Empowering Leadership in Christian Marriage

Listen to Empowering Leadership in Christian Marriage

Dana (00:06):

Alright, good deal. Okay, well, hey everyone, welcome to the podcast. This is Dana Byers and I am really, really, really excited right now because literally I have sitting right next to me, my favorite human on the planet, my husband Chris Byers. Chris is so many things to so many people, but I'm going to be really careful and not over introduce him or else he's going to shut down. So I think I'll just say he's here and I wanted to invite him on the podcast today to have a chat with us about women in leadership. So first, welcome Chris.

Chris (00:51):

Thank you. It's great to be here. I received my invitation in the mail about six months ago to prepare for this day, and so I got everything ready and I'm ready.

Dana (01:03):

Uhuh, that's a complete lie. We literally were downstairs having a chat and I was like, Hey, do you want to record an episode? And he was like, okay. And the irony of this is Chris is the spontaneous one in our marriage. Wouldn't you say that?

Chris (01:19):

I think so. That's probably right.

Dana (01:20):

Yeah, let's be fair. I'm a bit more of a planner and I do plan out my podcast episodes personally, but I was like, man, Chris, we just have this really good conversation energy going right now. Let's have a chat and record it and see if it goes anywhere. So if this made it to your podcast feed, it's a decent interview, so I think you might be in for a treat. Okay, Chris, any starting comments that you want to make before I dive in?

Chris (01:48):

Starting comments? I don't know. Yeah, I'm excited to have a conversation and when your podcast comes through my feed on a Tuesday, I'll be listening to myself, but as I've had to do that in the past, so we'll get over it.

Dana (02:06):

It's not your favorite thing, but yeah. So Chris and I have been together. We met in 1997. We married in 2000, so this year we've been married 24 years. And something you should know is we are not exact opposites, but we're pretty different from each other, wouldn't you say?

Chris (02:27):

Yeah, I think we are opposites, but as anybody who's been married for a long time knows you tend to grow together and a growth kind of like you grow together and then you become like you start to do the similar things. I used to be a night owl. I now go to bed at the same time you do…

Dana (02:46):

Which is?

Chris (02:47):

Well, we go to get in bed at nine o'clock, do some reading, definitely out by 10. You're usually out a little bit earlier.

Dana (02:53):

And I have the knack of closing my eyes and immediately falling asleep. And you, it's true. Have a different knack of not doing that. Yeah.

Chris (03:03):

I usually have to lay there a while before I'm going to go to sleep

Dana (03:05):

Because your mind is churning. Yep. Well, you already heard Chris say when I listened in this podcast, and I think that's really what I want to talk about today. Chris is extremely supportive. And I've often heard it said that in many marriages, if you have, whether it's a husband or a wife who's a very strong leader, the other person in the marriage might be very much more behind the scenes or not a leader at all. And I really just kind of reject that really from experience. Chris and I have both been raised to lead. We've both been developed by incredible people around us to lead. We've had plenty of leadership wins and plenty of leadership not wins, failures. And Chris has been in ministry with me. He's also been the CEO of a software company for many years. And I wanted him to come chat with us today because he is a significant advocate for women in leadership.

(04:07):

He is also, this guy is just close to Jesus. He is the person who every day is asking me, how can I pray for you? He's checking in on me, he's praying over me. We're talking about scripture in the mornings before either of us gets ready for work. And Chris loves empowering everyone to lead, but I've personally benefited from his intentionality to support me in leadership and also in all of his work endeavors to find ways to engage women, empower them, and give them opportunities. So Chris, I think what I want to start with is asking you where do you think that came from? What made you such an advocate for women in leadership?

Chris (04:53):

Well, as I reflect, I'm not exactly sure what led to it. I mean, I do think over time I probably accidentally found myself in places that were probably more supportive of women in ministry, more supportive of women in general in leadership than maybe than most happened to end up at a university where the Church of God of Anderson happens to be supportive of women in ministry. So it probably was less of a barrier for me to a certain degree. I also am just a numbers person, so I'm like, oh, 50% of the population in the US is women, 50% is men, so why aren't 50% of the jobs and leadership roles and everything kind of filled by both men and women? And I think the other thing for me was, I mean, one thing that attracted me to you early on was your excitement about building a business, growing a business, being in business. And I've always wanted to see that continue to succeed and you succeed in all the endeavors you've been a part of. And it's just never mattered to me in particular that, oh, you're a woman that needs to look different. Or actually, I've probably come to realize in some ways we need to make it look different because it doesn't always look maybe what we hope it would for women in leadership, women in ministry, but so maybe it all comes back to the numbers, maybe it comes back to you and I Yeah, that's

Dana (06:20):

Great. No, that's an interesting perspective. I never even thought of it that way, but I can totally see how that would be kind of the route that you would take to be like, okay, it makes sense logically. But then as you've leaned into it, I've seen you be very relationally intentional as well, of course in developing both of our kids, our son and our daughter, but authentically building belief into women around you that I really think you're completely capable of this. Here's what it's going to take and here's the kind of support I can give you. I'd love to hear you share about, and of course you don't have to share names or anything like that, but can you think of a time maybe you've seen a woman in leadership undermine her capacity and what that looked like?

Chris (07:08):

I think a couple of things come to mind. One is I do think women can at times want to ask for permission to do things. And I always ran an organization where I was a little bit more like, yeah, just go do stuff and then I'll let you know if it's not going so well or if maybe we need to change course. And sometimes women can be a little bit slower to take that mantle and just go run with it, which is an interesting contrast to often women in the home definitely kind of guide how the home operates and how things operate at home. And so there is a parallel that they can take into the work world probably to change that. But I do think that's probably, that's one thing. The other one is I do think kids often for a woman can slow them down in pursuing certain things, pursuing certain areas of leadership because their perception is their kids are higher priority, which maybe they should be overall, but there's still ways I think you can probably work and grow in leadership without having to completely put that aside to take care of the kids.

(08:24):

But I do think kids can definitely be a driver to slowing down leadership and growth sometimes in a woman.

Dana (08:32):

Yeah, yeah. You make a really great point. We didn't talk about any of this before we turned on the mic, so I'm just going to ask you this. I haven't asked you if I can ask you this, but I think it might be helpful to people listening to the podcast to know what we've walked through as a couple, having a very healthy, very strong marriage, being really close to our kids, but also being in seasons where I truly wanted to lead. I was thrilled to be at home with our kids for multiple seasons, but you were consistently in a significant leadership role. And so my perspective on that as we've worked through it over the years was that I wanted to support you and I wanted to support the kids, but I also kind of put some things on the shelf. So while I didn't, by God's grace, I never felt resentment towards you, but I felt like we would often elevate the significance of the role that you were in just because maybe of the title or the responsibility or even the wages that you were earning.

(09:34):

When you and I kind of came to terms with that, I realized you never asked me to. You didn't say, oh, I think you need to be home during the season or anything like that. And so I made those choices looking back on it, what do you think maybe you would say to me again if we were engaging in a scenario where it was like our family has some needs, but I also have this strong desire, I have this desire to work and to lead and do some things outside of the home as well. How would you maybe have suggested I approached it differently than I ended up doing at the time?

Chris (10:10):

Well, I don't know that I would, I mean the approach was probably fine. You were trying to solve a problem, take care of the kids, get them in a better place, whatever it happened to be, maybe we were moving or something and we needed to manage that. But I think if anything, if I were to go back, I would say I'd probably try to slow you down from that. I probably dove into supportive mode and was like, oh, sure, you think you need to take care of the kids and have extra time with them or be more available. I'm supportive of that and we'll make it work was always my attitude. I think maybe I would've slowed down and said, is there a different way? Is there a way we can support our kids but still allow you to continue to do what you're doing? That might've given us a better conversation in an intent to be supportive. I just was like, sure, but we'll make it work. We can do that.

Dana (11:06):

Yeah, that's true. And I think we have discovered over the years that decisiveness is actually one of my strengths, but sometimes a strength can be a bit of a weakness when we're so decisive. We're quick, I'm quick to act and I haven't really thought it through so well, I wouldn't say I regret any of that. I would say that it's funny how in marriage we can support each other in the way that we want to, but we're unintentionally letting our partner enable us because we get the best of ourselves, maybe using our strengths but not slowing down. And that is something that you're great about is saying, wait, can we be creative about this? Can we pause? Consider something before you go act. I can't tell you how many times over the years you've said to me like, wait, are you sure that's what you want to do? So I appreciate you for that and a million other things.

(12:01):

Okay, let's switch gears a little bit and talk about risk. I want to talk about risk because I don't think I've really shared on the podcast before the bit of our story where you and I over the course of a couple years were really feeling unsettled and we were content where we were, but we knew that God was trying to show us something and it felt like he was sorting some details out in our lives. That last detail that was put in place was completing the adoption of our incredible daughter and all those things kind of got sorted. We were sorted financially and it just kind of fell on our laps one day, oh my gosh, God is leading us to move to London, and we didn't have a lot of clarity about why we'd be going to London. We had a deep passion for what we were seeing happening in this early movement of what is now known as church online, but this was back in 2005, 2006, and it was going to require us to have an estate sale to sell everything we own to move our kids to another country, including our recently adopted daughter who didn't speak English yet both of our kids had been receiving some therapy, occupational therapy for developmental things.

(13:19):

I mean, we had so much going on in our lives, we were very plugged into an incredible small group, and we made the decision together to take the risk and go to cash everything out and with a check move overseas and kind of try it for six months and see what God showed us. We've talked about that again, would we do that at this phase in life? And I think we're open to things like that in this phase of life as empty nesters, but we've also seen that maybe our place is a little bit different now. Our place is to support, to encourage, to expand, to kind of provide foundations for things instead of maybe going out and being on the bleeding edge of something. By the same token, I will always be so thankful for those years that we were overseas because it developed our marriage, it developed, our relationship with our kids, developed so much in them, and it also helped us learn how to take a faith risk.

(14:21):

So a lot of people listening to this podcast are individuals who are probably generally content in how they're living, but there's this kind of thought that wiggles around in the back of their brain every so often, this sense of I think there's more, and it's not a sense of God, I need you to give me more, God, I deserve more. It's like, God, there's something there and I'm really trying to place my finger on the pulse of what you might be doing and how I can engage in that. So if you were talking to someone, Chris, who is feeling that way, what advice would you have for them?

Chris (15:01):

Well, one thing that we have used just plenty in our life is the idea of being unsettled. And it is in moments of being unsettled that causes us, actually, it causes us to pay attention usually to God. I dunno about most of you, but I tend to, when things are going well, I tend to be a little bit less earnest, I suppose, in my prayers and in my spiritual life when things are tougher, when things are unsettled, those are the moments where I'm much more aware of what God's doing and listening to what he's doing. And so sometimes we want to get out of that situation as fast as possible. I like comfort, so I'm glad to go as fast as possible to just getting out of that discomfort or that discontent. And yet I think those are great moments to actually use and say, all right, what are you doing God in this moment?

(15:54):

At some point though, it does often lead you to a moment of risk. It's switching jobs, it's starting a business. And one of the things that I think has driven both of our decision-making over time is a belief that at the end of the day, God will take care of us. And so I kind of go to this when you're thinking about risk, and I don't really think about it. I don't think, oh, this is a moment I've got to process risk and how bad is this or how good is it? But I just in general think, you know what? At the end of the day, no matter what happens, God will take care of us. And so we can choose a path that might actually be wrong. And if you go down the kind of few steps of that, it's like, well, how bad is this really?

(16:36):

If it doesn't go well, oftentimes we'll be completely fine. We've got maybe some savings to help us or depending on the risk, we've got ways to protect ourselves. But at times I also just think you've got to move forward and know that even if things go really poorly, even if you've got to start over, in some ways, God will take care of you. And that next phase or that next stage of growth will be all the more informed by the failure you did have. But oftentimes I see God just works it out and helps us succeed in, especially if he's given us the discomfort or given us the discontent, he's driving us towards some change. And if we'll take that risk, we often, I mean almost every time we've felt like it was a good move to make if it was physically moving or changing jobs or changing, even me leaving my own job recently, it was discontent that led to, okay, I need to make a change. And once we've gotten through that change, even though the early parts are difficult, I think we get to a point where it's like, oh, this is good. And even if it's not as great as I thought or it wasn't quite the answer I was looking for, all of a sudden I see a lot more new options because I've closed off whatever I left behind.

Dana (17:52):

Yeah, that takes me back. Even as you're sharing that to remembering in the scenario where we moved overseas, we didn't actually have savings. My goodness. Bless our parents. We told both of our parents, yeah, we are moving and your grand babies, we're moving them to another country and we don't know exactly what we're doing yet. And it did all come to fruition. We did get clarity once we were there, but it was a really touchy time as far as we didn't have a lot of things built in the place. But I would say even as you're sharing that now, it makes me think you and I had and have now the shared value of learning. I mean, that's part of the reason this podcast is called Been There, learned that we wanted to invest in learning with the possibility that it would expand God's kingdom with the possibility that we would grow, that it would advance our relationship as a family, our understanding for jobs that we would have in the future.

(18:49):

There were so many things that attracted us, and what's wild is to look back. Now that we have the hindsight completing our daughter's adoption, so many parts of that experience prepared us for our years overseas. They wouldn't seem like they directly relate and they don't, but they're correlated in the fact that what God was doing spiritually in us prepared us for the next season. What God did in the years that we were overseas prepared us for coming back to the States and the role that you took and the roles that I've been in since then as well. And all of those things combined to this very moment where you and I are in my home office huddled around a microphone recording this podcast, and it's a very sweet, comforting thought to look back because it didn't feel so sweet in the moments of obedience. We had enthusiasm and excitement, but there were plenty of nights where we were just like, we have no idea what's happening here.

(19:45):

Did we mess up our lives? And thankfully we didn't, but it didn't all fall apart. And I think two things that were so difficult for us, the most difficult things for us and all the risks we've taken over the years have been what do the people we care about think the risk of being misunderstood and are we going to ruin things financially and what's the impact going to be on our kids in our marriage? Those are kind of the three big rocks that we would often look at, even if we felt that God was leading us to do something because we had to consider those. So the risk maybe isn't even so much in the decision. Maybe the risk isn't taking the job or starting the business. The risk is what could be the potential fallout if I move forward in that decision? And for us, the catalyst has been getting on the same page and staying on the same page and knowing that we would wait for the other person to arrive at agreement.

(20:49):

And there have been times we've thought about things and maybe one didn't get there spiritually or the other one didn't get there spiritually and we just didn't do it. But there have been times where you would come to me and say, Hey, I feel like God's showing me this. No pressure. I just want you to think about it and pray about it. I remember one time in particular I was like, that's a heck no, but okay, I'll pray about it. And two weeks later I just woke up with a completely different heart energized to follow this idea that you had shared for our family. And I love that we've been so blessed to have this journey of iteration that that's what life is. And that's why maybe even though sometimes I experience stress in leading my business, it is just completely an iteration. It really is about the journey of my business. It's about the journey of our marriage, about the journey of knowing Jesus better and kind of stumbling forward and not thinking so much about the outcome, but the experience. Who can I serve today? What is God asking me to do today? And it takes the pressure off of thinking I have to do something big that's risky, but it also gives us the energy we need when the opportunities come along for us to take a risk. So

Chris (22:05):

Just some thoughts. I do think I go back to the example you gave there in those days back in London. It was really our first experience. I don't know why, I kind of know why it changed, but we started talking every night at length about what was going on, about the things we were trying to succeed in the ministries we were starting or trying to improve or grow. And actually that time of not having family around, not having any scheduled events almost whatsoever, it gave us a lot of time to talk through those things and pray through those things. And I do think about that alignment became really, really huge for both of us to, we've taken some fairly big risks and we've made some fairly big moves and often, but I think it's because we get aligned on things pretty fast. Or even if we're not aligned, we know that's probably not the answer.

(22:59):

And it's something that I feel like a lot more people could embrace, which is if you're in a married relationship, I do think it's important as often as possible to find something that you're both excited about or something you're both in agreement upon. I mean, you or I both will bring each other high energy excited ideas often, and the other one's like, what? I'm not into that, I don't like it or whatever. And that's actually been a great litmus test for us to say, oh, okay, you know what? I'm excited about that, but my energy may die on that pretty quickly. But then when we agree on something, whether through prayer over a little bit of time or just quickly agree to it, that's allowed us to step forward with a whole lot of confidence together. We're both in it. We can, even if the world is or parents or whatever are frustrated with us, we've been able to say, yeah, but we're confident in this because we've made this decision together, we've prayed about it and we're moving forward on it together.

Dana (24:02):

Yeah, that's really true. That's true. Yeah, I can think of some of those scenarios where you or I had ideas and the other was like, what are you even talking about right now? But I think the creating a space in our relationship where you can bring all the ideas and there's no sense of rejection in that, it's just like, Hey, I want to run this by you. That has really served us well to create kind of an entrepreneurial, let's be open to God doing something environment in our home, but also not just pulling the trigger on everything for all the things that we've said yes to. There've probably been 10 times as many things that have been like, that's a no or that's a no for now, or that's a never to be able to have clarity in that feel so good. And I think the way we've been able to do that is all the conversations, these are our values, these are the things that matter to us.

(24:52):

This is what's important for our children's development right now. Here's what we need in the workplace, whatever that looks like. I'm really thankful and I'm really thankful, Chris, you have led us to that. I mean, you have led us to that point. You led us to that point early. In fact, I wasn't planning on going here, but I think it started the Sunday after we got back from our honeymoon. Do you know where this is going? Of course. Absolutely. Okay. He knows where this is going. So the Sunday after we got back from our honeymoon, we were in this little condominium we lived in, and I still had a semester of college left and I was working and Chris was working full-time at the university where I was attending. And we, as you can imagine, so we were one income family at that point. I think I worked maybe part-time. How much money do you think you made then back in the day?

Chris (25:48):

20 something, maybe 30,

Dana (25:50):

I dunno. Yeah. And then when I finally got my job, I made $19,000 a year. So that was a big deal for us. But I remember we got back from our honeymoon, we had opened all the gifts, kind of the excitement of all of that was over. We're back in our condo and it's Sunday morning and I'm eating a bowl of cereal or something in the kitchen. And do you remember what you said? You're kind of like, you were like, how long is it going to take you to get ready for church or something like that?

Chris (26:18):

Yeah, maybe It didn't look like you were quite in the process of getting ready. You were still in your row eating some Cheerios, and I just said it was time to get going or pretty close to it. Yeah,

Dana (26:30):

He was kind of like, well, we're going to church. And I was like, what kind of, we just got back from our honeymoon. I'm kind of tired. I was starting school the next morning, my last semester. And you also, I might be mixing stories here, which I do do on occasion. So if this wasn't the exact same morning, it was close to, he also wanted to tithe. He wanted to give 10% of our earnings and 10% of the money that had been given to us for our wedding. And I was like, hold up. Who did I marry and why have we not talked about this before? And I literally, how old was I when we got married? 21. It was right before I turned 22. I basically had an adult slash toddler tantrum right there. What you want to give us money and you want to go to church today?

(27:21):

How much can you expect of me? And since then, when we've laughed and talked about it, Chris has been like, I was a little bit, I can't Ms. Church. There was some legalism in there, but he has always come from a heart of let's engage wherever we are. Let's meet people, let's commit, let's contribute. And that was something I had to develop over time, which he's been very patient with me about. But it's funny because we were out of alignment there and he let me be out of alignment. There was no, listen, this is what we're going to do. It was just more like, this is kind of my preference. And something in me was like, oh my gosh, if I don't get changed real quick, he's just going to go to church without me. I don't want him pursuing God without me. I am so thankful that that's been probably your approach to leadership in our home a lot over the years. You're not heavy handed or forceful. You kind of express what you're thinking, but you're also not going to make me go along with you. And I'm grateful for that because it worked

Chris (28:25):

Well. I appreciate it. You have brought us a great wisdom though, and being you were the decisive one in this relationship and know the answer to everything immediately, and yet, for me, that's a wonderfully positive thing. I can circle and stew in things for a long, long time, but even spiritually, that's been wonderful. Oftentimes you're like, we need to go do this, or we need to read this or do this thing at church, and I can be a little bit slower to get engaged. And so it's a wonderful combination. Yeah,

Dana (28:58):

I think we're a good pair. I think we're going to make it.

Chris (29:01):

I do too.

Dana (29:03):

Okay. One more question for you before we wrap up, and that is, right now you're taking an extended sabbatical, chose to step away from your leadership role last year and you're a few months into it now. And I would love for you to share any just lessons you're picking up as you shifted from an extremely intense experience of being the CEO of a software company that had people in a few different countries all over the us, you shifted out of that and downshifted to crickets, literally. What is God showing you through that right now?

Chris (29:42):

I think at least beforehand, a couple of the things that I made me slow to make the decision was, one is there's this still career oriented thinking like, oh, if I get off this train, I can never get back on the train, and if I get off this train, I'm just going to fall into it abyss and never be able to participate in the world again. And it's been wonderful to get on the other side of this and just be like, oh yeah, I'm just not working right now and there will be a time where I'm working again, and that will be fine. And people will accept or not accept the fact that I took a break, but I can jump back into it whenever the time is right. I think I also just think about, I was so engaged in work and felt so responsible for the outcomes of everything that happened at the company, that I kind of also had this, what am I?

(30:39):

How's this going to get handled without me there? And we went through a search process and found somebody to take on the role of CEO, and having spent time with him afterward and actually just being gone for a while, I'm like, oh, yes, just there are plenty of responsible humans in the world that can do the things that we do. It will be just fine and God's taken care of it. And I thankfully don't, I think very, very little about the business day to day and know that it's in good hands and things will be fine. And so I think just responsibility, I'll pick on that one. I think a lot of us have that feeling. I think women especially have that feeling of like, I am the responsible one in this relationship or in this job or in this position. And I think it is a wonderful thought and it's a freeing thought to know that you are responsible and that is good and you do wonderful things, but God has other people he could put in that role if he needs to. And if it's time for you to step away or take a risk or whatever, it'll be just fine.

Dana (31:41):

Yes, that's a word. Thank you for that. As you said that, it just reminds me of advice I got years ago that has been become such wisdom in my life, and that is that we want to take what God has called us to seriously, but we don't want to take ourselves too seriously. And you're really exemplifying that, I think even in exemplifying confidence and not having a title or a paycheck or anything like that right now, but still showing up and loving on people and continuing the relationships that you have, certainly supporting me and my business and our kids, and just our whole network of friends and family. And I honor you for that. And I also honor you for just on a random afternoon saying, okay, yes, I'll come sit in your office and you can ask me questions. I didn't know what you were going to ask me. So you're very brave. And like I said, you're my favorite. Thank you so much for being here, sweetie. I love having you here. And everyone, thank you so much for enjoying us for another episode of Been There, learned that If you learned something from our Little chat today, take a moment. Send me an email at dana@danabycoaching.com or leave us a five star review. Thanks so much. We'll see you on the next episode.