Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Centered podcast. I'm your host Missy Martinez Stone. And today joining me is Aaron Fowler, the director of ministries at Bloom Pregnancy Help center in Dallas, Texas. Aaron is the husband of Brook Fowler, a father to four boys and is expecting a little girl in October. In his twenties, Aaron lived a consecrated religious life, dedicating his time to study in prayer as a missionary while studying philosophy in Italy, but returned to the states and worked in corporate America for a decade until he took up the responsibility to help run Bloom pregnancy help center. Previously birth Choice of Dallas, which is a prominent pregnancy center in Texas. So welcome Erin.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Thank you so much missy for having me on.
[00:00:56] Speaker A: I am so excited to get into the meat of our conversation and talk about how you truly empower women at your center. But before we get there, and when I was reading your bio, it's not really the typical pregnancy center director. So tell the listeners, how did you go from being a missionary to being in corporate America to directing a pregnancy center in Texas?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a great question. The real typical director that I've taken that role for the past four years, mostly women that are experienced and mature to be able to navigate, run a company with deep compassion for women and unplanned pregnancies. So with my experience, I was a missionary and kind of covered all the bases of serving the poor and helping the needy and doing all those different kind of things to elevate the church. Right. And came back because of serious illness. So I wasn't able to continue that life of great austerity and getting into work, you know, having to find a way. I went from solitude in a life of prayer and study to selling toilet paper and other janitorial related lies with a large company here in Texas that's now a large national company. Had its own kind of challenges and understanding and building certain skills in the business world. And so as I did that and built that perspective, understanding, I started to understand there was a deep needed harmony, profit in particular, but in the both of business and ministry and to harmonize good business practices and professionalism with a deep ministry understanding of the dignity of a person.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: So you are in corporate America, you're seeing this need.
How did you end up at that specific, did you go looking for pro life? You know, like how did you end up at that center?
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Not really. Yeah, sorry to answer that more clearly. I got here from a variety of people I knew. I was familiar with the organization very loosely. I had a friend that worked there.
The executive director position came open in the middle of COVID the mania that everybody went through in 2020. And so I applied for that and just put my best foot forward and communicated my interests and perspective, and they selected me to be the next executive director. And then we've been making history since then, just trying to do things the best way we can.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So you've been there. If that was during COVID Four years.
[00:03:44] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Four years ago.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. I wasn't going to bring up the fact that you were a man.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: It's really common.
[00:03:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It is something that you definitely don't see as often. Like, when you're at, you know, the heartbeat conferences or carenet, it's predominantly women that are leading these centers, but I'm starting to see a little bit of a shift. And some of the pregnancy centers that we work really closely with are led by men, and they're doing a fantastic job. So if you can do it and you can do it well, more power to you. I think it's really, really beautiful to have voices from all different walks of life and to make sure we're not pigeonholing ourselves into. This is what a pregnancy center director looks like. Right. That is awesome. And just to be able to take those practices from the corporate America best business practices and implement them into the nonprofit world, because I think for a really long time, the understanding was if you worked for a nonprofit, you were going to be overworked and underpaid, and everything was just going to be a little messier.
They didn't have that same standard of professionalism unless you were goodwill or the Salvation army.
We're seeing a positive change where just because someone works for a nonprofit doesn't mean that we don't need to be utilizing best business practices. So what are some of the things that you noticed first, from coming from corporate America to the pregnancy center that you said, these are the things that we're going to implement?
[00:05:25] Speaker B: That's a good question.
Kind of the first things that. That I think were of great need, that are in great need everywhere, is for, whether it's with a board or whether it's privately owned company, like, all the way down to the granular level, how are people being valued? What does that look like? We can't share in a value by talking about it. I can't say you are valued and we respect you, and then they don't experience being valued and respected. Things are an experience that people need to have reciprocally. So we share it in that way. And so that was the first thing is to, like, recognize will benefit from being heard. They like the principle of subsidiarity. So people at small local levels have deep insight to solve small local problems. And so I started listening to the staff. I started listening to other organizations and individuals and their challenges to understand, like, just the ordinary particulars of how a pregnancy center is running and its daily activity, to then innovate inside of that work.
In majority, a volunteer, kind of somewhat paid staff model in many cases, where there's a lot of volunteers and there's some staff that support with administration or with guidance and whatnot, that model has some great successes in a wide range of centers across the country. And then I found what we had here, and in a few other places, it was really limited because we were still fairly young when I came on. We were just over ten years old as an organization, and it had gone through a lot of different changes. A lot of, you know, adapting and then bringing on volunteers. And having a volunteer model needed a lot of attention. Well, in 2020, providentially, all the volunteers kind of dried up. It was very difficult because people were concerned about health and all of the things that we went through in that time. I looked at that and said, oh, this is a great opportunity to do something which I think is really valuable. And that is having staff encounter the women and having them well trained, because the nature of the conversations and the topics that, that they're dealing with, volunteers can do that well. It just takes a lot of very close detail and very specific types of people, not just anybody who has a good intention that wants to talk to a woman about her pregnancy. That's not really the best idea.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my philosophy in running an organization, I've been in management for ten years is the happiest. People will work the hardest for you.
You don't have to motivate them if they feel appreciated. And, you know, if you want to get the most out of your team, make them feel valued. And that's just purely from the, you know, obviously, outside of, like, yes, people are valuable and we need to value them. But I just go, like, of course, like, logically, you're gonna get the best results from your team if they feel valued. And I even tell people, you know, when I was taking this job a couple years ago, and when I talk to people about interviewing and things, I say, if I feel valued, I will hang the moon for you. I will be your best employee. But if I don't, I will not succeed. You know, like, and I know that, and I think a lot of people are that way, and we get stuck in this rut in the nonprofit world that, you know, we can't invest in our people, but they are. They're our greatest asset, especially in the kind of work that we do and that you do. I mean, they are your front lines. These are the people that are interfacing with the women in need. Like, you want them to be amazing and great at what they do, and they're gonna do so much better when they feel supported, you know, by their team. So I love that. I 100% agree. And, you know, we're starting to see that shift a little bit, but, you know, that's it. It costs money. Right.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: And that's.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: It's hard. Yeah.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: That's how your philosophy shifts, to say, hey, I'm going to pursue a strategy that's prioritizing the valuing of highly skilled and investing in people that are good at what they do and then have a good heart. Right. They're good people, and they're flexible because this work in particular, has an enormous amount of, like, personal, ordinary challenges to very spiritual and heart.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah. And the emotional toll. Yeah, the emotional toll is. I mean, my sister works in the medical field. She's a nurse, post op, and she was on the COVID floor multiple times in one of the hotspot cities. And there have been times where I have called her after hearing a particularly disturbing case. And I've had to say, like, how do medical practitioners work through this kind of stuff? I mean, the stuff that we hear is. It. It is hard. I mean, we're dealing with some of the worst of the worst. And I can imagine being in a room with a woman who's in crisis, you know, day after day. That. That is an emotional toll. That really is. It can take. Yeah.
[00:10:52] Speaker B: If you're sharing with them properly.
[00:10:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: With good boundaries and. And being able to decompress, it still weighs on you. I mean, I've had several times, there was a case where a 13 year old child came in here, and it shook the whole team. Oh, I'm sure shaken, like, invisibly. And so as I was kind of walking around and closing up, saw everybody kind of just really taking it in and needing time to process those experiences, those thoughts, those prayers and feelings. This family, that is something that you. You can't discount. And that's where the stream mindedness pairs with the professionalism is like, even though you pay somebody, you can't say, hey, it's okay. Here's a $1,000 right. No, that. That isn't going to provide them the resource they need at that time. They need to be patient, careful, and to provide them an environment where they can decompress, process, and then get back into. And what was really amazing is the advocate that was seeing them had really hit her hard. She was in the chapel crying after that because of how sensitive the situation was. Very complicated.
Next day, big smile, ready to go at it all over, and it's that way consistently. And so when you provide that environment as well with training and an opportunity to decompress for that emotional rollercoaster to conclude, and then you get back to encounter another person, to keep going, that also takes a deep level of character. So we pursue that as well.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
Our board leadership is just absolutely fantastic. And when they saw the writing on the wall that I was getting tired, you know, I was burning out, they said, missy, you need to build in some days off. So they required me, like, three days, a quarter. I had to take off business day. It couldn't be a weekend. They were like, no, you need to take off a business day. And then I just took my first sabbatical for a couple weeks this summer. And when I say it was so restorative for me, because I just. You don't realize when you're in this work, you know, day in and day out, how. Because to me, I'm. I'm the. I'm the quintessential millennial manager that goes, I'm going to care for everybody in my team. I'm going to make sure they get the time off. Like, are you okay? But I don't do any of that stuff for myself. So my board said, no, you're going to take some time. You need to decompress. You need to be away from this for a minute. And I just came back, and it. I feel recalibrated. And we have to be able to do that as leaders, but also give space on our teams for that. Like, if I walked into a situation like that, like you said, I'd say, all right, everybody, you know, go, whatever you need to do. Like, take the day off. I don't. Whatever you need to do. Because we care about them as people, and I think something that we as a movement have to do better, really applying our pro life values to our own team members. Right.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: And that's the philosophy that I came in with that I wouldn't say is different, but maybe the application was really particular and really intentional, recognizing that ministry itself is a work, serve others. But that thing that stains. It is us being patient and kind to ourself, but then investing in the people doing the work. There is this kind of revolving door in pregnancy centers where there's a lot of burnout, a lot of turnover, right?
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:14:32] Speaker B: But you don't see it in places that are doing things like what your leadership and your board has done for you. It's like, no, you're a person.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: My turnover is very low, let me tell you.
And I can't pay. I can't pay high salaries. But listen, what I. What I tell when I interview people, I say, what I can't give you in salary, I make up for and mental and emotional support, and you can't put a price on that.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: And the people that are willing and that's capable to take on, that's. That is the ideal. Right? Is.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: So.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: So you make that happen them, and then you're building in equity, and so there's. That's. That business mindedness is like. So it's paired. It's paired with understanding, dignity, and then just being smart.
[00:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah. I. You know, just for full disclosure to the listeners, I was not expecting this conversation to talk about this. I absolutely love it. It's one of my, like, side pet projects. People ask me about management all the time. I've thought about creating resources because I'm such a successful manager, and people love being on my team.
And it's for that reason I'm like, I'm just a kind human with reasonable expectations, and I do my own work. I go to therapy. You know, you can't be a good manager if you're not working on yourself, too. Right? So, I love this stuff. I could talk about this all day. Maybe we'll do another one where we could dive more into this, because what I really want to get into this podcast specifically was how you take that philosophy to the women that you serve, because that was, you know, originally, when we talked, you had approached our organization, and you. And you just kind of shot your shot. You said, hey, I'd love to have a conversation with Missy. And I don't usually just, you know, take meetings from random people, but I was like, you know what? This seems really interesting, and I'm so glad that I did, because I. We just immediately connected on a lot of these philosophies, but it was specifically about how you incorporated this philosophy and the way that you're working with your clients and really revolutionized how you empower the clients to choose life. So, can you talk about how this applies to the women that you're serving.
[00:16:45] Speaker B: That's a big one. So let me see if I can be concise, which is a bit of a challenge.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Sometimes I wandered, I mean, as somebody who came, since you came from a philosophy background, that's kind of a given.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: With me for a minute. It's totally fine in that it actually comes full circle. Started this conversation, really talking about business and meeting people well, right. And so that, that was the, the first thing I brought in in my own mindset. And then what I did, I haven't really revolutionized much of the model itself. Maybe doubled down on some of the principles, others maybe didn't have the time or have the means to do that. Right. So what is really needed in ministry is the support of those ministering. So really building that up. So through training, through passion, opportunity to grow and mature yourself. If you're going to be encountering people on their darkest day, that's like one of the real principles. So giving them the flexibility, building them up spiritually, emotionally and personally, and providing them an environment where that is really conducive to do so. If you're fast paced and everything has to happen all the time so quickly, and you don't even have an environment that's conducive to taking a deep breath and resetting and centering. You know, I love the name of your podcast. You're centering your perspective and making that moment. Needed your best self to go in to encounter another really challenging, really problematic situation.
There's a principle that I was looking for, and I was looking for a particular strategy to employ, right? And so what I did is I kind of listened to my staff, I listened to the board, I listened to other organizations, and I made observations about how they were handling things, what those kind of challenges were. And I did that all very quickly, just kind of as a mental exercise. And then I looked at, like, who is in conflict? What's happening here? What are the opposing forces that are involved? It's not some political parties. It's not just some seated, you know, conserving values. What there is, is a battle between a culture of life and a culture of death. And that's the ultimate behavior of these two cultures, colliding and their perspective. And the strategist, the leader culture of life, is Jesus Christ. And so what is his strategy and how does he work with us? Well, the means in which God involves himself in our life is grace.
And so I articulated the way that grace is interacting with us from my years of experience and study as well, Christianity and prayer, and theology of Christianity. And we understand very clearly that grace is a free and abundant gift as an opportunity to participate in God's divine providence transforming us. And then I looked at that and I evaluated, like, what's really happening? What's an easy way to articulate how that works? And with several friends and the support of others as well. Right. Articulate that with something called radical collaboration.
So what God is doing in our heart and with our soul and spirit in person is he provides an opportunity to collaborate. So a gift given, and then it's reciprocated, there's a sharing. Now, of course, it's very mysterious how his divine providence and will works with our free will. That's a much longer and more interesting conversation, but how do we then do that with each other? So what does real collaboration look like? And what I found was there's a lot of cases unintentionally in most cases, right? But a lot of cases where. And we even have vocabulary that reinforced it. And I frame that in saying that the pro life work, there's a lot of cases where there's something called a save mindset or a save model. So that save model would be, these women have problems. They need support and resources, so we're gonna fix their problems by giving them all the things they need so that they don't do bad things. It's like a really oversimplified way, and it's not a. That's. But it's not really ideal, right? Like, if you're just doing the best you can and you're triaging a situation and you're just a normal individual trying to, like, how, what can I do? At least you're doing something productive and trying to help. But if we were going to really elevate, the movement has been around for 50 years now. And so this what I believe, and I'm seeing, because I'm seeing it in people like you. I'm seeing it in people like Jerrel at heartbeat. I'm seeing it in executive directors all over the country. So I'm not coming up with this. I'm more making an observation and getting clear about the vocabulary, about the intentions and the application to something that is shared with the ministry itself. So almost like identifying where is the Holy Spirit really speaking into this work? And then I try to call it out. So a visionary really isn't the person that these mystical visions and knows all the best ideas and comes up with the best ideas. It's the one who sees and knows a good idea, and they can recognize that they don't come up with it on their own. And so I've just noticed this in good people, in good leaders. And what that is, is a save model is really limiting because it has this thing that we feel yucky about, which is a bait and switch. Tell them what they want to hear, get them in the door, you know, fix their problems. And that's really problematic because you're not collaborating.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: It feels transactional.
[00:22:49] Speaker B: It is transactional. It's a utilitarian model. It's the part of us that, let's say, is less mature, doesn't understand how to work with someone in a really difficult situation. And so I recognized professionals were needed. Highly trained, skilled workers are needed to work in that ministry. And so supporting the staff, providing training from professional mental health clinicians, we invested in something called motivational interviewing. It's really particularly valuable for this ministry because the thing, if you're going to collaborate and not just try to save that baby from a woman or a man trying to abort that developing life, if you're going to collaborate with them, you have to navigate the conversation in a really productive way because their day is probably significantly more difficult than your day is.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: So you're going to have to take the high ground, a place of maturity, a place of recognition that you have boundaries. You're not responsible for their decisions, but you can provide insight and guide them through the ambivalence that they're struggling with. Of what do I do? How do I make this decision? That's the thing that the professional techniques can elevate. Because if we're going to collaborate and say you're a partner in this, just like we were talking about valuing staff, the women and men in those rooms, they know when you want to work with them versus when you're telling them what to do, when you're just trying to get them to make a decision, trying to stop them from an abortion. Right. They feel that they may not be able to articulate it with great clarity, right? Sure, they do feel it.
They may just tell you what you want to hear.
[00:24:42] Speaker A: Give me a really practical example of what that looks like. Like the save model versus the motivational interviewing. So, you know, here I am sitting next to this woman who is abortion minded.
What do those questions look like?
[00:25:00] Speaker B: So if I were to say, let's say, worst case scenario, and I don't see anybody doing this on purpose, I just see it accidental because like you said, you burned out, things are hard, you're just trying to move and there's something in front of you that is really grave. Terminating the developing life of a child, that's a really grave thing to be faced with. And so if you're going to go in that room and you are really engaged emotionally as well, you're very concerned, right? Let's call it the mama bear condition, where you're just really wanting to help. You really need to help, right? You're feeling very drawn to that. There's nothing wrong with wanting to help, but the way in which we encroach on the boundaries of that person, telling them what they should do, trying to invoke their emotional state of like, hey, this is a baby. Let's name it. Let's talk about even bringing in the spiritual right at the beginning. Like, jesus wouldn't want you to do this. This is a sin. Just all these accusatory, unintentionally. Right, accusatory or strong, even maybe aggressive in sometimes dominating into trying to get someone to choose a particular outcome. So mitigating the process in which people need to digest and go through the decision making and just focused on an outcome. So I called that outcome over focus.
And what that is is it's a trap. It kind of puts you in a position where you're trying to get that person prematurely just to do a thing you want them to do instead of allowing them to slowly unpack. Sometimes it's a trauma. And they didn't tell you, I'm pregnant at this and that, oh, yeah, I was raped. And then you watch them disassociate. They're disconnected from the conversation.
They didn't know how to navigate that emotionally. And that trauma is what's managing how they're interacting with you. Right. And so if you just keep telling and telling and telling, that that looks the same way as unhealthy other people in their life. And in most cases, women, abortion determined, have other unhealthy, very aggressive and aggravating influence from multiple directions. Right. Or a total lack of support, a total abandonment and separation. And so the boundaries are all over the place. And they would know. It's very clear when you're behaving some somewhat similar into normal environment and triggering. It's triggering. And what happens sometimes they just comply with that. Some temperaments are like, okay, that's the best thing to do. And then they'll flip.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:48] Speaker B: Back to their toxic environment. And they're like, okay, I'll do what you want me to do. And then there's some that are just. They'll just be like, nope, done. Some just tell you what you want to hear. So recognizing all these things that are, that are kind of lost in the experience and the real, do you really know what happened? Right. Did you keep them there for four or 5 hours and just try to grind it, get them to that outcome, get them to say, I'm not going to abort the baby.
[00:28:11] Speaker A: Right, sure. Right.
[00:28:14] Speaker B: That's a premature focus. It's a trap in you trying to get them into a place that you think is good for them instead of them knowing how they got there and being confident in the decision. So the motivational interviewing allows them to unpack that. So you're facilitating the conversation, allowing them to stay in that moment instead of trying to get them into a decision of a particular outcome. And so you might frame a question of, hey, so it sounds like you're really upset and concerned. Help me understand, you know, where that's coming from. I feel this way and I'm just kind of lost. I don't know. You said you're lost several times. You know, are you, is that something that's happening really regularly? And like, what do you do when you're lost? This and that? I just can't. And you'll get all the way full circle to them wanting to say, I can't do it because of money, I can't do it because of this. And at the end of the day, if you really work with their needs, you'll discover that they need to be supported and they need to feel safe. And if you can get them to, how is it possible for you to find safety, to find support? I don't know. It's not possible. It's not possible.
You know, that sounds like you're ahead, being stuck in that.
Sometimes it's just best, here's what's the mystery about it, right? Sometimes it's best to just create a summary of everything and say, you know what? It sounds like you're going through so much today, really want to hear more. And I think that really big decisions take some time. And so I'd like to see you back tomorrow.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:56] Speaker B: Would you be able to come back and see me tomorrow? Oh, no, I can't tomorrow, but maybe another day. Right. I'm not going into all the details of how the model works, but it navigates people along a path of ambivalence and recognizes the process of decision making is more powerful than the focus on the outcome.
[00:30:15] Speaker A: The outcome, right. Yeah. Because two things come to mind. I have a lot of thoughts. So a couple things come to mind. The first thing is, it sounds really similar to intentional parenting, honestly.
[00:30:27] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: You know, because this is the way.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: That I. Parentative parenting, intentional parenting. There's a lot of gentle parenting.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: There's a lot of gentle, gentle parenting. It's. I teach my daughter in her. She's just turned four yesterday, and she is. She is strong, she is smart, she is, you know, she is going to be an amazing leader one day. But when she has those big feelings, I say, like, okay, goldie, you seem really scared. Like, I see you, or she wants something. I'm like, you want this thing? Because she'll say, I'm like, you want this thing? And she's like, yes. I'm like, okay, help me understand.
Like, why is it that you want this thing? Or what's, like, when really helping her process the emotion instead of telling her to just stop. Okay. I just need the correct behavior. No, I don't need correct behavior. I need to teach her how to get to correct behavior. Right. So it's. I see a lot of parallels, and I've applied a lot of these principles, again, to managing as well. You're just letting.
[00:31:33] Speaker B: Working, right?
[00:31:34] Speaker A: Yeah. You're not working.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: And this other way is networking.
[00:31:37] Speaker A: You're letting people drive the narrative in the direction that you need it. That they need it to go. Because taking ownership. Yeah. Because everybody's safe. Because that's what trauma. The core of trauma is. I am unsafe. Right. But it looks like a lot of different things depending on abandonment or, you know, literal physical safety or emotional safety. And so everybody's. I am safe is different. And so it might not be physical resources. It might not be baby clothes or whatever. It's more emotional. Like, they just. They don't. They don't feel supported or whatever. And so it's like, when you try to throw a template at it, that's like, we just put this. Like, everybody just needs this thing. You're missing that, like, nuance of what I need. Like, the thing that I need in a relationship is very different than the thing that my husband's. My husband needs. Like, I need to feel seen and heard, because that was my trauma growing up, is that I didn't feel seen or heard. So my unsafety is not feeling seen or heard right where it is. Yeah. So it's. It's. My husband needs more affirmation and quality time, you know? And so, like, I really see it as letting the women navigate their own story. And you guys are doing something so beautiful of giving them the tools to make the decision based on their specific experience.
And I think that's something that, you know, we are really similar. Our organizations are really similar on, because one of the things that I think, and this is not to disparage the pro life movement, you know, like, the pro life movement is beautiful in so many ways, and they've done so many amazing things. But I think, especially in a post row America, one of the things that people are getting stuck on is, well, this is just the way that we've always done it. Or, like, this is the template that works, and it's a one size fits all. And we kind of pulled back and we said, because for us, it was like, when you find out an abortion facility is doing something wrong, you just splashed on the media. It's exposure, exposure, exposure. And we went, I don't think that's it. I think it takes time to go through each situation specifically and decide, like, what is necessary for this specific situation.
But the problem is, is that's a heavier lift, right? Like, that's. That takes more time, that takes more resources. It's harder to do. It takes a little bit longer. It's being able to step back and say, we have to treat each situation, whether that's the woman walking into the pregnancy center or the case that we're taking specific to that case, and figure out what is the best way forward. And I think.
I think what you guys are doing and what we're doing is like, kind of like this next chapter of taking all these beautiful things that the pro life movement has done over the last few decades, and really almost, like, honing the strategy.
We've built all these amazing things. Now it's time to get a little more focused and take that time.
As we experienced, we're introducing something completely new, and you're introducing something that's a fairly new as well. And, you know, in our conversation, I mean, you really revolutionized how your center was.
Was conducting, you know, their. Their client services, which is a big change for a pregnancy center. I'm just gonna guess that maybe your new approach was met with some resistance. So, can you tell me how you helped your team and, like, your greater community and your donors understand the importance of this strategy?
[00:35:34] Speaker B: So the. Probably the biggest challenge was working it in over time. The reason didn't really come across serious obstacles is because I was pointing out to good people the thing they believed with greater clarity.
And so I was just elevating, like you're saying this, and it sounds like this is what you're trying to accomplish, but there's something blocking you, and it sounds like it's. It has to do with you. You're saying one thing and doing another. You're saying you really want to support the whole woman, the whole family, the whole person. Right. But then the way we go about encountering them is really fixated on trying to get them to just make a decision that isn't, that's burning you out because then you're too enmeshed into the decision making and trying to get them to that point.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: Yeah. And if they don't make that decision, you take on you so personally. Right.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: And so that there's a part where the save model was actually burning out the work and the workers in the field and making them tired. Right. And making them less with the intention that they have, which is wanting to bring the gospel, wanting to bring the light of truth, wanting to bring the real authentic support. Right. And so there is something to be said about doing that the right way, but bringing forward the idea of the board. As soon as I was just listening and observing and I went to the board and the board had not heard, I mean, I basically said, what we're doing is not helpful.
This is what it looks like. It has to change.
I was really providentially brought in at the time. Board of a pregnancy center was ready to hear that.
Okay, sounds like you understand what you're saying. It looks like we're still meeting the mission goals.
Let's do this thing. Let's invest in this. The staff was interested in invested, and then as I was talking with other partners, other organizations in the space, it's because they already believed that. And I'm trying to continue to double down. I ran into one situation where I was in a and meeting was about strategy. And I said, there's a room of women, some of them older than myself, and they're like, all right, this is a strategy meeting. Let's call out the elephant in the closet. Right. Let's point out the thing.
That's what the strategy meetings are for. Right. Let's get to the deeper thing. And I just, first person raised my hand. I think the safe model is not working. That didn't go very well because it's aggressive. It looks from inexperience. I had been there for three months. It looks like something that they weren't ready to hear.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Right.
[00:38:17] Speaker B: Because it didn't have all of the tools to unpack each component of it and how to lay it out. So over the past four years, I've articulated that I've built it in and understood that there is a invested interest to strategizing with how God works with us. So collaboration, so recognizing, trying to get them to an outcome isn't collaborating. Therefore, how do we apply to a very granular level collaboration. So that's the motivation. Interviewing, how do we collaborate with each other and then how do we collaborate with other organizations? And what does collaboration mean in this sense? So in most senses, in business senses, in general, collaboration is you have a thing, I have a thing, and we work together to make great thing. Right. Radical collaboration is saying, I'm going to work with you just for your good.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Independent. If I receive a unique benefit from that, just because it's good for you, that's why I'm going to do that. And so I'm going to support and facilitate. And if you've had this great success, great, great.
[00:39:25] Speaker A: All right, great, thanks.
[00:39:27] Speaker B: And that's it. There is it.
I'm doing a favor, we're exchanging favors. There's this negotiation, the tit for tat, kind of no need a utility value. Like how good, how good of a thing are you doing for me? Am I doing for you? It just elevates and says, and this is kind of that underlying principle of charity, supernatural charity, is I'm just going to work with you and support you and even work for you to a certain degree just because that's good for you, not because I want it a certain way, but according on your terms. And so that's how we encounter the staff, that's how the board works in communication with each other, and that's how the ministry mindedness brings us to work with the women, is that I'm here just on your terms. That's good for you. Now, under no circumstance could you validate, support, refer and firm having an abortion. Right.
That would be really gravely wrong. But you don't have to validate someone to support them in the process that they're taking to make a decision.
[00:40:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: And that's where there's a lot of granular, very detail oriented challenges. If this is an obstacle you're speaking to is like when we talk about, all right, what do we really mean? Like, when we're on the phone call, when we're in that room, there are some things not to do.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:54] Speaker B: Oh, but that's the way it was. And we've, we've had this success. And look at those pictures on the wall. Okay, you're gonna do what you want, like, if you're committed and convinced, but if we're gonna have a conversation about the reasons we're gonna assume good intent and really listen to each other intentionally and take that on and take that to prayer and take that to reason and think through, and then as soon as you get a mental health professional in the room and you talk about, hey, this is how we're doing things, and they make an observation of, yeah, no, that's not really a healthy and productive way to communicate, and here's why. Ding, ding, ding. And so that's where the next level of innovation is. Elevating mental health as a practice to provide clarity and communication and to navigate the woundedness with great effect.
[00:41:48] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I love, love this conversation, especially right now, because I think everything that you're saying, yes, applies to the woman in crisis at the pregnancy center. Yes. Applies to your staff. But it's a broader conversation that we, as a movement, need to have and deploy on the national level with the people who don't agree with us on abortion.
It was one of the huge motivations behind starting this podcast. It's why it's called centered. It's. I said in my introductory kind of podcast of, like, why am I starting a podcast? There's so many podcasts out there. I was not interested in starting a podcast just for the sake of sitting in front of a microphone. I actually pushed against it for about a year. My team was like, missy, please start a podcast. And I was like, no, thank you. I'm not interested.
But I said, it finally got to the point where I said, discussions on abortion trigger a response in people that almost pretty. Almost no other human rights issue triggers to the point where it's so fever pitched that you can't have conversations. Because the motivation. The motivation behind why people have made the decisions that they've made, whether that's pro life or pro choice, they can't turn the volume down enough to understand why the other person came to the conclusion that they came to. And we've just villainized each other extremely, that, like, we just can't even have conversations anymore. And I wanted to create a space where I could say, let's understand where people are coming from. You know, majority of people that I know are a pro choice. They're not terrible people. They're actually very kind, compassionate. Some of them are christians. Like, I live in the inner city. I run in pretty liberal circles. Like, I don't. I don't actually have a lot of friends who are considered themselves for life, but these are wonderful people. But some of them identify as pro choice. And when I step back and help and understand why. It's typically driven by fear. They're usually really scared.
They have what I call misplaced compassion. Where they are feeling compassion, they're just applying it incorrectly. And it's not their fault. They've been. They've been told that this is the way they've been. You know, Planned Parenthood has spent millions of dollars to form this narrative, but most of them are coming from a place of general care and compassion and wanting the best for women.
And when we take a moment to understand that and go, listen, listen, ask questions, right.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: Not the triggering questions that are motivated to uncover the errors in your argument, in your reasoning so that I can prove you wrong, like, correct. There's a certain degree where, like, in a type of conversation that's needed. We call those debates. Well, if you're going to have meaningful relationships with ordinary people and they're good people, right. And they might have some misconceptions, congratulations. Everyone does have misconceptions on different things.
And that goes all the way down to behavior. It goes down to your perception of religion, it goes down to your perception of how to treat others right and how to parent and how to do all the things in life.
But if you're not going to take the time, you're going to miss on really great opportunities to collaborate, to share in this life and the journey that it takes with really good people may just be misinformed. And it's just like that. They're like, wait. You know, I was thinking about what you said, and nobody's really talked about. Tell me more. You're open to listening, right?
[00:45:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: And those are opportunities. Sometimes you have to wait. Not everybody's called to that. That's why I reached out to you, because I saw real insight and a real interest in the value of people just because they're people. And it takes away all the layers of prejudice that limit us from having meaningful, helpful, healing conversations. Because in so many cases, people that are strongly, passionately, the anger in this conversation is because they've been wounded by it.
[00:46:21] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:46:22] Speaker B: One side of the other. Sometimes they're motivated to fight against it because they were wounded. Sometimes they're motivated to fight for it because they couldn't reconcile any other way to make that decision. And they bury all that processes and. And they can't let it out. Right. That's so scary. Like you said.
[00:46:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:41] Speaker B: Listen to the people and have that intention of assuming they might just really want women's good.
They just don't know how to do that.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: They just don't know how to do that.
[00:46:52] Speaker B: And they can be terribly misinformed and proving to them so clearly, again, over focus on the outcome too quickly. Proving to them so quickly, that goes against our nature. People naturally don't like to be wrong right away.
Very rarely do you get someone that's open to that. But if you really do it really strongly and you have such effective debates all the time, that's all you're doing. It makes it really, really problematic and really difficult to have anything past that. That's why we've created this polarization. That's why it's nearly impossible for either side of this to have conversation at the same time as I want to get rid of pro life, pro choice.
[00:47:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: At the end of the day, there is a culture of life and a culture of death. And you may say, hey, I'm okay with abortion, but you have more alignment with a culture of life and you just don't understand what you're saying.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:47:47] Speaker B: So it takes that relationship to be able to build that up. There isn't a movable middle that is in the general population that is motivated by good arguments. They're not motivated by personal experiences of good people and seeing how they are. And if you have the lion share the way Planned Parenthood does of, we're helping, we're helping, we're helping. And you're kind of seeing that everywhere that might, you know, generate a perception that that help really is there because you're busy, you're doing other things and this and that. So this movement, like, just like what you're doing, that's why I was so excited to talk to you, is if more people listened to you and said, hey, let me try that. Ten years. Ten years, you would have a massive shift in the interest because more people would be sensitive to women unexpectedly getting pregnant and processing with them how to lean towards a culture of life and a behavior that. That supports life instead of one that supports death.
[00:48:47] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, this is something I'm so thankful that you were able to perceive that, you know, from our content, because that is something that is such a huge value for us and has been from day one, that we were going to be bridge builders and that we were going to be kind and empathetic. And I'm not here for the pithy sarcasm. You know, I just. I look at that and I go, whose mind are you changing? Like, whose mind has ever been changed? When they read a sarcastic tweet about someone's pro choice views I don't. I don't find that constructive at all.
[00:49:30] Speaker B: And you're right, that's painful. At the same time, there is a place for academic discussion.
[00:49:36] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Science and this. But, yeah, that needs to stay in one place. Most people, that's what. Because they're motivated by frustration and fear. And some frustration and fear generates oppositional, you know, encounter. And, yeah, it's not life. You can't live like that. You're not going to be super happy and you're not going to have friends. And because that goes down all the way to the normal level of like, hey, how do you parent? Well, you can't do that. Here's why. Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, like, I don't really want to spend time with you because you just grind me down every time we talk.
[00:50:09] Speaker A: Yeah, and maybe you're right, but I can't handle that. But I remember, you know, I was at students for life for a number of years before I did this, and I typically would not get protested on campus. And I remember having a conversation with our leadership team, and I said, they all think I'm really nice. They come up to me and they say, you're the nicest pro lifer I've ever met. Because I would just talk to them and I'd just be like, like, can you understand like this? Or I just, like, ask questions. And they just be like, wow, like, you're so nice. And I'd be say something like, first of all, like, I'm really sorry that you've had these bad experiences. But it was really. I just took time to talk to them and listen. And even now, like I said, I have a lot of friends who identify as pro choice, but they know me and they know my heart, and they understand what I do, and they are supportive. They're like, hey, I'm pro choice, but I support what you do. And I understand it. Cause, you know, I kind of say the thing that we do, regardless of where you stand on abortion, like, nobody wants dirty facilities with, you know, convicted felons doing surgery. You know, it's. It's pretty common sense, but there really is something to be said about making space for people. I think, especially now, I'm seeing this growing number even in the pro life movement itself. I have young people coming up to me that are feeling really, really disenfranchised by the polarization, by the extremity on both sides, and they just go, that doesn't feel authentic, especially for Gen Z. Authenticity is so important.
They can read, they can spot fakeness immediately, you know, they are kind, they are empathetic, and that just does not resonate. And so if we are going to be sowing into the next generation, if we're going to be changing hearts and minds, we have to lead with kindness and authenticity and meeting people where they are. Because especially now, as the culture has changed, you know, people, people are wanting that connection. They are wanting to find ways to build bridges and not just write people off. Because, you know, and I deal with this too. It's like I'm hesitant to tell people what I do for living in my personal life because I know when I tell them I'm a pro life leader that's going to come. They're going to make assumptions about me, they're going to make a character assessment about me, and I'm like, hold on. You know, grant me the same courtesy, but I just think if we are going to be successful long term, especially now that the culture has changed so much, we have to implement a. Not even implement because it really has to come from a heart level. It's not something that you can just say, well, I'm going to start doing this because if the motivation isn't coming from internal, it's going to come. It's not going to read. It's almost like as, as soon as you make it a thing, it's not the thing that you need to be anymore. It's like, it has to be, you have to authentically be kind.
[00:53:19] Speaker B: That's kind of, that catches is there. They've got so intuitive that if you're not authentic, they know it. And that's part of the self introspection is, am I authentic? Am I behaving in a way that do I really believe? I say kind, kind, but what does it look like? Like, am I doing that or not doing that? So those are good questions. And one thing kind of that you mentioned that I've been working on really hard is, is eliminating, like I said, the vocabulary of pro life, pro choice.
[00:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:53:49] Speaker B: And the reason that is, is because both of them are polarizing. Pro choice isn't actually a voice position. It's really aligned differently towards a culture of death. And the process in which that takes. Right. Their position to our work is very much like, how do we get new abortions at the easy, effective, you know, accessible. Right.
[00:54:11] Speaker A: Right.
[00:54:11] Speaker B: They don't have people in these facilities doing what we're doing, navigating. Like, hey, it sounds like you're just really scared. Are you sure that this, you know, this sounds like you're doing this. And this is, there are other ways we could support you to have this baby. They're definitely not doing that. They're pursuing, like, how do we get through this abortion? And so it's not really a choice motivated industry. It's an abortion motivated industry. And so if we're going to talk about it, I've been encouraging people because pro life, in the same way, in our colloquial use, and etymologically it is aligned to opposition of abortion, right? Yes, it is good to be pro life. Like being for life is a legitimate, ordinary good. It's a common good. But the way we're using it and the way everybody understands it is you're a sidewalk warrior that is fighting against the evils of abortion and planned parenthood, right?
If we reframe that and said, all right, let's take all the good from that pro life mindset and then add something a lot more close to what is great benefit for itself, and that would be culture of life. And so if we're talking and saying, I'm, I am not, I'm not a pro life leader, I am, I am a culture of life leader, what does that mean? And so we instantly invoke a clarification instead of using this pro life saying, hey, you already kind of have a predisposition. Same thing with pro choice. You already have a pre disposition, understand? And thinking that, I got you figured.
But if we use something more close to what's proper as well as something that invokes clarification, and then we're having to always explain ourselves, yeah, you're pro life. Why do you do this? Why do you do this? Why do you this? Instead of saying, I'm a culture of life, I believe in life. I believe in abundance. I believe in women who are heard and valued and validated in their needs. Same thing with, with men, right? That feel excluded and ostracized not only from the decision making, but from even having an opinion at all, right?
There's a lot of conversation. So I'm pro a culture that values people and values flourishing. The opposite to that is a culture that's invested and interested in pursuing ultimate ends. To people, it's of death. Pro, let's say someone who's like, I really just think we need to be the best country in the world and we need to destroy all the other countries. That would also be a culture of death mindset, right? If you're just pursuing conflict for conflicts sake, if you're pursuing end of life issues, if you're like, hey, life is too hard. Let's just take it off the map, right? Let's terminate life prematurely. All these things, these come out of a culture of death. There's actually a great book called the architects of the culture of death. And it goes through all these philosophers, these thinkers. The pen is mightier than the sword. These thinkers that promoted ideas that were really death oriented in a behavior of a culture from Marx to Margaret Sanger. Right? They were interested in their ideology, and their ideology was rooted in mindset that leads to death, right? It leads to destruction. Whereas a culture of life, we have to ask ourselves what that means. How do we apply that? What does that look like? Am I doing that? Am I leading that? And who is the leader of that ultimately? Right.
[00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:07] Speaker B: That then helps us support the conversation locally. Right. As well as it's more proper to, I would say, to speak in that way because being pro life is too limited scope.
[00:58:19] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. And what I tried to do also in most of my conversations is especially when I'm doing interviews, and when. When people in good faith, like, they're not trying to be, they're not. They're not trying to vilify, but they like to lump everybody. Like, if you are. If you support abortion anyway, like, you are pro abortion, that's it. You know, like, like we were always right. It's like, you're not pro choice. You're pro abortion. And I go, let's keep the bad guys. The bad guys. And what we talk about, the people that we are fighting against are the abortion advocates. So, like you were saying, like, the people who are actively advocating and the abortion industry.
Right. The business that is profiting off of vulnerable women and running these horrific centers and harming women and children, those are the bad. Not even, I don't want to call them bad guys, but those are the people that we are actively pushing against. We're pushing against abortion advocates and the abortion industry.
Everybody else who's trying to decide what they feel, they're on that spectrum. Like, let's have a conversation. Like, they are not the bad guys. Right. We are not fighting them.
[00:59:34] Speaker B: I would say two things that might be really interesting as a reflection. One is there are dissipation with evil.
[00:59:42] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:59:42] Speaker B: Right. And so those that are actively looking to hurt people. Yeah. That's really bad. But those that are neglecting, informing themselves, well, thinking, using their reason. Right. Because there is a natural law principle that's terminating the life of a developing child, calling it's a clump of cells. We're just kind of ignoring the need of understanding that the very common sense, I would say there's a lesser evil there. And they may not be malice in that. It just may be ignorance.
[01:00:15] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:00:16] Speaker B: At the same time, there is responsibility on that person.
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Oh, 100%.
[01:00:19] Speaker B: So those that I would. I would lump in abortion enthusiasts would be equally as problematic to those in willful ignorance.
[01:00:29] Speaker A: Right, right.
[01:00:30] Speaker B: So, like, you participate in the common sense degradation of the society. If you're just like, no, that's just. That's what I want to do. If you're deeply wounded and harmed in, you have now a perception that. That abortion isn't good and you're not navigating, and we're just speaking objectively, like, you can't navigate because of trauma.
Totally different situation. They may, abortion enthusiasts, but they're not speaking from a place of understanding. And what would you call that? A place of understanding? That they're.
They're putting their best foot forward. They're on a. They're limited there in being able to speak their mind and have an informed opinion. Because trauma impacts us in all different kinds of ways.
[01:01:27] Speaker A: Right. So I would say what the distinction I'm trying to make is, what I hear is that everybody, they want to apply malicious intent to everyone. If you support abortion, you have malicious intent. And I go really hard to. And I say, no, no, no. Like I said, keep the bad guys, like the physicians and the abortion business owners that we deal with, they have malicious intent.
[01:01:55] Speaker B: And in so many cases, it's clear. And then we've heard from some abortionists, they're like, you know, this and this. And I thought this way, and I always kind of had a question, and then at some point, it seems wrong. It's like, wow.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: So you have those people, right?
[01:02:09] Speaker B: And then there's random people there at the same time as there is. There is some responsibility and some culpability in our common sense. So.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: But that's.
[01:02:17] Speaker B: That's varying degrees.
[01:02:19] Speaker A: Right.
[01:02:20] Speaker B: And at the same time, not everybody is competent to speak to each type of person.
[01:02:26] Speaker A: Right.
[01:02:26] Speaker B: And so know your.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Know your audience.
[01:02:29] Speaker B: Know your audience, know yourself. And that's. That's a bigger one to swallow. That. That humility pill is. Is, um. It was a scary, scary one to take because that says, you may not be the one that helps resolve that problem. Right. But you feel. And that's strongly about it, and you just rush in and make it worse.
[01:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's where I just go, what is the most productive way forward and how can we meet people where they are again, look at every situation as an individual situation and go, what does this situation need? How can we move forward in this climate? And I think my voice. Your voice, you know, there's a lot. There's people coming up and saying, like, we have to do better if we're going to not lose the next generation.
[01:03:20] Speaker B: What's good for you? Because I'm particularly curious, because I know what. I know what I think that looks like, but I'm curious at your insight, because you've been thinking about this for a long time.
[01:03:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:30] Speaker B: I mean, what does that translation look like into if we all worked together, what.
[01:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:03:38] Speaker B: What do we rally around?
[01:03:40] Speaker A: Right.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: It's definitely not a politician. It's not going to help.
[01:03:43] Speaker A: That's not gonna help because.
[01:03:45] Speaker B: Because that they are.
They are characters of creation, right.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say. What does that look like? It looks like every. Like, you know, people taking a moment to audit, you know, their. Their approaches, and especially now because the culture has changed so much. You know, having hard conversations about is the thing that I'm doing actually moving us forward, or are we doing the thing that we've always done? Right. That's the thing that I challenge people on constantly. I challenge leaders on constantly.
Especially after Roe. I mean, we saw a lot of organizations really have to grapple with, like, because their entire existence was based around roexisting. And so taking that step back, reassessing and going, what do we need now? Things have changed so much. And really seeing a willingness from leaders, especially, but, you know, the movement as a whole to apply their pro life values to all people, you know, to the person who supports abortion and really giving space to have those conversations. Like I said, that's one of the main reasons I started this podcast, was like, how do we create space where we are approachable?
[01:05:15] Speaker B: Ability is a tremendous virtue.
[01:05:17] Speaker A: Yes, we are approachable.
[01:05:18] Speaker B: I think you have the same idea that I have. I'll try to summarize it in a really simple way. To pursue shared values and virtues that merit being called the culture of life.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Right.
[01:05:31] Speaker B: If we intentionally did that and said, what do we mean by values? What is a value? Do you do that? What is a virtue? Do we live virtuously? What does that look like according to what a culture of life merits?
[01:05:45] Speaker A: Right.
[01:05:46] Speaker B: Christianity has so much to teach. What a culture of life in difficult situations, how it triumphs over a culture of death. Right. That story needs to be reflected on. And if we have common understanding and we're saying the same things and we're acting and behaving and living those out. That's exactly what you're saying. The value of that and those values, that's how we win this long term, because this is a 500 year war. This isn't going to end in our lifetime. Um, actually, my, my feeling is that abortion will go away on its own, probably in the next hundred years, and it will be.
[01:06:30] Speaker A: It'll become obsolete. I mean, that, that's the goal. Yeah. Is, is we create a world in which having children is not so scary. Right.
[01:06:42] Speaker B: That would be the real ideal, right?
[01:06:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:06:44] Speaker B: I mean, to have that, that would be the positive. But the way that it seems history has been unfolding over the past several hundred years, even this past several thousand years, is that humanity is going through this pattern and we're pursuing this very evil practice. And it doesn't seem like the majority of people are really interested. And so the small minority are trying really hard to work towards a good. But we're not even doing it really that well. We're trying the best we can, but we need common shared values, focus on the culture of life and what that really means. But the tables, it seems, would turn naturally. So as our population numbers go down, what will happen at some point, mathematically, is you will have two thirds that need to be supported in an elderly class and then a one third in working class. And the philosophers, I've already spoken about that, and that is they look to euthanasia to solve their problems. So they'll, they'll have used abortion for, for, you know, a long time. Maybe it's 100 years, maybe it's 200 years, and then they'll look to euthanasia to solve their other social problems so that abortion will, on its own, kind of dissolve because there won't be enough people anyway.
And that's a darker future. Look.
[01:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: What happens if a culture of life doesn't take a promise and influence good people that may feel that abortion is this way or that way, like, hey, maybe. Maybe it's okay in certain circumstances until they inform themselves well and they experience repeatedly, culture of life advocates building up the understanding of what we really need to be good people, then you've got a chance.
[01:08:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And I'll say, I'm gonna say one more thing because we're going a little, little long, but this is just such an amazing conversation that I don't want to cut it off, but a big piece of that is the support base. Right? So I'm going to talk to donors for a second, right? Oh, yeah, Frank, conversation with donors. We are the pro life movement has been conditioned to respond to a certain type of news and story and the polarization and the, the loud voices and not saying that that was all bad. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is now, again, it's time to reassess and look at and really audit the organizations that you're supporting and what we are doing. Because if Aaron and I are pioneering something that is new, it's harder. It takes more resources. It's nothing. Not, it's not the easy. We have not chosen the easy way. Right. And the only way to be successful is if we have support. But it's hard when the culture of support around the whole pro life movement is so used to the old way. Right.
[01:09:47] Speaker B: I would suggest that it has been incentivized and framed around the save model. So your investment buys this. This is what your Roi is. Right. And there is a, there is some rationale to like, hey, I'm not going to waste my money, but I'm saving more babies. I'm doing this. And there's an emotional pursuit for the utility value of the dollars of the donors. And that is contrary to the dignity of the donors.
I think I said this in a board meeting, if not just to a few board members. And I said, if I come across a donor and it's clear that they're called and their real interest is investing in adoption or the homeless, I'm going to send them over there.
[01:10:36] Speaker A: No, do that thing.
[01:10:38] Speaker B: That would be so horrific. And my board members like, okay, we're going to think about that. And then I've talked to other people what? And before, it's because it's a, it's a competition, even internally, and that's what's causing this battle to go so slow. Right. And that's radical collaboration. So if we, if we move away from us needing to fix all the problems, us trying to get the donor to just donate to our cause, like, just get at that money, right? We're doing the most. We're doing the best.
That is making this so much more complicated. Right?
[01:11:14] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:11:14] Speaker B: It is. It is not helpful. And I think you're speaking into that. That's the real hard conversation to have. Like, and encountering the donor in that way.
[01:11:24] Speaker A: Like, and investors. Interesting. Getting people to invest in the long term strategy.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Long term strategy.
[01:11:32] Speaker A: We don't have the same quick victories that maybe some of the other groups do. And, like, that's fine. I'm glad that they're doing those things, but, like, being able to, when you see, organizations like ours that are taking the long way, but in the long run, the way I see it is like, it takes us four years to shut down an abortion facility, but then we shut down an entire abortion facility. You know, like, great. If. If babies were saved outside the sidewalk. Awesome. Beautiful. Amazing. But if we can invest that time and then we shut down it, like, the impact is so much bigger because we took that long approach and helping supporters understand that, especially now, we need to be investing in these long term strategies, in these. These methods and approaches that don't give that same dopamine hit once a week.
[01:12:25] Speaker B: Right, right. That would be really nice. I really like the balance of short term strategies, that the quality of short term strategies is how well they lend to long term strategy.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:12:37] Speaker B: Your short term strategies are incremental and productive, but they're ordered towards a long term success. And your long term success is how you prioritize which short term strategies are applied. Right. And which one take the most amount of energy. For us, the.
We'll call it an innovation or just the interest that we were kind of called to is investing in people and culture. Is that ultimate long term strategy, and the means in which you do that in short term ways is the really hard part. Yeah, it's the really hard part because not everybody is interested or can understand a legacy model of investing into a ministry because they've been conditioned that if you do this, it's because you helped 500 homeless people out of there tonight. Right. Like, that is the nature of the gift relationship in so many cases that make it urgent, make it now, make it intentional, make it emotional. And there's something about the dignity of the donor that we need to elicit. The same way we work with the women that come in and these young men, listen to them, help unpack and process. It's a ministry to serve the donor as well. Donor then in turn, vesting with prudence and wisdom their gifts and goods, where they're called and recognizing that is really hard to swallow, because just like all of us, money, you have to pay the bills. Right. There's all the justifications.
[01:14:12] Speaker A: Right, right.
[01:14:12] Speaker B: But if you're going to really walk that path, you're going to have to do it in grace. And again, a culture of life, a culture of flourishing, also looks to the donor to be valued.
[01:14:22] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah. Oh, I love it. I love it. I love it. All right, we got, we got to wrap up. We're going. We're going long. But I just, I absolutely love having this conversation with you. I think it's absolutely necessary. It's so timely. I think what you're doing is amazing. But before we close, we like to take a minute and kind of get out of our ministry bubble, you know, and love to know what is your favorite thing to do when you're off the clock and now a kid. There's a caveat.
[01:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:14:55] Speaker A: It could be being a husband or a father, because that's a given. We know that that's your favorite. We know that you love doing that. But when you are not leading a innovative, incredible ministry, what is your favorite thing to do?
[01:15:07] Speaker B: I have an hour and a half commute, so I was reading and looking at these questions, and when I saw, when I got to that one, I was like, oh, this is really hard to answer. And then because I don't really have a non authentic mode, I might get offended because I'm too authentic and I'm sorry. Or I'm authentic to a degree that I just did it wrong. Right.
[01:15:30] Speaker A: Or.
[01:15:32] Speaker B: So I really try really hard to answer that question with great clarity. And I was thinking, like, okay, what would I just kind of naturally incline to do? And so one thing that's kind of bizarre, right? I'm a bit weird. I like to watch the animals on my farm. So we have a hobby farm. So I like to watch the animals, and I make kind of observations about the characteristics of their behavior according to their nature. So in a weird way, I like to watch goats be goats, right. And understand that how they act is only according to how God made them. And what's really interesting is we use analogies throughout history of making representation and making animal behavior and human behavior and connecting them. Just like wondering and exploring my imagination on associating how people behave similarly to certain animal categories. And there's commonalities there. It's not a perfect science, but I really like watching the animals and learning how to. So my wife, for her childhood crush, was Steve Irwin, and I didn't know Steve Irwin from anybody, right.
[01:16:44] Speaker A: So I said, oh, that's funny about.
[01:16:45] Speaker B: Steve Irwin growing up. I didn't know he was.
[01:16:47] Speaker A: So you're a big animal family.
[01:16:50] Speaker B: Yes, we're very much a big animal. We have several hundred animals on the farm. And so when, when I look at that and I'm like, okay, kind of like this. If I were just to, like, have free time, kind of like learning how to act in a certain way that allows the animals to be more comfortable.
[01:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:17:08] Speaker B: So to kind of learn the Steve Irwin model, like how Steve Irwin was with animals I kind of like looking at that and saying, all right, how do I walk like a rabbit? It makes the rabbits comfortable. So I can walk up and pet them.
[01:17:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:17:21] Speaker B: So I'll give. Walk straight up to a rabbit. It's gonna run away.
[01:17:24] Speaker A: Right. We have a closure.
[01:17:27] Speaker B: And so I learned how to kind of, like, move the way they do and then get close because they'll come and, like, interact with each other that way, and then you can pet them a little bit, and then that's it. And some goats and pigs. There's all these things. So that maybe that's. That's something I would like to do, but I probably don't do that enough.
[01:17:44] Speaker A: My motivation, because I love animals. I'm just a big animal person. I love. We have a farm in our area that you can go to and, like, literally walk up the. The fence and feed the horses carrots. And it's my favorite thing to do. And I told my husband, I was like, my goal is to go often enough where the horses start remembering me, you know, and I go up and I pet them and I talk to them. But I would do what you do, but purely for selfish reasons, because I just desperately want to pet every animal. I just want them all to be my friend. I just want to pet them. I want to love on them. It's so grounding for me. So when there's, like, when a friend of mine has, like, a dog or a cat that's, like, a little bit standoffish, I, like, make it my mission. I'm like, we will be friends. Like, I will win you my wife over. Yeah. So I love it. So you have a whole farm. You have hundreds of animals. That is amazing. So you've got goats, what?
[01:18:36] Speaker B: Rabbits, rabbits, sheep, chickens, ducks, pigs, cows and horses. And we had quail for a time, and then, of course, cats and dogs.
[01:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah. That's around here with all the urban farming. A lot of my friends do quail because they're just easier to manage than chickens.
[01:18:54] Speaker B: Rationale. It's not just like, like, if my wife had her way and we had a limited amount of money that we should just keep buying animals just because they're animals. And she likes having around, obviously, but.
[01:19:04] Speaker A: Your wife and I would get along very well.
[01:19:07] Speaker B: Sure. Yes. There's a rationale to why certain animals are needed, and I having actually, habitats for them to be happy and healthy, and in turn, they actually are tastier that way. And so some of them are for food, some of them are actually to manage the land. So you work them in different ways. And there's all sorts of things we're learning because we're a first generation farming outside.
[01:19:29] Speaker A: Your goats eat the grass so you don't have to mow.
[01:19:32] Speaker B: Correct. So they actually manage certain types of vegetation, and then we select certain species of those breeds. So there's like a particular type of pig that doesn't root the ground and destroy it. They just graze the grass as well. But they eat different grass than the goats. And then you keep the sheep in a certain area, and then you'll rotate them around. And chickens do similar things. So there's a lot of reasoning. And then at some point, once we get really good at it, we've really only been into this about a year and a half.
[01:19:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:59] Speaker B: Once we get really good, the hope is, is that we'll just produce its own food source, basically a larger habitat for us with micro habitats for these little animals. My wife loves to sit in there and watch the rabbits because I've built these little things.
[01:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:20:14] Speaker B: Run around and chase each other and they jump and flip because it's a big open air.
[01:20:18] Speaker A: Right.
[01:20:19] Speaker B: Nobody does that. I mean, we look and look that nobody's doing it that way. It's very hard to do with predators and such.
[01:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Right, right.
[01:20:25] Speaker B: We've got this big. And just watching the animals run around is the past time. And as soon as it cools down, because it's still really hot in Texas, we'll probably do that more quickly.
[01:20:34] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. I want to come visit your farm so badly. I would have so much fun. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for taking time to talk to us today. I just absolutely love what you're doing and can't wait to work with your center more and see how you guys continue to grow and impact, you know, other pregnancy centers and teach this incredible model. So thank you. Thank you so much for being here today. So thank you to listeners for joining us today. Remember, episodes drop every other Friday and are available for everyone to hear. So please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing and sharing the podcast with your friends. And also, don't forget, when you buy our next bag of coffee, use our link in the show notes to help support our work. For more information about the amazing work the center for Client Safety is doing, you can visit centerforclientsafety.org. you can also find us on socials at center for Client Safety, and you can find me on social at Missy Martinez Stone. See you next time.
