Stephen Lentz Part 2- Are You Bullet Proof?

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Man, I'm excited. Part two here, if you were listening on a prior interview with Stephen D. Lentz, Esquire, I like that title. We had to bring Steve back for part two just because his story is so fascinating.

Steve, welcome back to the Man Up show. Thank you, Nick. It's such a pleasure to be here.

Well, it's great to have you here with us once again. Boy, we covered a lot in show one, part one, just your background, your story, and some of the things you have done in life, and we kind of left off with, we made a reference to your book Bulletproof, but in talking with you, come to find out, you've actually written three different books. I want to jump in in just a moment here and talk about The Business of Church, The Concise Business Handbook for Pastors. That should get somebody's attention out there, especially if you're a pastor out there and navigating our world today.

And of course, Bulletproof. And then the third one, this should hopefully maybe catch some people's attention. It's Not About the Ketchup, right? That's the title of the third book, right?

It's Not About the Ketchup. Okay. I'm going to leave people hanging right there just for a moment.

They're going to have to hold on before we dive into kind of the background and the inspiration for each of the books. But let me ask you this, because there is some relatability there to, there's relatability between you and I with television and how you and I have similar backgrounds in the sense that you went from what initially, for those who had listened to the first show, you thinking you're going to become a lawyer, but the Lord directs you into television. You get very involved in the family channel and eventually transfer over to the Middle East and develop a whole television net. What was the most challenging thing about running a television network in the Middle East, would you say? I would say, uh, you know, just staying alive, survival, survival of the fittest. Yeah.

The, the, the, the book Bulletproof that I wrote was my leadership principles. I learned from doing business in a war zone and, uh, uh, and so unlike doing business in New York, when I was working for the family channel and working all the major markets in the United States and China and England, um, you know, when I, my first day on the job, you know, at the, to become president of Middle East television, which was the largest super station in the Middle East and that word super station might be foreign to some people who are listening, but the idea of a super station is you have a local TV station and it bounces its signal up to a satellite and then that satellite blankets an entire area. So it goes from a local station to a super station. And so our station, uh, Middle East television was in South Lebanon in a war zone. And, uh, and so we would bounce our signal up to the Amos military satellite, the Israeli satellite, and it covered the entire Middle East and all of Israel. And so we were at the largest super station, entire Middle East. And, uh, and so coming from a TV background with the family channel, I thought, you know, the assignment would be really cool.

I'd be in the Holy land. This sounds really exciting. So the first day of the job, I go through two checkpoints in Northern Israel into Lebanon and I meet my head of news who was also turned out to be my bodyguard. And he put a flak jacket on. Okay.

It's a steam work attire, but yeah. And then he walked me over to our Land Rover, which had 3000 pounds of blood. And then it was second handed from the French embassy with bullet holes already in the windows. And there was so much lead in the, in the doors.

I couldn't even open the back door to put my suitcase. And, uh, and I finally get in the car and there's an AK 47 between me and Salaam. And, and, and then I put my seatbelt on, he popped the seatbelt. He said, well, we don't wear seat belts here in case we're attacked. Now, would you like to meet, go meet, you know, general Baha' and I'm thinking, Oh, I want to go home.

I mean, this is, this is what I thought it was. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for, you know, so, uh, you know, the, the entire book Bulletproof is really based on understanding all the life principles of doing business in a war zone because that's really what our, all of our lives are. Anybody who's listening to this, this podcast, uh, uh, you know, who wants to do anything important, whether it's for your family or for your business or for your church, you need to understand you've just stepped into a war zone. And you know, somebody coined the phrase and it isn't original with me, but you know, if you're taking flack, you must be over the target. Sometimes it gets shot at and we're thinking, I'm not trying to cause problems here.

I'm just trying to make a living for my family or start my business or, you know, uh, give people customer service or whatever we're doing. All of a sudden somebody's shooting at me. It's like, I know why? Well, it's because doing anything important in life puts you into a battlefield. Uh, and you know, the Bible says that Jesus said, I've come, you know, to, you might have life and have a more abundantly, but he also said in that same, you know, uh, chapter, the devil comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. So there is a delineation between light and darkness in this world. And sometimes the battles that we, that are waging around us, we don't understand them because, you know, it's like, what did I do? You didn't do anything except for the fact that you want to do something that matters. If you're going to do something that matters to help people, your family, honor the Lord in your life, whatever you signed on for, uh, there's going to be a battle.

And so the, the biggest thing that I learned is, you know, pay attention to the fact you are in a war zone and everybody acts differently, you know? So, you know, when my head of deuce picked me up, I mean, you know, uh, he was, uh, uh, racer sharp and alert. Uh, he'd already been blown up once at a newscast. There was a roadside bomb and he went to cover it for the station and they set up a, they set up a second bomb.

And so he ended up having to rehab in the United States for months after that. So, I mean, his eyes never stopped looking. He was constantly vigilantly looking around because we're in a war zone, you know, anything out of place, anything that doesn't look right, everything, anything that doesn't feel right.

And, uh, I would say, you know, staying alert is a big deal. A lot of people just, you know, they just, uh, you know, are, are in a fog and that's no way to go through life. And it's certainly a dangerous way to go through life. We need to understand that if we're going to honor the Lord with our lives, uh, we have stepped onto a, we're a problem.

If you, if you're going to honor Jesus with your life and if you're going to try to do anything for the kingdom of God, you're a problem. And uh, there's going to be a battle. Well, it's in several things.

Wow. As you're sharing that, I mean, several things are going through my head right now. And of course, you know, it is a battle. I mean, I'm thinking you're talking about the book Bulletproof and Bullets, but I'm thinking of the fiery darts of the enemy. I'm thinking about the full armor of God, you know, and protecting ourselves. You know, you say we're in a, we step into a battle zone.

I'm just thinking about the, you know, the, the, the attack, the war. In fact, I was listening to a sermon on the, on the way to the radio station today and talking about how nobody's trying to ban the Quran, but everybody's trying to ban the Bible. In fact, some, some of the countries around the world, you know, and I guess this kind of ties into your experience in the Middle East, you know, some of the countries around the world are, you know, are trying to either say the Bible, the Holy Bible is quote hate speech.

And so, but, but nobody's calling the Quran hate speech, you know, I mean, so it's quite fascinating, really interesting. The other thing came to mind listening to your story is, is you, you literally, not figuratively, but you literally are living in the Middle East and facing it engaged in a war zone on a daily basis. Whereas some of us, you know, whether we're in America or this show is listened to, Oh, I think seventies over 75, 76 countries around the world, um, that we may not physically or literally be in a war zone as you were, but on a spiritual level we are. I mean, the minute, as you said, we give our life to Christ and we, we're engaged, we then step onto the battlefield, we're engaged in the war, and then we got to pay attention.

I like what you said too. You've got to pay attention and be armored up. Uh, so that's just, uh, um, amazing to me. And, and that's pretty much what the Bulletproof is. It's about the, uh, Ephesians six, the armor of God. Uh, it really is talking, it's going right through that list. So for instance, uh, you know, the, it talks about putting on the breastplate of righteousness in, in, in, uh, Ephesians, uh, the current, uh, equivalent of that would be, you know, the flak jack, you know, and, and the thing that's so tragic about all of us as believers in this, especially in this day and age, a lot of times there might be believers are facing persecution and listening to this. And so you'll really understand that.

But in America, we're not used to people, you know, uh, picking a fight with us for no reason. And, uh, uh, and so I think, you know, sometimes we've been very selective in what part of the armor we want to wear, but I'm in Virginia beach, Virginia, which is the largest Navy base in the world. Uh, and this is where seal team six is. This is where all the pilots for Oceana fly on all the aircraft carriers.

They're all here. And so military analogies are not a big stretch for us here in this market. I've got a lot of, uh, clients, law clients who are, are seals and, and special ops. And so, you know, if you look at a special ops soldier, uh, and I've got a picture of in my Bulletproof there, I did research. It takes a million dollars, you know, to outfit one guy and he's got everything on from night vision goggles to the breastplate, uh, you know, to his, you know, black jacket to special pants that, you know, have sutures in them and, and, and, you know, the, the, the weapons that they carry, the multiple layers of weapons and everything, uh, wouldn't it be stupid if the soldier said, well, you know, I don't want to wear the night vision goggles because the color green makes me nauseous, you know, or, you know, uh, I don't want to wear a flak jacket because it constrains me and I'm kind of for free spirit. I mean, uh, a soldier doesn't do that.

They put it on everything they've got because everything that's been designed that they're wearing is so that they can survive and thrive and win. You're listening to the truth network and truth network.com I am excited. Did you hear the huge announcement, the big announcement?

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Go to www.koloff.net and donate today. You're listening to the truth network and truth network.com. Uh, but the body of Christ is selective in the, in the, in the weapons they put on, uh, and, and they leave a lot of stuff on the shelf.

Wow. And so I think we need to understand the full armor of God. And so for instance, just for instance, the breastplate or, or, or the flak jacket, one thing I learned about wearing the flak jacket was you can get wounded in a lot of areas, but if you get hit in the heart, you're done. It's over that breastplate of righteousness is talking about protecting our hearts. And I think in the day and age we live in, it's so important to protect our hearts, you know, out of the, out of the heart issues, you know, uh, fuzzy issues of life, you know, and, and, uh, and so sometimes, you know, hearts get hard, uh, they get wounded from life, from experiences, from disappointments, from, uh, abuse. Uh, there are people that are listening probably that have suffered great tragedy in their lives and your heart gets wounded.

And there's this, there's this condition called FOP, F, uh, fiber myopoly progressive or something like that. It's in my book, FOP, and it's called the stone man syndrome, where literally there's a condition where, where some people overreact, their bodies overreact to an injury and the body overreacts so much that it turns to stone. Uh, and I think sometimes we're like that where we're not protecting our hearts, we're not keeping them soft for the Lord. The Bible doesn't have a single good thing to say about hard hearts.

Uh, all the warnings and there's a chapter in my book about it, but you know, all the warnings in the Bible about don't, don't have a hard heart. Keep your heart soft. Uh, and so even when you're hurt, there are solutions. There, there are remedies. There are things that God's provided, confession and, uh, uh, constantly reading the Bible and fellowship and church and worship. These things are all part of keeping a soft heart. Uh, otherwise we turn to stone and people who suffer from the stone man syndrome end up dying because their organs also turn to stone. It's a terrible condition.

It's all an overreaction to a hurt. So, so the breastplate, you know, the flak jacket protecting our heart, you know, to me was such a lesson. Well, it's a good, I mean, you just gave some great advice and good illustration of, of, of where all of us, uh, should, should center our, our gaze and our focus. And, uh, let, let me ask you, cause I want to stay in this business vein here for a few more minutes and talk about, it's not about the ketchup. Uh, but before I get there, let me just ask, uh, just to, so your, we talked on the first show about your, your wife, your four children, you've been married 50 years.

Congratulations again on that. And so were your four children raised then in the middle East or at least, no, no. Okay.

Everybody was here Stateside. I mean, Kathy and I lived in the middle East, but by the time I had that assignment, uh, my kids were all in college, you know, a couple of came with me to the middle East and, and worked in Israel and different things as kind of a, you know, uh, a experience if you would, but nobody had, nobody lived there. Gotcha. Gotcha.

Okay. Well let's shift gears and talk about, it's not about the ketchup. Uh, viewers share with me before we came on air, kind of the inspiration for that book.

And Ed take a couple of minutes, explain to people what that book is about. It's not about the ketchup. Yeah, it actually, the actual title is, it was never about the ketchup.

Okay. Uh, and it's the leadership legacy of H. J. Heinz. And I was explaining to Nick before we got on the air that H. J. Heinz was the John Maxwell of the 1800s long before there was business principles and training and corporate training on, you know, good employee relationships and benefits and things like that. Heinz was doing it. Uh, but the thing that really, uh, the reason I wrote the book is my father-in-law worked for Heinz. Kathy's grandfather worked for Heinz and her great uncle was one of the first board members, uh, Sebastian Mueller for Heinz. And so, uh, I stumbled on the Heinz story in a, in a little trunk of her father. Uh, and it was the biography of H. J. Heinz.

And I read this and I thought, holy cow, this guy was brilliant. He loved the Lord, experienced things just like we did, and yet he kept his focus on the right thing. So, um, uh, it was never about the ketchup, you know, so Heinz went through, you know, business failures, bankruptcy, uh, uh, you know, all the, all the, the ebb and flow of real life tragedy and the things in his family. Later on in life, at the very end, the companies worldwide and successful, the financiers wanted to buy them out. And he said, you know, it's time for you to enjoy your, the fruits of your labor, you know, make some money, sit back and be at ease and rest and ease from responsibility.

And Heinz said, uh, your talk of rest and ease and freedom of responsibility mean nothing to me. So I never built this company for ease or rest or freedom from responsibility. I built it for my family, for our people, uh, and to make better people along the way. The money part will take care of itself. And so that's why I titled the book.

It was never about the ketchup. So his leadership principles literally, uh, are, are some of the best I've ever read. Uh, and you know, his commitment to his employees, uh, he saw people, whether you were a bursar on a, on a ship that he was going across the Atlantic on everybody who ever met him felt like he was their best friend because he saw people.

And, uh, you know, we live in an age where people don't feel seen anymore. Right. And just a good leadership principle is, is, you know, relating to your people.

They're now, you know, just manipulate people. You, you love them, you serve them. And, uh, you know, one of the things I learned when I was running the ad sales offices for the family channel was if I could invest in that person and I would ask each person, what's your definition of success?

What do you want to gain? And if I could help that people, that person reach his goals, I didn't have to worry about my own success. And so everybody who worked for me knew, you know, that, that I was gonna, I was going to invest in them and support them and their dream.

And, uh, I never had a problem with success. So, and that was a principle that hindsight, so it was never about the ketchup. It's a great study of leadership who would ever, who would have ever thought that I'll have a, from here on out, Steve, I'm going to have a whole different perspective on Heinz ketchup. I just want you to know.

So who would have ever known? So that's, that's fascinating. That's amazing. And, uh, well, let's, uh, I want to make sure we, we cover, uh, cover your last book here before we run out of time. And, uh, and, and again, just, uh, I want to say this, uh, for our listeners out there, uh, Steve Lance is recognized as one of the top five church law authorities in the U S representing denominations, churches, all 50 States in every province in Canada. And your, your last book, uh, let's talk just for a few, a couple of minutes here about your, your other book and how, you know, pastors and others out there, church leaders, and, and just to anyone facing a challenge out there, uh, you know, for their faith could want to access your services and, and, uh, find out more and how to get these books. But tell, tell us about this last book, take a couple of minutes and tell us about the last book.

Okay. Well, just kind of as the setup, you know, so my, my corporate profile is I do complex business. Well, and a subset of that is nonprofits and a subset of that is churches. And so I'm also an ordained pastor and I've told Nick last time we talked, you know, that I just wasn't sure I could get into heaven as a lawyer. So I thought I better get ordained. And so, uh, you know, the, the, uh, uh, the book is really for my church friends. If you're a church leader, if you're on a church board or if you're a pastor, you need this handbook.

It's short, it's under a hundred pages. And, and the concept came because a friend of mine is a psychologist. He deals with the burned out pastors all over America and he asked them, why'd you ever get involved in the ministry? And they all say, cause I wanted to help people and preach the Bible. The problem is 85% or more of a pastor's job is business, not theology. And most pastors are ill equipped for that moment.

And so Eric explained to me, you know, that we're not wired to fail in our core responsibilities over any prolonged period of time without there's being some kind of aberrant behavior, whether it's drugs or alcohol or sex or malfeasance or whatever, because we're not wired to fail in that core responsibility. So I wrote this handbook, the publisher said it needed to be a longer essay, you understand the audience. This is for pastors.

I'm working with Dallas Theological Seminary and some other seminaries about doing a textbook course called The Business of Church. But this is a handbook to help pastors understand some of the business areas they need to pay attention to. And they may not be able to feel competent to do everything that I'm alerting them to. They just need to manage it.

They need to make sure it's being taken care of. And so The Business of Church is a tool. It's a tool for pastors and church leaders. It talks about how to pick a nonprofit board, what that looks like, what the IRS really expects from your nonprofit board. It talks about the importance of incorporating your church. It talks about asset protection, intellectual property, who owns the sermon.

If somebody preaches on Sunday and then reduces it to a CD and goes out and sells it at a conference, who gets that money? There's all kinds of principles there that you really need to understand if you're going to run the church. So The Business of Church, that's what it's all about.

It's a handbook, under 100 pages. Darrell Bock So just, it gives any of these leaders, pastors, just insight. And again, because I agree with what you're saying, I've ministered in over 1,200 churches, have had lots of conversations with a lot of pastors.

And many of them just, yeah, don't know some of those inner workings. And so what a great resource. If you're out there, if you're a pastor or church leader, what a great resource for you. And as Steve said, what a simple read for you as well, but will be, sounds like very valuable. Steve, how could people, two things, one, how can they access and get copies of your books?

And then how could they potentially, if they needed to or wanted to access your service and what you provide there as a law firm in Virginia, how could they access, how can they find you? Steve McLaughlin Well, first of all, thank you, Nick, for even inviting me, giving me this opportunity to speak to people. The books are all on Amazon or you can go to my own website, which is stephendlence.com, S-T-P-H-E-F, stephendlence.com.

And the books are all there. Our law firm is called Anchor Legal Group, and that's anchorlg.com, www.anchorlg.com. And you can reach me through that. And again, we have the privilege of representing clients in all 50 states. I have a network of attorneys I work with throughout the country when I need to go into a jurisdiction that I'm not licensed in and able to really help clients both in complex business and state planning, but also in the nonprofit area and the church world. It's my honor and privilege to be able to wrap the churches and equip them to take ground in the environment we live in today. So if I can help, you know, again, anchorlg.com is our law firm, and be honored to be able to help you in any way we can.

Darrell Bock Well, I really appreciate that. And of course, you know, we're seeing more and more and more persecution, I guess would be a good biblical term, persecution, not only on the church, but individuals themselves, you know, for their faith and their beliefs and coming under attack, whether it's developing websites or baking cakes or any and everything else that someone who just, you know, some of these requests goes against their own personal convictions. And so... David Morgan Right. And we deal a lot with the First Amendment religious issues, and help the churches update their statements of faith. You know, one thought as we leave on that issue is that in the old days, you used to be able to say, I'm a church, I believe the Bible, and that was good enough. Now your statement of faith really needs to include, you know, prove that you have a sincerely held religious belief. So it has to talk about, you know, whether you believe in, you know, marriage as an institution, and whether it's between a husband and wife, one man, one woman, we even have to define what a man and a woman are these days in the statement of faith. You know, that God created two distinct sexes, you know, male and female, scripture and verse, so that, you know, somebody, you know, wants to have you conduct a same sex marriage, and that's against your theology, you can point to it, you know, in your statement of faith, it has to be updated. You know, if somebody on your staff, you know, has a sexual orientation that's different than what you believe in your theology, we'd better be able to find it in your statement of faith.

Otherwise, you end up with a Title VII suit on your hand. So updating your documents is a huge part of what we're doing nationwide right now. Well, Steve Lenz, thank you for being on the Man Up show, and do take advantage, if you need those services, please take advantage, reach out to Steve in his law firm there, and get copies of his books. And so great to have you on the show today, Steve. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. Well, thank you for tuning in. Thank you so much.

Yes, sir. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of It's Time to Man Up. Until next time, God bless you. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to koloff.net and donate today.

Hi, Nikita Koloff. Be sure to check out the Man Up show now available on television, broadcast, go to morningstartv.com, or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today. If you are enjoying the Man Up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Nikita Koloff here.

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