GodWorx helps equip all Christians to influence their workplace and integrate their faith, by making disciples and unleashing the kingdom of God wherever they are.
Hi, everyone. My name is Carrie Whitcher, and you too can be a marketplace multiplier because marketplace multipliers equip all Christians to influence their workplace and integrate their faith by making disciples and unleashing the kingdom of God wherever they are.
Welcome to another episode of the Marketplace Multipliers podcast. My name is Jeff Clark, and I serve as the associate head basketball coach at Indiana Wesleyan University. We're gonna be joined today by pastor Rob Patterson, the lead pastor of New Hope Community Church in Loudounville, Ohio.
He offers a really unique perspective as someone who served as a pastor, but then transitioned to work in the marketplace for a season and is leading a church again. It gives some great wisdom both for pastors and lay people who are passionate about marketplace ministry. Pastor Rob, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. It's great to be here.
I love the conversation we had before we started recording just about some of the the tensions that some people feel when they're talking about marketplace multipliers, but just how you've been thinking about them in your role as a lead pastor. Could you share a little bit about how you've been seeing it? Yeah. For sure. So, you know, as I was saying to you before, for years, I've I've thought about how many of these false there are in the church, and literally for decades probably, I've heard sermons about one of them, the idea of the sacred and the secular.
And and really as holiness people sometimes, you know, like like, we we, pour gas on that too. We're like, wow. I could never go to those places or talk to those people because they're secular, and we are sacred people of God. And I and I sort of feel like when Jesus died, when the the curtain was ripped from top to bottom in the temple, it was God's way of saying, hey. Listen.
There's no longer the holy of holies or the most holy place. Like, I am literally and I want to renew. I want to restore. I want to reconcile all things unto myself. And so my my people need to be where my presence is with which isn't just in this one small space where only certain people could go at certain times of the year.
Like, I am everywhere, and so you should go everywhere and try to be a part of my work. And, one of the things that I'm hearing a lot more in the church, even in my own church, is people talking about, like, there's ministry, there's the church world, and then there's this other lesser thing that is creeping into the church that we gotta be really, really careful of called the business world. And, you know, we're trying to pull in all these business principles. Like like, somehow these these effective principles that allow people to be successful and make a difference come from hell and what you know, for praying and not effective. Those things are godly and churchy.
And it's like, I just feel like that's a false dichotomy, and God has given us beautiful things that sometimes, you know, people have discovered and figured out and even refined out in the business world that we should use in the church world because these are things that are from God that he has given to us. Part of what I love about what you're saying is when we don't allow every person to fully live into what God has called them to and who he's made them to be everywhere, we're actually limiting the kingdom potential of the ministries we lead. So it's not just what happens in the church that you lead, but what happens going out of the church that you lead. And I understand you you usually had a season of life where you were forced into a different type of ministry. So talk a little bit about that and how that shaped how you view all of this.
Yeah. So it was about 12 well, 13 and a half years ago. We were in a transitional period going from a church that we planted in West Michigan, to a a 10 year old church planting church, that was a little bit bigger in, North Central Ohio where I am now. And so I stepped down from my position, and we were making this transition, and then there was this six month pause. That's a whole other podcast episode, a whole other story.
And so I'm like, well, I've already quit one job, and I'm not starting the other job, so I need to make some money in this in this period of time. And the grandparent church that helped us plant this church up in West Michigan, there were a couple guys that attended there who owned a bunch of car dealerships. And the and so I got connected there, and they're like, you can come sell cars, you know, as long as you want to. And so for six months, I was a car salesman. And, you know, which is kind of a funny thing to say, sometimes I think people think car salesman and pastors are very similar anyway.
But, like, my joke is after having done that for six months, there were two things that happened. Number one is and we went church pretty much every Sunday still. But after spending 40, 50, 60 hours during the week working, if I went to church and it was not good or just went on and on for no reason, man, like, as someone who'd spent that amount of time and energy during the week, it completely changed my perspective on, man, the the level of quality and value that we need to add in those weekly experiences. But the other thing that was really shaping for me, and I tell pastors this all the time. I actually did more direct ministry in six months selling cars than I have done in almost 30 years as a pastor.
Because here's here's the truth. Right? Like, so what does it mean if we wanna take seriously this mandate to equip the saints for the work of ministry? Well, if we're going to minister to people, if we're gonna serve God and reach people and help people, where are those people? Are they showing up at our church services every week?
Nope. They are out in the marketplace. They're out in the world. So how do we then equip our people, commission our people who are business leaders and who work in the marketplace to reach people for Jesus because that's where they are. You know?
Like, the idea we just gotta get them to the church. They're not coming to the church, at least not in in the numbers they once were. So if we can equip and commission our people who are already in those places, who already have those relationships, It changes things. Jeff, I was telling you at the car dealership, there was this one guy. His name was Steve.
I'll I'll leave his last name off just sort of for anonymity. But, it was great because he would he would come up, with the golf cart. He'd poke his head in the dealership. He'd say, hey, preacher man. Come with me.
And I'd hop on the golf cart as he chain smoked his cigarettes, and he just wanted to, like, talk about life and struggles and Jesus. I didn't have to force that conversation at all or figure out a a strategy or a tactic. And by the the six months time, like, when I was, like, actually leaving to come lead the church that I now lead, he made me promise that I would come back to Michigan and perform his funeral when he died because just in that short amount of time, the the relationship that we built and the impact that I was able to have on his life was a pretty cool thing. As you're talking, it almost makes me wish every clergy could go spend a a few months working in a regular job, and every layman could go work in the clergy for a few months. And I I wonder how much both would be more fully equipped to do their job.
But it really leads me to to ask you this final question. As you have come back and led a church now, after having that experience, what's changed about how you led your people knowing what it was like to work a 60 hour work week then come to church, but then wanna do ministry out in the marketplace because that's where you were spending so much time? Yeah. You know? And I've heard other people talk about this.
This isn't unique to me. But I think in the church world, we have a problem with, like, ownership and control, and we sort of view the the church too as, like, the epicenter of all things. And so if a church needs, like, a a youth pastor, but maybe they don't really for their size or their location or whatever, they don't really need a full time youth pastor. They could literally, you know, have someone who's part time or whatever. Churches sometimes really struggle with that because they're like, no.
We want to completely own or control this person, and so we'd rather pay them for hours we don't even need in order to feel like, you know, we do this. And so we do the same thing in the in the business world. Right? We're like, hey. There's this great business leader in my church.
And so instead of wanting to equip them and commission them and say what you're doing is exactly what God wants you to do, instead, we want them to do a little bit less of that so that they can chair this committee or serve on that team within the church. And then those business people, like, shrivel up and die because they're bored. They're really not using that their potential, the stuff that God has placed within them. And so for me, like, my my thought is always not I don't wanna control anybody. I don't want them to only ever serve within the walls of the church.
I wanna give the church away. I want to unleash people so that they can do, you know, what God has placed within them. Inside the walls of the church, sure. But if someone's primary life is outside the walls of the church, it would be a shame if they missed those opportunities to love people, to care for people, and to really sort of reflect who Jesus is to those people that they're around every single day. I love your passion and heartbeat, pastor Rob.
And I actually do have one follow-up question. You've given some great wisdom and insight to pastors. You said I worked as a person in a car place, and now I've been a pastor. Why don't you give some wisdom to the layperson who's listening now who's never been a pastor? Yeah.
What did you take into the role in the marketplace? How would you encourage that person to actually do this ministry, that work that you're talking about, to be effective ministers of the gospel while doing something like selling cars? Yeah. So I'm a very curious person, and I love to learn, so that served me well. But quite honestly, I mean, I've I've purchased a lot of cars in my lifetime, but, you know, I didn't know anything about how to sell cars.
I didn't know anything about you know? I mean, for weeks, I was taking all these tests and trainings to learn about, you know, how do you program the radio in this model of car and, you know, those kinds of things. So I was learning a lot of stuff. But, honestly, I I didn't know what I was doing. But by the end of that six month window, when I went and sat down in the owner's office and said to him, hey.
This position's opened up now, and I I need to I need to go do this in in the church. He actually looked at me, and he said, what if I match the salary that they're offering you to keep you here? So here's a guy literally who doesn't know anything about selling cars, and the owner of this dealership is offering to pay me a significant amount of money to to stay there. So what what did I do? I controlled the things I could control.
I wore, literally a jacket and tie every single day to sell cars. Now you don't usually go to a car dealership and find people in jackets and ties, but I'm like, you know what? I can't control that. I don't know how to sell cars, but I can control, like, my appearance and and and how hard I work. And the reason that the owner of the dealership wanted to retain me is because I showed up on time.
I was positive. I contributed, you know, in in good ways to the overall environment of the dealership. So I think a lot of times, you know, people who just they they wanna be lights for Jesus. They wanna make a difference, but they're so overwhelmed with, I gotta learn this, and I don't know that. Listen.
Just control the things that you can control and be a positive presence in the in the environment that you're in, and God will use that. And when people ask you, hey. Why are you so positive, man? It seems like you haven't sold a car in two weeks, and, you know, you're in the hole, and and you're not making any money. Like, why are you so positive?
Well, here's a perfect opportunity to say, hey. The most significant thing in my life is this person called Jesus, and he gives me peace, and he helps me even in these more difficult seasons of life. And, you know, I think that's powerful. I love this example of just wherever you're at, whether you're leading a church, selling cars, whatever you're doing to go fully after the places that God has put you and to really do it for the people that he's put at you in front of. It's powerful example for us to hear.
So thanks, pastor Rob, for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Thanks, Jeff.
Appreciate the time. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Marketplace Multipliers podcast. For more information, go to www.marketplacemultipliers.com. Please like and subscribe to this podcast and share with others who may benefit. And remember, you too can integrate your faith and influence your workplace for Christ.