1 - Finding The Ezekiel 34:4 Framework

In this episode, Tomy gives a bit of the history behind finding the verse that would become the framework for the book as well as the journey toward writing Shepherds of The Mind.

Transcript

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Hey Shepherds, and welcome to the Shepherds of the Mind bonus content. I'm so excited to be able to share this with you. In these episodes, we're going to give you a peek behind the curtain into the writing process, some of the thought process that went into the book, maybe some backstory and a few things. So let's dive right in. Well, for this first episode, I really want to give you the history of the Ezekiel 34-4 framework that this entire book is shaped around. I first heard Ezekiel 34-4 used as a framework for ministry. This was back when I was working at a church down in Colorado Springs called Woodman Valley Chapel. Towards the end of my time there, our campus pastor, a guy named Matt, he gathered our campus staff together and he shared Ezekiel 34-4. If you've read the book or listened to the book, it should be familiar to you by this point. But in the ESV it says, The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. He shared this passage with us and um then gave us a challenge of hey, if we're going to shepherd God's people as pastors, directors, as church staff here at this campus, here's what God expects of us is to be able to do all of these things. That verse really stuck with me. And when I moved to Plum Creek, probably about a month later, it was already in my mind that man, this really is a great framework for ministry. And so we started using that pretty consistently with our contributors. That's what we call the small group leaders for our church right now. And so we told them, hey, if you're gonna help to shepherd students, here's what the Lord expects of you. And we used that for years. Well, after seeing some success using that, just a few months into our time at Plum Creek, I started thinking, man, this would make a really great book at some point. What a great outline for a book would this verse make? And uh I started writing that outline, and so this was at the time of this recording, at least, this was probably about seven years ago, that I started putting together an outline for what would eventually become Shepherds of the Mind. And at the time I was thinking of it purely as a framework for ministry. I was thinking this would be a book specifically to pastors or people that are doing student ministry, maybe specifically. But I remember getting the outline done. I took a day and decided I'm gonna try to start writing this thing. And again, this is probably at seven, maybe a little less than seven years ago at this point. And I I got away for a day, I got my laptop out, and I started writing the book. And I wrote and I wrote and I wrote, and I got about four pages written. And it just was not coming to me for some reason. And it was actually really frustrating because I was like, oh, it feels like there's something here. Why can't I make this work? So I shelved it. I decided, well, maybe it's not time to write this book. And I started to uh every now and then just kind of pull out my laptop and take notes on, oh, here's a thought that might eventually make it into the book at some point down the line. And I did that for a few years, just kind of writing some thoughts down. This is how I write sermons, actually, is I if I know plenty in advance what I'm going to be teaching on, I keep a list. Um, I use a note program, and just like any thought that I have that might be helpful when it comes time to write that sermon, I go in and I make that note. And then that gives me a lot of content to work with when it's time to actually start writing the sermon. Well, it was the same thought process for this book. But again, it just never felt like the right time to write it. And so it just sat there for a long time. And then came the boulder moment that you hear about, read about in the book. And after I went through my whole season of trauma and all of the healing that God brought, that again I talk about pretty extensively in the book, I was on a hike with my wife Mindy for our anniversary, um, probably about two years ago now at this point. And I remember asking her, hey, if you felt like you were on your way to becoming an expert in anything, what would it be? And I assumed that she was going to say something along the lines of what she does for Compassion International and maybe some marketing. And I was very taken back, taken aback when she gave a very thoughtful pause and then again very thoughtfully responded, Well, I would say it's probably sitting with people in the midst of really hard seasons. And I was like, golly, that is such a good answer. Why did you have to give such a thoughtful answer? Because I had my own uh answer ready to give her whatever it was, I don't even remember now, but it really got me thinking, well, my goodness, if I am gonna write this book, well, then of course it has to be about mental health because that's the journey that God has had me on for several years now. And so we got done with that hike. We kind of processed it together a little bit on the hike. And not long after, I sat down and started thinking about how could I rework the framework and uh to make it make sense for this particular topic and to be able to share my story throughout. And it took a little wrestling to get there. I wanted to be careful to make sure that uh I wasn't practicing in what biblical scholars would call isegesis, meaning like I'm reading meaning into the text. But then I realized, no, I think, I think it makes sense if we say, hey, we're looking at this verse specifically through the lens of mental health. And so after some wrestling, I felt like I had a pretty solid outline of where I was going to go with it and what each chapter would be. I knew that I wanted to constantly point back to Jesus as our good shepherd. And so I had, again, the makings of a book. But then I still just didn't have the time, I guess, or it didn't feel right. I didn't ever sit down to actually start writing it until um probably a handful of months later, in the summer of 2025, I got to take my sabbatical. And I had six weeks off for the sabbatical. It was incredible time with family. Mindy and I had some time together, and then I also had some time just me. And through the generosity of some of our great friends, the Morissacs, they said, Hey, why don't you go stay at our condo in Bend, Oregon for a solo retreat? And it felt like the perfect way to cap off my sabbatical to get a little time alone to process and pray and seek God. And so I made it to Bend. And the first morning that I was there, I made a cup of coffee. It was about seven o'clock in the morning. I pulled out my laptop because I had just had a thought that I was like, again, I want to capture this if I ever get around to writing this book at some point. And so I I just sit down with just the thought that it's going to be a few minutes of capturing a specific thought. And truly, next thing I know, it's uh three o'clock in the afternoon, so like eight hours later, and I'm like, my goodness, I haven't eaten anything yet today. I should probably eat something. But I had the entire first chapter and a half, what is now the introduction and the beginning of chapter one. And I was like, wow, I I it really truly felt like it went so fast, I didn't realize I had even sat down for that long, and it just started pouring out of me. And so it was such an opposite experience of years prior, where I like was trying to force this book, where now all of a sudden it just was coming to me. And I got through a first draft, uh, I got, well, I should say, I got through several chapters on that retreat. I came back, I was able to take another writer's retreat where I got the entire first draft done. And again, in in a short amount of time, the entire first draft of the book was written. And it was kind of wild to me how quickly it came. Well, once I had that done, I reached out to Matt, the pastor who had given me that framework. And I was like, hey, I want to credit you in this book. Where did you get that interpretation? Had you heard that somewhere? And I kind of had this panic moment because I was like, oh, maybe this already is a book somewhere out there. And he said, I don't know. I heard Stu Davis, uh, who used to work at Woodman Valley Chapel, I heard him preach a sermon interpreting that way one time. And I knew Stu from my time at Woodman, and so I reached out to him and I said, Hey, where did you get this interpretation? Again, trying to track down the original source. And Stu texted me back and he's like, Well, surely I'm not the first person to ever interpret it this way. And I was like, Wow, well, I really appreciate that you are willing to listen to the Holy Spirit as you put together that sermon because I'm I have written a book about it. Is it okay if I borrow that interpretation? And he was like, Absolutely. I can't, again, you can't really uh claim copyright, I guess, on an interpretation of scripture. And so from there, again, it was it felt like, man, we are go here. Let's let's do this. And so it was really exciting to see it all come together. And now we have Shepherds of the Mind. Well, thanks for tuning into this episode. Stay tuned for some more as we'll continue to go kind of chapter by chapter from this point out and just talk about how it came to be, maybe some bonus thoughts that didn't make it into the book. So thanks for tuning in. We'll see you soon.