Theology in the Raw - Blessings and Challenges of Being a Female Pastor: Bo Stern-Brady

Episode Date: April 20, 2026

Time is running out! Register for Exiles Minneapolis today! April 30-May 2! https://www.theologyintheraw.com/exiles26Bo Stern-Brady is the lead pastor of B4Church (Beaverton Foursquare Church) in Beaverton, Oregon. She was appointed as lead pastor in 2024 after serving as the church’s interim transitional leader beginning in 2023. Prior to joining B4Church, she served for approximately 20 years as a teaching pastor at Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Bo has written multiple books and created the Soulspace devotional app, and her writing has been featured in outlets such as Christianity Today and Focus on the Family.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I have never worked with a man in ministry that I think is ill intended. Never one time. They have all been honoring and good. They just have had a limited experience within their gender. I think some of it is just men starting to ask, what's it like being on the other side of my leadership as a woman? Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology. My guest today is Pastor Bo Stern Brady,

who is a speaker writer and the lead pastor at B4 Church, a large forceware church in Beaverton, Oregon. Bo is the author of three books that focus on growth through suffering, a message developed and refined during her husband's four-year battle with ALS. Bo is a gifted preacher and a gifted leader. So we talk about all things related to being a female lead, pastor, preacher, and all that comes with that. So please welcome to the show for the first time, the one and only, Bo Stern Brady. Bo Brady, it's so good to meet you.

I've been listening to your sermons and just really enjoying, yeah, as I was saying offline, not only your just clear speaking abilities, but your studious attention to the text. Where did that come from? When did you, if I can use the phrase, fall in love with studying the Bible? Because it seems like you do absolutely love studying and teaching the Bible. Yeah, I usually do call myself not a speaker, but a student who can't shut up. Like I just love, love that. I started in Bible college when I was 16, just to kind of kill time.

I wanted to be a lawyer. And I did my first word study. I remember on Peter and I was sunk. I was done. It was what I love to do. And everything after that just felt not weighty enough, even though, as we said, not a very marketable skill, not that fun at parties. It's like, what do I do with this new passion?

This is great. But it has been the love of my life, is studying the Word of God alongside the goodness of the Holy Spirit. Oh, that's awesome. Tell me about your ministry trajectory. So you went to Bible College at an early age. When did you start doing church ministry? We were, my husband and I were always, like volunteers, did different things. I was in a church that was theoretically

egalitarian but not functionally. And so I didn't, I did the female things, which I loved. And I worked in a couple of churches that I didn't attend, like just as like administrative assistant. I work for one church that said we don't hire people from our church because we have to be able to trust them. So that was. Well, that's a, oh.

We could, we could, that's a tangent that I'm, that's a shiny object. I'm going to, I'm going to pass for now. That's interesting. But I really did just begin to like speak. I did conferences and retreats and different things started out small and I do something like every year or something and just say, Jesus, I love doing this. And then I would write sermon, sermon, sermon that I never, I didn't know if I'd ever get to speak. I had files full of word studies and research and object lessons and things. And then my husband and I started full-time ministry in 2002. And I was the senior high youth pastor for a great big youth group. And I remember the day that I used up my last pre-written sermon. And I was like, oh, it's on me now. I got to really plow some new ground.

So from there, I just became, I was on staff at a big church in Bend, Oregon, about three hours from where I am now. And then my husband, I was teaching pastor. And my husband, died and I remarried in 2019 and moved here to Portland. And we landed in another four square church here. I'm in the four square denomination happening for about 23 years. And I came on staff here at the end of 22 as the director of spiritual formation. Didn't really even know what that was going to mean at that point. And then 10 weeks later, our church hit a crisis, our lead pastor left. and the staff was kind of here to pick up the pieces and try to keep it held together. And so I think I just kind of stepped into a leadership vacuum in that moment.

And then they made me the interim while they did a search for a new pastor. And during that time, I really focused on healing, trying to pastor the staff well and rebuild trust. And people would ask me, do you want to be a lead pastor? And I would say, nope, because I've never known a happy one. I don't want to be one. not interested. I'm a newlywed. I want to focus on being married and being happy. And then the Holy Spirit really spoke to me. And I knew this was where I was supposed to land. So I've been at this church three years. I've been the lead pastor for two that I was the intern for most of my first year. So it's been a

wild ride. It really has been. It's not something I ever aspired to, but it's something that I really do know that Jesus has, I know he's placed me here. Okay. You made a comment. I want to revisit a comment you made about the church you're at that was on paper, egalitarian, but functionally not. Can you unpack that? Yeah, like a pound of execution is worth a ton of philosophy. You know, we have the, and especially in my era, I'm 60. And so growing up inside of the charismatic church, there was a lot of talk about women being, you know, we had some, we had some big name evangelists in our, in our lineage.

and Amy Simplema Fierston, one of them. But we did not know how to practice it. I will say those, I think those churches are doing a lot better at it now. But even our denomination founded by a woman has been a little late to being, installing women as lead pastors of successful churches or legacy churches. But again, doing better. I think like most of culture is doing better, you know.

Yeah. I talked to a female pastor in the vineyard church recently. And she said she's, in her experience, she's had situations where, you know, people, men in particular, were really excited to have women in leadership, like genuinely, you know. But she said, for her, it got. more difficult when she was actually doing leadership things and men having to follow her leadership. So it's kind of similar to what you're saying. There was this, you know, we signed off on it. We even verbally like, yes, yes, I hire women leaders. But when it gets into the nitty, gritty trenches of leadership, there was still some residue there. Have you experienced that kind of thing?

Yeah, I think so. I was on a really healthy teaching team and bent with all men. And they were good to me. They honored my voice in that space. I spoke a lot of, I spoke probably 25 to 30 percent of the time. So I got to carry weight on that team. I will say, though, there were times where I would show up at the table and all the men had been golfing and I had not. And it was like being the last one. to a meeting. Like this meeting was in progress three days before I got here. And while I've had people believe in me inside of ministry as a woman, a woman in the church, I've not had anyone mentor me, especially when I was being raised up in the church, men did not mentor women, and there were no women in the role. And so I still, to this day, have never had a female mentor or a male mentor who's helped me learn what to do in ministry. And at Bible school, seminary does not tell you what to do in the trenches. It told me how to study the Bible, but leadership is bigger than that. And so I think that we have this fundamental problem at the fountain head of women in leadership.

We can say we believe in the end gate. But unless we're willing to invest in the actual bloodstream of this thing and start to function better as men and women just in relationship. Yeah. rest each other, be willing to have actual meetings, be willing to have actual conversations without being worried so much about them. I think we're still going to get stuck in that. Is that like a Billy Graham rule-ish thing where like a male mentor wouldn't want to directly mentor another female, especially one who's married? I mean, is there, Is there some of that? I think it's maybe the Billy Graham rule gone rogue. Like we get this idea of like any. And I think it's just watching so much scandal and fall out.

And I get why men would be so scared and hesitant. I totally get it. But we've still got to address the problem. Because I still feel like if our faith isn't big enough to be able to handle a meeting in an office alone, we're in trouble. Like we ought not be pastoring the kingdom in the kingdom. kingdom of God if we can't handle actual mutual relationships in that way. So trying to find a way to move in that space has always been a challenge for me. Yeah, it is a catch-22 because there's so many leaders, especially male leaders who are having an affair, having moral fallout and

everything. And so I could see like there could be some, maybe some good intentions that lead to maybe unhelpful practices where men are like, gosh, I don't, I don't want that to happen me. So I'm going to put these boundaries around, you know, being alone with the woman or whatever. And there it's not, you know, there's another kind of unhelpful intention where it's like women are just sexual temptations. Like that's the reduced to that. And men, you know, want to guard themselves from that. And that's like, oh, my God. Like, that's obviously very dehumanizing. but I think there could be more well-intentioned motivations, you know. It's hard to, I don't know, it's hard to sort that out.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Like, what is humanizing wisdom when it comes to male-female relations? Well, I think for me, the answer is really answer. Look at that. I'm going to answer. Already. I think you either invest time in mentoring women or you invests. invest money. It doesn't have to be you. There are so many good cohorts now. There are so many good,

there are good female mentors now, but you're going to have to invest that you're going to have to say, I believe in these women in my church, and I'm going to connect them with the resources they need to grow. And if that resource isn't me, then it's got to be somebody or else I'm not prefacing what I say, I believe. Because there is a way. It doesn't have to be that way. I get it. If couples are uncomfortable having male female meetings, great. But let's figure it out. Let's not use that as a way to keep women on the sidelines. It's that I feel like if you really believe, if you're complimentarian, fine, then you're doing it.

But if you're egalitarian, you got to, and you believe it, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Yeah. How do we address the problem of like, you know, going to your example of like all the men going golfing before the meeting or whatever or hanging out together? And is it just a matter of like if leaders are hanging out and some are women that, you know, everybody's kind of invited to the table, invited to the go golfing and maybe, I don't know, that there might be some hobbies or get-togethers that some women might not be interested in, you know, or maybe then you try to do things that everybody would be interested in. Or I don't know.

Like, what's the solution to that? I think just for men to just understand, that if we're really doing this as a team, we need to know when our team is incomplete. So if I'm golfing with people, great. If the whole teaching team is golfing, without one member, great, enjoy it. But let's not make decisions

if the team is incomplete. I'm all for men golfing and I don't ever want to golf a day in my life. I'm not going to do that. They don't want to shop with me. I don't want to golf with them. I'm not looking for that kind of like, I'm not looking.

I think equality is always, a weird flat term that we use, it's equity. I want to know that women have equity in the church that we're harmonious stakeholders in what God is doing in the kingdom. It's not, you know, a renter and a landowner are equal. They both get the right to live. They're equal people, but they don't have equal equity in the home. And so we can do that in a lot of ways. It doesn't have to be that we're all the same level of collegiality. I mean, I don't think that needs to be that. I want that on my team. I want my team to be really unified in our content development and in the way we move forward. And we have a teaching team. And for our church to grow, our teaching team

must be united in the message that we're giving the church. So I want our team to be willing to lay down our lives for each other. I don't know that that's necessary everywhere. And that doesn't have to happen on the golf course or in the shopping mall. That actually needs to happen mostly in prayer. Teeth grinders, this one's for you. I know you can hear this because studies show that 30% of you are grinding your teeth at night. Whether it's stress induced or just nightly clenching, you can protect your teeth with a Remy night guard. Over 350,000 people trust Remy to protect your teeth and relieve symptoms of grinding and jaw tension. These are custom-fit mouthwaters. guards made just for you and they're 80% less expensive than what you would receive by going to the dentist.

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female lead pastor of a pretty large church, right? I mean, how big is? 2000. 2000. What's that been like? You're pretty fresh into it a few years. How's it been? It's been hard and wonderful and beautiful and miraculous and terrible. And like, how do I get off this crazy ride? And it's been a lot of things. But I really love, I really love it right now. I really do. It's been fun to I've always been a part of a team that builds content, but I haven't been a part of the team that sets vision. And I honestly, for a long time, called myself a communicator and not a leader. And I had somebody come prop me on that once and say, I don't think that's true of you. And shortly after I landed in this role, and I think Jesus kind of reminded me, this is not true.

And so when they asked me to take this role, I said, I am unapologetically not a father. But I think right now this church needs a mom. I think they do. The things that we had been through needed that kind of mother mercy. And there are times when that's not exactly what the church needs. But I think at this, at that time in our church, it was important. And for now it's important. So it's been really interesting.

We lost some people. But because I had been the interim for about nine months before they made me the lead, a lot of people had already left if it was a philosophical difference. And then the people who left when I became the lead, people are always tempted to say, oh, they don't like women in ministry, but some of them just didn't like me. You know, I'm not their cup of tea. It was great. But we try to keep track to know, like, what really is the fallout of appointing a female lead pastor to a legacy church in our denomination?

because if there's fallout because she's a woman, we haven't done discipleship well. And so that's been really important to kind of keep track of that. For me, personally, knowing women are coming after me, that's been really important. Was that hard when people left? Like you said, whether it's because you're a woman or just because of you? I've been in this a long time, you know? If I had a nickel for every conversation I've had on Timothy, I've just been in this a long time. I have a pretty thick skin.

Yeah, it wasn't super hard. I want us to be together. And, you know, I take comfort in the fact that there are tons of churches where they can go and not be bothered by it. I mean, there's some kinds of places where you're not going to have a woman speak to you. So I think... The four-square denomination is egalitarian. So, I mean, if...

Why would... Or is it go back to kind of, like, in theory versus practice? that, I mean, people were already at an egalitarian church and egalitarian denomination, but for some, was it like, yeah, but female lead pastor? Yeah, I think they just didn't understand that it could really happen to them. I think it was like, oh, man, I remember somebody saying, you know, a man telling one of our district people, like, do you expect me to sit down with a woman and get spiritual guidance from her and he was like, that's what women do all the time. That's the only option we've really had.

And so I just think it has been slow to catch up. Our denomination was founded by a woman and then run by men exclusively. Good men. I have never worked with a man in ministry that I think is ill intended. Never one time. They have all been honoring and good. They just have had a limited experience within their gender. And so I think some of it is just men starting to ask and be open to what is the perspective of being, what is it like being on the other side of my leadership as a woman? I think that that is something really helpful that male pastors could do. Yeah, yeah. I'm curious, has, you know, or focus on men that might struggle. to accept your leadership. Have you faced similar things from other women? Yes. Oh, I get

far more from women. Oh, yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah. Yeah, former for spectrum women. And that's something I haven't really dug into, even in my own processing time. Maybe I don't want to know the answer to that. But I just really haven't, I haven't ever tried to figure out why. But I do think among my colleagues that that's a common, that's a common train that women, you tend to get, a lot more pushback. What is that? Like what, what's the,

or is it just hard, hard to know kind of the reasons? Like what do they say? Yeah. Like, yeah. Is there some common themes that you hear among women? There are some common themes.

There are a plethora of reasons. Some of, some of them range from like, a woman can't be a husband of one wife. That's clear in the Bible. So you can't qualify for this. And that's one of the qualifications of an elder and a woman. Some of it is,

I don't like my husband to sit in the teaching of a woman. Some of them really do worry about the male-female thing. I don't know. And that's mainly what has come down to is they just don't like the idea. And some of them, and I understand part of this, some of them fear that a church led by a woman won't cater, not cater, but won't take care of the needs of men, and they're desperate for their husbands to want to go to church.

And so I think they worry that if they, their husband doesn't feel like the church is manly enough or attuned to his needs enough that he'll bow out. And women don't want that to happen. So I understand it. Have you seen that happen where, I mean, does your church have more women than men? Or have you attracted more women than men now that you're the lead pastor? I guess, I mean, in light of what you were just saying, I would assume probably not.

I have no statistics around that. But I have also a big team here that's amazing. A lot of incredible male pastors on this team. And we endeavor to truly carry this together. And so for a woman, though, who is the sole leadership of the church, it might be different. you know, where there's, there is a demand to go to or there isn't a man leading men'sman street or something. But at our church, there's a big team of male pastors that are available and great and

are in really good standing here. I've been here a long time. So I think that that helps us. Yeah. What's the, like, leadership structure or one might even say like authority structure in the Forest Square Church or your church in particular, like as a lead pastor, do you you have, again, whether this is the right language or not, like, do you have authority over the other pastors or is it more like a leader among equals? I don't even like that language,

but that's how some people word it. Yeah, yeah, four square is pretty, four square churches are pretty autonomous in the way they set up their own structure. I can tell you what our church is. And we are a team. We have an executive team that is two men and two women. And we make all the decisions together, even just anywhere I speak outside of our church, I run it through them. I believe in submitting to one another, it is my heart. And they do too. And then we have a team of nine directors. And then a staff, I think we have a staff of about 30 or 40 year or something like that. And so it functions down from there. But if it comes down to someone's making a decision, it's me. And then all the financial decisions are made by a church council of which I am a

and we I vote along with them but I I don't want I don't begin to want to have all the authority in this church yeah yeah yeah that can be scary for anybody male or female um you mentioned a range of emotions would ask you how it's been being a lead pastor horrible amazing great terrible what what would have been some of the greatest joys and also some of the greatest challenges in the last three years. Some of the greatest joys have just been the ones that I think any pastor would say is watching people come and come and then find Jesus in a way that matters, watching the development of believers into true disciples. I love that. And I've loved walking this team into health. I would say we have a really healthy team. And I speak a lot at other churches. I don't know

very many healthy leadership teams. Really. And so this has been a joy to be able to really invest in these people and what, and the call God on their lives. That's been amazing for me and really fun. Real quick, before you get to the next part, what's, what's, why is it gotten so healthy? What's the secret sauce for healthy leadership? Oh, man.

I'd say conversation, conversation, conversation, time, time. Like at one point, I went through my daytimeer to figure out how many conversations I had had around the health of the church as the church was going through this very big storm. And in about six to eight months, it was like 1,200 conversations. It was just being available to hear hearts and be there. And my door is open. And just a very, I mean, like what heals anyone, attention and love. And that's been that. Also, I brought in some really qualified professionals, people who could listen to our team

and hear their hearts. And like I had one counselor come in and I said, here are our core values. And she interviewed the whole team. And she said, those are your pretend core values. Here's what's actually valued on your staff. And it was a little horrifying. Like, this is what we really, this is the code we really live by. So we've been working on adjusting that our community agreements, the way we show up in this

space. And that's been truly delightful just to watch the team grow and grow together and grow in trust of Jesus with their life and their job. It's just been good. It seems like any, any team is going to have just different kinds of just personalities that tend to clash more than others, you know. I mean, it just seems like every team is going to have that, you know, the enigram 8s and the Enneagram 2s or whatever. It's just like there's just certain kinds of personalities that we have that. They just yeah, okay. So how do you overcome that? Well, there are a couple of just like nuts and bolts things that we've done is like divided our whole team up into small cohorts from all different teams. So they have to work with one another.

because one of the things that was creating some tension on our team was people not believing other people were doing their jobs. And now when they're in cohorts together where they pray together and they grow together and they're doing emotionally healthy spirituality together, they can see and they hear from their perspective what's really happening on our team. And it's raised the whole level of unity on our staff. So just some of those kinds of things where we start to understand each other's stories and perspectives. And the other thing is just fierce conversations, being willing to have really quick. direct conversations when we start to see little bad seats get sown inside the camp. And it happens like that. And so making sure that we are really honest and open and trust one another is a really

big deal. So we meet together all together once a week and have honest conversations. Have you read the book, he's written several books, Patrick Linsonna, Lynn Conner. Oh, yeah, yeah. It sounds like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've written or read a couple by him. Anyway, which we're talking about, seemed straight out of what he was saying, what makes for a healthy team. You know, honesty is a big one.

When people start holding their opinions to themselves, they're too scared to speak or push back or share their thoughts. And then their honest thoughts just fester in silence. And it just ends up tearing people apart. Yeah. Or they come out like little passive, aggressive side comments like we have one here nobody works on thursdays and it's like talk about who who are you talking about when you say nobody because let's get to the bottom of it if we're going to

say this in the halls let's figure out where it's coming from because that's not healthy yeah so it's been it's just been it honestly it really has been a ride that's great that's awesome all right so i cut you off early you're so those are some of the positive things what are some of the the difficult or as you said, you know, the horrible. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, one of the horrible things is we lost a staff member to cancer who was, his wife is young, three little girls. She's also on staff.

And it gutted our staff. It really did. It was tough to, it was tough. We were carrying a lot of, I think, I think some real disappointment in that moment and disillusionment. And I felt like a real mom in that moment. And honestly, in that moment, I understood how some of the experience of walking through loss had helped me in this moment.

Hard things are just people, rumors and gossip. I hate it. I hate it just with my whole heart. And when a rumor gets going and started and you can't figure out how, I just hate that. And when it comes back to like one of our team members, it makes me nuts. And so that's been hard. Some of those things have been been hard. It's a, this is a legacy church.

And so people have a lot of feelings about it. The first pastor of this church was Ron Mell and he's a giant. He's incredible. He's an incredible author, an incredible pastor, an incredible man. And so there's a feeling sometimes that it's a little ghosty here. Like there's a feeling like it needs to go back to something that it was. This used to be the biggest church in Oregon. And there was, you know, just so it was just there was so much.

And so we have sometimes a looking over our shoulder in the rear view. And that's just not, not my personality or my leadership style. So that that kind of drives me crazy, that idea of like we need to get back to something or we haven't done it that way before. That just, I don't like that stuff. So there's been kind of a breaking of that habit. Yeah, there's been a few, there's been a few really hard things. Yeah. How do you, do you address gossip from, from the pulpit?

Is that something that if you sense there's just murmuring or you just get wind of there's people talking, whatever, which is probably to some extent, every single church, every single group of humans that get together in a room, there's got to be that kind of stuff. But is that, how do you? I really try to work back to the source. I've been in crowds where I feel like I'm getting my hand slap for somebody else's thing. And I don't love it. And so, but there are times, I mean, gossip and the way we use words to me is one of the top five discipleship things that we can tackle.

And so there are times where we will approach that in terms of discipleship rather than correction. I haven't ever stood at the whole bit and said stop gossipy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that is tough. If it's a small handful of people, even if it's really toxic, yeah, you don't want to scold the whole congregation or make them feel like, you know, is it me? Is it me, Lord? You usually know who they are. Yeah.

They're usually easy to find and talk to you. But I think people do that blanket group correction thing because one-to-one conversations are uncomfortable. Yeah. Have you had to confront one-on-one like another man? And how does that go? Sure. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's always gone pretty fine, actually. Yeah. I think, yeah, I think so. Maybe I blocked the times that were really awful and painful. But I think that the men that have met with me over issues, there are some men that I've refused to meet with because they want to argue. a fine point of theology or a, you know, they're believers, they're in the full, but they want to fight with me or debate with me about an issue. And I, honestly, I don't have time for that. I just don't. So I think that that's been troubling for some people. But yeah, I know a lot of church, go ahead. No, go. Because somebody is a new believer and they need that, like, discipleship I'm all

about. Debate, I'm not all about. I know for a lot of churches, especially the last several years, especially larger churches like yours, political tensions and divisions have been a big deal. Or maybe political might be too narrow, but just cultural issues all the way from 2020 and COVID and response to COVID and election season, I know, is always a tough time for pastors. Do you have that kind of stuff of your church? and how do you pastor people through those differences? Yeah, we really do. We have a pretty diverse congregation. And we have a big Hispanic campus.

And so with immigration, with, during COVID, that was a big deal. That predates me here. But that was a real, that was a time when the church lost a lot of people. But for me, I try to stay pretty consistent with my lane is the gospel. And when the gospel intersects politics, we will talk about it. But we won't, I just try to not react too quickly. Everyone's always like, you have to talk about this thing. You have to talk about this, whatever.

And I don't like to, I don't like to be a quick reactor to that stuff. Because just information comes out. I am old. I have been young and now I am old. And I know the story is never what it seems the first day to see it. I have a really strong political. opinions, but I really try to let my words be harnessed by the Holy Spirit. And I hope that I'm done. Honestly, that's probably the thing I agonized most over. Am I sane enough? Am I, am I,

I, I'm going to have to answer for this. So that's, that's something that's a little, that's a little agonizing for me right now. Okay, okay. Tell me about, shifting gears a bit. Tell me about your sermon prep. I'm always curious how, uh, speakers, especially good ones. Like, what's your secret sauce? How do you go about preparing for a sermon? I use Tuesdays. That's my whole day. Nobody bothers me. Nobody approaches my door on Tuesdays. And I try to do research for the next for two weeks down the road and final work on this coming week. And I speak about three Sundays a month. And I just answer three questions. What do I want them to feel? What do I want them to know? do I want them to do. I just answer those questions first. I take five minutes and I answer those

questions and then I build around that. And just ask the Holy Spirit, where are we at? I light a candle because I feel more like Paul when I do that. Do you light a candle? Like literally? Yeah, don't tell my ox guy though. I'm not supposed to have candles in my office. Wait, so are the lights off? Like, is it a dark room with a candle? Yeah, I just have lamps. And then I just light a candle. And just kind of try to put myself in the headspace of a disciple. Like, if I'm talking to the church, if I'm going to write them a letter right now, what do I want them to know? What do I want them to feel?

What do I want them to do with this information? And we're on a 52-week series right now, just the words of Jesus. Every weekend we take one sentence out of the mouth of Jesus and we say, how do we embody this? How do we apply it? Do we understand it? What did it mean to the people he was saying it to? what should it mean to us? And so that's been a joy.

That's been a delight to study for that. What's coming up this Sunday? So we're recording on Tuesday. So I'm cutting into your sermon prep. I feel I would, if your sermon is a little shorter this Sunday, you can blame it on. Yeah, blame it on.

The algebra. That's great. I'm not on this Sunday. I'm off because last Sunday was Easter. And so I was Easter is, I'm going to be off. But the next sermon coming up that I'm studying for today is first be reconciled to your brother. If you come to take communion and you remember

somebody has something against you, first be reconciled. It's like first fix it with them, then come tell me how much you let me. So I'm really excited about this one, actually. That's going to be challenging. I've, I've, I've always struggled with the relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation. Yeah. Forgiveness is not an option, but it seems like reconciliation obviously takes two parties and yeah you know paul says be at peace with all what do you say if possible be at peace if possible there might be some or there might be some relationships that are just simply unsafe you know i think if somebody's been like in a either physically or emotionally abusive relationship and for again forgiveness is never an option but

reconciliation might not be helpful for that person. Unless I guess you tell me, I mean, unless obviously both parties are willing to, but even then, I don't know. I'm doing this. But I did take some note while I was waiting and I wrote, it's not optional. And then I crossed it out because I thought, nope, that's not, that's not, whatever that it's not optional says, it's not nuanced enough. Okay. That's not, I don't think that's what Jesus meant. And so I have today to figure out, what did he mean?

What did he mean? And there's always something in the text that opens it up and makes me see, oh, well, what did he mean by brother? What's in that? Maybe the person who's dangerous to me is not in this moment a brother. Maybe that person's a neighbor, and I love them, but I'm not reconciled. And so I don't know yet. It's going to be fun to figure it out. I love that.

I love. Terrible sentence. I love the excitement of having a topic or a passage you're going to speak on. One that you're maybe not familiar with, and the excitement of not knowing what you're going to say, you know, digging into the text, discovering insights. For me, it's often too many insights. I'm like, all right, this isn't a theological paper.

I need to like focus on some, what are the main, main points, but that, that, it sounds kind of nerdy, but I think you share this excitement, you know, like just,

yeah, that thrill of like anticipation and discovery and, oh, yeah, it's just excavating. It's, I think Bruner said when he, in his,

one of my favorite commentaries that on Matthew, he said, I've spent seven years every day in the coal mine of theology. And I was like, oh, that's such a beautiful statement. I just love that idea.

Do you, manuscript your sermons? Yeah. Okay. Because you're words, like you're, you said, like you're, you're big on word. Like specific words are really important to you. Words matter to me. And I do manuscript it.

I always, people will often say you don't use notes very much. And I always say I use copious amounts of notes. I just don't always use them on this stage. But because I've written it out, then I feel like I can teach it from my heart. But I don't want to leave unfinished ideas. I don't want to just like I've heard speakers do that where they start into an illustration and it fades away and they realize it doesn't actually work for whether. And I just want to make sure I've really tied the strings together. And so I do manuscript.

Yeah. I think it's so. I mean, everybody's different. And I don't like it when people have a one size fits all of here's how to go about a sermon. Preachers are different. They're wired differently. I do think in general, manuscripting is really, it's. It's a great way to just work out your thoughts, too.

A lot of times you think you have it in your head or even bullet points or whatever. But until you write it out, a lot of times I'll find myself writing out something that I want to say. And I'm like, ah, it's not once I write it out, I'm like, it's too vague or it, you know. But the process of writing helps me to fine tune the message. Yeah. Does the message ever show up on your page and you're like, where did that come from? I didn't know that's where we were going. but that's really amazing. And I love that. Back Easter morning, I got up and was just going over my notes with the sunrise and a whole different stream came, just a paragraph that ended up making it work. So I just, I love how the Holy Spirit works in the word. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then do you, do you like practice your mess? Do I go over it, like preach it in a room by yourself or not you might be? Kind of. I used to at, at,

religiously. I used to practice. I feel like when people are giving you an hour of their time, you owe it to them to be ready. And then the more ready you are, the more you can be, you know, spontaneous, the more you can move off the map. But now I don't practice as much. No, but this is my first time of speaking every week. So it's like a freight train. Sunday's done and Sunday's coming is what we did. We say. Like it's just Sunday's always coming. So that's how do I've always admired and not envied, but in my people have to preach week in, week out. Like I, you know, I speak a lot at different churches, but a lot of times it's, it's kind of like a similar message, something I've done. You know, spoken to many different churches, maybe this is the same message.

So I've had time to let it marinate and tweak and I'll speak it here and tweak something and some, you know, might go speak it somewhere else. And but I'm like, man, to do this every week to come up with something fresh and compelling and true. And that are there some weeks where you're just like, I've done the study. I've done the prep. But I just, I don't have the same oomph for whatever reason than last week. Or I kind of wish I didn't have to speak this week because it's just I don't have much to say. Whereas another week, you're like, oh my gosh, I need two hours because I have so much to say based on my study. Yeah, this is maybe a place where being a woman has been important for me because I promised myself and Jesus that I would never complain about speaking too much because I waited so long and I got so, it felt like so few chances in the beginning.

And I feel so honored to have people trusted with it that I really do try to honor the process. But there are times where I think is the Word of God going to come up empty today? Like, this is the day where there really is nothing to find here. And so far it hasn't happened. But, you know, who I really respect are like bi-vocational pastors and pastors who don't have a big staff to do the pastoring while they're taking all day Tuesday to study. That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah. That's, I love that model of bivocational. It helps pastors be really in tune with their congregation. But man, the time is, I don't know how you, especially if you have a family and kids. Yeah.

Heroic. That's, that's, if you're part of a team, a true, like a team where people are doing, you know, a lot of things. Like you're in your one lane, you know, then it could be easier. But I know people that, you know, bivocational church planters where they're planted a church or pastoring, they're preaching, they're working, they're raising a family. I don't know. I don't know how you do that. but it's powerful though I have a buddy who really

believes this is kind of the way of the future for ministry and yeah I don't know it'd be hard for especially I think at a bigger church to do that but yeah what are some practices you cultivate to nurture your own

spiritual growth I know a lot of pastors I've experienced this as a what I'm right am, where you become so focused on pouring your heart into others, teaching the Bible and doing the thing, right? The church machine, if you will, that sometimes you neglect your own soul.

Have you experienced that tension? And what do you do to combat that? Yeah, I am a 5 a.m. girl, though. And that was born in my life. in 2007 and has I just not altered that time. That is just too important to me to have that a couple hours to just be with Jesus, listen. Sometimes I don't get anything good done. Sometimes it's not like sometimes my mind wonders and I whatever, but that is where all the good stuff happens. I've written a couple of books. They've all happened in that time. This sermons really happen in that time. It's just there's nothing like it. And that has been a delight for me. And so that's something that we've instituted in our staff is they have one hour a week. It's just the hour of delight.

You just take it with Jesus. You dance in your kitchen. You take a drive. You go somewhere. Just delight in him. If you open your Bible, great. If you don't, no problem. Just do what?

Delight in Jesus for one hour. And they struggle to do it. And I think that we've missed it. if we think this is an add-on or a bolt-on to the job, I've got to get with God real quick for a sermon. It's a delight to be his friend. And that is the only thing that has sustained me through death, through parenting, through all the things, finances, whatever, pastoring. The only thing that has sustained me is that time in the morning to reconnect and confirm that either I'm not going crazy or if there is a word to share or there is healing for a, relationship or there. It's just it's it's the answer to all the things and not just this thing.

Yeah. You mentioned you lost your husband a few years ago. What would I mean are you do you can you speak into that if it's more yeah if you don't want to that's fine. No, uh, he had Lou Gehrig's disease. And so 30 we had been married 25 years. He died when I was 49 and um four years of a truly terrible, terrible death. It was awful. We lost all of this, you know, you get paralyzed in your own body. And we had four kids. And it was really painful. Yeah. And then I remarried and now we have 10 kids. So that's a lot too. But I mean, that time. Yeah, that time really did keep me, I just hadn't been through anything serious before that. And so I didn't administer it the time? How did you get through that? Yeah. Well, I had a, it was while I was a teaching pastor,

I had a great team where some days I just went to my office and closed the door and cried, and they were there for me. And they helped me learn what it meant to lament. And to be honest about that, I had been a, I think I had been kind of a pretender before. And that time really got me very real, very quick. And I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, grateful for what it did in me. I'm not grateful for the time really, but I'm grateful for what it did in me. And I think it made me a better and more compassionate leader. I know it did. Yeah, because before I had that thing of like, if only they would have done something better or different, if they just would have paid their ties or paid their dues or stood in line or did the thing, they wouldn't

have sailed their boat into such stormy sched these. And I was like, oh, no, this is, this truly the rain falls on, on everyone. And. Wow. Yeah. So you wouldn't describe yourself as naturally very compassionate or? Oh, no. I'm a free on the Instagram. I've had to learn that one.

Life will teach that. I'm not either at all. Not very empath. But yeah, it's interesting how life, circumstances, relationships, challenges. walking with a diverse range of people, you know, you could have 10 people committing the same sin and have nine very different circumstances surrounding that.

You know, sin is sin. Got to repent from sin, but how people fall into it, I think, like, people that are truly compassion, I think they try to understand the story behind the sin. Or maybe it's not even sin. Maybe it's, you know, suffering or wrestling with, you know, some mental health issue or whatever. It's always, it's hard, I think, to be compassionate towards people who have experiences that you don't,

that you don't have, you know, like those kind of other. It's like, well, just, oh, you're depressed. Just, just get out of bed or anxiety. Why, why worry? Like, everything's fine. Jesus rose from the day. You know, like, but people who really ooze compassion, they just, yeah, I feel like they, they enter into people's pain really, really well.

I'm learning. I'm learning. I'm trying to. I really thought going through ALS would make me, like, have the right words to say every time I run into someone who's suffering. And it hasn't. I still am, like, awkward and trying to come up with the right thing and trying to, you know, and do I bring a mac and cheese or do I leave him alone? Or, you know, I'm still working through it. But I see that, you know, that thylipsis suffering of the New Testament, the pressing of olives into oil is always going to be a treasure.

There's going to be treasure in there somewhere, even if it doesn't feel like it makes the pain worth it. So I at least feel like I have that certainty. All the rest feels a little like, oh, life is hard. Yeah, yeah, that's funny. Oh, I so resonate with that. Well, Bo, it was great getting to chat with you. Thank you so much for cutting into your sermon prep and hanging out with us on Theology and Around. Working people, you mentioned you've written a couple books.

What are the names of those books? and where can people find you in your... Beautiful battlefields and ruthless, knowing the God who fights for you. Those are on Amazon. And yeah. Awesome. And your church is B4, right? B4 church in Beaverton, Oregon, yes.

Okay. I think I spoke there years ago, not on a Sunday sermon. I think I... And if you have people listening, they're like, yeah, dude, you were here. We hung out. I apologize. I speak in a lot of churches and stuff, but I'm pretty sure I did something with the youth group there. and then did something with the leadership.

This might have been, I think four or five, six years ago or something. I think you're right. I think I heard about that. That's very cool. Come back again. Yeah, well. I love us Sunday off.

Let's do that. What are you doing this? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm busy. I'm busy. I'm sleeping. I'm sleeping. Thanks, Bo.

Really great chat with you.