THIRSTY 161 (Klusmeyer / Zarling)

Welcome to this week's THIRSTY podcast. I am Pastor Michael Zarling.

And I'm Pastor Nathan Klusmeyer.

So Nathan, have you been working hard the last couple of weeks?

Yes. Yes, I have. It is, it is really, it's really hit me the last two weeks that my associate has, has fled to the wide open plains of Wyoming.

They're, they're definitely wide open. Uh, we drove yesterday to Devil's Tower. You know, it was a little over three hours away, and there's, there's nothing. It's Wyoming. It's... There, it, it's beautiful, but it... There are no trees. You know, Shelley loves trees, and I took her to a place where there are no trees. And if there are trees- ... they don't have leaves, 'cause they're all evergreens. Uh, yeah, but I was telling, uh, one of our members the other day while I was out golfing with him, that I said, "Yeah, I, I feel real bad for Pastor Klusmeyer 'cause you had funeral, uh, you've got your senior vicar moving in today, you've got soccer camp coming up-"

Yep.

"... and you've got everything going with the school." You know, so I'm hoping your members understand... Excuse me. Understand how, how hard you're working and-

Yeah, they do

... take it easy on you. Yeah. Whereas, you know, I'm working at, you know, going out and seeing all the sights of Casper in Wyoming and-

I was gonna say, I have a number of our members who, uh, who follow you on Facebook still and have-

Yeah

... asked me, they're like, "Is he actually doing any ministry out there?"

Yeah.

I'm like, "I don't know. It doesn't really seem like it."

Yeah.

So I don't know.

I am doing min- Yeah, I am doing ministry 'cause I'm, I was, uh, dinner at one of our member's homes up in their cabin, uh, Tuesday. Uh, we, we definitely needed to take our four-wheel drive vehicle to their house up in the... 'cause it was pretty rough.

Oh.

And then, and then today, uh, after kayaking, then we'll go over to another member's house and have dinner with them. But those are the things about the small church, 'cause I always thought I'd go crazy if I was in a small church, 'cause you know me, I, I gotta be moving, I gotta be doing stuff. But what I'm learning is I wouldn't go crazy, because you have more time to get to know the members and sit down with them, and those are things you can't necessarily do-

Yeah, no. Yeah

... because you got too much other typ- type of ministry.

Well, somebody was joking with me last night. They said, "No, he's doing ministry. He's out there meeting, meeting the people in the community." I said, "Okay, so after one afternoon and he meets all 20 people in town, um..."

Yep. Uh, it, it is, it, that is one of my goals, is to get down into downtown Casper, 'cause they have so many festivals. It's, it's pretty cool. Is just getting out and I introduce myself, and I say, "I'm the new pastor at Lord of Lords." And the members, I'm encouraging them in Bible study on doing outreach. Uh, as I'm teaching my adult instruction class on Sunday mornings, to the members I'm trying to teach them, "Well, this is why this is important, but this is how you phrase this in your outreach." And then yesterday, uh, I had someone that, one of our members had taken a screenshot that someone on Casper Classifieds was looking for a church home. And so a bunch of our members got on there and then, uh, encouraged them to, this gentleman to come to Lord of Lords, and then I private messaged him and so forth. But it, it's neat that our members, I don't know what they did before I got here, but, uh, hopefully they're picking up on my spirit in outreach. Because you'll notice this, Nathan, as you oversee the ministry by yourself for a while at, at Water of Life, is the church begins taking on the personality of their pastor.

Mm-hmm.

For good or bad.

Yep.

It, it does. And, and so if, uh, for you being a more studious pe- person that, you know, I think the congregation become more studious into, uh, you know, the confessions and so forth. And here, I think being an outreach-minded guy, the congregation will hopefully take on that mindset too.

That is one of the things they kind of talk to us sometimes about, that idea of how long do you stay at a church? Because, yeah, the longer you are there, the more you are molding that congregation to your personality, again, for, for good or bad.

Yeah. I, I know, uh, someone, o- one of my members, 'cause we were at a baseball game the other night too, and I said, "Yeah, uh, I gotta stop posting pictures of me, like, biking and so forth," because there were people maybe at Water of Life that were saying, "Ah, this pastor work, he's biking all the time." And, and this member said, "Oh, I'm already, I'm already thinking that might happen here." He goes, "I'm just gonna tell people he's been here three weeks and he has five people in adult instruction class."

Yeah.

"Uh, he knows what he's doing, you know, just let him go." And, uh, and I've actually had members that have told me, "Pastor, you need to keep sharing everything you're doing," 'cause what they're encouraging me to do with Casper College, which is just down the road here, is to have a promotional thing of, "Hey, if you're new to Casper, our pastor's new to Casper. These are the things that he's found to do, and then follow him on social media," and then encourage them to do those things. And then I wanna, as I get to know them, to take them out and do those kinds of things, uh, with me. So, uh, and like this morning, I... Well, Nathan knows this from experience, I cannot figure out this time difference as I send him and say, "Hey, we're gonna meet at, uh, this time for recording on Zoom," and I'm going the opposite direction with my times. But I was up here, uh, I, I hiked up here. I put my 40-pound rucksack on at 6:00 in the morning and walked up here. So that's when I'm doing my, my work. When everyone else is still sleeping, I'm still- Trying to work. Well, also because it gets too hot around here to do things

Do anything. It, the weather has finally broken here again. We had... I was very happy for the funeral we had yesterday, that it was neither pouring rain nor 95 with 85% humidity. It was, it's in the 70s and drier again.

Yeah.

So that's been, that's been nice again, 'cause as you, you, you lived in Wisconsin, we, we get it's either ridiculously cold or ridiculously hot and humid, and the nice, pleasant days where it's warm with no humidity are few and far between.