Pt. 2: Damon Adcock + Being a Culture Carrier

[00:00:00] We're excited to continue our conversation with Damon at Coc. If you miss part 1, be sure to start there to catch up on Damon's inspiring journey. Today, Damon continues to share his experiences driven by a desire to inspire, develop and add value to others. With 28 years of leadership

[00:00:29] in one of the most complex organizations, the local church, Damon brings a wealth of information, recently he transitioned to the chief culture officer at Pau Financial Services. Have you ever found yourself seated at the end of a big dinner table? It wasn't Damon's favorite spot either,

[00:00:46] but he's going to share how a simple city arrangement turned into a profound opportunity with intentional questions, genuine care, Damon connected deeply with the person's student next to him, uncovering some hard realities that led to meaningful conversation and life change.

[00:01:04] Plus, Damon has a ton of advice to share, so get your notebooks out, let's jump in. Well, Damon, in the first part of our conversation, you shared with us about your time as a pastor

[00:01:18] and kind of leading out of that, you now do something a little bit different. Can you give us the super quick snapshot of what you do today? Yeah, absolutely. You know, again, I have a joy

[00:01:32] of leading what I call the most dynamic organization on the planet called the local church. And if you can do that for 28 years and your wife still loves you and your children's present. You and still a little bit of the Lord. You have made you know?

[00:01:54] So I felt that season kind of the rest of the kind of gifts in our heart, you know, to say, you know, Gus, God, what's next? I've had this, you know, these incredible leadership opportunities. And so a good friend of mine Scott Pau,

[00:02:06] asked me to come and serve with him as his chief culture officer. And this chief of staff for so for Pau financial services, well management firm and then the seven other companies that we were participating in are invested in. And honestly, it's given me because you're right, it's

[00:02:26] you always turned this pot. I always cared this pastoral heart and all the leadership and the leadership because I was a, you know, part of my skills that is being a builder and so leading teams and building culture was always that I've done it in church, church startups,

[00:02:42] church planning, mega churches, you know, large churches, mall churches, you know, kind of done it all. But how would you best feel set and now and be in the marketplace? And yeah. And what I have found is that I've actually had more pastoral call, uh, conversations,

[00:02:58] chief of the faith conversations than I have ever had. And it's, you know, and I think about that moment way back when, I was like, yeah, I had to have time. So now now I get to speak into

[00:03:11] not only our organization, our staff here, but the many CEOs and organizations that we partner with or have they invest with. And it is just been, it's almost just been just a renewal, honestly,

[00:03:27] for my heart, for being a pastoral in the marketplace and carrying his message of hope and encouragement. And then out of that building of culture and a dynamic to a culture that people,

[00:03:43] you know, just loving a part of. And it's, um, and it's just, it's so great to use my leadership get, my creative gifts and all that building and growing and building culture gifts. And now being

[00:03:56] at have an experience to use that in the local marketplace here. And so yeah. It has been so rewarding. In fact, one of the stories that that I remember most recently is we were added event at Caled

[00:04:13] and with a firm that we work with. And they had run on a new executive his name as Mike and, and we've gone to this dinner event. And you know, when you got like 20 people and you get,

[00:04:28] you get the end, you know, you get the end. And so you don't have a lot of people to talk to because you're at the end of the long rectangle, just like, it's just Mike and I was like,

[00:04:38] okay, you know, as I actually you got the person to your left and you got, you know, but it was really what really happened is I could tell that the spirit of the Lord was just aligning this kind of space for

[00:04:50] Mike and I. And I began to ask some questions that Explorey was and found out recently that he was why if they recently lost their daughter to wear disease. And I, and I just knew that the

[00:05:01] T- was in a lot of pain and a lot of starch in the Lord. And I said, you know, God, how amazing is it of you to put me right across from like right at the end or what I could lead into my pastoral gifts

[00:05:17] and living courage and and get encouragement of hope. And so I, I got to share about just the loss of my mom and I was at first in college and just the loss of that. And yeah, so we didn't,

[00:05:29] you know, asking questions around that and, you know, so what's got, what do you think has teaching me in this moment and how you and your wife doing this, you know, statistically,

[00:05:37] husband and wife people don't make it when they have a lot of a child and stuff and stuff. Really got to encourage them and really speak encouragement into them and I could tell that was

[00:05:47] kind of the beginning and there is his team, there was several leaders on his team and they're kind of speaking into this. And so we, I, I shared with Scott and others, I, where did you just

[00:05:56] really pray for Mike during this weekend? And that God would really kind of break through, you know, and I, and so we had this great kind of day and a half together two days together and we were

[00:06:09] flying back and we were in a land at terminal and there was like, there was like seven of us all around Mike and we had having this spiritual conversation and we really believed, we were praying

[00:06:18] believing that that, that he was going to accept Jesus when we were together. We really believed that. And so we set down this, we set down the food court in terminal B and Atlanta and we, you know,

[00:06:36] I said, Mike, you want to share a little bit and, and so he began sharing and, and he began to open up and he said, I really believe you said that you all are representing God's pursuit of me and my family.

[00:06:52] That God has strategic, yes, and I was just, I mean we were all like about to just lose it, you know, yeah. You know, and I, I remember the verse, you know, in Revelation 320 that

[00:07:04] were Jesus and he stretched the gentleman. He says, I stand at the door and knock. Yes. If anyone will let me in, I will die with him and here we are at food courts.

[00:07:16] I was like, you know, I said, Mike, I said, I believe that Jesus has been knocking and he, he's a gentleman. He's not the thing on the door, he's reading the doorbell kind of,

[00:07:29] he just, he just knocks. He's a gentleman. You're your weight, hit, you're weight and I said, but you've, you know, like some people kind of crack the door open, you know, like who's there?

[00:07:42] I said, I think you've got the door wide open, but you haven't invited him in to have a meal with you. You've not invited him just that down with you and I remember, I remember our song I wrote

[00:07:57] years ago, I don't want to stay the same. And I just talked about how Jesus just kind of gentle his patient. He doesn't barge in, you know, and I said, but we represent his invitation

[00:08:13] and he said, I would love to pray right now. I would love to accept Jesus. And so and so we prayed for him. And as we were all walking to our different terminals,

[00:08:29] he said, I have asked Jesus into my heart, I afraid to receive him. And I'm going home to tell my wife. And I just remember just how amazing is it for me to be a pastor, you know, and just looking

[00:08:45] for those moments out of this personal up close, you know, kind of expression of God's ministry in a marketplace. And that's one of just many conversations around just moments that I've shared

[00:09:01] with my staff or encouragement or just other teams and so I get to live in this expression of a leadership and then of course, the ministries that we partner with, you know, African-new like ministries, you know, the Maxwell organization and country transformation. So it's really special.

[00:09:21] Yeah, in a personal plug we interviewed Scott Pile and his wife Pamela. So I'll add links to their interviews in that show notes. But when they always thinking about is in our last episode,

[00:09:32] we did hear a lot of stories about your work as a vocational worship leader and pastor. And it's so beautiful. There's so much fruit in that, but we are all in full-time ministry and in the marketplace there gets to be such beautiful and unexpected fruit where you're just

[00:09:52] living it out and you get to share the love of God in that way. And I just I love that story. I think it's so inspiring for all of us at our invocation ministry where we can incorporate

[00:10:05] those conversations in just the day to day work life. Yeah, there are actually two questions that kind of came to my mind as far as things that we could ask ourselves. Oh yeah and one is where am I

[00:10:17] leading even if it might not be a formal position? Where am I who am I leading? Because you know, you were kind of a leader in that situation but but we all have kind of those places where we

[00:10:31] have the natural ability to speak into someone's life because we are a leader. We are all leaders where and over whom might we be? Or even like leading the conversation and asking intentional questions.

[00:10:45] Yeah, and then the other question is like when I'm out and about in my day, where might I find myself in a crowd but able to narrow in and focus in on that one person. That's

[00:10:59] because there's probably opportunities around us every day that are easy to miss if we're not looking for them like you were saying, being available and looking. Yeah, exactly. And you know,

[00:11:11] it could have been just a nice business center, you know? Yeah, and it wouldn't be. It would have been a nice business center. God, good to know you might but instead we had this monumental moment,

[00:11:22] you know, with this kind of breaking through moment for my and really, you know, the Lord being able to minister and to heal. And it really set them on their face, turning. And so I think

[00:11:36] you're right, it is, you know, I always said, you know, every believer is a minister gifted by God to do his work. Yes, yep. Every believer is a minister to give they've got to do his work. And so

[00:11:50] I would tell my kids, you know, it's not what you do to you are that matters in this life. And so I don't care what you do but I care about who you are because where you are is how God wants to use you

[00:12:02] and to support the kingdom and so wherever that is whatever you're doing. So be intentional. And like I said in part one, just, you know, be intentional, be, you know, be expectant,

[00:12:16] comment, you know, don't just comment to have a great meal and just hang out with be expected for those moments and those opportunities when God prinsant you. So good. Do you have another maybe favorite story from your time as the chief culture officer where you get to share,

[00:12:33] or you've gotten to share your faith just to kind of round out part two of our conversation here? You know, the moments I go back to this basic premise that if people don't like you they don't

[00:12:50] want to hear about your God. And I found it, you know, I found so many times in business that that lacking you has everything to do with the opportunity to share your faith and a good friend

[00:13:03] of ours, a big of our soccer says you know there's four levels to trust and it's like is the first one then it's listen and then it's learn and then I'll trust. But like is that first one

[00:13:17] and so I focus really being connected, you know, so really being connected around the, you know, relations 5.20 where it talks about the gifts of the spirit, you know, there should be a contagiousness

[00:13:29] about you in your leadership and you know, just we have one of our staff, you know, people here who is going through just a difficult time, just the difficult time. And just being available like I said

[00:13:48] and just being available. And those moments to look through the day-to-day to see where there's an opportunity to encourage and give hope. And so she member her and another staff person bringing

[00:14:02] them in and just having these moments for her to kind of open up and share something that was devastating for her and just encourage her in and her walk and just encourage her wherever she was,

[00:14:17] not trying to do a faith conversation but just just encourage her in the moment and just recognizing especially in the marketplace. I think we just don't stop long enough to just recognize, you know,

[00:14:27] just where people are and just, you know, and just encourage them to take once forward and further, you know. But I get moments like that because I did a part of very difficult sometimes,

[00:14:45] of course I'm pretty good taking chaos and making something over it. I've done that church world has kind of grafted me into the role of, you know, how do you take something that's very broken

[00:14:59] and how do we, what steps are needed to kind of move in the right direction, whether these staffing or changing a budget or whatever. And so I've had to walk in the very difficult,

[00:15:10] difficult like removing a CEO from an organization and meeting with a staff and going, okay, let's talk about what this means and just everybody's, you know, everybody's fuss back, ready to leave, wondering why you're there don't trust you. What is me for my future, you know, so they're

[00:15:29] scared, they're fearful and and they just want a messenger of hope and encouragement and so you know and I remember, I remember one person said, you know, they were when you were coming up. But when you invited everybody to do a scrabble chair and stood down together and

[00:15:49] was circle, I knew from that moment on this was going to be okay. I thought, you know, I said, wow, that's so what is it about that? Well, it's about the, you know, the care of the concern

[00:16:04] to not do the typical way but just invite people to kind of circle up and share and that's what we did and so, um, was able to be honest in those moments and share where we were and share kind of

[00:16:16] work, there is some unknowns but the ability to do that again, that past a little hard, that way to come around, she'll care of his current is just so important. So many times we want

[00:16:26] to drive the agenda, we want to drive this, you know, this is what we're going to do it done and so we miss those opportunities. Yeah, and honestly the bar is that pretty low. It's

[00:16:37] so, okay. Yes. No, just filling up and being who you are can make such a difference and show the love of God, which yeah isn't, isn't typically in the case I imagine in financial services.

[00:16:50] Correct. Correct. Correct. Yeah. But how can we, yeah, but how can we do that that inspires and gives whole? Yeah. And encourages, right. And says there's something different about this

[00:17:03] person and how they're needing. Yeah. Yes. And you can do that in a way that allows them to talk troubleier and say, I want to find out differently. You know, yeah, absolutely. Well, we could very

[00:17:14] easily end with that. I feel like that's such a great piece of advice for us to go out and consider at Lord. How do you want to use me? And just being aware of the fruits this spirit because we can

[00:17:28] we can just be that channel, that outlet for the Lord to just be another people's lives giving them that sense of peace even though this is kind of an uncertain circumstance or man, patience when someone's on your last nerve. We all have that probably daily. That's what I

[00:17:51] thank you for listening to the Ask But My Faith podcast. We love your supporting continuing to bring you encouraging and inspiring stories. Please subscribe, rate, interview, wherever you're listening and you can learn more about us and donate at AskButMyFate.com. That's what I'm talking about.

[00:18:06] That's what I'm talking about. Thank you for watching.