Big prayers for our redemptive work
Jordan Raynor sits down with Duane Blasdel, Camp Director at Mapleridge Ranch, to talk about what Duane did to increase his camper retention rate from 40% to 80%, why boards of advisors are so valuable and how to easily build one, and his powerful testimony of seeing God do “immeasurably more” than he could imagine in his work.
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[0:00:05.3] JR: Hey everyone, welcome to the Call to Mastery. I’m Jordan Raynor. This is a podcast for Christians who want to do their most exceptional work, for the glory of God and the good of others. Each week, I host a conversation with a Christ follower, who’s pursuing world-class mastery of their craft. We’re talking about their path to mastery, we’re talking about their daily habits and routines and how their faith influences their work.
Today, you’re going to hear from my dear friend, Duane Blasdel. He’s the Camp Director of Mapleridge Ranch, this amazing summer camp in Upstate New York. Duane’s been in that role for about seven years or so now.
Before that, Duane spent years as a student pastor at churches in Tampa and Nashville. I’ve known Duane for a long time. I’ve seen him grow to become a truly masterful leader and he’s on the of the biggest of the Call to Mastery, which made this conversation flow really, really nicely. This is a terrific episode.
Duane and I talked about what he did to increase their camper retention rate from 40% when heh started to 80% where it’s at today. We talked about why boards of advisors and directors are so valuable as you try to master your craft and how you can easily build on, regardless of the size of your organization.
Duane also shared his incredibly powerful testament of seeing God do immeasurably more than he could have imagined, or even prayed for in his work. You guys are going to love my friend, Duane Blasdel. Please enjoy this episode.
[EPISODE]
[0:01:47.8] JR: Duane Blasdel, long-time listener, first-time caller. Thanks for doing this, man.
[0:01:53.2] DB: You're welcome, man. I appreciate the honor. I'm honored to be asked to do it and I'm excited to talk a little bit today.
[0:01:58.2] JR: By the way, I was trying to remember prior to this, how long have we been hanging out together? When do we start hanging out?
[0:02:03.7] DB: Yeah. I’ve always known of Jordan Raynor even since when you're in high school, but we actually started hanging out in 2013. We were Twitter friends and I reached out to you right after I moved to Maple Ridge and I messaged you via Twitter, direct message and I guess I slid into it, it's what they call it, the kids call it these days and you responded to an invite and we met at Oxford Exchange. It was really the official time we met was in 2013 at the Oxford Exchange.
[0:02:30.3] JR: I think they just published startup stories. I was working on startup stories.
[0:02:33.7] DB: No, you were working on it. You were working on it. Yeah. Then you were publishing that –
[0:02:36.2] JR: Which you actually told me recently, you just read that recently, which blew my freaking mind, because I forgot all about that book.
[0:02:43.8] DB: Honestly, not because I'm on your podcast I would say this, but I've literally told other people about it. That's one of my favorite books. It was so encouraging for me when I first got started at the ranch, because I was at that beginning, that startup phase a little bit. It was awesome. Yeah, dude. That one and the other one. What's the one about the three things, like to stand out or whatever?
[0:03:00.1] JR: Stand out, my first pamphlet. By the way, people are listening, they're like, “What the heck are these guys talking about? I'd never heard of these books.” Before Called to Create, which I traditionally published and then of course, Master of One, I self-published two books. One of them was called Startup Stories about our experience running cities investor and lessons learned from that. Then this other one that's basically a pamphlet called Stand Out. It's basically me being a crotchety old man, telling kids to check their e-mail and be excellent at work. I don't even know if those books are still for sale. I got to check that. If anyone wants one –
[0:03:32.3] DB: They can e-mail me and I'll send them my copy, and as long as they send it back, I guess.
[0:03:36.5] JR: That's right. We met up right as you were taking over Mapleridge as camp director. Before we go any further, tell us a little bit about Mapleridge. What makes this summer camp unique, Duane?
[0:03:46.5] DB: I like to describe it as we're an old-school traditional resident summer camp, where kids coming on Sunday, leave on Saturday. I think one of these unique things about Mapleridge as as culture is changing and we're so connected via digital computers and texting and phones and all the different stuff that we have in social media, that there's something unique about getting away from all those distractions. If you think about it, there's not a lot of those opportunities for us, especially kids to experience that.
One of the unique things about our camp, one obviously we're Christian and we're all about making much of Jesus and we want to see kids live life to the fullest. The other one is we really love that they can get disconnected, so there's no electronics, no social media, no cellphones in camp. That goes all out through the staff. That part is really unique and that's really one of the cool things that we've seen our campers love so much about going to camp now.
[0:04:35.0] JR: They show up and they literally have to check their phones in?
[0:04:38.7] DB: Well, they don't even bring them. If they do bring them, yeah, they got to put them in chief’s office, so pretty awesome.
[0:04:43.9] JR: I never went to summer camp. What do you do at summer camp?
[0:04:47.3] DB: Obviously, there's all kinds of different types of camps, right? There’s sports camps, there’s day camps. You know, what we do at Mapleridge is we are that traditional thing, where it's a sleepaway camp. A couple of the fun things we do, kids will pick skills that they want to try, or activities they want to do and they'll do those every single day. You get everything from paintball, riflery, archery, horses, climbing tower to how to learn to build a one-match fire, to taking an [inaudible 0:05:11.3], setting up in the woods and hanging out with your friends in camp.
What's cool about our camp is kids come from all over the place. We're not a church camp. We're basically for anyone ages 7 to 17, so when your daughters get older, send them to camp where they can be disconnected and they'll meet people from all over the country all over the world, right? They'll experience things they don't get to do at home anymore, right? Things that I did growing up, kids don't get to do.
Every kid goes on a campout on Wednesday night, which is awesome. They cook their dinner over a fire on Wednesday night out in the woods. They cook the breakfast Thursday morning in the woods. They get to hear the sounds of the bullfrogs and maybe the coyotes. They just experience that. Then obviously, we have worship and we do crazy big games and we have a huge dance party we do every Tuesday night. We have a lot of traditional things, which is what really is unique about camp.
I think if you never experienced camp like yourself, a lot of times you think, “Well, that's weird.” Once you experience, it gets in your blood and those traditional things draw people back. That's why we've seen our return rate go from about 40% to over 80%.
[0:06:17.8] JR: That’s nuts. I want to come back to that in a minute. Let's back up a little bit. You were in youth pastoral ministry before taking over the camp. What led you to make that transition?
[0:06:28.9] DB: I grew up at this camp, so as a kid. My dad was the director there for 34 years. I was a year old when my dad became the director, so that's all I ever knew. I went to Liberty, got my undergrad in student ministry, because I didn't know there was camp degrees back in the 90s available to you. I was there, did that and I was planning on becoming the camp director. That was always my desire, or working at a camp.
Then God just redirected through some relationships to an opportunity to intern at Ottawa Baptist Church in Tampa after my senior year and I ended up, fall in love with that. I ended up doing student ministry there for eight years.
It was really cool, because I really began to have a greater sense of how awesome the Big C Church is and how important that is connected to camp. I think growing up, I really put camp above church as far as value. Being a part of the student ministry for 13 years really strengthened my love for the church and realizing that now what we do at the camp complements the church. It doesn’t supplement the church.
After about my year eight in student ministry, I was like, “Now, camp’s not going to happen. I'm just going to be student pastor, associate pastor on the church someday.” Yeah, and then God just redirected. It's been really cool.
[0:07:40.4] JR: You started your career being like, “Oh, man. I want to be my dad. I want to be a camp director.” Then you get into pastoral ministry. You're like, “I love this.” Then eventually, you take over your dad at the same camp, at Mapleridge. We're going to go a little deep here on our friendship, Duane.
I'm always curious about fathers and sons, especially the relationship of the family business, right? My dad who's probably listening to this episode right now, so I got to be careful here. Runs a family business and has wanted me to be a part of it and run it for a long time and that just hasn't been where I feel the Lord has been calling me in my career. Did the fact that the camp was the family business caused you to run towards or away from that opportunity?
[0:08:25.3] DB: I think initially when I was a kid, or maybe in college, man, I always saw the potential, like what camp could be at the ranch, is what we call it. I thought I'd go there, but I didn't know. That was a thing. Once I got in the student ministry, I really just did not see myself going back to the camp.
Now the problem was was that every time we go on vacation, where is vacation? You go back to see your family in upstate New York. Every time I would go back every year, I would just get this drawback, “Man, this could be awesome. This could be cool. What if this happened?” I remember in 2006, God just really opened my eyes, I'm in submission now seven years and opened my eyes to the idea of being the director.
By the time my kids were four, five, three, I remember saying to my dad, I was like, “Hey, if there was ever a time where you to retire, I would at least, I may consider the idea of you throw my name in the hat.” That went away. He was talking about never retiring and I knew that relationship, I couldn't really – I knew that for the love of my father and he knew for the love me that we couldn't work together and I don't know. I don't know if that make sense or not, but I knew we couldn't work together, but I knew I loved carrying on the legacy and I'd love to see the camp become. That was the draw, but then it died.
I ended up moving to Nashville in 2007, instead of going to work at Judson Baptist, a much smaller church on where I was at and didn't really understand why God drew us there, but just felt like it was the right thing. Then in 2012 when my father announced he was going to be leaving, it was as if God had opened the floodgates. I had never been given a clear vision, or a passion, or excitement about something that I shouldn't have been that excited about quite honestly, knowing what I was about to step into, or didn't know what I was about to step into, I guess.
[0:10:10.2] JR: Because you didn't step into the easiest of situations. I mean, the camp had been around for a long time, but there were lots of room for improvement. I've always looked to you as a masterful leader and that's really borne out of your just tremendous experience at Mapleridge.
I mean, you mentioned the staff before, I think it's the most important one in a business like yours. You guys are non-profit, but going for 40% retention rate to 80% retention rate is insane. What do you think really led to that increase in customer camper satisfaction and increase in retention?
[0:10:44.2] DB: Yeah. I think when I began to see what the camp could be, they were doing everything under the sun. It was like a country, but the Old Country Buffet mentality, let's do everything. I just saw that, I guess to say like with Jim Collins, I think that's the name, right? Good to Great, what's the one thing we could do well and be known for? For me, the passion and excitement was summer camp and that actually. We laid that out. I was like, “What if we became just a summer camp?”
[0:11:10.2] JR: You guys were doing more than that at that point? I didn't realize that.
[0:11:13.1] DB: Yeah. I mean, the camp was doing special Olympic riding, they were doing family reunions, Girl Scout groups would come, hay rides for churches, ladies retreats, father/son retreats, they were going 365 days a year. Unfortunately, just wasn't doing very well at it. It was doing okay, but it wasn't growing. At the time, the only staff member was me, so I laid out. I was like, “If we become a camp, if I come, but we got to be a summer camp and do it just that.”
Oh, by the way, we were working farm too, because we had 25 horses as well. I think that was probably the biggest key was know okay, what is the one thing we're going to do and do it really, really well.
Then the other thing that I thought was the key initially was our facilities are okay. They're not great. Our programs are okay, they're not great. The food was okay, but not great, but the one thing is if we can have the best staff and that customer relationship experience, that personal connection, if we have that we bring the best staff in, then that's all that matters.
Because if a camper has an okay food program and facility experience, but they have a great staff member, a counselor, they're going to keep coming back. That's what we focused on from the beginning. I spent 90% of my time trying to hire the best staff.
[0:12:23.7] JR: I love the intense focus. I mean, listen, I just wrote a book called Master of One and focus on our careers. Obviously, I'm a big believer of it within organizations. It's a lot easier to identify what that core competency is, what you as an organization could be disproportionately good at.
It's another thing when you're coming into an existing organization and killing things, right? Saying, “Okay, we've been doing this for 20 years. We're not doing it anymore. Here's why and this is all we're doing.” What lessons did you learn from that about how to do that effectively?
[0:12:59.0] DB: There's definitely multiple approaches to it, especially growing up not being in the church ministry world. I'd always learned okay, if a new pastor comes into a church, you take the first year just to get to know the people, love on the people. That's definitely a really incredible approach if the organization is healthy and is going in the right direction and you feel that culture is pretty stable.
I just realized that we had to rip the Band-Aid off at the beginning. That was the hardest part was just saying okay, we're going to have to cut stuff. Being the guy to make the cut, that really made me a stronger of a leader, I guess, having to make those decisions. Oh, by the way, it's your parents that you took over for.
I think once we just kept the vision very, very clear, we kept saying it over and over and over again. Hey, we're all about seeing kids’ lives change for eternity. Make that the main thing. If we're doing that, all these other decisions will make sense down the road. It was about year four or five when I think people get to realize, “Oh, wait. I get it now.”
[0:13:55.0] JR: You got to say it that many times against the leader of any organization. One, you've got to get crystal clear on what the core of the organization is and you have to say it so much that people can just recite it verbatim all the time, right?
That's how long it takes for people to actually get it. You mentioned staffing, hiring people, interviewing people, that process, it's one of the core strengths you've got to have to be successful as a leader of any organization. You guys have done that really well. You've gotten really good at hiring camp staff, which I got to imagine is not the easiest staff to hire. You're hiring 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds. What have you learned through that process of how to do that well?
[0:14:35.7] DB: Obviously for us, we're not a huge camp, but we're still hiring between 30 and 50 college-age kids, ages 18 to 24. We're not just doing it once. We're doing every single year. I think for me, it's all about relationships.
Our core was instead of just going and setting up at every single school that we'd known to man and setting up a booth and just drawing people from the streets, which a lot of people have to do a lot of camps do, but they're really large, I really leveraged our relationships, like those that were student pastors, those that were college pastors, those that I knew, hey do you know someone that love Jesus, love kids and love having fun? I can teach them everything else if they have those three things. Then let's do that.
Then obviously, the interview process is huge. I'll be honest, I didn't create my interview questions. I end up asking a camp much farther down the road than us. I said hey, I asked my friends at Camp Ridgecrest for boys. My real good friend, Phil Berry, I said, “Hey, do you have a interview format I could use?” They said, “Absolutely.” I've been using that now for seven years.
[0:15:34.1] JR: What's the number one thing you're looking for in interviews with camp staffers? What's the number one quality you're looking for?
[0:15:40.3] DB: I mean, I think confidence. Then also for us, it’s like, man, that their walk with the Lord is very evident in everything that they're doing. If you think about it, if you're a college kid and you're living for Jesus and you're sold out and you're committed to college ministries on a public university, you're different, right? I mean, you're definitely living it out.
That's been some of our best counselors are those that are plugged into campus ministries, at the larger universities around the country and they want to give up their summer to serve. If they have a servant's heart too, the second thing.
[0:16:13.6] JR: Yeah. There might not be a Mapleridge Camp this summer, right? We're in the middle of this coronavirus crisis. This is about as big of a crisis as you can deal with as the leader of a summer camp. I'd love to ask you this question in a year when you get some hindsight, but right now what leadership lessons are you learning in this crisis?
[0:16:33.5] DB: I think one, for me personally, it's like what is my idol? A lot of times, I think maybe camp has become more of an idol for me than even the Lord at times, you know what I mean? At work. I think for me, it's just been a huge reminder personally like, “Okay, this isn't the most important thing in life.” That's just a personal thing I've learned.
I think also as a leader though, it's like man, communication is key, like still communicating on a regular basis.
I haven't personally been pushing the envelope on let's get more kids signed up for camp or anything, but I'm trying to stay in front of our families, our staff, those that we've already hired and just said, “Hey, we're there for you. We're caring for you. Hey, how can we pray for you?” For us, it's all about the relationships more than the actual experience of camp. Let's just continue to be there for that. That's what's been really neat is the families that I'm able to share and how we could pray for them and how we can encourage them even along the way.
Yeah, so if you would ask me, well I think you did ask me last week, I was like, yeah, a 100%, after having some conversation with just people. Bold prediction, I'm a hopeful yes, even today Governor Cuomo said he's trying to get things back online. The reality is you can't social distance at all in camp. We sit at a picnic table to eat all of our meals in the dining hall. It's like, how do you sit – you're rubbing elbows literally.
It's really just going to be a matter what the state says. We're going to try to make it. We have some contingency plans. I mean, I think for those kids. I mean, there's so many kids, so my staffer looking forward to it, that it's one thing they could still have holding out that hasn't been cancelled yet. I'm prayerfully hoping we do, but preparing as if we might not.
[0:18:09.4] JR: You're one of the first non-profit leaders on the podcast. In your space, boards are required. I mean, legally in most non-profits, right? You have to have a board, so they're a very common place in your world. Boards are pretty uncommon though for smaller for-profit companies, right?
They don't have formal C-class structures and boards of directors. You're now recently talking about how much value a board can provide and more broadly, just a community of people that you can go to run things by as your leading a venture, or non-profit, whatever. Can you share your perspective on that?
[0:18:48.5] DB: Yeah. I think one of the keys to being a leader, obviously an entrepreneur, you have to be willing to do anything and everything and know as much as possible. One of the things I learned from beginning was okay, I am not going to be master of every single thing. I have no idea how to do finance stuff. I'm not a lawyer. What does that look like? For me, I've always viewed it like it's a director-led, board served, but there's also relationship there.
For me, there was two board members on the board at the time when I was interviewing with the camp and they were high business, high finance and driven that way. That was the areas I wasn't comfortable with. They really were the reason, they may not even realize it, but they were the reason I felt comfortable coming on board and stepping into the role as the director, because I felt there are some people. They're like the guardrails to keep me in the straight and narrow. They’re a great resource.
We've had ups and downs as a board and we've had contentious discussions regarding different changes we've made over the last eight years. It's been really great to know I can pick up the phone and talk to a board member and just be able to get their opinion on stuff. Literally for the last three weeks, I've been probably on the phone more with board members than anybody else, just because I'm trying to make sure we make the wisest decision.
It just also allows you to broaden your network, also broaden the people you can reach when you can bring in different boards. We started out as a localized board initially, because the camp was very localized in 2012 and now we have board members from five different states. We've been doing Zoom calls now as board meetings for five years. Before, it was cool.
[0:20:20.9] JR: Before Zoom took over the world. I love boards. I'm actually in the process right now within Jordan Raynor and Company of forming a small advisory board. For a couple different purposes, all the ones you just mentioned. Other people's one thing is not your one thing, but you need those voices and the conversation.
Secondly, it provides accountability, it provides feedback. I talk a lot about this in Master of One. Submitting yourself humbly to the mentorship of people who have done what you've done at greater scales, or in different spheres, etc. I'm curious if you have any advice, or maybe there's somebody out there listening right now that’s like, “Okay, I want to do an advisory board, or whatever it is,” how do you effectively recruit that board member? What does that pitch look like for you? You guys aren't compensating your board, are you?
[0:21:07.5] DB: No, there’s no compensation. For us currently, not a ton of requirements to be on our board either. There's different approaches to whether or not they need to be giving member and all that stuff.
I just read a book last year called The Board Game. I don’t know if you've heard of it. It's written by a headmaster of a Christian school and then he was also on a board. It's just a story form and it was really powerful. A bunch of our board members read it and it's really just helping you understand the dynamics of the relationship between the board and the director and especially if you're a non-profit, like a school, or a Christian school, or an organization non-profit like me that's parachurch. It was really helpful.
I think for us, I'm always looking for people that are going to take us where we want to go. One of the reasons that I felt God calling us from Ottawa Baptist Church in 2007 to Judson Baptist Church in Nashville was, we went from a church of 6,500 active members on a Sunday to a church of 500. Your student pastor don't do that. We go the opposite way. We go up the ladder. I went down.
One of the reason why I was drawn to that church was that Pastor Jean had been a pastor of a “mega church,” and he really believed and was excited about this church that he just became to be the pastor up and he wanted to see them grow. He brought on staff members had already been where they wanted to go. That's the same approach we as a board have morphed. Just last month, one of our new chairman had said, we've been operating as a board of a 350,000 to 400,000 a year a budget, but when you start operating like a 3 million dollar a year budget board.
We've been picking out people that love Jesus, understand our mission, but know where we want to go to help us get to that next level. I'm realizing that the weaknesses I have, or the inefficiencies I have, I need those type of people around me to take me to that, because I've never been there. I think that's really the key is really praying, “Okay, who are people that you trust, that you know have the best interest for the organization and for you and can they take us where we want to go?”
[0:23:03.0] JR: I mean, you really want people who have been three steps ahead of you. By the way, I want to make sure our listeners understand something. Duane’s running in a non-profit where boards are required. You can build a board for your small business. I've done this many times before. I ask people, a group of five or so people to serve an advisory board, sit on a quarterly phone call for an hour. I've done that without compensation, but I've also done it with compensation, right? Giving them a very, very small percentage of profit.
When they're standing in a long line for coffee to be motivated to spend a couple of minutes of their incredibly valuable time, thinking about you and where you want to take your business for the glory God and the good of others. You listen to the show. You know we talk a lot about routines and habits. When you're at camp, I'm really curious what your day looks like, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed, what does a day at camp look like for a chief?
[0:23:52.5] DB: It's a little different than the rest of my 10 months out of the year. I typically get up about 6 a.m. and I know that if I don’t get up have a shower and have a quiet time, it's not going to happen the rest of the day.
The main house is called The Kimberly house and it's where some of the staff stays, where I stay. I always make sure I go on the front porch, which is the back porch of the house. I force myself to sit there until 7:45, because even at that point, kids are up and they're meeting at the flagpole and stuff’s happening in the kitchen and all that, getting ready for camp.
I have a program meeting at 7:45 in the morning. Then from that, we just go all the way through the day. Three out of the seven nights, or even more we'll have a campfire next to the house for a camp speaker and for some of the program staff. That usually happens around 10:30 at night and I usually go to bed around midnight. That's eight weeks straight and that's every night. I sleep pretty hard middle of August.
[0:24:45.4] JR: You're in an interesting role where when you're on site at camp, you actually don't do deep work, right? Because your job is to be responsive to your people and to be there for your team. When you're home, the other ten months of the year where you’re recruiting staff, you’re fundraising, whatever. I'm assuming you are trying to get deep work done, right? Do your habits change pretty significantly?
[0:25:11.9] DB: Yes. In fact, those habits have changed significantly over the last four or five years and really in the last two years. What I've done now, I'm pretty excited to get back to it once this coronavirus is over, the quarantine is over is I have a co-workspace I rent out just to go to to get out of the house, because I don't work as efficiently at home.
I've been doing this thing, I'm using the traffic as my deadline to get up and get out of the door. It's my forced meeting. I've been getting down to Bay three, armature works in Tampa where I live in the offseason and I'm been getting down there by 6:15. I used to turn the lights on in there and I love it. I'd get down there and I've just rocked it. I get a ton of work done and try to knock out before the traffic gets bad in the evening.
Now that I've read the Garden City and been listening to some more Garden City, John Mark Comer’s book about the Sabbath, I'm going to go in the fall. I'm going to go to a four-day a week, 10-hour work days and then really try to protect Friday and Saturday with my kids. If I go from 6 in the morning until 4 at night, you get 40 hours solid, plus obviously do whatever else I need to do. We'll try it. We'll see if it works.
[0:26:11.7] JR: It's funny. I was actually just thinking this morning about trying exact same thing. I don't know why. I haven't thought about this in a while, but Basecamp, 37signals the company that made Basecamp and a bunch of other great software products, they do this. They have four 10-hour days. Yeah, and they do it really, really well. They actually wrote a really good piece about how they're convinced that they're more productive as a result of this.
I think, I can be wrong, but I'm pretty sure Cal Newport talked about this in Deep Work, which I probably mentioned in every single episode of the Call to Mastery. Hey, I want to talk about another one of your habits.
A few months ago, you sent me a text and I don't say this lightly, I don't think I will ever forget this text message I received from you. You told me that for four years, you have been praying for me specifically, for my family and my business every single Friday.
Listen dude, we only see each other a couple of times a year, so I was flabbergasted by that. I know I'm one of many people on what I assume is a really long list of people you pray regularly for, if you don't mind a very intimate question, can you talk about your prayer habits and routines?
[0:27:20.9] DB: I just got goosebumps. I forgot I even sent that text.
[0:27:23.2] JR: I have thought about that frequently since you sent me that.
[0:27:27.0] DB: Obviously, we all have mentors in our life. For me, you know this gentleman, Pastor Jack Oliver. He is very consistent, has a ton of margin in his life. He's been practicing “the Sabbath” and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry long before it was written. One of the things he always does anytime I would talk to him, he would say, “Hey, I just want you to know I prayed for you this morning.” There are people that you hear, say they pray for you, just like, okay. Well, we all say, “I'll pray for you,” but I knew he did, because I’ve seen his journal. It means so much to me to know that he prays for me on a regular basis.
Then between him and then Pastor Mike Cahn, who was the adult pastor on staff at the church, he had developed a system of praying for certain people certain days of the week, because the reality is if you pray for every single person every single day, it just gets so long. I break it down Mondays is mostly family and then Tuesday is a portion of my friends, Wednesday is churches that I'm praying for and some friends I break out. Then on Friday, I've always just prayed for people that are solid believers that are trying to start their own businesses and I'm just praying that God's favor be on their life.
You have invested in me without even realizing it so much over the last seven years. How could I not be praying for Jordan Raynor and Company? When you succeed, I just feel like I'm a part of that. It's just awesome. There's a ton of people on that. I mean, not a ton. Actually, it's a very small list, but those people I pray that God will show them favor, because we need the advancement of the kingdom. Fridays are the days I pray for those that are in businesses trying to make great work.
[0:28:59.6] JR: I love that so much. That's so practical too. I love the idea of a different group of people every day of the week. That's really smart. Hey, so that's actually a really good segue to something I wanted to ask you about. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I seem to recall in a conversation I think you and I were having tea recently and we were talking about how over time, so again, pre-Mapleridge, you’re a student pastor, you're I'm sure giving lots of career advice, advice on career and calling to young people.
As time goes on, you've been encouraging more and more young people to pursue careers outside of my least favorite term, “full-time ministry,” or my new favorite term for this, religious professionals. Can you talk about your personal journey on this topic?
[0:29:45.3] DB: Yeah, I do believe there's a calling on some people's lives to be pastors, to be preachers. The pastor's that you and I know in our lives, there's no doubt they should be doing that. I've met so many young adults, Millennials or just people in their 20s and 30s that they were encouraged to abandon what they felt they were really good at to be going to ministry and then nothing's really come of it. They thought they'd be a pastor of a church somewhere, or be a student pastor.
The reality is that we need believers everywhere in all the different fields doing things with excellence. I think that's why I resonated so well with your book and also with Garden City was just the idea, we are called to create, we are called to work and that God has given certain people gifts. If you're a nurse, you have a calling on your life.
Nurses are amazing. They need to be nurses. I have a daughter wants to be a doctor and she knows it and she's not even questioning it. I just want to encourage that. I think we are called to be tent-makers, we’re called to be in the lives of people and just doing it very, very well. That's why I've just really loved Call to Mastery. I've talked to probably five different college kids and those in their 20s in the last three or four weeks just saying, “It’s okay. Pursue this. We're all called to full-time ministry. We're all on full-time ministry. It's not some just get paid to do it.”
[0:31:06.8] JR: Amen. Jesus didn't come just to save souls. He came to redeem all things, to resurrect all things. We're recording this right now after Easter. Easter was the inauguration of the kingdom in which Christ has invited us as his vice regents, as his ambassadors to go out into every corner of creation and to claim those things under the kingship and the authority of Jesus Christ, to work to eradicate coronavirus, to work to build amazing summer camps, where people can engage with each other and build community and enjoy nature and build businesses that reflect his creative character.
[0:31:45.0] DB: I work with college kids. Really when I went into the camp minister, I really was thinking I was going to be ministering to kids. God, over the first three or four years really drew me to realize no, my main primary ministry is to college kids and that's where I'm finding so much joy.
For this summer, we're going to be talking a lot about just the idea that they're called the full-time mission. Sometimes they get caught up in what God's will is for their life and the reality is that you know what you're passionate about, you know what you're excited about. Just go and pursue that. If you do it, you're going to find pure peace.
Obviously, you're not going to get there right away. I think for me, it took me 13 years before I really found what I really knew was my calling, which was to run summer camp. That’s what I get passionate about more than anything. I think once you have that passion, people see it, they're going to confirm it in you. That's what is happening to me. I've seen that in college kids. I want to come alongside them and confirm them in what they're feeling. Yeah, a 100%. It’s been incredible to see that shift a little bit.
[0:32:41.2] JR: I do think there is a shift happening. I pray that me my team could play a small part in that and I pray every day that more and more people will be talking about this more frequently. I mean, you've been on a pastoral staff, what can church leaders be doing right now today to show kids the eternal significance and goodness of all God glorifying work?
[0:33:05.5] DB: It's so easy when you're in student ministry and in pastoral ministry to get excited about those that go into full-time ministry. Those stories are just so easy to tell. I think the key is telling the stories of those who have gone off to do amazing things in the nursing field, in the business field, whatever feel that can tell all those stories.
I think when Pastor David Platt was in charge of the International Mission Board, he changed some of the rules, as far as going and doing full-time missionary work overseas.
Well, you can have incredible missionary work overseas doing a “regular job” and do it really, really well over there. Then you know what, pay you to be a missionary, you're getting paid to be over there and you're still a missionary. I think that that was huge and I love that shift. I think we need to start talking more along those lines with kids and Christians.
Hey, now you can be in the missions field. Man, go get a nursing degree, go get your PA degree, go get your accounting degree and do it overseas and be a missionary that way, or be in your neighborhood. I think it's huge.
[0:33:58.2] JR: I know we have a lot of pastors who actually listen to this show, which I love. I want to make this super practical. I actually gave this advice to a group of pastors in South Florida recently of three practices we can do to help solve this problem in the church. Number one, just stop saying full-time ministry. You got to come up with better terminology for that. I'm digging religious professionals right now.
Secondly, you brought up this idea that we really celebrate the commissioning of people going in a mission field. I think when we do that, I think we should do that of course. We should bring missionaries up in front of the congregation and celebrate them, pray for them and send them on their way. If we don't also do that when teachers go back to school and when people get new jobs in corporate America, I think we are explicitly sending a message to adults and children in the congregation that their work is less than, right?
I want to see every congregation. I mean, very practical, just have people stand up every Sunday who are starting a new job tomorrow and pray for them. You don't need to talk about what their specific jobs are. Just say, “Whatever your work is that you're going out in the world to do tomorrow, redeem it. You are doing redemptive work on behalf of the king.”
The third thing is I saw this done really well in South Florida, just bringing people up on stage monthly, quarterly, whatever, and asking them about what they're going to be doing this time tomorrow, right? Sunday morning 10:00 a.m., what are you doing tomorrow? Monday morning, 10:00 a.m. tomorrow and how does that contribute to human flourishing? Hopefully, that's helpful to some of you guys listening.
You recently in the last year experienced nothing short of a miracle in the life of Mapleridge. Can you share that story with us and what the Lord shown you through it?
[0:35:37.3] DB: Yeah. We about four years ago, started praying for the idea of building a lake. We felt the one thing we didn't have at camp was a lake. We looked in the idea of building one. God was just working our way towards doing that. Two years ago, we began preparing that way. Well then, out of nowhere our neighbor to the camp, we got word through my father actually who was actually talking to her, they were interested in selling a piece of property adjacent to us.
Well, the piece of property was 225 acres, which is incredible. Basically double our size of our camp property. On it was a 10-acre lake. We were going to build a 5-acre lake for maybe 400,000. Well, she ends up offering it to us, the whole piece of property of 225 acres for $409,000 which is an incredible price. Imagine, what can you buy in Tampa for $400,000? Not much. We were just so excited. The problem is, we don’t have money in the bank. We had money in the bank, but not enough to pay for this.
We asked her. We said, “Hey, would you give us a year? That camp would never raise that money, but would you allow us to take a year and raise the money?” I told her we don't have $40,000 in the bank. We don't $4,000 in the bank for this, but we know a God who owns the cattle on Thousand Hills and if he wants us to have it, he's going to provide for it. We set out with the idea of prayerfully going for it, man. If we can come up with 20%, 30%, 40%, well that be awesome.
Well, coming down to the end the month of October 2019, we as a board just began praying and fasting, asking the Lord, “Lord, will you provide? Will you provide? Will you provide?” He ended up allowing us to find a loan right at the end through an individual that was only for a $140,000. The rest was cash that we paid. We were able to pay cash and had this loan that we’re going to pay off in three years.
[0:37:18.1] JR: You raised $300,000.
[0:37:22.0] DB: Yeah. Then so that loan was a $140,000 and we were going to pay it off for two years. Well, the next month I was on the phone with the individual that loaned us that money and just tell him thank you, appreciate it so much. He's, “Oh, by the way. I wanted to let you and the board know, I'd like you all to tear that note up.” Literally right there within a year, God just provided all the money for the property. Paid cash. It was incredible.
For me, you hear of other people praying for God to do amazing things like that and you get excited for them, but to have that experience for us as a ministry and us as a board and myself personally, it was just like, wow, God really can do something farther more than what we can even ask or think. That's just been a really great testimony to who he is and just how he's used the community to do that. It has his people.
It was an incredible, incredible experience for him to hear him to say you could tear that note up. Reality is if we were in the situation right now and having a bunch of debt and going into this, we'd be in a completely different boat. Again, God took care of us.
[0:38:25.1] JR: As a leader, I'm assuming one of the lessons you got to be taken from this is man, our prayers are too small. How is that informing your prayers for the camp now? You got this property. What are your prayers look like for the camp now?
[0:38:39.4] DB: When I look back to my prayers of 2013 and 14, my prayers were like, “Man, well just give us 350 campers, give us 400 campers. Let us get a return rate of 65%. Help.” Because when we took over, we had a debt. I was like, “Let's just pay this debt off.” One of the books that was so formative in those early years was The Circle Maker and that blew my mind regarding prayers, because my prayers up at that point were very small.
This past three years, I've been circling and praying for a lake and God provided. Now we're praying, “All right, Lord. We want to build a new camp around this lake that's going to be three times the size of what we are currently.” We're almost completely sold out. We have no more extra beds, but we want to continue to see the advancement of the kingdom and might impact more lives. Now we're again, we're praying for several million dollars. We're praying for a new master site plan. We want to triple our attendance over the next five years. Now that's where we're stepping on a faith again to say, “Hey, Lord. We want to go there. Help us get there.”
[0:39:38.3] JR: When our motives are right and we are ambitiously pursuing the work God's created us to do and we can genuinely say our overriding ambition is his glory and the good of others, man, we should be bold in our prayers. We should not be ashamed to walk into the throne room with Christ opening the door for us to ask our great God to do immeasurably more than we could do in our own strength. What an amazing testimony.
[0:40:04.7] DB: My encouragement to anyone listening is start praying. Start praying big and going back to it, circling it over and over and over again and just trusting that he will do it. He will. I've seen it time and time again.
You might be listening and being like, “Oh, I don't own a business,” but do you have a family member that doesn't know Christ? Have you really sought the Lord of prayer if we go after him, or her every single day? Pray for their salvation. I think God honors it. He honors bold prayers. It's just been really cool to see him answer it.
I'm going to do it again. I've been praying right now for a miracle. I want God to eradicate this virus. He doesn't seem to be answering it, but I think he's trying to get our attention a little bit. He's answering in different ways, maybe not eradicate it immediately, but man, why don't we pray boldly and for miracles for him to do that stuff? It's time for the church to rise up and stop praying for our best friends, aunts, dog who died.
[0:41:01.2] JR: Which books are you giving away the most to others right now? Which ones are you recommending the most?
[0:41:05.6] DB: I probably don’t read as much as you. I wish I could, but I've given away the Circle Maker to all my board members twice over. Actually, our intern team just went through The Circle Maker. I know I Miss crystal Witten mentioned it once on the show. If you haven't read it, you need to pick it up, Mark Batterson. It's awesome.
The other one I've given away, especially for those that are discontent with what they're doing and they feel they want to do something more, I love Jon Acuff's book, Do Over. I've given that book away to so many people that feel like they're in a job where they're hitting a ceiling, or they're about to go through a transition where they feel they need to pivot, that book is very, very important. I give that one away a lot to people. It's very encouraging. He does a great job of just really helping you realize you can do more.
[0:41:47.0] JR: Yeah, it's a great book. You can find those of course at jordanraynor.com/bookshelf. I think Circle Maker is going to rise in the rankings of one of the most frequently recommended books here. Who would you most like to hear on this podcast?
[0:41:59.4] DB: Man, that's a great question. You've had so many incredible guests down here. You're doing a great job of procuring these awesome guests. You and I joked when we're back having to coffee or whatever it was, I just love that you were so bold, so honest like, “I’d love to Kanye West on the show.”
At first I was like, “Who is this guy? What is he talking about?” Then I’m like, “Of course, he's going to have Kanye West on the show.” [inaudible 0:42:18.6]. How does he – it just blows my mind. I think that will be incredible. Have you seen his interview with David Letterman?
[0:42:27.3] JR: No, I haven't seen it.
[0:42:28.4] DB: Probably before he really came out with all this new – it's older, but it's just so fascinating to watch him and his interviews. I highly recommend that. That would be awesome. Then the other one, I think if you haven't had him already is Jon Acuff. He's just incredible encourager. I mean, how do you not love Jon Acuff?
[0:42:43.3] JR: Jon and I have been talking and he's expressing interest in coming out. We just got to make it work scheduling-wise. I'll let you know when that happens. As we wrap up, you've given such great wisdom for leaders out there. Blow it down to one thing you really want our listeners to walk away with, this audience of people who love their work, because they believe –it's a means of glorifying God and serving others well. What do you want to leave them with?
[0:43:05.9] DB: If you're listening to this podcast on a regular basis, you get tons of stuff to take away and apply, which is just why I keep going back to it every single day, listening to it all time. I think, I'm a pretty practical person, right? I love the practice and habit of praying for people, praying for my employees, praying for my staff, praying for my friends. As a business owner, are you praying for those and actually letting them know? Encouraging them by letting them know you're praying for them.
Then I think also, it goes hand in hand. Man, there's are something powerful about a handwritten note. At camp, the only way to communicate with your kid is via snail mail, a mail. Mail time at lunch is one of the funnest times. Kids get mail and they open it up and they have the sink for their packages and then they afterwards, we have this thing called flat on back, where they – or a rest period basically. It's a chance for them to write letters. I watch the pastor of mine that was a pastor of a large church did that on a regular basis on this time off and I was like, “I want be like that guy.”
[0:44:04.1] JR: Inside my desk drawer right now is a handwritten note from Duane Blasdel that I keep handy all the time with a few others. Carey Nieuwhof has been on the show, I have a note from him in here. I have some notes from some of you out there who have sent us mail. I treasure those. This is a habit that I've really tried to start cultivating.
I want to commend you for just the exceptional work you and your team do at Mapleridge. I know many, many people who have gone to the ranch and had life-changing experiences there. Thank you for helping students see the eternal significance of their work inside and outside of the four walls of the church. Just man, on a deeply personal note, thank you again for your prayers, for your encouragement of me, my family and my work. I feel you're a partner of Jordan Raynor and Company.
Hey Duane, assuming that camp is happening, when's the latest people can register for camp at 2020?
[0:45:00.3] DB: Yeah, so as of right now, they can continue to register up until the weeks are full. I've already have a couple of sessions full already, but if there's a spot available and they want to sign up the day before, then it would be available on the website. Go mapleridgeranch.org/camp and all the information is there. You could register right there. If we're having camp, the beds available, we'll get them in the camp.
[0:45:20.9] JR: I love it. Duane, thanks for hanging out with me, man.
[0:45:23.4] DB: I love the podcast and I love you and your family. Thank you so much for having me on. You're a great friend.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:45:30.0] JR: Man, I love Duane Blasdel. I'm so glad that he was finally able to come on. Hey, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode of Call to Mastery. I'll see you next time.
[END]