Restoring Dignity and Hope: Serving Families in Crisis with Parker Bartholomew

Chapters

00:32 Introductions and Parker’s Background

04:11 The Founding and Growth of Angelic Ministries

06:15 Supporting Families in Crisis

11:31 Donations, Partnerships, and Community Collaboration

16:49 Tiny Homes and Affordable Housing Solutions

26:44 Leadership, Board Dynamics, and Faith

38:13 Closing Reflections and Mentorship

40:19 Conclusion

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Episode Transcript

[H2]Introductions and Parker’s Background

Todd Schmiedeler: Welcome everybody. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode. I am happy to have one of my good friends and a tremendous leader from Knoxville, Tennessee with us today, Parker Bartholomew. Thanks Parker for joining.

Parker Bartholomew: Glad to be here.

Todd Schmiedeler: Well Parker, before we get started, tell me a little bit about you and your role with Angelic Ministries, so that the audience might get some understanding about your professional and personal background.

Parker Bartholomew: Thanks so much Todd for having me here and giving me the opportunity to talk and explain what we do at Angelic, and why I'm passionate. I have been with Angelic now for almost five years. Started out just as a board member, but prior to that, I was in multiple businesses in Knoxville from real estate, real estate development, commercial and residential. Then I moved into some restaurants, so I own some restaurants here in Knoxville. And that's actually how I was introduced to Angelic. I was doing ministry work in general in Knoxville, street ministry, doing other ministry work with going into some of the projects and some of the housing developments here in town with my church.

I'd heard about Angelic, and then one of the board members who was selling me food products started talking about some real estate transactions that Angelic was getting involved with. Of course, me being me, I started telling him how they needed to do it. I was like, well, you need to do this and you need to do that. Eventually he said, you need to go talk to our executive director because you're over my head now on some of this stuff. They were doing an expansion that was pretty contentious.

Todd Schmiedeler: Okay. Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: It was contentious in the community and they needed some help getting through zoning and some building stuff. So, I started helping them there. At first they were like, we need you on the board. And I was like, no, I don't want to be on the board. I like doing what I'm doing and I'll help you and stay behind the scenes, but not ready to take the step to be on the board. So, throughout that process, it became very obvious to me.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: I was standing in front of zoning boards and other politicians and building officials, just being some guy that like real estate was probably inappropriate. So, it was time to take the next step. I then became a board member and started working through that process.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah. Amazing. I find that leadership sometimes comes when somebody asks you for your advice or sometimes you just give your advice. You're volunteering to actually be a leader. You just didn't realize it when you gave them the advice. Sounds like that's kind of what happened to you. And I know that you have a deep spiritual sense and your faith is a very big driving force for you. I know that Angelic has kind of that founding of a similar thing where it's a ministry, not just an organization, a nonprofit organization. Can you give us a little bit of the history of the founding of Angelic and how it's evolved over the last couple of years?

[H2] The Founding and Growth of Angelic Ministries

Parker Bartholomew: Angelic is a ministry in Knoxville that was founded about 20 to 22 years ago by some entrepreneurs here in town. One of them owned Knox Railroad Salvage. Guys were coming in who were living on the streets or down on their luck and Knox would start using them in the railroad salvage store. It quickly became an issue where there was a lot of folks coming in needing help, like with housing.

Betsy Frazier, who's the founder, saw a path or a need that was here in Knoxville to help the people who were disadvantaged or who were going through hard times. She really took it on herself to do something, and she just ran with it. It started out just in a little room in one of the stores and has since grown to, now it's in one of the buildings, a 70,000 square foot building in Knoxville. It's an old Merida red factory. Her husband Mike was amazing at being able to find deals on products and again, railroad salvage stuff.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: He also was in real estate and so and he would buy these old buildings that were big. It was kind of a natural fit and so Angelic grew into where they were just helping one or two people and now has grown to thousands of people a year that come through. We have multiple men that are going through a recovery program. We have a Families in Crisis Ministries. We also have a homeless function on Saturdays where we serve specifically the homeless population.

[H2] Supporting Families in Crisis

Parker Bartholomew:  The main thing that we do is what we call Families in Crisis. The best way to explain that is we have all kinds of household goods and I tell people that if their house was to burn down, the only thing that we can't replace is the house. And so yeah, people come in and we can help.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow! Like appliances and things?

Parker Bartholomew: (06:03.468) Yeah, so everything from a washcloth to a refrigerator, from a lawnmower to a baby bed, underwear to cosmetics, shoes, clothes, every single thing, the only thing we can't replace is the house. And we're working on that as we expand, but housing is something that we're working on. So that's what Angelic is.

Todd Schmiedeler: Okay. Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: It grew from that to now, it's a little over 5,200 families that come through in a year. And these are families and so they're anywhere from  two to10 people in the family. And then on Saturdays, it's anywhere from 50 to 120 folks that we serve through the homeless ministry.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow, 5200? Okay, wow!

Parker Bartholomew: We can have up to 12 guys in our recovery program at a time. Usually, it ends up being around 15 to 20 a year. Each of those different areas, we call them legs of the stool, each of those different legs are expanding. So, that's where we are now.

Todd Schmiedeler: Okay. So I'm just curious when you're doing everything from a dishcloth to a dishwasher, are those items that are donated by other people, like gently used items, is that where you're getting most of the items from? Where do you see those things coming from?

Parker Bartholomew: Good question. So, the vast majority of them are donated. We have to purchase some. For some reason, underwear is a very difficult one to get. And gently used underwear. Right.

Todd Schmiedeler: I wouldn't want to use gently used underwear from someone else. Yeah, I don't know. That's just maybe too far.

Parker Bartholomew: Rightfully so, those are items that we have to purchase. Or people will buy and then donate those to us. But for the most part, everything else, I'm trying to think if there's much other stuff that, you know, other than of course stuff that you use, right, that you would use up, soap and dish soap and things like that, but everything else is donated.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: We have a 70,000 square foot warehouse and about two thirds of that is used for sorting and storing and preparing. It's kind of the back operation to make it work. And then about a third of it is actually used for when people are walking through to select things. We try to let people make selections.

Todd Schmiedeler: So almost like they're shopping, you know, and they get a choice as opposed to, you know, getting a box of whatever already been done for them and they get whatever they get.

Parker Bartholomew: Yes, so much of what we're doing here is about trying to rebuild the dignity and the hope that people have. It's a challenge when you're trying to make things efficient, right? And you're trying to say, hey, this is the best way, especially when you're leading an organization or a company. You have to balance out perhaps the most efficient way of doing it with what you know.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah

Parker Bartholomew: There's these other aspects that you can't really quantify, but you know that they're there. And so we were able to then take that and say, listen, it's more important that we're able to show them love, show them respect, try to build up their dignity as they're going through this. And they need to pick what kind of blush they want, or their color of lipstick, or what shoes, or shorts, or pants, or other things. When we can give that opportunity to them, for them to pick things out, then that's great.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: In situations where maybe we don't have a lot of different items, for example, we don't have a ton of different couches. Like here's the couch, or here's the stove that we have, or the refrigerator, right? But where we can allow them to make selections, we want them to be able to pick.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.  So, do you get all these items from community individuals? I mean with 70,000 square feet with two thirds of that for storage I mean, that seems like a lot of families across Knoxville supporting other families. Is that the exclusive way you get stuff or do you also get stuff from companies, that sort of thing also?

[H2] Donations, Partnerships, and Community Collaboration

Parker Bartholomew: We get donations from multiple avenues. For example, when Target or CVS cleans out their stock, maybe things are getting close to expiration or it's just a new season. Then they put those on a pallet and we pick them up and then we have to sort through that. And that's anywhere from Halloween decorations to band-aids, right? Maybe the box was bent or torn so we get that and we utilize those. For instance, we may get Halloween decorations, if we can use those, great. A lot of time, we have a lot of kids stuff coming through. So, if we can use that, then great. Also, by the time we get them, Halloween's over. So, there's challenges there using them, right? But a lot of it comes from families and just people making donations.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: We have a drop box there at our location. Another source might be if there's an estate sale and stuff's left over. Then we'll pick that up. Also the University of Tennessee is here in Knoxville, and we have a partnership with them. Every year when they clean out or update dorms, we go in and pick that up. So almost every year, we're picking up like 180 to 200 twin mattresses, so we get those in.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow.

Parker Bartholomew: And then we have other relationships with other ministries where when these things come in, you usually don't get one or two. You usually get a hundred, right? And so the other ministries that we have relationships with, they're like, hey, we can use a dozen of these. Can we give you a dozen and can you trade with some of this stuff? So that we just have those relationships in place where we can share that so we can help as many people as possible.

Todd Schmiedeler: Well, what's pretty amazing is that you're almost, as much as you're helping individuals, you're also helping other organizations. And you're almost a distributor, not just to people, but to great organizations who might be closer to some people and be able to support those organizations and those people.

Parker Bartholomew: Yes! Everybody says they want to collaborate and they want to work together, right? And I think that's as, when we were talking about, or when we were discussing how we were going to grow and how we would be able to have exponential growth, Everybody says, hey, we need to collaborate, we need to talk with all these other places. Well, it's really amazing when you show up with gifts and give stuff to people, how much more willing they are to work with you, right?

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah

Parker Bartholomew: And so we would go to these organizations that would perform a specific task that was important to us, right? For example, there's an organization in Knoxville called CareCuts. And CareCuts cuts people's hair for free. And so, and it's amazing, but when you're thinking about people living on the streets or people who are down on their luck, like going and getting a haircut, it's super important when you go in for a job interview, right? It's super important for your dignity.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow. Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: It's super important. But also, when you sit here and see that it's going to be $15-$20, I mean, that's a significant outlay for them, right? They do haircuts, for men, women and children. They also giving out food, they're giving out clothing, they're doing that sort of thing. So, we come to them and we say, hey listen, we have this food, this clothing, these things. Can you help us with if people need haircuts or things like that?

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: Of course they say yes, absolutely. We had a chair upstairs at Angelic where we were doing that. But then we had to manage who was going to cut, then there was an insurance question, there was all this stuff that went into that. So, the reality is, we're going to give a couple pallets of water and some clothes and we're going to let CareCuts handle that. It's one of those ways where you figure out those partnerships.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: And where you can show up with a gift, that knocks down so many barriers.

Todd Schmiedeler: That's actually just brilliant business! I know you and I have talked about this before, how funny it is that people in the nonprofit world sometimes don't realize that what they really are doing is just running good businesses. You know, the ones that are successful are the ones that are really building a business that just happens to be for social good as their primary purpose.

So, I'm interested in hearing more about your expansion in these different areas. Can you give another example of one that has grown out of some sort of a defining moment or defining person who got passionate about something? Because that's usually one of two things that I think drive those expansions. You know, do you have an example of that or have you been involved in that yourself?

[H2] Tiny Homes and Affordable Housing Solutions

Parker Bartholomew: Yeah. Probably the most defining at this point that we're doing at Angelic is around some tiny homes. As we started investigating challenges with housing and really being successful in recovery, there was this housing is a massive cost. It's a massive cost. There are challenges with zoning and building...so many details.

Todd Schmiedeler: Okay.

Parker Bartholomew: That are immense, big hurdles to overcome. When you're talking about expanding services to the folks that we're talking about, our guys in our recovery program or homeless people, kids aging out of foster care, that's a big one that we help with. Even the elderly, right, that are aging in place.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: It very quickly became how do we provide housing that's affordable? Right now in Knoxville, affordable housing that the city or the county's doing, it costs $350,000 for a one-bedroom unit; it's just not affordable. So, when you start looking at these numbers, and you know me, I'm numbers guy, right? I'm looking at this and I'm like, if we're having to spend $350,000 for a one-bedroom, and there's multiple projects and this is what they say, these are success stories. And I'm looking at that and I'm thinking, this is not sustainable.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah, and it's not scalable at all to meet the need at all.

Parker Bartholomew: That's exactly right. So, when we're sitting here and we're trying to solve world problems, it's great that you can build this beautiful building that looks good and serves, you know, 30 people, right? But we have 3,500 that are under the bridge and you sit here and you go, how do we do that? The reality is, most of them, you're just not going to be able to provide housing. I mean, you would have to grow so exponentially and the amount of money it takes to do that. I mean, the Federal Reserve can't print it fast enough, right? We don't have the power to do that, right?

So, you sit there and as a leader, the first thing you have to do is figure out what goals can actually be accomplished. You have all these pie in the sky dreams that you want to do. Once you identify a problem, then you start trying to figure out what the things are that need to be overcome, right?

Todd Schmiedeler: Right.

Parker Bartholomew: A viable solution is not that we're going to build more $350,000 one bedrooms. That just doesn't work. So, we went down the tiny house route. You can build them for $30 or $40,000. The problem that we ran into is zoning and building. And so we just had to get passionate about that.

Todd Schmiedeler: Right.

Parker Bartholomew: In that situation, I was the one that was kind of like, this doesn't make sense, we need to figure this out. Why can we not do this? So, Angelic Ministries got some grants, and you were very instrumental in that, thank you very much! Some grants that would allow us to do some of these pilot projects.

Because the other thing is that when you're sitting here talking about doing something that nobody's ever done and you're in a leadership position on the board, they all sit there and they go, yeah, that sounds great, we don't have the same level of passion that you do, and that's normal. You want people around you that are going to sit there and be like, hey, you're kind of being a little crazy here, maybe you need to go sleep on it. Or as a Christian, what everybody likes to say, well we're going to pray about that.

Todd Schmiedeler: Right, yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: It's like, okay, well, all right, great, you pray about it. And then you never hear from them. You're like, hey, how'd that prayer go? And it's like, oh, yeah. So, they were pushing back a little bit when it came down to the money aspect and  how are we going to afford it, right? But because we were able to get some grants, we were able to try some stuff. So, we became the first, I guess, modular tiny homes in the state of Tennessee and I believe in the United States. And these, so that is the path.

Todd Schmiedeler: Well. In a recovery community, you've got multiple tiny homes. How many do you have?

Parker Bartholomew: So currently we have 5 that are set up and we have two more grants this year that will bring us a total of 15. Yeah, and then what's super exciting is Knox County. So, when I met with Knox County the first time, they're like, no, you'll never be able to use these tiny homes. They're not zoning approved. They're not building code approved. You cannot do this.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow, okay.

Parker Bartholomew: And I was kind of like, woohoo, somebody told me something can't be done! You know, let's, let's, let's run through some walls here. And well now the mayor of Knoxville, Mayor Jacobs, some people might know him as the WWE wrestler Kane. Um, yeah, okay. He's our mayor. And so he's actually using these tiny homes for a homeless veterans village.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah, man. Wow, awesome!

Parker Bartholomew: Yes, yeah! And so that's going to open up next year. So, what we've been able to do at Angelic is we kind of paved that path initially and now they're using what we've done as an example to use for the county. So where three years ago, four years ago, when I first met with them, they said, no way, that can't be done, you now have the mayor saying, is what we're doing.

So, you know, another aspect of leadership is just to be resilient. You take the advice and the counsel of people that are around you and you need to, hopefully they love you and they're not trying to hurt you in any way. They're just trying to watch out for you. But also, you know you're going the right path, stay on the path. Try to do it with as much love and respect as you can but you can't quit. This is a great example of where that's been successful. There's plenty out there where it's not or it's still in the works but this is one where I think that this will spread across the nation. We'll be able to provide housing - that's what those tiny homes are.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: You know thirty, forty, fifty thousand dollars, they're fractions of a cost to what people consider affordable housing now.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah, I mean, but you know, the fact that it's mine, you know, and I'm sure that, you know, a lot of that population is coming from community housing, you know, whether that's a recovery community where they're sharing and they're going through their recovery journey until they can get to a place where they've got, you know, everything set up to be successful, probably other things. But the fact that it's mine, I think you hit on something really important about dignity.

The other thing that struck me is that when you say, because I've heard it too, you get these crazy ideas and people think that they're like, well, we're going to pray on that. And part of when that's happened to me, part of what I want to just tell somebody is like, why do you think that I haven't prayed on that. And why do you think the crazy idea didn't come from God? You know, all we got to do is be obedient. And that means if I got it, I got to go. And whatever's meant to happen is going to happen, no matter what. But to your point, sometimes we have to be resilient to do the things that are going to redefine what the opportunities are for others. And somebody's got to stand up and do that.

Parker Bartholomew: Yes.

Todd Schmiedeler: I think it's amazing. I know Tony, your executive director well also, a person of faith who has really has stood out there. He and his wife have really been amazing about their ministry and building it. But I will say that there's something unique and the reason I really wanted to have this conversation was I really think there's something unique about the way that you brought a different level of energy and vision and resiliency as a board chair.

So, I'm interested in the dynamics of being on the board, which is typically a governance kind of role for a lot of organizations, unless they're small and they're grassroots and they're an operating board. But it sounds like you're past the grassroots side. How do you handle being so passionate and a part of those projects as a board chair, and at the same time, not stepping into the operations with the, an executive director and that sort of stuff where they feel in competition.

[H2] Leadership, Board Dynamics, and Faith

Parker Bartholomew: Yeah, I don't know. The reality is that Tony and I have a special relationship. It's a relationship that I believe is appointed by God. We work very well together. I didn't know I was going to go down this path, but the Bible says a three-fold accord is very difficult to break, right? Never broken, right?

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: I would include you in that threefold because you looked at what was very important for us as an organization, and had Tony who was very passionate and very committed to running the operations side. He wanted to be successful in what our goals and mission are for Angelic. You understood that what we needed was funding and you knew how to do that, right? And with me, it was, to speak just about myself, but it was just understanding that if we were going to grow, there had to be accountability and we had to have this vision to just continue to push forward, right? And to do whatever was needed.

So, to answer your first question, you have a small board that is, based mainly around just people that love what they're doing. They're just committed to the mission, right? Well, that's amazing to have, except when you're trying to grow and become sustainable, right? They're amazing to have because they'll drop everything and they'll go and they'll serve, right? They're amazing at triage, right? They're amazing at solving the problem that's right in front of them.

But the challenge is they either don't have the time or they don't have the knowledge to figure out how to prevent ending up in those challenges next time. And many of them just don't have the time to think. Like Tony, I think, is very capable of doing it, but he spent so much of his time just making sure that the building didn't burn down and literally, I mean, the wiring's messed up.

Todd Schmiedeler: Amen. Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: And then managing, so I mean the situation was, our yearly budget when I first started was $440,000. We were helping about not 5,200 families a year, but it was about 4,700 families a year. Over 100 volunteers, over 100 different churches, really over 1,000 volunteers when you think about all the churches and what they brought, right?

Todd Schmiedeler: Okay.

Parker Bartholomew: So every week we would have a different church in there and sometimes multiple churches helping. We had, I think it was nine staff at the time. It just, you look at it you're like how in the world did that even function, right? And the main way that it functioned is first we had Jesus on our side which is, you want that, right? And I mean that's number one. But Betsy Frazier and the Frazier family devoted so much of their life to this. They were not going to let it fail. They were not going to let it close, right? And so I tell everybody, like, we're standing on the shoulders of those folks and they are the reason why we even have an opportunity to do what we're doing now. And so with the board, it became very obvious to me that if certain things were going to get done, that we didn't have the money to hire anybody.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: The people that were there were already doing 10 times the amount of work that they needed to be doing or that they were being paid for. They were there because they were very passionate about what they were doing. And I'm going to come back to that in a minute because it's important to remember that having people who are passionate about it, you can teach them everything else that they need to know, but you cannot create passion.

So as we're growing and as we're expanding, we're finding out that those folks who are passionate don't necessarily have the skills that we need. And to be quite frank with you, we need to shut up and teach them and help them walk through that. Don't be like the value of that passion is more important than having those skills. And the reason that I know that is, is because we didn't have those skills before and we did just fine. Right? Yeah. So now everybody's like, the money's here and this is a ride.

Todd Schmiedeler: Right. Yeah, now to drop those people because they don't have that skill, what commitment are you giving back to them that they gave so freely to you and to others? Yeah, amen.

Parker Bartholomew: That's right. As a leader, God's using that to show you, might not be as good a leader as you thought. Because your job is to take people and to train them and to convince them, hey, this is important. So, the tiny homes, when they sit there and you're like, let's, and they say, hey, we're going to pray about it. That's really God saying, you haven't done a good job convincing them.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: I mean, you can lead out of fear or you can lead out of love, okay? And fear is short and doesn't last, right? I mean, it's just, or quick and it doesn't last, okay? Love takes a long time, but once you get it, it, I mean, people will, you know, crawl through hell, really.

Todd Schmiedeler: That's the resilience. They just move even when they're on a hill that they don't know how they're going to climb.

Parker Bartholomew: That's right. And they also know if you're willing to climb that hill with them, it's amazing how many people will just sit there and be like, listen, I'm not going to lead the charge, but I'm going to follow you. Right? So, as you're in a leadership position, if people aren't willing to follow you, you need to really spend a lot of time looking in the mirror. Like if they're being paid to follow you, you need to not only look in the mirror, but you need to make sure they don't have a knife to put in your back.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: Right? Because those are called mercenaries. And mercenaries are just waiting for the next highest payer to show up. Right? I know that may sound brutal, but even in ministry we have people who are very passionate about it. With the board, I knew we had people who were passionate. I also knew that we had people who they wanted to be successful.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah. Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: They just didn't know how to be successful. And the reality is, I thought I knew how, but I didn't really know. But I'm sitting here going, we're just going to start trying stuff. And whatever sticks against the wall, we're going to keep pushing onto that. And if it doesn't, then great. We're going to change. And Tony was 100% on board with that. Once he realized, hey, this guy's here, and he really cares about this, and he's got my back.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: And that took a while because in a lot of these situations, you know, they're like, well, this guy's trying to take my job or he's trying, you he wants this. It just wasn't that here. And Tony also was just sitting there going, we're going to do whatever we need to do. It is a special relationship. And the reality is if we hadn't gone through what we went through in the past, we wouldn't be able to go through now what we're going through now because of you.

Parker Bartholomew: When the grant money shows up, when the blessings show up, when the success starts happening, that's when you really start to, that's when some of these people's hearts and things start getting exposed, right? And it's also when God is sitting here going, are you prideful? Are you doing this for yourself here or are you doing this for the overall goal?

Todd Schmiedeler: That's right.

Parker Bartholomew: Because in every process that we're going through, in every situation, everyone is being stretched and grown. God's using that situation to grow everybody. So, the board was in that kind of situation and I just started doing whatever was needed. And if we couldn't figure it out, then we would find somebody. We took a big leap of faith.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yep.

Parker Bartholomew: We didn't have the time, the knowledge, or the energy to start writing grants. How we were introduced was a God thing anyways. And so that's the other thing. Sorry to cut you off there, but the other thing on that is you have to be able to acknowledge when God's doing something. Because most leaders are so used to making things happen. We can make a lot of things happen.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah, totally.

Parker Bartholomew: But you have to sit there and be like, hey, I really didn't do anything. And that ball just advanced 10 yards. I might need to just pause for a second and let's go down that path. Even though we were wanting to do something else, that play worked. Let's try that again, right? And that's the Lord, I think, showing you, hey, I'm here, I'm helping you. You're doing what's right. But when we start trying to make stuff happen in our own ability, that's when we really get, it's really dangerous on the pride aspect and go in the wrong direction.

Todd Schmiedeler: Well, you know, what you talk about reminds me of one of my favorite books right now is a book by Dan Sullivan. And it's called “Who Not How”. Most of us as leaders have spent our life being taught that, you know, give me a vision and give me a goal. And the question I'm going to ask is, how do I get it done? And I'm asking myself, you know, how do I get this done, and then I go to work?

Some of the key things in life is to understand that sometimes it wasn't meant for you to do. It was meant for you to be able to look for someone else to join you in that and allow that person to bring their value and what their attributes and their specialness to the project that actually multiplies it beyond just you.

Well, Parker, I know that you and I could sit here and talk about this sort of stuff. I've written down that I definitely want to have you, Tony, somebody come back at a future episode and talk about the interesting topic of community focused ministries and how those kind of differ and how those come about. I'm trying to end every episode with one question. Okay.

Parker Bartholomew: Okay.

[H2] Closing Reflections and Mentorship

Todd Schmiedeler: And that question is, can you give a person, you know in your life that has been a mentor to you, and what trait they gave you by being a mentor to you that transformed your leadership in your life and thus is a part of the reason why you're able to help so many people?

Parker Bartholomew: Yeah, I'm going to use Tony. He taught me empathy.

Todd Schmiedeler: Wow, okay.

Parker Bartholomew: Many times when you have the ability to be focused, single-focused or single-minded on so many things, you're moving forward so fast that you don't stop and smell the roses. You don't kind of have the ability to look around. You're trying to accomplish this goal so much and more.

Todd Schmiedeler: Yeah.

Parker Bartholomew: I talked about being in a triage situation and sometimes in a triage situation you don't have the time to do that. One of the things I learned from Tony is he was in a triage situation almost every day, but yet he was able to stop and he was able to listen to the young man that came in that just needed somebody to talk to. The family that had just lost a loved one, or a house or a job, or a car ,or and he would put everything else on hold and he would give them the time that they needed and that was a lesson that I needed to learn and God used him to really illustrate that in my life to just say hey, need to slow down just a little bit on some of this stuff and so that's who I would want.

[H2] Conclusion

Todd Schmiedeler: What an amazing and powerful insight. And I know that Tony's been a blessing for both of us. I definitely want to have him on a future episode if he'll share. He's got a level of humility that is probably a little different than you and I can't thank you enough, Parker, for coming on and sharing your wisdom, your experiences, and your commitment to other people. I mean, I'm so fortunate and blessed to be able to work with people of purpose. And their real goal in life is not about what they achieve, but about the number of lives that they can impact. So, I'm exceptionally thankful for you for this episode, but more importantly, for your fellowship and friendship. And I'm really glad that you were able to share some of these things. So thank you.

To the audience, thank you for coming back. And I am looking forward to having you again in about another two weeks. So everyone be safe and make a difference in people's lives as much as you can. Thanks so much for coming out.

[H3] To Learn More about Angelic Ministries

Website:  https://angelicministries.com

Phone:  865-523-8884

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