Love Fort Wayne Podcast
The Love Fort Wayne podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration, and ignite transformation.
Love Fort Wayne Podcast
Faith, Family, and Leadership: Mitch Kruse's Journey from Auctions to Inspiration
What happens when a career in high-profile car auctions intersects with a deep commitment to family and faith? Join us on the Love Fort Wayne podcast as Jeff King and Mitch Kruse share their personal stories of gratitude, growth, and the enriching journey of leadership in Fort Wayne. Mitch Kruse opens up about his unique upbringing in an auctioneer family, his educational background, and a transformative career moment with Tom Monaghan of Domino's Pizza. This episode is rich with life lessons on balancing professional ambitions with family priorities, providing a heartfelt look at the blessings of family life and the power of mentorship.
As Mitch reflects on the emotional journey of watching his children grow and leave for college, he reveals the profound joys found in each stage of life and the fulfillment of investing in future generations. Discover how a Christian education shaped his family’s daily life and the importance of church and community support in fostering spiritual growth. Listen to the inspiring story behind the TV show "Restoration Road" and how it led Mitch to author books filled with wisdom and insights aimed at helping others navigate their own paths.
Leadership wisdom takes center stage as Mitch discusses principles rooted in the teachings of Proverbs. Emphasizing humility as the cornerstone, he shares how Solomon’s wisdom provides a practical blueprint for leadership that melds God’s heart with everyday street smarts. Amidst a fast-paced world, learn the importance of slowing down to be present with others and cultivating deep connections through the Holy Spirit. As we welcome November, gratitude emerges as a central theme, reminding leaders of the power of thankfulness in their journey. Don't miss this episode that promises to inspire and guide emerging leaders through the essence of saying "yes" to God's call.
Welcome to season four of the Love Fort Wayne podcast. The Love Fort Wayne podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration and ignite transformation in our community and beyond. At Love Fort Wayne, we believe the pillars of a flourishing community are its leaders, pastors, schools, families and prayer, and in season four, we're excited to learn from and be encouraged by people who not only lead but love our city in these areas each day. Before we dive in, we want to say thank you to our partners at Remedy Live Dream On Studios Star Financial. Want to say thank you to our partners at RemedyLive DreamOn Studios, star Financial, brotherhood, mutual and Shepherd Family Auto Group for making the podcast possible. Welcome everybody to the November episode of the Love Fort Wayne podcast.
Speaker 1:I'm your host kind of solo, but not solo today Jeff King with Love Fort Wayne, and my co-host, mitch Cruz, is with me because we're going to have a conversation. Beautiful, yeah, this is great. So I'm really looking forward to this. A couple months ago, I know, tony was talking about the role that you played in this life and you did the same for me and so many people. So first of all, thank you for your commitment to so many of us when we were at our young and spry years, speaking life into us and encouragement into us. So, yeah, we've had a lot of talks, but I'm excited to have this talk and I wanted to start it by first saying thank you for being you and for loving so many of us so well. Praise the Lord Right back at you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you brother, I was the one who benefited from all of that.
Speaker 1:It's so good. So, yeah, it's the month of November, so we're going to talk a little bit of gratitude and Thanksgiving here, which I'm looking forward to, but giving here, which I'm looking forward to. But we definitely want to talk a little bit about your story in your life and some of the things that you're up to now with your books and some of those core biblical principles that you lead with and encourage us to lead with as leaders in the everyday.
Speaker 2:So you share a little bit about Mitch and, for those who are listening, yeah, sure, I grew up in an auctioneer family and, kind of one of the most interesting things about that concept is that to win an argument you make an emotional appeal and you raise your voice, which is the opposite of my mother. So that's kind of the environment I grew up in and, looking back, I think God really blessed me because I wanted to honor him in my career. I grew up an athlete. I got my business finance degree from Indiana University in Fort Wayne. My wife graduated from there in elementary education as well, and we got married young and we have four daughters that were 13 years apart.
Speaker 2:And we did that on purpose, because we wanted one to be sort of independent before we added another one. And I'm telling you that's been the greatest blessing in life has been those four girls. All four were college athletes. I got one that's a family nurse practitioner. I have one who's Huntington University head volleyball coach and a mental health counselor professional. I have one who is in communications with Swiss Re amazing career to start off with. And I have one who's still a college athlete and figuring out what she's going to do and she's going to have her MBA before she finishes her four years and I think there could be a leadership coaching pathway for her. But a funny lady told me this once. She said if I knew grandchildren were so special, I'd have had them first. And I have four and they are incredible. It is just transformed our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know you love those grandbabies. I do. It's been cool, and over this past year you've added two grandbabies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we went from two to four in just a couple months. That's so cool. Yeah, it's intense.
Speaker 1:It's so cool. So tell us about how your career. So you talked about your story and what you majored in, but then you started off in your life and your life journey when, how did that start and where, how did it lead you to where you are now?
Speaker 2:So I had a unique thing happen to me. Uh, tom Monaghan, when he owned Domino's pizza and the Detroit Tigers landed his helicopter at our Labor Day weekend event back when I was at DeKalb high school and in a few steps with him, meeting him at the helicopter, and I had hair. I was young and walking to where the auction would start, he started asking me about some of the greatest cars in the world.
Speaker 2:And it led to me selling him in a private transaction the first car to ever change hands for a million dollars cash and he took delivery at home plate and tiger stadium and it sparked a relationship. He is one of the most incredible people. It's like I got I got to deal with one of the best first. You know, he's just an incredible human being and uh works to advance the kingdom through everything that he does and uh, that sort of sparked something in me that I realized I had this, this passion to connect people, connect with them and then to connect them with others, and in that world it was connecting buyer and seller. So I ended up starting a new company and we built the auction park that a lot of people in our area will know and that was for our Labor Day weekend event. We added a spring event and the Labor Day weekend event was probably the third largest crowd drawing event in indiana 5 000 cars, the would come collector cars. It was broadcast on television all over the world and really was really just a unique experience. But we had 50 of those all over the world, one about every weekend, and so I telling you you know this, when you have your first child, that starts to really get your attention. And I remember asking myself am I going to be gone at every critical moment of my daughter's life, with those 50 annual events? And so I took steps over time to try to work on that, but I'll never forget it.
Speaker 2:On July 1st 1992, the IRS raided my business because they thought we were I can barely get it out without laughing. They thought we were money launderers. And they thought we were money launderers because of the cash deposits from the gate receipts from Labor Day weekend. A phone call could have eliminated all this.
Speaker 2:But I realized that, growing in church three times a week, surrendering my life to Christ as Savior and Lord, as a nine-year-old being baptized, that I had taken control of my own life. And I got on my knees beside my bed that night. I'm married and I told God I know better than to make a deal, but I want to surrender everything I'm holding back, and that includes my business. I want to make a deal, but I want to surrender everything I'm holding back, and that includes my business. I want to make it a ministry. I don't know how it's going to happen, but that's what I want to do and I need you to show me how. And the two years prior to that we had an economic recession, so it was ironic that maybe my business wasn't worth anything.
Speaker 1:It was ironic that maybe my business wasn't worth anything.
Speaker 2:I was willing to surrender it, so that next day I decided to reach out to the most righteous yet most accepting person I knew, and it was my uncle, who was an attorney and a theologian, and I crawled up the back steps of his office and we met in a storage room. And there, in this unfinished storage room of his office, I um confessed, uh, how I had taken control of my life back from God. He had been a Sunday school teacher from time to time, uh, when I was growing up, and, um, he asked me a question that changed my life. He said, mitchell, have you ever thought about changing the scorecard of your life from money to wisdom? And I knew Solomon had asked for it, but I didn't know how I would define the concept of wisdom. And that day he defined it as God's righteousness intersecting with street smarts, and I remember saying something like if God cares about a collector car auction. I need to know that, because I've interpreted this whole thing as be good, do right. And I didn't do that very well. And I need to know.
Speaker 2:And it began this thirst for the scriptures and I started reading through the Bible every six months to a year, depending on what I was reading with it to understand it better, and I tried the God owns my business thing and I watched God change everything, wow, and so much so, over a period of about the next eight years, I decided that I wanted to be a carrier of that message, and so God provided a way for me to do that and I got my master's and doctorate in theology and met a guy by the name of Kelly Bird at a Willow Creek church leadership conference and he said you don't need to start a church, which is something I was trying to process and thought I would do.
Speaker 2:He says you can come do what God's calling you to do at Blackhawk. And then, man, that just rocked my world, I watched God blow addicts through the doors who had surrendered their lives to Christ. I found out and discovered that the Bible taught in a relevant way that addicts understand that better than anybody because they get surrender better than anyone. They're just surrendering to the wrong object. And that began our, I guess, my connection to Fort Wayne in a different way. Connection to Fort Wayne in a different way and, uh, because I had known Bill Hybels and some of the guys at Willow, I suggested that we bring the global, global leadership summit to Fort Wayne, indiana, yeah, and just look what God's done with that and you and it's just incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Come on, man, I'm just story. Thank you for sharing, Cause I I I know that there's folks in our region and beyond our region that know you personally and interpersonally for you to open the door for them to hear all of that story. For those that did not, I'm hopeful that it's a blessing to them. I'm hopeful already that you just sharing that portion of your story again will bless them Again. We'll bless them. You know, as you're sharing, especially towards the latter end and those eight years that lead to a life transition and going to school and in ministry. I think about these four girls that I personally know that you love so much. What types of ways did it change the way that you loved and led them in those moments and then ongoingly now with the grandbabies as well?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great question. I think God gave me girls because internally I'm sensitive, I'm really in touch with sensitivity and it affects how I speak, how I communicate, and I don't always get it right, but I think through those things emotionally almost more like a female would, and not just like a guy who's competing on the court or in the marketplace and so I think that's part of what God was doing.
Speaker 2:But first of all, they have an unbelievable mother who's a teacher and can. She just did a fantastic job on that part. But I think God gave me a desire for those girls and to love them and I was really really kind of bummed out when my oldest was gonna go to college. And I'm in the post office line behind someone a little bit more than a decade farther along on life than me and she and she looked at me and she starts asking me some questions and I told her I was struggling. She goes what?
Speaker 2:and you know everybody knows me, he's happy and all that and I told her and she goes oh, mitchell, every part of the journey is better than the previous. And I gotta tell you I've done a lot of thinking about that from that moment in time, because I love that when we could all like get, get in the car together, get in the plane together, friends with their parents, friends, you know all that stuff, school, um. And she's right.
Speaker 2:She is absolutely right. Every stage has been better than the previous, and I love investing in my adult daughters and my son-in-laws, their husbands, for career's sake and ministry's sake, and it's just been a blast, an absolute blast. And then the grandchildren thing is. So we had four daughters. Our first grandchild was a girl, so I thought, well, here we go, and she has got me wrapped around her little finger uh she is amazing. I love spending time with her, uh, but now we have three grandsons and it's cycling back yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's cool, but again the word.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, church, the word of god. The people got the spirit of god and and and. If you have the opportunity and you can, I think I'm a product of public education. There's something to be said about Christ and the word of God in Christian education being woven in. Sometimes a little more positive peer pressure can take place. My girls all graduated from Lakewood Park Christian School in and they almost have the equivalent of a Bible degree when they're done and that is priceless.
Speaker 2:There's no way you can go to church three times a week and you're not going to get what you can get at a Christian school in that regard.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's been one of the greatest blessings to us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love how you mentioned not just yourself but your wife, the people that have been around them at their school I know they've been in sports, they were in sports and you know so undoubtedly coaches or mentors in their lives, and it just reminds me Great trainer over there. You know, it takes us, a collective of us, to pour back into our people, even if God has rooted himself so deeply in our lives, where the overflow of ourselves is pouring out into our own, our very own, our children.
Speaker 1:We still do need the church, pouring out into our own, our very own, our children. We still do need the church. We still do need those positive people, our spouses, uh, to collectively pour into their lives, which is which is great. So, you know, there's, there's, there's this second part of life where, um you, you had this really cool TV show.
Speaker 2:Restoration Road.
Speaker 1:Um, and then you began to write and you know, utilize some of these things that others had planted in you, things you learned from yourself, I would say. And you wrote can you talk a little bit about the show and the heart of Restoration Road? And then the journey to begin to start to write some books and share some of those principles for people to read.
Speaker 2:While at Blackhawk and I ramped up there for about a year and a half while I was finishing my doctorate. So I was probably on that campus around six or seven years and I volunteered full-time as a teaching pastor and I would say in that time period, because I led something on Wednesday nights, we planted a church within a church that I probably delivered about 500 messages and I started to be on the radio and had about an hour talk show and then we started taking incoming calls for that second half hour of that. And I remember, after a message I'm thinking I don't want it to just go poof, I want to put something in writing to help this audience that I just, you know, led through the scriptures and that amazing week that God gave me on that preparation with him, the intimacy with him that I experienced. And so I started writing a devotional at the end of every message and I would send that out. Then I thought, whoa, when I wrote that devotional I thought about just the right word for just the right sentence and if I would write the devotional before my message, that might help my message be better.
Speaker 2:So I ended up writing hundreds of devotionals during my time at Blackhawk Ministries and hundreds of worksheets for my years on the radio that people could download and walk through those and that started to get my attention that I don't know how I saw myself as a speaker I was an auctioneer, but maybe, maybe there's a writing gift that I could develop a little bit. So I felt the prompting that those to teach in the lead. If I took a spiritual gifts test in fact I did way back then I would score the highest you could score in teaching and leading. And after all that wonderful time and the wonderful relationships at Blackhawk, I felt God prompting me to develop content and so I took about another year and I ramped up a year and a half. I took about a year and a half to exit really, really well, people that had surrendered their lives to Christ. I remember an attorney who had been an addict. He became a pastor, he started to help lead the ministry that I was doing.
Speaker 2:So it was just an incredible thing and um I so I wrote my first book. I wanted to tell my story through restoration road, through the parable of what we call the parable of the prodigal son. But Jesus didn't call it that. He said there were two sons. It's actually part of a trilogy where the denominator what's bottom of the fraction gets smaller, so the value gets greater. So he talks about one of 100 sheep, one of 10 coins and then one of two sons that were lost.
Speaker 2:And I had studied that again, and, again and again. It's like there's always something new that I would come across. And in my life I started off as the older brother. I went to church and I just thought everything's about making a morally good decision, a right decision. Well, after a decade in the marketplace, I messed that up and I become much more like the younger brother in that parable.
Speaker 2:And then hopefully, uh, when I had that reckoning with Christ, um, I would have the heart of the father, the heart of Christ, and so radically different I saw life, radically different.
Speaker 2:And um, so I wrote that book and because of my experience at the church, at Black Hawk ministries, I thought that we should have a study guide. And then for that study guide I filmed in high def video with cars in the background, because of my experience in the marketplace with collector cars, and I thought they would demonstrate restoration of our lives in the picture of automotive art, restoration of our lives in the picture of automotive art. And I started to do a little bit of a Christian television network book tour. And at one of those in Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, the guy said, hey, I'd been to your auctions. And he says we filmed there. And he says what are you going to do after this book? And I said, well, in filming the DVD and our sermons used to be broadcast on television, I said I'm thinking that maybe I'm going to do something with television and he said I'm not telling you, I would air that. I'm telling you, I've been praying for a show exactly like that.
Speaker 2:I wanted to teach the Bible through stories of restoration and I thought whoa, exactly like that. I wanted to teach the Bible through stories of restoration and I thought whoa and someone else I had led to. Christ was connected to someone at a local television network and she gave me the advice of doing 13 shows and just see what happens different environments for those including museums and collector cars in the background, and that led to 500 episodes over about 11 years and they were aired all over the world.
Speaker 1:It's not something.
Speaker 2:I didn't take my marketplace vision casting a business development mind and say, okay, I'm going to do that. God did it all.
Speaker 1:It was just amazing to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but after 11 years of that um, I thought that maybe the most powerful things that were happening were those one-on-one relationships and I wanted to pursue that more. And I'm in that part of my journey through love, Fort Wayne, of investing in emerging leaders, all leaders, and just doing what I can to help advance the kingdom of Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. You know, one thing that comes to mind, Mitch, as you share, is there's a Christian gospel artist, contemporary artist, named Tasha Copps Leonard, and she said one time in a live um show at pastor Giglio's church, she goes, you know God she's talking about her testimony and she just said you know, God doesn't need your resume, he needs your yes. And I think the the you're sharing your story and I'm hearing a story of yes, Lord, yeah, I I'm. I don't know I've done this, but I'm surrendered to you, and so I'm going to be obedient and say, yes, Lord, I'll go here, I'll do this, I'll go to school, I'm going to volunteer at this church and ministry, because it's yes, I don't know much about what, but I'm feeling you saying I should write more, I should share this story more.
Speaker 1:It's not always the places that we've been trained to be. It's the places that we've said, yes, I'll go, and you're just saying that I just love the stories. Yes, Lord, I'll go into this, and I just feel like the Lord's the. He's the type of God that opens doors when we can't see him, obviously, but he loves that obedient yes. And so the yes to to this season of life is again pouring into emerging gen individuals and you've you've written some books more recently. You know Street Smarts from Proverbs. You know I love that, that book you know. Can you talk a little bit of? Just, can you give us some leadership nuggets that are just? They've been foundational for you but you might deem them as men. I really want the, the individual, the emerging gen leader, to know these things about themselves and about their leadership.
Speaker 2:It's a great question. One of the things that is amazing to me is that Solomon wrote Proverbs for emerging leaders. It's that it's clear.
Speaker 2:He says this is who this is for. And again, wisdom is God's heart intersecting with street smarts. It's a picture of the cross and Solomon asked for wisdom because of conflict. He said, god, I got to judge all this conflict. I need wisdom. And God says, okay, I'm going to give that to you. Good request, and what's beautiful to me is I call it the house of leadership.
Speaker 2:It's the name of my nonprofit is there's this imagery house in Hebrew is a picture of not just a physical house, but of a family, a movement, an organization or corporation. It can be anything. It's this movement of God in anything, and so God's blueprint for success is first we have to dig the footer of humility, and humility is bending the knees of my heart to the God of the universe, and then I live that out in bending the knees of my heart to other people. There's all these encounters in the Bible that God honors where somebody's being humble to someone else. When Jacob encountered Esau after all their conflict, he bows down to the ground a bunch of times, and so it's a picture of living that out. But we got to first do it with God or it's not going to happen with other people. It's a picture of living that out, but we got to first do it with God or it's not going to happen with other people.
Speaker 2:And humility is the beginning of wisdom. So wisdom, then, is the foundation of the house of leadership, and wisdom connects the vertical with the horizontal, god's heart intersecting with street smarts, and that's the foundation of everything we do, and Proverbs is written on about 12 key ideas, and I'm talking about the big three, beginning with wisdom. Okay, so humility is the first step, that's the footer of humility, the foundation of wisdom, and so, a lot of times, we want to go one way or the other. We want marketplace without ministry, want ministry without marketplace and God's design, and they go together.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Um, so the framework of understanding, uh, and again this is coming out of Proverbs Um, it says that we established through the framework of understanding. Understanding is insight. It's insight into that person, across the room or across the table, and we can only do that really through the power of the Holy spirit. We're not going to just build our understanding skills. That's got to happen through the Holy Spirit. And then Proverbs says through the framework it's established. So that's the framework of understanding. And then he said his rooms will be filled with when you have this wisdom thing going on, you have the understanding going on. It says the rooms will be filled with treasures. I think those treasures are relationships and that's knowledge. And it talks about knowledge there. Knowledge is not mental ascent.
Speaker 1:It's interesting.
Speaker 2:It is intimacy, it's intimacy with God, and so the things that are going to last for eternity are the souls of people. So, and the word of God, and so all that goes together, and so it's the furnishings of knowledge, the footer of humility, the foundation of wisdom, the framework of understanding. So a house is established through that framework, and then its rooms are filled with rare and beautiful treasures. Those are relationships, and that's knowledge. That's the furnishings of knowledge, and I would say that is the template, that's God's blueprint for any emerging leader to apply to their lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man Rewind that if you need to.
Speaker 1:You'll hear this part again, but rewind that if you need to put them in your footnotes. So it's so powerful. I think about that. Those, those last two, all of the components so great. But I just think about relationships and the slowing down to actually be present with others, in the same way that the Lord is present with us and sees us and desires to know us and inclines his ears to us and his eyes are attentive to us and it's just, it's beautiful. And that second part of those two in regards to when Paul would write about, like through the spirit, now we have, we know the deep things of God.
Speaker 1:The intimacy of the spirit allows for us to know, have knowledge to know the deep things of the father, and I think that to be in that place in leadership where, um, I'm connected with people via humility and wisdom, but I'm connected with people, and then I, I and myself, and then firmly rooted in knowing more of who I am, because I know who God is and um, it's just a beautiful thing. So, taking that into your emergent leadership, as in this emerging generation, it's so important when things are fast, because we live in a fast culture where achieving is, is, is, is number one. It's Lord, lord, lord, case ill, um, it's Lord. To slow down and actually root these core principles into your leadership is just, is key.
Speaker 1:So, again, rewind that, write them down and reflect on them. So, you know, mitch, I um. Last last thing here really is we're in the month of November and I think about, um, gratitude, right, and um, I won't, I won't scold us, you know. I think sometimes, though, we get to these months and it's like, okay, let me slow down and think about what I am thankful for.
Speaker 1:Um, you know we're growing in that, I think, as a culture, but we're in the month and, as you think about gratitude in a couple of different ways, I'm going to invite you to share what's happening in our city and region. Are there some things that you're just like man? My heart is overflowing with gratitude because of what I'm seeing happen here in the greater Fort Wayne area among God's people. Can you share that? And then, maybe are there some points and principles where we can be a people that are more grateful every day of our lives, not just during this month.
Speaker 2:There is a movement of God in Fort Wayne that is unique. We think there are about 80 citywide movements throughout the country. Most of them got started by a pastor. What's unique about Fort Wayne is this movement was started by marketplace leaders. Now pastors are heavily involved in this and it's special. And I would say, if anyone's listening or watching, take the first step. Maybe come to one of our prayer gatherings, come to the Global Leadership Summit, come to any of those many amazing things that you're always in attendance and take that first step and just see what it's like when we come together in unity, because unity is really important to God.
Speaker 2:It flows out of his heart, really important to God. It flows out of his heart, um, I'm trying to think when it was, but uh, quite a while ago, uh, four of us, I remember correctly, went to city of veterans in Manila in the Philippines, where 60,000 people live in a landfill and they try to make everything work so they can live in a shanty like made with metal that they get out of the landfill, and we did an outreach there. We spent about a week with them and then did an outreach with two nights of worship where I taught the Bible through an interpreter and everyone in attendance running their lives to Christ. It's one of the most amazing things.
Speaker 2:I've ever experienced in my life. And I came home from that thinking about what a perfectionist I am and I thought I really got to let go of this. And I felt like the Holy Spirit prompted me through the Word and through actually sensing and praying His Holy Spirit, that if I would be thankful, I could let go of perfectionism quite a bit. And then, decades later, I realized that a neurologist uh came up with a study of the brain that, um, that perfectionism or that anxiety and being thankful don't exist at the same time in the brain. We go one way or the other in any particular moment. So I learned that later.
Speaker 2:So I wrote this worksheet devotional, did a series on Thanksgiving after that and I felt like God gave me this concept that it's inside, outside, upside, downside. So when we're going through something uh to be thankful, we got to first look at the inside and surrender that to God, you know, and and just say, hey, god, um, thank you, thank you for creating me. I didn't raise my hand and say be creative at this moment in time. You chose that. And then on the outside and just shared this with one of my daughters recently, I found that whatever I'm going through, if I will go help somebody on the outside, outside of me. Yeah, all of a sudden that thing kind of pales in perspective. That was inside me and I think there's healing in that. Yeah, yeah, and then the upside it can and will get better, whatever you're going through you don't have to hold on to it and especially, you know if, if maybe it's a um prognosis, it's not good or something like that.
Speaker 2:Uh, in in eternity, as a believer, I mean we can't even imagine what, what that's going to be like, yeah, and and then the downside, um, I mean it might get, might get worse, but it might not get much worse.
Speaker 2:You know, and what is truly the downside risks that's going on, and I surrender that to God as well. So it's that four dimensional, four directional approach to experiencing Thanksgiving instead of what's going on in our lives and again theme here everywhere, it all begins with first being thankful to God and then we can live out being thankful with other people.
Speaker 1:So good, so good. It's an encouragement to me. Hopefully it's an encouragement to the folks that are tuned in Again, those four directions of gratitude, I think in my life it's, um, as we draw near to our end. Here is almost two years ago, Um, my wife got me a gratitude book and I've been able to track every day worth of what some might seem as small things, but just every ounce of life, the everyday miracle that God is on the move in all things.
Speaker 1:And I can be grateful for all those small things and the fun things and times with my son, but all the different things. That, until I get to the point of surrendering my perfections and what I think things should be like, I could never get to that point of filling out the day-to-day gratitudes. And so I can. I'm with you on that. It's surrendering every direction and everything to say God, you are present in all of these small things, from from when I opened my eyes to when I was laughing with my neighbor, um, to when this thing that was super hard and you knew it would be is starting to move down the road. Um, but it does. It changes the perspective. I can't be in the same place where my anxiety resides where my frustration resides, and still have a heart of gratitude. But again, first it starts with God. So I thank you for that encouragement.
Speaker 2:Jeff, I want to thank you for your friendship and then thank you for your leadership for Love, Fort Wayne. I think you are just the right person at just the right time and God uses you mightily to unite our community in the kingdom of Christ. And I want to thank you for your investment in my daughters. You are one of Fort Wayne's greatest treasures and I am so, so thankful for you and what you've done with Ignite, our emerging leader development movement. It's special, Jeff, and you probably don't hear it enough, but thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, mitch. That means a lot. Praise God. Thank you, yeah, sure Y'all. This was a special episode for Mitch and I, just to be able to chat with one another. I hope that you enjoyed it, hope that it was a blessing to you and that you're just able to take some things back into your own personal life, think about them, pray over those things and hopefully instill some of these leadership points into your life. And last thing, man, if you are encouraged by Mitch's story, remember that you have a story too, and someone needs to hear your story as well. So have a happy Thanksgiving and again, thank you for tuning in to the Love Fort Wayne podcast in to the Love Fort Wayne podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for joining us this month. We drop a new episode the first Monday of every month. Love Fort Wayne has some amazing episodes coming up. You don't want to miss a single one, so subscribe today, wherever you are listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please like, share and leave a review. We want to share your thoughts and comments with listeners on future episodes. Thanks again for joining us today. Join us next time, as we hear from leaders that don't just lead but love our city.
