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

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

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

us, it's like a betrayal, right?

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

to be a community of love, right?

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to Seek, Go Create.

This is the podcast that challenges the status quo and explores

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

I'm your host, Tim Winders.

I'm an executive coach.

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

My favorite seat to be in.

And I'm so excited about my guest today.

I've got, I consider him a friend.

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

three, maybe almost four years.

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

ahead and dive in Markus Watson.

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

with his wife and his Children.

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

Intrigued me to reach out to him.

So he's an author, has a podcast.

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

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

inspiring journey and insights.

Markus, welcome to Seek, Go Create.

Tim, thank you.

I'm so excited to be here.

yeah, it's fine.

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

hang out with you for an hour.

So this is great.

Yeah, I know.

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

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

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

coffee talking and all that.

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

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

going to pretend like we just met.

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

and I say, Markus, what do you do?

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

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

and a podcaster is what I would say.

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

church here in San Diego right now.

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

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

the, that's just the stuff, right?

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

to help pastors and churches.

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

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

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

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

not the world that I was prepared for.

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

extremely politically polarized world.

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

things to do on a Sunday morning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

and pastors, become who they were.

meant to be.

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

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

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

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

That's a long answer.

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

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

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

bit, it's really a bad question,

don't you think?

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

Titles, whatever.

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

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

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

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

considered I could run this by you.

Cause you're a buddy.

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

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

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

basis.

What do you think about that is that

that's great.

It would scare people.

I think a

you got scared, even you got scared just

I just want you to say I'm fine.

everything's good.

I'm going to work tomorrow.

Yeah.

Yeah,

That's great though.

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

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

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

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

about shortly on Shalom, but.

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

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

into the deep end right out of the gate.

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

in some, business y settings with

masterminds for podcasters and Christians and things like that.

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

we'll be laughing and all that.

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

know you have, I know your story.

We may get into a little bit of that

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

do some videos on social media.

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

your demeanor that I haven't seen before.

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

recording and let everybody listen in.

having said that, what's going on?

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

some good sunshine on you or something?

what's happening.

you got a great look to you.

You got a little scruffy

going

And

that's super encouraging.

I'm really glad to hear you say that.

Yeah, it's interesting.

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

more and then we can, if you want to.

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

what is it?

It was 20, 2016.

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

And, and it was really hard, really painful.

Thought I'd never be a pastor again.

worked for a nonprofit for about two years.

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

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

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

and, and it was so good, right?

And I began to experience some healing there.

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

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

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

We had mountains between us.

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

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

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

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

starting to do some online courses.

And so it just feels, it does feel like.

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

of leaders, to some extent, right?

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

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

with whoever it would be helpful for.

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

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

I can be that.

It's not it, right?

And it's not even I can do that.

It's I can be that.

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

can I see myself being that person?

That happened actually with me even becoming a pastor.

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

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

couldn't see myself being a pastor.

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

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

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

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

that original

question I asked,

it's what do you do?

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

think, as we go through our lives.

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

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

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

like that, maybe it's a rollercoaster.

Maybe it's,

Yeah.

and sometimes it's like this too, right?

Eventually you get in.

Oh, there we are.

All right.

But there's another thing you did.

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

a brief story to get some context.

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

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

Spain where they find themselves or whatever.

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

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

a little bit while you were doing it.

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

oh no.

It was a transformative experience for me.

100%.

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

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

it's the Camino de Santiago, right?

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

Santiago is Saint James.

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

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

Cathedral of, Santiago de Compostela.

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

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

of, that did, the Portuguese route.

So we started in the South.

We didn't do all 500 miles.

We did about a hundred miles.

so it was about eight days of hiking.

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

and so I can't wait to do that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

where I'm at now.

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

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

a group of other guys, in the fall.

Do you want to do it with us?

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

And so it was a really great experience.

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

first of all, being with these.

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

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

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

sometimes, separately alone, but.

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

we at spiritually personally.

What are we processing today?

What was our experience like today?

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

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

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

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

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

cathedral, every town has a cathedral.

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

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

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

I'm doing it.

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

whatever it was ever since that church.

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

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

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

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

this, outrage sort of energy.

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

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

cafe, having some coffee to start the day.

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

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

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

I just needed to walk.

I needed to be alone.

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

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

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

great, but but alone most of the day.

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

second day, it's like my energy changed.

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

I was just walking just a steady pace.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Markus, and so it was good.

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

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

and it was just so good and helpful.

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

in the town of, Armentera, I think.

So we did what was called the spiritual route.

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

route breaks, breaks off.

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

stop in a town with a monastery there.

And We got to this town with a monastery.

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

and so it was really beautiful.

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

cathedral as part of the monastery.

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

Really old, which is super cool, right?

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

So just amazing, all that history.

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

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

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

the same way I felt that same morning.

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

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

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

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

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

an onion, you peel away layers of.

Yeah.

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

and this was a big layer.

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

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

think about what happened there, I don't

think of it quite with the same intensity and.

anger that I once did.

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

feel as broken because of it anymore.

I don't know if that makes sense.

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

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

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

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

Markus, you'd interview people.

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

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

And I hate it.

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

think everybody's got their own journey.

I think it's

there.

Journey, right?

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

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

a dang open wound that we have.

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

still have to get out there and do stuff.

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

Yeah.

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

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

time here is getting our heart ready for.

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

workout for the heart for eternity.

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

What are your thoughts on that?

Especially with the story you just told?

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

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

Because Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

we weren't created for suffering.

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

That's the exact opposite.

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

But there's something about suffering.

And I think the cross reflects this.

There's something about suffering.

that is transformative, right?

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

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

to meet other people's approval, right?

That's not the most important thing.

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

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

Falling Upward by Richard Rohr.

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

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

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

and it's and that's appropriate.

He says you need to, uh, of yourself.

You need to accomplish some things.

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

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

but you need that.

Oh, way to go.

Great job.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I, or at least a growing church.

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

What a great pastor, And then everything fell apart.

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

Reflection, deep reflection.

okay.

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

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

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

your purpose now is to pour out, right?

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

You're not trying to build your container anymore.

You pour into other people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

I was left pretty vulnerable in this.

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

things that people go to prison for.

And so I was.

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

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

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

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

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

job, which I did eventually, right?

I could lose, my reputation.

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

all these friends and colleagues would believe this thing about

me that wasn't even true, right?

I could lose my ordination as a pastor.

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

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

mind was spiraling into, right?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Like my identity changed in a sense in that moment.

I believed in God's love.

I preached God's love, right?

God's unconditional love.

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

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

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

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

And that's it.

And everything else is just an expression of that belovedness.

and it changed the way that I thought about ministry.

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

I was reading some really great books at that time.

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

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

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

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

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

I just want everybody to know.

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

to get their theology right anymore.

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

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

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

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

that might play a little part in it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It seems like it was for me.

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

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

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

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

you were accused of having some images on a laptop

that would not be

appropriate but everything was checked out after a long drawn out

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

It

I was exonerated by the

FBI,

by the way, right?

They

searched my entire yeah, they searched my entire laptop.

They said there's nothing here,

the FBI now, do they report to the Presbyterian

church or how does that work?

What's the, I'm

that's I know right?

but that's

I'm laughing

Yes, I know.

it was horrific.

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

But it was also a gift because when they said

case closed, okay, thank you.

All right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So that's nice.

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

And I know you've reflected quite a bit.

Do you think God wanted you out?

Oh yeah.

Good question.

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

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

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

You talked about suffering earlier.

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

when we had companies and businesses.

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

So

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

down that rabbit hole there.

We don't know

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

I think that sinful people caused it.

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

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

think that God wanted me out.

I would say no.

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

And, I think that if I had stayed.

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

even if I had stayed in that church.

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

wanted me to go through that.

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

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

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

because this is a broken world.

And, but I will be with you, right?

In the midst of that suffering.

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

be more suffering in my life.

I'm going to lose people I love.

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

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

Yeah.

Yeah,

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

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

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

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

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

that happened to us just the other day.

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

And he has a trailer where he carries.

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

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

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

had one motorcycle with him.

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

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

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

days before he told us about it.

He reported it to the police and stuff like that.

We called us up and my wife is wired.

She does not like to be stolen from.

She is.

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

we've all got issues that we

deal with.

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

Someone just put it in a ditch.

Didn't really damage anything.

They didn't have the keys to it.

And some girl and her dad were out camping.

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

This is somebody's motorcycle.

We got to find who it

is.

So

he gets a call.

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

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

do I need to learn from this?

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

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

and help build his faith and all that.

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

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

That's right.

That's right.

but we are.

We are.

We are.

yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

have rescued us without the cross?

Maybe.

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

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

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

intense, extreme kind of suffering, right?

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

will ever experience, right?

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

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

simply because he's omniscient, he understands suffering because

he actually experienced it, right?

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

I know what you're going through.

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

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

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

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

I think every experience that we have reveals to me that

he's drawing me closer to him.

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

sure I'm not totally cooperating,

Yeah, sure.

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

I want to really get into some discussion about Shalom

because.

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

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

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

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

Bad stuff.

Trauma.

there's so many words that are used.

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

I don't know why.

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

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

I'm good at

this.

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

process was, what if I lose my job?

which wasn't really a super spiritual.

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

in my bank account to pay my bills?

It's like, uh,

I think there's scriptures for that.

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

that's the thought we have.

So that was pretty rough for us.

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

We traveled around.

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

It's far away, geographically.

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

through a bunch of our stuff.

And it's like the Lord started ministering.

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

geographic aspect

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

I think getting away from things is important.

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

to be hanging out with Christians.

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

a day and stuff like that.

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

than even the business experience.

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

I don't know if we had

different expectations.

I don't know what it was.

But, I'll give the quick synopsis.

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

me to come back for the third year.

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

talked to me or said anything about it.

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

like going, wow, but why is it?

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

I think there's levels of trauma,

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

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

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

spiritual or Christian environments.

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

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

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

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

So anyway.

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

So how does it compare to other kinds of suffering?

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

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

who we believe to be good, right?

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

us, it's like a betrayal, right?

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

to be a community of love, right?

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

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

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

Jesus said stuff about that, right?

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

judgment, of a rejection, of betrayal.

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

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

what you expect from the bully, right?

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

Yeah.

yeah, from a board member of your church or from

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

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

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

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

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

We just make snap judgments

but yet we've got great examples.

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

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

I'll read two or three chapters and then just

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

like that.

And I might have shared this with you.

I could see that Jesus probably communicated with three groups,

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

That was the church

people

leaders.

the,

Pharisees.

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

know what I went through at bible school?

Pales in comparison.

we talk about

suffering.

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

I'm the son of God.

he knew that he was

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

Yeah.

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

attacks is maybe not the right word, but.

resists or preaches against are the religious leaders.

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

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

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

And anyway, I need to be one of those

There were just a couple of them there.

Yeah.

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

I was saved in a business setting.

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

inviting to me.

I mean, just the way my makeup was.

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

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

but somewhere along the way, Markus.

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

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

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

start being more of your vocabulary?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What's shalom?

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

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

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

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

of Shalom.

Shalom is not just, so it's peace.

It means peace, right?

And that's a good translation into English.

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

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

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

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

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

Your political life, your civic life.

so every aspect of life.

That's what Shalom is.

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

what God created the world to be.

God created the world to be a world of shalom.

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

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

Harmony is another good word, right?

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

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

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

I love it.

So work was there.

Work is part of Shalom.

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

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

part of the experience of Shalom.

so I came to this.

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

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

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

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

So an inner kind of Shalom.

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

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

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

Shalom is broken between human beings and God, right?

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

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

And God comes and He says, Where are you?

Where are you?

you?

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

Shalom has been broken.

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

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

why did you eat the fruit?

she told me to eat the fruit.

that thing told me to eat the fruit, right?

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

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

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

That's not a physical statement.

That's a theological statement.

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

their true selves without hiding anything and not feel ashamed

about anything about who they were.

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

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

I think that's what the curses are about.

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

it wouldn't have been before.

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

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

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

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

figurative and metaphorical.

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

And then there's a broken, inner shalom.

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

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

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

we have New Testament, Old Testament, New Testament.

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

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

and then the loss of Shalom.

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

to restore shalom in the world, right?

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

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

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

shalom between us and God, right?

but what God wants to do is all of it.

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

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

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

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

don't get along with each other.

It would be God's desire to restore shalom.

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

Anyway, so restore shalom in that way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And not every church is wired for creation care.

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

restoration of shalom in the world.

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

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

time when we were at Bible school.

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

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

this little town we were in Colorado.

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

I don't know.

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

at that time.

I've done

and it, there was a good bit of

traffic on the road.

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

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

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

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

I think I threw in that description.

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

But when I was sitting there.

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

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

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

the chaos of this traffic, this road.

Now there's a physical issue there.

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

and still be at rest or at peace.

And shalom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

souls healed, all that type stuff.

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

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

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

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

prosperity gospel, but I actually believe

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

Without knowing it because they have this awesome God mindset.

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

we've got money in the bank account.

Life is good.

Life is awesome.

Which is the prosperity gospel, by the way.

yeah,

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

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

that, just, what do you want to respond?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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

bring Shalom out of suffering.

That was my experience.

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

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

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

through any kind of suffering at all.

In other words, and Shalom again, inner wholeness.

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

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

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

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

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

and a restorer and, and a comforter.

yes, he and the spirit are one, right?

So Jesus and the spirit are both comforters, right?

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

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

at a very shallow level of spirituality.

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

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

not being faithful or we have to.

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

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

We don't have to be successful enough.

God doesn't care how successful I am.

He just cares about me, right?

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

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

he does care about those things.

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

said or even give a look to my kids.

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

of my relationship with God.

And I can be forgiven and I can be restored.

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

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

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

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

is, I asked, what do you do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

we're uncomfortable with it at times.

it's like this is an unconditional love.

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

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

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

with him if you suck at it.

if you're like bad dad.

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

that would be not appropriate.

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

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

of the podcast, it's this one moment.

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

prison and had been released.

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

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

you for killing someone?

Now, we could rank sin if we want to.

We could rank, the pornography like, and other,

business stuff.

We could rank it all.

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

life would be high up there.

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

God has forgiven me with that.

And that is some

Yeah.

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

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

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

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

through some of it, but not all of it.

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

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

and, it's interesting.

it developed that title over time.

That was not my initial title.

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

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

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

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

That's part of it.

Anyway.

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

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

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

could apply to all kinds of leaders.

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

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

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

We feel in a state of disequilibrium.

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

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

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

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

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

God can do some good things out of that.

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

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

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

of disequilibrium because it makes them stronger and more resilient.

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

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

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

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

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

I think, leading with Shalom.

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

we lead with some, we lead with confidence.

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

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

leading from a place of wholeness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's all part of the restoration of Shalom.

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

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

and here's a roadmap to get us started.

That's what this is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

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

Did I get

that

Camino de Santiago?

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

you were at a place of Shalom.

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

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

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

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

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

I like it's good, short, concise.

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

correct?

that's right.

It's free.

A hundred percent free.

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

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

just give us a quick, what is a way?

And you may not know

the answer to this,

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

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

what we're all trying to look for.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Good question.

Good question.

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

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

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

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

just follow the arrows, right?

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

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

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

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

to make decisions, but then...

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

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

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

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

be like an active kind of a thing.

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

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

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

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

to include these things in my life.

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

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

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

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

story that I'm about to be told.

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

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

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

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

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

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

people we serve or whoever, right?

and then we can get some clarity on those things.

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

Yeah.

I like that.

Yeah.

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

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

probably weren't checking your phone.

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

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

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

we're on one right now.

Someone's probably listening in on one

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

it and take chunks and distract us.

So I love that create space.

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

individual has to find their own way.

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

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

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

And I love it.

I look forward to diving into the course more.

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

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

So people can just click through.

So the course, you can get by going to,

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

Not Markus with a c.

Markus with a k MarkusWatson.com.

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

You can find information about my book.

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

Yeah.

Yeah,

very cool.

Check out the podcast.

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

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

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

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

That's right.

and, you've heard me

preach on that.

So

anyway,

That's right.

I think the more we reach out and assist and help

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

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

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

which one do you choose and why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Where are you leading now?

So I go with seek.

I go

with it too.

I like what Paul says.

You know what?

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

He was moving forward.

And so there's

that

balance.

Markus Watson, thank you for this conversation.

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

in that direction of Shalom.

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

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

Make sure if you've listened in.

Go to MarkusWatson.Com.

Markus with a K.

I spell it with a C too

much.

I was typing it earlier.

go check that out and get all those resources.

Definitely sign up for this course on Shalom.

I believe it'll be a blessing.

I think the world needs more Shalom.

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

I'm also going to ask you a favor.

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

because I think we all needed it.

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

So take a screenshot.

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

and clips and things like that.

I think it'll be a blessing to people.

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

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

all that you were created to be.