on a plane and for me you look into the cockpit as you walk past and you see

these two children sitting in controls, you realize I'm not in control here.

And, I'm actually enjoying the journey of giving up control.

It's not easy.

, but there's a certain healthy enjoyment to it.

And I think that's part of our journey, you know, one of our

subtitles here is the leadership

Mm-hmm

specifically leadership in a little while, but I think leadership starts

with, you know, us sitting in the seat and what we able to learn.

Have you.

Have you ridden in one of these driverless cars yet?

I was, my son was taking me to the airport last week.

I was going, we were in Phoenix and I looked over in one of

these Waymo cars with all the,

Yeah.

dome on top and all.

Yeah.

took a picture of it in the video and I couldn't see anybody in the back seat

because the windows are kind of tinted.

And I was just thinking to myself, Hmm, I wonder, I wonder if I could do that.

And then, and then I thought, this is where I connected the dots.

one of the things that happened for us, and I think I'd share this

with, you know, my father passed, had some cognitive decline, went

down fairly quickly during COVID.

We believe COVID sped it up because they were isolated, a lot of things going on.

But, my father grew up in a shop in middle of nowhere, North Mississippi,

cars were important to him.

And one of the biggest challenges and struggles we had in his life

was wanting to get in the car.

And my mom was saying, he keeps wanting to drive and we're not sure if he can.

He doesn't even know who any of us are.

And so we'd ordered some wings at a place.

It was two or three miles from the house.

And he was kind of arguing about I'll drive and all that.

And I said, you know what?

Hop in the driver's seat and drive.

I jumped in the passenger seat with him and my wife and my mother were

like going, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

I say, you know what?

The only way we can know kind of what's going on is if someone rides along.

And I was sitting here thinking to myself, Hey, what's the

worst thing that can happen?

But you know what though, he drove like a champ.

Now he didn't know where he was going or where to get back to

or any of that kind of stuff.

But the muscle memory was

Mm-hmm

the reason I bring all that up is to kind of ask, have you ridden

in one of these driverless cars?

I mean, because those kind of things, we have a desire for control, but

yet I am pretty confident that some of these driverless cars is

better than the other person that's sitting beside you driving their car.

yeah.

So, so answering in reverse number one, I agree with you Totally.

you know, the chances of a human being next to me looking at

his or her phone while they're driving and swerving into me.

They're much higher than a glitch in the software or the

sensors of a driverless car.

I agree with you on that.

I have not driven in one yet, but I have wanted to.

I haven't been anywhere where it was an option.

Would I get in one?

Absolutely.

and it would be an adventure.

I could either live, you know, like, oh my gosh, what am I doing?

Or, this is kind of cool.

I'm one of those weird guys that, would go to the space station in a heartbeat.

You know, 70 years old and they asked me, heck yeah, I'd go if, if Elon Musk

came and said, hey, you want to be the father figure on the flight to Mars.

Yeah, let's go now.

Don't get me wrong.

I'm not some hero pioneer, you know, but in those areas, things like that.

yeah, I think, I think I, I, now I could do it.

I think I would enjoy it.

I love, this is a discipline I, and I keep, because this is a theme, this

control and letting go of control has a lot to do with leadership, by the

way, but it's a theme of my own growth.

Over the years and those around me is that I remember I used to do it I still

do but it used to a lot of international travel and I would watch people Just

freaking out on a nine or ten I think the longest flight ever took was 14

hours and they were freaking out They just couldn't handle it and I learned

of course, they would drink and all you know I'm not saying I did neither but

for different reasons but I learned how to, people say, how do you handle it?

I said, I go to my happy place.

And it was a mental place for me to go to and say, there's nothing within

the realm of possibility I can do to change anything at this moment.

I can, nothing I do, or say, or drink, or watch, or anything is

going to get me there faster.

So where do I go?

I go to my happy place, which is I'm not in control.

It's amazing to me, Tim, how happy I can be when I'm not controlling.

and so what you're

I say,

is

Yeah,

what you can control.

that's exactly right.

There's a one of my favorite t shirts I saw one time on the front.

It said there are two immutable truths in the universe on the back.

It said number one, there is a God number two, you are not him.

And whenever I can get to that place, I'm much happier.

When I'm not happy, it's usually an indicator.

But I'm denying those two immutable truths.

Yeah, I've done.

Mike at your, by the way, happy birthday.

a good chance that I won't send you a text or anything and wish you a happy birthday.

I don't do that with anyone.

but happy birthday now.

my wife keeps up with everyone's birthdays and she

Yeah.

Good.

Good for

Good for them.

I hope they have a good day.

happy birthday.

Thank you.

you know, that's sort of a milestone.

you know, I guess you're a little over halfway, I think, depending

on how you measure it and all that,

Maybe we'll find out.

how are you measuring, gauging, thinking about success this stage, you know,

seeing what we all went through the last five years, what you're looking

ahead to and all, what is just.

Talk about what success means to you now.

Yeah.

So, and I've listened to a lot of your podcasts over the years and I know you

come back to this with almost everybody.

and I would tell you my definition has changed.

and I'll tell you my definitions at the moment seemed pure and

godly with the perspective of time you realize they weren't.

there were things like never make a lot of money.

That was never a big motivator for me.

It's always just, I want to have enough problems.

Of course, there's enough as a moving target, but for me, it was

typically around recognition or recognized impact in the beginning,

over time, it became more impact.

recognition still matters.

Don't get me wrong.

I still believe I should be on center stage, you know, at the opera.

But.

it's more just knowing I've made a difference.

And recently over the last five years, I've begun to start

loosening my grip on that as well.

because even that's vainglory, you know, even that comes back to, you

know, Mike's at the center, right?

And so I've begun to think, and this is fairly recent, I've begun to think

about what really matters to me.

what is success is.

to fulfill that for which I was created.

Right.

Paul talks in Ephesians two about we are God's workmanship and the Greek

can be translated into we are God's masterpiece, work of art, you know,

we are his magnum opus and we are, created in Christ Jesus to do good work.

That this is really important and so does it matter that.

Even I know that that's happening and I think and I'm not there yet.

Hear me clearly.

I am not there yet But what I'm wrestling with now is you know what lord?

I don't even I don't even need to be aware What matters is that the

purpose for which you made me?

Is is happening and if you choose to let me in on a little glimpse

of it great if you don't great And and that goes back again that

childish prayer childlike prayer maybe childish too but that childlike

prayer during covet is It's, it's his.

A guy said something to me years ago.

He said, look, we have a 20 second walk on in God's cosmic drama.

Which means our part, which to us is all consuming, in the big

scheme of things, is not that much.

Now, it doesn't mean we're not important, right?

We are created in the image of God.

We are incredibly loved by God.

We are redeemed by the death of Jesus Christ.

I mean, we are incredibly important, but to Him.

And so that's, that's kind of, I guess that's kind of what I'm

being exercised on right now.

So related to that, because, you know, you and I would probably use similar

words like, you know, impact and I do have a craving for recognition.

You know, it's not just that I want to quietly go about doing things.

I, and I'm okay admitting this now.

I like for people to acknowledge that I've done some

Mm hmm.

So it kind of helps me keep it hopefully tempered at times, do you have at

this stage of your life, Do you have an awareness of your superpower or

you know what he created you for?

are you more, do you have more clarity in that or less clarity at this stage?

Yeah,

I actually could recognize and probably spout some of your

superpowers maybe as well as you can.

But what do you believe are your

yeah,

what he instilled in you at the beginning?

So, so let me, let me, let me roll back just to clarify something because you

said something that triggered for me.

I don't want anybody listening to this to think somehow I've gone

totally Zen and I have none of these, none of these passions.

all that is still there, but it's moved out of the center.

I still want to achieve and I still want to be recognized.

it's not the total drive

Exactly.

in me, it's like, and I'm not, I don't like walk in a room or get on the

phone with Mike I'm about what's in it.

This sounds a little selfish, but it's, you know, what's in it for me, how

does this, how does this impact me?

Yeah,

get me on his podcast so I could get out of, I don't think about that anymore.

And you knew me years ago, I did, I thought about that years

ago and wasn't good or bad.

It was just where I was at, at that point,

yeah, and that's why I don't want anybody to think somehow you outgrow these things.

Whatever your particular habits are, are driven by needs that were

imprinted on you probably when you were two, three, four years old.

Those don't go away, but you learn to live with them.

You learn to live beyond them.

And I think that's the point.

So my superpower, it's funny.

I'm constantly coming back to the question.

Okay, Lord, what is the call on my life?

I think there are many calls, but I think there's a core

call the way he made you right.

And for me, this is what I would land on.

I think the heart of Mike is I have this deep passion to see other people

released, taught, developed, Encouraged, comforted, whatever, so that they are

becoming what they were meant to be.

I think if you ask me what makes me tick.

on my good days, that's it.

have a, some people say, well, you're a pastor.

I, yes, but I don't like that term because what it means in American, you know,

Christianity, it's a job with a pulpit.

It's like, no, a pastor is a shepherd, who equips, who, who helps others learn.

Better how to do what they're gifted to do.

That's what really cranks my tractor as we like to say in

the mountains of North Carolina

agree with that.

And the word Sherpa came to mind, you know, someone who's a leader, a guide,

And, but kind of like the follow up question, this is where I've been putting

a lot of thought in myself because I think self awareness is probably a

power that a lot of us need more of.

It's huge

And that's part of the journey.

You know, when we subtitle this, the leadership journey, part of the

journey is to be aware, but with a superpower to use the Superman analogy,

it can often become kryptonite.

What are some downsides that you see to that calling gifting superpower,

whatever language you want to use that you've sort of had to either come

to terms with or adjust or whatever.

I think the kryptonite that's built into my desire to see others prosper is

taking responsibility for the outcome.

I cannot, if I coach you and I love you and serve you and try to bring

you the best insight I possibly can, and you don't use it, that's on you.

But the kryptonite is no, no, no, wait, Tim, you didn't do what I said.

so we're kind of back to control.

I think that's part of it.

Or the alternative to that would be taking the glory.

Wow.

Look at Tim.

I developed that boy.

Well, you see every superpower has a kryptonite.

and I think frankly now for the job pastors of the world, I think that's their

kryptonite very often is they're trying to live on the outcome of what their service

creates and then they can't do that.

one of the things you and I discussed this, I think in depth five years ago was.

because you'd been a pastor, you left the pastoral role of church

planner and running a church.

And, you know, everybody thought you had backslid and all, I highly

recommend people go listen to that.

It was a great conversation about the state of

Yeah.

and things like that.

And it's interesting that you don't want to use the word pastor, but truthfully

maybe disciple, you know, cause we, I think as a coach today's world, we

might be the closest thing to truly, you know, spending time discipling people.

And some people might be upset about that, you know, whatever.

But you and I will often discuss issues with what we call the church

in our current culture, et cetera.

What have you seen either positives or negatives over the last five years

with what general call the church and sometimes I'm wondering if we

call the church the wrong thing.

I don't even know if what we see these buildings dotted all across, you

know, first world 501 c threes and all that, you know, shady acres, whatever.

I don't even know if that technically the church now, but anyway, just,

Yeah.

a few thoughts on that

Yeah.

on and talk leadership

Yeah, a couple of quick thoughts.

there's a friend of mine here in North Carolina that we, we're very, very close,

and we will, we'll talk to each other.

We'll text each other on a Sunday morning.

He'll say, hey, are you going to the building today?

All right, and we do that on purpose, to make the point, sometimes we

say, no, let's meet for coffee.

sometimes, my wife and I'll stay home and, watch some guy on TV because it's just she

and I, but we need Cindy and Mike church.

So, let me go back to when we all closed up.

Or most churches closed up, and ours did for a while.

We didn't panic, but everybody was trying to do what they thought

was right, and trying to save each other as best they could.

So we closed up for a while, and I remember during that time, I was on

the board of elders, and I asked the rest of the elders, I said, guys,

are you listening to what God may be saying to the church right now?

And they said, what do you mean?

Well, that's a problem right there.

But I said, are you sensing that there's a message to the church right

now that we need to hear we've been given this beautiful pause, right?

It's halftime and we get a chance to really, look at the game plan.

they weren't, but I kept going around.

This is what I did.

I kept asking people when we weren't meeting, what do you miss?

Invariably, 80 percent of the people would say, you know what?

I just miss being with other believers.

I said, well, what about the sermon?

Yeah.

Yeah, I do.

Not really.

How about the music?

Yeah, kinda.

I mean, you see the point?

And so, I heard over and over and over what we miss is the being together,

the interaction with other people.

So what I've seen coming out of COVID is the church, most churches

just went on their merry way.

They just reopened and did literally everything that they were doing before.

They did not listen to whatever I think God was saying.

What I've begun to see is a, not a drifting from the Church, the

organized building church, but a movement, a conscious movement away

from the formalized and whatever.

You can be in high church, low church, whatever, but the programmatic thing

we do in the building, When we're supposed to do it to a, I'm seeking

out an authentic relationship with another brother or another three or

four brothers or a couple of couples,

Don't hear me just now.

You're talking small.

I'm talking about something that's a revolutionary and it goes

back to my roots like you, Tim.

I was not converted in a church setting.

I grew up in the building, but I never heard the gospel.

I was converted by myself in my dorm room at the University of Tennessee in 1974.

And immediately there were three or four other people who had come

to Christ about the same time.

And they came from similar backgrounds to mine.

They'd grown up in the church, but they didn't know anything about

church, didn't know Jesus at all.

And I can remember one night we were sitting around and it was early.

I mean, brand new babes in Christ.

And one of the guys says, it's Friday night's coming up.

What do we do?

and what he was getting at was, we knew what pagans do on Friday night, but we had

no idea what does a follower of Jesus do.

So we began to meet together to read the Bible, to pray, and to play cards.

That soon became this gathering of college students just meeting together.

Now it turns out to do all kinds of wonderful New Testament stuff.

But we wouldn't have dreamed of calling it a church.

And those are my roots.

And I feel like I'm kind of coming back to my roots of these deep, very accountable

relationships in faith, growing together.

And that, that I think is what I'm seeing.

And I find it refreshing and to punctuate that, I'm seeing what

looks like a rerun of the 1970s Jesus movement in America today.

On college campuses, thousands and thousands of kids are coming to Christ.

They're being mass baptized, which is freaking out the church

hierarchy, because that can't be real.

And I think they're searching for this thing that I'm talking about,

this authenticity of relationship with another brother, and of

course with Christ who is with us.

I've often wondered, and I think you and I've had this conversation.

If, our structure was wrong, you know, I'm a systems and

structural guy at a Georgia tech.

So I'm like going, you know, I wonder if we're, first of all, this kind of

leads into a leadership conversation we'll have in a minute, but I've wondered

if we've put people, mostly men in roles and it's almost an impossible.

success opportunity.

I met with a guy last week in Sarasota that has been attempting to help pastors

get side gigs so that they're not poor all the time so that they could eat.

Mm-hmm

he says it's one of the hardest things he's ever done because they think,

you know, number one, that God will be mad at him if they something,

you know, to chase after that, you know, filthy lucre, whatever.

And then number two, they also, some of them have boards that they

truthfully want to keep them poor.

so I do wonder if we've got a wrong structure.

Gloria and I are very similar.

Don't usually go to a lot of these structured, you know, building situations

and I still love some of the music to me.

It's a little bit more entertainment in a lot of the ones we pop into.

I mean, I would love to hang out.

I think you're probably talking about Jonathan a second ago.

I would love

Yeah.

be able to hang out with you and Jonathan.

He visited us in Rapid City, by the way.

I don't know if you heard that

Oh, Awesome.

Yeah, he told me that.

I didn't know where you were, but I knew he, yeah.

sat on the back of, yeah, the RV there and visited and had church.

Truthfully, we had church, for, you know, a couple of hours, just the four

of us, you know, his wife, Lori and him.

But something that I've, I saw, I heard this term recently and it was

called the church industrial complex.

what I see, and this is maybe a little bit looking forward, predicting,

and I don't like making predictions, but I'll just ask you about this.

actually see some large church, either organizations or what we'll call

megachurches, that are beginning to form up, and a lot of the smaller disappearing,

and it's almost like what we see.

the large corporations in our country with, you know, large military.

I mean, we're starting to get some extremely large

organizations and then there's not anything kind of down below it.

what do you think, what are you seeing with some of the, as things are moving

forward, does that make any sense or is there some different things that

Yeah.

I think there's, it's funny you talk about being an engineer by training.

I'm a historian and theologian by training, so it colors my

thoughts, but I do think when you look at history, you see.

The constant bifurcation of every civilization, right?

You see, we talk about the haves and the have nots.

we talk about the empowered and the marginalized.

I mean, this has been going on from the beginning and we're seeing it today.

this story plays out again and again where it's a little bit of

the, Dialectic of, you know, the one point second point synthesis.

Right.

And so I think that's what we begin to see in sociological development is

that there's a bifurcation companies.

economies.

church.

The church is an industry.

I don't like to think that way, but I do think that the evangelical

industrial complex, it's very real.

And so we're seeing, again, we're seeing the big churches and we're

seeing the little churches are kind of dying, but, the dialectic says.

That a new life will come out of this tension.

And I think that's what we're seeing today.

I hope that's not too philosophical for folks to think about, but I

do think that's what's happening.

And I think, you know, we're seeing no disrespect to pastors, but I

think we're putting men into a role, primarily men, they cannot succeed.

Even the ones who are wildly successful by what standards, congregational

size, how many sub campuses they have.

I don't know what metrics you use.

But even those, they're falling apart on the inside.

There's the horrible moral failures, but there's also just the bad insides

of guys who go to bed at night weeping over They know they're missing the mark.

It's terrible.

I've told people for years.

I said guys, this is an unnatural role the church has never been meant to be

built on one person and you can say well We have a plurality of elders

look all all animals are created equal But some animals are more equal than

others to quote George Orwell, right?

I think we've created a non sustainable Dynamic and we're beginning to see

it run its course and by the way, I'm not discouraged by that Tim

I'm encouraged that what comes out of it will be new and fresh and

vibrant and living once again Okay,

ago, Wayne Previtt, I think I might be interviewing him next week.

He's from Canada.

He now lives in Virginia.

he did some things with chaplaincy programs up in Canada and he, he's done

like 4, 000 burials and things like that, but had an interesting conversation about,

was talking about what it's like living in a post Christian country, which Canada is.

And he says that what took 15 years in Canada took five years in the U S and

we're, we're heading that direction.

Maybe it's slowing, maybe it's speeding up.

I don't know.

I think that the place that people are going to get the connection to the

father, their spiritual nourishment, whatever, more in environments like

business as mission and places like that.

think this is a good kind of transition into.

What all went on with business's mission over the last five years and what are

some things happening now and maybe what are some things in the near future

that are going on with that movement?

So, I think to understand what's happened the last five years in

business as mission, you have to go back a little bit further to

where the modern movement began.

It began as a strategic attempt to reach people in unreached people group

areas, restricted access countries where traditional missionaries couldn't go.

Business people could go, not fake business people.

not what we call business as visa, but real business people doing real

business, but also on real mission, right?

This integrated view of, of life and faith and so forth.

And it, it grew, that was kind of the late eighties, early nineties, it grew

and grew and then the pandemic hit.

What we discovered was, it was a beautiful thing because up until that

point, I would call that the, that first part, you know, multiple chapters, but

the first section of the book would be called from the West to the rest.

Right.

It was, it was us lighter skin guys for the most part.

taking business into the hinterlands to reach people for Christ.

And it was good.

It was a beautiful thing.

what we discovered when we said, all right, we're, we're going

to go virtual for this Congress.

We, you, nobody knew how long the pandemic would last, of course.

And so we're going to go online and instead of having everybody flying

to Chiang Mai, which has been maybe Three or four or five hundred people.

we're going to go virtual.

Well, what we discovered is suddenly it's like wow We're everywhere

and we're all different colors.

This is not a light skin help the dark skin America help the other country.

This is like it's literally everywhere and these folks are as different as

I know diversity is a hot word these days, but we were as diverse as you

could possibly imagine that people from pretty much every kindred tongue

tribe and nation to quote the scripture were already engaged and they weren't

doing it because we went there.

They were doing it on their own because God called them into it.

So we had this massive online celebration of the true international, multi

ethnic, quality of the business's mission movement is beautiful.

It was kind of like one of those things where God was just looking at us and just

kind of wagging his finger with a smile.

Like, see, I did know what I was doing the whole time.

And so that now has given, that's about, that was sort of the

pandemic era of lots of virtual work, which then proved two things.

One is, We're truly diverse and international, which is beautiful.

And the other is you don't have to get on a plane to fly to Chiang

Mai, Thailand to get blessed.

God is using the virtuality of technology, in ways that I don't think any of us

would have ever believed possible.

that's changed the dynamic of how we teach, how we mobilize, how we

equip, how we fund, how we coach.

everything.

We're still hopping on planes.

I mean, you still need to be with people.

I love seeing you on screen.

This is fun.

You and I are close enough.

We can do this, but 10 times rather be sitting outside Theo,

you know, by the fire and just enjoying time with you and glory.

I mean, I'd far rather do that.

So, but we discovered that we can go further faster by, you

know, all these different means.

So that, that's, I guess, the second piece.

The third thing.

Which to me is really exciting is that it is time for the

next generation to take over.

This is not me retiring.

This is not the, you won't have Mike bear to kick around anymore.

this is me recognizing as an older brother that the young

guys are no longer just kids.

They are young men, women, that God is prepared and it's their turn.

And so I think that sort of transitions from what I'm seeing to what I'm

looking at in the future is that this is time for the next generation to step

up and they're doing it and they're doing it in the most respectful way.

Somebody said the other day, he said, we're standing on your shoulders,

which is the most honorific thing I think I've ever heard.

You know, they're not saying you did it, man.

You're the man that that's hollow.

But when they say we're standing on your shoulders, like, That's as it should be.

And someday somebody should be standing on their shoulder, just

like I'm standing on the shoulders of a guy named Richard Barr, who was

instrumental in me coming to Christ.

And so this is, the great transition I see, beginning and, I see in the

near future, it really excites me

Yeah, it is interesting because I recall you have never been one to shy away from

jumping on a plane and going somewhere,

too much.

So I think

Mike, you, you know, you, Delta, there's probably a plaque somewhere that Delta

has with your name on it, I believe

I used to think there should be.

there should be, but somewhere along the way, I don't know if

it was before then or right after then you started doing a podcast.

That obviously is part of this, I'll say digital communication or this new

media or whatever words we may want to

Yeah.

Tell me about that and how that formed up.

was that a pandemic project?

it was.

so the, I got the idea, we call it, we originally named it BAM Stories,

but it became the Business's Mission Podcast and it's now, you know, like

you, it's on every platform out there.

It's not, here's a commercial we do not have near the listenership you

have, so if you're doing something, I love your podcast, but it was

a pandemic initiative, and it was another attempt to just Keep leaning

into what we felt like God was doing.

And so, and we built it around the idea of rather than teaching and

lecturing, we just tell people's stories.

I learned a lot from you in the early days.

and it's helped a lot to say, you know, let people tell their

stories, stories resonate.

And so that's going on.

We've got, we've launched a YouTube channel called Businesses mission with

Mike Bayer and it's picking up a lot of, a lot of followers, a lot of subscribers.

And so it is a, there's multiple things like this third path initiative, as you

know, is an online education platform.

And it's meant to give people a virtual place to go study and learn.

They don't have to go to a university.

They don't have to go to a conference in London.

they can at least begin to grow and hone their businesses mission skills.

But.

Tim, this plays into something that to me is really becoming important

and it's a leadership lesson.

It's a life lesson.

I feel like there's a transition that we as men, as people, I should say, because

I'm sure it's true for women also, that we move from being the doers to we go,

we start becoming the advisors, right?

But I think there's something beyond that where we start becoming the B ers.

And what I mean by that is there's a time when you're out there doing it.

That was the me, you know, paying Delta's bills, flying millions of

miles with those guys, literally, to now advising, trying to share with the

younger generation what I've learned, particularly where the landmines are.

Don't step there.

Then I kept thinking what's beyond that and a guy introduced

me to this about six months ago.

It's called being just being in it And I don't think this is for kids.

I don't think this is an early stage I think it's a later stage

where just the who you are.

All right, you're talking about leadership I think the who you are begins to eclipse

the what you say And what you do and so that's To me where I, for me personally,

and some of the other senior guys in the band movement, that's what we're beginning

to learn is let them run with it.

They need us, but they don't need us to do, or they don't even need us to teach.

They need us to be who Jesus has made us.

one thing that's interesting about that, I saw an article, this Wall Street Journal

is one of these articles where I saw the headline, but I didn't read it, I'm sure.

People never do that, it got me thinking about things in the article

headline went something like this.

There was an investor tapping into 50 and 60 year olds to lead startups

and businesses and stuff like

That was just the last couple of weeks.

yeah, yeah, yeah.

and it got me thinking, I think it feeds into this.

I think this is kind of how we'll move towards landing the plane here.

But I was just thinking about, and especially in, you know, talking

with you and then last week, Jim, and you just brought it up.

And I think this is a good, valuable thing to discuss here.

How do we, as we'll call it mature, leaders, business people, men of God,

whatever, whatever term or title we want to add, I don't think any of

us are hung up with titles really.

How do we, support the generations behind us?

How do we raise them up?

How do we allow them to stand on our shoulders?

Yeah, I don't, I don't even know what the right terms are, but it seems as

if that's kind of one of our callings.

I don't even know if I have a question around that other than a statement.

So respond.

What, what say

Yeah.

it's a hard thing to put into words.

I think the hardest thing for the more mature leaders out there is learning.

Not when to retire.

I don't believe in retirement.

I mean, I'm still working probably as much as I ever did.

I love what I do, doing it for different reasons, but I,

so don't think of retirement.

I do think there's a place for handing off the baton, for, letting

the next generation take the baton and run the next leg of the I

don't think we do that very well.

Even guys like me at almost 70, it'd be very easy for me to think about running

things, leading things, being the CEO.

I think that's the first lesson we need.

You know, if we've done a good job of modeling the way, if we've done a good

job of inspiring a shared vision, if we've done a good job of communicating values

and, Teaching them what leadership is and how to lead and they've begun to see it

and grasp it Getting out of the way and letting them do it becomes a big part of

this process the other is knowing, you know, when do you stop even advising?

When do I shut up and stop advising because that's just another form

of bossing It can be when do I?

You know what?

They need me around.

They need my presence.

They need to know I'm there and they need to know they can come when they

need encouragement, when they need to be listened to, when they need

a safe place to kick around ideas.

I think that's my next challenge.

And I'm just literally, I'm just beginning to enter this phase of, Lord, show me

the difference Between even being a good advisor and just being a good man and

letting them come and get what they need.

Maybe that's a grandpa on me.

I don't know.

You're you're a grandfather.

You know, maybe that's the, you know, let them come and ask for what they need.

But I do think.

This, this article that you're referring to in the Wall Street

Journal is a great article.

It reminds me a little bit of the silly movie called The Apprentice with

Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway in it.

if you haven't seen it, I would encourage your listeners to watch it.

It's silly, but it makes a really good point.

And part of it is this old guy who'd been in the role comes back as a temporary

employee and no one knows who he is.

But he's there and he turns, it's a great story and a good ending.

But it really is the idea that, you know, we, we need the old guys around.

Let's don't put them out to pasture.

You know, it's, it's not Soylent Green.

We don't send Edward G. Robinson into the room to listen to

music while he commits suicide.

I mean, we need the old guys around and we've never quite

figured out what to do with them.

And part of that is they've never figured out what to do with themselves.

So learning that I think is huge.

I'm gonna circle back to something we brought up at the beginning and I think

this will be a good ending point for us.

I think for me, maybe for the way you're wired too, I'll, I'll make the

statement and then you can respond.

I need to be okay.

With not getting credit.

And I think one of the things I've wanted, you and I brought, we discussed

it earlier, it might've been some different languages that, you know, we

need the impact we need, we need to, you know, if, if Mike mentored Tim and Tim

does something great, Tim's given the acceptance speech and need to say, I'm

here because of Mike bear, there's some degree of truth to that, but, but if.

If Mike needs that, and I, I, I will admit that I have needed that, I recognize when

I'm dealing with my grown children and others that if I am thinking about how

they're going to mention my name at some point, it, it,

Yeah.

across with the right Attitude and maybe it's that servant heart.

Maybe it's being a good steward.

I don't know There's probably some spiritual things here too.

But I do think and it doesn't mean we just go out to pasture.

I Think we're available and I think somehow there's this balance

between we need to make sure they know we're available and we're

Yeah.

but we're not crotchety about it.

Like well, it's about time.

You came and asked the question see you and What, what, what pops in

your mind when I, when I go on that little mini rant that I just went

No, it's a great winning.

And part of it comes back to guys, let's don't, let's don't live in a

fantasy world where we're going to be suddenly delivered from all of these,

you know, substandard motivations.

They're not going to go away.

Stop looking for that.

You'll beat yourself up.

Forever.

the thing that comes to mind as you're talking about that is if I'm sitting in a

cave on the mountain and waiting for the pilgrims to come to me, I think that's a

fool's errand to quote Shakespeare, right?

I need to be engaged.

I need to be among the people.

The word, even the word retire is like, you know, it's like leave

the field, get out, go away.

I'm not going away and I'm not going to come in and try to run

things, but I'm going to be there.

If I was a CEO of a company that was being handed over to my son, for

example, I would not stop coming in.

I'm not going to suddenly go away and, and play the, you know, if you

want my wisdom, then you come to me.

That's a, that's arrogance.

Just remember the difference between advising is I'm waiting to be asked,

or I'm seeking to be asked and being, it's just literally just that.

But to be, I have to be present.

Me being by myself in North Carolina, you know, The wise sage helps nobody.

So I've got to engage.

And I think that's the temptation.

I'm being, I'm using too many words to express this.

It's a fairly new thought, as you can tell, but the, the idea that

I'm, I got to stay connected.

Otherwise I'll die.

but the cool thing about that is that we can stay connected, you know, businesses,

mission, podcast, seek, go create here.

And I, and I do recommend people listening in here.

mission podcast is a great place to go you know, I know you listen to a lot of things

Mike, wouldn't you agree that audience has some similar characteristics, right?

Yeah.

They're all in different stages of their quest of figuring out, you know, if

I'm called to business, which is always the first principle, then Lord, why?

And that's what the stories are about.

That's people how they discovered their call and The different ways

that can express itself, but I think that's they all have that in common.

Yeah.

so check all those things out.

We'll include links so podcast player, go over and listen to a few episodes and

subscribe to businesses, mission podcast.

Last question for you, Mike, kind of forward thinking, you know, what kind

of message do you have for, this is where we share the wisdom of the, I was

going to say old guy, mature guy, with,

It's all the same.

we could talk about issues and challenges, but I know you're an

optimistic guy, I know we're looking forward and excited about the future

and things like that, but, Just what's, a parting message you have

for people that might be listening in.

And most of them are probably in some form of a leadership role.

what do you want to share?

Wow.

so It's two words.

We win if you're seeking in any way, form or fashion to know and follow Christ.

And I'm not going to prescribe what that looks like, because it looks

different for different folks.

But if you're on that continuum, we win, which is a optimistic statement.

It's a confident statement, but it's also, it's back to where we began.

It's me taking open hands and saying, I'm not going to win the game.

You're going to win the game.

And I'm going to win with you.

Yeah, that's good, man.

Mike bear, always good to talk to you.

see what we could do and get a, you know, three, four hour episode in at some point.

I think that would

Let's do it.

I think every listener knows they could do it.

It may not be good, but

do it.

But could do it.

Yeah.

I just listened to a five hour podcast with Dan Carlin on hardcore

history and He was talking about, Alexander the great for five hours.

well,

incredible, conversation.

Thank you, Mike.

Thank you for helping us celebrate this,

you bet.

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