Podcasts about Montreat

Ethereal Encounters Unveiled welcomes William R. Forstchen, Ph.D Date: March 7th, 2025 Topic: EMP Attacks: What Happens When the Grid Goes Dark? BIO William R. Forstchen is a New York Times bestselling author and a Professor of History at Montreat College in Montreat, North Carolina. He holds a doctoral degree from Purdue University with a specialization in military history and technology. He is the author of more than 50 books. His groundbreaking novel, One Second After, published in 2009, is credited by many with being integral to the start of the “prepper movement” by raising national awareness of the potential threat of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike. He, along with other experts on terrorism and the military situation in the Middle East, also firmly believes that it is time America took serious note of the threats leveled by ISIS: that we are their next target and that it is not a question of if. It is now a question of when. A noted expert historian and public speaker, he has been interviewed on FOX News, C-SPAN and many others on topics ranging from history to technology and cultural issues, space technology development, and security threats. Links: https://www.onesecondafter.com/ https://dayofwrathbook.com/

In this episode of The On Adventure Podcast, I sit down with Jenna Carroll, a hiking guide and endurance athlete who transformed her life by stepping off the corporate treadmill and onto the Appalachian Trail. Jenna shares her incredible journey, from her early days as a basketball star and management consultant to finding her passion for long-distance hiking and trail running. We delve into her 2021 northbound thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, her life-changing decision to make the outdoors her career, and her remarkable return to the trail in 2023 to attempt a self-supported fastest known time (FKT). Along the way, Jenna reflects on the emotional highs and lows of solo hiking, the invaluable lessons of community and resilience, and how nature continues to fuel her creativity. Whether you're a seasoned hiker or just curious about life's unpredictable paths, Jenna's story is sure to inspire. Episode Highlights: [2:10] - Introducing Jenna Carroll: From basketball star to corporate life to hiker-extraordinaire. [6:45] - Jenna's first thru-hike: Why she left her desk job to tackle the Appalachian Trail. [15:30] - Overcoming freezing temps on Blood Mountain: Jenna's turning point just four days into the trail. [24:40] - Post-trail life: Moving to Asheville, finding her calling as a hiking guide, and rediscovering creativity through poetry. [39:00] - Tackling personal endurance challenges: Jenna's first 50K and her epic Montreat trail day. [43:50] - Attempting the self-supported FKT: 63 days, 2,200 miles, and lessons learned on the Appalachian Trail. [57:00] - The value of community: How connection and support fueled Jenna's solo adventures. [1:02:30] - What's next for Jenna: A 100-mile race, guiding trips, and continuing her journey in Asheville. Links & Resources: Blue Ridge Hiking Company Books that inspired Jenna: Thirst: 2600 Miles to Home by Heather “Anish” Anderson A Beautiful Work in Progress by Myrna Valerio Learn more about Mount Mitchell, the highest peak in the eastern U.S. here. Closing: If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, follow, and share On Adventure! It means the world to us and helps us reach more adventure seekers like you. Until next time, I hope you find your next great adventure.

On the phone-in: Eric Morice from Halifax Public Libraries and Meghan Skerry from Daisy Mae Books in Summerside, PEI, recommend good books to read or give as gifts for the holidays. And off the top of the show, we speak with Tatamagouche sculptor, Sydney Blum, who mailed two art pieces to Montreat in October. They went missing in the mail and ended up being found at a Krazy Binz store in Hamilton, ON. She's hoping to get them back.

In this special episode we will be in conversation with two leaders from Montreat Conference Center. Richard DuBose, President, and Carol Steele, VP of Programs, join us from the conference center to share how they are leading faithfully following Hurricane Helene. You can contribute to the relief effort at https://montreat.org/helene

Rev. Pen Peery, First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte, and Rev. Keith Grogg, Montreat Presbyterian Church, sit down for a conversation about the current state of Montreat, Black Mountain, Asheville, and other areas in Western North Carolina, reeling from the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Pen and Keith discuss current relief efforts, how residents have been impacted and how they are coping, and what it's like to return home after so much has changed. At the end of the episode, Pen shares an update on First Presbyterian's fundraising efforts and plans to support our neighbors to the west going forward. To give to the Western North Carolina relief fund, go to fpc.tiny.us/relief. We are not accepting donations of items at this time.

Learn how Mountain mules are delivering hope and supplies after Hurricane Helene in Appalachia. Plus important custom rules for Mexico travel you need to know and we offer up a Halloween costume idea like no other! Join radio hosts Rebecca Wanner aka 'BEC' and Jeff ‘Tigger' Erhardt (Tigger & BEC) with The Bend Radio Show & Podcast, your news outlet for the latest in Outdoors & Western Lifestyle News!   Episode 205 Details Relief Efforts Post-Hurricane Helene: Mountain Mules Deliver Aid & Beware: Customs Tax on Electronics in Mexico Hurricane Helene Relief Efforts: Mountain Mules Bring Hope to Appalachia In the wake of Hurricane Helene, a dedicated team of volunteers, including the Cajun Navy 2016 from Watson, Louisiana, and Mountain Mule Packer Ranch in Mount Ulla, North Carolina, is providing crucial aid to the mountains of Western North Carolina. Challenges in the Aftermath Hurricane Helene left many areas inaccessibly devastated, with washed-out roads and power outages complicating relief efforts. Helicopters and C-17 aircraft from FEMA have helped, but some communities remain unreachable except by mule. The Role of Mountain Mules The mules are invaluable for delivering essential supplies to remote mountain communities. Known for their ability to navigate challenging terrains, these "beasts of burden" mules are not only reliable but also carry a legacy of service. Community Requests for Assistance Despite limited communication, locals have been reaching out for help via social media, sharing their urgent needs. Requests for insulin and other medical supplies highlight the dire situations many families face. As there is no power either in these locations, locals are hiking to higher elevations in order to send assistance request messages. Collaborative Relief Efforts On-site in Montreat, North Carolina, the Mountain Mule Packer Ranch team coordinated with the Cajun Navy 2016, and are working tirelessly to deliver supplies to affected areas like Black Mountain, where flooding caused extensive damage. Heartwarming Stories of Hope These volunteers have made a significant impact, not just by delivering supplies but also by offering emotional support. One heartwarming incident involved helping a family whose home was lost, bringing them food, water, and even stuffed animals for their children. Continuing Support and Updates To facilitate ongoing relief, both the Mountain Mule Packer Ranch and Cajun Navy 2016 Facebook pages provide regular updates and ways to contribute including using the Venmo listed below.  Their resilience along with the affected communities shines through as they band together to support one another in these trying times. References https://pinnaclesar.org/ https://www.mountainmulepackers.com/ https://gardenandgun.com/articles/mountain-mules-are-bringing-hope-to-appalachia https://www.facebook.com/mountainmulepackersranch https://www.facebook.com/cajunnavy2016.org   Traveling To Mexico, Know This Customs Rule Mexico Travelers Tax Enforced On Electronics According to USA Today, Cancun International Airport is enforcing Mexican customs regulations that limit travelers to bringing only one portable computer, including laptops or tablets, without paying a tax. Travelers with more than one device face a tax of up to 19% of the device's value, capped at $4,000. The rule, which has been in place for years, is now being enforced more strictly. Some speculate this is to prevent resale or increase tax revenue from the influx of visitors. Unlike in the U.S., where no such limit exists, Mexican customs can confiscate extra devices if the tax is not paid. Travelers are advised to familiarize themselves with customs rules, as they also limit items like cameras and tobacco. While making international travel plans, always know and understand the local rules and customs regulations. Easy Halloween Costume For The Outdoors Person Spirit Halloween stores say Beetlejuice, Deadpool and Wolverine costumes are this year's most popular adult Halloween costumes. Bluey and Sesame Street characters are popular for children. Sasquatch Hunter: The Perfect Halloween Costume The mythical, ape-like creature that is said to live in the forests of America offers up the ideal "hunter" Halloween costume. Child to Adult, consider dressing as a Sasquatch Hunter! This costume offers the ability to dress warm if weather turns cold and can be created using what is already at home making it an inexpensive outfit How To Dress Like A Sasquatch Hunter This outfit has been used now by two of our nephews and has been a huge hit each time! Be creative! Here is how this outfit has been assembled in our family. Hunting Vest (new or old): Take a hunting boot, wet the bottom with mud or paint and STEP on the back of the vest to leave a "footprint". Works best if it is much larger than your own foot. Add To The Vest: Sticks, Twigs, Grass, Antler shed that looks like poking through the vest for example. Be creative. Wear: Under the vest wear a flannel shirt. On your feet, wear hiking boots or shoes. Accessories: Elmer Fud otherwise known as a Kromer hat or the Yooper hat. A pair of binoculars around the neck. Carry a plastic toy hunting rifle or shotgun. REMEMBER be safe and use a "Toy Firearm" to finish off the outfit. Remember to have fun! This outfit is the chance for you, and your child, to be creative while sticking with an Outdoors Theme! Have fun!! FIELD REPORTS & COMMENTS Call or Text your questions, or comments to 305-900-BEND or 305-900-2363 Or email BendRadioShow@gmail.com FOLLOW Facebook/Instagram: @thebendshow https://www.facebook.com/thebendshow SUBSCRIBE to The Bend YouTube Channel. Website: TheBendShow.com https://thebendshow.com/ #catchBECifyoucan #tiggerandbec #outdoors #travel #cowboys The Outdoors, Rural America, And Wildlife Conservation are Center-Stage. AND how is that? Because Tigger & BEC… Live This Lifestyle. Learn more about Jeff ‘Tigger' Erhardt & Rebecca Wanner aka BEC here: TiggerandBEC.com https://tiggerandbec.com/   WESTERN LIFESTYLE & THE OUTDOORS Jeff 'Tigger' Erhardt & Rebecca 'BEC' Wanner are News Broadcasters that represent the Working Ranch world, Rodeo, and the Western Way of Life as well as advocate for the Outdoors and Wildlife Conservation. Outdoorsmen themselves, this duo strives to provide the hunter, adventurer, cowboy, cowgirl, rancher and/or successful farmer, and anyone interested in agriculture with the knowledge, education, and tools needed to bring high-quality beef and the wild game harvested to your table for dinner. They understand the importance in sharing meals with family, cooking the fruits of our labor and fish from our adventures, and learning to understand the importance of making memories in the outdoors. Appreciate God's Country. United together, this duo offers a glimpse into and speaks about what life truly is like at the end of dirt roads and off the beaten path. Tigger & BEC look forward to hearing from you, answering your questions and sharing in the journey of making your life a success story. Adventure Awaits Around The Bend.    

IN THIS REPEAT: A talk I gave in early April 2016 about a running theme in The Screwtape Letters. I just gave the following talk on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at the Inklings Fellowship Weekend Retreat that was held in Montreat, NC at Montreat College. It was also the public debut of my first book C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell: A Companion and Study Guide to The Screwtape Letters. While I do give a summary of the unique aspects of my book, the main focus of the talk is about the devils' secret weapon that is mentioned in nearly all of the letters. My book just list them, but this presentation provides more details and gives a practical application to one's life. Visit my website to contact me about giving this talk or a three or four part presentation on all of the places this weapon is mentioned or alluded to. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paperback of C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Kindle of C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit Shelley and Son Books Website (podcast sponsor) Other Useful Links: Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis YouTube CHANNEL  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Monday morning, the 27th of May, 2024, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Revelation 21:4:”And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” Now, isn't that something to look forward to? Wow, I can't wait! The former things have passed away, there will be no more tears in Heaven, there will be no more death in Heaven, there will be no more sorrow in Heaven, there will be no more crying in Heaven, there will be no more pain in Heaven, and the past has been wiped away. What a future to look forward to. There will be no anticlimax, there will be no disappointment.A few years back, I had the privilege of being invited to meet, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest evangelists to have ever walked on this planet, yes, Dr Billy Graham, himself. I was flown up in a jet from Tennessee, USA, up to Montreat, North Carolina, where he lived. They fetched us at the airport. I was so excited to meet this man. They drove me to his home, but at the gate there was a security guard, and he asked the gentleman who supposedly organised the meeting for the credentials, and of course, the thing fell flat. He said, “You can't see Mr Graham because we don't know about this appointment.” I was so disappointed, honestly. Look, they were very kind to us, they took us to the museum, they showed us where he grew up, where he lived, his home. They showed us all the different, wonderful things that he had done in his life. Many other retired evangelists were there. They took us around, it was wonderful, but it was an anticlimax. When we go to Heaven, there will be no anticlimax. If we look at verse 3 it says: “God Himself will be with them and be their God.” Revelation 21:3That is a guarantee, that is a given. He personally will meet us at the gate, He won't send His angels, He won't send Peter or any of the disciples, He has promised us, He will meet you, Mary, He will meet you, John, personally, and welcome you home. I can't wait for that day. In the meantime, maybe today, you are feeling a bit down, you're feeling a bit lonely. Maybe you have also been disappointed. Well, I want to tell you something now, lift up your heads and look for your redemption draws near. I want to pray for you as we close.Dear Lord Jesus,I pray for my friend today who is not feeling very happy. Maybe they have lost a loved one, maybe they have been terribly disappointed by a relationship, maybe they don't have work, maybe they are fearful of the future. Oh Holy Spirit, reassure them today of the wonderful future that awaits them when You come to fetch us personally, and to take us home to be with You in glory, forever and ever, Amen.God bless you and goodbye.

“Octave displacement is a really big thing with adolescent singers. Make a game out of it - I'll have them match me, match me up an octave, match me down an octave - versus scolding when you're in the middle of rep and someone is singing too low and you just point and say ‘that's too low.' That's a little ambiguous for the average 13-year-old. To give them the strength to identify it themselves is practicing the skill we want to see played out in the repertoire.”Since 2006, Mr. Oakes has served as Director of Choral Music and Music Instructor at The Baylor School, a grade 6-12 independent day and boarding school in Chattanooga. Under his direction, the choral program has grown to include over 200 participants in four student choirs and a faculty choir. In 2015, he was awarded Baylor's Glenn Ireland Chair for Distinguished Teaching and starts his service as Chair of Baylor's Fine Arts Department beginning with the 2019-2020 school year.Mr. Oakes also serves as Artistic Director of the Chattanooga Boys Choir, a music education and performance organization founded in 1954 which now includes over 120 choristers ages 8-18 in five ensembles. Including innovative performance opportunities and collaborative community initiatives, the CBC maintains a performance calendar of thirty appearances annually. The choir has performed and toured extensively, including performance tours to Europe, Canada, and Cuba. Recording opportunities for the CBC have included commercially-released recordings with Stephen Curtis Chapman, Casting Crowns, and the grammy-nominated NAXOS recording of Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges with the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.He is the former President of the ACDA's Southern Region and in 2012, he was selected as one of seven conductors chosen to represent the United States at the inaugural ACDA International Conductor Exchange Program in Cuba.As a conductor/clinician, he has conducted numerous honor choirs and festivals throughout the United States, including ACDA regional honor choirs. A lifelong advocate for music in worship, he has served churches in Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee and as a clinician/conductor for children and youth choirs at Lake Junaluska, Massanetta Springs, and Montreat church music conferences.Mr. Oakes earned the Bachelor of Music Education degree from the University of Florida and the Master of Sacred Music degree in Choral Conducting from Emory University. He has contributed articles to Choral Journal and a chapter in the textbook Choral Pedagogy (3rd edition) by Robert Sataloff and Brenda Smith. To get in touch with Vic, you can visit chattanoogaboyschoir.org or baylorschool.org.Choir Fam wants to hear from you! Check out the Minisode Intro Part 3 episode from February 16, 2024, to hear how to share your story with us.Email choirfampodcast@gmail.com to contact our hosts.

The Seahawks took care of business against an overmatched Montreat team on Sunday, and now, they'll head down to Statesboro to meet a Georgia Southern team with its back to the wall. Along with quick breakdowns on those games, the guys get into the details on Takayo Siddle's challenge to his bench, a few spots the Seahawks might see improvement in short order, one 'contrarian weirdo' point and the first-ever Perchcast Guarantee. Also, a discussion of conference realignment and where UNCW belongs and a look at how the CAA schedule will eventually set up.

Here's information about TWO Lewis-related events in 2024! Inklings Weekend in Montreat and 2. Undiscovered C.S. Lewis at George Fox University. “The Latest on C.S. Lewis,” tells timely news about Lewis and selected related authors. If you have news or other related information that you want me to consider sharing, email me here: info (at) essentialcslewis.com   Watch it on YouTube:   Inklings Weekend in Montreat 2024 https://www.uu.edu/societies/inklings/events/weekend24/ Undiscovered CSL at George Fox University https://www.georgefox.edu/cs-lewis-initiative/conference.html Last “Latest on Lewis” Article Version Post   All About Jack Podcast: https://allaboutjack.podbean.com/ Essential C.S. Lewis website: https://essentialcslewis.com/ THE MISQUOTABLE C.S. LEWIS. https://amzn.to/2IUTJBr C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell https://amzn.to/2BfStXh

Can you picture yourself stepping onto the college basketball court for the first time? Feel the weight of the ball in your hands? Hear the roar of the crowd? This week, we're chatting with Emmanuel Hughes and Gabriel Rivera, two athletes currently navigating the challenging waters of college basketball at Montreat  College. Join us as they share fascinating personal stories of their transition from high school courts to the vastly different world of college hoops, highlighting the physicality, competition, and the importance of understanding one's role on the court.Now, imagine the mental toll this high-level competition can take. As we journey alongside Emmanuel and Gabriel, we dive  into the often-overlooked aspect of mental health in sports. But, it doesn't stop there; the duo also stresses the importance of having a backup plan, reminding us that there's life beyond the court, a life that may not always include basketball.  Inspired by Steph Curry's quote, they share their aspirations for the current season and how they plan to relentlessly chase their goals. So, let's lace up our sneakers, grab our headphones and plunge into this riveting conversation with these inspiring athletes.Support the showHey y'all hey, don't miss the next episode of Koffee Chitchat!!

Montreat College? Steve talks to people at the Christian Ethics Conference about Montreat College. Are you a right fit for Montreat? Our goal is to apply Biblical Truth to the big issues of the day and to spread the Good News of the Gospel to as many people as possible through the airwaves as well as digitally. This mission, like others, requires funding. So, if you feel led to help support this effort, you can make a tax-deductible donation online HERE.   Thank You! 

Rev Martin Luther King Speech at Montreat pt 4of4 Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast - Black Lives Content Black History | Black Ethics | Black Power Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast Uploads Audiobooks and Lectures By The Best Black Authors In Audio Format To Download. All Authors Wrote Stories From Their REAL Life, Not Fiction. We also added Martin Luther King Speeches, Insights and Historical Background to the Podcast. Please Download and Share the Martin Luther King Speeches. X X X X please support with 2$ or 8$ per month we try to stay alive and pay for the content to remain online

Rev Martin Luther King Speech Montreat pt 3of4 Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast - Black Lives Content Black History | Black Ethics | Black Power Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast Uploads Audiobooks and Lectures By The Best Black Authors In Audio Format To Download. All Authors Wrote Stories From Their REAL Life, Not Fiction. We also added Martin Luther King Speeches, Insights and Historical Background to the Podcast. Please Download and Share the Martin Luther King Speeches. X X X X please support with 2$ or 8$ per month we try to stay alive and pay for the content to remain online

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: A strong board of directors is essential to the success of any non-profit organization. The board of directors plays a critical role in providing guidance, oversight, and support for the organization's mission and operations.   There is no cookie-cutter or one-size-fits-all when it comes to Nonprofit Board Governance and Board Service.  However, there is a lot we can learn from people who are active on the Boards of high impact and highly effective nonprofit organizations.   Over the past 104 issues, we have devoted a lot of time to this topic.  From time to time, we will highlight excerpts from some of these conversations.   Today is the 3rd time we are compiling these excerpts.  I will have links to the previous two episodes in the Episode Notes.   Christin McClave has over 20 years of corporate leadership, beginning her career with Johnson & Johnson and serving in senior leadership in her family's large automotive aftermarket business – Cardone Industries.  Christin has served on and continues to serve on several nonprofit and corporate Boards. I've been in this business a long time and I've worked with probably 300 or 400 boards, over the last 30 years. And if I look at them, I would say a lot of the time they're males. They might be closer to my age than your age. And now things are changing. So, what are you seeing, or maybe what are you doing to lower the mean age on a board and to maybe bring more gender and ethnic diversity?  [00:01:43] Christin McClave:  So, I think we see a lot of changes in the general demographics, right?  As our society and culture are changing. The positive thing is there's so much more diversity coming up through the leadership ranks. And I think the traditional way that we've, I'll say we, because I've done it myself as well, when we've needed a new board member on a board, I instantly think about who have I worked with before? Who's like me, who thinks like me, who would be easy to plug and play into this board that I'm on? And so that's been our traditional way of pipelining onto boards. Let's find people who we know and who we know could be very quickly successful and contribute value to this board. I think what we've learned over the last couple years is that doesn't necessarily bring diversity to these boards that we are trying to diversify. And we've seen the pressure coming from the public sector the SEC, not quite regulations, but suggestions that we need a certain percentage of diversity on the public boards. And there's a lot of pressure in the market for that. And then that has trickled down its way to nonprofits and to the private sector. So, everyone is looking to diversify their boards at this point. And I think, a key piece of the job requirements that we have in the past always assumed on larger boards, I'll say. And most boards in general, everybody's wanted, okay you need to have a CEO or CFO or a C level executive. But preferably a CEO or CFO who's been in the chair before. And I've had people say that to me as well, that's what they're looking for. And I think we know just from sheer data that a lot of women and diverse candidates in general haven't had those opportunities. We are definitely developing that pipeline now and being very much more intentional. But I think like through the past few years and now looking at the talent market being as hot as it is and the demand for diverse talent we have, we are at the place we need to take a look at those very narrow criteria that we've said, oh, you have to be a C-level executive to be on a board and to be able to contribute value. And I think, now I've seen a lot more being written, a lot more being talked about, diversity coming onto boards where I'm reading someone's background and I'm like, wow, that is so cool. Maybe 10 years ago that person wouldn't have been chosen for that very significant board seat. So, I think we've opened up our criteria and have opened up our thought process and how we see people's experiences. We're looking at people's resumes really differently these days. From an HR perspective in internal, when we're screening candidates we took the requirement of having a college degree off of our requirements, probably, about 10 years ago, which was a little bit ahead of our time, but it just opened up our talent pool and we realized there are a lot of people out there that may not have a bachelor's degree but are way more experienced with their life and work experience that we were not being able to tap into because we had that very strict requirement. So, I think we're seeing that across the board at all levels, including at the board level. +++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:05:34] Tommy Thomas: Alvin Sanders, President & CEO of World Impact, a nonprofit that focuses on redemptive poverty and cultural proficiency in the urban community.  Alvin and his Board are huge proponents of the Policy Governance Model - an integrated board leadership paradigm created by Dr. John Carver.   I'm asking people these days about bringing younger people onto boards. And philosophically, do you have a position on that? And then I'll ask a follow up.  [00:06:10] Alvin Sanders: Yes, we try to hold it at nine, because we think a smaller board is better for getting things done. And I think in terms of thirds, a third of our board, we want gender diversity, a third of our board, we want age diversity, a third of our board, we want racial diversity. And then we want half and half, what I would say, marketplace people. These are business folk, and then the other half ministry people. Because if you have all marketplace people, the ministry gets lost. It's been my experience. And if you have all ministry people, the business of running the organization gets lost and it loses knowledge and expertise. So that's my philosophy of how you have you bring a board together. But you definitely need people, especially since I just read the other day that millennials now are the most dominant generation numbers wise. It's no longer Baby Boomers. It's never been my generation, Gen X. We're the forgotten generation, I think. Nobody gives a rip about Gen X, but Millennials now are it and you're just being silly if you don't have Millennials on your board. ++++++++++++++++++ [00:07:23] Tommy Thomas: Caryn Ryan, Managing Director at MissionWell, an organization that provides financial and strategic counsel to nonprofit organizations. Caryn is the former CFO for BP/Amoco and World Vision International.  She currently serves on corporate and nonprofit Boards.   I want to ask you one question then I'll close. So, my next to the last question has to do with succession planning and the board. At what point should that begin to occur? And how does the board address that without the CEO thinking “I'm a short-timer”? [00:08:04] Caryn Ryan: Okay. Yeah, that's great.  I'm dealing with that right now at one of the boards that I sit on. And I've just dealt with that last year as well. And it works both ways if it works all, all different ways. So let me just talk about one where the CEO does get the feeling. If you have this conversation that they're a short timer. I want to just say first of all, that can sometimes go back to the trust issue again, right? When there's a lack of trust between the board and the CEO then, and you bring up the succession of the question of succession planning, the first thing that goes of course into the CEO's mind is, oh, I'm getting fired.  I'm a short termer here.  So that has to again, be addressed, the trust issue, before you can have productive conversations around succession planning. But even longer term issues are going to take some time to get resolved. There's something you can always do on the succession plan that's very short term and that every single board must have in place. And that is you need a succession plan in case of an emergency. If your CEO becomes ill is hit by a bus, or whatever, you need an emergency succession plan that is an interim structure or very well thought through way that you'll manage in the absence of the CEO.  And usually, it's not going to bring out the same negative feeling for the CEO.  On the part of the CEO because they understand that, oh yeah, if I'm not there, we need to have some interim structure. And so, they'll begin helping the Board and thinking through, look, okay, if something happens to me, let's make this person on our staff the interim, or let's pull this Board Member out and see if they'll be the interim. Or they'll start to engage in the ideas for how that could work in interim a structure. And as long as you can get that interim structure put in place and everybody's in agreement that it's workable, that then gives a chance during the interim structure for the Board to go out and begin doing a search to find a replacement candidate. Regarding succession planning for a Founder – S/he just might not be willing to step aside. They might have created a whole lack of number twos in the organization who can step in, even in an emergency. It just may not be anybody. So that's a different situation where the board needs to probably, in addition to working on trust, which can be very difficult with the founder. You might be off the board if you start having those kind of conversations. But what you can do as a board is do your research. How would you do a search? You can get your research done on executive search firms who could step in and help you. You can just keep in mind, and Tommy, you're the one who should be telling your podcast listeners this, but it's a long process to do a search. You've got to set up a search committee. You got to figure out how you're going to recruit the person. You've got to have an approach. You have to execute it, you have to review the candidates. It's just really time consuming. You at least have to think through all of these, how that's a minimum thing, even if it's a founder situation. I'd say two things. Number one, for sure, have an interim emergency succession plan, no questions asked. That's an absolute minimum mandate for every board. And number two, if you're on a founder board, you have to do some special extra work along the side with networking, quiet networking, just to figure out the process and figure out how you would do, how would you do that if something did happen to your founder, if your founder's not willing to participate or help with that.  Does that make sense?  ++++++++++++++ [00:11:33] Tommy Thomas: Rich Stearns, President Emeritus at World Vision US.  Prior to joining World Vision, Rich was CEO for multiple organizations in the private sector, thus reporting to their Boards.  He cut his teeth on nonprofit Board Governance as President of World Vision US.   When I interviewed you back in 2017 you mentioned that from your perspective, the best thing that the World Vision Board did for you when you came on was you recalled an offsite retreat where y'all got introduced to each other. Could you share a little bit about that with us? I think we probably have a lot of up and coming CEOs listening and that might be an interesting discussion. [00:12:14] Rich Stearns: Yeah, I don't know how much that costs. Probably not much, but it was the best money World Vision ever spent. When I came into World Vision the Board and the CEO had what I'd call a turbulent relationship. He wasn't thrilled about his board and the way they behaved, and the Board wasn't thrilled about him in certain ways. And so, I was coming into kind of a troubled marriage, right? You could say there'd been a divorce, and I'm the new husband coming in. And so, the Board had enough wisdom to say, you know what, we should start off on the right foot here. Why don't we hire a board consultant to come in and do a two-day retreat with a new CEO to teach the Board and the new CEO, how best they should interact and communicate with one another. So, a friend of yours and mine named Bob Andringa, he's retired now, but he was in the Board consulting business. He's written at least one book, if not several. He came in and he conducted a Board Governance 101, 102 course for all of us. And gave us tools to use and dealt with different scenarios of here are the dos and don'ts for Board Members. Here are the dos and don'ts for the staff and the CEO. Here is the best way to understand your responsibility as Board Members. This is what your responsibility is, and this is what your responsibility is not. This is the role you play. This is the role you don't play. And same with a CEO, Rich, your role is this the board's role is to establish policy. I guess the best way to say it is it laid down the ground rules for a healthy relationship. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say I had a 20-year honeymoon with my board. Not that there weren't an occasional, marital argument over the years. But it was like a 20-year honeymoon with the board. And I respected them, they respected me. My staff, when I first started, after a year, they said, boy, you've had a one-year honeymoon with this board. It's amazing. Because they'd seen some of the dysfunction in the prior years. And 20 years later, they were still saying you're still on your honeymoon. And I in terms of my response, what I attribute it to, is what I talked about earlier, Tommy, that the board knew they could trust me. I would never tell them a lie. I would never hide anything. I was completely transparent. Anything they wanted to talk about at a board meeting, we could talk about. Any numbers they wanted to see, we'd show them. If I had some bad numbers, I'd bring them to the board and say, look, this is not good, and here's what we're going to do.  They never felt I was hiding anything. And so that created trust as well. [00:15:03] Tommy Thomas: One of the guys that you've influenced over the years is Joe Mettimano at Central Union Mission. And when I interviewed Joe there, he talked about a lesson he learned from you about the president's report to the board. He would attribute part of his success to what he learned from you there. Tell us about that. [00:15:22] Rich Stearns: I started every board meeting with a president's report. So, the Board is gathered, in the case of World Vision they've flown in from all over the country, and here they are at the World Vision board meeting and remember, they're all volunteers, some are pastors, some are business people.  They're from all walks of life and so I tried to use the President's Report to basically bring them up to speed on what was going on at World Vision. What were the important issues? What were we doing about the important issues? How are the finances doing? I tried to answer as many questions as they might have in advance. Because the rest of the board meeting, the finance committee was going to meet and other committees were going to meet. And I tried to use the President's Report to cast a bit of a vision for where we were as an organization, where we're headed, what my outlook was for the coming year or the coming quarter. And I try to use the Board Meeting to really cast a vision to remind them of the mission of World Vision. Often, I would start with a trip report. I've just gotten back from the Syrian refugee crisis, and I want to tell you what I saw. I would remind them, we're sitting here in a nice boardroom, but people are dying all over the world. And our job is to intercede for them to help them to rescue those who are perishing as the book of Proverbs says. And so, trying to remind them why they were here, why World Vision was here and then look under the hood at, the financials, the numbers, the revenues, the overhead, and you had to deal with issues like real estate transactions and mundane stuff like that. I wanted to always to put it in the context of the bigger mission, vision and values of the organization. My President's Report would sometimes go 90 minutes to two hours which is a lot. But usually, the board would say that was the highlight of the meeting because that really brought them up to date on everything. +++++++++++++++= [00:17:16] Tommy Thomas: Paul Maurer, President at Montreat College.  Paul is a student of Board Governance and identifies as a “governance nerd”.  Paul is on his second college presidency and has learned a lot – some through the school of hard knocks about effective Board Governance.   And a lot of people that I talk with, there's a move toward lowering the mean age of the board and increasing diversity. What kind of experience have y'all had at Montreat around those issues? [00:17:45] Paul Maurer: We're intentionally trying to increase diversity. We've not found that to be an easy pathway, but we are we are committed to it. And on age I would just gently push back on the median age lowering. I'm very much of the Aristotelian camp that young people have less wisdom. And part of what you want for board members is wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes with age and the hard knocks of life and just the journey of life with gray hair and getting beat up occasionally. And I want younger people on the board, but that's less common. They're actually very hard to get on the board because they're less qualified candidates in my view, and they're uber busy with career and family. So, the young members, the 30 somethings, I have on my board, I have two of them. They're like up to their eyeballs, four or five kids each, they're CEOs or leaders in their own rights and rising in the ranks. And these people have large portfolios and enormous demands on their time. Then my 70- and 80-year-olds, and I even have a 91-year-old board member who I recruited at the age of 87. And he said to me, he said, Paul, what if I die? And I said, Bill what if I die? We're all going to die. You've got a lot of gas left in your tank. You've got enormous amount of wisdom. And you may have others who think that you're too old to be a board member. I don't think that at all. And if a day should come when your health has slipped, your metro capacities have slipped, we'll have that conversation and we'll have it openly and honestly. Honestly the seventies, eighties, and 90-year-old trustees I have are easily among my best trustees. They're phenomenal. [00:20:04] Tommy Thomas: Let's change over a little bit to the board aspect of being a president. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make between, say, reporting to the CEO as a cabinet member and then as the President reporting to the Board? [00:20:20] Paul Maurer: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm a bit of a governance nerd. I really think about and study governance. I did that in my doctoral work. I do it as a college president in nonprofit governance. And so, the president needs clarity. What is the role of the board? What is the role of the president? What's the role of the relationship and what's the role of everyone else on campus in relationship to the board? And so, in the world of board governance, there are working boards and there are policy boards. Startups tend to have working boards, like true startups, like really small organizations. More established organizations. If they haven't transitioned to a policy board, they probably ought to consider doing so. Because you don't really want a board involved in the operations of an organization. And so, I'm deeply grateful that my board gave me the lead role in board development, meaning recruitment of new board members, training of board, the board policy manual. And we have a great board today, and they really understand that the board should not be involved in operations. That's the CEO's job but should be sure that they're being fiduciaries, that they're making sure there's a strategic plan that's being carried out their success along the way and that they manage or evaluate. They don't manage, they evaluate the presidents. They hire and fire the president, the CEO. I do think that my argument would be that it's more important for a President to be a CEO than a President. The President is, as I think of a bit of an old model for college leadership, it's rooted in what I think is not a very useful model of shared governance. I think the CEO is a better model, but you also need a CEO who's sensitive to campus dynamics and the idea that consensus really matters. And a consensus building CEO I think is the best model, but I think that the CEO also needs to be the CUO - the Chief Urgency Officer. Because things are changing so fast.    Links & Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Two Previous Best of Board Governance Episodes:  2023 – Best of Board Service Part 1 2023 – Best of Board Service Part 2 Episodes Featuring These Excerpts Christin McClave – Insights into Board Governance Rich Stearns – President Emeritus World Vision US – An Inauspicious Leadership Journey – Part 2 Alvin Sanders – Board Governance Caryn Ryan – Board Governance Paul Maurer – Board Governance   Connect tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Follow Tommy on LinkedIn

Martin Luther King Speech Montreat pt2of4 Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast - Black Lives Content Black History | Black Ethics | Black Power Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast Uploads Audiobooks and Lectures By The Best Black Authors In Audio Format To Download. All Authors Wrote Stories From Their REAL Life, Not Fiction. We also added Martin Luther King Speeches, Insights and Historical Background to the Podcast. Please Download and Share the Martin Luther King Speeches. X X X X please support with 2$ or 8$ per month we try to stay alive and pay for the content to remain online

Rev Martin Luther King Speech Montreat pt1of4 Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast - Black Lives Content Black History | Black Ethics | Black Power Black Authors Audiobooks Podcast Uploads Audiobooks and Lectures By The Best Black Authors In Audio Format To Download. All Authors Wrote Stories From Their REAL Life, Not Fiction. We also added Martin Luther King Speeches, Insights and Historical Background to the Podcast. Please Download and Share the Martin Luther King Speeches. X X X X please support with 2$ or 8$ per month we try to stay alive and pay for the content to remain online

Our youth who attended Dogwood Acres and Montreat conferences this summer share their experiences.

Disney, Montreat and Jason Aldean "Try That In A Small Town" by 2Pastors - Kate and Eulando

Today I sit down  with PSA Hall of Famer, and dog trainer extraordinaire Janet Edwards!! She is Shawn Edwards wife and Co-Owner of Stateline K9 and Deadpool Decoy School! Her resume and achievements are immense and will post below!• Certified Master Trainer, Professional Obedience, Behavior Modification, & Search & Rescue, North State K9 Academy, 2001.• Owner & Head Trainer, Basic Training & Beyond, Winston-Salem, NC 2001-2003.• Assistant Trainer, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. 2003.• Head Instructor, North State K9 Academy, Pet Obedience Program, 2004.• Member, Tarheel Canine PSA & Police Dog Association December 2003 - current.• Assistant Instructor, Police K9 E-Collar Applications, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. Sanford, NC, April 17 & 18, 2004.• Assistant Instructor, 16 Hour Police K9 Decoy School, Tarheel Canine Training Inc. February 4-5, 2005.• Assistant Instructor, Advanced Detection, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD June 2005• Assistant Instructor High Risk Deployment Seminar, Asheboro, NC May 2005• Certificate SARTECH 3, NASAR April 2005.• Head Trainer/Instructor, Tarheel Canine Training, Inc. 2005.• Member & K9 Handler, FAS-Trax, SAR Team 2004 - 2005.• Certified Police Dog Instructor, NSK9, September 2005.• AKC Canine Good Citizen Evaluator 2003-2006.• Professional Member, IACP.• Professional Member NTPDA• Evaluator NTPDA  (National Tactical Police Dog Association) 2006-present •Instructor, Water Cadaver Recovery, National CSAR Seminar, Montreat, NC September 2007• Trainer, Senior Handler Dogs Finding Drugs 2010• Head Instructor Decoy Seminar, Military Working Dog Program, Ft. Hood TX December 2010• Featured on Baltimore's ABC, CBS and FOX news with K9 Zuko• Featured on Washington DC's ABC and FOX news with K9 Zuko• Featured on Good Morning America with K9 Zuko• Featured on Fox News Channel's Justice with Judge Jeanine with K9 Zuko•Featured on Anderson Cooper Live with K9 Zuko February 2013•Judge PSA Nationals 2013, Franklin, NJ•2013 PSA Nationals Level 1 Runner Up and High Protection with K9 “Danny"•2013 PSA Nationals "Top Dog Award" with K9 “Danny”•2013-current East Coast Director PSA, November•2015 East Coast Regional Level 2 Champion with K9 Danny•2006-2010 Assisted Lee County Schools (NC) in several narcotics sniffs•2017 Instructor “Intro to PSA” seminar Dural, NSW, Australia•2018 Instructor “Handling in PSA” seminar Calgary, Canada•2019 Instructor “Protection Dog” seminar Dural, NSW, Australia•2019 Assistant Instructor “High Risk Deployments” Australia Special Forces•2017 Recipient of the PSA Mount Everest Award and the only person to receive this award•2019 PSA Hall of Fame inductee as a handler•4X PSA National Champion•4x PSA Regional Champion•2X National Vice-Champion•Only 1 of 3 people to title multiple dogs to a PSA 3

Most people have lived through minor power outages lasting anywhere from a few hours to a few days. But what would happen if the power went out and didn't come back on? Historian William R. Forstchen, Ph.D., warns that if something were to cripple the U.S. power grid — an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) for instance — it would trigger a cascade of deadly events, and long-term survival would depend on being in the right place at the right time with the right food supply. William R. Forstchen is a New York Times bestselling author and a Professor of History at Montreat College, in Montreat, North Carolina. He holds a doctoral degree from Purdue University with a specialization in military history and technology. He is the author of more than 50 books, including the One Second After series that details the realistic effects of an EMP strike. He is a noted expert historian and public speaker and has been interviewed on FOX News, C-SPAN and many others on topics ranging from history to technology and cultural issues, to space technology development, to security threats. Widely considered one of the foremost experts on EMP attacks, Forstchen is also the New York Times bestselling author of the One Second After series, a fictional exploration rooted in the cold, solid facts of how an EMP strike above U.S. soil would impact society. The latest book in the series, Five Years After, follows protagonist John Matherson as he contends with new threats to the fragile civilization that he helped rebuild.  

[00:00:00] Tommy Thomas: This week, we're continuing the conversation that we began last week with Paul Mauer, the president of Montreat College. If you missed that episode, we've talked about what one writer has referred to as the “Miracle at Montreat”. Today Paul is sharing lessons that he's learned about nonprofit board governance over the years.  Let's change over a little bit to the board aspect of being a president. What was the biggest adjustment that you had to make between, say, reporting to the CEO as a cabinet member and then as the President reporting to the board? [00:00:40] Paul Maurer: Yeah, it's a great question. I'm a bit of a governance nerd. I really think about and study governance. I did that in my doctoral work. I do it as a college president in nonprofit governance.  Your board policy manual really matters. It matters because your board needs clarity. The president needs clarity. What is the role of the board? What is the role of the president? What's the role of the relationship and what's the role of everyone else on campus in relationship to the board? And so, in the world of board governance, there are working boards and there are policy boards. Startups tend to have working boards, like true startups, like really small organizations, more established organizations. If they haven't transitioned to a policy board, they probably ought to consider doing so. Because you don't really want a board involved in the operations of an organization. I'm deeply grateful that my board gave me the lead role in board development, meaning recruitment of new board members, training of board members, and the board policy manual. And we have a great board today, and they really understand that the board should not be involved in operations. That's the CEO's job but one should be sure that they're being fiduciaries, that they're making sure there's a strategic plan that's being carried out, their success along the way, and that they manage or evaluate. They don't manage, they evaluate the presidents. They hire and fire the president, the CEO. I do think that my argument would be that it's more important for a President to be a CEO than a President. The President is, as I think of a bit of an old model for college leadership, it's rooted in what I think is not a very useful model of shared governance. I think the CEO is a better model, but you also need a CEO who's sensitive to campus dynamics and the idea that consensus really matters. And a consensus building CEO I think is the best model, but I think that the CEO also needs to be the CUO - the Chief Urgency Officer, because things are changing so fast.  And if the CEO is not leading change with a great sense of urgency, then I think the institution puts itself at some measure of risk. [00:03:21] Tommy Thomas: You've served on other boards, and you've reported to at least two, give me some attributes of a great Board Chair.  [00:03:29] Paul Maurer: I think the central role of a Board Chair is to manage the board. It's not principally to be a person of wealth or to be connected to persons of wealth. I don't think that's the right model for a Board Chair of a college. I think the right model is someone who understands nonprofit governance and manages the board meeting to meeting because the board ultimately is the boss of the President - CEO, only during those board meetings. So the board chair needs to constantly instill clarity in the board to encourage them and steer them away from being involved in operations from directing the presidents, and to maintaining the role of being an overseer that the CEO reports to three times a year or however many times a year that board meets. The best chairs I've worked with really understand governance and really do well in managing the board's expectations of what that governance entails.  [00:04:41] Tommy Thomas: How does a good Board Chair draw out the silent board member?  [00:04:47] Paul Maurer:  In our board meetings, we have blocks of time for plenary sessions for the big picture items. And there's always time in there for dialogue and for feedback. And there are times when we build into our board meetings. When I give my board report, I give a little bit of a board update, a little bit of a report, and then I just open the floor to questions. And so there's just this open dialogue that I have with my board during the president's report at the beginning of the day and then the middle of the day during plenary sessions. If I'm informing or bringing an action item to the board as a whole, we are sure to build in time for dialogue, deliberation, questions, understanding, and in between board meetings, I'm sending information on kind of the latest update on what's happening in my world. So, they're getting articles on a regular, semi-regular basis that if they're able to take time to read them helps keep them abreast of the most pressing issues that I'm facing on a regular basis.  [00:06:04] Tommy Thomas: So how often do you and your Board Chair, do y'all have regularly scheduled times or is it as needed?  How do y'all relate to each other?  [00:06:12] Paul Maurer: I'm aware that friendship is a tricky element in these things. I happen to have a very deep and strong friendship with my board chair, which preceded him coming on the board and he became a board member. And now as chair and I've changed my mind on this, Tommy, because there was a time earlier on when I thought that those were mutually exclusive and now, I don't think they're mutually exclusive. I think it can work very healthfully. And now I actually try to cultivate friendships with my board members in a way that I didn't early on in my first presidency, certainly not early on at Montreat. And so I think that dynamic when healthy is a really powerful part of making it work well. Any model can be abused. Any model can go awry. And I've seen that and I've heard about it an awful lot. I've experienced it. But I've also experienced the flip side of that, where a really meaningful friendship can also be the basis of a really healthy CEO-Board Chair relationship.  [00:07:34] Tommy Thomas: Can you think back as to, you mentioned early on at Montreat you hadn't gotten there yet.  What changed?  [00:07:43] Paul Maurer: In the relationship with my board chair?  [00:07:46] Tommy Thomas: Yeah, how did you make that transition from thinking it wasn't healthy to realizing that it could be healthy?  [00:07:52] Paul Maurer: I guess experiencing it along the way, initially without intending it to be that, and I went, this actually works. And so, when my current chair, when I began discussions with him about, because he had led a major healthcare nonprofit and grown it from a $25 million budget to $125 million budget. He had led a nonprofit.  He had worked in that sector for all of his career in healthcare, not in education. And so, I knew that I wanted him to be my next board chair when that time came. And so it was really then that I began to think in this kind of new model that maybe there's a way for and as I look back, I've actually had these like really healthy relationships with my past two board chairs here at Montreat. And gosh, what a better way to do it, and it really is possible. It eventually dawned on me that I could intentionally pursue that.  [00:09:01] Tommy Thomas: Do you have a term limit for your board chair?  [00:09:04] Paul Maurer: Five years, but it's year to year, up to five years.  [00:09:09] Tommy Thomas: And what about your board members? [00:09:10] Paul Maurer:  Nine years, the terms are three years renewable, two times for a nine year max with a one year minimum required off before renomination. One of the changes we made here was that every three-year term we do the board does self-evaluations for those that term and peer evaluations for those that come to term. There's an honest, self-reflective, peer reviewed process that goes through a committee on trusteeship every year for those at a term to ask the question, is this going well? Is this a time to continue on or a time to step off? And so it's not a nine, it's not a nine year. Every three years we talk about it. [00:10:08] Tommy Thomas:  Is that fairly common in the nonprofit sector from your experience?  [00:10:12] Paul Maurer: The board policy manual that we use was the work of Bob Andringa who was the CEO of the Council for Christian Colleges Universities some years ago. And Bob developed the BPM (Board Policy Manual) that we use. And as I understand it, there are 60 or 70 or 80, I think mostly CCCU schools that have adopted some version of Bob's work. And I just think it's so well-crafted and we of course made it ours with Bob's permission. And it's just a really, it's a really well done, thoughtful way to do governance. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:10:53] Tommy Thomas: A lot of people that I talk with, there's a move toward lowering the mean age of the board and also increasing diversity. What kind of experience have y'all had at Montreat on those issues? [00:11:03] Paul Maurer:  We're intentionally trying to increase diversity. We've not found that to be an easy pathway, but we are committed to it. And on age I would just gently push back on the median age lowering. I'm very much of the Aristotelian camp that young people have less wisdom. And part of what you want for board members is wisdom. Wisdom comes with experience, and experience comes with age and the hard knocks of life. And just the journey of life with gray hair and getting beat up occasionally. And I want younger people on the board, but that's more, that's less common. They're actually very hard to get on the board because they're less really qualified candidates in my view, and they're uber busy with career and family. So the young members I have, the 30 somethings I have on my board, I have two of them. They're like up to their eyeballs, four or five kids each, they're CEOs or leaders in their own rights and rising in the ranks. And these people have large portfolios and enormous demands on their time. Then my 70- and 80-year-olds, and even I have a 91-year-old board member who I recruited at the age of 87. And he said to me, he said, Paul, what if I die? And I said, Bill what if I die? We're all going to die. You've got a lot of gas left in your tank. You've got an enormous amount of wisdom. And you may have others who think that you're too old to be a board member. I don't think that at all. And if there comes a day when your health has slipped, your metro capacities have slipped, we'll have that conversation and we'll have it openly and honestly. Honestly, the seventies, eighties, and 90-year-old trustees I have are really easily among my best trustees.  They're phenomenal. [00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to this quote. You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant, someone who will force people to think a little differently. That's what a good board does. [00:13:39] Paul Maurer: I think I would probably not gravitate toward the word irritant, and I would say I, I'd probably substitute something a little softer than that, that you want to be objective and you want to be able to deal with the hard issues. And frankly, the CEO ought to be leading the way on that, not a board member. I think it's fine for a board member to raise difficult or uncomfortable matters, and I certainly have board members who do that, and I think that's fine and it's healthy, but I think that can come by from different means, and it can come without it being quote unquote, maybe I'm just hung up on the word irritant. I think you can have really robust, difficult, honest, truthful conversations without it being irritating.  [00:14:40] Tommy Thomas: Okay. Talk about your philosophy or your use of the executive committee?  [00:14:48] Paul Maurer: I think it's vital and extremely valuable in a healthy board situation, and I'm qualifying a lot of my comments with a healthy board because I've worked for both healthy and unhealthy boards. I happen to be working for a very healthy board in my time here at Montreat. And so the executive committee functionally is a decision that needs to be made quickly between board meetings and the CEO either doesn't have the authority or just wisely wants the board to help own that decision and goes to the executive committee in between board meetings for a fast decision. Early in my time here, I used that executive committee with more frequency than I do now. But I don't have the number of fires now that I had back in 14, 15, 16, 17. And so I still use the executive committee, but it's less frequent and the larger board has fully embraced the executive committee in that way. [00:16:01] Tommy Thomas: How often do you use the executive session?  [00:16:04] Paul Maurer: Every board meeting, we have two executive sessions, one with the president and one without the president. Actually in inverse order - the first without the president. And then I'm brought back in for executive session with the president and where I'm told what was discussed in session without the president fully briefed and then engaging in a conversation where it's just me and the board in whatever they want to talk about freely, they don't feel free to talk about necessarily with a cabinet in the room. +++++++++++++++++++++   [00:16:37] Tommy Thomas: We mentioned strategic planning a few minutes ago. Does your board, are they involved in that, or do you and your staff bring that to the board?  [00:16:44] Paul Maurer: The latter in our board policy manual, the board's role is to approve a strategic plan recommended by the president and to receive updates and make sure that the CEO is making progress on the strategic plan. And so I give reports on the strategic plan, but the board is not involved in the creation of the strategic plan.  [00:17:07] Tommy Thomas: How does the CEO evaluation take place at Montreat? [00:17:11] Paul Maurer: So I submit a set of goals to the board on an annual basis that are metrics tied to the strategic plan, and they're evaluated at the end of the year.  And we, in our executive session, have a conversation about my delivery toward those goals.  [00:17:32] Tommy Thomas: Is that on an annual basis?  [00:17:35] Paul Maurer: It is in our policy manual. It is an annual activity.  [00:17:39] Tommy Thomas: How have you and your board addressed board turnover? In terms of maybe involuntary or voluntary?  I guess people decide they don't have time. They don't enjoy it. How are y'all doing with that?  [00:17:53] Paul Maurer: We've grown our board over the years, but we've certainly had people who, I had two resignations in this last run up to my board meeting last week. And they were just personal situations that they felt like they just needed to focus on some personal matters that they didn't feel like they could do justice to their service on the board. And we regretfully accepted their resignations. But in those cases, it had nothing to do with the college or the board or it was purely personal. That's mostly what we've experienced over these years. Most of our trustees go to term and we have them term out after nine years. We celebrate them and thank them. We've grown our board from our bylaws. Say that we can have between 12 and 36. It's a very wide range. When I first got here, we were in that 12 to 15 range for a number of years. Maybe ironically, maybe not. Ironically, during covid we had just a tremendous breakthrough in people saying yes to joining the board. I do a lot of board cultivation with board members who are bringing prospective trustee names to the table. We have a very robust list of prospective trustees at all times. Somewhere between 10 and 15 on our prospect list. And some go fast, some go slow, some never materialize. We're about 20 board members today.  Our target is to get in somewhere between 25 and 28. [00:19:31] Tommy Thomas: What kind of strategy do you use to keep that list at 15 to 20?  [00:19:36] Paul Maurer: Probably closer to 10 to 15. Yeah. And that's really the work of the committee on trusteeship to surface names. We also have, as we recruit new board members in, they bring fresh names to that list. So we're constantly messaging like that. That's a document. That's a living, breathing document. And some people stay on the A-list, some move to the B, some move to, we ask and they said no. We've got six or eight tabs on that spreadsheet, and it's constantly a living, breathing kind of document. [00:20:15] Tommy Thomas: This might be a mundane question, but I hear it asked a lot. Do you have a board meeting evaluation fairly regularly, or how do y'all approach that? [00:20:25] Paul Maurer:   Every board meeting, as soon as the board meeting is over, they get a email in their inbox asking them to fill out an evaluation of the board meeting. They've just finished. We give just a small number of days to do that so it's fresh in their minds. And then the Committee on Trusteeship takes that feedback which is both on a Likert scale as well as open comments available to, for them to make. And then that is discussed at the next committee on trusteeship meeting. And we're always trying to get better and refine and bring some changes to how the board meetings are conducted. And those surveys have served a very valuable role in that way.  [00:21:09] Tommy Thomas: What did you learn through Covid that you'll take forward? That maybe you didn't do before Covid in terms of board relationships and board governance? [00:21:19] Paul Maurer:   One of the observations I made during Covid was man, we're in this together. And my board chair is a public health expert, as I mentioned before and when Covid hit I remember calling him in early April and I said I don't have a clue how we're going to reopen. Can you help us? And he said I'd love to help you. And I said I've developed a friendship with the other four-year residential college presidents here in Western North Carolina. There are four privates and then a couple of major publics. Would you be willing to help them too? And he said, absolutely I would. That group of six presidents plus my board chair met on a zoom call at noon every Wednesday for a year and a half to figure out how to open residential both years of covid. And that was a powerful experience of teamwork and collaboration and friendship and setting aside the inevitable competition that exists between these institutions and saying, there's a bigger picture here, and I think the benefit of that was very great for all of us. The second thing I'd point to is that the level of fear that I observed during covid was something I'd never seen before, how widespread, how deep it was. And so the word courage became a central concept that whatever we did, we needed to really lean into the courage of critical thinking and what's best for the institution, what's best for the students and the staff here. And there was no one size fits all in Covid in vastly different circumstances in different parts of the country. Vastly different realities of the impact of covid with different age groups and so we had to make decisions for 18- to 22-year-olds in our campus and our employees. That's how we had to make decisions. And you can't possibly have state mandates or county mandates or federal recommendations fit every circumstance. And we made decisions that we believed to be in the best interest of our community. And we took some criticism for that. But overall, I would say that those who chose that kind of a pathway were probably more rewarded than not. +++++++++++++++++++= [00:24:20] Tommy Thomas: I'll ask you two final questions and we'll try to land this thing. Go to the board and the CEO's succession plan. What have y'all done there to ensure some sort of untimely succession?  [00:24:35] Paul Maurer: So we're actually just starting that conversation like literally last Friday at the board meeting with kind of keyman questions. And we haven't done a lot there on the longer question of succession. I've started thinking about that. I'd like to stay longer. I don't really have an interest in retirement. Not at this point anyway. And today I'd love to go another decade or so. We'll see what happens. But I'm increasingly of the mind that the best succession plan is to bring one or more people onto your team who may have the potential and groom them.  Talk openly about succession and see what happens with the possibility that the CEO can actually play a central role in the recommendation of his or her successor. The way the church does this, and the way colleges and universities do this, in my experience the pastor and the president really play very little role at all. Either limited or none. And the more I've been thinking about this and talking to peers about this, the less that makes sense to me. And again, in a healthy situation, the board I think could and should rightly lean on and engage at a very deep level, the CEO of the college to say, what do you think? Who do you think we should hire? What are the core competencies? Can we get that person on board? And so, what I'd like to do in the years ahead is get two or three, maybe even four people on my cabinet who have the potential capacity for becoming a college president and see if we can't raise one of them up into the role as my successor. Whether that works or not, I can't predict that, but that to me seems like a wise model if you can do it healthfully.  [00:26:43] Tommy Thomas: What are you going to say if you get a call next week from either a friend or maybe someone you don't know that says Paul, I've been asked to serve on a nonprofit board. What kind of council are you giving somebody who's considering a nonprofit board service?  [00:27:00] Paul Maurer: It ought to be done with a significant measure of time, talent, and treasure. It ought to be a major commitment of yours if you're serving on lots of nonprofit boards. Unless you're willing to put this new one at a higher level of commitment than the others, maybe you shouldn't do it. I think that the best board members of nonprofits are vested. They've got skin in the game. They're giving of their time, their talent, and significantly of their treasure. The treasure's the hardest one, I think. We ask all of our trustees to commit to Montreat being a top three philanthropic priority prior to trusteeship. And that's a stumbling block for some people. But I think in the end, it also fosters the creation of a board that has skin in the game and that really is serious about the future of the institution. It's not a casual kind of volunteering. It's a serious kind of volunteering.  [00:28:13] Tommy Thomas: It has been great. Paul, this has been so much fun. Thank you for carving out an hour and a half of your time for me. I appreciate it. [00:28:20] Paul Maurer: Tommy, I've enjoyed it very much. You ask a lot of very good questions and I'm certain that your podcasts are of great value to those in leadership and those thinking about leadership. So, thank you. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:28:32] Tommy Thomas (2): Next week, we're going to conclude the conversation that we started with Caryn Ryan and Episode 84. In that conversation, Caryn shared her leadership journey from BP/AMOCO to CFO for World Vision International to her current role as Founder and Managing Member of Missionwell.   In next week's episode, Caryn will be sharing lessons on nonprofit board governance that she's learned over the years.  [00:29:04] Caryn Ryan: There's a lot of financial literacy questions there. So how can you ask tough questions if you can't read the financial statements or financial reports and understand them? And sometimes there's issues with what's delivered to boards too, in terms of information, but sometimes it's just a basic lack of understanding. I think too, there's also a fundamental issue that sometimes with boards, they don't get enough board development or board training and they really just don't understand their key role when it comes to accountability. And so, they don't understand that it's their job to ask the tough questions. ++++++++++++++++   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Montreat College Website The Miracle at Montreat Montreat College Facebook Montreat College Instagram   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Paul Maurer's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Paul Maurer: I've had mentors for probably close to 45 years now, and early on it was people who reached out to me. And then as I got older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I began to reach out to others to ask them to mentor me. People who I thought were wiser, more experienced, had something to contribute, could sharpen an area where I wasn't particularly sharp. And so the collection of mentors over the course of my lifetime is not small and in the aggregate has played a very powerful role in my life. +++++++++++++++++++++++ [00:00:37] Tommy Thomas: Today, we'll begin a two-part series with Paul Mauer, the president of Montreat College. When Paul was selected to be the president of Montreat, the college wasn't very far from closing its doors. What's happened at Montreat over the past nine years is nothing short of miraculous. Today Paul will share a bit of his leadership journey and the early days of his presidency at Montreat.  Before we dive too deep into your professional career, let's go back to your childhood a little bit. What two or three experiences do you think happened back then that shaped you into the man you are today?  [00:01:16] Paul Maurer: I think being raised in a stable home with a mother and father who stayed together and taught me the value of work and they modeled consistency. They modeled resiliency, they modeled work ethic. In addition to the DNA that I got from my parents, I was deeply shaped by watching a low drama, stable home environment.  [00:01:45] Tommy Thomas: So, what was high school like?  [00:01:48] Paul Maurer: Honestly, pretty unremarkable except for the fact that I came to faith during high school as a sophomore through the Ministry of Young Life, and that changed everything. I began to understand friendship. I began to understand love. I began to understand family in a whole new way. I began to understand the power, the body of Christ. I began to understand fellowship. I began to understand purpose and meaning in life. I'd grown up in a stable moral home, but not a home of faith. And so as I got plugged into the church and youth group as a 15 year old sophomore in high school, I felt like I began to see things that I simply could not see before that.  [00:02:38] Tommy Thomas:   When you got to college how did you decide on your major? [00:02:42] Paul Maurer: Anything without math.  So, I chose psychology and communications as my two majors, and early in college, I began to sense a call to ministry and I was at the University of Cincinnati, so I wasn't at a faith-based college. I chose majors that would help me understand people better and to communicate better. And those were things that were interesting to me.  [00:03:13] Tommy Thomas: What's something that most people are always surprised to learn about you?  [00:03:19] Paul Maurer: I am a first gen. My parents were immigrants. I don't know whether they're surprised by that, but it's an important part of my past and informs a lot of how I think about the college presidency today and how I think about our students. I had the benefit of immigrant parents and the challenge of immigrant parents, and both were real, and both were formative and powerful in my life.  [00:03:45] Tommy Thomas: So go back to maybe to your first management job when you actually had some people reporting to you. What do you remember? [00:03:53] Paul Maurer: I don't know if it was my first management job, but I learned early in management that there's a reason people don't want to manage people. It takes a lot of time. It's hard to build culture. There's a lot of self-interest. There's a natural silo mentality to individuals who work for you, and in the worst-case scenario, there are lawsuits to deal with. And so as I've observed human behavior and leadership I've observed a lot of people who simply don't want to manage people. And so I think if you're in a role of leadership, you've got to decide pretty early on or certainly somewhere early along the way, whether or not you're willing to manage people and take the challenges that come with the benefits of management and leadership. [00:04:47] Tommy Thomas: It seems like in our culture that that's a natural career track that maybe people expect you to go to work and become a manager. And there doesn't seem to be a key contributor role necessarily at the forefront. Do you have any observations on that? [00:05:03] Paul Maurer: I think as a young person the expectations I think ought to be toward how do I contribute, how do I learn, how do I get mentored? How do I show that I'm worthy of more responsibility? And, as a young person, I demonstrated trust in those areas. They may be given leadership but not everyone, of course, is a natural leader and some people don't want to lead, and others learn the leadership skills along the way.  And so I think it's a very organic process, particularly for someone in their twenties and thirties.  [00:05:50] Tommy Thomas: Successful people are asked all the time, what makes you successful? And I'm sure you've been asked that question. I'd like to frame it a little bit differently. What's a factor that's helped you succeed that most people on the outside probably wouldn't realize or recognize? [00:06:06] Paul Maurer: For me I think the most important part of that was mentors who believed in me. Again, I was a first gen. I didn't have a lot of confidence in my academic ability. I didn't have a lot of confidence in who I am. And I was a young Christian by the time I'd gotten to college. The power of affirmation was very great in my life. A couple of mentors who said who I regarded and respected, people who spoke into my life, and then they spoke affirmation into my life. And I'll never forget how incredibly powerful that was in helping me gain confidence in who God might be making me into, and the roles that God might be leading me into. And I'm mindful of that in my role in leadership, that the power of affirmation spoken in the right context, in the right hearing can be extraordinarily powerful, disproportionately powerful, to how a young person develops and believes in themself and believes what God has in store for them. [00:07:19] Tommy Thomas: Did these mentors just show up or do you think they were intentional in terms of seeing you and taking you on as a mentee?  [00:07:29] Paul Maurer: It was a combination. I've had mentors all my life, so I've had mentors for probably close to 45 years now, and early on it was people who reached out to me. And then as I got older and hopefully a little bit wiser, I began to reach out to others to ask them to mentor me. People who I thought were wiser, more experienced, had something to contribute, could sharpen an area where I wasn't particularly sharp. And so the collection of mentors over the course of my lifetime is not small and in the aggregate has played a very powerful role in my life. [00:08:11] Tommy Thomas: Do you think college students today are open to mentors? Do they seek that out or are they on a different wavelength?  [00:08:18] Paul Maurer: I wouldn't generalize that. I think some are and some aren't, and I think that was probably the way it was when I was a college student. Some aren't. If you're hungry, if you want to grow, if you want to learn, if you have a vision for the future, if you have some requisite version of humility that you don't have all the answers, don't know everything, then I think people are very open to mentoring. I've got a student who works in my office 10 hours per week every semester here, so-called the Wilson Scholars Program here at the college. And my Wilson Scholar this year was a sophomore student from Ukraine. And she was hungry. She's really eager to learn and she has tremendous promise. But not everyone is like that, not everyone has those qualities. So I would be very hesitant to generalize about a generation and say it just depends. +++++++++++++++++++++   [00:09:12] Tommy Thomas: Okay. I've never asked this next question to anybody because I don't think I've interviewed anybody that studied the American presidency in graduate school and I just think that's fascinating. And I'm just wondering if you might just reflect back on that for a few minutes and talk about are there any generalizations you learned about the American presidency and leadership and influence? [00:09:35] Paul Maurer: Yeah, I love talking about that topic and I was drawn to the American presidency because I'm very interested in leadership and I'm very interested in faith and scripture, and I'm very interested in American politics, and the intersection of all those things led me to the American presidency and to do research on the role of moral and religious rhetoric during the course of the American presidency. And so I created a lexicon of distinctly religious rhetoric for the American presidency that stretched from Washington through Clinton. I was in grad school at the time, shortly after Clinton, so that's where the research took me. And I discovered that there was a tremendous amount of increased use of distinctly religious rhetoric, beginning with Jimmy Carter in the White House and the modern era, starting with Carter and extending to Reagan. And then Clinton as well, had very high levels of religious and moral rhetoric as part of how these presidents spoke. And that before that they weren't exceptionally low in particular, but they spiked during the, particularly the Carter and Reagan years. And so the focus of my research was a comparative analysis between Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, a Democrat or Republican back-to-back presidents and how they used religious and moral rhetoric in their presidency in particular, did they tie it to any public policy initiatives that were important to them as US President? [00:11:14] Tommy Thomas:  Was it Reagan? No, I guess it was the Bush White House that did the faith-based initiative. Did any of your research have a tie to that initiative? [00:11:25] Paul Maurer: So for Jimmy Carter, he tied his faith rootedness, his understanding of scripture - his belief in a transcendent God. He tied that to human rights. What was interesting to me as I studied his rhetoric and record and policy on human rights is that the definition of human rights really expanded pretty dramatically in Carter's thinking and rhetoric. And I think it extended beyond his biblical understanding of faith. He might argue differently. But I thought it went beyond that. And for Reagan this question of liberty was directly tied to his belief in God and the Bible, and tied directly to his disdain, even hatred of communism. He thought that communism was a suppression of God-given liberty, and we needed to exercise our right to that God-given liberty and anyone who sought to oppress it he had very low esteem for, and of course, before he became a politician, he was an actor in Hollywood.  It was a time in Hollywood where there was infiltration in Hollywood of certain communist elements. Tax rates were for him as an actor and the 90% range. And so there was a disincentive for him to work beyond a certain level of income. And so he grew both personally, professionally, but also politically to a point where he really sought to unhinge communism if he could possibly do and of course, as the forces of history were what they were, we saw the Berlin Wall come down. It wasn't simply Ronald Reagan. There were obviously economic factors in the Soviet Union. It was the economic pressures at the time. There were things being done behind the scenes from the papacy in Rome, but ultimately his focus on liberty resulted in part in the Berlin Wall coming down. So that was Reagan's primary connection to his faith as a public policy endeavor.  [00:13:50] Tommy Thomas: Man, I bet that was some fascinating research in writing.  [00:13:53] Paul Maurer: It kept me interested, which is what you want in a dissertation. You don't want to wake up going, gosh, I hate my dissertation today. ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:13:59] Tommy Thomas: Absolutely. Let's go to Montreat for a little bit. Depending on who one talks with, many would say it was nothing short of a miracle - what's happened in Montreat over the past few years. Can you take us into that?  [00:14:13] Paul Maurer:  Montreat today is 107 years old. Our campus is physically a small campus set against a mountain cove in Montreat, North Carolina, just outside of Asheville and the western mountains of the state. The campus was built for 500 students, but economics, the course of higher education in the last 20 or 30 years make that very difficult to survive. And so over many decades, really, as I'm told, Montreat had a number of near-death experiences where, of course, Montreat is where Billy and Ruth Graham lived for most of their lives after they got married.  They actually got married in what today is our college chapel. We have a church that meets there, and they attended there when they were in town. But the college was too small and enrollment had declined. And in 2013, the college went into merger conversations with the school in Georgia. A year later, that merger conversation collapsed, and the college really had two options. As we see it, one is to close and the other is for God to show up in a big way. And there's a longer version of the story. But the quick version is that there was a donor who had visited the area a year and a half earlier and attended the church of one of our adjunct faculty members. And they began, after they went back to their home state after a seven-month sabbatical here, they began sending gifts to the church. The pastor didn't know these people well and wondered what was going on, but they were sending 50 and a hundred thousand dollar checks out of the blue without request. And a year and a half later, that faculty member, Jerry, is his name, reached out to the couple and said, we don't have a lot of needs at the church, but the college is in dire straits. Might you consider something big for the last fully Christ-centered four-year college in the state of North Carolina, in over six weeks of email only. Never a call, never visit. They never talked to a trustee. They made a 6 million pledge to the college. And so the trustees interpreted that as a miracle, I think rightly they started a search and I started a few months later and we got busy fast. There's a Gospel Coalition article that was written in 2019 by Sarah Altra entitled The Montreat Miracle. And if anyone wants to read that, just Google Montreat Miracle Gospel Coalition and the article will pop up. It's a remarkable story and we do think that God has a future and a purpose for this college, and he made it clearer when he prompted that couple to make that 6 million pledge. [00:17:03] Tommy Thomas: So what did your first hundred days look like?  [00:17:07] Paul Maurer: It's all a blur, Tommy. We knew the clock was ticking even with a 6 million pledge, because at $300,000 per month hitting our back account, you're getting to $6 million in about two and a half years. We knew that wasn't enough, but we knew it was something very significant and we considered it what we called gas money. So we're fixing the plane while it's flying. And that was gas money to keep the plane in the air while we fixed it. And when a college has been in merger discussions for a year, there are a lot of things that aren't going well and that get reconfigured, org charts get squirrely, people leave. When I walked in the door in July 2014, I had five open cabinet positions and my VP of student life had started on July 1st. He was a green newbie to the role. And so, I had to find a cabinet. I had some interims in place, but I didn't have permanent people in place. I'd hire a cabinet to a college that had just gone through a near death experience. And we knew we had to grow enrollment. We knew we had to have a stable enrollment in fall of 2014. And by God's grace there were, a hundred fifty, a hundred forty-six new students, which is right at the five year average. But you can tell from 150 new students if you know anything about college enrollment, that is just way too small for sustainability. So we knew that we had to make a promise to the marketplace, but the most important thing that we did was to clarify our Christ-centered identity. We knew that if we were going to be a Christian college, we had to actually make that known and make sure that the core documents of the college, the mission statement, the statement of faith, the vision statement, the community life covenant, reflected a biblical worldview. The board agreed with that, and we got busy with that and we made some adjustments to the statement of faith. We put infallibility back into the statement of faith in a community life covenant that we added. We affirm that marriage is between one man and one woman as a biblical standard society. But God's design for marriage is exclusively one man and one woman. And that life begins at conception. And these are biblical principles that we believe are taught clearly in scripture. And we made those documents a condition of employment for the first time in the college's history and we took a lot of heat for that. It got really hot and we took a lot of criticism, and then 30 days later, the criticism kind of dried up, honestly. And the people who were supporting the fact that we took a courageous stand began to come out of the woodwork. They were there on the first 30 days as well, but they were left alone standing after 30 or 45 days. And so we've hired a mission. We have unity on campus, and the families of our region who care about that kind of education, who care about the moral compass for their sons and daughters, caught their attention. So all that bad publicity was actually great publicity for the college.   [00:20:43] Tommy Thomas: So on your team you mentioned you had one rookie. Did you have a kind of a mixed bag of seasoned veterans and upstarts, or did you have to groom everything from the get-go? [00:20:56] Paul Maurer: It was a bunch of interims and so I had to hire five cabinet members for my first year, and a friend of mine suggested that we were a version of Ernest Shackleton's or Antarctic Exploration. And if you know anything about those years, Shackleton had an ad that he placed in the London Times in 1912 and the ad read as follows, men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return, doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success. And I gulped a few times, and then I went, that's actually who we are. We're the Christian college version of that. And I began to overtly recruit with that ad to the cabinet members who I was interviewing as finalists. And my simple question was, I asked them, I pulled up my phone, read this aloud, and then I would ask the question, does this ad excite you? Hint, hint. The only right answer is something like, oh yes, very much. And that's the team that I hired to come here. In 2014 and 2015 they came from all over the country. My CFO had a Harvard MBA. My Chief Academic Officer had his PhD from Cornell. And these were really high achieving, high academic, highly experienced people. But they came because they believed in this mission. They wanted to give their lives to something bigger. And I think they loved the challenge and to some degree they were willing to take the risk. Becuase I told them the only thing I can guarantee you is that you'll work harder than you've ever worked and you'll work faster than you've ever worked. And beyond that, I don't know if we're going to be open six or 12 months from now. And they came.  [00:22:49] Tommy Thomas: So fast forward we're recording this in May. You've got the fall quarter coming in August. What do things look like for the next term?  [00:22:58] Paul Maurer: So enrollment has grown here by over 70% in the last eight years, our traditional undergrad. And we're anticipating a new record enrollment for the fall of 23. We've added a number of new programs in our hundred percent online division. Most of those are master's programs. We now have 10 master's programs. Seven of them are in the last two years, and our online enrollment is beginning to grow because of those master's programs. And then our signature program has become cybersecurity and we've added a organization underneath Montreat College to help harden the cybersecurity defenses for the state, but also to generate a new revenue stream for the college because in the end, we've got to build a new business model, a new revenue economic model for the college, which is not aimed at survival, but is aimed at thriving. We have no interest in survival. We have interest in leadership and thriving, and so we're trying to build something that's very robust in both educational and economic terms.  ++++++++++++++++++++++= [00:24:10] Tommy Thomas: Let's say that you had another one of these mega donors or foundations that came up to you and said they had a pretty large amount of money that they would give to you for your next big venture. Do you have a guess of what that might be or that might be classified?  [00:24:28] Paul Maurer: I wouldn't say it's classified, I've got two or 300 million worth of those ventures because our vision is to become the school of choice for thoughtful evangelicals for the Southeast United States, the Premier Christ Center University for the Southeast United States. Combining academic rigor with biblical orthodoxy. We have a whole campus to build, to sustain the growth or to accommodate the growth that we envision. We'd like our traditional undergrad to be between 1,200. We're a little under 700 today, and our facilities are maxed out. We've been out of beds for five years. We've been renting beds from camps and conference centers for five years now, six years. We've got residence halls to build. We've got academic buildings to build. We've got athletic facilities to build. We've got the property. We just need the capital to build the campus. I need to build the endowment. We know that. We have to be able to fund scholarships beyond our discount rate, operational scholarships and we want to start things in surrounding cities around us. I'm looking to really become the college to be known and trusted as is the premier Christ Center University. Like in the city of Charlotte, which is two hours from us. It's far enough for the students, not too far for the parents and because we're the last Christ-centered four year college in the state of North Carolina, that's a footprint that we need to grow. So I literally have, Tommy, probably two, three, four hundred million worth of projects and we're ready to go with a good bit of that. We just need the cash to do that. [00:26:24] Tommy Thomas: I want to bring this part to a close before I switch over to board service. What's the main thing you wish somebody had told you earlier in your career?  [00:26:34] Paul Maurer: Not to think more highly of myself than I ought, pride is a way of creeping in with leaders. It certainly did with me and my first presidency. This is my second presidency and my first presidency, honestly there was a part of me that thought they're lucky to have me. And I know that humility was not at the top of my value proposition. I don't think I was overbearing or narcissistic or anything but if you don't have humility as the top of your value proposition as a leader, and you allow yourself to drink some of the Kool-Aid that's going to have a bad effect. And honestly, probably someone probably did tell me that ahead of time, I'm not sure I had the ears to hear it or that I heard it, but I wish I'd have embraced that lesson earlier in my career than I did.  [00:27:39] Tommy Thomas:  If you were speaking next week to a group of incoming presidents from small liberal arts colleges around the United States, what would be the theme of your address? [00:27:51] Paul Maurer: I started my first presidency 13 or 14 years ago, and I remember going to the president's conferences and coming back after two or three of those, and I said to my cabinet, here's my takeaway, change or die. And then I was out of the presidency for a couple years. I began to go back to those meetings again. When I came to Montreat nine years ago, and I came back to my cabinet, I said, they've inserted the words fast change, faster, die. We've taken on the mindset of a startup. So we consider ourselves a 107 year old startup. We're not a turnaround. We're not maintainers, we're not traditionalists. We try to employ the principles of a startup, meaning we're creating something new. And so I think in the next five to 10 years, we're going to see a pretty dramatic change in the number of colleges and universities in the United States. The enrollment cliff is real. The declining birth rates are real. And it's going to have a really major impact on the number of schools that close. The most vulnerable schools are the state universities that are losing enrollment and not filling space. So I think in those cases, the state systems will do mergers. Privates aren't prone to mergers. And so I think we're going to see more closures of small privates unless the presidents of those institutions are creative and agile and willing to take risks and invest heavily in things that work and starve things that aren't, and end tenure and act more like a startup. Fail fast, make decisions with deliberation and speed. And I think to the degree that we're going to see success among the privates in particular, I think the presidents will embody some combination of those qualities.  ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Join us again next week as we continue this conversation with Paul Maurer. That episode will take a deep dive into Paul's experience in board service and governance.    Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas Montreat College Website The Miracle at Montreat Montreat College Facebook Montreat College Instagram   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Paul Maurer's LinkedIn Profile  

[00:00:00] Jerry White: Risk has to be uncertain categories. There's legal risk, there's financial risk, and then there's what I call uncontrolled risk of things you don't expect that the government may impose. What if they decide for our property at Glen Erie that it no longer is going be tax exempt? Or what if the state were to do that sort of thing? Those are risks over which we have no control. The risk on leveraged investments, I think, is quite important. For instance, you may propose to a larger organization a $3 million project, but the money is not in the bank. And you have four donors who said they'll fund it, but will they, and if they do, what voice should they have in it? That's a huge thing.  Money given with strings attached is really quite risky. +++++++++++++++++++++ [00:01:02] Tommy Thomas: In this episode, we will conclude the conversation that we began with Jerry White in Episode 85. If you didn't hear that episode, Jerry White is the President Emeritus of The Navigators International. Prior to that he enjoyed a distinguished career in the United States Air Force, retiring as a two-star general. One of the reasons I wanted Jerry to be a guest is because of the depth of his nonprofit board service.  Among the boards he has served include  World Vision,  The Navigators.  Christian Leadership Alliance.  The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The Lausanne Committee on World Evangelization.  The Air Force Association.  Let's pick up the conversation where we were beginning to discuss board governance.  Let's shift over to board service. How did your first board show up? [00:01:56] Jerry White: My first board that I served on was a small organization and besides a church board, every board is different. When I got into leading boards, like the Christian Leadership Alliance and being on boards like World Vision and leading The Navigator board the biggest thing is who you have on the board.  And that they understand what their role is on the board.  And my view is that they're not operational. They don't make operational decisions, and they give the CEO a clear path to glide on. And hold that person accountable. And on the board service, I found it extremely important to have people of varied backgrounds and competencies so that we weren't all monolithic and the board could not be a rubber stamp board, whatever the leader wants. Yeah, that's fine. Just go ahead and do it. But to take on true, what I call policy governance, and to realize that you aren't running it, but you're holding the CEO accountable for what they say they're going to do. And once in a while you have to intervene.  [00:03:14] Tommy Thomas: You mentioned having the right people on the board.  What is the secret sauce? [00:03:20] Jerry White: One secret sauce is you don't bring them on just because they've got money. That's probably the worst criteria you can have if people do not share the vision of that organization on whose board they serve. You don't want them on there. And if they happen to have wealth and are generous people, that's fine, but we don't own them. They have to be people who give more broadly. And before we bring someone on the board we have to first make sure for me, in the Christian world, to make sure that there are people of spiritual maturity. Not just people with a high reputation or lead a big church or are well known. I would not care if none of the people on my board were well known as long as they were people of high integrity and then have had some experience. We're always pushing for getting a younger generation of board members, but there's a limit to that. You have to be sure that they're really qualified as they come in. And then the next thing that I feel is extremely important is you train. You train them how to be a board member and what's expected of them as a board member. In a few weeks, I'll be going to Kenya with The Navigators and we'll be gathering the board chairman from all over the world for a time of interaction and sharing. That's a trickier one, by the way, when you become a board chair, is how to become a board chair, particularly in our developing world where things aren't quite westernized as much. Yeah. And what should a board really do? Because people have different experiences. It's different from a second board, a secondary board who has financial responsibility and is held accountable for the quantitative results of the organization. That's a whole different picture, a different kind of board. [00:05:40] Tommy Thomas:  Let's go to the board chair. Give me some words and phrases that would describe the best board chair you've ever seen or served under.  [00:05:48] Jerry White: I'll tell you, there are two board chairs that I think of. One was a man by the name of Clay Brown. He wasn't the board chair, because I was chairman at the time. But he was certainly the key senior statesman on our board. He was measured. He was wise. He had a strong business background, and he had a passion for what we did. Our current Board Chair for The Navigators is doing an absolutely remarkable job and he leads several companies but has really given himself to being Chairman of The Navigator US board. The other thing is that the Board Chairman cannot be a jack of all trades. In other words, they can't be chairman of five different boards at once. Because I don't think anybody who has another job has that kind of time. But in knowing that they bear a particular responsibility within that organization to draw together the board, the executive team or the executive committee, and to really help lead them and keep them in their track and their track being on the policy governance side. And so the board chairs, and when I've done a board, I hope I've done this, is to really be prepared. You do not do this on the backhand, walking into a board meeting and 10 minutes ahead of time asking the CEO – what's the agenda? [00:07:25] Tommy Thomas:  Speaking about that working relationship, I know that's critical. Think back on your experience. How often does the Board Chair need to meet with his or her CEO? [00:07:35] Jerry White: First of all, they need to be friends, but I remember as a board member of a particular organization I wanted to be friends with the CEO and very much was. Then I became Board Chair and I said to him, our relationship is going to be a little different. I am your friend, but also, I'm accountable for the direction of the organization. And therefore, I'm going to be asking things of you that maybe I would not do if I was just a good buddy walking alongside and wanting to affirm you. So I think you need to be friends, but you'll also need to know that you have the responsibility for the policy direction of the organization and for the health and wellbeing of the CEO.  [00:08:27] Tommy Thomas: Go to that board meeting for a minute. What's been your best experience and who sets the agenda for the Board Meeting? [00:08:32] Jerry White:  For me, the Executive Committee needs to set the agenda. It needs to be proposed by the CEO because he knows the action items. And you've got certain performer things you've got to do on accountability of finances and income and disbursements and so forth and certain things on personnel. But I would want the CEO to come up with a list of what needs to be addressed, work with that CEO and perhaps the CFO to create an agenda with the Executive Committee that actually says how is this going to serve the work? And what are the decisions?  And I have three ways of assessing an agenda for the Board Meeting. What is information? We don't have to make any decision on it.  What is counsel? The CEO or somebody wants counsel on a particular item.  What decision needs to be made? So, every topic in the board meeting, I like to write along the side, the margin, inform counsel, decide. [00:09:48] Tommy Thomas: From a functional point of view, they wouldn't necessarily be in any order. They just as they come up, they're one of those three.  [00:09:58] Jerry White: No, it'd be one of the three. Your board meeting is usually divided into segments.  The CEO Report The Field Ministry Report The CFO Report Then there's a legal report. There may be certain personnel decisions that need to be affirmed. And by the way, that could be another way you would put it to affirm a decision. That's a little weak. And so you would structure your meeting not according to what you're going to decide, but according to what topics need to be addressed in the 24 hours you have together. And by the way, to really require that homework be done on the part of the staff making the decisions that “read-aheads” are there. And the right people come to make reports inside the meetings.  ++++++++++++++++++++   [00:10:51] Tommy Thomas: When somebody joins your board what does onboarding look like? [00:10:55] Jerry White: The onboarding looks for several organizations I've been working for two to three years with before they come on board, talking with them about it, seeing their interest,  getting a biography, bringing it to what I would call the nomination committee of the board. And the good boards that I work with have a roster of people that they're talking to that's very confidential and some of them never come on the board. And then as they are approaching it, you may even ask someone to actually sit in on a board meeting. And to see whether or not it meets their expectations. That isn't always possible. But in one board that I'm on, we have some junior members on it. This is on a board where we have younger leaders who come and serve for two years, and they don't stay on the board, just to give them experience. But then when you're onboarding, every board annually at least, there needs to be, in my mind, an orientation for the board where you go over the history of the board, you go over things. So they're not just in a befuddled mystery at terminology and history. It's like being in a family joke and nobody knows what the story was behind it. They have things that are ongoing and they have no clue. We need to bring them up to speed, both emotionally, historically, and personally. And it doesn't need to be long. It's for maybe half a day. And I've done this in a secular organization too, insisting that no one come on the board who doesn't have some orientation, both as to what a board does and what a board has done. [00:12:55] Tommy Thomas: Do you do a meeting evaluation or how do you keep your meetings fresh?  [00:13:00] Jerry White: Most boards do have a little evaluation afterward that they fill out. It's often, Tommy, their perfunctory and there of some limited value, the value mainly being that you asked, but I think the Chairman and the CEO, when they see things happening in the board, that afterwards they need to interact with them and saying, what do you think about it? How do you feel that board meeting went? And now that you've been in on X number of board meetings, say to tell me what you think and how can we help you be a better board member? Committee assignments are pretty important. Also, when I went on one board, it took me, Tommy, it took me two years to really figure out what was going on. And I served nine years and it was such a complex organization that it was really hard and took a lot of work to try and understand the dynamics behind this organization  [00:14:08] Tommy Thomas: Let me ask you to respond to this quote. “You need a director on the board who will be a pleasant irritant. Someone who will force people to think a little differently.  That's what a good board does.”  [00:14:21] Jerry White: In one board that I'm on, we appoint someone at every board meeting to be what we call a responsible skeptic. And that person is designated ahead of time. And that person, their job in that board meeting is to be a bit skeptical. Now, I think you have to be a little careful about always having a person who's always skeptical. I don't think I want a board member who every time something comes up, they raise their eyebrow, and you wonder what they're thinking. I think everybody ought to be a little skeptical at some time. And the main thing is if they don't understand something they need to ask. In other words, they need to do it. I was in a board meeting recently where a particular decision was in the process. And two of us on the board, I was an emeritus to the board, and the other was on the board. And I could tell there was a bit of discomfort. And so the chair asked that other person, they hadn't said anything, what do you think? And came up with a pretty good counter. Now I haven't got real good hearing, so I couldn't hear what he said. And then the board chair said, Jerry, what do you think? And I was like a deer caught in the headlights. And I said I couldn't hear what he said. And I said, we said exactly the same thing. And what was moving down the road to be a crafted decision was put aside and not done. I'm very wary of creating board actions on the spot, a statement or whatever it may be. The best way is to say, would somebody take this and come up in three or four hours, take a coffee break and craft us a statement on what we're trying to do. So I do believe that the chair needs to be able to look in the eyeball all around the way and see if there are some questions or if someone has been particularly silent, I think you need to say what do you think?  ++++++++++++++++   [00:16:34] Tommy Thomas: How do you draw that quiet board member out?  Some people just don't speak up unless they have something to say, which is probably a good thing. But how do you draw the quiet person out?  [00:16:46] Jerry White: I just say, Jack, what do you think about that? I say be very direct. I say, you've been listening to this discussion. Do you have anything to say? I don't want to force him to have to say something, but I say, this may be the expertise of the person that I'm asking. And I'll say Joan, your expertise is in this area, I know you've been through this before. What are we not hearing? What questions do you have? And that gives them freedom to speak out. And the other thing is I don't think people should speak out, particularly declaratively. That is, I believe this, and you got to do this. And I don't like that because that puts themselves on the table. But people learn to be able to share in a non-confrontive fashion. [00:17:44] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to financial accountability. You and I are old enough to remember the Enron scandal, and then if you've been paying any attention to the last two or three days, you've seen the Silicon Valley Bank go under.  In both of those things, there was board culpability. Neither were nonprofit, but they will both board culpability.  How do you get your boards to make sure you're addressing the financial aspect, a judiciary responsibility of the board?  [00:18:10] Jerry White:  It's a CEO's responsibility to make sure that the right questions are answered.  And it's got to be more than just an audit.  We want a clean audit. And you don't want to have to go to the bottom notes and say, here's something we should correct, but we need to guide the board through the financial realities of what we're doing. But at the end of it, I think you need to have a risk analysis that says, okay, where are we vulnerable? For instance, in our litigious society today, we have a lot of risk, and I think of ministries that have Christian camps and all the sexual liabilities and all of that. They are at risk all the time when you're working with minors and then I think people need to ask questions of the CFO and the auditor, where do you see us being at risk? What would happen if, what if happened? You have a September 11 or you have a Covid pandemic. And you have to say, our whole income stream is going to be jeopardized. And then I think you need to look and say, where are our major vulnerabilities for both expenditure as well as income? Now that's, it's very different in a Christian organization than it is a secular organization like an Enron or the banks or whatever it is. The fault there goes so that people don't ask questions, or that the actual realities have been hidden from it and just saying, oh, it'll be okay.  ++++++++++++++++++= [00:19:56] Tommy Thomas: From your perspective, how does the board get involved in strategic planning?  [00:20:02] Jerry White: Boy, that is a good question, Tommy. The question is, who does the strategic planning? Okay. Let's say that we're in a very small developing organization amid developing, and a large organization, they're very different and the very smallest organizations, the board may be highly engaged in the strategic plan because it's such a small organization and they're so fragile. As a general rule of thumb, the board may do strategic thinking, but strategic planning has to be on the part of the CEO and his or her staff. And the plan needs to be brought to the board for their interaction. And then approval. And that's particularly true with a large organization. The board can't do strategic planning. They can do some strategic planning for the board. That is, how should we develop our board? What expertise do we need? But as far as a ministry for most organizations, as large as the navigators or crew or some others, they aren't gonna know the details of what's going on out in the field or how they have to pretty well react and respond to the strategic planning initiatives that they may come up with. How many staff, what countries are we doing to go into? What are we not going to do? What are we gonna stop doing etc. So the board certainly needs to approve the strategic plan. Chances are, even when they do that, They won't know it very well. I'm just sorry that, when you're not, when you don't have to carry out a strategic plan, it's hard to really know it. [00:22:00] Tommy Thomas: The ones that created it, that have been involved in hammering it out, they're the ones that know it. [00:22:06] Jerry White: That's right. And then you have to, with every strategic plan, you have to set, have a set of outcomes and a set of risks, and then you have to say, how much is it going to cost to implement this? [00:22:22] Tommy Thomas: I think the risk thing, that could almost be a podcast in and of itself. I interviewed Dr. Sandra Gray, the President Emeritus at Asbury University and she was a former banker before she got into higher ed. And her thought was that nonprofit boards probably don't pay enough attention to the risk of the organization. [00:22:40] Jerry White: I think there's no question on that, especially risk has to be uncertain categories.  There's legal risk, there's financial risk, and then there's what I call uncontrolled risk of things you don't expect that the government may impose. What if they decide for our property at Glen Erie that it no longer is going to be tax exempt? Or what if the state were to do that sort of thing? Those are risks over which we have no control and the risk on leveraged investments, I think is quite important. For instance, you may propose to a larger organization a $3 million project, but the money is not in the bank. And you have four donors who said they'll fund it, but will they, and if they do, what voice should they have in it?  That's a huge thing. Money given with strings on it is really quite risky.  [00:23:46] Tommy Thomas: Hadn't thought of that. [00:23:46] Jerry White: And I've served on the board of the ECFA and they're very good at this. In terms of helping people think through risk and failure and financial accountability.  [00:24:01] Tommy Thomas: Let's look at the CEO evaluation.  I know you've been involved in a number of those, and you've been evaluated as a CEO. What are some takeaways? [00:24:10] Jerry White: You must be evaluated. Now we have a number of kinds of evaluations. You have a 360 evaluation, and some people are very skilled at that. It's very threatening to some CEOs, but it's necessary. I feel that there needs to be an evaluation within the organization, I had one. I had someone who evaluated me every year and they had the freedom, and they did call my wife, call my kids, talked to my coworkers, my peers, talked to those who worked for me, gave a free reign to ask certain questions. The questions need to be carefully thought through. They can't be so invasive. But the evaluation is of several levels. One is certain on a moral personal level. I do not think a committee can do that. Every CEO needs to have the kind of people in their lives who will blow the whistle on them if they say anything wrong. And the small Executive Committee needs to be aware of how that could happen. The second in terms of an evaluation is performance against set out goals. The third is relational. How's their team going? What do they think? What are the issues? And to give the feedback to the CEO and I think to give it privately and then in the board, and we do this to give a summary analysis, but the board should not be privy to the detailed questions. It's a really touchy process. And the evaluation needs to be, not be a pass fail, but Loren Sanny taught me it should be a progress review. How are you making progress toward the things that you have said you want to do? [00:26:15] Tommy Thomas: Let me close with a question that I ask often, particularly to people that have been on boards a long time as you have. How has board service changed over the last decade?  [00:26:25] Jerry White: I'm not sure about the last decade, but certainly over the last two decades the area of risk and financial accountability has increased tremendously. The litigiousness of our society has made a tremendous impact on how a board functions. So those two things, the financial accountability and the potential lawsuits and things of that nature. Tommy, I don't know that I can make a generalist statement about how boards have changed, but I can say that through the last 20 to 30 years, the boards have become more important and more vital to our organization's future than they were a number of years ago. Many years ago, even in The Navigators, the board was a cheering section for Dawson Trotman and Lawrence Annie.  Go get 'em and thanks for letting us know what's going on. To a point where we had to be accountable for the finances. 911 changed everything, by the way, particularly for anyone operating internationally. When you're sending money across international boundaries, you have a whole different level of accountability financially imposed by the government. And I'm speaking only from the viewpoint of the United States, and you get into all these other countries with all different kinds of demands and requirements and corruption and what have you. The boards have become far more important to the organization's health. And I think the public has a right to know who's on your board. And when I look at an organization as I've done even the last few days, and I look through who the board members are, it isn't that I need to know them, but that they're there as real people with real names that if one needed to, you could connect with them. ++++++++++++++++++++++ I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Jerry White. If you're ever at a conference where Jerry is speaking or leading a breakout session, make sure you attend those sessions. We all have so much to learn from Jerry White. Our guest next week is Paul Mauer. Paul is the president of Montreat College.  When Paul was selected to be the President of Montreat, the college wasn't very far from closing its doors. What has happened at Montreat over the past nine years is nothing short of miraculous.  [00:29:06] Paul Maurer: I started my first presidency 13 or 14 years ago, and I remember going to the president's conferences and coming back after two or three of those, and I said to my cabinet, here's my takeaway, change or die. And then I was out of the presidency for a couple years. I began to go back to those meetings again. When I came to Montreat nine years ago, I came back to my cabinet, I said, they've inserted the words fast change, faster, die. We've taken on the mindset of a startup. So, we consider ourselves a 107-year-old startup. We're not a turnaround. We're not maintainers.  We're not traditionalists. We try to employ the principles of a startup, meaning we're creating something new. And so, I think in the next five to ten years, we're going to see a pretty dramatic change in the number of colleges and universities in the United States. The enrollment cliff is real. The declining birth rates are real. And it's going to have a really major impact on the number of schools that close.   Links and Resources JobfitMatters Website Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas The Navigators Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability Christian Leadership Alliance   Connect Tommy Thomas - tthomas@jobfitmatters.com Tommy's LinkedIn Profile Jerry White's LinkedIn Profile  

Dr. Sarah Waters spoke on “Sacrifice in The Lord of the Rings” at the Inklings Weekend in Montreat on April 2, 2023. The theme of the weekend was “The Legacy of J.R.R. Tolkien Fifty Years After His Death.” Inkling Weekend in Montreat is an annual event in Montreat, NC at Montreat College hosted by Drs. Hal Poe and Don King. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Watch the VIDEO of the Talk:   Visit Sarah Waters' Academia Page https://buckingham.academia.edu/SarahWaters Contact Sarah via email: sarah.waters (at) buckingham.ac.uk Other Posts/Shows with Sarah Waters: https://essentialcslewis.com/?s=Sarah+Waters [PODCAST] Essay Chat #20 – Hamlet: The Prince or the Poem? (Sarah Waters) https://essentialcslewis.com/2020/11/14/podcast-essay-chat-20-hamlet-the-prince-or-the-poem-sarah-waters/ Inklings Fellowship Website https://www.uu.edu/societies/inklings/ OTHER TOLKIEN-RELATED LINKS: Discussion of Tolkien Biopic (Glyer and Dickieson) https://allaboutjack.podbean.com/e/discussion-of-tolkien-biopic-glyer-and-dickieson/ Writing Tips from Lewis and Tolkien (King and Poe) https://allaboutjack.podbean.com/e/writing-tips-from-lewis-and-tolkien-king-and-poe/ Colin Duriez – Tolkien in Wartime https://youtu.be/yKbszxMsN4c All About Jack Podcast: https://allaboutjack.podbean.com/ Essential C.S. Lewis website: https://essentialcslewis.com/ THE MISQUOTABLE C.S. LEWIS. https://amzn.to/2IUTJBr C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell https://amzn.to/2BfStXh

Hey guys and gals! Here's some updates for you! I have two finals to take and I'll be DONE with undergrad - yay! I came down with a cold Monday night, so I wasn't able to record a podcast for you - boo! Upcoming guests: Shari Bishop, an Episcopal priest. And Kevin, some guy you might remember. My audio book is for sale. https://danielcrogers.gumroad.com/l/howaudio?layout=profile If you want a preview on the kind of thing I'll be talking about in my afterlife podcast, check out this sermon I did. I'm actually wearing a suit jacket instead of my preferred hiking pants and short sleeves button up... I don't like it. Last week I went hiking in Montreat, NC for Discovering Renewal, and it was a blast.

The Runbum crew were out again on this beautiful spring weekend in the Southeast. Sean and Scott talk about training, tempo runs, and how to be humbled at a group run. Sean finally got a chance to run the Seven Sister's 25k in Montreat, NC. A technical loop up Black Mountains east and west ridge lines. He "took it easy" this weekend as this run was just part of his master taper plan for next weeks Hyner 25k. Scott dusted off his speed shoes and went for a fast flat 50k on the New River Trail 50k located in Fries, VA. Hear how things went right, until they went wrong. Sign up for one of our fall races before they sell out! Sky to Summit, Wild Florida on sale now!https://www.runbumtours.com/Find us on Social at RunBum RacesThanks to Tanawha Adventures for a great race. Check out 7 Sister's next year!https://www.tanawhaadventures.com/Podcast produced, edited and all wizardly techy things  byLooking Glass Designs, LLChttps://www.lgdesigns.me/@LGDesigns.me

On this episode of Anchored, Jeremy and CLT's Director of Homeschool Partnerships Kimberly Farley are joined by Dr. Paul Maurer, President of Montreat College in Montreat, NC. They discuss President Maurer's academic interests, the mission of Montreat College, and his work to strengthen the institution's Christ-centered identity. They also discuss Montreat's COMPASS Summer Program for high school students interested in various fields of study at Montreat.

In this episode, I am joined by Dr. Harry Lee Poe to talk about the life and faith of C.S. Lewis in light of the final volume, The Completion of C.S. Lewis, in his three part biography published by Crossway.Meet Dr. PoeDr. Poe serves as the Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University, where he has taught a course on C. S. Lewis for over twenty years. He is the author of twenty books, including Becoming C. S. Lewis and The Making of C. S. Lewis, as well as numerous articles on Lewis and the Inklings. Poe hosts the annual Inklings Weekend in Montreat, North Carolina, and is a regular speaker on Lewis at universities and other venues around the world.Resources:The Completion of C. S. Lewis: From War to Joy by Harry Lee PoeThe Making of C. S. Lewis (1918–1945): From Atheist to Apologist by Harry Lee PoeBecoming C. S. Lewis (1898–1918): A Biography of Young Jack Lewis by Harry Lee PoeMere Christianity by C.S. LewisThe Space Trilogy by C.S. LewisThe Digital Public Square is a production of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission and is produced and hosted by Jason Thacker.Production assistance is provided by Kadin Christian. Technical production provided by Owens Productions. It is edited and mixed by Mark Owens.

A staggering 42% of Pastors have considered quitting full – time ministry. That is a result of a recent study conducted and reported by Jon Brown of Fox News.That study quoted one Pastor Ferguson who previously served in ministry but now resigned, who said:“There is no doubt rates of clerical burnout are increasing”The Pastor at pastorate has always presented pressures potentially detrimental to relationships and mental health said Ferguson. But these cultural rifts have deepened in recent years because of politics and political issues and the pandemic. These two driving forces have “pressed Pastors to not stay in their lane, which is focusing on our faith and spiritual life. Pastors and Priests are called to ministry for one essential purpose:PREACH THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRISTThey are called to minister, teach, encourage, marry and otherwise perform the services God would have. They are not called and they are “out of their lane” to take stands on political issues, or cultural, or economic, the province of someone else. THEY ARE CALLED TO PREACH THE BIBLICAL GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST!One Reverend Richard White, Pastor of a Presbyterian Church in Montreat, North Carolina said that he and his staff were overwhelmed with Covid 19 requirements. They did their best to utilize the newly required methodologies of livestreams, cameras, uploading to the church website and other new technical approaches to church services as a result of Covid. But as the pandemic wore on, the church Pastor began to experience a “grinding spirit” and there occurred what Reverend White described as “decision fatigue.” No matter what decision you make, White said, there is a group in the church that is not happy and is local that you are wrong. Bitter decisions over politics and the pandemic have seeped into churches, leading to the growing rates of job and career burnout among Pastors. David Ferguson, now Executive Director of the Great Commandment Network and former Pastor said:“Our faith does not exempt us from anxiety, depression, temptation or Covid.”We live said he in a divided, polarized, politized and hateful world which far too often requires Pastors to take positions on every imaginable topic, many of which are beyond their knowledge or expertise. Rather than the spiritual life of families and individuals growing in the nurture and admonition of the Lord through the ministry of the Pastor, churches are now experiencing division, confrontation and a lack of fellowship. 42% OF PASTORS CAN NOT COPE WITH THIS. As a result, they seriously consider resignation and career change. The Barna Group agrees. A careful and accurate study by the Barna Group found that Pastors identified unbearable stress as the main cause of burnout. 56% said growing stress would prevent them from achieving the spiritual ministry to which they had been called. 43% of Pastors stated loneliness was a main cause of burnout and 38% said that political divisions were extremely difficult negative factors. Most of those Pastors surveyed that these issues and more had taken a serious toll on their families and the pressure was becoming unbearable. Another Pastor stated that members of his congregation resigned such membership in the church because the church required congregants to wear masks while another church had members leave because the church did not require the wearing of masks. Another Pastor said that he credited his survival as Pastor to God's presence, the prayerful encouragement of his staff, his own strengthen and renewed prayer life, and the vocal and continued support of his wife and family. That Pastor said he was often pressed beyond his own strength and forced to “press into the Lord” to sustain himself. What a sad state of affairs. It seems as though far too many in today's congregations are far too demanding, selfish, egocentric to the point where spiritual issues and matters are taking a back seat to the political and cultural issues of the day.Monsignor Stephen J. Rossetti, a Roman Catholic Priest of the Diocese of Syracuse New York, also a licensed phycologist indicated that rates of depression and anxiety rose among Catholic Priests during the pandemic. As with Protestant churches, Catholic parishioners also laid demands on their Pastors that prove overly burdensome. Said Rossetti:“People can be very demanding and sometimes they can have expectations that are unrealistic.”Senior Pastor Drake Caudill of a Baptist Church in Carmi, Illinois stated that too often Pastors are expected to perform more like the CEO of a church rather than a spiritual leader. That he said is not biblical. Said Reverend Caudill:“I think the expectation for Pastor (performance) should start from scripture and using what scripture expects from the Pastor.”And in reality, it should not only begin there but end as well no more should be required of any congregation. Covid and the pandemic only increased Pastor problems. The newly required Covid expectations brought about increased work product and time involved to the point where Pastors were getting tired and exhausted. And, their families were getting tired and exhausted as well. Pastors began to expect too much from themselves. Covid, coupled with political and social issues were taking a toll on Pastors they never before had experienced. The bottom line was that Pastors were now expected to be proficient in those issues which in fact was the profession and expertise of someone else. Said one Pastor:“We are not economists. If we focus on what God has called us to do, pastoring, preaching, serving, we are far less likely to face some of the challenges that are making Pastors want to quit today.”As a result of these studies, Tucker Carlson, host of Fox News, stated that “Christianity was dying.” How wrong he is. But is has, as Pastor Ferguson well stated, gotten “out of its lane” and it needs to go back to the old map, the unchangeable, biblical, gospel and the fundamental and basic varieties of Christianity. It is tangential, defeating, a devil's pool, divisive, unspiritual and unbiblical to do anything but preach the gospel and anything related there to. Pastors need a new courage, a return to the spiritual energy of the Holy Spirit and a new – found ability to saying NO. Pastors need to take control, re-educate the congregation as to the mission, ministry of the church. The world needs the gospel now more than ever. Pastors, called by the Holy Spirit, must lead the way, champion the faith, fight that fight of faith and run the gospel race like never before. If Pastors and Priests don't do that, Carlson will prove right that Christianity is dying not because of the marvelous, unchanging, life changing power of the gospel, but because those agents and spokespersons of this gospel have lost their way. The Apostle Paul warned of apostasy. He warned of false teachers, false doctrine (politics and social issues) and implored those who preach and teach to do so with the true gospel, the real gospel, lacking today in so many churches. The burnout of our Pastors will cease and desist only when they return with all their heart, soul and mind to the pure and unadulterated SAVING GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST. Them, and only them.

Welcome back to the ‘Summer Encore' series of Fearless! This week we're returning to an episode with someone who is one of the greatest influences in my life, someone I want everyone to know, and that's my mom, Jane Graham. Over the years, so many people have asked questions about my mom. Though she's Franklin Graham's wife and Billy Graham's daughter-in-law, my mother isn't really one for the spotlight.Her ministry has always been more private and behind the scenes, taking care of our family and serving those around her in our community.I'm so excited that I get to share a little bit of her with you this week. We're going to talk about her early life, how she met my dad in Montreat, NC, the influence of my grandmother Ruth Bell Graham, her faith, being in ministry and the challenges and joys of motherhood and marriage.I hope that you're inspired and encouraged as you listen my conversation with my mom. It's an episode that you're not going to want to miss. Scripture Referenced·      Proverbs 31:10-31Going Farther ·      Billy Graham Evangelistic Association – https://billygraham.org/·      Ruth Bell Graham – https://billygraham.org/about/biographies/ruth-bell-graham/·      Franklin Graham – https://billygraham.org/about/biographies/franklin-graham/·      Samaritan's Purse – https://www.samaritanspurse.org/·      World Medical Mission – https://www.samaritanspurse.org/medical/world-medical-mission/·      Bob Pierce – https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/history/ Websites:·      Billy Graham Evangelistic Association – https://billygraham.org/·      Billy Graham Radio – https://billygrahamradio.org·      Samaritan's Purse – https://samaritanspurse.org/Social MediaConnect with me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.·      Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Facebook·      Billy Graham Facebook·      Billy Graham Radio Facebook

Looking for a Reformed Church in Orange County? Check out Santa Ana Reformed (a United Reformed Church plant) meeting Sundays at 2 PM at Davis Elementary School in Santa Ana! Contact us: santaanareformed@gmail.com Please help support the show on our Patreon Page! Check out the ESBT Series & NSBT Series from IVP Academic! Get a copy of the Family Worship Bible Study, The Works of William Perkins, & the RHB Store! Interested in further study of the Bible? Join us at Logos Bible Software. WELCOME TO BOOK CLUB! Harry Lee Poe (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) who serves as the Charles Colson Professor of Faith and Culture at Union University, where he has taught a course on C. S. Lewis for over twenty years. He is the author of twenty books, including The Inklings of Oxford and C. S. Lewis Remembered, as well as numerous articles on Lewis and the Inklings. Poe hosts the annual Inklings Weekend in Montreat, North Carolina, and is a regular speaker on Lewis at universities and other venues worldwide. We want to thank Crossway for help setting up this interview and providing us with the necessary materials to interview Joni! Purchase the book(s) here: Becoming C.S. Lewis: Experience C.S. Lewis's Captivating Life with the Complete Biographical Trilogy Have Feedback or Questions? Email us at: guiltgracepod@gmail.com Find us on Instagram: @guiltgracepod Follow us on Twitter: @guiltgracepod Find us on YouTube: Guilt Grace Gratitude Podcast Please rate and subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you use! Looking for a Reformed Church? North American Presbyterian & Reformed Churches --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/gggpodcast/support

With the increase in both personal and national security threats, cybersecurity has become a major cause of concern in our culture. Moreso, the need for qualified, ethical workers to fight these threats is at an all time high. Paul J. Maurer, president of Montreat College, has been equipping his students to do just that. Through their cybersecurity program, Montreat aims to train their students with a technical, ethical, and moral framework necessary to become trusted leaders in the cybersecurity field. Paul will join us to help us better understand this issue and what we can do to protect our data. Watch this talk on Q Media. Start your free trial at qideas.org/trial

At the beginning of September 2021, Montreat athletics announced that Krys Burnett was hired as the assistant coach for the women's basketball program. She has now been named the Interim Head Coach for the Program. Burnett came to the Cavalier family following three years as the head varsity girls' basketball coach at Clark Montessori High School in Cincinnati, Ohio. While with the Cougars in her hometown, Burnett led the team to its furthest post-season run in school history. In her first year at Clark Montessori, Burnett collected the MVC Conference Coach of the Year award. The Cincinnati native assisted her community over the course of her time in the area by also helping inner-city youth. Burnett spent time as an associate program director and coach for Phenomenal Youth, an inner-city AAU program in Cincy, where she developed elite teams during the offseason. In 2020 and 2021, athletes received basketball scholarships to play at the next level across several divisions. Prior to her coaching experience, Burnett played basketball for Clermont College from 2003-2005. Burnett graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2008 where she obtained a degree in communications. As Burnett continued her educational studies, she earned her masters in multi-cultural special education from Mount St. Joseph University in 2016. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/chefranjohn/support

It has been four years since world-renown evangelist Billy Graham passed away, but the North Carolina native's work continues to be felt. Rev. Billy Graham died on Feb. 21, 2018, from natural causes in his home in Montreat. He was born in Charlotte in 1918. Rev. Billy Graham retired to his mountain home in 2005 after nearly six decades on the road calling people to Christ at 417 all-out preaching and musical events from Miami to Moscow. According to his obituary, during the week of his 95th birthday in 2013, Rev. Billy Graham delivered his final message by more than 480 television stations across the U.S. and Canada. More than 26,000 churches participated in the My Hope project, making it the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's largest evangelistic outreach ever in North America. READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/rev-billy-graham-anniversary-memorial-charlotte/275-1d7df35e-eb77-4bd9-86ad-979d45abdb29A controversial rezoning decision will soon be made in the Ballantyne area.Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and Woodfield Development plan to build a new elementary school and multi-family units across from Ardrey Kell High School, but some residents in south Charlotte are against it. “I just thought you can't be serious, if you've got those two schools and a lot of traffic already why would you want to put all those apartments right there and create a situation that's worse for the schools and could be dangerous for the kids and create a huge inconvenience for the neighbors," District 7 Charlotte City Councilman Ed Driggs said.The rezoning petition comes as Charlotte continues to grow and student enrollment increases.READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/charlotte-council-rezoning-ballantyne-elementary-school-apartments-ardery-kell/275-a88fea18-a416-4235-ad7b-b8ee8675fe45Watch Wake Up Charlotte each weekday morning from 4:30 to 7 a.m. on WCNC Charlotte, and as always, join the conversation on social media using #WakeUpCLT!

It has been four years since world-renown evangelist Billy Graham passed away, but the North Carolina native's work continues to be felt.  Rev. Billy Graham died on Feb. 21, 2018, from natural causes in his home in Montreat. He was born in Charlotte in 1918.  Rev. Billy Graham retired to his mountain home in 2005 after nearly six decades on the road calling people to Christ at 417 all-out preaching and musical events from Miami to Moscow.  According to his obituary, during the week of his 95th birthday in 2013, Rev. Billy Graham delivered his final message by more than 480 television stations across the U.S. and Canada. More than 26,000 churches participated in the My Hope project, making it the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association's largest evangelistic outreach ever in North America.  READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/rev-billy-graham-anniversary-memorial-charlotte/275-1d7df35e-eb77-4bd9-86ad-979d45abdb29 A controversial rezoning decision will soon be made in the Ballantyne area. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools and Woodfield Development plan to build a new elementary school and multi-family units across from Ardrey Kell High School, but some residents in south Charlotte are against it.  “I just thought you can't be serious, if you've got those two schools and a lot of traffic already why would you want to put all those apartments right there and create a situation that's worse for the schools and could be dangerous for the kids and create a huge inconvenience for the neighbors," District 7 Charlotte City Councilman Ed Driggs said. The rezoning petition comes as Charlotte continues to grow and student enrollment increases. READ MORE: https://www.wcnc.com/article/news/local/charlotte-council-rezoning-ballantyne-elementary-school-apartments-ardery-kell/275-a88fea18-a416-4235-ad7b-b8ee8675fe45 Watch Wake Up Charlotte each weekday morning from 4:30 to 7 a.m. on WCNC Charlotte, and as always, join the conversation on social media using #WakeUpCLT!

IN THIS REPEAT: A talk I gave in early April 2016 about a running theme in The Screwtape Letters. I just gave the following talk on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at the Inklings Fellowship Weekend Retreat that was held in Montreat, NC at Montreat College. It was also the public debut of my first book C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell: A Companion and Study Guide to The Screwtape Letters. While I do give a summary of the unique aspects of my book, the main focus of the talk is about the devils' secret weapon that is mentioned in nearly all of the letters. My book just list them, but this presentation provides more details and gives a practical application to one's life. Visit my website to contact me about giving this talk or a three or four part presentation on all of the places this weapon is mentioned or alluded to. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Paperback of C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Kindle of C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit Shelley and Son Books Website (podcast sponsor) Other Useful Links: Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis YouTube CHANNEL  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis

IN THIS REPEAT: An interview about the upcoming (September 2022) Inkling-Plus event in Montreat, NC. NOTE - the dates are revised! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PLEASE NOTE - The dates for this event are REVISED! The Presbyterian Heritage Center (PHC) is hosting another great event related to C.S. Lewis. Their Inkling-Plus Premiere Global Conference is called "From Shakespeare to the Inklings: The Bible's Impact on Creative Imagination." It will be held at the Montreat Conference Center from Wednesday, September 7th to Friday, September 9th. This podcast interview is with Ron Vinson, who is the Executive Director of the PHC. Speakers at the event are Harry (Hal) Poe, Crystal Downing, David Downing, Diana Glyer, Don King, Hannibal Hamlin, Tim Ternes, Sorina Higgins, Sarah Waters, and Michael Morgan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit From Shakespeare to the Inklings Event Page Visit the Presbyterian Heritage Center Main Page Visit the Registration Page for the Event Watch William O'Flaherty's Interview with Douglas Gresham (from 2019 event) Listen to Part TWO of Male Panel Discussion from 2019 Event (it has a link to pt. 1) Listen to Other Interviews with Don King Listen to Other Interviews with Diana Glyer Listen to Other Interviews with Sørina Higgins Listen to Other Interviews with David or Crystal Downing Listen to Other Interviews with Sarah Waters Listen to Other Interviews with Hal Poe  Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis YouTube CHANNEL  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis

IN THIS REPEAT: An interview about the upcoming (March 2022) Inkling-Plus event in Montreat, NC.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Presbyterian Heritage Center (PHC) is hosting another great event related to C.S. Lewis. Their Inkling-Plus Premiere Global Conference is called "From Shakespeare to the Inklings: The Bible's Impact on Creative Imagination." It will be held at the Montreat Conference Center from Wednesday, March 16th to Friday, March 18th. This podcast interview is with Ron Vinson, who is the Executive Director of the PHC. Speakers at the event are Harry (Hal) Poe, Crystal Downing, David Downing, Diana Glyer, Don King, Hannibal Hamlin, Tim Ternes, Sorina Higgins, Sarah Waters, and Michael Morgan. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Visit From Shakespeare to the Inklings Event Page Visit the Presbyterian Heritage Center Main Page Visit the Registration Page for the Event Watch William O'Flaherty's Interview with Douglas Gresham (from 2019 event) Listen to Part TWO of Male Panel Discussion from 2019 Event (it has a link to pt. 1) Listen to Other Interviews with Don King Listen to Other Interviews with Diana Glyer Listen to Other Interviews with Sørina Higgins Listen to Other Interviews with David or Crystal Downing Listen to Other Interviews with Sarah Waters Listen to Other Interviews with Hal Poe  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis

Montreat College Post Player, Alaina McPherson talks with She Got Game's host Kenya McBee about being coached by McBee at Victory Christian, choosing Montreat College, playing junior varsity and varsity, navigating through the COVID restrictions at Montreat, majoring in Cyber Read More

Show NotesWelcome to FEARLESS! This episode is one that I've been wanting to capture for a long time. My special guest this week is one of the greatest influences in my life, someone who I want everyone to know, and that's my mom, Jane Graham.Over the years, so many people have asked questions about my mom. Though she's Franklin Graham's wife and Billy Graham's daughter-in-law, my mother isn't really one for the spotlight. Her ministry has always been more private and behind the scenes, taking care of our family and serving those around her in our community.I'm so excited that I get to share a little bit of her with you this week. We're going to talk about her early life, how she met my dad in Montreat, NC, the influence of my grandmother Ruth Bell Graham, her faith, being in ministry and the challenges and joys of motherhood and marriage.I hope that you're inspired and encouraged as you listen my conversation with my mom. It's an episode that you're not going to want to miss. Scripture ReferencedProverbs 31:10-31Route 66 – God Loves You TourThis fall, Franklin Graham will share the Good News from eight cities located on Route 66. To learn more, visit http://godlovesyoutour.com. Going Farther Billy Graham Evangelistic Association - https://billygraham.org/Ruth Bell Graham - https://billygraham.org/about/biographies/ruth-bell-graham/Franklin Graham - https://billygraham.org/about/biographies/franklin-graham/Samaritan's Purse - https://www.samaritanspurse.org/World Medical Mission - https://www.samaritanspurse.org/medical/world-medical-mission/ Bob Pierce - https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/history/  Websites: Billy Graham Evangelistic Association -- https://billygraham.org/ Billy Graham Radio – https://billygrahamradio.org Samaritan's Purse – https://samaritanspurse.org/ Social Media: Cissie Graham Lynch Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/CissieGrahamLynch Cissie Graham Lynch Instagram -- https://www.instagram.com/cissiegrahamlynch/ Cissie Graham Lynch Twitter -- https://twitter.com/CissieGLynch Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/BillyGrahamEvangelisticAssociation/Billy Graham Facebook -- https://www.facebook.com/ReverendBillyGraham/

The guest preacher for Montreat Conference Center's Summer Worship Series on 8/8/2021 was Rev. Dr. Jerry L. Cannon. You can view a portion of the video recorded worship service! Click here to view the archive of sermons. The post Rev. Dr. Jerry L. Cannon: August 8, 2021 first appeared on Montreat Conference Center.

The guest preacher for Montreat Conference Center's Summer Worship Series on 8/1/2021 was Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli. You can view a portion of the video recorded worship service! Click here to view the archive of sermons. The post Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli: August 1, 2021 first appeared on Montreat Conference Center.

IN THIS REPEAT: A recent show that featured excerpts from talks given by Hal Poe and Don King at the 2021 Inklings Weekend.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is the second of a two-part episode featuring highlights from the 2021 Inklings Weekend that was held in Montreat, NC at Montreat College from July 9-11. Previously, two talks given by Dr. Devin Brown were shared. This time highlights from addresses given by Dr. Hal Poe and Dr. Don King are presented. The theme of the weekend was "The Radio Broadcasts at Eighty; A Celebration of Mere Christianity." However, only the first excerpt from Dr. Hal Poe actually related to that theme. His talk was “Mere Christianity as Personal Testimony.” After about the first 15 minutes of his nearly hour-long presentation, is a message from Dr. Don King, who has been working on a biography of Warnie Lewis, C.S. Lewis's brother. You'll hear some of the key things Don learned about Warnie.  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hear PART ONE - Highlights from Dr. Devin Brown Learn More About Inklings Fellowship Listen to Other Shows with Don King Listen to Other Shows with Hal Poe Listen to Other Shows Related to Inklings Weekend Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis YouTube CHANNEL  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis  

IN THIS REPEAT: Highlights of two talks given by Dr. Devin Brown at Inklings Weekend 2021. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The 2021 Inklings Weekend was just held in Montreat, NC at Montreat College. Two of the four talks given were by Dr. Devin Brown (author of A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C.S. Lewis and other great books). The theme of the weekend was "The Radio Broadcasts at Eighty; A Celebration of Mere Christianity." The following podcast is about fifteen minutes of each of the talks Devin gave. The first was “The Story Behind Mere Christianity” and the second was “Lewis's Arguments - Not Deductive but Abductive: And What This Might Mean for Us Today.”  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Learn More About Inklings Fellowship Listen to Other Interviews with Devin Brown Listen to Other Shows Related to Inklings Weekend Knowing and Understanding C.S. Lewis YouTube CHANNEL  Listen to All About Jack on iTunes Purchase C.S. Lewis Goes to Hell Visit ScrewtapeCompanion.com Visit EssentialCSLewis.com Purchase The Misquotable C.S. Lewis

We invited an Anglican priest and a Bible Church pastor to give their perspectives on the health and future of the Southern Baptist Convention. Dr. Alex Sosler and Pastor Chase Bowers are good friends of ours and trusted voices on biblical and cultural issues. We're grateful for their input on everything from the SBC presidential election, CRT, handling of sexual abuse reports, and how to respond if you find yourself embarrassed by the SBC.  Check out Alex and Chase here:  Alex Sosler | Assistant Professor of Bible and Ministry at Montreat College in Montreat, NC On Twitter @alexsosler  Website: https://www.montreat.edu/academics/faculty/alex-sosler/ (https://www.montreat.edu/academics/faculty/alex-sosler/)  Chase Bowers | Pastor at Temple Bible Church in Temple, Tx On Twitter @chasembowers Website: https://templebiblechurch.org/leadership/ (https://templebiblechurch.org/leadership/)  

Phil and Daniel discuss their first day at the C.S. Lewis: Influence & Relevance Today International Symposium. Your Lamp-post Links:  Support us on Patreon or follow us into Narnia on our Twitter or Facebook pages. You can also email us at thenarniapodcast@gmail.com or leave us a voicemail at (406) 646-6733. Apple Podcasts | Google Play | Spotify | Stitcher Radio | Podcast Website | YouTube | RSS Feed

On Feb 21, 2018 at 7:46 AM Eastern Time, the Rev. Billy Graham reposed at the age of 99 in Montreat, North Carolina. Dn. Michael Hyatt and John Maddex talk about six things we can learn from the life of Billy Graham as Orthodox Christians.

We are live from North Carolina today!  J. Aaron Simmons, Lauren Winner, and Ryan Newsome were all on stage for the live podcast from the Progressive Youth Ministry conference at Montreat in North Carolina. PYM just announced details for next year's conference, so make sure to check progressiveyouthministry.org for more. This episode includes the full interview with Aaron Simmons from this past March. If you want the full live podcast experience you'll have to come in person next year! Big thanks to the Center for Process Studies for sponsoring (and providing the beer). Tripp and co-host Tony Jones talked with Aaron about what exactly phenomenology is, what it's like being a phenomenological philosopher and Pentecostal, why phenomenology is different than the philosophical framework that came before it, Heidegger on subjectivity and self-hood, plus, Aaron gives a live phenomenological reduction demonstration. Throughout, Tripp explains how to teach phenomenology to teenagers in confirmation classes and why every youth minister should be a phenomenologist. Follow the podcast, drop a review, send feedback/questions or become a member of the HBC Community. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices