Ep. 51 : Coaches Roundtable: SOSA Replay

Pete Smith joins Katie and Michele as they all talk about something they have in common: all three are married to someone who does not work with Cru. How has this impacted their MPD? How does it impact their staff life? Do these three coaches have any advice for how YOU might navigate this situation, either now or in the future? Let us know in the comments!

Transcript

Katie Johnson: 0:47

Welcome to the Cru MPD podcast with Katie Johnson and Michele Davis. We love that the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. We are driven to equip and inspire Christian workers to be Christ centered, fully funded and financially faithful, so that missionary staff can come alongside all people to help them to know Jesus. This process is more widely known as ministry partner development, or MPD for short.

Michele Davis: 1:16

Welcome, we are trying something new in this episode, we're calling it the Coach's Roundtable. And what we've done is we've gathered questions that are commonly asked of our MPD coaching community from you from our staff. And we have three coaches here who are going to try to answer those questions. Our topic this week, is the spouse

on spouse affiliate designation: 1:36

SOSA and how it is impacted by MPD. how this impacts MPD. And we've gathered questions like I said, from our coaches, and we have three SOSA MPD leaders here to answer your questions myself. I've been SOSA now for five years. Katie Johnson has been about every staff category and is as currently SOSA, and our Director of Coaching on the National MPD team; co director, he co directs with Nancy Dickens, Pete Smith ,who is SOSA and his wife has never been on staff. That's different from Katie and I, our spouses were at one point on staff. So Pete, why don't you introduce yourself? And tell us just a tiny bit about your choice of SOSA for you and Melissa?

Pete Smith: 2:28

Yeah, hi, Michele, thanks for letting me be a part of this. But yeah, with my story, Melissa and I were dating and it got to the point where I knew that we were gonna get married. And at that point, being with Cru, I wasn't sure about my future with Cru. And so I was very thankful that early on, as we were moving towards marriage, that Sosa category became available, because Melissa has been serving kids who has speech and language delays for many years. And her heart is for those kids who have issues that are learning and growing, but also needing special attention in the speech area. And so she's a SLP, speech language pathologists, and serve kids for about 22 years. So when we got married, I was very excited that SOSA became a new option, because it allows me to continue to pursue guys laid on my heart, as well as for Melissa, that she can serve the needs of kids.

Michele Davis: 3:25

That is so great. And I think that is a great one of the examples of why the Sosa category exists and why it's so helpful is that, like, she's called to a different kind of ministry, and she's called to be your wife. And now you can do it all. It just took a change in a system.

Pete Smith: 3:45

It was fantastic. timing was perfect. And it's allowed us for eight years to be able to work well with her, you know, serving the kids there. And now we have two kids of our own. And so she's able to adjust her schedule as needed. And so she works part time with kids, but also working with our two daughters.

Michele Davis: 4:04

I love that. Yeah, when I was dating my husband, who was not on staff when we were dating, we faced that decision too. But at that time, it wasn't an option. So I was like, ready to leave my job. Or, he had actually been praying for a new job. So Joe's, like, I'll take the plunge and try this Cru thing. And it was great for eight years and and now he's a nurse. That's maybe a story for another time, but...

Pete Smith: 4:29

I just remember Yeah, it's definitely for another time because it was stressful to know, hey, we're getting married and he also gonna not know what your employment is going to be. You're not sure what you're going to do as far as your future with your job. I couldn't imagine how hard that would be to have to make that decision.

Michele Davis: 4:44

Yeah. Ah, yeah, it was hard.

Pete Smith: 4:52

Just add another level.

Michele Davis: 4:53

Yeah, just another level. It definitely made it made dating weird. And and then it made it, You know, way too soon, we would have to like kind of talk about future things. It worked out fine in the end, I think, by God's providence, but it was, it was awkward. And we don't have to do

Pete Smith: 5:12

And I'm so thankful we don't have to, because at that again. this point, it's worked well, for our family. It's a great setup. And I'm grateful that Cru was able to look at what the needs were as well as retaining different staff. And it's exciting. I'm grateful that they made it work and continue to re-resource as well. But I'm sure for many staff for many years, that was a real challenge, because it was not even an option.

Michele Davis: 5:39

Yeah, absolutely. It'd be interesting, maybe for another time to find someone who knows more of the history of that and to interview them.

Pete Smith: 5:50

I would love to hear that too, because I heard Vonette was a part of wanting to make a change. And she was very supportive of that. But there was a lot of resistance in lots of different ways.

Michele Davis: 5:59

Yeah,

Pete Smith: 6:00

I'm grateful, thankful, it's a new category, thankful I can serve this way. And, you know, getting married was a great change, but I wouldn't have wanted to throw another employment issue. At the same time, that would have been a lot more stress to add to the whole marriage and everything.

Michele Davis: 6:14

Totally. Katie, what has led you and Ben to make this decision for you to be so so right now?

Katie Johnson: 6:23

Um, yeah, well, so we joined staff together in 2014. But even when we were considering joining staff, there was always this tension, because we were never on the same page, right. But we had to be so it was either all or nothing at that point. And so we actually didn't join staff right away, after intern years, we left for six months. And then Ben, my husband decided he wanted to join staff. And I was very excited because I always wanted to join staff. And so we joined staff in 2014. And eventually Ben felt just called to a different job outside of Cru, he wanted to serve the local, local church. And so, at that point, they did have the spouse on spouse affiliate option, which we're really grateful for. And so I was able to stay on staff. And he, at that point, left staff, or, I guess, became an affiliate staff. And so yeah, that's kind of how he got here. And so Ben, still does ministry, he actually still works in ministry, it's just outside of Cru. And he just felt called to do ministry in a different way, which I think is great. And I think it's great that we can both, like you guys, right? Live out where we feel called to serve, and not feel like we're holding each other back in any way.

Pete Smith: 7:59

It's good.

Michele Davis: 8:00

Absolutely. Also, I cannot imagine MPD without you too. And I hope you say the same for me. But like, You guys both add so much to our MPD community. And so the the fact that we have a category where you can use your gifts and your skills, and then your spouse can use their gifts and skills, in a different way, is a blessing to our organization. So we are thankful for this category, even with the complexities that brings to the table. So we're gonna, we have three different categories of questions that we're going to answer today in our podcast episode, we're going to talk about some of the initial MPD type questions that we hear a lot. We're going to talk about a few things about ongoing staff life with family, just from our experience, because we all have families. And a SOSA spouse, so just a little bit about that. And then a few questions that were related to just the ongoing, like, once were reported, when do we know if it's a communication from us or from our family or different things with our ministry partners? So diving in to ask some of these questions that we got from coaches? And I know Okay, so Katie, and I would have had a different experience explaining SOSA to our ministry partners. I think what was different and then scary was because they had agreed to support Joe and I, I wondered if they would stay supporting just me and to be honest, we lost like one supporter, like, and we even gained more support. And there were people who increased while he was like it was it was a resounding, fine, and great situation for us. But I'm curious for you, Pete, since your supporters never supported Melissa, she just married into your life. And so what was that like communicating about your marriage and your spouse and their job to your ministry partners.

Pete Smith: 10:05

In some ways, I feel like I haven't probably addressed it as well as I probably should have. But I basically just from the very beginning, just promoted that we're getting married, Melissa is gonna continue to serve the needs of kids, and that our vision is to serve together, but it's gonna be in two different areas, hers is going to be with the kids with speech and language, language delay, and I'll be working with, at that time, focused on college students. So I really feel like what I did was just to say, life is moving ahead, we're growing our ministry, because there's now two of us, and that she is a part of what we're doing, because she is considered affiliate staff. And so my focus wasn't maybe one or two newsletters I ever really presented it much to people. And what I do try to do is I continue to cast vision, with pictures with involvement throughout these months now, these years about how she's still involved with the ministry. Because we've done summer mission together, we took our whole family went to Jackson Hole, summer mission in 2018. And that was just a great opportunity for her to be immersed into the ministry, as she was then overseeing a couple of interns and giving input to students and giving talks. And so I think, honestly, I just didn't make it a big deal. I just said, this is in step with where God's directing us. And this is what we feel like is important. I will continue with my full time role. And I will make her a part of everything as appropriate from time to time.

Michele Davis: 11:40

Yeah, and so you didn't make it a big deal. And your ministry partners didn't make it a big deal. Because guess what? Almost everyone's in that position where they have two different job.

Pete Smith: 11:52

Exactly, exactly. I think they relate it I think they understood. And now that as we have kids, they also see that, you know, we are trying to navigate life with two young girls and the complexity of life. And then part time for Melissa, and then my role. So I I think for most people, they didn't think twice about it. I don't think it was all that challenging for them to consider. And in many cases, I found people understood that our needs were more so they increase their giving, they'd been more generous. And they see that yeah, for a family of four, it's gonna be more expensive than what it was when I was just single.

Michele Davis: 12:29

Yeah. Okay, that brings up a question. I'm curious, both of your thoughts on this. And I might have a few thoughts too. But we hear from staff sometimes some variation of casting mission for MPD when my spouse, they have a job, and maybe they have a great job, and how does that impact my MPD goal? And I'm not sure if some of that is direct questions from ministry partners. I think sometimes it might be. But sometimes they're just maybe questions we have because we raise support to So Katie, like, have you had to navigate that? I want to hear from all of us on this. But I want to first hear from Katie.

Katie Johnson: 13:15

Yeah, I haven't had a lot of people. I haven't had a lot of ministry partners ask about it. And so I mean, I tell them Ben was on staff before, and he's not now and but in a lot of ways we do life and ministry together. So they'll he'll hear about my family and my husband. And that's pretty normal. And so I don't have a lot of people ask about it. I honestly think this is more staff's fear, then an actual reality. And I, I think it makes sense that staff think, Oh, well, how can I ask other people for money when my spouse is making money, but at the same time, I would ask how can you work a job and not expect to get paid? That doesn't make sense, either, right? And so I think the way that we look at ministry and MPD, I think really affects this. And it is a joy for people to be a part of our teams, right? We're not burdening them by asking them to give. We're giving them an opportunity to be a part of our ministries and what God's doing in the ministry, which is really cool. And and I think when I put myself in that position, like the people that I support, the people we give to, it's not going to make a difference for me if their spouse has a job or not. And honestly, it's not my business, how much their spouse makes, I need to trust that they're being good

Pete Smith: 14:47

amen to that

Katie Johnson: 14:48

Right? Like I need to trust that they're being good stewards of their money, regardless, and so I'm sure like, that might mean like, Don't go crazy with your finances but that doesn't like, we're allowed to enjoy what God's given us. And I don't think we need to hide that or be ashamed if our spouses making money, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think we need to reduce our salaries in order to do that, honestly. I'm like, How far could we reduce them at this point? You know, like, not that we don't, we don't like we're doing fine. We're, you know, over, we're doing fine. And so I don't understand, like, I guess, also coming from my point of view, like, my husband is still in ministry. So it's a little different. But I've actually had never had a ministry partner asked that. So I think it's actually like a fear for staff, as they raise support, as SOSA more than an actual reality?

Michele Davis: 15:52

Yeah, I mean, for us, Joe left staff to go back to school in his 40s and start a new career. And it's, he's a nurse, he's an RN, and you're like, he's making fine nursing money if he was 23, you know, because he's, like, entry level, or, you know, and so he's not, like, I still make more than him. And that's not going to probably be the case forever, you know, but I have a job where I have 20 years experience and a ministry partner base that, you know, is invested in my ministry. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not like making like Rolls Royce money or something, you know what I mean, but like, but because he is in a brand new job, right, like, so anyways, it's a it's a fallacy to assume that I might make less it's and it's also like you said, Katie, it's kind of it's a little invasive, to assume...

Katie Johnson: 16:50

Okay, well, if you think about it, right, like a church raises money, essentially, right? Like people give to a church. This is a normal part of our daily or weekly rhythms as believers. And a pastor gets paid, obviously, but their spouse probably has a job, maybe, maybe they don't, that's their choice. But we never say, Oh, I can't give to the church and pay you for being the pastor of our church. Because your spouse has a good paying job.

Pete Smith: 17:24

And we wouldn't know what the pasture makes either. You know, we don't typically know, you know, the amount. And I think, Katie, you said it all that I would say it's typically something that gets in our heads is staff that we kind of have this problem with this, that there's conflict of interest, or too much money coming in, or whatever. But I just echo what you said, We're all called to be good stewards God's entrusted to us, for our family. You know, I'm working with Cru full time. And so I'm trusting God through ministry partners, my wife works part time. And so we have income coming in, that allows us the flexibility to keep her involved with our daughters, and to do what we want her to be a part of it this season. And that, yeah, it's probably she can make a lot more SLP. But we are choosing for us to live on a lower level, because this season's more heavy with be involved with small kids. So with that, we're all called just to look at our resources and steward them well. And I would be the first to say it's a God factor that shows up every time because God faithfully has provided for us through both means it's not one or the other. And it's just a picture of God's ultimate providing for us as a family.

Katie Johnson: 18:45

I love that. I feel like I mean, seriously, though, it's like, if we look at it, like God provides for us, whether it's through support, or our spouse's job, or honestly, something else, maybe it's something else how God provides for us. And he always will. And so we have to trust it. That's what God has for us to. And not question, right.

Michele Davis: 19:07

I agree. And if you're listening out there, and you have specifically had a ministry partner, press into this, I'd love to hear about that. And, and I do think there are some times when maybe our ministry partners give in a way they don't fully under like they maybe don't see giving to our work like they're giving to our job, and they're in the same way like Katie described like they're giving to their church, and so their pastor has a job. And so there's maybe I think, if that's the case, where you hear that from a ministry partner, there's probably other breakdowns and communication of maybe their understanding of your work. Anyways, we would love to just talk to you about that. So drop me an email. We can talk more. But let's keep going. I we've received a few questions about does a spouse go on MPD appointments? What kind of like, what's their role in MPD? If anything, and we do have some SOSA spouses who have come to New Staff Orientation, because they, they want to be involved in MPD. They're excited about this, they, you know, I think of when we're, the spouse is a teacher, and they know they're going to do summer missions together. And so they wanted from the get go for the ministry partners to know them both, even though, you know, nine months of the year, the affiliate spouse was a teacher, right? But how have you guys navigated this? What are the what are your like best coaching thoughts, too, on spouses involvement in MPD.

Pete Smith: 20:45

I'll be glad to jump in on that. Because I feel like any way I can get a vision of what God's doing for the whole family, it's important to include Melissa and the girls. So for MPD, I feel like if we're able to make it work, I will include Melissa and and Gracie and Ellie, but there are situations that you know, like anything else, it's hard to, to kind of work through schedules and everything happening. So it may just be me on appointments, I don't have a clear cut, this has to be all or nothing. I just kind of look at what makes sense. And, you know, early on, it was a big deal for me to introduce Melissa to my partners. And so she was a little bit more involved. And she had a little bit more. I wanted to platform her well. But you know, at this point, it's just the logistics side of it. I love her to be a part of it. And as we reach out to new people, we try our best because most of those people are ones that we've met together. And so it makes sense for both of us to be on the appointment. So I looked at for more of the practical. I mean, I want the vision to be that they're supporting us as a family as we live our vision calling out but I I'm not saying it has to happen.

Katie Johnson: 21:59

Yeah, I would say I think that since Ben was on staff, there's definitely some ministry partners that I meet with that have a more of a relationship with Him. And so I asked him to be on or if I meet with like, say, his friends or his co workers, which kind of brings us into another question of, can your spouse give you referrals? And I? Yeah, I Yes. I literally was in a season of ministry partner development in the spring. And I looked at Ben and I said, Hello, I need names. Please think through your co workers, your friends, your past coworkers, people, I don't know, that you can connect me with and I'm, like, I can share my ministry with and so and he gave me a list. And then he reached out to them and said, Hey, Katie, is raising support, you know, can she talk to you? And I got to talk to a handful of his coworkers. And so, um, yeah, I think that I think having your spouse as involved in MPD, as you can, is really good. Because MPD can feel very isolating already. And so if you're raising support, and your spouse is doing something else completely, and never involved in that, and you're going on appointments in the evening, while they're home, relaxing, it just feels, I think that would feel very isolating. And so I, I actually coached a girl who was SOSA and her husband's never been on staff. And we approached this question of, what does this look like? How do we involve him and he loved MPD. And he would go, he was like, I want to be on appointments with her. And he had actually cast vision for her, which is really interesting. Um, and Ben does that sometimes, too, when I'm on appointments will be like, yeah, so I see Katie doing this, this and this, and I'm like, okay, yeah, like you go. Um, I wish Ben could ask for referrals for me. He's much better at that than I am. But I think it just depends on the situation. It's okay to go on appointments alone. It's okay to do that, if necessary, especially with family life and schedules and work life. Yeah. Um, but if you if your spouse can be involved, and honestly, like Michele said, some spouses come to NSO, if they can come to maybe not the whole time, but even just MPD week, and really understand, especially if they've never raised support, if they can really understand the training and why we raise support, and how we raise support. I think that could be really helpful for people going into the SOSA status, the especially with spouses that have never been on staff to help you understand.

Michele Davis: 24:37

Yeah, I agree. I like that a lot. My husband, you know, he would been on staff and on campus for eight years. And so when he left staff, I was raising a bit more support. And he would he just reached out to all of his students who had graduated we had them over for dinner. We had a nice dinner or them catching up and saw getting to know each other and then he did the dishes and I did my MPD talk. And it was great, you know, and it worked out really well. And yeah, so I like what you said, Katie about, you know, be as involved as you want. I do think that this is an area where knowing yourself knowing who you're reaching out to have wisdom, but also, you can choose your own adventure here a little bit. So there's not a "have to"

Pete Smith: 25:29

I was gonna add, you know, I commend the faith and my wife because she not only had to trust marry me, but she also had been had to say God's can provide for us through people I don't know. And she stepped into a situation that was very foreign to her, she was not involved with Cru, had been involved with other campus ministry in college. So this whole thing was brand new. And now all these names and faces that she didn't know, were people that were giving generously to allow us to do what we do as a family. And so it was a, I'm sure, a very scary season to think about, oh, my goodness, it's not just we're getting married, but you know, our bills are gonna be paid in a way that I've never understood or never could even comprehend. And so it's been a great growth, through the process of saying, Okay, this is now relationships. And you know, as I've introduced her the partners, as we've done things with different people, it's really been a fun side of that to where part of it is her understanding MPD without the experience of raising support, like we do, because she's been the recipient, but she hasn't necessarily been as involved. And so it's a little bit more unnerving, a little bit more, like, what is this all about, but now, you know, she, she can see who gives, and she's like, Oh, my goodness, this is incredibly humbling, this is overwhelming that God allows us to receive these resources. And he blesses us with these people joining with us. And we're able to live our, our family values out and steward the resource as well. So it's a very unique thing for her to walk into. And so for those staff who have been on staff, and they marry someone, and they continue with their role outside of Cru, it's a, it's this crazy maker, it's very strange to walk into, but it's a lot of communication, a lot of working together, she edits every one of my newsletters, because I want her to feel a part of what I'm communicating to partners. And I want her to feel like she's contributing to what's going on as well. Plus, she's a much better writer than I am. So it's a win win situation.

Michele Davis: 27:40

That is a win win.

Katie Johnson: 27:41

Yes. I'm Pete, I'm just curious, when your wife when you and your wife did get married?Did you explain MPD to her? And what did that look like? And obviously, you didn't just say like, we're going on a meeting together? Let's go, you know, so what did? How did you explain MPD? Or for the people who don't have their spouse at the NPD? What did that look like?

Michele Davis: 28:02

Great question.

Pete Smith: 28:03

Um, she honestly had a basic understanding from involvement in missions involvement in her church and giving to different causes. So she had some concepts. I think what probably was a biggest missing piece was the relational component of just how you have people that you really want to be intentional with and develop those relationships and want them to meet. You know, one of the best things was, you know, we invited more people to our wedding than we probably would have, because we were ministry partners, and I want them to be a part of it. And so most of them came. And it was a great introduction to this idea that, you know, our lives are changing, but she's gonna continue to serve, as well as SLP. And I will serve with Cru. So I think it's been little deposits here and there. But as you start kind of working through the MPD rhythms of the year, and your plan, helping her to understand the year end ask is a big part of our funding model, because that's the year, the year end is where we see a lot of people who jumped on board with a special gift. And so at that point, her understanding that that she's more like, Oh, what about this person? Or what about them? Should we send it to them? And so there's been a lot more buy in over the time, but I feel like what has been the best part of what, what I have observed with Melissa is the buy in on the relationships, that she just understands how that's a value to reach out to people. We do a yearly gift to our partners that we try to build into. And so throughout the year, we're both looking at what would be a great gift. What would be a book what this year, we bought picture frames, holiday, Christmas picture frames that were after the season for $4 apiece, and they were in boxes, and anyhow they're back in the basement here. But you know, just those types of things that we're always looking for ways that we can show appreciation to our partners. because, again, it's building that idea. These are people that are choosing to give to us why? I don't know. But we just respond and gratitude, we want to say thank you to that. So

Katie Johnson: 30:11

love that you invited your ministry partners to your wedding. And I think that's really a testament to, for people who don't know this yet or haven't experienced this, right, like ministry partners do become like family. And it's not just a partnership for ministry, but really relationship driven, like you said, it's

Pete Smith: 30:32

for me it was big wedding 300 people almost, so it was a lot bigger than we intended. So,

Katie Johnson: 30:38

but it was fun. It was a great celebration. Um, I can jump in with the next question, Michele, if you

Michele Davis: 30:46

go for it.

Katie Johnson: 30:47

Okay. Um, so another common question to kind of wrap up our time together. Are how do we communicate to our ministry partners when we're SOSA? So should our prayer letters come from just us or from our spouse as well? And so how have you guys navigated prayer letters and newsletters?

Michele Davis: 31:11

Well, yeah, so since my husband left staff, I felt like that was like a kind of a important marker like my first newsletter I did. As Michele Davis because I was single and on staff before Joe's married me and joined staff. So there was the Michele Martin days, the Joe and Michele Davis days, and now we're in the Michele Davis days. And I yeah, my prayer letters are just for me on a monthly basis, but I do my Christmas cards from my family. And there's a there's, you know, a zillion ways you can do this. I personally don't use Christmas cards as a I don't do like the magnets and stuff. I just do a Christmas card from my family. And my Christmas card list is huge, kind of like Pete's wedding, because it's like all my ministry partners and all my family and I spend an exorbitant amount of money on Christmas cards, but it's worth it to me and I value it and it is from our family. I don't put I don't even put my kids a lot in my newsletter like sometimes maybe for big things. My kids are old enough now that they've like made known to me that they don't really like what I post about them on social media. Or, you know, to people they don't know so and they don't know me. I mean, my kids don't know a lot of my ministry partners because they just don't have an opportunity to and so it's like newsletters, business, Christmas cards, family. That's just that's what I do.

Pete Smith: 32:38

Mine slightly different. But I try every other in these letters to throw a picture of my kids in there. Just like hey, here they are in their Halloween costume, or here's what they did this summer. So it's not a focus like a story about them. It's just basically a visual, a picture with a little caption, with the most of it being the ministry update the story what I want to highlight, but I I have tried to highlight that we both Yeah, we're both serving with Cru. I'm doing it full time. And she's affiliate, I can show you this example of this check that it's actually in the bottom corner. It says Melissa and Peter Smith, is made out to Cru. And so the idea is that this partner is what we're trying to build with the others is that they are supporting both of us. I'm the working full time. But she's also a part of my family, obviously. So therefore, their support benefits all of us as far as our financial needs. But I again, I don't try to do it in a systematic way there has to be one month is full family updates and other month ministry. I tried to do small little pictures from time to time, mainly making the newsletter updates make it about ministry make it be about what's going on. And I do try to get her to get Melissa to write one from time to time like I said that. The one that comes to mind is after we were on summer mission, I want her to communicate what her experience was for the first time in that environment with college students at Jackson Hole summer mission. I want her to communicate what she thought what she experienced and what she got out of it. And so I did try to include her as much as possible with that and I signed it for me we I put Peter and Melissa Smith on the bottom I don't sign my newsletters. I just put our name address and phone number on the bottom. But I do put Peter and Melissa

Katie Johnson: 34:42

I think that's great. I so a little different than both of you. Maybe because my good. I have a baby who's five months old. And I I definitely mentioned ministry most the time but people love photos of my kids. And literally the one thing the most people respond to our family updates right now for me. So, I, um, lately I've been including pictures of our kids, because they're so little that they change so much every month, and I don't do it every single month, but I will include a picture and usually I get the most responsive, oh, look at her, she's so big, or she looks like you are been or, you know, whatever. Um, and I feel like people really enjoy being a part of our personal lives, too. And a lot of our ministry partners do know, Ben, so that makes it a little different, too. And so they want to hear, you know, what has been up to what is he doing? How is he doing? You know, and not just me. And so every once in a while mention, you know, how they're doing and include pictures. And I think even for so Non-SOSA staff, doing some personal updates here and there and showing pictures of your family is good, because people want to hear more than just ministry updates. Now, it shouldn't be like the only thing you read about but I do find that I could literally just send out a letter with like pictures of my baby, and I'm fine. Right now.

Michele Davis: 36:12

Oh, yeah. That's yeah, and I have. So I have like my facebook is. I think my privacy settings are still kind of private, but I have like 1000 Facebook friends, because it's everyone I've ever known. And so I occasionally would post about my kids. The overlap between my kids in ministry, my husband in ministry there. But I just operate differently in Instagram and differently in newsletters. And I hope that what everyone is hearing from this is, there's a lot of freedom, you can make this decision with your family. There's not this like magic bullet way to do it. Or even a surefire way to ruin it. There really isn't like you can, you know, like, again, know yourself, know, your spouse, know, your family, know, your audience of your ministry partners, and just make a wise make the best wise choice you can. That's fine.

Pete Smith: 37:10

That's great Michele, I would echo that I feel like what we promote with NPD is all about relationships. Uh huh. Let's keep that value there and not become so professional that we have to evaluate through a tight grid that makes everyone very uncomfortable and very uptight. But look at it. Like what? What communicates the value of you in ministry, your family is a ministry with you, and really give them, Hey, we are serving the Great Commission, we're raising up missionaries and helping them be fully funded. And that involves all of us. And so yeah, personal updates. And then certainly the updates about what God is doing in our ministry is so, so important. But yeah, it's not, it has to look a certain way I feel like it. It's what's comfortable in your context with your family, with your partners, the relationships, how long, I even have one partner that she has called me, because I did not include Melissa's name in one of my updates, that she was like, This is not you. It is both of you. And she got on this idea that, you know, she really, she buys into this idea that it's both of us. And so she really wanted us to highlight that, you know, yeah, Melissa is doing ministry too.

Michele Davis: 38:30

Yeah, that's, that's cool. Okay, well, I think that'll do it for this. The first coaches round table. I think this was really fun. I think we will do this again, where we'll gather some questions. We'll bring on some coaches who are really equipped to answer those questions and we'll do our best to apply the experience and wisdom God has given us to your MPD question. That's you, the listener.

Unknown: 38:57

Okay, so thanks so much for tuning in!