Pastor to Pastor

Dave Stone: Your church comes to you each week to fill their cup. But when the crowd leaves, who's filling yours? That's exactly what I'm here to do with my new podcast from Focus on the Family. It's called Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone.

I'm so excited to help you navigate the unique challenges that pastors face in their ministry journey, both personally and professionally. So, I invite you to listen and subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you get your podcasts.

Carl Kuhl: And when he sent missionaries off, he presented them with a coffin to pack their belongings in, saying, "We're sending you to this mission field for the rest of your life, and expect you to endure there and die there and be buried there, and we'll see you again in heaven." And his final words to them are the words that are on the flag in my study: Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten.

Dave Stone: Hey everybody, welcome to Pastor to Pastor with Dave Stone and guess who I am? You got it, I am Dave Stone. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you haven't already, make certain that you subscribe to Pastor to Pastor wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if this podcast serves you in any way, as I know this episode will today, please pass it along to others, share it, leave a review, rate the program, and do whatever you can to help share this with others. We would really appreciate it. You can also follow us if you're on Instagram at Pastor to Pastor Podcast. You can follow us there, and you can also subscribe on the YouTube channel at The Focused Pastor channel, and you can follow us there.

You can also check out all of Focus on the Family's content on Godcaster. Yes, God did give us permission to use that, Godcaster. All right. And finally, if this conversation blesses you, share it with another pastor who you know would benefit from it, and I know you'll do that.

Our guest today is Carl Kuhl, and Carl has experienced just about every season of ministry imaginable. He served overseas in missions, he was a church planter in Maryland in a church that just had slow, steady growth and then kind of exploded in growth. He's been on the teaching team at a large megachurch in the Midwest, and he's been the executive pastor of a large church as well.

And now he feels called to return to being a lead pastor where he can preach more consistently. And I promise you that Carl's experiences and insights will scratch where you itch and that this conversation will impact your leadership and Christian life in a positive and powerful way. He's going to talk a lot about the refining work that God does in every ministry leader. I know it's going to be powerful in your life. Listen in on my conversation with Carl.

Carlos, it is good to see you, my friend. Thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast.

Carl Kuhl: Dave, love you, huge honor, man. Can't wait.

Dave Stone: Oh, there is so many different topics. I've got this page of a route that we might possibly go. I'm not certain that we'll go this route, but we'll cover as much as we possibly can. But you came from a great Christian home, you had godly parents, you were part of a cool church that taught God's word. Talk to us a little bit about your path to ministry, because we always like to hear how it is that this person ended up being used by God.

Carl Kuhl: When I did get to grow up in a great church, all I knew about church growing up is church helps you understand the Bible, church is where your good friends are, church is healthy, there's not drama, church always grows. And if you bring your non-believers, it's inevitable they'll get baptized.

In fact, one time when I was in Bible college, I walked into this ministry 101 class one day, middle of the semester, and they said, "Hey, today we're going to talk about church splits." And I didn't know what this meant. I thought we were exercising. I didn't know what was happening. A couple of the guys started laughing, and I literally didn't know. Halfway through the class, I raised my hand and I said, "Wait a second, are y'all telling me that churches are so jacked up sometimes they divide in half? What is going on with these people?"

And it just shows my healthy experience. I know every church has issues we've got to work through, but mine was healthy. About my junior year of high school, I felt like I had a divine moment where the Holy Spirit kind of nudged me and said, "Do you want to help hurting people the rest of your life?" And I told my family the next week, "I think I'm calling into ministry this week."

And my sister immediately said, "Well, what kind of ministry?" And I said, "I have no idea." And I just kind of experimented with different things over the next couple of years. I wanted to be a worship leader because that looked like the coolest job. Then I realized you have to be able to sing to be a worship leader, so that kind of went away pretty quick. back then you had to fit in skinny jeans, which didn't work out so well either for me.

I remember one time in college I was preaching at our student-led worship gathering and I realized, "I think I have this room right here in the palm of my hand." It was just one of those moments where you knew God is here, people are tracking, the Scripture's potent, this is working. And I really felt in that moment, "I think I'm supposed to preach."

And I didn't go be a preacher right away. I wanted to get my feet wet, do other things. So I did an internship in college under missionaries in Indonesia, in the biggest Muslim country in the world. Then I was a creative arts pastor, but there came a time where I thought, "I think I'm supposed to preach. I think I've kind of learned a little basics of ministry these first three, four years."

I started looking for a job and ended up planting a church because that was the only way I could figure out how to preach. No one else would hire me to preach, so I'll start my own church. But we moved to a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland in 2008 in what church planters call a parachute plant, where we didn't know anybody in the entire state. We'd fundraised well, we had good churches and good organizations behind us and a dream.

Our very first Sunday, we had 143 people, and it was interesting because a bunch of our launch team came up to me and said, "Is this good?" And it was the weirdest feeling because I thought on our launch Sunday, I would either be really on a high or really depressed, and I was actually neither. It was just kind of like, "Well, this is what God brought us, so here we go." And we ended up averaging about 90 people that first year and grew slowly, made some great hires, and God really blessed it, and the church really took off.

Dave Stone: You know, I'm going to interrupt you there because I can remember when that Mosaic Church had been going for about four or five years, and there was a guy that worked with a church planting organization and he had been instrumental working with you. And I said, "Tell me about Carl's church, Mosaic." And he went on and on just about the health and the infrastructure. And he said, "This thing is going to take off, it's just going to be steady growth."

He commented about the health time and time again whenever I was with him. I share all that because I think we can get enamored with numbers, and yet we have a lot of people who are listening who are doing more productive ministry, but it might be in an area that's not that fertile and they don't get to see some of the growth. I remember during some of those years that you were at Mosaic, it was in the 100 fastest-growing churches, and here you are in an area that is highly unchurched.

What's one thing when you think about—I want to come back to more of your story in a minute about that call of God in your life—but answer this for me. What's the most underestimated thing about being a church planter? Is there something that most of us who have never planted a church just don't see and don't catch that you'd say, "Oh, every church planter can relate to this, and it's part of the difficulty of getting a church off the ground"?

Carl Kuhl: I think it's the same for all pastors. Maybe it feels more extreme in a church plant context because sometimes it feels like a church can fail at any moment. You don't have this history or core group to lean on. But I think it's just that verse, "don't grow weary in doing good."

I had a consultant come in one time and he saw our growth kind of go from 90 to 110 to 130 to 180 to 300 to 500 to 800, and he said, "I'm convinced more church planters and ministries would have that kind of arc, but they give up right here." And he pointed when it was year four and 180.

And I just think there's something to that Scripture. It's the parable of the sower. That just kept me going. I would come back to that every single year in ministry because if you look at the context closely, Jesus only explained it to his disciples. Everybody heard it, but only his disciples got the explanation. And it was like Jesus knew the leaders have to get this principle or you'll get so discouraged.

In fact, in the Gospel of Mark, Jesus says, "If you don't understand this, how can you understand all the other parables?" Which is kind of mind-blowing. Jesus says, "Hey, this is the 101, guys." And I think he's just saying in ministry, you're going to plant a lot of seed that does nothing. And just keep going because that one that takes is going to be worth it. Just don't grow weary.

Dave Stone: Yeah, you'll never reap a harvest if you never plant a seed, and it's easy to get discouraged in ministry and to look around at other ministries that might be seemingly more productive. But God has you where he has you for such a time as this, for a season, and keep planting and don't grow weary. That's a great reminder to us.

Now, you grew that church, you went through a lot of different stages of it. You've been a church planter, you've been a lead pastor, you have been an executive pastor. You're an executive pastor at Southeast Christian. I know you did a lot of preaching there in Louisville as well, but what's it like being an executive pastor where you're overseeing different campus pastors and different people on a staff?

Carl Kuhl: When we were at Mosaic, we really reached the point where we thought we're supposed to leave. We had raised up a teaching pastor that we handed off the baton to, who's just continued to take it to new heights and new depths in all the healthy ways. Jonathan's doing great, a rock star pastor in our country.

And we transitioned to being executive pastor, and it was very different because even though our church in Baltimore had grown, I was going to a whole new scale of church, overseeing 13 campus pastors and a bigger budget and more ministry and all of this. So there was a learning curve where I realized, "Man, I'm not as smart as I think I am."

And it humbled me, but it also gave me an appreciation for simply organizational leadership. Now we know God builds his church. Strategies don't build the church. But there's something about the spiritual gift of leadership that is so needed to articulate clear vision, bring simplicity, bring organization, because the bigger the scale, I think the more leadership is needed, which is really humbling because you realize real quick how much you have to depend on God to grow your leadership for that kind of size.

Dave Stone: You know, you said earlier that you felt that calling when you were a junior, and then you felt that calling to preach when you felt like, "Oh, people are actually listening," and then you felt this calling that, "Oh, maybe God's calling me away from being a lead pastor to go to another church where I can be used as an executive." All of these different callings in your life at different seasons in your life, and yet at the heart of all those would be sacrifice. Is that a true statement that everyone can relate to who's in ministry?

Carl Kuhl: I think so. I also think there's a combination of that and God takes volunteers. I think a lot of the time I have always wanted a burning bush moment, and maybe I got one in high school. But I think my call to plant a church, my call to become an executive pastor, were more like Isaiah or Jonathan saying, "Hey, I'll go, I'm in." You didn't call me, but I'm nominating myself.

And I think it's just standing on the shoulders of those who've gone before us. I was in Eastern Europe on a mission trip 13 months ago. And at the end of the mission trip, the leader of this organization gave us a quick church history tour, specifically of a group called the Moravians. And one of my buddies said, "Oh yeah, the Moravians are like the Navy Seals of Christian missionary."

And this display told the story of two men who'd been sent in the 1700s from Eastern Europe to Greenland as missionaries. And they wrote a letter back to headquarters and said, "Hey, things are going great here, there's fertile ground, but everyone in Greenland is married. Like literally everyone. The only reason you're not married is if you're a criminal or literally insane."

So they said, "We need you to send us wives for the sake of the gospel," which may have been the greatest con job in the history of Christendom. But either way, they read this letter in front of the church and they said, "Are there any women here who'd be willing to say goodbye to your families forever, move to a country you've never been to, and marry men that you're not in love with for the sake of the gospel?"

And so many women raised their hand that they threw dice, and it landed on two specific women. They hugged their families goodbye, they moved to Greenland for the rest of their lives, they married these men, and people were baptized and churches were planted and great will be rewarded in heaven. And when I hear a story like that and I think all I'm doing is moving from one little job in a nice place to live in America to another, sure God, I'm in. I can do this quote-unquote sacrifice with those with the people in whose line I'm standing.

Dave Stone: Yeah, that is an unbelievable story and, you know, there is sacrifice that is involved. But you start parsing that story and you start saying, "Okay, the guys," most guys would say, "Can I see a picture of her first before she comes over?" Or the gal would be saying, "Okay, what is this guy going to be like? Why can't they find a bride over there in Greenland? What's different about these guys?"

And yet God did something special in those relationships and blessed that sacrifice. Those will be some people we'll have to look up when we get to heaven and find out a little bit more of that story and how that unfolded. That's how things start, is just by being obedient. You know, I've always said on this podcast God's love language is obedience.

And we had Gary Chapman, who wrote the five love languages, on here just a couple months ago, and yet to think that that's how it is that we can communicate our love to Christ is by just doing the next right thing. And we have a lot of listeners on this program who are just core committed Christians and they don't get paid to do their work or volunteer service at church, they do it just because they love the Lord, and yet God has used them in such incredible ways because of their sacrifice. And that's at the heart of everything that you just shared.

I want to dig in a little bit deeper if I can before we move into preaching, and I just want to talk about how it is that you've gone through different seasons of, "Okay, what it is that God has in store for you?" What do you learn in every one of these seasons as he kind of, sometimes like an eagle will do, will rustle up the nest and make you feel uncomfortable to where you're being prepared for the next thing? What's some learnings that you've taken away from some of those seasons and some of those times?

Carl Kuhl: One is, I'm supposed to walk my journey. Having grown up under Bob Russell, who was at one ministry forever, that was kind of my picture of what a good minister was supposed to do. And that's what Bob was supposed to do, but that doesn't mean that's what Carl's supposed to do. And that's okay, and I have to embrace my calling and look for my calling and not compare to somebody else.

You know, you even mentioned the comparison game earlier. When we were planting our church, we went to this conference and they had a church planter get up, and he talked about how his church was two years old and they had 3,000 people. I mean, we're all clapping, "Oh my gosh, this is fantastic." And the problem was we all left thinking, "Oh, that's going to be me. I guess they'll have me speak next year because that'll be my church."

And we just thought that's what happened with every church plant, not thinking we'll have 150 people. The other thing in different seasons, I actually happen to have it right here because I'm sitting in the room where I do my morning prayer time. I bought this recently, and the people on YouTube will be able to see I'm holding up a crucible, like a real crucible where you melt gold in and you put like gold with impurities in here, heat a flame under it, and then the impurities would rise to the top and you could scrape them off. And then you pour this into the mold that you want the pure gold to be.

And every morning right now, I'm holding this because I'm in a season of transition myself, trying to figure out what's next. And I think as we go through transitions, it's important to say, "God, I think I'm in here right now. And whatever it is you want to teach me in this season, I'm open for it." And the thing, Dave, is I don't want to be in the crucible. I don't want the heat to be turned up. I want to be in the easy part of ministry that we get to enjoy sometimes where ministry's easy and cruising and up and to the right and relationships are fun.

But we all have this time, and I think it's important for me, for us to say, "God, whatever this, I want you to do the work in me that you need to do." Because you just said God's love language is obedience. Well, this is what it looks like. Somebody said it's not obedience until it's something you don't want to do. And that's the hard part.

Teresa of Avila had this quote: "The heart is a many-chamber castle, and each chamber is locked and full of darkness, and the Christian life is allowing Jesus one at a time to open each chamber and flood it with light." And I think we call that sanctification. And I think what it means for any of us to be in a situation where things aren't just going perfectly for us all the time is to say, "Okay, God, we're going to open another chamber, and I don't know what it is, but there's something else you've got to deal with in me, something you've got to perfect, and there's a mold you want to bake me into, and that mold is Jesus. So let's get to work."

Dave Stone: Amen. Wow, if you're not able to see this on YouTube, as you're holding that crucible in your hand, that giant cup basically is what it is. And in the New Testament, throughout the Bible, the cup always represents life and death. You know, Jesus says, "If this cup could be passed from me, let it." Not what I want, but what your will be done.

And that cup represents—it's sacrifice. It's everything you just talked about. It is that life and death. It's saying, "Okay, Lord, I chose you. I'm going to go with you." You probably don't know this, I was playing golf with your dad years ago and we used to have incredible grudge matches against each other once a year. I mean, we'd play it up really big. And he was a better golfer than I was, but I was better at head games with him.

And it was around the time where your sister was toying with being a missionary and ministry some, and you were beginning to wrestle with this as well. And the match was close, and I feel guilty for even saying this out loud. I can't believe I'm telling you this. But I started talking to him about, "Yeah, you know, you've got to be willing to give up those kids and to let them be able—they might go far, far away and you never get to see them."

Well, that started playing on his mind, he got the yips on his putts. I feel badly even telling you this story. I would resort to anything in order to beat your dad in golf on that one match every year. And if it meant even toying with the idea of you're not going to get to see your kids because they're going to be in ministry far, far away, I was willing to do it, okay? I apologize. Lord, forgive me.

Carl Kuhl: Well, you must have the spiritual gift of winning, I don't know.

Dave Stone: I did against him, but now I'm the guy who has the yips, so I think God's getting the last laugh, that's for sure.

Carl Kuhl: Well, hey, we do have one thing in common in golf. Each of us has a son who can whup us. So there we go.

Dave Stone: Yeah, isn't that the truth? Mine's 31 and the one that can whup you, how old is London?

Carl Kuhl: He's 14.

Dave Stone: And he has a hole-in-one already?

Carl Kuhl: Dave, he just got a second hole-in-one last week.

Dave Stone: Unbelievable.

Carl Kuhl: So between me and my 14-year-old, we've got two holes-in-one.

Dave Stone: I appreciate that positive spirit that you have. Let's talk about preaching a little bit, because what people don't know on this podcast is that for probably the past 10 years, I'd say maybe 40 percent of the sermons that I've preached, you were one of my last people to read through those sermons.

And I don't send every one to you, but probably about four out of every 10 I send your direction. I think that comes out to 40 percent. I'm not good at math. But you would read over them and you would hear the exact same thing in every email that I would send to you on a Thursday or a Friday, and I'd say, "Hey, this is about 18 and a half pages. I need to cut it down to 16 pages. Can you help me cut two and a half pages?"

And listeners, let me just tell you, this man was a huge help and is a huge help because he doesn't tell you what you want to hear, he tells you what you need to hear. He'll say if I'm spending too much time on one section, he might try to change my outline and say, "This is going to really mess with your mind, but what if you were to change your entire outline and you were to do this, this, and this?" And I'm like, "Oh man, I was going to put this sermon to rest and now it's going to be another two hours of work." But your suggestions are always incredible. And you have a gift, Carl, of being able to help edit something even when you're reading it on your phone, which to me blows my mind. Is that something that you developed? Because that's a talent that most pastors don't have, is being able to edit and cut through the stuff. That's a struggle that many of my friends have as well.

Carl Kuhl: I really love clarity and simplicity. And I think our world craves that. I think in preaching our world and church world—Christians and non-believers alike—crave that more than ever. It's just, "tell me what the Bible says, make it simple because I want to understand it, but also be clear. Don't water it down."

And you know, when you talk about editing your sermons, I mean, that's just fun because given 18 ounces of good meat and just trim off a little bit of fat here and there so you just end up with the best cut possible. So that's just a lot of fun. But I do think that last five percent of sermon editing is where it goes from good to great.

And it's the most painful part because you've already studied, you've already worked, you've worked on the outline, you've fallen in love with the story that somebody else could come along and say, "don't use that," and you're like, "But I love it. It was going to be funny" or whatever. And I just think in my personal experience, I can tell, and you know what, Dave, nobody else can tell.

I can tell when I shortcut that last five percent. And if I shortcut it, people will still hear the word of God, they'll still be impacted, they'll tell me, "Good sermon, preacher." But when I put in that last extra edit, grind, wordsmith that one application paragraph, I know, "God, this is the best I have to offer you."

Dave Stone: You might be a student pastor listening right now, or maybe you preach two or three times a year, or maybe you are the lead pastor. That tidbit, that gold nugget that Carlos just shared with us—and I call him Carlos because he's Carl the Fourth. I call him Carlos the Fourth just to differentiate from his dad, but that is so important because what it does is it drives home the fact that we want to do the very best we possibly can for the Lord.

And when I started out preaching, I would say I had to get up to X number of handwritten pages, and once I got to that, I was done and I'd kind of check out. But from working with Bob Russell, I watched him write more than he was going to deliver, and then he did that tedious, painstaking process of trimming, trimming, trimming, trimming. And I saw the things that he cut out of his sermons, and I'm like, "Oh, let me take the crumbs that fall off of that table, you know? I'll take those."

But that's how you get the cream of the crop, is by continuing to edit and to sharpen. And God's going to be able to use those other stories in another setting. You have, if I'm remembering correctly, you have some questions and some things that you ask after you have written a sermon that you try to keep in mind. Can you share some of those? Because I did a session on communication not too long ago, but I think these are questions that I should incorporate into that talk because you have some really good ones.

Carl Kuhl: Yeah, so if I can kind of answer one thing you didn't ask and then I'll do the questions. What's helpful for me to set up my questions at the end of my sermon is what goes into the sermon. So since we're talking preaching, I'll just say two things that help me, and 90 percent of preachers when I tell them this look at me like I have three eyeballs. And this just works for me, and I think every preacher has to find their own way to craft.

But two things I do that help me write are I count, I track how many hours I spend on each sermon. And I put that at the top of my Word document. So I'll just clock in and out. So for example, if I start at 9:14 AM, I'll just write today's date, 9:14 AM at the top. And if I clock out at noon for lunch, I'll put 12 o'clock. And I add those hours because I have found for me, there's a certain amount of hours that if I spend under that, it's probably not my best.

And once I go too far over that, I'm probably overcooking the meat at that point and it's going to be well done and chewy. And so when I get up to preach, that's the first thing at the top of my document. And in that half second before when I'm on stage before I start talking, I look at those hours and think and pray in my mind, "God, this is my offering to you. I think I was obedient in preparing faithfully. Now you just—I've done what I can do, now it's your turn. And you've got to bring this word to life in the hearts of your people."

And then the other thing that really helps me is I write in advance. I mean, I typically write a sermon three or four weeks out to get it to about 75 percent done, and then I'll pull it out midweek the week I preach it. And the reason I need that—and I'm not saying anybody else in the world needs to do that—but the reason it works for me is I found a couple of times early on in my preaching journey, when I would write the week of, I'd write it almost last minute, like 24 to 48 hours ahead of time. I'd get really excited about it.

And as I was preaching it, I was like, "Man, this isn't really connecting. I'm not as excited about this as I was on Friday." And when I write something in advance, I'll get it to 75 percent, I'll pull it out the week of, and sometimes I'll see it and think, "Oh, this isn't as good as I thought it was three weeks ago. Like, this needs some help." And I'm just such a victim of my momentary feelings and emotions that I'll think, "Oh, this is really good," and it's really not. I need to let it marinate a little bit to get the best it can be.

So those are just two things that work for me. But then at the end I review it and I keep questions written on my whiteboard that sound so basic, but occasionally I look at a sermon and be like, "It doesn't have one of these."

Is it Grace? So does it preach grace to hurting and broken people? Is it Truth? Do I give helpful truth that's going to set people free? A question I ask is, "Is it helpful?" Meaning the average person who sits in our church is just trying to get through another week of life. They're trying to stay married, they're trying to not go crazy with little kids, they're trying to run their small business, all while doing their hobbies, staying in shape and doing life. And so does this just help people get through another week?

"Is it Fun?" is another question, because people want to have fun. One of the pastors I'm learning a lot from right now is Noah Herren, and he is wise beyond his years, he's practical, he's deep. But one of my favorite things that's challenged me from him is he just smiles the whole time he preaches. And it's like, "I think this guy likes me." I like his stories, he's funny, but he's having fun right now. And that makes me want to lean in. People don't want to come to church to be screamed or yelled at or feel guilty. No, Holy Spirit convicts us, but I don't need to be mean to them.

And then the most important question for me is: "Did this sermon cost me something?" Meaning is there a point in here where I share something I'm scared to share, or where I let this Scripture convict me in a way I didn't want to be convicted? But did this sermon cost me something? Because people want to follow a leader who's bleeding and who's being transformed by Christ himself. Most people don't care how the preacher dresses, what the worship music is like, if he's expository or not. They care, "Is this person following Jesus in a way that I can copy?" And if so, then I'll follow this preacher.

Dave Stone: Oh, that's a great list to go through and to even say, "Oh man, I don't have grace in there." You might get through a message—and I remember years ago we had a guest speaker at Southeast and, I mean, standing ovation, everybody went crazy over it. "Oh, we got to have this guy back, we got to have this guy back."

And this is going to be embarrassing even to say, because I'm like, "Wow, that's a great message." And I had two ladies come up to me that night and said, "What did you think of the message?" I said, "Oh, it was really good, everybody resonated well with it." And they pointed this out to me and said, "He never said the name Jesus." I said, "What?" They said, "He never mentioned Jesus in the entire message."

And somehow, yes, he taught biblical truth, he kept our attention, we were spellbound, it was a traveling sermon, and yet Jesus was not mentioned in the message and we gave it a standing ovation. Oh my word.

Carl Kuhl: Well, and Dave, it goes back to—you give illustrations sometimes to help pastors, and it may have been the very first episode of this podcast, it was an early one where you told the story of people at Disney World and they were giving bad feedback because there was one person they'd come to see and they didn't see him. And so they started the parade so everybody'd see Mickey Mouse. And you tell it in a really great way in that old episode of this podcast. But that's the truth. And we have to have grace every sermon.

Dave Stone: I love what you said: "Is it Grace? Is it Truth?" Because that's the perfect picture of Jesus right there. He was both. In John 8 with the woman caught in the act of adultery, you see both pieces of it: "Neither do I condemn you; go now and leave your life of sin." So you've got grace, you've got truth, you've got the mixture of both, and that's what we're trying to be.

With our remaining time, I want to dig a little bit into parenting because you and Lindsay do such a great job. You've got four kids. People who don't know you on this podcast, I want you to know that Carl and Lindsay's kids serve. I mean, I get a lump in my throat saying it, but every one of your kids serves in some capacity and they have every church you have been a part of. And it doesn't matter how old they are or how young they are, that is a legacy that will bear fruit on your family tree for many, many years to come.

I know you've done some parenting classes, you have a passion to pour into young married couples and young parents. What's some words of encouragement that you could give to a young parent that might be listening to this today who is in those early years? The kids are in those toddler years or elementary school years. What's some words of encouragement that you might give, or for those of us who are grandparents as well?

Carl Kuhl: Well, if you're in the early years, my encouragement would be it'll be over soon. It's hard, it's hard. Oh man, it's just, my wife and I have this joke that whenever we're in public or around family or having friends over to our house who have a bunch of little ones, and they're just so needy, especially really little ones. My wife looks at it and thinks, "Oh, that is so cute." And I look at it and think, "Oh, that is so exhausting."

You know, I think the hard part about parenting is God tricks us. Because we think we want to become parents to have joy and memories and a legacy, and all that's true, all that happens. But arguably, the number one reason God wants us to be parents is for our sanctification. Because being a parent reveals stuff in my emotions, my reactions, my selfishness that God had to take me out back and deal with.

And you know, I'm kind of making light of how exhausting that is, but it revealed to me when I had little kids how selfish I am, how much I don't want to serve. I'd want to get home from work and, "Wife, you keep taking care of them. I know you're a stay-at-home mom, you just keep going. I've been working all day." And my counselor had some helpful words for me on that one, my mom amongst others.

But I think a primary reason we're parents is our sanctification and we realize the love of a father in a whole other way that we could just not understand beforehand. I think, you know, I know not everyone who listens to this podcast is in professional ministry, but I'll say a word to that.

I heard a pastor say several years ago something that really helped me. He said a generation ago for people my age, a lot of people, a lot of pastors sacrificed their family on the altar of ministry. And he said today I see a lot of people sacrificing ministry on the altar of family. And the thing I've realized is in Scripture, I don't think you have to choose.

I want to lead church in a way that benefits my family and I want to lead my family in a way that benefits my church. Now, I did reach a time when I would say my wife and I went through our hardest time in ministry. I had let a staff member go who was very popular in our church. I didn't do it well. I wish I could go back and do it differently, right call, wrong methods.

But we were taking a lot of flak, and my wife is just a go-with-the-flow, "let's have fun, no drama" kind of person, and it was really hard on her. And I did say to her in there, "Hey, if you need me to quit ministry, I will." And she didn't say anything. She came back to me later and said, "You know, I don't want you to quit. This is your calling." But then she added, "I did need you to hear you say that."

And that was helpful for me to hear from her, is she needed to know, "Hey, I don't have a covenant with my job. I have a covenant with Jesus and I have a covenant with my wife." So she really felt that. But I just, Dave, I think the best advice I can give in parenting is ask every parent you can who's further along than you that did a good job, "Give me some advice and give me some encouragement." Because we just had, I mean, we tried to count dozens of great mentors over the years.

"Hey, tell us how you taught your son to say 'yes sir' all the time. Hey, tell us how you got your kid through that hard thing. Hey, how did you deal with toddlers who are just fighting all the time?" And we just had so much great encouragement. I could just list so many great people. And it helped when we could see their kids making wise choices of, "Hey, we want to be like these people."

In ministry, my call is our family's call. Because I am called to ministry, our family's called to ministry. And we think that's a good thing. We don't think that's a bad thing. We don't apologize for it. We think that's a blessing, that you get the gift of being part of a family that's in ministry.

Now, I want to make it fun for them. So when we started Saturday services at our church, and it was going to be a big sacrifice, we didn't allow our kids to have video games, so we bought an Xbox and it lived at church. So that was our way to bribe them to get excited to come to church on Saturday night and they sat—and then they went to church on Sunday. Saturday night was Madden time.

Love it. Love it.

I had to repent at the coaching of a mentor because I realized I was great at vision casting why we did what we did to my staff and I didn't cast any vision when I got home. All I would bring home were the complaints or the hard things. And I had a mentor early on catch me in that, and he said, "Hey, cast vision to your family more than you do your staff."

And not in a salesman way, but every email—to this day, every encouraging email I get from a sermon, I reply and say thank you and I blind carbon copy my wife because she knows she makes sacrifices for me to stay late working on that or me to be at church all those services, so she sees every one of those emails that I get that's a compliment because she knows, "Hey, I'm a part of that."

Whenever we get any kind of blessing from a church member or church anywhere, we really hammer home with our kids, "You know, if we didn't work in church, we wouldn't get this." We just got somebody bought a Skyline. I was on a one-on-one with one of my sons a couple weeks ago at good old Skyline Chili, for people who know what that is. My waitress said, "Hey, somebody paid your bill." And you know, we just said, "Man, isn't it great? We're part of this church where people are so generous."

So I love parenting, I love parenting in the church, and I think when you do it right, it really helps your ministry and it really helps your walk with Christ in the hardest of ways and in the best of ways.

Dave Stone: Well, and that's really where the growth takes place, is in that adversity and through some of those challenges. That's the only place I've ever grown. I don't grow when things are going along smoothly like you alluded to earlier. But I grow the most, and I think my kids grow the most, when our family has gone through times of adversity or where things haven't been going as well in the ministry.

I want to wrap with just—you've always done a good job, I feel like, of not promoting yourself but of really promoting the kingdom. And I've always appreciated the fact that here you're one of the best preachers in the country and yet you don't—when you preach it's obvious that you're certainly not trying to build an empire for yourself or make Carl's name famous, you're really trying to bring home the name of Jesus and the message of evangelism, the message of salvation that's available to everyone. And I appreciate the fact that you're that type of a godly man and godly preacher. Any thoughts you'd like to share with us as we wrap?

Carl Kuhl: I have a flag that hangs in my study when I write. It's a quote from a man named Count Zinzendorf, which sounds like it should be off a kid's cartoon or something. He was actually a rich guy in Eastern Europe born in the nobility in the 1700s, and he rejected his wealth and title to begin the missionary movement we now call the Moravians, who we referenced earlier.

And when he sent missionaries off—and I have to suppose it included those men and those wives he sent to Greenland—he presented them with a coffin to pack their belongings in. Saying, "We're sending you to this mission field for the rest of your life, and expect you to endure there and die there and be buried there, and we'll see you again in heaven." And his final words to them are the words that are on the flag in my study: Preach the gospel, die, be forgotten.

I stare at that every time I write because it is so easy in the social media age and viral age and "how many views and clicks and listens do we get?" to say, "How can I build my kingdom?" And I even rationalize sometimes, "Dave, well building—I'm just building Jesus's kingdom, so if my name gets lifted up, then it's good for the Lord." That's not what he says.

And I think that quote just captures what we need to be about. We need to die to self. We need to be all about Jesus to our dying breath, to be on mission for him and just lift him up.

Dave Stone: Well, God has used you in a powerful way and in part because of that mantra and because of that reminder: Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. And I can't wait to see what God's got in store for you next. There's going to be a very fortunate church that is going to get to receive the blessing of hearing you preach and your vision casting not only that you do for your family but also for a church as well.

And I've been honored to have you as a friend in ministry, a confidant and also a person who I learn a great deal from every time you preach, but also who makes my preaching better because of the suggestions that you make and because of the life that you live. Love you, buddy.

Carl Kuhl: Dave, I look up to you so much. I'm so thankful you do this podcast because I want as many people as possible learning from you. And I know you do this to lift up other people, but you are one of the great pastors in my life on whose shoulders I stand. And my favorite thing about you is it's never about Dave Stone. It is about loving people in front of you. I thought recently, I wonder how many people would say, "I'm Dave Stone's best friend," because I think it numbers in the tens of thousands. And I just appreciate how you have loved me so well, but I know that you do that for thousands and thousands of others and that we don't take it for granted, buddy.

Dave Stone: Well, thank you for your time and for your kind words. And you are an encouragement to all of us today, and I know this episode will get shared with a whole lot of other folks who have never listened to this podcast before, but they'll be encouraged by your words.

I told you you were going to enjoy that conversation with Carl. Boy, that was so rich. I imagine that there are many of you all who are going to today write out on a piece of paper: Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten. And that's going to sit in your cubicle, wherever it is that you do ministry, wherever it is that you write talks, lessons, Bible studies or sermons. What a great reminder for all of us.

And I loved how he talked about Christians and non-believers alike crave clarity and simplicity. They want the Bible to be simple and clear to understand. I just think that that is so true. Someone, Karl Barth, I think is who it was—Karl Barth, a theologian, was once asked, "What's the most profound thought that you have ever had?" And he paused for a second and then he said, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." Pretty profound and yet pretty simple.

And I love when Carl said people don't want a leader who screams and yells and makes them feel guilty, they want to follow a leader who is being transformed by Christ themselves, a person following Jesus in a way that they can imitate. That was so well said. My favorite part of the conversation was when he talked about the crucible and how a crucible, you melt gold in it and then the impurities rise to the top and you skim that off.

And Carl said, "You know, I'm in a season of transition right now, waiting and wondering where God's going to lead me to next." And he said, "I just think that God is just—He's got me in that refining fire and he is scraping the dross off, he's scraping the impurities, he's sharpening and he's refining."

Maybe you listen to this today and you're in the midst of a transition, or maybe you feel like God's beginning to call you someplace else but you don't know where, or maybe into some other type of leadership or ministry or service within the church. Maybe that crucible picture will resonate with you and it will cause you to say, "Okay, Lord, do your work in preparing me for what's next. I'm waiting and I'm ready."

For our story today, I don't know if you've ever seen pictures of the redwood trees, the giant redwoods out in California, or maybe you've actually been there and got to tour through that area and walk through there and just feel like you're a little tiny speck, a little ant compared to those redwoods. But those trees are amazing, they grow as high as 200 to 300 feet tall. And there's some pretty fascinating facts about redwoods that are quite unique. Let me reduce it down to just four of them.

One is that a healthy redwood grows 10 feet a year. Secondly, unlike most trees, you would be amazed to discover that the redwoods have a rather shallow root system. Instead of their roots going downward, the roots of the redwoods grow outward and they intertwine with the other redwoods that are nearby. One naturalist said the giant redwoods are literally holding one another up.

And thirdly, there's something unique on the surface of a redwood tree, on the bark. It's actually found in what's inside of your fire extinguisher, and that is it's a retardant that makes it difficult for it to burn. That's why you don't hear about redwood trees burning up very often because there's this flame-retardant residue that is around it. What a beautiful picture for us. It just is important for us to remember that.

And fourthly, the redwoods have a unique ability to help the other redwoods around them. It's tough to explain this one, but if one tree gets sick or is struggling, the ones nearby can sense it and they instinctively transfer some of their nutrients and strength through their roots that intertwine with the one that is weak. In effect, they put their own growth and health on hold and they focus on the one who is hurting.

And what I just described to you is what Jesus intended his church to be and what he intended the church to do. To grow, to intertwine and hold one another up, to be able to survive and make it through the fire because we're resistant to it, kind of like that crucible work. We're getting rid of those impurities. And finally, we're there to help out a brother or sister in Christ who is hurting or weak and in need, and we can put our pursuits on hold in order to help them out. The body of Christ must be like the redwoods of California, and one of the main ways that we do that is through community, coming alongside of one another and encouraging one another. And that's what Pastor to Pastor is all about.

Well, Carl shared some great pearls of wisdom with us today. And as you navigate each season of ministry, Focus on the Family wants to come alongside of you with our free Pastor Care Line. And whether you're feeling overwhelmed or discouraged, or maybe today you could just use prayer for something that you're going through in your ministry, why not call Focus on the Family's Pastor Care Line? It's here for you. All you got to do is call 1-844-472-7867. That number is 1-844-4-PASTOR. We'll also put that in the show notes as well.

Well, as always, thanks so much for listening to Pastor to Pastor. We drop a brand new episode every Tuesday. It's designed to encourage, to inspire, and to challenge you because we know that leadership can be lonely, and that's why we call this Pastor to Pastor. It's for a reason. It's to remind you you're not alone. So until next time, I'm Dave Stone, saying, preach the gospel, die, be forgotten.