 Welcome to Longmont Voices in Vision, a project of Longmont public media. In the midst of the darkest period in our lives, when we're bombarded 24 hours a day with news of the coronavirus and the human and economic carnage it's causing in our society, we're challenged to cope with our fears and anxieties, we're remaining hopeful about what lies on the other side of this crisis. This project presents an opportunity for Longmont residents to share with others how they're adjusting to new realities of social distancing and the kind of future they hope to experience on the other side of the crisis. I'm Tim Waters, host of these conversations in a Longmont public media volunteer. In this series, I'll be asking Longmont residents, many of them your friends and neighbors, three questions. What are you doing to get through this crisis? Even though we cannot be together right now, how are we staying connected to friends and families? And what's the future you are hoping to see and experience on the other side of this crisis? I hope you'll stay with this series and enjoy listening to your friends and neighbors and learn from them how they're getting through and what they're looking forward to in a new reality on the other side. Stephen Krieger, thank you for your contribution to this Longmont Voices and Vision project. We appreciate your contribution here and we're going to hear just in a second about what you do with your life. So thank you for your contributions when you're not being interviewed for all the other things you do in the world. So tell us about that. Tell us who you are and what you do. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for asking me to do this, Tim. I'm really excited and really grateful that you would ask. I am a pastor at Flatiron's Community Church. I'm what's called a campus pastor, so I lead our Longmont community. So my role is a little bit of just caring for the people who are part of Flatiron's Longmont and also trying to help lead our campus towards serving and connecting with our Longmont community and also to a lesser degree to Tri-Cities and Loveland because we have a lot of people who are living all around. But especially we want to figure out like, hey, how do we connect with and serve our Longmont community, not just the people who are part of our church, not just the people who might be part of our church, like people who never will even hear about Flatiron's. How do we make sure we're caring for them and serving them in kind of the way that I think Jesus would want to. Well, we know you have, I know, most of us know you have members of your congregation all over Longmont and up and down the front range to become quite a successful community of faith in the front range. So you know, so thanks for that. And you know that I'm going to ask you three questions. The first of the three questions is this. In a time with all the unknowns and in the fear that goes with those unknowns that we're dealing with as this pandemic has materialized, as people are trying to figure out how to get themselves through it. How are you getting yourself through this period of time? Yeah, it's a great question. Oh man. I mean, I obviously like being part of a faith community like faith is really big for me. So that is honestly that is a big part of how I kind of process it and get through it. Like I just think that that God is really good that he's in control and he's going to take care of me whether I get horribly sick and whether my family gets horribly sick or whether I stay healthy. I don't think that means it's going to be easy. I just think that means that he cares about me. And on the on the other side of that went up really early on. I have a connection to a guy who leads a nonprofit down in Mexico, who is just brilliant like he's trying to help develop slum cities down there. And he wrote an article like an essay on like, Hey, how do you respond to this crisis. And he quoted a couple different people, but one of the people he quoted was Martin Luther, the guy who started the Protestant Reformation. And it was during an outbreak of the black plague, and someone else had asked him like, Hey, what, I'm a pastor what should I do like how to like, can I run away like do I have to like go to everyone's house like how do I handle this. And he was like, I don't know. I mean, if you ask me how I'm going to handle it like I'm going to sanitize my house. I'm going to stay away from places where I don't need to be so that I don't get someone else sick and so that I don't get sick and infect my family, or then go and infect other people. But then I'm going to make sure that if I see a chance to take care of my neighbor, I'm not going to be afraid to do it like I'm going to go do it. And so part of the way I've processed this season is like, you know, I'm, I'm kind of introverted anyway so like staying home doesn't really hurt. I actually like it. But also, the way I've processed it is like, I'm staying home and I'm, I'm giving up some convenience and some freedom, not just to like protect myself or just to protect my family but like to care for the other people around me. And if I stay in and don't get infected and don't spread that infection, like I'm taking care of my neighbors, I'm taking care of my parents, I'm taking care of my community and making sure that other people are going to stay healthier because I'm avoiding contact. Question number two, in a time when we can't be physically together. How are you staying connected to family and friends. Lots of zoom calls. We had a early on. I don't know that my wife and I did this real well. But as time has gone on, we've kind of been really intentional about reaching out to people, especially people who are in our circle who are living alone or who are, you know, maybe they're with roommates but they can't be around them very much or something like that. Because we kind of heard that people who are living alone were were some of the people who were struggling the most in this season. You know, and that was that kind of made make sense to me, you know, because because they're dealing with isolation. And so, since then we've done a lot of zoom calls, especially with like our parents and, you know, family members or friends who are who are on their own we started reading a book with one of our friends. And so, like, not obviously not at the same time but like we're just all reading it together and so we'll talk about it at some point and we're texting about it but that's kind of a cool little like oh we can stick together on this, playing some of my categories over over zoom, which is also great. And then just generally like a lot more texting a lot more like sending back pictures and videos and a little bit more social media but I feel like it's again honestly I feel like it's been really good and for some of those people I'm more connected than I was before the pandemic it. You know, my third question is based on the presumption that whatever life looks like, once we get beyond the pandemic whenever that time is, it's going to be different from what was normal before the pandemic. Yeah. So the question is, assuming that whatever, whatever the new normal is is different. What would you like to see. And what do you want to help create as a new normal. Yeah, that's such a great question. Well, I think the, the things that I have seen come out of this season. Most that I just absolutely love are honestly kind of that what I was talking about in that first question. Like the idea that everything I'm doing right now staying in ordering and getting my groceries taken out to me instead of going into the store, like all of those are ways of serving people around me in my mind, you know, and that kind of like purpose and everything is is so life giving. So for me personally like I want to figure out like hey how do I do that, but then be on that like how do I help other people get that same kind of mentality like where you can have purpose in everything you're doing like, you know how I'm driving to work, or what time I'm leaving for work is there a way I can make it so hey I'm actually maybe making some other people's lives easier by leaving half an hour later or half an hour earlier. So I'm like a really small scale on a bigger scale. I've loved watching our, like the staff at flattering long mark. And I've loved watching them kind of figure out how to connect with our community well. So, you know, we're, we're doing some interviews with people around the community business leaders, city leaders, you know, people who are artists, or just anyone, and not even talking about like faith or, you know, issues that happen within our church but just like hey would you tell us like, what's the best way to paint an Easter egg, or like hey can you tell us what it's like to be someone running a business in this season. And that's just felt so cool. And that kind of human connection that is so far past kind of what the old normal was and like a high level of empathy for what people are going through. And so cultivating that I feel like we're going to, we're going to win, like we're all going to win if we can keep cultivating that kind of emotion. And then again on like a smaller scale like it's been really you were talking about this, I think before we started recording. We have three small kids, you know, so at some point there's a solid chance you're going to hear one of them walk in, or throw a fit or something. And they, they're absolutely wonderful and they're absolutely crazy and, you know, 80% of the time they are the best thing in the world and 20% of the time. I don't know what to do with them, you know, but I think slowing down in my life and finding a little extra time to hang out with my kids, you know, taking a break from work and instead of going to the water cooler and chatting and getting to go outside and play tag. Or, you know, cutting out the commute time so I can be here right when dinner starts and get to hang out with them. I think those have been things that are really, really special and really healthy. And so I'm trying to figure out how do I pass that on like I can't do that for everybody but how do I pass that on to my staff. How do I keep that, how do I, the people who are working with me and for me, like how can I make it so that they can have more of that time. You know, whether that's telecommuting or whether it's, you know, telling them to hey, take a half day here so that you can go get some of that time with your, with your families. Because I've seen from my family it's been, it's been very, we've come together a lot in this season, because we've had to. Right, we've had some really good fights all around the family. That's just going to happen but I don't think that, you know, I'm sure a lot of people feel guilty or feel frustrated about fighting with their, with their spouse or their family in this season but like that's just a reality. Like that's just you working out some boundaries and working out some issues and I think being forced into that and not having the escape of okay well I'm going to head to work or you know I've got to send some text messages here like you don't have that escape now. So now it's like okay well let's face this let's work through it let's be be together here. So I want to cultivate that for us I want to cultivate that for the people who work for me and if I can encourage anybody else to I will. Stephen great contributions to this project. We're at large and specifically with your contribution in this interview so I want to thanks. Say thank you again for lending your voice and your vision to this project. I want to encourage you to take care of yourself stay safe and our paths will cross in person when we can, when we're able to get back up in the world again. Sounds great and thanks again for letting me be part of it. My pleasure. Thanks. The cameras. Thank you for your contribution to the long month voices and vision project and thank you as well. Not just for your contributions to this interview this morning, but for all of the contributions you make to this community. And I'm going to ask you to talk about yourself. And I'm hoping you're going to share some of those so people have an idea who they're hearing from so tell us about you. Well, first of all, Tim, thanks for letting me be a part of this. I appreciate that. So I'm a pastor here in town for a church called the journey of Longmont we moved here 21 years ago to actually start that church. And amazingly enough 21 years later we still get to be here. And they still let me they still let me do this job. It's fantastic. What I talk about in my work is I talk about being. This is a good connotation or bad connotation but the idea of being a missionary pastor. And the idea behind that is that my, my job, my task, my hope was not simply to come to Longmont start another church where we just huddle in a bunch of people, and we all just take care of ourselves. Certainly there's an aspect in which you know you want a church community to be able to be a group of people that take care of each other. That's part of community. But we really wanted to be a church that was a church for our community. So one of the one of the scripture passages that is really resonated with us over the years is out of Jeremiah 29 and a lot of people know part of that which is I know the plans I have for you the plans for you and you know make you flourish. That one we always want to hang on to because it's like it makes you good like oh good we're going to get good stuff out of God. But there's a different part of that passage actually that comes before it. The context of the passage is actually Israel's getting ready to go into into captivity. And then God's like, look, when you get there. plant gardens, get married, have kids. In other words, you're going to be here a while. So settle down. And then it says this, and pray for the prosperity or the blessing of your city, because if it prospers you prosper. And to be able to be a place that says we really wanted to be a church that was for Longmont, we got enough people that are against stuff we wanted to be for Longmont be able to go look there's there's a beauty that comes with God's order. So let's be a place. And let's be a church that helps build order out of in the middle of chaos. And so one of the things that that's allowed me to do is I've been really fortunate in 20 years of doing this. I've been one of the leaders in our church that have been like, okay, Rick, then be in the community right then be a pastor that's for the church be in fact, if we can use some old words on this it's like, figure out what it means to be a parish priest again in other words it's like look, don't just be a pastor to our church, figure out how to be a pastor to the community. One of the things that I've been doing for 20 years we just passed a 20 year mark because I've been involved with Longmont police and fire chaplaincy volunteer program that got started, you know, several years before I came on the scene and I was fortunate enough to become a part of and get involved in because of a guy named Bill Lee, and just really grateful for Chief Butler. And the command staff of both the police and fire for embracing this program and embracing us as chaplains and me in particular I've been really been blessed to be a part of the program and it's just been a great way to be able to serve those who serve us. It's been one thing. And then about 13 years ago, we got involved with two organizations kind of simultaneously. One was when hope was kind of getting started in the early phase. One of our church members was on the board to kind of get hope out of Boulder and just in Longmont. And then, as a part of that there are a couple of other churches that were a ministry and another church that were involved in sheltering homeless, they're just kind of like what they got no place to go. We actually had one of our Longmont residents who was homeless die of exposure. And that really sparked the catalyst with a couple of these other churches. Gary Jefferson who's part of Front Range Christian Fellowship which is on the north end of town and a different ministry called the well. And they started cores, which is community outreach emergency shelter. And that was kind of like the first initial one and this guy, this member from hope said hey can we just use our, we use the facility to help be part of housing and it just made sense. So I want to make sure I give that history because it's not like somehow we're like oh we need to house it was really along the idea that somebody came up with this idea. And we were really grateful to be a part of it and go yeah we just make sense we got a building. We're getting used as much as we'd like. Let's make sure it gets used. So, there's my wife quite. This is what I get for picking this up. There's a lot that goes on these interviews Rick. For posterity sake right my wife will love this so anyway. To be honest, could not do the work that I'm doing the work that we're doing this is very much been, you know, Gwen and I, in the early days from the beginning and she's just been amazing to be a part of all of this. So, but yeah so so we've been part of emergency sheltering of homeless 13 years, and then a little over years ago, we made a shift to, we made a shift to partnering with hope directly. And working with navigation and all of the kind of the most more recent changes with how we do sheltering here in Boulder County and particularly in long months. So, we're really grateful I mean, I think partners in fact one of the nice things about is that they've been able to really prior to this services were very much a bandage it was like. And only from a part of the season to another, and now hope is able to provide kind of year round services and it's been a terrific partner. So, I've tried to minimize my comments in these interviews because it's really about your stories. And I have to say, there was ever a time in the history of this town or any town, when the very services you just described, and increasing scope and intensity and accessibility has been has been critical to so many lives. It's right now. Yeah, with this population. So thank you for that as well. Yeah. So you know I'm going to ask you three questions. The first is in this time of physical separation and social distancing. How are you getting through this. What can people learn from you and what are you learning about yourself. Well, what I'm learning about myself is that as an extrovert, I am extremely grateful for additional video platforms. So as much as I get like everybody else I get zoomed out in fact we have we're supposed to have a staff meeting on Wednesday night. And we just like we only got the only full time staff we got a couple of part time staff and volunteer staff right, and we're going to calm staff there's people in charge of programs but we meet together once a month. And we're kind of like, I had a last thing I wanted another zoom meeting right so I sent out an email and we're like hey everybody good was just taken this month check in. We're going to call each one individually, which will be just nicer to have that conversation but we're just going to cancel the meeting, and I kid you not the bad was like, thank you. So on the one hand I think you know what are we like five six weeks into this. And, and, and there's a certain level of video platform fatigue zoom fatigue, right. On the other hand, man, that has been a gift. What, what a tremendous gift that's been just from a from the fact that I, I need to talk to people. And so, you know, my wife is working from home. And so she is the office and as you see, I have the dining room, the kitchen. But it's been, it's been good right we've been taking walks. When the weather's been good we take bike rides it's been. It's been amazing that way just to which we, which is a normal part of our routine anyway. But it's kind of like, okay it's midday in fact when I'm done with you Tim, my wife and I are going for a walk and then later on today, you know, at the end of the work today we'll go for another walk. So, that's been helpful. On the other hand, I am. When I leave the house. I've just found myself doing more reading, which is nice. And I've also found that you know in my, in my binge watching modes. What we've discovered is that we need to watch more cheery TV, like the prior to this my wife and I would be involved in TV dramas or whatever. Oh man I got enough, I got enough drama I don't need any more make believe drama to add to it so you know, we're kind of looking for, you know, more lighthearted stuff but at the same time I've been able to pick up just some more reading which has actually been nice because in the last couple of years it's been busy for a variety of other reasons and I've not read as much as I would have liked as a as a preacher that's not good but certainly as an individual where it's like man, it's really been nice to have my mind go to new places and have new ideas and so even in the middle of this isolation, there's been opportunity to be able to have new ideas and think more broadly and have my and there's some freedom in that right because when you feel trapped in your house or in your community or in your neighborhood or whatever. I can feel like everything's just stagnant. And just the fact that I've been able to read more have different voices speak into this. That's really been nice, because it's kind of like an interior freedom, which actually is one of those pieces that as I look forward to like, I'm going to jump to your third question of like one of the things that I hope to continue. That would be one of them, right where I would say, hey, I really, again, a value this wonderful value of discovering interior freedom. You know, when you're trapped on the outside. Well, for whatever it's worth Liskers, viewers of this interview. When I see you around town, which I do from time to time, when we could be out, you are always studying and you're always preparing for the next sermon or the next initiative. Whenever I see you, you've always got your face in a book and you're making notes and you're working on something. That must be catching me on more Saturday mornings. I mean, I was like, I see you a lot. But the other part is like, I think that's the one of the things that I miss about this is that as much as I am glad for video conferencing, there's this other part that where, you know, I spend as you know, Tim, it's been a ton of time in coffee shops, right? That office is the Red Broad. That's it. That's where I see you. That's where that's my office and it has been for the last nine years and which is a beautiful thing because it's like, again, be where the people are at and that way if I'm reading or studying or doing whatever, people can feel free to interrupt that. And ministry is all about the interruptions. But it's also this opportunity where you meet in person and I think that's one of the things I miss is even though I love this. It's still not quite the same because if people are moving around here or they're looking at their computers doing something else. It's not the same as in person. It's not the same vibe. And, and you're always kind of trying to like read, like I've developed a whole new skill of like reading people's nonverbal through the camera. Right. That's a skill I wanted. We're all learning a lot of new stuff here. So, you're staying connected. Yeah, these kinds of zooms and or these kinds of platforms and walking with your wife in a time when we can't be together are there other things you're doing to stay connected to family friends. Yes. So, you know, one of the nice things is that I mean just family wise and my son lives in Arizona my daughter lives in our beta. The nice thing is is that she's, she's a teacher. And so she's teaching from home. She doesn't go anywhere else. So on the weekend, she's been coming home and that's been nice, quite frankly, to see her on a regular basis. But the other part is to have an additional person in the house. But one of the things we've done this a couple of times. We're hope to do it some more. But we've, you know, the eight the eight o'clock howl, right, where you're outside your, and you're howling with your neighbors for the to celebrate first responders and healthcare workers and the like. So we hauled our fire pit out into we just got one of those ones you can move all over the place we just put it in the driveway. And then we just built a fire and then we texted our neighbors and was like, All right, let's all stand 10 feet apart with our masks on around the fire and talk. And, you know, so we got one neighbor that's on their driveway and somebody else's, you know, by my pickup and somebody else is standing, you know, over by the bushes and then we're close to the house and the fire pits in the middle. And so nobody's actually getting any warmth. But it's nice ambience. And then we get to just kind of catch up and talk and see how everybody's doing, you know, a lot of over the fence kind of stuff. And, but that's that's been another one of the things where it's just like how do you how do you stay connected to people, you know. And so we've a lot of just getting out, especially when it's nice, you know, like where you'd be used to standing close to people and talking, still trying to talk to people in person, certainly our neighbors. And, you know, just from a distance and yelling. Letting the neighborhood in on the conversation. All right. Third question. It's the presumption under this third question is that whatever was normal for us before a pandemic and stay at home order. And when we're able to come back out and and we settle into a new normal, whatever that new normal is likely to be different than what was normal life will be the same. That's the presumption. So the question is what do you want to see what's your preferred future. What would you like to help create as the new normal on the other side of this. Yeah. Tim, one of the things that strikes me about any time we have things go like this is it brings out the best and the worst in people brings out people who on the one hand they get scared. And they, they need to take care of themselves and their families and so, you know, they hoard toilet paper. So one of my preferred futures is that people are not hoarding toilet paper in the future. So for people in posterity. We are, we are, we are in week six. And the toilet paper aisle of all things is still bear, you know, as far as the historical record. Yeah, as far as the historical record goes right. So that's that's one side right. And so people click. Okay, I got to gather for me. One of the beauties that I've seen has been the amount of emails, texts, phone calls from my neighbors from my church going, Hey, Rick, do you know anybody that needs shopping done for them, you know, people who are at risk, you know, like elderly folks that like should not be going out. I don't have other people to go get groceries for them or get their prescriptions or whatever. Right. So, or the other day I was outside. And we were walking and then my neighbor drives by and it's like, Hey, I'm on my way to Whole Foods, you know, what do you need. And the same, we've done the same. It's like, Hey, guys, we're going to, you know, we're going to go to King Supers and we need to pick up a few things. Who else needs stuff and we'll get it. And we have, and we have an elderly neighbor that's between us and a young couple that lives just one over. And, you know, and it's been a little bit of arm wrestling as to who gets to help, you know, Gary and Mary T. And, but it's like, I love that sort of stuff and Tim, you might remember this right back in 2013 when we had the flood here in Longmont. On the one hand it was difficult and it was hard and you couldn't get the places that you wanted to get to you couldn't get to the other side of town it took hours to go, you know, circuitous routes in order to get to where you need to be. Stuff was stuff was on short supply because trucks couldn't get in. And people stepped up and people helped out and, and people's houses were flooded and, and I, you know, you know, we're part of crews that were emptying people's basements and putting all of these on driveways and those heart wrenching. On the one hand, and on the other hand, I still have some deep friendships that started seven years ago, because of the you know, six years six and a half years ago because of this flood. This has separated us in a lot of ways. And yet there's been. I feel like an increased intentionality around trying to help people not be isolated. And if there's one thing that I would love to see continue is that continued generosity around community. One of the things. Sorry, I don't want to go into preacher mode here but it's one of the things that that affluence does for us is actually affluence separates us. It puts us into our own silos because we don't need other people. That's one of the things you see when you deal with our homeless neighbors, incredible generosity as people share limited resources. The more, the more affluent you become the more self sufficient you become you don't need people. And therefore you hang on to your stuff, because now you just need it for you, and you're not generous with it to others. But as soon as you find yourself in a place where you're in need. Then you're more willing to give up the things that you have in order to receive the things that you need. And I, there's a, there's a part of me where it's like. I want us to have that linger in our, in our minds. That's that linger that sense. No, when I, when I'm actually in need from somebody else, and they're in need for me that I get to give community, right? That's this thing that that draws us together to actually be self sufficient is the most damaging thing that we can do to ourselves, because then we just isolate, I don't need anybody else. And now I'm stuck off on my own and we, and I hate to say it and we wonder why we have a mental illness crisis, because I can be self sufficient. When we aren't designed to be self sufficient we are designed to be in community we need each other. And so the beauty of one of this moment is that we actually get to see how much we actually need each other. And when people do that when people come together and help each other out. We actually see that it's a beautiful thing and taking care of ourselves by taking care of others. And I would love to see man up there is something that I would love to see linger and if I could continue to be a part of. The connection that comes when we actually help each other out. Right. Let's hope that of the lessons that we are going to learn from this experience, the among the long remembered lessons are the power and value of community. And, and, and how much we need one another. We already need you in all your contributions so thanks for keeps your continued continuing to step up on behalf of so many for and so often. Well thanks Tim and thanks for doing this I think this is a, I think this is a tremendous, a tremendous gift that you're giving to the community as well. And for all the work that you're doing city council, everything that's led up to that bro man a greatly greatly appreciate how you have done this community. Just for listeners, I'm doing this as a volunteer. Yep. Yeah. No, no, no. This is the descent. I shouldn't say Tim, you've served this community in a lot of ways. Appreciate that. I just want to great and thank you as well. Thanks. I'm looking forward to when we when we re-emerge and we can see one another at the red farm. In the meantime, take care of yourself, stay safe and take care of that beautiful family. Thanks man. All right. Bye bye.