4/22/22 - Leading Better by Focusing on Others: Brenda Long, Food for the Hungry

Welcome to the, iWork4Him podcast. I'm Michael miracle producer of the, iWork4Him radio program, the voice of the faith and work movement. Our mission is to transform the workplace of every Christian and do a mission field. What does that look like in your workplace? Let's find out right now.

Jim: This episode of iWork4Him was previously recorded for the Christian leadership alliance outcomes conference podcast, where leaders come to invest the best of what they know into other leaders.

Martha: Remember, if you have influence over just one person, you are a leader together. Let's listen to this podcast and learn more about leading God's way.

Enjoy.

Jim: Martha and I are excited to host the outcomes conference podcast. Every podcast is dedicated to you, our outcomes conference podcast listener. We've got an incredible conversation today coming up with Brenda Long, with food for the hungry online at fh.org F h.org. We'll be focusing on leadership, thriving and of course related outcomes.

Brenda Long. Welcome to the outcomes conference podcast.

Brenda Long: Thank you, Jim and Martha, it's great to be here. Looking forward.

Jim: Yeah. Before we get started talking about your leadership role and perspective of what God is doing through you, as you lead a thriving environment within your role at food for the hungry.

Tell us how you personally keep your faith strong and your leadership Christ centered each and every day.

Brenda Long: Yeah. I think, you know, my, my biggest challenge is to be still to not be in charge. And this is my biggest challenge in my spiritual walk. So to stop planning, to stop directing you know, even I even struggled with that in relationships with my marriage and family and, you know, just to be still.

So, you know, it doesn't come naturally for me. It takes discipline and intentionality. But drinking coffee comes naturally for me. I needed every morning, I, I wanted every morning. And so I've tried to pair that with being still being quiet, listening to God. And so, you know, I spend a lot, I spend my mornings in the yard listening and being quiet.

I find that, you know, surrounding myself with God's creation just naturally draws me to him. And so it's great prayer time, a great time to reflect. And I also, I recently adopted donkeys from the bureau of land management.

Jim: There's something that's never been said on the Outcomes conference podcast.

Brenda Long: And they're like giant puppies and I just, I find just being out there with them even doing donkey.

Chores. It's just a time of reflecting on, on God and his greatness and his creation and what he's doing in my own life and listening to how he's leading me.

Jim: Yeah. Brenda, since nobody listening to this podcast today, the outcomes conference podcast ever struggled with being too busy and being too much of a doer.

I mean, it really probably is a struggle that singularly. Maybe you could for the other one person in the world that struggles with that, is there one specific step and all that, of course noted sarcasm, heavy sarcasm. Now what's one step you had to take in order to move towards being quiet because so many of us struggle with this being quiet thing.

Well, what's one thing to get us moving in that, right.

Brenda Long: Yeah, that's a great question. For me it was, you know, there's, it's constantly a battle in my mind of thinking about the next thing or the, you know, next item on my calendar. And it was, it was like, like saying out loud, stop thinking about those. Hm, you know, be still be still like verbally, just, I guess that's probably why I enjoy doing it alone outside, because nobody can hear me in a room or something telling me to stop, stop thinking.

Be still Brenda, be still Brenda. So, you know, just that act of verbalizing, that is what helps clear my mind.

Martha: That's good. So if the donkeys ever talk, the first words are going to be, be still. Cause that's what I heard.

Jim: Right. They're going to say, what are you hitting me for trying to protect you?

Martha: Well, when the donkey speaks, thank you.

Going back to scripture on that. Well, thank you for that. So one of the things, you know, the Christian leadership Alliance really has this theme of thrive this year. What does thriving mean to you personally?

Brenda Long: It means looking to me personally, it means looking beyond my current situation the current circumstances.

So being able to see and step into the hope that's ahead you know, that I think has been especially pressing in the last year of, you know, trying to. Imagine beyond the difficulty of 2020, and to see the hope that can come out of, you know, what would seem to be a dire situation across the world. So, yeah, just, you know, and, and bringing people with me into that place of helpfulness so that they can continue to lead others there too.

Jim: So tell us about how food for the hungry enables those you serve to thrive, whether those you serve or the people that work underneath you or those people that you're helping directly with food for the hungry, how are you helping everybody to thrive?

Brenda Long: So our work from day one, which is now 50 years old It was always about a holistic approach.

So a holistic approach, ending poverty, serving the most vulnerable through purposeful relief and development by addressing the physical and spiritual needs. So it has to be looked at through that lens of addressing it through physical and spiritual because that's our whole being right. And so, you know, we partner with leaders in communities.

To bring about transformation. And so it's not us stepping into and creating these programs and then exiting and saying, you know, well, good luck. It's, it's partnering with the leaders of a community and, you know, individual mothers creating groups for their own, you know, for, for other mothers and, and giving them tools to be able to teach others, to learn what, you know, the principles that they've learned.

So, you know, our, our overarching goal there is to be able to exit a community because they're thriving on their own, they're leading their own transformation. So, you know, I think that. That's how we've developed this, the thriving and communities as they've taken, hold of their own, you know, what they want to do and transform their community.

Jim: Well, what does that look like? What does it look like for a community to thrive? When, when you guys start working with the community, what's the condition you usually get it in. And what does it look like when you leave it? Talk, talk to us about that.

Brenda Long: Sure. You know, some of our, some of our principal programs are surrounded around child transformation because that's the next generation.

And so, you know, our child sponsorship program of, you know, just really pushing that that strong. Desire and, and purposefulness in education and providing education. And so, you know, partnering with the leaders to make sure that there's classrooms develop, you know, building classrooms so that the community can see the education's really.

And you know, teaching mothers about health and sanitation how that can transform a community and for them to be able to see that because of these principles of washing your hands before you eat or cook, how it changes the health of their children, how it changes, you know, to not have the sickness, to not have the disease.

And that mindset of it's something that they're physically doing and teaching that's changing that and creating better health, you know, in their own community. So I think it's that transformation of, you know, they're learning those, those principles and tools we're providing that education. And then they're actually visually being able to see how that's changing.

Martha: That's so good. And to see that thriving happening physically and spiritually is really what you're saying. It's all about. So let's talk about food for the hungry as an organization, a lot of organizations struggle to find a way for the culture within to thrive. What is one thing that you're currently doing that is helping to have the greatest impact in the area of thriving within food for the hungry.

Brenda Long: So I think that, you know, I've been with food for the hungry for over 26 years. So it's been a long time. And I've seen that, although some of the wording has changed in our organization the principles that guide us, our calling our values and our response, those things have not changed. They've always been you know, a biblical foundation that allows our programs and our initiatives to thrive and to just flourish, you know, so, you know, within, within my own work at FH. Good for the hungry has really poured in and cared for our staff. You know, really seeking to want to see us thrive in our, in our relationship with the Lord, you know, creating these spiritual formation groups where it's like a small Bible study and we get to fellowship with other coworkers that we wouldn't normally work with.

To study a book scripture, spend time in fellowship. The, just those are, those are the simple ways that we've seen. You know, our leaders really invest in, in seeing us thrive in our relationships, in our, you know, our spiritual walk with. But you know, I'd say within our communities, this last 2020, I mean, we've, we've had to take a step away from doing our, our regular program work, right?

When we have quarantine and things like that, and to see the resilience in our communities of, you know, they have we've paused in executing our programs. But the people of the community have continued. The program led the community, led programming within their community, supporting each other. And even though our FH staff have had to take this step back.

So that's been incredible to see that around the global we work,

Jim: We're talking today with Brenda Long, from food for the hungry. F H dot O R G F h.org. You're listening to the outcomes conference podcast. We'll be right back.

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Jim: Hey, welcome back to the outcomes conference podcast, we're your host Jim and Martha Brangenberg. And today we're talking with Brenda. She's from food for the hungry and you can check them out online. F h.org, F h.org, Brenda, the last 12 to 18 months.

Been a little difficult. I don't know if you noticed that along with you trying to learn to be quiet. I know again, you have that problem on your own. What is, what have you had to change personally or professionally that helped you focus on your mission as a leader, as a result of what we face the last 12 to 18 months.

Brenda Long: Yeah. It's definitely been a challenging year plus for everyone, I feel that I'm always about our leader when I'm outwardly focused on other. And meeting their needs. That's kind of just how we're, how I'm wired and geared. But 2020 has been definitely a different season for me, where I had to learn to be vulnerable in a way that was, you know, probably really uncomfortable and letting my guard down, expressing my own needs.

I mean, as we all kind of stepped into this quiet time of, you know, being. Working from home and not having our regular cadence of meeting together and all different avenues. That was really tough for me. And you know, still trying to find ways to reach out to my team, to connect us that went beyond even just, you know, our ongoing zoom meetings and really just trying to find ways to engage with each other.

But, you know, I learned that letting my guard down and expressing my own needs is also an important aspect of, of leadership.

Martha: So talk about your breakthroughs and whether it had to do with that or something else. What did you see? That was actually something, you know, that really, you got some breakthrough or that really was successful in your leader.

Brenda Long: Yeah. You know, I learned, I learned so much about God's faithfulness in this last year. I spent time a lot of time studying the Enneagram. I'm a big fan of Enneagram tool and it's just such a powerful tool to help you understand yourself help you understand how to relate and work with others.

It helps me have. To be a better version of myself. So, you know, in the last 12 months, you know, my mom had had a real quick two month decline and she passed away in March of 2020. And you know, that was right when the pandemic was starting and we all were, you know, being pulled back. And so it was, it was a lot of alone time when with, in my head.

And as an Enneagram seven. I don't need, I don't need a lot of alone time. I need a lot of fun and adventure and time with people. And so, you know, that was really, really challenging for God to just. Have me have to deal with the grief, you know, and, and to be forced rather than being able to plan all these social things and keep my mind busy or, or move past and not deal with that.

And so, you know, I think that, you know, that was, that was a real breakthrough for me of just that, that time of being vulnerable and expressing in ways that I needed support, you know, that I wouldn't have normally done.

Jim: You know, a lot of times as leaders, we read a great book or read a great article, or we experienced a great conference or, you know, there's something that we've learned.

We say everybody underneath me needs to everybody around me needs to experience the same thing. What was that for you? Was there something like that for you in the last 12 to 18 months that you said, I, my whole team needs experiences.

Brenda Long: Yeah, so books and I don't get along really well. I'm great with podcasts and conferences, you know, things like that.

Yeah. I, I keep telling myself, you know, I have some books here in that and I keep buying them and I start them and. I have to read like the same page over and over again, because somewhere I got lost in thought somewhere else. But so, so definitely podcasts, definitely conferences. And for me it would, you know, I, I shared with my team your Enneagram coach.com for a podcast.

I mean, fantastic way of being able to understand each other as good as good coworkers and to be able to relate to one another. Also, you know, the digital outcomes conference. Yes. I attended the previous, the, not the in-person, but you know, the conference. And then we had kind of that digital version afterwards last year.

And so that was a fantastic opportunity to invite my entire team to be a part of that. And so, you know, I, I offered that up to anyone who, you know, had, could, could make space to attend that for the, for the, you know, the last month or so that it. So I think that any time that we have opportunities to really, you know, be able to give that kind of encouragement in your leadership that you need to go ahead and offer that up.

But yeah, the digital outcomes conference was a big one for me, for pushing on my team.

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Martha: So Brenda, you guys have a digital an ebook that you want to share with the listeners. So is there anything you want to tell us about it? We'll put the link in the show notes and on the YouTube and stuff, but it's called God's story. Tell us a little bit about it. What they'll find when they download.

Brenda Long: Yeah. This is just an incredible resource, so I hope that you do check it out. But it's, you know, written within from one of our staff members. And it's just been a tool to understanding and walking through God's worldview. And so really just putting into perspective, you know, How we were created and, and how we are restored in Christ and how we walk with that knowledge and how we serve.

So really just hope that you be able to check that out, download that. Excellent.

Martha: Thank you for offering. So Brenda, let's talk about food for the hungry. We know I'm guessing I don't want to be a pessimist, but you know, hunger is probably never going to completely go away. So how do you keep serving every day when you realize that the work you're doing is never going to really be fulfilled, but it is going to gain in its ability to, you know, to do its work.

So let's talk about that.

Brenda Long: So, yeah, hunger we have a lofty vision there and you know, God did not call us to complete the work. And so I think that's an important piece that you keep in front of you and for anyone that's serving in a, you know, in a mission type organization We continue the work and he completes it.

He finishes it. So, you know, I take relief and hope and that I'm called to partner with him in the work. It's not on my own strength, but his and he will complete that work and finish that work. So I think that's, that's how, you know, you, we look at that, that goal, that vision that we have is that we're just a part of it.

Jim: That's a great word. All right. So we're coming to a close on the podcast and the Christian leadership Alliance is a place where leaders love to come and invest the best of what they know in other leaders. Okay. That's just something that, that happens all the time with the thing, Christian leadership Alliance, Brenda Long, what leadership idea or thinking would you like to share as an investment in those listening today to the outcomes conference pod?

Brenda Long: So yeah, I guess I'd like to share that, you know, we're all leaders in one way or another, even if it's not in your title. And so, you know, even with our team members at food for the hungry, I think, you know, the leadership presses upon that you are leading whether you have a manager, supervisor, director role you're leading others.

And so I think that, you know, if, if we keep that in the forefront of our minds then we see the importance, right. That, you know, we're, we have a responsibility as Christians to be living a life that leads others to. To show them God's love how, you know, what are we doing that would point them to Christ.

And so, you know, I see CLA playing a really important role in that in developing leaders. And so, you know, this is my year plus partnership with CLA and connection with CLA and, you know, I still haven't yet. Taken that dive into all of the resources. There's so many, but I'm excited about, you know, making space for that.

Martha: So as a leader, you know, I, I just want to speak to the listeners right now and just encourage you to, to jump in, to dive in and get involved in those resources. Like Brenda said, there are just so many things available through the Christian leadership Alliance, and we're grateful for that. And there's something for everybody, right?

It's not just that you know, maybe we can't consume all of it, but that's why there's so many different options. And this podcast is a part of those wonderful options. So I'm just very grateful that you have been able to share with us and with.

Jim: Brenda at the beginning of the podcast, you talked about how God just led you to be quiet.

And now he sends you outside and in the morning, which is important that you said the morning must be early morning because in Phoenix, that area gets a little hot during the summertime. But you also mentioned you got two donkeys and I'd love to know how God has used you caring for those donkeys to help you be a better leader.

Brenda Long: It's funny. I think part of it is because you know, that they can't talk back. Right. So it's like a one-way conversation when I'm out there. And although they Bray, they break very loudly, but that's usually like at five in the morning when they're like telling me that they want food, but I I've seen it as you know, I'm not only just caring for God's creation.

You know, we all have those opportunities to care for God's creature. But, you know, this, this quiet time that I have with them, it's almost like it's just, if God and I together, we're out there in the early mornings and you know, he's, we're walking together. We're sharing this peaceful time with this giant animal that is relying on me, right.

To care for them. So as it's this picture of like, I'm relying on Christ to care for me to nurture me. You know, to grow me and this donkey is relying on me to do the same, a lot, like parenthood with your children, you know? And so I've just thought, oh, that's definitely true. Yeah. I've definitely enjoyed the journey of, of adopting these donkeys.

Yeah. It's a really positive.

Jim: Brenda Long. Thank you so much for being under the outcomes conference podcast and being transparent, sharing a little bit of your story and for even going off script. When I asked about the donkeys, thank you for coming along and we do thank Brenda Long from food for the a hungry for sharing her story today, Fh.org is where you can find out more about food for the hungry.

And thank you for joining us today on the outcomes conference podcast. And to you, our outcomes conference podcast listeners. Thanks for joining us. We pray for this podcast. Well, then it inspired you to think higher and deeper about thriving for a greater kingdom impact.

Martha: Be sure to visit ChristianleadershipAlliance.Org, where you can stay up to date by subscribing to the outcomes online newsletter and the CLA higher thinking blog.

Jim: And if you're not already a member of the Christian leadership Alliance, What are you waiting for? Join the Alliance today, Christian leadership alliance.org.

Martha: And remember the wisdom in this podcast came to you on its way to someone else. If you loved it, say so, and then share it with a friend. Jim

and I, Martha, we'll see you again for the next episode of the outcomes conference podcast.

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