Steve Widmer of Catalyst Ministry Solutions shares how to avoid the biggest issues in building projects and instead how to thrive in the midst of them. If your school is thinking about a building project, planning a building project, or even in the middle of a building project, this episode is for you.
Here’s a breakdown of the episode:
We hope this episode encourages you, sparks ideas, and gives you confidence to move forward in your own school and role. And we hope you share it with a friend, teammate, or fellow educator.
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Dana
Welcome to the Blueprint Schools podcast, where we share stories of how schools and their teams move from surviving to thriving. Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Steve Widmer of Catalyst Ministry Solutions. If your school is thinking about a building project, planning a building project, or even in the middle of a building project, this episode is for you.
Listen in. As Steve shares how to avoid the biggest issues in building projects and instead how to thrive in the midst of them. Without further ado, here's our conversation with Steve Widmer.
Good morning, Steve. It's so great to have you with us this morning on the podcast. We're just so grateful for your time today as we seek to help schools thrive, particularly as we approach the subject of building projects. So for our listeners, could you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about how you help faith based schools thrive?
Steve
Oh absolutely. And Dana, let me first say just hey, thanks for having me on your podcast. It's been great getting to know you with my experience in, you know, religious schools and and the help that they need. I just it's been such a blessing to be able to get connected with you and to have another partner out there that I can refer and just say, Hey, you got to talk to this person to help you to this next level. So thank you for that.
Dana
You're so welcome. You're so welcome.
Steve
So a little bit about myself is I was in corporate world for about 25 years and had an opportunity to step away and to become the executive pastor for a fast-growing church in Waukesha County River Glen Christian Church. And I was there for nine years. That was over Staff and ministry. And during that time we had gone through multiple building projects. We've also been through multiple campaigns and that was something that I had a lot of exposure or had gotten a lot of experience with over a period of time. I decided, you know what? I'm going to try my hand at consulting, and I decided to become a fundraising consultant. So I did that for several years.
Now. I'm currently with Catalyst construction. Catalyst, brought me on board to essentially head up a new arm or a division that they wanted to start that really paid attention to helping religious schools and churches get their projects to the finish line. Too often what they were experiencing was that they would, win an opportunity. They would become the chosen general contractor for the project. But five years, six years would go by and nothing's happened. Well, there's there's things that happened in that time frame that they ask me to come in and kind of help them figure out how do we get a client a school when they have a project, they have a vision how do we get that to the finish line? And so that is that's what I do.
Dana
Okay. that is such an interesting job. And from my perspective, such a needed piece of the whole puzzle. I mean, I you know, I talked to tons of faith based schools all the time. That's who I work with. And, you know, there's so many schools that are really considering building projects right now. So many of them are growing, number one.
And they're looking into building projects because they think maybe this is the next step for us because there's so much need in our community or because we're busting at the seams and we're on waiting lists. And one of the things that you and I talked about at length is just we watched these schools really struggle with building projects.
let's talk about these issues that we're all facing and how we can maybe overcome these issues so that we can get those schools built and then, you know, do the ministry we love to do out of those new buildings? So what issues do you see out there when you're helping them get to that groundbreaking point?
Steve
Yeah, good question. And there's a lot to that question.
Dana
That's a loaded question.
Steve
I'll start with what are the common threads that I see. I'll just name some right on top is probably I've seen issues with communication strategies and how do we communicate properly so that we're getting the word out there. And it's crystal clear that people fully understand what we're trying to do.
Too often with communication, they tell too much or too little, and it can come across as they're not being transparent or they're getting so much information early on before they really know for a fact that that these things are really going to happen.
So people have they set the wrong expectations. Another area is because these are, you know, with a lot of times with schools, they they have to have volunteers help them through this process. They'll set up teams to do certain things. They might have a finance team, they might have a a facilities team, they might have a building team and a and a fundraising team. All all of these teams are doing specific things, but nobody's really reporting back clearly. And so there's miscommunication and getting all those teams on the same page can be difficult also, right?
Dana
Because with communication and teamwork, you know, the issues that happen, if if they're not on the same pages, your congregation is deciding to do a huge thing to build a building that's going to serve, your ministry for decades, hopefully, and you're going to be signing on to a million-multimillion dollar loan. So if you're going to be making these huge decisions, you need communication and teamwork.
Steve
the number of times that come into a situation that has already started. And now we're trying to pick up the pieces and get it moving again because it stalled out. When I start asking them, well, where's the final decision? Get made? Who makes that final decision? They're really unclear. And you would think, well, that's kind of 101 stuff that should have been figured out in the beginning.
But again, it's just one of those things. They have not been down this road before. So having that communication strategy in place really helps them make sure that the things are getting reported on properly, that there's a structure of leadership and decision making that needs that needs to take place. And there needs to be ultimately a team that makes decisions that's been given the authority to make decisions.
Dana
Okay, So issues around communication, so everyone's on the same page so we can make these okay, move forward and then issues around the structure and process for making decisions.
Steve
And the final one, which is probably what I would consider the most, most important, because it's the one that I if a project is stalling out or just not getting off the ground, this is the one that I see 90% of the time is the issue and that is doing things out of the wrong order, not understanding the priorities of how things should get done.
So as an example of that, let's say a school decides, you know what we want to we're growing. We need we need to do an expansion, We need to get four more classrooms. And so they try and determine, well, What's the first thing we need to do? Well, what's simple, it seems like as well, let's just talk to the architect.
Let's see what we can build. And so they sit down and they they find an architect. And the architect will do a discovery with them. And what's involved with a discovery is just asking them a lot of questions on what their needs are. A lot of times they'll actually ask them, Well, let's talk about your needs, but then let's also ask you, what are your dreams? What are you hoping to get out of this? Well, you know, these schools, these churches, these congregations, the leadership, they don't know the difference between dreams and needs. Their needs are their dreams. And so what ends up happening, it starts going down this road where it just as it's getting designed, it gets bigger, there gets more things. And we're trying to make everybody happy in the scope of the project just grows and grows and grows and architects really aren't aware they have an idea, but they're not really aware of like, where's all the cost and how is this going to get worse? What's the end product going to look like? They're designing what you're asking them to design.
So without those boundaries you now have this thing and once they have that, now it comes time to take it to a general contractor. So they find a general contractor to come in. The contractor takes those drawings, they give them an estimate, and now that estimate comes back at, let's say, $6 million. Well, okay, they're not sure if that sounds like a lot or not. They're not sure if they can raise that money. They're not sure if that can be financed. So now they go out and they determine, well, let's go see what we can finance. And they find out, well, we can finance 3 million. Let's go see what we can fundraise. Well, now they go out and they fundraise, and now they've raised a million and a half Another. A million and a half short. And all of this just taking time from the time that they've designed it to the time when they're out here. Hopefully they haven't taken all the drawings that they've got gotten, showed the congregation, Hey, here's what we're building, because now they're in a place where what they just showed the congregation or maybe what they've raised money on. Now they're in a situation where, you know, it was fund designing it, but now it's going to be painful to start figuring out where do we cut.
Dana
Because you're short a million and a half dollars, right? You go in that order, architect, you know, get the bid and then fundraise. Then you're in danger of we're going to be short. And then we have to kind of start over or cut, cut, cut, cut, cut.
Steve
So these are some of the things that can happen. And I want to be very, very clear. This is not an architects fault. No. The architect is giving them exactly what they're asking for. And I like to say that, you know, if it were up to an architect, they will design you a monument to their creativity They’re creative minds, most of them. And you want somebody that will design you something that's great. If it were up to a general contractor to design it, it would be a square box and you would operate in that square box.
Dana
You know, that's one of the lessons I learned really early as I went through construction projects is there is this beautiful tension, let's call it a beautiful thing. It's a good tension to have between the construction company, the contractor and the architect. And you need both of these brains on a project, but you need to balance those brains because the contractors, how can we make it as cheap as possible? And the architect is how can we make it as beautiful as possible?
Steve
Yeah.
Dana
And if you get too far to one side or the other, you know, that project's going to go off the rails. And I think that's something I learned into my maybe second construction project with a ministry, I served going, this makes sense. And you, the ministry, unless you have an advocate or someone is helping you, has to balance that out.
Steve
Absolutely. Because the truth is somewhere in the middle. Yes. And that's the beautiful tension that you talked about between an architect and a general contractor. That's when they work. Well together.
Dana
The biggest issue that you see in most building projects and I've seen it too, I've lived through it too, is we start with the architect, we move to the contractor, and then we end with trying to fundraise. And then what typically happens is we can't get to the numbers and then, people are disappointed, We can't get across the finish lines. The congregation's disappointed. That's where some building projects and or things really really you know a lot of hurt feelings, loss of alignment.
So that's the wrong way. I'm I'm hoping you'll tell us the right way.
Steve
Well, yes. And let me say that there's not one way to everything but if you haven't been down this road before and if if you need someone to help guide you there, that's when kind of this process is the most important. Think of it this way, when you're trying to hit a target, if you don't know what that target is, you're not going to hit it. And so before or when I'm coaching them, before they talk with an architect and get into the process before they get their general contractor in place, the first thing they need to do is go through a process to determine what is to the budget because it's that budget that's going to be critical and it can be an estimated budget.
So, you know, who are the finance companies that they're going to look at, the finance sources? Is it going to be an extension fund? Is it going to be a bank? But let's let's talk to those people and have them give us an idea what is it that we could take out a loan? What could we finance? Because they're going to look at the your profit loss statements. They'll be able to help you determine what can you afford when it comes to financing. Now, the next thing is we want to take a look at fundraising. Finance and fundraising are two different things. So how much are we going to be able to fundraise? And that's where having a competent, experienced fundraiser that's trustworthy comes in to be able to help you determine that number on the front side, because there are ways that you can determine that once you have those two numbers, once you have the finance and the fundraising portion. Now you have essentially your budget.
Now you go to the architect and the general contractor. You say, okay, we have a four and a half million dollar budget. You now have one job, and that is to help us design what we need for that four and a half million. So that's the process that I try to help help schools and churches understand is let's go through this process, let's give them a target. It's not fair to them to go and, you know, to go in and ask them to design a something we don't even have a target for them to hit.
And that's the critical piece. That's the number one mistake I find is is churches and schools are just they don't have a clear understanding of what can they afford. The second thing that sometimes I see happen is they have this they've gone through the process the wrong way. Now they have this this design that's very costly and they decide that we're going to over spiritualized this. We're going to we're going to trust God to get us there.
And let me let me be very, very clear. God can do whatever he wants to do. Yeah. Okay. If God wants to bring you someone that can fund the entire project, God will do that. Right. But God is also clear to that He wants us to do our due diligence before we build. So we know that we can finish the project now. Because then too often sometimes I see us see churches and schools set themselves up to be in a situation where God may be going, You know what? I'm going to teach you a valuable lesson right now.
Dana
Right. Are you trusting God? Are we testing God? Really?
Steve
Exactly right. Yeah. And too often we have a tendency to fall into this. You know, we're human and we have the sense to fall into place where we're just like, Well, we're going to trust God in this. And we should trust God in everything we do. Right? But there's also we need to do the hard work to make sure that we're doing everything on our part.
Dana
He calls us to faithfulness. He calls us to use our noggins. He calls us to good stewardship. And there is an order for things. And one of the ordering orderly as things is having a budget. You know, we all do that in our personal lives. I hope most of us do it in our personal lives where we understand our budget so that when we walk in the store, we know what we can spend so we don't get ourselves in financial trouble.
It's it's applying the basic things we do in our homes to our ministries, right? I would never go house shopping without getting a pre-approval. Right. In fact, your real estate agent probably doesn't want to show you around until he knows what your budget is.
Steve
You know, they just haven't been down this path before. And and so it just seems natural to want to jump in right away and just kind of see what we can build. What does it look like?
Dana
Right.
Steve
And that's we're good fundraisers, good coaches, good partners for financing. You want to surround yourself with the best people that are out there because there's a lot of people that aren't great at what they do. You want to bring in people that that have expertise, but also that are willing to share with you when and sometimes give you, you know, clear advice on on what you can do and what you might not be able to do and not just give you yes to everything.
Dana
You or someone is going to tell you the truth.
Steve
Yeah.
Dana
Tell you the truth. Who understands what it's like to work from a ministry and who is a good listener as well. so before you bring the, architect in the contractor and you'd say, and the most important thing is to figure out what your budget is through that finance piece, the fundraising piece, what else should you do before, if you're thinking about a building project, one of those things help get things ready for communication to be good or for decision making to be good or anything else in your experience.
Steve
Yeah, good question. So I wrestled with that the first year that I came on board to really help determine that, because I wanted to make sure that that I was doing everything I could to help guide through that. And one of the things that that I come up with is I call it a readiness audit.
And what I mean by that is a readiness audit is where I ask the organization, you know, if you want, I'll come in and I can help you determine where you're at on this path and what are the critical next steps you need to do so that you don't have you don't have all these things out in front of you that you're thinking about will boil it down to like, okay, if you want to get moving, here's the end of the rope that you can grab. And here's the next three things that I would focus on right now. And if you get through those, then, you know, here's the pathway. These are the next things.
And so with a readiness audit, what the first thing I do is ask them if when I come in there is I'm going to request that you have all your leadership in the room. So if you have committees, if you have teams, get the leaders in the room, because chances are not everybody's on the same page, but it gives me a chance to see that. And then I'll start I'll start off with with essentially three questions for the entire group.
The first question is, on a scale of 1 to 10, give me a number on, you know, as far as like, you know, what you're building on a scale of 1 to 10, you know what you're building. And usually you'd be surprised that comes in with an average. I mean, I've had 15, 20 people in a room before and the average comes in at about like four. But there's also some people that will say, well, I know what we're building, we're building a school addition. And so I'm going to say I know what it's going to be a ten, and then I'll have another question. So how many square feet is that school edition going to be? Well, I'm not sure. Okay. So and I'll ask several other questions. A person, they're like, okay, well, maybe I'm at a five, right?
Dana
Because you get 15, 20 people in a room and you've all been saying we want to expand our school. And for some people, well, that means adding on three more classrooms. For other people, it means adding on 13 classrooms and a gymnasium.
Steve
Yes, exactly. Exactly.
So you get that all out on the table. Then the next question I ask them, on a scale of 1 to 10, do you know why you're building this? And they'll say, well, we're running out of room. We have to build it. Okay, well, that's I get that. But is that the real problem you're trying to solve? Is it just that you're trying to give it the space? Is that the problem that we're trying to solve in this? And I, I, I pushed back a little bit because we'll always hear, well, we've outgrown this or, or whatever, because I want them to really land on. Well, the problem is, at this point right now, we can't serve everybody that's coming to us. And so we've got people who want to put their kids in here and our second graders filled in a we just got no more room. And so we're having to turn people away. That's the problem.
Not just that we're growing, we are called to serve and to you know, our mission is to bring these kids in and to make sure we have a place that we can disciple them and that, you know, we can we can grow them for kingdom impact. So we go through that. We get them on the same page with that.
Dana
Can I ask a question?
Steve
Yeah, Yeah.
Dana
Because I love that second question. Do you know why we're building this? And so you mentioned we're building this because we're running out of space. Do you ever get we're building this because we hope with the new building more people will come.
Steve
my gosh. Yes. The build it and they will come. Yes.
Dana
I just wrote an article about that.
Steve
That one is the one I try to correct right away. That's like just because you build it doesn't mean they're going to come.
Dana
Right.
Steve
And that's what this readiness audit is about. It's I'm trying to dig below the surface because if they don't know the problem that they truly got, how are they going to communicate that when they go to fundraise? Right. Right. You just say we're we're growing, we need more space. Well, that's not really making a personal connection. People can see you're running out of space, but it's you know, it's gives you a chance to reiterate to re-communicate. You know, our vision is this and you you give the problem to them. So then you can bring them solutions that they can see that they can be part of the solution.
Dana
Absolutely. And connecting it to mission is so important. I hear so often, well, we just want to have room for more kids. But, you know, that's not the main reason that we exist to have enough desks for children, you know, that we need to connected to the mission of our church, which is usually the foundational piece. Right? Schools are an arm of the church ministry.
Have we thought through how the church is going to, like you said, disciple, take care of the families that are in the school. Like that. Harvest doesn't happen just naturally. There's we need to figure out how to connect those things. And if we thought through that.
Steve
Yeah, there's an emotional connection there and I can talk about that in a minute about the difference in connecting why you're doing this, when you're when you're fundraising and speaking to like major givers or just speaking to the congregation in general, that that's that's an important piece. But the final question that I ask them then is and don't get me wrong, there's a ton more questions I ask, but these are the three primary ones that I use to kick the meetings off, and that is, do you know how you're going to get there?
What is the path on a scale of 1 to 10? And then I just having to go around the room, give me their number, because again, I'll get some people that'll go, Yep, we're going to go and we're going to get alone and then we're going to build that. You know, I've been in construction and I know how we build a building, and then I'll ask them, I'll say, Well, how do you determine what you're going to be able to afford?
How do you determine what can we actually fundraise? How do we how do we know we're going to be able to fundraise a certain amount so that we know that we can get that building built? And I just push back a little bit to get them to understand it's these three questions are bigger than what we have a tendency. We always want to boil it down to the most simple answer, and we need to really kind of break things down to understand the complexity before we move forward. So everybody's on the same page and if that makes sense.
Dana
That makes so much sense. I think we think about it in terms that are very concrete because we're building this concrete building, right? We think it's how do we get a crew out here to stack bricks on top of each other, you know, But a building project means you need to get a whole congregation moving toward a vision that you have to understand how you're going to fund that building, that you understand what that building is going to be used for after you get it built and how you if you're looking to grow as a school and serve more people, how are you going to reach your community? And even deeper than all of that is do you really need it? Does your community really need it? How sure are you that we need this? And that we can justify all of this time, energy, resources and then paying the mortgage for decades to come?
Steve
Well, then you and I were were just very recently both, you know, working with a client who they were kind of in that if we build it, they will come mindset. And it became very obvious very quickly that your problem is that you have not enough space, you have plenty of space. Your problem is that your first impression is is not good.
And so let's work on that first impression and let's get you so you have a great first impression of people just want to make sure they bring their kids here and get that growth started growing again and then we can look down the road.
Dana
Yeah. Do the best you can with what you have. Articulate the program within that building first. And then, you know, again, we're talking about the same client would be. What makes you think that you can fill the building? What research have you done, so that you can how you compare with the other schools and that they're going to choose your school above another school? And what does your community need? And if you don't have any research, that's that's one your first steps is first.
Do the best you can with what you have and then research how you might reach more people. And if you've got no justification for any reason, more people would come. That's your problem.
Steve
Exactly. And my the fundraising background and me, you know, it just really leans heavily into before, you know, before you go talk to any major gift givers in your what we call the quiet days, where you're going out and you're talking to those people who have the the capacity to move the needle on this project. They have the the type of funding ability to actually write a big check before you talk to those people.
Those people are, you know, their business savy and they're able to look through your, you know, your plan and they'll look at it. And if it's not a solid plan, if you're not able to answer their questions, they're not going to give money to something that they have that, you know, the ability to look at and go, wow, this isn't well thought through. I'm not feeling comfortable about this. They may give you a little something because they love you know, they love the church and they love the school, but they know how to sniff out if this is a viable plan.
Dana
Right. And if they you know, if they love God, they are also called to stewardship. Right. To God's children, which they probably are. If you're knocking on their door, you you know, you have to realize that their call to stewardship too, and that there are hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of places where they could steward their gifts. In their acting out of their own stewardship, heart going, if you don't have a good plan and I don't think this plan is going to succeed, I'm not going to give my money here. I'm going to give my money to the ministries or to the causes that have a good plan for having that gift bear fruit.
Steve
This is this is a true story. Two weeks ago, I was at a groundbreaking with it was a school that it was really a struggle getting them to that point. And after the groundbreaking, the day after the individual who is kind of running the project at this point and doing some of the additional major gift conversations to to raise a little bit more money. I got a call from one of the individuals that they gave a fairly sizable check a while ago when they were asked, but he called them up and let him know that now that that he sees that they were there, now that he sees that the plan was the right plan, he committed to another $600,000 and he approached them on it.
So these people are looking to make sure that that you are going to be able to get this to the finish line. And so that's where my passion comes in, is if it if it can get to the finish line, you know, I'll help them get there. I know I can get it there because I surround myself with great partners like yourself that I know when when there's a gap in that plan, I've got partners that I can bring in.
If I can't help them, I got partners that will come in that are proven, that will help fill that gap. Yeah, because there's a lot of things that need to take place and when you have that that strategy in place that you can go from one place to another and hit your milestones. It's about momentum and it's about keeping the whole process moving forward and not letting it stall. Because the moment that something stalls out, all of a sudden you start hearing these voices kind of out there, Well, maybe God's not this. Maybe this is a sign that we're not supposed to do this.
Dana
People lose hope. They lose confidence. Yeah. And that's not what we want to happen. This is such a good conversation Steve. You know, if you're out there and you're thinking about a building project, let's sum up what we kind of talked about is, number one, your first step is not to go out to an architect or a contractor even and just think, what can we build? That's not your first step.
Your first step is, what are we using this building for? Why do we need it? What do we need to build? Having these internal conversations? Who is going to be the team that's going to help, but who can help us that has experience doing that and how much can we afford? Those are first first things.
Steve
Yeah. Yeah. And and it really doesn't take a lot of time to to figure these out, but it takes intentional intentionality. And if if you haven't been down this path before, you've got to have somebody in to help help you line it all up.
So yeah, that's fortunately that's what I get to do. It's, I feel blessed that, you know, Catalyst has the, the desire to help the kingdom. It's been something that has been kind of part of our foundation, as you know, when you're a blessing to others, you will be blessed. And I there's no charge to what I do. You know, I'm there to just help. If if, if there's something that there's a vision that they need to get to, I'll help them do everything in my power to get them there.
Dana
That's amazing. That is it. Your work must be challenging at times, but really, really fulfilling because if you do things in the right order you saved yourself from so much heartbreak later on, like you said, confusion, donor fatigue, loss of confidence, loss of momentum, yada, yada, yada. Right. To sum it up, there's so much that can go wrong.
But it doesn't have to be that way. But we need to do our groundwork first. And let me tell you, if you're someone out there thinking about it, Steve, if a team wants to get a hold of you to help do this audit that you that you talked about, how they go about doing that, what point did you come in.
Steve
At the vision stage? It's at the absolute earliest vision stage. The moment they're thinking about it. Bring me in. Because that is that's what I do is from vision.
There's I call it there's two two phases to a project. Vision to ground break phase. And then you have the ground break to completion phase. Once you hit ground break, all the checkboxes are checked. That project's moving forward. It's this vision to ground break phase where the things get thrown off track and it's that and typically it starts with mistakes that get made very early on right out of gate. Okay. So my goal is to get them to understand, here is your next we we we work together to learn what is your the next steps I need to take.
And what's great about that is so often I hear and I have experienced myself where there's so many things going on when you're trying to get a project to to that ground break phase that they're all swimming around in your head and you're laying awake at night staring at the ceiling, worrying about things you don't have to worry about yet, but you just don't know. You don't have to worry about it. Yeah. So I try to get that all broken down. So the only things you got to worry about are these three things. Or these two things. You do these and now all the other stuff you don't have to worry about. You can let that go. We'll get to it. But these are what need your attention right now.
Dana
Right? So you prioritize for them, and probably even more importantly, you. The most dangerous things are the things that we don't know, that we don't know.
Steve
Exactly.
Dana
Right. It's exactly make sure that during that vision to groundbreak stage, we all know all the things we need to know.
Steve
Yeah. The the worst thing that I can hear is, gosh, I wish I would have known that. Yeah. Yeah. And the other part of my my role is I also go in and help projects that have gotten started off on the wrong foot and now they're trying to grasp, you know, with what where do we go from here? How do we get it back on track?
I've got several projects right now that stalled out literally for one for 12 years, the other for eight, And or or one of them were getting it back up and running. We've got a phase one scheduled to start getting built in the other. We're probably breaking ground now in in early spring.
Dana
I'm so glad that you said that because I know we've really been stressing start the right way, get someone in there to help you and hold your hand. We don't have to figure this all out on our own. There's been thousands of churches that have gone before, schools that have gone before you, that have gone before. But maybe you already started and maybe you really feel like you messed it up. It's good to know that part of what you do is also help get people on track. They're still even if you feel like you're off the rails.
Steve
Yeah, absolutely. For sure.
Dana
So how do people get in contact with you, Steve? Can you share some information about, you know, if they want if you want to help them get off to the right start or if you want to get things back on the rails, you know what? How can they contact you or where can they get more information?
Steve
You can get a hold of me at SWidmer S.W.I.D.M.E.R at Catalyst develops dot com or you can even call me at 4142656282. That's my direct cell line More than happy to to talk with anyone out there if if I don't pick up just leave me a message and I'll get back to you within 24 hours for sure.
Dana
Wow. Thank you for sharing your personal information. That's super generous of you and listeners. I'll make sure that I put that in the show notes to the Catalyst website and Steve's email and cell phone number as well. There is hope out there. We don't need to do these things on our own. We don't need to figure this out on our own.
I think that's one of the greatest lessons I learned in my 40 years. You know, I was one of those people growing up that hated group work. I was that girl. I was like, Just let me do it on my own. You’re slowing me down. And I think I got that wrong. And I have totally changed my mindset. And I am a team girl now because I realized just the blessing that God gives us in in partners and teams in the body of Christ.
Steve, thank you so much for sharing all of your expertise with us and for being such a great resource for our schools and church ministries. You're you're a blessing.
Steve
Well, this is my pleasure and thank you so much. You have been so kind with, getting me engaged with this. But yeah, this has been great. Thank you.
Dana
You're so welcome. Take care, Steve.
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