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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Six Core Values
00:00
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of the podcast. My name's Jesse French and excited to be joined by who? It's Chris Bruno again, back with you. Hello, Chris. Good to see you today. Yeah. Well, I'm wondering, Chris, I'm sure you have experience with this, I would imagine some of the listeners do as well. And for a long time, I was in the staunch camp of being highly, highly cynical.
00:28
of the, I would say bland, unneeded, inefficient processes of coming up with a mission statement and identifying values. And like for the longest time, I just thought it was a complete waste of time. Like the job that I had before I came to Restoration Project, we had one of those, you know, day-long retreats where you get everyone together and you have some facilitator.
00:54
And the whole point of it, right, is to like identify values and a mission statement. And at least for us at that time, it was just this colossal waste of time of eight hours. Like 30 people were in the room. And then, right, what happens? You come up with those on the cool trendy little Post-it board things, and we never saw them again for the three years that I worked there. Like, it just, you know, probably literally went into the closet or trash can. So I had a lot of energy around the unneededness of said exercises.
01:24
Right? You can still, you can still feel it now. So yeah, I can still feel it now. Yeah, I feel it myself. Like there is, I don't know how many times in the years of work and ministry and business where I've been in those meetings too. And I bet so many people listening right now are like, yeah, those are the worst kinds of like offsite retreat days and all that. And here's the thing is that I do think it is important for us to have a sense of where we're going. For sure. For sure.
01:53
We need to know what's up. And there's some people, you're one of them, Jesse, who's just like, I'm just ready to go. Like, let's just, like, I'm just ready to go. Let's just start moving versus thinking and planning and organizing and imagining and strategizing and all those kinds of things about how we're gonna move. And then let's just start going. Right, this is true. And without the strategizing, you know, the bold.
02:19
I'm going to the details. Surprise, surprise, sometimes doesn't end well and could be better if there is the proactive planning and wondering around where we are going. Yes, yes. All of that being said. Yeah, yeah. All that being said, I bring that up because not to pat ourselves on the back, a few years ago at Restoration Project, we as a staff sat down and said,
02:48
give language to our values as an organization. And despite my internal eye roll in my past history of like, oh, this is gonna be, it's gonna be this waste of time. We went through the process of identifying some values and I will say like that, I think that was maybe three years ago. Yep. That's like, that's work that I'm super grateful and proud of that we did. And again, not trying to just pat ourselves on the back, but I can say that because those
03:17
values and that articulation has not just lived in the closet, but it has been really helpful to actually make its way into our language as an organization and to help us process decisions and give us a grid for what we want to be about and to be able to give some guard rails and some discerning tools to say, are we actually, you know, going about the work in the way that we want to? And so, so my strong feelings about values statement, like I I'm singing a new tune today. So,
03:47
You're a reformed man. I'm a reformed man, yes. But don't ask me to redo this process anytime soon is what I'm hearing. That's true. There is a quota. So there's so many different ways of engaging what mission, mission values, all those kinds of things are. The way that I think about it is that the vision is the destination, the mission is the road, and the values are the guardrails. Another way of putting it is the values are the how.
04:16
and the mission is the what. Yep, yep. What are we doing and the values are how are we doing it? What are the colors that we're using to color in this process? And so like as you know, Restoration Project, people are like, what makes you different? What makes you unique? What like, how are you engaging? What are the things? How do you make those kinds of decisions? And so we thought it would be a good idea to give you a little peek behind the curtain and know what the values are of Restoration Project. Cause they're not like out there. You're not gonna go. Right.
04:44
It's not that we stand up and speak about these all the time, but they really, when we tell you what they are, if you've been around Restoration Project at all, our hope is that this is kind of a vulnerable accountability kind of thing. Our hope is that everyone, staff, participants, donors, everybody that's around Restoration Project will be able to go like, oh yeah, I see that. I can feel that as a truth, true value that's coming out of the work that you're doing. Yep.
05:14
So here are our six values at Restoration Project. Jesse, what is number one? One, the value of relentless curiosity. And so we explain this with the phrase that we want to pursue and wonder about an individual's story and God's glory. Yes, yes. And we haven't made these in a hierarchy, right? Or a ranking. This is not number one, this is just the first one. That's correct.
05:43
about. That's correct. That's right. So important distinction there, but this piece of curiosity, it is one that we value a ton. I can remember conversations in the past, conversations recently, where this piece of curiosity of this willingness to wonder about someone's story, this willingness to look for God's glory and to be curious around that, it is, I'll put it this way, it's probably the lack of curiosity is probably the quickest route to aggravate me.
06:13
Like, I have someone who isn't curious, who is just always jumping in to like interject their next, you know, witty phrase. Talk about the opposite. So what is the opposite of curiosity? Yeah, it's complete unawareness and a lack of interest over the other person. And so it is the hearing of someone's story, someone's weekend, someone's afternoon, and the unwillingness to wonder around what is behind that or what is within that, right?
06:42
And it's the just quick jumping into their own self or something else, right? And it's just the missing of the person. Yeah. Well, I would even take it a little step further. The opposite of curiosity is dehumanizing. Hmm. That if we are not curious about the human in front of us, then we are actually stripping them of their brilliant, glorious humanity that God has given them. And we're jumping to conclusions or we're jumping over them or around them. And we completely miss them. We disregard them.
07:11
as a human. And this relentless curiosity is this pursuit of what is the masterpiece that God has made inside of each and every person and let me engage human to human, you know, to the degree that I can. And not every context can have like this deep, deep, deep conversation and curious conversation. Sure. At least can we have, I love your word there, can we have some awareness that this is happening. So, yeah.
07:38
Even in the some, I don't know, I'll get it wrong, but New York Times or someone was writing some article around like these sort of magic phrases around gifted conversationalists. And they said this one of the money phrases is people who say in conversation, hey, tell me more. Like even that that's not even this super deep, necessarily curious question. But that is a curious engagement, right? Like, I want to know more. Tell me. Yeah. And just how conversation and relationship is deepened through that. So yes, yes.
08:08
So value number one, the how on the way to where we're going is relentless curiosity. That's right. Yes. Number two, be an adult. I love about what we did with these values was that it's not like we value integrity, you know, promptness. We value generativity or something like that. No, it's, be a freaking adult everybody.
08:38
I know. Let's just be very blunt, very blunt about this. This does not need Folly Smithing being an adult. Yeah. So as you can imagine, with each one of these values, we have a sub-sentence that describes it that in this case probably isn't necessary. But Jesse, what is the? It's true. Yeah. Our statement after this is, Wolfhide, be self-motivated and take ownership of your work. Yes. Yeah.
09:06
I don't want to go down on the soapboxy piece, but like, it is interesting. I'll say this. I was going to say, is this weird to actually have a value for this? But I think we do because not because we have lazy people that need macro managing, but it's no, the how of how we want to do our work is one to where we want to be a team of leaders that people are able to take ownership of their work that don't require handholding and that have a sense of being adult in that way. And so.
09:35
as we're laughing about it, it's like, no, this is actually, this is actually a good one. It's actually a really good one, I think. And, you know, the opposite is what we're talking about, you know, curiosity, the opposite of curiosity, the opposite of this one is like, you're acting like a child and, and you can't actually go to the kinds of places that we want to, especially in the world of men and masculinity and all the things that we're talking about, manhood, fathering, brotherhood, all the things that we're talking about.
10:04
and you're led by a bunch of children. So we just, you know, be an adult, take responsibility for what you're doing. And it's not a matter of micromanaging, it's a matter of like just show up and do your work. And the thing too with the values is that these are imbued into not only the culture of who we are, this is how we evaluate each other. This is some of how we hire. These are some of the reasons that we've
10:32
had other people leave. Like there's so many aspects of, hey, you don't fit the values, that's okay. You don't have to fit all our values. But if you're gonna be here, these are the kinds of behaviors that we expect of you. So, be an adult. Be an adult, people. Myself included. Let's, to which I am a part of. Yeah. Yes. Okay, number three, which I love that this one, again, they're not rankings, but I love the way this intersects with being adult. The third one is celebrate together.
11:01
We want to delight in the goodness of creation, community, and co-labor. Yeah. Which when we are coming up with this, I love the pairing of it specifically of celebrating together with being adult because it feels like there could be a propensity if we don't have this value of delighting in co-labor of community of creation, right? The being adult could be taken to such the place where it's like, Hey, we are all about the productivity bottom line, right?
11:30
Being an adult, being an adult, take ownership of your work. There's no space for any sort of inefficiency. That's the guiding thing. But held in tension with this enjoyment of celebrating together. It's like, hey, both is needed. And if we don't celebrate together, we miss so much. Right. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you don't have celebration, then you're just a bunch of chargers. Right. You're just moving forward and you do something. You do something awesome. And then Monday comes and you're like, OK, next.
11:59
What's next? Like you've got, we've got to stop and celebrate. And I just love that the scriptures are actually full of feasts. Yeah. Right. All of them. Yeah. There's so many feasts and so many celebrations and so many calendared marking of time in recognition of what God has done and altars are set up and remembrances and all that stuff like remember, remember, remember is so much of what the commands of the scriptures are.
12:27
that if we are just continuing to move to the next and the next and the next, we don't remember, then how are we actually intersecting in the space of work out as it works? So celebrate together the things that have gone well. And even, you know, celebrate the fact that we tried something and it didn't go well. That's okay to celebrate too, like, but we tried and it was, you know, we learned. So celebrate together is certainly one that celebrate with one another and the fact that we can do this together and all that kind of stuff is just so important.
12:57
And I would say too, like full disclosure, we had a great conversation among our staff a few months ago and we all were talking, hey, as individuals, which of these values is really intuitive for us and which of these is really challenging? And this was the hardest one for our team. Like the most number of our staff said, hey, it's actually celebrating together that it's very hard for me. I loved that acknowledgement and it does feel incredibly counterintuitive. Like you're talking about the feasts that God.
13:25
commands, oh, like this needs to be baked into your days, weeks, years, because it is not intuitive. It is sorely needed, but it is not easy. And so it feels again, full disclosure, we want to buy this and it's hard. It's not easy. Yeah. And like you just said, the dynamic tension between the being adult one is that some people are in all be an adult, don't have any celebration. And some people are just like party. There's nothing that we have to do, right? We're just going to go play and party all the time and nothing actually gets done. It's, it is a,
13:54
designed to be a dynamic tension between the two. Yep. Yep. That's right. All right. Number four is the value of grassroots. We are a staff-guided and volunteer-fueled movement. Yes. I'd love to put you on the spot, especially thinking back to like the Genesis and early years of Restoration Project. This has been stated from the very beginning, of which I'm so glad. But it's a distinctive, right? I think that other organizations maybe have similar visions but may not have this value. Why is this so important?
14:24
Jesse, I feel like when we look at, let me put it this way, I'll say something political, something biblical, and then bring it to us. Ooh, look at that, yeah. The something political is that when you look across time at revolutions, revolutions don't happen from a centralized place that makes something occur. Revolutions happen from and amongst the people.
14:54
And it is the desire of the people, it is the purpose of the people, it is something that happens on the ground. It doesn't happen from the like Crystal Cathedral, it happens from down on the ground amongst the people who are experiencing life together, whether it's in the trenches or in the village or wherever it is, like that's where the revolution actually begins. Yeah. And I think so much goodness has come from those kinds of revolutions.
15:24
Obviously, there are some not so good revelations that we can look at and that haven't led to that kind of goodness, but basically it's coming from the people. So there's that. And then secondly, the biblical thing I would want to say is that the coming of the gospel to the world was a decentralized experience. The church is not central. Now, of course, again, we have...
15:49
Catholic Church that is centralized things, we had the Orthodox Church that's centralized, we have stories of that. But really it is the actual, again, grassroots coming of Christianity to the world happened in the context of living rooms instead of boardrooms. It happened in the context of street corners instead of sanctuaries. And so there's something about how the coming of the kingdom, the spread of the kingdom has spread like wildfire across the world
16:19
ground. From the beginning of Restoration Project, we never wanted it to be a centralized, personality-driven, single-person focused, or even small group focused, small group of people focused, where everything that we were was driven by this small collective of people. Because God is not at work only in you and me and the other staff. God is at work all across the
16:48
and all in everyone's life in some way. And so our task is to find where is God at work out there in the world and to come alongside of that. And so the grassroots is this sense of like, everyone gets to participate in where we're going. Everyone is bringing their glory to bear to create this beautiful connected mosaic of that is the artist is God.
17:15
And I am just one little tile in a great big mosaic. And so are you. And so that's the piece of the grassroots aspect of things, the value that we want it. There's plenty of organizations that have, you know, the high tower headquarters. And unless headquarters says it's OK, then, you know, we're not going to do it. There does need to be some guiding. There does need to be some general sense of the direction that we're heading. And that's why.
17:44
We said that it's staff guided, but oh my goodness, it is not fueled by us. It is actually fueled by the people that are participants with us, fueled by the people that are donors with us, fueled by the people that are volunteers with us, fueled by the people that help us know what and where and how to go. So it is a grassroots movement in that sense. Yeah, yeah. Mm, I'm so glad. Yeah, yeah. It's such a relief to me. All right. I get to participate in a brotherhood. I don't have to have my...
18:13
everything together like, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yay. Good news. Yay. Okay, we got two more. Yep. Fifth one is No Rubber Chicken. Yes, No Rubber Chicken. I bet we're the only organization in the world that has that as a value. I know, I'm so glad. And so I'll give it a little phrase and then I'd love to, because there's a cool Genesis story about this that I'd love for you to tell. So No Rubber Chicken, we want to create small batch experiences and resources.
18:42
that defy expectations. Yes. So do you remember like when this phrase came to be? I do, I do. Tell the story. So we were planning like a donor event to have a gathering of current and potential donors in a way that would, again, like celebrate the work that God had been doing and also cast vision for what was coming in the future. And so, but the primary aim was, hey, we want, we need to raise some funds. And so we were in the office and brainstorming around, hey, what does this look like?
19:12
and brainstorming around that. And one of our colleagues really wisely said, so I'm getting the sense that this should not be at a hotel ballroom where we eat rubber chicken. And you and I were like, yes, please no. Let's not, we have no interest in something like that. You guys know what we're talking about, right? There's that hotel ballroom that has the overcooked chicken and the overseen vegetables and the side of rice and...
19:41
that's a dinner and then you get some kind of wonky cut piece of chocolate cake for dessert and you sit there and listen to three hours of a presentation of something and that is the script. That just does not sound exciting at all. Right. And so this phrase, hey, we know rubber chicken. We want to break the script in terms of how things are typically done in
20:10
and hopefully creative and thoughtful ways. Some have worked well, some have not. This is true. This is true. It's it's experimenting, like you said. But that did you have in the way that that actually crafts and architects the resources that we offer and the experiences that we create right in a way that that hopefully the people that participate in that kind of come away saying, wow, this was this was different. This is not what I expected. And again, in a good and thoughtful crafted way.
20:39
for what I just experienced. Yes, and that you just used a really important word that we use a lot at Restoration Project and that is architect. That we want to be experienced architects and resource architects where we're actually putting thought into, we're not just planning, we're putting thought into the experience of what does it feel like, how are we moving forward.
21:01
How does that defy expectations and surprise people in some good ways? And this is not what we expected and it was more than we expected. That's always what we want. And the other piece, the phrase that we have in here is small batch. And that means that, you know, there's a lot of good ministries that have really large things happening, really big event kinds of things happening. And we just decided that that's not really us.
21:29
we'll do large, you know, somewhat larger events, but not, we're not filling any football stadiums. We're not, you know, having a big, you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of people gathering because we lose the value of the no rubber chicken. The larger it is, the more rubber chickeny it has to become. Just like your number of feeding people or doing things you can't have that kind of defy expectations for 10,000 people. Yep, yep. It's a good one. We actually made shirts.
21:57
One year for our staff retreat. Remember that when we like, X over it. Yeah. Yeah. That was fun. Okay. Last one. The value is we are participants in the meta man. We make bold moves knowing we are participants, not producers in God's redemptive work. Yes. I just want everyone right now to like take a big sigh of relief.
22:24
we get to participate in something that is already in movement, already happening. God has already made the plans. He's already laid out all the resources. He has already done all that work. And we get to participate in that. And the language there that we're participants, not producers. Yep. Again, in dynamic tension with being adult, like do your thing, show up, take responsibility. And at the end of the day, it's not actually about you. That's right. It's actually about someone.
22:53
bigger than you are and a story that is bigger than yours. That's what we mean by metanarrative. That it's not just my story, it is the big story. It is the story of God that we get to participate in. Yeah. Oh, how often do we get off on that? Just we forget and we lose our way in, no, it's about me, it's about us. It's about our, you know, do people know about Restoration Project? Is it, you know, like it can get so full of, no, it's about us when
23:22
this value brings us back to like, oh, take a deep breath, everybody. We get to participate in something, not produce it. Yeah. So one of our staff members, brilliantly a couple of months ago, we were getting ready for our summer season, which for us, the calendar of the summer is the busy season for us, where a lot of our experiences happen. And we were just like getting ready to jump into that. And he just really wisely, when we were talking about this value of, hey, we're participants in the meta-narrative, he said, hey, what if we actually bought
23:53
small little pressure relief valves that are like an inch long that you can put on your key chain as a reminder, like as this physical reminder of like, hey, the pressure is off. We get to participate in what God is doing this summer for these next, I mean, in all the work, but especially this summer as we're on the eve of that. And remember that, that we aren't producers, we are participants. And so I just love such a great and creative idea to illustrate that value. Yeah, that is great. And the pressure is off.
24:23
pressure is off. And it also opens up, Jesse, the not everyone in the world is called to be a staff member with Restoration Project. It's not a role that everyone can jump in and do, and yet everyone can participate in the bigger story of what we're doing. And what God is doing in and through Restoration Project. And that is through, that is through coming and participating in the experiences.
24:52
that is about starting, you know, even in and around you, wherever you live, something of what Restoration Project can bring to your community. And you be the instigator of that around you. Volunteer, help jump in and do some things with us. Come to the Grove experiences that we do to train you on how to be in these ways. We have donors from around the world who participate with us, and they know that they can't
25:21
do the work, but they can still participate in the work by their investment. We have some brilliant partners with us in Kenya. One of the things, so one of the projects that we do is we take dads and their kids, their older kids on track and every other year we'll go to Kenya and Costa Rica alternatively. The partners in Kenya, we started meeting with them four plus years ago or whatever.
25:49
It's so fun for me personally to be able to see over the course of the four years, I have dropped in and just been in country, in this place, in the slums of Nairobi with this partner organization for just a handful of days. And yet I have been able to participate with them in the work that they've been able to do by my presence, by my giving, by my sacrifice, by my directing people.
26:18
over there, like that kind of stuff I've been able to participate. We have that kind of stuff happening with our donors too, where people are like, I can't come to all the things, but I believe in you guys. And I want, I want to see the advancement of the work that you're doing. I want to participate in this meta narrative and especially, you know, here in the season of Thanksgiving and Christmas and end of the year, this is why we are a donor funded crowdfunded organization.
26:46
It is yes, because we need the finances to be able to make the things happen, but it is this invitation not just to give money, but to participate in the bigger story of what God is doing here. And we love being able to connect those that give financially to those that benefit from the work that we get to do. And so that is all part of this greater story of why we are a donor involved crowdfunded organization.
27:16
Yeah, I love that connection because it does, it bleeds into that, right? In terms of how we're even of our values and how we're actually structured. Yeah. Yeah. So with that, like, participate with us, please do with us, volunteer with us, do things with us, give, participate in that way. Like the invitation is open for people to be part of what Restoration Project is, even if you can only offer a handful of days or handful of dollars, like it goes so far for us to be able to do the work that we're doing. Yep. That's right.
27:46
That's right. Hmm. Well, there's this. So was that that bad, Jesse? No, actually, that was actually fun. It wasn't like, you know. It's six core values of Restoration Project. There you go. Look at those. Look at that. Well, thanks Chris for leading us through that work years ago and for the conversation today. Appreciate it. Well, here's the thing that I love is that even though that conversation was years ago, I think we actually landed on the values. Hmm. That the work that we did.
28:15
still informs us and if I still think like, oh yeah, that's a good one. That is who we are. Yep. Oh yeah, that's a good one. That is who we are. So here's the litmus test. Listeners, do you experience these? Yeah. Do these come through? Do you experience that idea of participation? Do you experience relentless curiosity? Do you experience us owning and showing up and being adults? Do you experience these values? Would love to know because here's the thing.
28:43
If the answer is yes, call me. If the answer is no, call Jere. You're such a jerk. It's true. All right, well, till next time, Jesse, talk to you later. Thanks, Chris.