Paul Baldwin: Devout In Doubt – S4E12

On this episode, we're talking with our friend Paul Baldwin, author, pastor and coach, as he walks us through the recent release of his book Devout in Doubt. Stay with us. You're listening to the Dudes and Dads podcast, a show dedicated to helping men be better dudes and dads by building community through meaningful conversation and storytelling. And now here are your hosts, Joel DeMott and Andy Lehman.

Joel, D. Andy. Wow. Andy, if you haven't noticed, I've recently come back from the Magnum P.I. Fan Club meeting. I see that you're. Very you're very. Floral in your attire today. Troy Cap and all. Thank you, Tom Selleck. Wow. Yikes. I could almost picture you as Tom Selleck. Almost. Uh huh. Mm hmm. Maybe. Yeah. So here we are back again, Andy, for another great episode. This time we're diving to just a second.

It's so great to have our guest that we've got with us, coming to us from a remote location. A remote. Location. undisclosed closed remote location. And go undisclosed remote location. But before we get into the interview, Andy, we do definitely want to say thanks to a few people, don't you? Yeah, we do. So we want to thank our patrons. We could not do this show without you guys. You keep the lights on. You keep the Internet stream streaming. You keep everything going on this show.

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Get on that dudes and dads podcast bandwagon would love to have yeah well hey as we said at the outset,

we have a guest on tonight our good friend my friend who quite honestly, I've not seen him in real time for quite some time, but someone who's made a significant impact on on my life and the lives of many others, our friend Paul Baldwin. Paul is the recent author of Devout in Doubt Diving into Deeper Devotion. This book comes out of a really amazing sequence of events diagnosed sees all of that, the Paul and his family journey through this.

He's going to tell us all about that. So without further ado. Paul Baldwin. You are. On the Dudes and Dads podcast. Paul, thanks for being on with us, man. Appreciate you being here. I'm very excited to be here and thank you for dialing up what I was trying to I was trying to decide what what does Joel look like right now? And he looks strikingly familiar. Look, and I. I didn't even. That was it. It's like a ginger. I'm gonna get ginger. Tom Selleck. That's. No. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So awesome. So, Paul, you've got you got yourself a family and you got your son. Do you get yourself a job and you've got yourself some some things you've done in the past and things are doing now. And so, as we always like to hear about your dad's debts, tell us about it. Tell us about life. Tell us about the family, where you come from, what you're doing, all that good stuff. Yeah. No, I was born and raised in Southern California and my wife just out of high school.

We've been married 29 years, spent about 13 or 14 years in the Midwest. And that's where I met you, Joel. Yes. Paul was much more depressed in those days because things. Yeah. Living in northern Indiana, it's life is hard. But anyway, go on. Sorry. It was an awesome season. It was. These winters were pretty brutal because we were there down to Miami, Florida, where their winters are all of two days at about 45 degrees and so, so harsh. So yeah, that's pretty that's pretty awesome.

So we've been down there the last eight years and my wife and I got married 29 years. We have four children. We have a 28 year old daughter. She's married and she has our first granddaughter who is now. Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty fantastic. And then we have a son who's 26 years old and he's dating a really lovely girl. We love her a lot. And then we've got our daughter, Hannah, who's 24. She's married and she lives in southern Florida.

And then our other daughter, Abby, who's 21 years old, and she's actually on her way back from Uganda, serving it youth with a mission right now. So they're all adults right now. And we love them. We love every one of them. Paul, you're in you're in this empty nest season. And we talked about this a little bit before the show. How great is it? Because Andy and I just we we love our kids. We love hanging out and doing all the things we're doing now.

Although, Joel, today, early yesterday, my son Michael was like, hey, you know, at the end of the next year, I'll be 18 and he's actually 16 now. But I mean, true. And the next year. He hit you with that truth. But yeah. And it was not okay. So so Paul, as we anticipate these guys in the future, what's it like for you right now? What's how are you? Are you loving it? Is it is it just everything that we dreamed it can be? Yeah, it's everything you're dreaming about.

I'm living it right now. It's what you were doing. You know, we were married 29 years, and our daughter is 28. And so she's been with us since day one. And so we never really had we didn't have that like, you know, three, four or five years before we had kids, we were like right on top of it right away. And it was fantastic. My wife could keep her hands off me, that kind of thing. So yeah. So that's what I like to hear. We know where the know. That's right. That's right.

And so just in the last couple of years, we've really experienced just the two of us by ourselves in our home, which has been really, really weird, like cooking meals has always been like for the four kids and oftentimes they're friends and then and, and so just it's just the two of us and we can just pick up and take off anytime we want to. And it's it's pretty, pretty fantastic. And we love spending time with our kids. Our kids. It's a blast movie nights hanging out all of that.

But having our own time is pretty, pretty, pretty awesome too. So before, before we ask my next question, Paul, the other thing is the ending. I constantly talk about how we're raising our kids to be the kind of adults we want to hang out with when they get older. Is that is that a worthwhile goal? Because I think that we're on the right track. But it sounds to me like that's the kind of life that you're trying to you're trying to live these days.

Yeah. And what's funny is I think sometimes you do it intentionally, sometimes you don't do it intentionally. Either way, you're disabling your kids, right? Either way, you're saving your kids whether you're being intentional or not. So there's a lot of pressure there. But we have we have begun to notice as our kids are kind of soaring through their twenties, that they are starting to look a lot like us, for better and for worse for sure.

You know, there's we've got one of our kids that's like the best of us and the worst of us, and we're like, Oh, my God, we're so sorry. But, but it is also pretty fun to see some values that are coming through and personalities that are coming through. And some are just some little quirky things that are coming through that are really cute. And, and I'll say, Oh, that's totally you say, Oh, it's totally me. And so it is happening. And again, it's happening.

Whether you're intentional about it or not. So you might as well be intentional. There's a little life lesson there, but we are definitely noticing that. And there 20 years of for sure, like when they're, you know, 18, 19, 20 years, they they don't want to be us and they don't want to admit that they're us.

But now they're they're getting in, you know, they're getting married and they're getting into their mid twenties at the personal these kind of settle and then you're starting to see it a lot more and it's, it's pretty fun. It's pretty fun and scary to be just straight up on us. It's pretty fun and scary. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So. Paul, what. Is what does work look like for you these days? What do you what are you doing for a job? What's what?

What kind of massive you got yourself into down there in the great state of Florida? Yeah. Well, I was in the youth ministry for a since 2000 to all the way through for a long, long time and even before then. So almost since I was 19 years old, I'm 51 now. So from 19 to probably 44, I was in youth ministry and I took a job down in Miami, Florida, the Miami of in your community church as the executive pastor, we got about we're in the southwest side of Miami.

There's about 4000 people in the church, about 40 staff, about 400 volunteers. And and so I oversee all of the staff, family, the finance and facilities and all their development, all their strategic planning. So I knew that that's my full time gig, and I've been doing that for eight years.

And then I've also just kind of on ramped into working with an organization out of Cincinnati Vineyard called The Elemental Group, doing some consulting with churches and nonprofits and some private, private colleges as well. So I'm doing that on the side. So I'm traveling a lot right now. I actually live in two different cities. I live in Charleston where my wife and I live and most of our family. And then I travel down to Miami every other week to to run the church down there.

And then while I'm up here, I work remotely. So it's a busy life. It's a busy life. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Well, in Paul so their thing is I mean you're doing as an executive pastor right now. I we were joking before the show that, you know, people always ask me because I'm an executive pastor now, too, and the people are like, what does an executive pastor do? And I try to explain it as simply as possible. I just want for those listening. I don't know many. I don't know many.

There's there's many pastors that have different job descriptions that can vary. But Paul has figured out how to live and work in both Charleston and Miami. That's just not the norm. That's just not the norm. So I just want to set the record straight. This is not about the standard. For. For the job. But as Paul, you said, it's you're in a year in a season right now and able, obviously, to do that just because of where you where you are in life.

And man, I think I'm sure I'm sure you are benefiting so many people in the midst of all of that is your as you're doing good work because you yeah you make a big impact so. What. Is and far as far as your background your educational background is concerned because you've got you're kind of you kind of independent all over the place. You got all you got a lot of things that your have been involved with or looking forward to in the future.

So what what kind of career course did you start off with and all the college stuff and all that? Yeah. So I grew up in a construction family. My father was a drywall contractor. My father in law is a painting contractor. So he did most of my work with them. My, albeit my, my extended family runs a cement union in California. So I grew up all construction and I started going to the University of California and I got a job in there in maintenance and ended up becoming the director of operations.

And so it was all building, it was all construction, it was all anything having to do with building things. While at the same time I was a volunteer youth worker in our church from age 19 all the way through until probably about 30 years old, and just really had a passion for youth ministry. And I still do have a passion for youth ministry.

And so, you know, during those ten years that I got involved with, you know, a network of youth ministries around the country and got an invitation to come into youth ministry full time in South Bend, Indiana, over there. So my educational background, I've got a you know, I'm a sociology major with the concentration in organizational management. And then I've got a master's in counseling.

And I only got that because I was working at the university and they said, Hey, we'll pay for your master's degree. I do. And so I like to talk to people. And I was interested in youth ministry. And so I got a master's degree in counseling for that, which was which is pretty cool. And then once I got into ministry, I ended up going through the Vineyard. USA has a as a kind of an educational arm called the Vineyard Leadership Institute.

I went through and went through that as a as a leadership development just to get some of my theology training, because I really didn't have that in a secular school. And so that's that's really my educational background. Yeah. And just like a lot of us, you know, trying to be a leader that learn, I read everything I can and I watch everything that I do and I love to read. So just trying to teach myself that way as well.

I'm sure you're like so many of us that, you know, you have all the formal education stuff and then you go into the ministry world that is its own unique education unto itself. Specifically, when you're working with working with young people. Because I it was all I could do with my 17 years of youth ministry to like, try to keep up with what in the world was going on. I told them. With the young people. So now I just I'm just hired other people to try to keep up, I guess.

I guess. But. Well, you know, and we're in a we're in a it's not really a denomination, but in an association, we're in one that doesn't matter. You know what? If you've got the experience and the desire will hire you, will train you up. Because honestly, I don't know that I'm using anything that I learned in my formal education with youth ministry. I mean, there's, you know, you learn how to follow through and you learn processes. And I guess my counseling has been really helpful as well.

But there's a lot of this is just what do they call it, the seminary of Hard Knocks. Yeah. You know, so which is kind of like parenting, but yeah. So now you you are were diagnosed with something. Can you let's talk about that. What were you diagnosed with and tell us a little bit about how you were diagnosed? Yeah, I was I was diagnosed with a non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and it was pretty radical. It was pretty advanced.

We were in stage four cancer. And I can tell you the whole story pretty quickly. Here we were. I was I'm living you know, they say during the cold season, you lose track of time, you lose sense of your timing. Yeah, it was March of 2020 when everything shut down and most churches in America, you know, they shut down and go online and do the thing. It was about that time that I was I was struggling with some health stuff.

We were trying to figure out some root cause, some immune deficiency is and all that. But on July 12th of 2020, so just a few months later, we were getting ready to go back into the office at the church. Up until the end, we were completely remote. My wife and I were we're working in the backyard, one in a back patio and just work. And it was a hot, hot day in July. And the Miami Heat was the humidity like 2000 degrees. Right. And we were working hard.

And I remember taking a bunch of breaks and my wife was kind of, you know, she's a workhorse. She was working hard. And and I think she was calling me a worse and like making fun of me and all this stuff. But I just kept taking I kept taking breaks. And that night after we had dinner, I laid in bed and I was just in terrible, terrible pain. I couldn't. What was it? And I'm like the last one to go to the emergency room. But it was so much pain. And on July 12, I went to the emergency room.

I said, Hey, you got to take me to the emergency room. And she dropped me off. It must have been like 11:00 at night and she had to drop me off and she couldn't come in with me, which was kind of weird because of COVID, right? Yeah. All that were lockdown. If you look at all the nasty COVID numbers in Florida, it's pretty much Miami. We've got 5 million people in that city and nobody goes, Oh, it was down. And so they dropped me off. So they immediately did some tests.

They said, You're not leaving the hospital. We think we see something and we don't like what it is. And we think it might be cancer, which was just low on my mind. I had to call my wife on the phone and. And. My goodness. And was just absolutely sus because, you know, I mean, this is a woman I've been with for 28 years at that time.

And I had to tell her over the phone, but we had to I had to wait in the hospital for the entire week because what they were looking for took a bit of time to to really diagnose when they go back to pathology and all that. So on July 17th, which was actually my birthday, my 49th birthday, I'm in the hospital, I get a little piece of paper that says non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. So on my birthday, all happy birthday you've got. Yeah, and not just me.

A whole team came in and they said, this is pretty advanced, like this is pretty aggressive. And I was just trippin man, cause we don't have we don't have any history of that at all. I'm a runner. I eat, I eat fairly healthy at this season in my life. I take really good care of myself. We don't really have a family history that we knew of at the time. We've since we learned that there was a little bit of history there.

And and so that was on July 17th and July 18th, they immediately started a pretty, pretty gnarly and aggressive treatment of chemotherapy that was going to take me about six months to to go through and and a lot of that was in the hospital also. So that was the diagnosis. It was pretty it was pretty hard. And and the treatment was even, you know, even more aggressive. So so as you're.

Yeah, I mean, so okay, you get the diagnosis, that bomb was dropped on you and I think of so many people that moment where life just shifts incredibly fast, all in kind of one, one intense moment, what what goes through your mind initially? Like when you're hit with that, when you're hit with that info, what what hits you the hardest? Yeah, I mean, a little bit of disbelief, right? Like there's this kind of surreal ness of like, no, no, this is not. No, right.

And then you there's the stages of grief that you go through a little bit of fear. A lot of fear, because when you hear cancer, you immediately think, I said, I'm going to die. I mean, that might be an exaggeration, but in your mind you're going now, is this something I'm going to die like that? Like you said, it was aggressive. What does this mean? And then it leads to frustration and and then you kind of jump in again and like, how did this happen? I don't get it.

So what's you know, and you start to think through these things. About course, I wrote the book on doubt. You know, if I'm really honest, like, God, why would you allow this to happen? Which is kind of arrogant. And I can talk a little bit about that a little bit later if you want to. So it's just a lot of a lot of like a cocktail of emotions bouncing back from fear to frustration to confusion, to doubt, to, hey, can you explain this again?

Like I had two doctors come in probably five or six times and explain it to me for a couple or is a similar one. I just wanted to understand. But number two, I'm not a detailed I'm not trying to translate exactly what I'm saying to my wife, who is a detail person. And so my wife was like, yeah, you know, we're the kind of couple where, you know, my wife will say, Hey, what did you guys talk about? I don't really remember.

I mean, I was like two or 3 hours, but I have no idea what we talked about it because I'm just not that detail person. And so it was just a it was a real intense season of just a lot of emotions like up and down. I'm pretty emotional guy anyways, but you know, that made sense. A lot of fear, a lot of frustration, a lot of confusion and then a little bit of doubt. I've just you know, I don't I don't get this, you know.

Yeah. In the book you mentioned and you kind of said at the outset here, like that you're in you're in quarantine. So you're by yourself processing all of this stuff and then trying to in the end, it's like processing on your own and then trying to communicate with the family, like what's going on and playing that whole game. I, I just, I do wonder. Like, how.

How did the isolation, like the idea of isolation around this kind of thing when you're, you're trying to handle this to a degree on your own because you don't have people right there next right there, next to you. I just kind of wonder like what that experience is like, because I know you would be in this camp. I would be this camp.

In this camp where we say we see like men community in these times is essential and this is what we would like want to both surround ourselves with and push other people toward and this kind of this kind of scenario. And yet, here you are held up in all places, which just I've been in I've been with my kid in a in a ICU for a few days. And that about drove me nuts. So I can only imagine what that was like for you. What's the experience like as you kind of doing this on your own?

To a certain extent. Yeah, a few levels, because not only was I quarantined for my family, but I was actually quarantined from the nurses as well. So it was it was such a it was such an intense time in Miami with COVID. The nurses were only allowed to come in at scheduled times. And so I was I was actually in a in a quarantined room in the hospital. And not all the hospital rooms were like as I didn't know the extent of my cancer. They were super careful about that, even come in from the staff.

So there's that I'm in. I'm I've discovered over the last couple of years and I'm probably more of an introvert than but also an external processor like I have to I have to process out loud. And so if you were like a fly on the wall, you would see me actually talking out loud and trying to process and look like I was in a crazy hospital. And then there were a lot of conversations that I had with my wife.

Yeah, it was it was a on some levels it was helpful that I was by myself because when we when something goes sideways in my life, I tend to retract and I tend to get really quiet. And I don't need a lot of people. I just need my wife, I need my kids. And we like to huddle and we like to hide and just get away and we'll deal with our stuff privately.

But at the same time, I've got 4000 people in our congregation and something big just happened and we have to figure out a way to communicate this to the church, because if you don't if you don't control the narrative of that as a as in a public position like this, people will control that narrative. And and that's a really crazy thing, because, as you guys know, human beings can just start to tell stories that are not necessary. So there was there was there was a managing my own motion.

There was a managing my family's emotion, which my wife just she just so can handle that. And then there was managing the emotions of staff and then over all congregation and all of that had to be done as I was quarantined. Bay Better like this, you know, you and I over a screen or over a table, then trying to do something over a phone. And so it was it was a bit of a it was a bit of it. It was a retreat. And it was frustrating.

But at the same time, I needed that time to just process and I had to be careful how much I processed out loud because my wife's a very literal person. So if I if I say too much of what's on the mind, that's going to trigger out too. But at the same time, our wives want to know how. I want to know what's going on in their heads. Right? So we we we think, I mean, you know, getting dudes and dads as as as dudes and dads, we think that we're protecting our wives.

We're protecting our children by not sharing all of the information and being fully transparent. But when quite the opposite is necessary for intimacy and community within our family. But it's just it's different levels, you know, I don't know. It's I don't know if any of that made sense. So it was it was a real emotional gymnastics, you know. So you're in the hospital room and you start journaling, you start writing some things down was which which became which became the book.

I mean, is it was it basically it's almost not exactly a 1 to 1 trance transfer, but like were those those journals and those writings and those things like that. Did you when you started that, as you're writing in that room, did you have an idea that this would become something else or was it like just a way of you're like kind of a self count? Like what was the purpose behind what you were doing in that during during that season? Yeah, I mean, part of it is journaling for me.

I remember growing up Chuck Swindell used to say when you journal during as you're doing your devotions, you know, you read a verse and you kind of go, What does this mean to me? You're trying to, you know, when you journal, when you attach a language to your thoughts, it helps you process. It helps you study God's word more deeply. It helps you, you know, for some people, it's just it's a it's a great way for me to communicate with God as I write. That was not the intent.

I mean, that's part of what I do. But really the main motivation for journaling was our communications, our church. We were trying to figure out how to we're trying to create a we the church and our family immediately because we knew that we were just going to get inundated with texts and voicemails and people who want to visit. And we didn't want any of that.

And we love our church family, but we just needed to like we needed to be separate from them and we needed to like we needed to handle our business. Because when things like this happen, we tend to we tend to hide and, you know, we deal with our stuff. We're very private family. But we also knew that my position was a very public position. And so we had to do something to communicate to the church that what was going on from day to day.

So our communications director set up the caring bridge site. You're familiar with it? Caring, yeah. It's a really helpful tool. And so I just started to let people know from day to day how I was doing. And and that turned into kind of my devotion time, my processing to those people that were that were listening and supporting. And that number rose to about 10,000 people or something like that. It was. Just real. Media and we just we had no idea.

I mean, some of these people were around the world and we had no idea who they were. But they were a friend of a friend of a family member who's a friend, that sort of thing. And so I just kept writing to communicate to them. So what was a tool to kind of protect our family from the rest of you know, the mom turned into just a real therapeutic and spiritually formative time for me and then for for other people.

And and about three quarters of the way through chemotherapy, somebody said, hey, this is some good writing. What would you think about turning this into a book? And three or four people said that. And so I called I called a buddy of mine, PJ Ash, and told her worship at Notre Dame. I said, Hey, what do you think about this? Is there any legitimacy to that? He goes, I don't know. Let's try it. So then I called Terry Lenhart, who I think You guys. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's in Bethel College and he's a 20 year friend of mine. And I just said, Hey, this is just can I just send you a couple of articles and, you know, entries and what do you think? He goes, I think this is really raw and like really transparent. I think this might connect to some people. So he connected me to a publisher that he knew and and I submitted what I had. I had no there was no I mean, it was just raw journal entries.

And by the end of the week, their whole editorial board came back and said, we really like this. We've not seen this kind of writing. It's super right. It's super. Raw. I mean, I'm like this. I'm like, Yeah, there's a couple of chapters there. I'm like, This author God and right. Yeah. And I say, So, you know, and there's some entries where I'm just like, Yeah, I don't want to talk at all today, you know? And they really liked it.

And so they said, Can you put some form and fashion to it and give us, you know, some smaller questions? We added some quotes and some reflective prayers and all that. And it turned into I turn to the book and we picked up some really neat endorsements from around the country. And we just decided, you know, we really believe the Lord just saying, don't take a dollar from this book and give it all. We're giving it all the way to the American Cancer Society. So it makes it a lot.

We're not I'm not a big self-promoter. So it's I can promote the project. I can totally promote the project. And so I hope we sell this 4 million copies and and give as much money to raising money and awareness for people trying to figure out the cancer. 600 Texas now 600,000 new cancer cases a year. Wow. Just in this country alone, it's just it's a real pandemic. And so so that's that's how it all kind of happened. And and and it really seemed from it out of obedience,

because I didn't want to do that. I just I really didn't want to share my stuff. But he likes to be vulnerable. Nobody really likes to admit when they're weak. And nobody really wants to put their bald head and eyebrows on the street stuff. So that was the act of obedience. And so, you know, it's all self-help. So that was a real long answer to your question. No, it's great. It's great. So the book is called The Vote in Doubt. And Can what can someone expect if they get a copy of this book?

What's the format? What's it look like to pick it up? Is it a straight through read? Is it something you do day to day? How does that look? Yeah, it's set up as a day to day. There's 49 entries. And again, it wasn't 49 days of treatment, it was 49 days where I was strong enough emotionally and physically for writes. And there's another 160 days where I just I was either too miserable or just not in it.

And so I try to be really honest about this is this snapshot of my journey, but it's set up as a devotional and so it is a day to day deal where you'll hear and the feedback one getting is we really felt like we were with you in this journey. And at the end of each entry about a page or two or three at the end of each one is a reflection question where I really ask you to do a little deep, dove into your own life.

And then there's a time where there's a there's a prayer that you can to yourself or it's a model for it. And then there's a quote that, you know, I love quotes. I love quotes because I think people in history, not just religious figures, but, you know, just public figures who are able to attach language to thoughts that we're wrestling with.

And the feedback that we're getting right now is that about a quarter of the way through the book, people are in this journey and they're finding themselves in this journey because my story is cancer. I never wanted that story to be cancer. That's just nobody wants to pick that up as their own story. But we put it together.

That's the way that that hopefully whatever season offerings that you're you know, you're in, you'll be able to learn how to meet Jesus and that and learn how to live with God in that and and learn how to walk out inevitable doubt that you're going to have in life. It's just a reality of our faith. And I'm just I'm super stoked that that's been been happening. I've been getting emails and Facebook messages all over the country of just people that are being spoke to, administered to, by.

So it's pretty cool. Very humbling. Yeah. So Paul, I think from my I think just apart from my pastoral experience and professional experience and whatever for those of us that are in, well, you know, kind of in the big umbrella of the evangelical community, the word doubt is kind of a dangerous word for people. It's kind of uncomfortable. And yet here you've just been really bold and just emblazoned it on the front of your of your book cover. What what do you.

Think the common misunderstanding among so many people, people of faith in particular, what kind of misunderstanding around the idea of doubt? Do you think the do you often find? Yeah, I think that in short, I think that people think that doubt if I doubt if I doubt God at any level, then that's divisive. Right? This, you know, two different visions is diversion. Right. And so if I doubt, I must be I must not trust that God is doing his job correctly.

And so in my doubt, I'm considering other options. And and I think that I honestly, as a pastor for 30 years now, I think that we have as ministers almost done our church is in disarray. And because we will we will come on strong and say, you just got to trust you. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. Oh, well, I'm starting to lean on my own understanding as I just get this cancer diagnosis. So does that mean I'm doubting God?

Well, maybe there's a little bit of doubt there. Does that mean I'm not trusting God as the Bible says I should, and so am I not? I'm not who I was supposed to be. Am I am I am I stumbling here? Absolutely not. I will just 100% say absolutely no. I don't think doubt has to be a divisive thing. It doesn't divide us. It's actually a doorway to our faith. Immediately you look at Lamentations, you look at the Psalms.

How many times did David sing God and complain to God and say, I don't get this and this doesn't make sense, you know? And and but we see David always kind of just wrestle outloud with through his doubt and God's patient. I mean, one of the chapters in the book, one of the journal entries was like, God's not surprised, does not like Joel. I can't believe you just did this. You were out, man. Yeah. God is a man. God is a big God. He can handle it and he can. He's patient with us.

He loves us just like we are with our children. And we love our kids. The most asinine things when they when they, you know, Daddy, are you going to catch me in the pool? Are you sure you gonna catch me? If you just caught your kid at seven different times, the 80 time you're going to drop your kid and let you know, you know, it's a you know, God can handle that. And so just being okay, crying out to God and saying, I don't understand it, I'm confused. I'm afraid I'm frustrated.

Yes, I do have doubt, but leave it to that doubt. Don't lean away from God, lean in to God during that doubt and so doubt doesn't have to be divisive in your faith. Now can actually be a doorway and say, I'll tell you right now, I have grown more in my faith over the last three years than I probably have in the last 30 years. And it's just it's just a remarkable, remarkable thing. And it's affected everything in my life. I'm a better husband or a healthier husband. I'm a healthier father.

I think I'm a better leader. I think I'm a healthier pastor. And and, you know, did God cause this or did God allow it? It really doesn't matter. I've gone through it and we were able to lean into this thing. I mean, here's the thing. Here's the thing about it. You know, we were I heard this on some podcasts where somebody is preaching and I love this. I can't really claim this statement from my own. But we were you know, we were surprised physically.

Like we were absolutely surprised physically, but we were not unprepared spiritually. We were surprised physically, but we were not unprepared spiritually. Now, about 12 years ago when I was living up in Indiana, I actually got pretty sick. This happened once before. It wasn't cancer, but I got chronic strep. Pneumonia was a real mess. And, you know, they weren't sure if I was going to make it. And so we were surprised physically, but we were not prepared spiritually.

I was not prepared spiritually. And I would say things in my head and not allowed because I'm a Christian. But in my head I would say that's I would say I would say, you know, in my mind I'd be like, God, after all I've done for you, you're going to allow this to be a real entitlement, really just kind of arrogant posture. But this time around, it's not that at all. It was just kind of like it was less about God, what you doing? But more about God. Okay, what are you doing?

Something's happening here, and I don't want to thing that you're doing. And now sounds super spiritual, that sounds super pious, and just know that that's not it wasn't that. I mean, but that's that's what it did for me. Doubt filled me through to us through this process where we really wanted to understand if this is happening right now, whether you allow it or whether you do cause it. And that's a whole nother podcast, right? God, what do you want us to learn? Who are you shaping me to be?

You know, how can I grow through this rather than go through it? How can I grow through it? Grow w rather than go through this and and so I think the doubt can be one of the most beautiful, mystical, healthy, spiritual tools in our lives, you know. And but oftentimes we miss it and we and we ignore it. And we suppressed and we say, no, I can't doubt that that's wrong. That's sin. And it's just not I just I just I don't believe that at all.

Do you do you think for somebody that comes into a situation and I think at the I'm just trying to think it kind of like the the practical level of there might be a greater danger for the person in terms of their long term faith journey to initially not embrace and basically say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to doubt. I'm not going to I'm going to stand strong.

I'm going to I'm going to, you know, pull myself up by my bootstraps and then try to walk through something hard that way, that the trajectory spiritually for them might be or likely is way more dangerous or way more it has way less hope in it than the person who kind of comes to the end of themselves and says, I'm going to embrace all the messiness and the doubt and I'm not going to get freaked out when I start saying crazy things in my head,

because that's part of being a human being and that's part of living life in that the trajectory of that is actually over the long term health healthier. Is that is that a fair kind of a fair thing to say? I think it is a fair thing. But I also want to recognize that it's human nature for us to want to control things right? Yep. Yeah. It just it and you guys, I'm 51 years old. I've been walking with God for since I was 19.

And so I recognize also that I've I've I've fallen down and I've and I've gone back a lot more than someone who's been 26 years old, too. So, you know, I want to be I want to be real about where I don't expect to grow old, been walking with Jesus for three years or even one of our kids to just immediately have this disposition and to say, I'm just going to I'm just going to put my hands out like this and just receive it and really learn what God is doing in my life.

It's our human nature to want to this and to, you know, want to correct and want to see what can I do differently? I mean, even right now. And I'm still kind of like I'm meeting with the doctor this week. What can I do to to prevent cancer? Again, this is just how we're power made. And there are some things that I can do, right? I mean, I can eat healthier, I can drink more water and exercise in all these different things. But I think we get so focused on, what can I do to to make this better?

What can I do to get rid of this doubt? And I just think we we don't have enough in the church and we don't teach enough our children to say, it's okay if you it. I mean, Joel, you were in youth ministry. How many times that a parent come to you and say, I think my kids are checking out of their faith? BOY Yeah. Right. And there's nothing is on. There's nothing is worse. Yeah. And we can be and. There are things. I'm a terrible parent.

Oh, my God. My kid's going to go to hell and all this different stuff. And I just had to tell them, Hey, it's okay. It's okay that they have questions because questions will lead to answer. Your job is to lead them through those questions and help them find answers. And and how many times can we say this, right? This is the doorway to them owning their own faith and graduating your faith as a mom and a dad. Right.

And so, you know, so we we we've got to spend more and especially with our children, we got to spend more time not correcting the doubts. But but but connecting with these questions and helping them sort through these questions. And the same is true for all human beings. Right. And I'm not sure if I answered your question. There it was. It was kind of a long kind of a messy answer. So you can tell me doing all. The right things. You know what you're saying? All the right things.

But that's on all things. Mostly you've given us at least three solid tidbits that we'll be able to cut out of this and use to promote the episode. So really, Andy is thrilled over here. He's just like, Yes, this is all the stuff I'm telling you. This is. Fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. We do want to remind everyone, we do have a voicemail number and that number is 57421387025742138702.

We would love to hear your comments about this episode or if you're on with us live right now, just go ahead and put your comments right in the comment section of the app that you're using. We love these live people. They're giggling. We do. We do. Fantastic. And again, I always just say, I I'm just the pretty face on this podcast. But Andy really is the brains behind the operation and he's really set up has set up a fantastic option. Jewel rocking the tiger's hat with style. Thank you, Jason.

Thank you for appreciating the Detroit Tigers because no one else does. So. Paul. Here's here's what I wonder, because you mentioned this at the leadership level. So you can talk about family leadership and you can talk about kind of your professional church leadership. What has shifted for you following this experience? What what things maybe have you changed? Maybe you have you started doing something? Have you stopped doing something?

Or have you rearranged in how you do things in light of what this journey? Yeah, I'm not so sure how to answer this, but my my staff's more compassionate with, of course, the story I'm telling myself was I was. I told you one day you say two words that you said as you're a lot more compassionate because, you know, obviously with a big staff, a young staff, our staff is is under 35. They say I'm more compassionate and and they say I'm more present. And so that's that's great.

That's a compliment. And I appreciate that. From my perspective, I, I feel leadership has simplified for me, you know, as you know, your executive pastor is you're in the weeds of everything. And it can be it can be really exhausting, can be really tiring. And so for me, I try to back up and not go so fast. When I'm meeting with a staff member, I'm a little bit more present in the How are you doing and how is your family doing?

Because I know that they're not going to be in this role 30 years from now. They might need a different role. They might be in a different church. I want to know that they're growing. I want to know that they are being present. I want to know what they are chasing after Jesus, really embracing the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. And so I'm much more present through that. We do get about the business.

I mean, obviously in a big church and a small church, any church, you still got to be about the work of the church. But on that side of things to I had I have I feel that I'm being a bit more pushy, encouraging to to equip and to delegate. And this will sound super more morbid. I honestly didn't there were times where I just did not think I was coming back to this job. And so part of part of my my posture, I didn't come back to this job. I would have taken my position, my equipping people.

And so I really I'm really starting to plan to to multiply myself. And then I'm trying to encourage my IT leaders, my pastors do, too, by themselves. So yeah. So I feel like I'm on more compassion. I do feel like I'm more and more president, but my priority is probably more equipping them in their own spiritual walk and then equipping them to be equipping leaders. Because, you know, we are a little too dependent on ourselves and other people and the work of the church we really should be buying.

So that was kind of another message. And I don't that's a great answer. I, I would summarize the language that I like to use is to kind of summarize what you said is it's the if I get hit by a bus, a perspective. Yeah. And that's what I and you know, hey, if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, will the thing that we are trying to move forward grind to a screeching halt or will it continue on? Hopefully will continue on with a little bit of sadness because I've been hit by a bus.

Of. It. Apart from that, you know, because I mean, I think we get way self-important very, very easily. That's just one of those human things that we do. And it's like, no one can do what I do. And it's like, no, a lot of people can do what you're doing, probably even better. And so how about you just have the humility to lead people that way? So yeah, yeah. And it comes back to this is what Jesus did, right? Jesus knew he was going to be physically leaving.

And and so he was, he was in the equipping mode from the get go. And so here we are, we're trying to preserve our position and our and posture and all this. Yeah, it's been really helpful. So I think I think for me in in family too, it's priority and presence. I want to make sure that my people, my family know that they're a priority and I want to be present. And one is a subset of the other. I mean, those two are like two, two sides of the same coin. Yep.

Even even even since even since this whole thing went down over the last couple of years. I'm a super busy guy and that's just part of my personality. It's definitely part of my position. But my kids will call me. All four of them will do this. They'll call. And the first question they ask is, are you busy? And and I hate that question because in their minds what they know that he's busy.

And so now my new answer because I want to be present to them and I want to communicate to them they are a priority. But I also don't want to lie to them. I know my job is busy. I know it's like I'm flying to Miami tomorrow. I'll be there until Tuesday on a plane to Cincinnati, and then I'm flying back here and, you know, is it's a very, very full life. So now my answer to them is I'm super busy, but I got time for you. Yeah, that does it.

It tells the truth about the reality, but then it also communicates that you're a priority, and I'm going to make time for you, and then I'll get back to you. I'll text. And so and so your kids grow up not with this this this false sense of reality. I want them to grow up knowing that, yeah, it's a busy world and my dad is carrying a lot of stuff and he's trying to make a difference. But I'm still a priority in his life. And the same thing for my wife, you know.

And so I think a really good rule of life did that. I had to balance later than I would have liked. Looking back, I would like to say, man, y you know, I've said that when I was 23 as a dad, you know, but as I say, better late than never. Well, yeah, you know, I mean, cancer diagnosis will do that to you. So there's, you know, that brings brings some clarity, which is great.

So my last question before we get to the really, really dynamic fun part end of the show, here is what is what is next for Paul Baldwin that you can that you can that you can tell without letting I don't know, some major maybe there's some major talent. Well, you don't want to let out of the bag. But what what's what's the trajectory of life for you and family and all of that at this point? Yeah, that's a that's a great question ahead of me.

I didn't really know how to answer that because I'm we've just moved to Charleston and we've always moved to like we moved to Indiana. We moved to Florida always for a job. We didn't move up here for a job. We moved up here for family. And thank God we've been we've been given the opportunity to work remotely and COVID. So it actually was a gift to us because it helped us realize that we could do a lot of these things remotely. So, you know, my heart is still very much for the local church.

I'm a I'm a passionate champion for nonprofits. I think there's a lot of beautiful people doing a lot of beautiful things around the country. And so I will be doing a lot more work with this with this consulting group, the Elemental Group. And I love that I'm working with a prison ministry out of Cincinnati, working with a couple of programs down in South Florida. So I'll be doing a lot more consulting, but my personality is one that needs to be in the weeds of it.

I need to roll my sleeves up and I need to be getting my hands dirty. So I'm trying to figure out how I can continue to do that. And even beyond my role as the executive pastor. And we don't really have a defined date yet for the executive pastor, as I do as I transition out of that role. But this book has opened up some opportunities as well to where I'm already working on a couple of more books and then another and then another and culture.

And so I didn't I didn't think that would be a reality, but that is now a reality. And so we're we're pursuing that. And I just want to continue to contribute and to to the kingdom advancement. I'm just asking God, you know, just help me to continue to be useful in what I'm doing. And so I'm excited about that. And then I'm just I'm we're up here in Charleston and just want to spend a lot of time around family down down in Florida. We're empty nesters all by ourselves now.

We're empty nesters up here and we're looking after we've got our kids in the mix again. And so seems like every night there's something more loving and it's absolutely a nice thing about it. And so I'm going to just try to be as busy as I can in the Kingdom and just be as busy as I can with our family and not going out of town with my wife since we don't have a lot there. I know that and you guys again, do it. Yeah, yeah. That's beautiful, man. Well, in the world, yeah.

Of all the our listeners I would say and we as we always do, a way to contact Paul to follow Paul's also link to the book over at Paul Baldwin dot com sees super he's super fancy he's got his own website we'll have all that in the show notes over at and as podcast dot com so you can get in touch just see what he's up to I am really, really excited for what is in the future for you, Paul. So that that's all looking it's looking bright. I'm excited for you. So good. Yeah. Awesome.

Before we let you go, though, we can't get you out of here without doing now.

It's time for the dudes and Dads Pub quiz. Thank you. Oh, yes. So I am excited about. Yes, I know nothing. Just so your audience knows, I, you know, they gave us a give me a couple of questions to think about, but I know nothing about this next section, and that's. Shrouded in mystery. That's around it. Yes. Shrouded it. Yes. So if you've never joined us before, this is a time we just ask random questions to our guests that have nothing to do with the topic.

But we just want to get to know you a little bit better. So without further ado, Paul, what is your favorite weekend trip? We like to get out of town and go explore just kind of mystery towns. And so we just went down to Buford, South Carolina and all sorts of cool things to get away for a night or two. That would be like the trip for us and drive because we don't have like loads of money where we can just fly everywhere.

Contrary to popular belief, it's a what is your least, the least favorite job that you've ever had? Oh, man, I'm one of those total nerds. I've loved every job I've had. Okay. So I used to work in power plants. Oh, I'm. Sorry. What? You said a nuclear power plant. Yeah, that's right. Oh, okay. Okay. So I mentioned I mentioned that my family runs the union. And so one of the big contracts they have is Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in south south California.

And so I had a job of shifting concrete's around the rebar, the intake manifold. So this is this huge like seven foot two that was under the sea level. It would it would bring water into a cooler after every six months. They would have to go in there and they would have to chip concrete and and repair the rebar. And so I had the cool thing about the job. It was me and my cousins down there working. But the part that sucked about the job, it was 12 hours a day with it shipping hammer

for like nine bucks an hour. And. And it was. I was like providing for my family and everything, which was cool. But man, it was, it was nuts. It was it was a hard job. All those all these all these, all you fast food workers, they're listening to this right now. Get your perspective straight. You've just heard, Paul. What what do you have to complain about? That's we've. All right, Paul. So if you could eliminate one food so that no one could eat it ever again, what food would you destroy?

Kale. Yes. Yes. Oh, all right. As do as Jim Gaffigan says, can we just lose the kale propaganda? It's it's it's it's not good for the race. Okay. Oh, propaganda. Oh, that's. Those are wise words. Yeah. Paul, what is one skill that you think everyone should have? Oh, wow. One skill. Is this a skill? Being interested in the like, learning the art of being interested rather than working so hard to be interesting. You know, this is going to be a treasure trove right here. We're already we're live.

So usually sometimes this this quiz can go off the rails. But Paul is just keeping it going. Okay. One more quick question here that I do. So why don't you ask another one? I want to ask one, Paul, what old person things do you do. Well in these I've got pictures. I'm the guy who will start watching a movie like Lord of the Rings, which is like the worst idea at like ten or watch a movie. And just my kids just know that within 5 minutes, dad is going to be asleep.

And it's like a complete to to me. Right here. Yeah, right here. I'm working. On it. Okay, it's. It's it's terrible. So I do that and then I also get up early. I've always gotten up early.

Like, I was just making fun of my parents because they're retired and get up at 5:00, they set their alarm to get up at five, which is just but I've always been like I even when I was 13, 14 years old, I get up at five, 530, 6:00 and so, you know, it's just always been something that I've done, but I'm just a natural early riser and all of that. That's kind of what all people do. So I guess that's part of it too. And I wear socks with my sandals sometimes. Oh, oh, oh.

Bold move, bold choice. Bold choice. All right. So my last question is, when did you get your first cell phone and what kind was it? Yeah, it was a it was 1996. It was a Nokia. Oh, yeah. It wasn't a flip. I got the flip phone. The next phone, and that was my favorite. But it was a Nokia, it was 1998. It was probably the one that had like the worm game on the of the worm game. Paul Probably. Otherwise, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So that was my first phone and, and my son loves it, who's now 26 years old and he's like, Oh my God, in the year you were born. Awesome. That's awesome. Well, hey, my final question, Paul, is how long do you think you'd last in the zombie apocalypse? Oh. Oh, man. I mean, I think. I think I'd go the distance. I mean, I think I'd go for a while.

Do you think you I mean, do you feel like you're prepped enough, like between the resources that are available to you and kind of you're just what you have in your network. Do you think you think you could make you think you could make a run at it? I think you make a run I mean, for two reasons. Number one, I mean, I grew up on some land in Southern California and we use it for fun.

I was just telling the kids we would we would, like, catch snakes like King snakes and we would like, skinned them and eat them, which is like a stupid thing to do. But we would do it and we would catch scorpions and we would do things like that. Yeah, that's one reason I feel like I could eat anything. But the second reason is I'm pretty sure I could not run. My wife and I and I got out. I figure. Wow. We're going to hard out, right? Yeah. Well, that's Andy. I feel like I could outrun my.

Wow. Okay, everything was again. Like I said, we waited till the final question to let this thing go off the rails. And then. And then here wasn't really that we did it. Paul, my friend, thank you so much for successfully completing and excelling at the dudes and dads. Pop Quiz. You have. You've just won the day. You've won the day and still awesome. There's just. Nothing. There's no prize other than our admiration. So I hope that hope that counts.

But friends, as always, we want to just say thanks for listening. Thanks for hanging out with us for this episode. We will, as we said over Dudes and Dads podcast dot com with the show notes, give all the juicy details on how to get a hold of Paul, see what he's doing,

contact, contact him or pick up a book. Would love for you to pick up devout in doubt. That would be a great help and it's raising reason money for a good cause so absolutely. So if you have questions, comments, anything, send them to five, seven, four, two and 38702. That's our voicemail number. Again, 5742138702. It's just a voicemail number. Or you could always send an email to feedback at dudes and Dad's podcast and dot com. We love to hear from you guys over there.

Dom, any final closing thoughts? None for me. So grateful for each and every one of you. Can't wait to join you next time. And until then, we wish you grace and peace.