22.01.18 Mitch Holthus Transcript

Paul Brandes 0:04
It is so great to have here with us today in the studio, the voice of the chiefs, Mitch Holthus. And thank you, Mitch, so much for joining us joining Bill and I here today.

Mitch Holthus 0:15
It's awesome. You can't turn either one of you down. So hey, that's the first time I've done a podcast with a former Sterling cross country runner. It's a big deal. I gotta find the video somewhere.

Paul Brandes 0:26
That is, yes, it is. It is a big deal. I ran one year in cross country at Sterling College. There it is, I think you found my scouring the internet deep to find the evidence of that. In addition, of course, Mitch, to your amazing work with the Chiefs, and in so many other areas. You've been a committed member of our church, Christ Community for a number of years. And so we thought you'd be a perfect fit for this conversation right at the very center of why we're launching this podcast, why we're starting at the purpose of it, this question of how do we follow Jesus beyond just Sunday morning, we're so eager to hear about how your faith integrates with the various aspects of what God allows and asks you to do in the world.

Bill Gorman 1:09
Yeah, and you know, Mitch, one of the things that we will occasionally do on a Sunday morning, in our services, as a local church is an interview. We call it this time tomorrow interview, and we'll bring up a congregation member. And we'll just literally ask them the question, what will you be doing this time tomorrow? So it's a Sunday morning, what we'd be doing this time tomorrow on Monday morning, and just get a little bit of a window into someone's week and what they do. And so we just start off with just love to hear that from you. Yeah, what is it? What do you do on a Monday morning was a typical week look like in your life?

Mitch Holthus 1:38
It's kind of an atypical week, people wonder, gosh, you just do a game once a week for three hours. And then what do you do the rest of the time you just like to drive around and hang out with a player and watch TED lasso and Benja.

Truthfully, Bill, I've got three silos in which I work. And during the season in particular, it's pretty intense. And so not only the one of the silos is, I worked directly for the chiefs in a production in house production group called 65 TPT. We do shows like this that are similar we do over the air television shows we do. Programming, I mean, Chiefs fans can't get enough. It's an insatiable appetite. So we're cranking that out all the time. And then the next silo is the one that's more obvious, which is the chase Radio Network separate from the team. It's not just doing the game, it's all kinds of programming that they're doing throughout the week. And so the third silo is what I'm allowed to do with my own company. So it's the LLC, and I do 25 Shows a week, wow, either video, or social, or radio, when you combine those three silos. And so it takes the time, a lot of evening work for research, when you guys “sermonate,” I'm doing something similar. It's almost like I'm preparing a thesis every week. But the work that I do in the evenings research wise, is to kind of get manifested then the next day with the programming that we do, for example, we're getting ready to play Jacksonville in the divisional playoff game. I've been in pretty intense study in the evenings, which I use then in programming on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and beyond. So it's, it's active. Let's put it that way.

Bill Gorman 3:21
How do you actually prepare to broadcast the game? What kind of work? Do you need to get ready for sitting there calling the game walking us through that?

Mitch Holthus 3:29
Yeah, truthfully, it's not that dissimilar, I should say similar. Don't use a double negative to what you do when you are preparing a sermon message or you're preparing a study group. There is, first of all, the NFL is so popular now. And it's growing worldwide. We'll get to that later in discussion of what we're doing globally with this team, which is part of this silo. But it's different sources of research. And people are very knowledgeable in the National Football League, even if they're just a casual fan of they're playing they gotta be you know, Ralph down the hallway and or Betty down the hallway in fantasy football, football, right? Yeah. And it goes well beyond that. So there is the use of video. It's the use of research methods. And you find different ways to come up with different storylines. I'll just give you an example. So let's take the Jacksonville game on Saturday, right the divisional playoff and there's 1000 storylines to this game, including Doug Peterson who was a disciple of Andy’s. Doug is a great friend who was with us 2015 1617 And it's I'm sorry, 1314 15 before he left to become the head coach of the Eagles where he won a Super Bowl with them. But in doing the deep dive, it's a study of cultural change for the Jaguars who had been woeful right, and dug his including his work last week to be down 27 at the half into the chargers and win a game, which it's the first time in National Football League history since 1921, or a team has been minus five in any game in the giveaway takeaway and won that game. Yeah. So there's, there's a piece of research, right, but it's just using different methods and different sources to come up with a thesis or a message to present. And you can anticipate, but the awesome thing about doing that research than for the game is it's extemporaneous. Right, some of that preparation may not come to fruition at all. And, but it's using, again, it's more of a class in research methods, if anything else.

Paul Brandes 5:39
Well, I'm interested to how with all of that, whether it's preparing for the game, or the other shows that you get to do throughout the week, as a follower of Jesus, what does it look like for you to bring Christ into that space and to integrate faith into those moments? And yeah, I'm just curious what that has looked like for you. And how that's developed over the years, been a follower of Jesus for a long time, been doing this type of work for a long time. So what does that look like? And how has it matured over the years?

Mitch Holthus 6:06
Yeah, I would say the nucleus of the atom is Psalm 90:12, the mosaic Psalm that says, Teach me to number my days, oh Lord that in my present to the heart of wisdom, and that gives me chills even talk about it now. Because that becomes the point of this is finite. This is not infinite, the time that the Lord gives us in this life [is not infinite], and he wants to use us. And he needs us. I, I've talked many times, it's very, it's a very strange strategy, really, that he's relying on us. Right? Like, you know, relying on me, because I've, you know, I've goofed this up many times down through the years. But when that becomes the nucleus of the atom to understand that God has given us life, He has given us talents, and then open up these incredible opportunities. Like, I need you there. And there are two things I would I would pull, I would respond to you. There is the public side. And then there's the private side. And I love that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And when you're when you're in the public realm, now, that's it's you think, Hey, that's pretty cool. Sometimes, and and in the world of social media. And you go, wow, that's cool. You have 86,900 Twitter followers. Okay. That's not always that cool, right? You try to stay off Twitter, sometimes when they're coming after you and calling you an idiot, or worse. Like when I Harrison Butker never missed a field goal against the Broncos. I said, he's 31 to 31. Part of the research, he's 31 to 31, in his career against the Broncos, and they get it blocked. And then oh, my gosh, Twitter, you don't even want to know what they said on there. It's like, that's just kind of ugly. But there's the social realm. Obviously, there's there's the public realm, yeah, of what you hear what you see. And there has to be a sublime way, sometimes direct way of giving your testimony. But people can kind of see through it in, but you want to present publicly what a Christian life looks like, right? And being sincere in that the private side is what people do not see or see or hear. And this is where it's become very impactful. And just really the last 10 years or so, in the three silos in which I work. I deal with a lot of people. Okay, I got this silo over here. And I told you earlier, but the 65 TPT silo I call “Mitch and the millennials,” like the movie, the internship, and I'm at Google, you know, trying to, but there'll be many times you know, I'll feel like an idiot like, I'm not, Hey, catch me on Slack. So I'm trying to, you know, I'm on Slack. You're googling what is slack. But I cannot tell you how many times late at night you're trying to get out of there. And you're gonna get home to Tammy, right. And then somebody says, you have some time. Yeah. Yeah. And I can't tell you how many counseling such situations I've been in, where the door is flown open to. First of all I have learned the Lord is trying to give me a heart to listen and to listen. Well. And that means listen, to absorb and ascertain before listening to act, is what I've learned in our spiritual walk is you can't say the truth or tell the truth until they see the truth. And that door gets flown open because they come to you saying I need your help or your advice. I see that your something's a little different here with you. What, how would you handle this? And then that does open the door. For some very frank discussion. It was super intense before Andy Reid got here. It was not a Good place to work. Okay, there was a two to four year period that was very difficult. And I get a call in the middle of the night from someone who was going to take their life. Now, I'm not trained like the two of you, or other professionals that we have in our five campuses. But you don't hang up the phone right at that point. And there have been so many times where one is to learn the power of listening, there is a power of listening. And I think the Lord gave us examples of that in scripture of where he listened. Or he would answer a question with a question to open up conversation, to actively listen. And then to use that conduit to get to the heart. But to do that, I've got to learn to actively listen and not relate that like if you came to me and said, Hey, Ashley, and I are, are struggling with this. And I'd say, You know what, I'm struggling with that too. That seems to me like a rhyme learning, that's a wrong answer, instead of just following up and trying to get more information, because what you're doing is laying down a foundation then to share the truth. But it's absorbing, listening to absorb, not listening to respond, listen, to absorb, then to ascertain and then to act. And so I cannot tell you how many times I've had conversations, because it's a dream for a lot of people to work in the realm of sports and professional sports. But many times that dream is not what they thought it was going to be. Yeah. And it can be a very difficult profession to be in, for, for a variety of reasons. And so it's been interesting, especially in the last 10 years or so.

Paul Brandes 11:38
And you're hitting on some of this as well. You know, one of the link languages that we use, frameworks we use often in a number of different settings, the four chapter story as a way to understand really kind of the God's big story in the world since the beginning, but even more specifically, how scripture can be set up. If creation chapter one the way the world ought to have been the fall, chapter two, the way the world is, redemption, chapter three, the way the world can be and the new creation, what we're hoping for, and longing for and begging Jesus to come back for the way the world will be someday. And, and we I part of why we wanted to ask this question around where you experienced chapter two, the fall, the way the world is, is exactly what you just hit on. People idealize the world of sports, it's this sort of the holy grail of where I could work many people, even myself when I was younger, right? And so but then you, you get into that, and there's an expectation gap. It's not what you thought, and there's deep brokenness all around us. So how have you touched on some of that already? How have you seen some of those areas of brokenness and where you've gotten to work and maybe even just kind of starting there? That's one of our questions into this time tomorrow interview is where in your Monday world, are you experiencing the chapter to the fall the way the world is?

Mitch Holthus 12:58
People get involved in sports, but let's be honest, it comes when sports is your leisure, it's very different than when it's your profession. So the gateway to getting into sports, most often than not more often than not, is, gosh, I love sports. But they've not worked in sports. And they don't see necessarily how, it's, it's a tough, competitive world, that will break your heart more than it will, you know, living your dream. And so whether it's trying to get a job or getting a job and losing your job, just like any any other realm, and these jobs are very difficult to get in, they're very competitive, and then you finally get in and then there might be a change in ownership or management, and then everybody just gets whitewashed out. And requires a lot of time. And when it's when it's your profession and not your leisure. And I always tell people, when they come to me, and they say, Gosh, I'm thinking about I'd love to do this man. I go, okay, you know, what, what holidays Do you want to give up? And what I want to do you want to keep because you're only gonna get to keep to probably then Right? Ooh, and then they get involved. And then and then it's the it's, it's like, in the realm of in relationships. In, in, in the work relationships, and it's sometimes it's a very, very Doggy Dog world, it's difficult to get these jobs. So to keep it I am going to mark my territory and I'm going to fight like crazy to keep it and if you're in Detroit, I mean, if I have to put hydrochloric acid on both you guys to keep my job then I'll do it. And that sounds very frank, but I'm just telling you, that's the that's the realm of the world. And so many gals and guys in can't deal with that. Or they're like how do I do this or what do I do or, or or even just dealing with relations ships, but it's it's very different than what people think it is. And then you deal with the aspect of winning and losing. I mean, it's a winning and losing thing. So many times when we were going to work, that's the same in my work, and many times it is, but add to that winning and losing, and which is happening every week. It's not a quarter, it's not a year, where Hey, did we do well, we were off 4%. Well, did we win or we lose? Well, we were off 4%. But you know, we're still cash, you know, every week, we're winning or losing. And that creates a dynamic of how do you deal with players, coaches, and people who think, Hey, we're going to win every game No, many times you'll lose most of the time. And so there are many gals and guys who enter the profession that can't deal with that. Yeah. Because when it's your leisure, you can turn it off, or walk away. If Sterling loses to Bethel, you just walk away from it. If you're the Sterling coach, and two of your kids made big errors to lose the game, or let's take it with the Chiefs example. And now the whole world is you know, like Harrison Bucher missing kicks, or the Tommy Townsend situation of oh, he's not given he's given laces in or whatever. It can get pretty intense. And so there's just a lot of frank discussions about shattered dreams. Yeah. That it's, it's, it's very interesting.

Bill Gorman 16:32
What you're describing there, Mitch really reminds me of something that's always stuck with me that Pastor Tim Keller said that when you make work, your idol, the thing, that's the most important thing about you that success goes to your head, and failure goes to your heart. And just what you're describing is that on a week, by week, or depending on the sport, day by day, experience of either I'm succeeding, and that's going to my head, I feel great. Or this is going to, I'm just devastated. It's going straight to my heart. And I'm just grateful that you're in those spaces, walking with people. Maybe hoping to point back to that Psalm 90 reality if there's something bigger than this horizon. Yeah, it's really good.

Mitch Holthus 17:13
Yeah, for sure. And haven't always done it. Well, how many, I'll be honest with you, I'm not gonna sit here and go, Wow, you're just crushing it. But really, there's been a lot of victory, Bill, in the last several years in particular in that realm. And but But what God has taught me is to have that heart to be open. And even though you're on man, I got 10 things to do. And I got a deadline tomorrow, and I got to know, stop, freeze, and just be available. And sometimes that leads to some very powerful situations.

Paul Brandes 17:51
And how has that you've stayed focused kind of on how the Lord has set you up to have some of those divine moments in work life. But I you know, I know as, as your pastor, you and Tammy attending the Shawnee campus, you got personal lives going on, too. And there is the Four Chapter Story Part of why we love that framework and language so much is it it's a really flexible presses into so you've, you've really powerfully described some of those dynamics in the workplace, but kind of map your personal lives onto that, especially in the last couple of years. And how has God? What have you been going through? And how has God sustained you in the middle of some of what you've had to navigate?

Mitch Holthus 18:38
And it's an awesome question. I always say, life's a Monopoly board, you just go round. And you know, sometimes you always land on income tax, right. But you might land on Bill's property and St. James, he's got a hotel on it, and I've got to pay him a bunch of money. But you just keep going round and round and round. Our last several trips around the Monopoly board or something I think we share with a lot of parishioners in the fact that we are where the candles like burning on both ends. And that is being available and being loving as a parent to young adults. And our son and his wife have two awesome granddaughters but it's also dealing with parents. And my mom passed in 2016 that my dad is still humming away at nine years old and Smith Center, Kansas, we had to make the decision to move me off 117 year old farm 107 year old farmhouse that I prayed about languished overdue. I keep it it's the fifth generation is gone. I mean, this is a story that's repeated over and over and over. But it's not easy, right? And so here's where it's become a challenge and that that it's just there's times where you want to just have some time to exhale. And many times when those have been there we've had to be with parents and Tammy’s folks are In a situation where they had to move from their home for years and years and years, and there's some challenges there. But that requires a lot of time, and also resources. But many times what's forfeited is sometimes the recharge time. And during the season now, when I once training camp starts, I'm more regular hours in the offseason, although that's getting even more so and I'm praying for work life balance there. But once the season starts, there is not a lot of time for, hey, let's go fishing, you know, or let's just go hang out and go play golf. There's kind of very little of that time. But when that time is there, all of a sudden, now you have the urgency of dealing with parents because that can't be delayed. We're now facing something. So where we have dealt with this is to, you know, crying out to the Lord like, and just being there. One thing that's really helpful for me, and I've done this for now, maybe 30 years, but I do keep a prayer journal sermon notes, which some sermons are great, you know, there's some are just filling the void, like Paul's always fill on Bill's, per se. But you reference back to that, and what I keep is 17 years prior to that. So right now I'm keeping the 2006. Church journal, basically the book, and you'll see this when you look real close with the 2023. But when I do that, I see how God has been faithful and things that I've forgotten about. That's where I crop dusted it right? I'm just buzzing over it. Oh, wow. I didn't realize I prayed about that and how God has been. So when you ask how do you cope with it? Yeah, is you you pray, but you, you pray and trust. And then, but also communicate like in this realm of a journal, because it becomes something somewhat enriching or encouraging. When you look back, and you see God's faithfulness, and you're going, how are we going to get through this time right now? Because this seems like a really difficult season of life. Oh, he's done it. 500 times. Right. And he didn't know six healed in indebted on Oh, six on January the 15th. Which why ago? 17 years? It's almost the exact day. Yeah, so I was gonna ask you, it's the exact calendar is almost exact now. leap years, we'll throw it off a tick. But then it seems like to come back somehow. But I just learned that 17 years, like, we're doing this today, on what Wednesday the 18th of January, in 2006. January 18, was Wednesday. That's amazing. Yeah. Now what gets me what tears my heart up is when I'll go back, and I can't wait. I don't look ahead. You got to keep it to that date. Okay, so you don't look ahead and go who what happened on February 1. And then I'll go back and I'll see blank pages. And I'll go. So to answer your question, like, how do you cope with this is been, in many cases, it has been this way, the last 18 to 24 months, because it's been some difficult circumstances, is just crying out to God. Yeah, crying out in in a real way, like, Psalm 40. I'm trying to but you know, I'm clean and clean to me and heard my cry and, you know, took me out of the miry clay. So you can get into the miry clay, and it can wear you out, particularly if you don't have just tons of time where you're going, Hey, what are we going to do today, and that time then becomes spent in where you should be. And that is dealing with situations particularly as it pertains to family. You communicate that with the Lord, for example, for the first time, so getting the bye week was enormous. And it's not just hey, the one seat and you get to rest while the rest of the team goes and a rest of the AFC is like battling it out. Right. And I will tell you, the week of the Raiders game was very emotional. We had the Damar Hamlin situation at the beginning of the week, right. And the Lord used that. I don't know if you saw how powerful the Lord was in that circumstance definitely did. Yeah. So that actually gives me chills to talk about so the National Football League is so wildly popular. But the Lord uses this extreme circumstance where a young man may lose his life in front of millions of people, to the point where people are praying, who don't normally pray or visit prayer, understand prayer, and then seeing this young man. It's almost like one of the Lord's miracles like this happened in front of millions of people. All right, that we caused some pressure because it truncated the week and then they moved our game up to Saturday and I knew how big that game was. Because if we don't beat the Raiders, we're not going to get the bye week and I'll be selfish because I'm thinking if we get the bye week, that means I get 48 hours. I'm going to run back and see my dad. That's going to be four hours of driving time where I can just be with the Lord. So your John 24 to 26 was just there, shut everything off. And just spend time with the Lord and then be there with him. And just have fun conversations, not conversations where there's tears. And so that's but I remember walking into the stadium Allegiant stadium to do our pregame work. And my eyes started to well up with tears. And I go, this is weird. What What am I what's happening here. But it was such an impactful week on both sides, because it created all this tension. But I also knew that if we won this game, there would be a chance for a breath. And maybe it's what you felt was sabbatical. Which, honestly, when I was on the elder team, and people were given out sabbaticals, I'm like, Can I get one of those? Well, they're well deserved. But I'm rambling here a bit because you kind of catch my drift. Right? So but it's just it's crying out to the Lord. And I think he wants us to reach out, but it's also keeping track of it. Keep track of it. And because I'll just crop dust many times his blessings.

Bill Gorman 26:12
Mitch, I want to hear you talk a little bit about it because you've, you've referenced a couple of Psalms right from memory in this conversation. And I know that meditating in memorizing Scripture has been a big part of your journey. Tell us about that. And tell us about how you talked about crying out to the Lord, having his words in your mind to be able to do that with what have you developed in that practice? Have you found joy in that practice? Where has that been a struggle?

Mitch Holthus 26:38
And I appreciate you asking it, Bill. And quite honestly, I'm trying to I was doing really well with it. And I've been in a void. And I'm really praying to rediscover that. But it's so powerful. Because let's and I've also journaled with that. Because I'll keep track of what was going on when I memorize that scripture, like I'm working on John 24 to 26. Now, right, but what was going on during that time, and map it, write it down? Because I've gone that that's a whole nother documentation of going back and going, Okay, I remember when I first memorized that this was going on where mom was sick, or we had this financial situation. And so it's also a journaling. But there's, it gets so exciting when you get into the rhythm of doing it and being in the discipline, because it's there and it permeates like, out of the pores of your skin. Right. It's not like on Catholic counter trying to remember that. It's like it just oozes out. So what I have found out that it's really important is going let's go back to those conversations. Like there's real conversations, right? It when you're there, and you can in you're able to it's there in your heart, and the Lord has put it there to be able to use it, even if it's in like casual conversation. But you use it. I think we saw that even during that Mr. Hamlin situation. But it's there. And you and then you, it's there to easily reference but appreciate your asking. Because it's been a huge part of my life. Yeah, again, especially in the last five to seven to 10 years. Because using that scripture to see where you're at how Lord used to have the Holy Spirit uses it. Why are you why are you memorizing that scripture now? Well, then there's a reason I don't even know what I'm doing. Then you see, okay. So, yeah, it's great.

Paul Brandes 28:30
Well, we want to be sensitive to your time, and you're going to jump on to a radio spot here, in a few minutes. We silo over here. I know. That's right. We got one kind of kind of wrap-up question. We don't haven't had a lot of guests yet. But we think this is maybe a fun question to kind of wrap with just to help us get to know you better. So if you could do any other job besides the amazing work? You do, what would that be? So I love being a pastor. But if I could have lived another life, I would actually design and run escape rooms that love escape rooms. I know. I know. So what's that for you? If you would love the work you get to do and how God has equipped you for it. But if you could do any other job, what would it be?

Mitch Holthus 29:06
I shouldn't think about escape rooms now. There must be the Chicago in you there for the escape room. Truthfully, it would be to be in a small high school and to be a coach and try to be and coach kids be around kids and having an impact with kids either like middle school or high school. Yeah, it would be like if you could do like the weirdest thing you'd ever do is like just quit everything and go to that and find some small school and you know, just be there. I feel the need there in those schools because it's there's such challenges now in every school doesn't matter where you're from, but I just I have an affinity because that's where I grew up. Right and a smaller school but to be that kind of coach mentor to kids. It's probably what I do. Yeah, about Bill?

Bill Gorman 29:58
I probably I probably be a national permission to park ranger. That's his answer. I was an Eagle Scout so kind of...