SPEAKER_00 5:25

Well, welcome to the ProLife Team Podcast. I'm Jacob and I'm here with Lori Campbell. And today we're going to be learning about boards, healthy boards to support a team and an ED. Lori, would you introduce yourself and tell us some of your backstory and connection with boards and pregnancy clinics?

SPEAKER_05 5:45

Okay. Of course, so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. I got involved in the pro-life movement in my probably mid to late 20s. And um the church that I was going to at the time in Texas opened a pregnancy help center. And I was part of the task force that kind of did some homework and just, you know, tried to figure out was this a ministry that our church should, you know, invest in and began. And so I was in at the ground level. And so when we did open, when the Lord said yes, and he just did all these miracles to open all these doors for us to have a pregnancy center, I was then asked to sit on the founding board. And so I sat on the board and uh eventually uh there was a time or two when I was the board president. I began uh probably 10 years into the founding of our center, I began to do our annual gala as you know, just kind of chairing that committee. And then um I raised my family, homeschooled my children, and about that time the organization was seeking to hire a development director part-time. We had kind of reached that place in our, you know, just the budget level. And so they asked me to do it since I had been serving as the uh chair in development or that gala. And so I did that, and I was just working part-time in development, and then our ED suddenly left. And so the board, since they knew me and I had been one of them for so long, and I'd been around since the founding, they just kind of looked at me and said, Well, you're gonna you're gonna be the ED for us, right? And I was like, So that was not my plan. And so, but I I said no at first, and the Lord was gracious to me to let me uh kind of say no for a year. And in the meantime, I I I tried to help them find somebody. I was the interim. I went in and supported the staff every day and figured out after a year, uh, maybe I could do this, maybe maybe I should have said yes, and that's what the Lord wanted me to do from the beginning. And so then I was the ED for around 10 years. And um, then my husband and I um so the the our organization has been around for over 30 years, and so I wore lots of different hats in that organization in that time, but I I sat on the board and I was the ED, and so I've seen this relationship from both angles for extended periods of time. And um I did some things wrong in both positions, and um, hopefully I did some things right and learned some things as well. So um my husband and I just about a year ago moved out of state from where that organization was in Texas, and um still wanted to stay in the movement, still just feeling very passionate about pro life, and and the Lord graciously gave me this job at Heartbeat where I get to train boards and train EDs. And so uh it's just it's an honor and a privilege to get to do that and to support those people on the front lines doing the real work every day.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Awesome. Yeah, and yeah, I it's that's amazing that you you get to see this from the board perspective, the ED perspective, and some of these other roles that you've had. And and now you get to help through Heartbeat International, this amazing organization that is built to support and empower pregnancy clinics with uh tools and education and just really good things in order to help people fast track their learning curves in order to skip some of the mistakes that many of us have made over the years in order to helping them make better decisions quicker. And so awesome. Well, would you tell us what your thoughts are about the executive director position and the board and just sort of how they uh work together or what they each do uh as part of you know being in as being a major a major part of a pregnancy clinic.

SPEAKER_05 9:43

Okay. Well, first of all, I like to say that we describe this relationship, at least with the the ED and the board chair, but I think it kind of extends to the whole board. But they're a team. They're a team for sure. And the ED and the board chair are kind of if you think of it as uh a two a two-horse team pulling a coach, and that is steered, you know, hopefully by the Holy Spirit and the mission and the vision of the organization, but those two together really cannot go in separate directions or things will go really, really badly. And so, as an extension of that team, that two-horse team is really the board and the ed, they're a leadership team together. Together they lead this organization. And the the board's part is to govern, and they have a lot of responsibility in the area of governing. And the ED is their number one hire, their only hire, really their only employee, and he or she manages the vision and the mission for this board. So the board is kind of the butt stops here person, they are responsible, they are legally responsible for the organization. But in so many cases, we see, and it's appropriate, that the ED is kind of the face of the ministry, kind of the heart of the ministry, and leads more in an outfront and just very visible way. But the board is behind the scenes governing and driving and just making sure that that vision and that mission are met by employing uh that executive director and uh just holding her, him or her accountable with reporting and and things like that. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

I didn't really have thought about it that way. So the board has one employee, which is the ED, and then the ED manages the team. Is that right? Is that what you said?

SPEAKER_05 11:48

That is our recommendation. It doesn't always start out that way. We realize that boards go through that organizations go through stages of development. And so it doesn't always start out that a board immediately hires an ED and then he or she is able to hire all this staff. So a lot of times boards are taking on roles that staff members would eventually take on, and that's fine. There's nothing unhealthy about that as long as everybody understands what hat they're wearing and who you know they're responsible to when they wear that hat. And sometimes as board members of founding and small or founding and just you know early organizations, they are doing a lot of the roles that the staff would do. But as they grow and as they develop, the ideal from Heartbeat's perspective is that they make that one hire, the board makes that one hire of the executive director, and then that executive director's responsibility is then to hire as they can staff to continue to support that mission and that vision. And those people report to him or her, and the the ED then reports to the board.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

I wanted to ask you about a a Bible verse, and I wanted to see how it might apply here. So in Matthew, Matthew 11, 28 to 30, it says, Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. At my last small group Bible study, we were reading through this verse a few times, and some of the things that it stood out to me based on what you just said and what this verse says is that many of us are trying to pull that, you know, that uh we're pulling by ourselves versus having that two-horse team that may be yoked. And so I'm wondering, and then with this verse here, it points out how being yoked with Jesus makes it so that our burden is light. So I'm just wondering where do you see uh that yoke, you know, sharing the sharing that burden and pull and being yoked as and pulling together in the same direction. And can you just speak a little bit more about uh you know about that analogy of the two horses pulling the the coach or the wagon?

SPEAKER_05 14:18

Of course, I think that verse is so important. Uh we really uh try to drive home the the just the absolute necessity of a servant leader in all of these roles. You need servant leaders, you need mature believers who understand their roles for every position on the board and for certainly for the ED and then you know the staff. And when everybody is operating from the position of uh servanthood and serving one another, then that burden really is lighter. If if the board and I find you know, I talk to EDs a lot in my job in at Heartbeat, and even when I was an ED and talking to other EDs in Texas, I think I think a lot of the mistakes that we make as board members or executive directors are just out of we don't know what we don't know. But I don't think there's a lot of ill-willed people intentionally, you know, doing the wrong thing and and and making it hard on another person. I don't think boards are ill-willed and making it hard on their EDs intentionally. I think they just don't know that they they really do serve a very supportive role for him or her. And I think a lot of times we just get on a board and we just think, well, I'm just here to help make good decisions, right? Like I'm just I'm just gonna help make good business decisions and I'm gonna help make wise Christ-like decisions. And, you know, I I I don't know why we feel that's what it is, but I think that's what we do. I don't know if that comes from, you know, our committee structure in churches. I don't know. But there's there really is so much more to it. And depending on the the size of your organization and the size of your staff, the board members are, you know, can be needed much more than just to come and make decisions. And they have responsibilities, you know, to help fundraise, to nurture the executive director and the team and make sure they have everything they need in order to do their jobs well and effectively. And uh they have, you know, the legal responsibility to make sure that you know, all the proper insurance is in order and all of you know, there's just a lot of responsibility that I don't think the boards really consider sometimes. And especially if you have a very effective, strong executive director who just kind of steps into leadership vacuums. I know that's my temperament. If I feel like something needs to get done, a lot of times I will just do it rather than realize, well, that's not really my role. You know, I shouldn't be doing that. And so I think I think there's just a lot of misunderstanding between EDs and boards. And there's just a lot of they just don't know what they don't know. And so as a result of that, EDs do feel very burdened and they don't feel like they have someone that is yoked with them to help them in a in a very difficult ministry. I mean, our our space, pregnancy help and the pro-life movement, is you know, as as as you know, it's very targeted. We're embattled all the time, and it's it's a difficult job. And I I think boards sometimes just don't even realize that they're because they're not in it day in and day out, like the executive director and the staff are. They're immersed in this battle every day, and it affects their family and it affects everything. And I think boards are a little bit more far removed, and they just don't understand that their help and their support and their do you know, accomplishing their responsibilities that would bring about that that help that the ED and the staff need. Did that make sense? Awesome.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

Yes, and I do know that Heartbeat has had training, at least from my viewpoint of going to many Heartbeat conferences, I see that they have many opportunities for executive directors to get trained and supported. Can you tell me more about the training that you're connected with? Is it for boards? Is it for executive directors? Is it for both? Is it virtual? Is it in person? What are the options and how can someone access it?

SPEAKER_05 18:40

It's for both. So when we take uh a team of board members through our governing essentials to have a consultation with our manual, it's a one-day training, you know, basically nine to four. We love to come on site, that's our favorite, and we want the ED there. There's really it's really a team building event, and it really, really works best for the executive director and for all members of the board to be there together. It really, we're just going to go over information together in a really informal kind of a setting, just as the consultant walking them through their distinctive roles and how sometimes those do kind of ebb and flow, and they can, you know, in some cases overlap, just depending on where where the stage of development of the organization is. But we really lay out what the roles of the board are and what the role of the ED is and what the role of the president or the chair of the board is, and uh and how those can beautifully work together and just create a solid team. So we do we love to come on site and do it. That's our preference. We will do it virtually, um, but we again we want everybody to be on camera and uh interacting with us, you know. We just we don't want it a lecture style because we we try to find out as much information as we can from a kind of a high level before we go. We want to look at things like articles of incorporation and bylaws and organization chart and mission statement and vision statement. We try to get kind of a tape of the DNA of your organization before we come. We interview the executive director, we interview the board chair and try it separately and just try to find out hey, what's what's working well, what isn't working so well, what you know, are there areas of conflict that I can help with? And it would just help for me to know that going in. Are there areas um that you just really feel like you it would be helpful for an outside voice to address? Um and so we try to find all of that, and then we go in and we spend a full day with this organization uh and this team. And it's really uh it's really amazing. I had it, I had Heartbeat come and do it when I was an executive director. And it it just bore so much fruit. It when everybody gets on the same team and understands their roles, there's just a beautiful thing happens as a result of that, and things just kind of start firing on all pistons. I switched to metaphors, but things just start working really, really well, and there's there's growth from that. And we could just look back from the time that we had that training to our organization and how just client services grew, staff grew, you know, number of appointments grew. I mean, just everything by almost every measurement, we could look back and go, wow. Because everybody everybody just kind of coalesced around what their roles were and and how to move our mission and our vision forward. And uh so that's what we do, and we love doing it, and uh it is. It's always a treat to get to go and do it. We have some fantastic people that Heartbeat has trained that have been in centers in the past and some that are still in centers who do this training. And then we have multiple Heartbeat staff who can also do it. So we have, you know, I don't know, half a dozen or more different consultants that we can send to do this, just depending on, you know, timing and everything. But that's what it looks like. And it's it's excellent, excellent training. Our our president emeritus, Peggy Hartshorn, wrote this manual and it it it's it's inspired. It's it's biblical and uh it's it's just specifically for pregnancy help organizations, you know, of every kind, whatever those look like. But um it is it is really helpful and phenomenal and uh it's a game changer. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

So so I'm someone who's not an expert on boards, and my question is uh I imagine it's somewhat, I mean I'm I mean I imagine, but I don't know, that it's somewhat like a puzzle where you want people in certain areas. I do have an entrepreneurship background in running a business, and so when you come when you get a team of leaders, sometimes it's good to try and cover the main areas. And in this case, you know, maybe it's you know, having commonality of Jesus as the foundation, and then having some people who are experts in certain areas of the work. What areas would you want to have coverage for on a board that would be so important that you couldn't overlook? Like you really need someone to be an expert in this area and in this area, and it might be one person that covers these different areas, but it very likely be different people that have coverage over these areas of expertise or topics. What might that look like? Or is that even a true idea that you need coverage of certain areas?

SPEAKER_05 23:51

When we're when we're coaching people as to how they go about finding board members and and vet those people, we always encourage them just to start with their character. Um, and just you're just looking for a Christ-likeness and that servant leader. And every everything that's so much more important than whether or not they're a doctor or they're an attorney or they're a businessman or woman. That is is first and foremost. And so from there, I think it's really it's always nice and helpful to have someone on your board who really understands finances because you're gonna need a treasurer to interpret in layman's terms these financial reports that you're going to look at at every meeting, because that's part of the board's responsibility is to look at the finances of the organization and make sure that everything, you know, is in is in order and that, you know, budget is good, you know, and uh, you know, you're not overspending and just things like that. And so, but those reports a lot of times are not something that the average person, you know, is accustomed to looking at a profit and loss, a balance sheet, and I can't even think of what the other one is. But to to somebody who doesn't own their own business, those kinds of things, you kind of look at that and you go, I'm, I'm, I'm really, I really don't know what this means. And so to have somebody with an accounting, you know, background of some sort, maybe somebody who at least runs their own business and can take that information and say to the board, this is what this report is telling you, that is always a great person to have. If you don't have that person and your organization is at the is at the point that they could hire a good CPA who would receive those reports and then kind of write a layman's narrative, you know, or just sit in on the meeting really quickly. It doesn't take long usually to go over financials and just and just go over that with the board so that they understand what they're looking at because it's very important. That's their responsibility to know what is in those financial reports. They can't just gloss over them. They're they're looking at those and going, yes, I see this. That's that's their responsibility. I know what's happening, and you know, we need to do this or that in response to that, or maybe everything's good and we don't need to do anything. So I would say someone of that, that's always been my first person. And when you're looking for, when you're looking peep for people of character and you're looking for, you know, those servant leaders, uh, and you're looking in your circles of friends and in your churches and in and in your other pro-life partners, those those people just seem to be there. I I people of character are just all around us if we'll just look. And so I I try not to, it it's great if you can have an attorney on your board or at least on your advisory board. It's great if you can have a medical doctor or at least a nurse, people who have though that expertise. But I would just always say, but first they need to be a servant leader. They need to be a person of high moral character who, you know, has their own personal, very vibrant, mature relationship with Jesus Christ and knows how to, knows how to lead and work in cooperation with others in a healthy manner. That requires a lot of humility. That requires a lot of humility to work together on a board and to listen to everybody's voice and not just, you know, cram our own point of view down everybody's throat. That takes a lot of humility. And so that's always my recommendation. And the recommendation of our of Heartbeat is yes, you can look for those people with those in those fields of expertise, but filter that first through a servant's heart and a servant leader.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

That's really good. Yeah. So it sounds like every board member needs to have the follower of Jesus, you know, as their baseline, and then having humility and that servant leadership uh posture. It sounds like so it sounds like you don't want anyone that, you know, so every yeah, so humility and then that servant leadership. Uh it sounds like that's a great person to work with, more so than someone that it would be difficult to work with.

SPEAKER_05 28:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

You tell us more about what what other care what other characteristic would it be good for every board member to have?

SPEAKER_05 28:44

Someone who who's just willing to roll up their sleeves and again, not have not having a mentality of, well, I'm just supposed to come to this board meeting once a month and make decisions. When you're on staff and you're or you're in a volunteer role and you're doing, you know, fundraising events or or you're just having a day of prayer or whatever, or you're, you know, cleaning out closets because they need to be cleaned out at the center. Because, you know, whatever it is you're doing, when the board shows up and pitches in, that speaks volumes of their of their servant leadership. That speaks volumes to that that team of um staff and volunteers that, oh, we're led by people who are who are just willing to roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty and do the work. So I I would encourage that that kind of that kind of mentality and that kind of heart. And then also just a teachable spirit, because there are going to be things that you learn as a board member, um, you know, that you just that you didn't expect, that you didn't know, that you didn't understand about what it is to be a board member or what it is to be part of this organization. We're constantly learning. Our movement is changing all the time. And a lot of times the executive director is the person who is is in the know because he or she, he or she is, you know, just saturated in it. They are in it every day and they eat, sleep, and breathe, you know, their pregnancy help organization. And so they learn a lot just because they're in it. And they have to educate, so to speak, the board members. And so board members need to need to just have that teachable spirit of, okay, this is my employee, if you, you know, but I I am going to learn and receive information that I need from this individual. So it just you see what I'm saying? Like it just takes a posture of I'm not, I'm not more important than, I'm not bigger than, I'm, I'm not beneath this. You know, you just want people who can who can get in there and do the work that needs to be done. And, you know, everybody needs to be involved in fundraising, which also just takes, you know, a servant's heart and a willingness to learn, okay, well, how do I do this? And not that we're all out there pounding the pavement. Everybody, it looks different for everybody, but we all have to be able to, as as part of this team, we all have to be able to speak about whether it's in an elevator or, you know, to a group, what our mission and vision is so that we can share with our community why they should get involved. And I find a lot of times that board members just don't understand that that's their role. And they came on and now they're being asked to, you know, attend a gala or sign up people for a walk or a golf team or whatever it is. And they're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, I didn't sign up for that. And so, you know, it's really important that that we make it very clear what our expectations are as we're, you know, pulling these people onto our team as we're going through their application, as we're interviewing them to be part of our board, we need to make it very clear what our expectations are. But I just find, you know, the more, the more teachable and humble and just really willing to lend a helping hand that people are, the better board members they make.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Oh, that's really good. Okay, so I've got a couple of questions. I'm not sure which one to go with first. So, all right, I'm gonna go with the body of Christ. So the body of Christ is made up of different parts. We've got the the veins, the brains, the hands, the feet, you know, the ears, the eyes. So when it so we have some common features that every board member needs, and those are really good. But what you know, if you have a a board, what kind of body parts, or how would you describe the body of Christ scenario on the board? And so how how how might that overlap with trying to hire a full, you know, just get essentially the res have the result be a full body of different parts.

SPEAKER_05 33:05

Right, right. You need you need people who are you you kind of need your I think pegging.

SPEAKER_00 33:15

Maybe the board is made up of a few parts of the body, and then the other parts of the organization are the other parts of the body. Let me rephrase it that way, because I'm not sure if the bo the board needs to have the full body of Christ. The board might just be a a couple organs out of the body. Let's go with that. Right.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

Right. Yeah. Yeah, you definitely need people who uh are full of faith and that and and just just, you know, look at, you know, the ED comes in and says, you know, I really feel impressed that we need to, you know, open a second location or whatever it is, a bit, you know, a big dream. I'm just really feeling like the Lord is laying this on my heart. You need people on that board who are people of faith who are just not gonna shut that down out of out of fear and out of looking at numbers and going, no, we can't do that. You need you need people who just are who know how to operate in faith and go, well, let's talk about that. What would that look like? Let's start praying about that. You definitely need prayer warriors for sure. You need you need people praying. Um I mean, I'm I mean the kind of people who will just, you know, you pray at the beginning of the meeting and you play pray at the end, but you need the kind of people who, when you're having a discussion and it's just heavy or lofty, you just need that, you that person or two who goes, person or two who just goes, can we stop and pray about that right now? We just we just need to take that before the Lord. So you need those people and you need that person, you need those cautious people, those, I think Peggy calls them like bean counters. And you need those people who go, Well, I don't know about that. You know, let's talk about that first. They're n their their automatic answer is just almost never yes. They kind of tend to be on the no side first, but you you can win them over, you know, with with uh prayer and just, you know, talking about it a little bit more. But you you need both of those. You need the people who just dive in full speed and go, yes, we can do this. And then you need the people going, well, okay, let's let's proceed with caution a little bit here. You know, let's let's make sure we're all hearing from the Lord. And you need those people that will just stop and pray. You need people who will just um be kind of a good person for, and hopefully it's your board chair, um, good person for the executive director to just talk to about things when he or she is struggling in the center about, you know, a staff member or, you know, whatever it is, they need to have someone on the board that they can go to. And we really like for it to be that executive director. And we, I mean, that um board chair, we really talk about how that should be a a good, close relationship. And I I understand that can get wonky when we're talking about, you know, a male and a female. And so, of course, we're not gonna advise anything that would be inappropriate at all. But you just need that that person who's a good listener and who knows when to say, is it okay if is it okay if I give you my opinion? With, you know, you don't you don't need necessarily just a fixer on the other end of the phone when the E, you know, sometimes an ED just needs to vent. And uh so you need a person who's just good at listening and a and someone who will pray with them and be of of wise counsel for them in that moment when they're just really struggling and and be, you know, confidential. Everybody should be confidential, but you know what I'm saying. Um so those are those are some of the key characteristics I would think of you know different people that you need on there. It is it is great to have, like I said earlier, people who can think through things, you know, a little bit more legally than others, or think through things a little bit more medically than others. So those definitely an asset as long as they are, you know, servant leaders and are filtering everything that they propose or every every part of their expertise is filtered through, you know, through the word of God and through the principles of the organization, which are hopefully built on the word of God too. So does that help?

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Awesome. Oh, that's great. Yeah, very good. That helps a lot. So so let's say a board needs to hire an executive director or a new organization needs to try and figure out who's gonna be on the board. Is there a group that can help with that process of hiring the right person for these roles? And does Heartbeat provide a service like that?

SPEAKER_05 37:59

We don't necessarily provide a service, so to speak, but we definitely can coach and we have materials, and our manual talks about the hiring of an executive director, the board manual talks about the hiring of an executive director. There's tools in there, you know, sample interview questions, a sample process of, you know, what it should look like, forming a committee from your board who, you know, does interviewing and brings recommendations back, things like that. We have we have a whole entire manual called staffing essentials, and we have a whole entire manual called directing essentials that help the director make good hires and help the director direct well. But the board, there is a lot of instruction and helpful tools in our board manual of hiring an executive director. And we do have people, organizations who have recently lost an executive director call us and say, okay, you know, we're the board. Can you help? And we will, you know, we will walk them through that as best we can. We don't like to get um completely involved in that because organizations are, they're not cookie cutter. And we we really we understand that, you know, at the community level is where these organizations are best governed and managed from the people who are closest on the on the ground. And so we can definitely give some recommendations. We can talk to them about our experience. We have a a board, a job board where they could post that they're hiring for that. And they can certainly look at other other, yeah, a job board where they can look at what other people are hiring. So we we try to provide good tools and support for that as much as possible. And our affiliate services team, we we um we love to be available to board members and executive directors as they are going through hiring processes or you know, vetting processes with board members. We love to, you know, coach them through that just in phone calls or Zoom calls and uh just provide whatever counsel that we can. And and we have we do, we have a lot of resources that we could point them to, articles that have been written and uh manuals that we have that just really give some great instruction on how to best do those things.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

That's good. So so Lori Journey. Go ahead. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 40:40

I was just gonna say my best advice on hiring an ED. Sorry, Jacob.

SPEAKER_00 40:45

It must be a lag. It's okay. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 40:47

My best advice on hiring an ED and on bringing people onto your board is to just take it slow. Don't ever get in a hurry. Just take it slow. It can take six months to find a good executive director or more. And I mean, that and that's true for executive directors looking for staff too. Don't get in a hurry. You will get burned. And paying that price is so much harder than paying the price of going without. So we just always counsel take your time, be prayerful, really vet these people, you know, get get their pastor or their andor their small group leaders recommendation. So they, you know, that they are recommended to you from a spiritual standpoint, you know, talk to a lot of people. And yeah, so that's always good too.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

That's good. Awesome. So, so Lori, on your journey from board member to executive director to board training and all these hats you've had, where have you seen God's fingerprints in that journey? Or what story comes to mind where you've seen God fingerprints? I'm sure they've been in many spots, but which story comes to mind that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_05 41:59

Oh, okay. When we were um as a task force, that's what our pastor of our church in Texas gave us. He there were several of us that were just very interested in being a part of the pro-life movement. And he could tell that by our weekend activities and, you know, just going and doing Operation Rescue and, you know, sidewalk counseling and stuff like that. And he he's the one that, you know, pulled us together, gave us a staff liaison and said, why don't you investigate this? Do we need we're in a big metropolitan area? He's like, Do we need another pregnancy center? You know, if we don't, it's fine. Let's do something else. But what do we need to do? Um, and so as we began walking through that process, God just began to do some miracles. And two of them are um just really, I love to tell these stories because God just completely showed off. So we had, we had gotten the okay from, no, we hadn't. No, we hadn't. I'm getting ahead of myself. So we're still in the process of kind of putting together our information so that we can go before the church and make a recommendation as to, you know, we would we we believe we should open this ministry. And uh one Wednesday night, this is back when we had Wednesday night supper and prayer meeting at church. One Wednesday night, a woman walked onto our the campus of our church, and she had just moved to town to go to seminary. And so she was looking for a church home. And so she was visiting chur a church on a Wednesday night, and it was our church. And um, one of the deacons got to just visiting with her and chatting with her and finding out about her, and he asked her what where she came from and what you know what she had done before before she came to seminary. And she said, Well, I'm I'm here from Florida, and actually I ran a pregnancy center in Florida. And he said, Are you kidding me? And she said, Yeah. And actually, I actually was their founding director. I helped open it. So we so he introduced. Introduced her to some of us on this task force because n none of us knew what we were doing. And I have no idea who we thought was gonna run that thing because we were just, you know, we were just walking by faith and we didn't know what we didn't know. We just we just knew God was up to something. And so so he introduced her to us and we immediately asked if she would come to be part of our task force because she knew she knew the questions to ask. We didn't even know what questions to ask. And I she was a prayer warrior through and through that woman, taught me to pray like nobody's business. And so she joined our team and and really helped us. And then we presented uh this vision to the church, they embraced it, they vote on it, they said yes. And then I don't know, a a few weeks or months later, we didn't know where we were gonna put this thing that God had told us to open. So we uh had a kind of a large campus, and some of our uh buildings were kind of mothballed at the time, they weren't in use, and so we were thinking about putting them in this one building, and the thing that was nice about it was that it was separate from the church, and so we could we could make it comfortable for women, they wouldn't know that they were coming into a church building because it was it was separate, it was across the street, and we could label it as a completely different thing. So we were looking at that, but it it wasn't optimal, it was gonna need a lot of work, gonna be very expensive, and um, but we had we had Lynn, right? And she knew what we were looking for. So she was like, Yeah, this could work, but it you know, it sounds like it's gonna be expensive. Well, um one day a man, a businessman who owned a business also within a block of our church, called our pastor and said, Hey, I'm getting ready to sell this building. And before I put it on the market, I just wanted to know if you would be interested in it before it goes, you know, public. I I just know you're right, you're right there. And I just didn't know if you would have use of this building and would want first dibs on it. And our pastor was like, uh yeah, we might really be interested. And so we the task force went over and looked at this building, and of course we have Lynn and her eyes, and she's run a crisis pregnancy center and you know, has all this knowledge. Well, we all walk in and we're like, Oh, it looks pretty good. Well, she walks in and she just starts to weep. She's like, it it couldn't be set up any better than it is. Like it's just it's perfect. It has four counseling rooms on this side, it has an office space on this side, it has a large room in the back to do parenting classes. I mean, and you know, we just we just need to put a little half wall here to protect the receptionist, you know, little tiny revisions and uh and we're like, okay. So the our pastor uh told this gentleman that owned the building that yeah, we're interested, but but you know, this isn't budgeted. I don't know, you know, what we're talking about here. And the the gentleman said, Well, what were you gonna use it for? And he told him, he said, Well, we're gonna we wanna open a crisis pregnancy center. That's what we called him back in the day. And uh that man said that he was a devout Catholic and had actually studied for the priesthood that was very pro-life, and it moved on his heart so much that we would do that to protect babies and children and mothers from abortion that he cut the price in half and said, I will sell it to you for this. And um so our pastor went to our church, he went to the deacons first, I think. Who you know, the powers that be that he needed to, but ultimately it came before the church. And by the time it got to the church, a man had said, you know what, I'll match dollar for dollar every every dollar that the church contributes toward this toward the purchase of this building, I will match. And so, like in two weeks, we had the money to pay cash for that 3,300 square foot building that was you could see it from our church, and it was practically perfect, and they are still in that location today. So those are my you talk about God's fingerprints. Like I I can't, I can't I never get over those stories. I never get over them. But God was just it's that whole Henry Blackaby thing of you know, God is at work all around us. We just have to join him. And we were we were joining him in something that he was already very much up to. And it it was it was just it was incredible to be a part of it. Incredible.

SPEAKER_00 48:38

Wow, that is such a good story, Lori. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing that story and sharing your wisdom and understanding around boards and what they need or what our executive directors and teams need in the board. Would you would you do me the honor of closing our podcast in a prayer and just praying for all the privacy clinics that have boards and have board needs and and uh and yeah, for the board to support their uh the executive directors and the team as well.

SPEAKER_05 49:06

All right, I'd have I'd be happy to, thank you. Lord Jesus, we just come before you're just so thankful for this opportunity to speak into the the lives and the hearts of those who are serving you so diligently and so compassionately and so sacrificially, Father. They are just they're just laying down their lives for you and for pre-born children. And we're just so honored to get to be a part of that in just a small way, God. I thank you for the boards, I thank you for the executive directors and the staff, Father. I pray that you would just empower them, Lord. Would you shine your light on them? Would you give them favor? Would you give them training? Would you give them creativity? Lord, would you most of all just envelop them in your love that they would respond with such love and care and servant leadership to one another as board members, uh their executive directors who who serve them and to their staff? God, would you just uh impart to them just uh a vision of nurturing those individuals who really need it and supporting them in in creative ways that uh we haven't even maybe talked about today? But God, would you just by your Holy Spirit grant them wisdom and creativity to do what you have called them to do, Father? I pray for unity, I pray for wisdom on these boards and these executive directors. I pray, God, just for a humility, just like Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. Lord, would you just give us that feet washing humility for one another that we would preserve one another? I pray for boards to recognize how important it is that they uh serve the executive director. And I pray for executive directors to just humbly submit themselves to the authority of their boards, Father. And I just pray for a great working team that that does, just like Jacob talked about. It it it's a picture of your body working together and accomplishing greatness because you are at the center of it, and they have your heart and they have your compassion, they have your love, they have your power. Would you just empower boards and EDs to work together like never before? Would you give them that help and just a love and care for one another, that they could accomplish these beautiful visions and these these beautiful missions that you've given all of these organizations? I thank you for their work. I know that it goes on day in and day out all over this world, and I thank you for it. I pray your hand of blessing and your hand of favor on it. I know that what these individuals do is so dear to your heart. They're ministering to the fatherless and to widows, just as your scripture says, and I know that you care very much about what they do.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

So, Lord, I pray that they just sent your pleasure and sounds like that.