Listen to Kirk Walden and Jacob Barr talk about encouraging stories and God’s fingerprints in the life minded world of pregnancy clinics.
Summary
This is Jacob Barr from the Pro-Life Team Podcast. In a recent episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Kirk Walden, a veteran in the pregnancy center movement. Kirk, who once led a pregnancy center and then launched Life Trends, shared his deep insights into the industry. We discussed the impact of God’s work in this field, emphasizing the importance of engaging with and helping people, especially those who have faced difficult decisions in the past. Kirk also shared personal stories, highlighting how our brokenness can be a tool to connect and reach out to others facing similar struggles.
A significant part of our conversation revolved around the role of fathers in the pregnancy decision-making process. Kirk highlighted the need for more robust fatherhood initiatives within pregnancy centers. He suggested that if a significant percentage of women reconsider their pregnancy decision when the father is involved, then investing in comprehensive fatherhood programs could be as impactful as ultrasound services.
We also touched on the complexities of relationships and parenting arrangements, including co-parenting, and how pregnancy centers can support these dynamics. Kirk shared an encouraging story about a woman who was the first client of a pregnancy center 30 years ago and how her decision to choose life led to her son serving in the military and achieving great things.
This conversation was a reminder of the multifaceted and compassionate approach needed in the pregnancy center movement, focusing not just on the women, but also on the role of men and the broader community in supporting life choices.
Hashtags: #ProLifePodcast, #PregnancyCenterMovement, #FatherhoodInitiatives, #LifeAffirmingChoices, #CommunitySupport, #MakingADifference, #GodsWorkInAction, #EmpoweringParents, #CoParentingSupport, #ChangingLives, #CompassionateCare, #EncouragementForDirectors, #UpliftingStories.
Transcript
The transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
Jacob Barr :
Welcome to the pro-life Team Podcast i am Jacob Barr i’m here with Kirk Walden and we’re going to talk about encouraging stories, God’s fingerprints and something that every clinic should revisit as something that’s helpful and something that we could all do could do better. Kirk, it is so good to have you here. Would you introduce yourself as if you were talking to a small group of Princey clinic directors?
Kirk Walden :
Be happy to, Jake i’m Kirk Walden. I was a executive director of a center from 91 to 99 There, I launched Life Trends, which was a company serving pregnancy centers. In terms of envisioning, communication, fundraising, all those things and Life Trends is now a part of Heartbeat International i’ve served there as well and I’ve also spoken at events for the last 20 years, so I any part of this ministry I’ve had, I’ve done something i’ve even been a board member so I’ve done everything but sweep the floors and I’ve done that a lot too hand clean toilets.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, i you seem like the Jack of all trades, master of a few, master of none that’s right so I’m excited to hear. Well, before I go there, i also want to say, I remember reading your book, The Wall probably was that eight years ago, 10 years ago that you put that out really.
Kirk Walden :
Good man, You’ve got a great memory it came out exactly 9 years ago.
Jacob Barr :
Ok.
Kirk Walden :
So you probably, if you read it was probably about eight years ago.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, i did read it and I remember it being impactful, like identifying how we’re like the stones, like the living stones of that wall. And I remember, yeah, thinking about that quite a bit back then.
Kirk Walden :
I love writing that.
Jacob Barr :
And so I’m I am interested in hearing what you would say when it comes to the question of what story comes to mind when you think about God’s fingerprints and the pregnancy clinic movement where what which story comes to mind when you when someone says where have you seen God working in this movement? What would you say to that?
Kirk Walden :
That’s a great question. I’ve seen them in many places, but I’ll tell you what I think I see them working through the people this is all about people. This entire ministry is about people it’s over the years, we’ve grown in so many ways from little mom and pops to where we now have medical clinics, where many centers are doing prenatal care, fatherhood initiatives, abortion, pill reversal, all those things. And yet at the core, we’re about people. And I see, and God working through broken people all of us are broken in different ways. We’ve got stuff, and he uses our stuff to reach people we couldn’t otherwise reach, because we can’t reach people if they see us as perfect. And if I can see why we’re so effective, it’s because people who have made decisions years ago that they regret are now using that time, which was so hurtful and feeding into the lives of people who are hurting and struggling with the same decision that they went through. And even me, I had a decision, not a decision really to make, but I was a single dad for nine years, got married to Jennifer who’s just in another room out there with two boys but when that first boy, we found out he was coming, I had already, I had three kids i’ve been raising them on my own met Jennifer. And I’ll tell you what, I was not happy with the fact that I was going to have another kid and I’ve been telling all these people for years that children are a gift from the Lord and yet, when I got that gift, I was like, I don’t know if I want this, you know, God, I don’t need another child right now i am tired. I’ve got these three kids, and you met one of them, Joel, who’s now 32 But I’ve gotten him to age 17 had another one fifteen another one thirteen i don’t need another baby. And it was really tough and yet God kind of got my attention he wasn’t angry, but he he’s, it was like you said, Kirk you know when I say children are a gift, you believe it or do you just say it? Well, over a few days there, I got excited about Josh coming and he’s doing great today, as is the next one, Jake, who’s another surprise. And if you want to believe I named him after you, that’s great, you go ahead. But I was able to share some of that with people who realized, you know, he’s not perfect either and he’s a pro-life guy. And I think it’s our people who take the brokenness of the past and utilize that and I’m going to use a term I really shouldn’t, but leverage that in a way God uses that in other people’s lives to reach him. And I’m just if we do that, Jake, we do that. We change the world.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah i think you’re yeah it feels like you’re touching on the concept of yeah helping inviting people to heal out of our brokenness. If and i feel like that’s where God works is and that’s where we that’s where we’ve been met is our and our own personal healing experiences with God reaching into our and you know showing up in our needs. And then that’s where we can then offer help to others because we know that God answers that need and that, you know, can provide the restoration in those areas.
Kirk Walden :
Absolutely and Jesus takes us and you know, we always say, well Jesus takes us right where we are, He really does. And I and I have to understand that and say that is absolute gospel truth. I’m writing a book now called Saving Samaria and very excited about it should come out this summer. But one of the key moments, of course, is when he meets the Samaritan woman when Jesus meets the Samaritan woman, and here’s a woman with five husbands in her rear view mirror, she’s got struggles she’s living with a guy and she’s got, she’s not part of the social scene in Sicar or anything like that. She is a mess. And yet Jesus sees incredible qualities in her. He sees a little. I go through it in the book, it’s I could, I could do it here, but it’s going to take a while, so I’m not going to do that. But he sees moxie in her, He sees honesty in her, which he compliments 2 times. And he sees a willingness to stand up against people and stand strong in the face of any opposition, all in that one encounter. And he chooses her to be the very first person to take the good news into Samaria. And after that, we see some other things happen we see the story of the Good Samaritan, all of that. But you look in the book of Acts and Samaria becomes a key launching point of the church. And I think, wait a minute, Samaria is the place where Jews don’t go, they don’t speak to them, where good Jews don’t go and they are totally separated from the rest of their Jewish brothers and sisters until Jesus takes the last person I would think of with all this mess in her past to change everything. And I think that’s what we do in the life affirming community. He takes many of us who have struggled with different things, tough decisions, bad mistakes and says you’re exactly who I need to reach that young lady and that young man who come in the door and if you want to find God’s fingerprints, that’s where it is because he takes us even with our messes and says you’re exactly who I meet. Come on, let’s do this. And I love it and.
Jacob Barr :
When I hear that story, one of the exercises that at my one of the my pastors at my church will often have us do is, you know, put yourself in the shoes of the person who Jesus is interacting with and imagine being there as an observer or imagine being the woman at the well with, you know, with five ocean ships and she’s living with someone else at the time. And just imagine, you know what it’s like to be in that person’s shoes i think. I think Jesus meets each one of us with all of our baggage and with all of our shortcomings and sin and facades he sees right through our facade and he definitely saw through her facade because, you know,
Kirk Walden :
He was able.
Jacob Barr :
To read her for where she was and with. Yeah just amazing insight and yeah just knowledge and so it that’s a really yeah and also the Good Samaritan, that’s a, you know, so I never really thought about it, but the woman at the well was the precursor to the Good Samaritan story, I suppose is that.
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, there are like there are 6 Samaritan encounters in there that Jesus has and they’re all fascinating i but that’s why I had to write a whole sting a book about it i couldn’t just stop what we could talk about on the podcast, but just the things that he was willing to do. Like another time they challenged him they said you have a demon. No, you are a Samaritan have a demon. And Jesus could have easily said no, I’m not a Samaritan. He didn’t do that. When they threw that label at him, he did not dismiss it and he did not accept it. He just didn’t even talk about it he says I don’t have a demon, and then he talked about why he does his father’s will he says you’re your father is the devil when he’s talking to these Pharisees and stuff. But they threw this Samaritan label at him, and he was willing to just let that go and not even address it because he knew that if he said I’m not a Samaritan, he would alienate the Samaritan people. But if he said I, he couldn’t say I am a Samaritan wouldn’t be true. But he was so wise not to take on labels and I think that’s another thing that we do well is and I challenge us, I don’t want us to say we’re not pro-life that’s that. I’m not going to say that at all. But I think we take on that pro-life label really quickly and people look at us and go oh, OK, you’re one of those. And I i’m using the word life affirming a lot more these days and we’ll talk about the life affirming community. And I’m not afraid to say pro-life there’s some people saying, well, we’re not pro-life and I go, well, I kind of am. You know, if you pin me against the wall, I am. But I tell people, if they say, well, are you pro-life i say, I don’t know about labels, but all I know is that when a young woman and young man are facing an unexpected pregnancy, a lot of us look at that and say that’s their problem and I say no. My faith tells me that’s my concern too, and I need to reach out and offer her the hope and the help, because she deserves that hope and help, and her child deserves that hope and help. And so I think that is a way of conveying who we are without just throwing a label in a bumper sticker out there.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, i would say, I would reflect that in the story of the Good Samaritan i I’ve been the robber and I have when it comes to my relationship with my wife, I have done things that have hurt her. And I’ve also been the person left on the side of the road bleeding in need of help. And I don’t get to pick who’s going to help me. And then I’ve also been the religious person who, you know, is busy with my emails and my calendar and my business. And I ignore the person that I should be reaching out to help. And so I’ve taken on all those rules. Most people always say be the Good Samaritan but in reality, I think all those roles were actually, yeah, there there’s a lot of truth in all of those roles, not just the Good Samaritan who is completely rejected, but yet stepping in to help at the right time.
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, I tell you it’s not as easy as I think i had an easy opportunity today me and my wife Jennifer, we’re walking down the street. Guy, one of our neighbors up the street who I’ve never met. I’ve met him once. His name’s Lewis and he has got a flat tire on his car he got it back to his house, got a flat tire he is fumbling and struggling and we were on a walk and I was like, we could keep walking and part of me wanted to just keep walking, but because I didn’t want to get dirty hands, I’ve now washed them but it wasn’t a big deal took us 15 lousy minutes we had him back on the road and all this kind of stuff. But I think it is so easy to pass by people and I, well, I’ve got something else to do. You know, we’re going on a walk. I’m having a time with my wife this is so important. No, we did it together she held the tire and I was knocking the bolts off and we were lifting the you know, we’re doing all this with Lewis and it was a great way to meet a neighbor but it is so easy i look back and I go. I almost walked by i almost just kept walking, said hey, good luck with that.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, well, I’m excited to see that book come out because what a what a interesting area to. Yeah to spend time considering and thinking and seeing how yeah, the woman at the well, I mean there’s so much richness there when it comes to her receiving help from Jesus and how that reflects the Precy Clinic love and care that we’re yeah, that’s being poured out.
Kirk Walden :
And we had the Samaritan, the Good Samaritan. He was moved by compassion. And what I’m trying to tell people here or get across, what I’m trying to make is the only way we win on the life issue is through compassion. We win people through compassion. And people say, well, no, we got to layout, layout the truth really hard and sometimes so well, you know, Jesus had a lot of opportunities to do that with Samaritans, with others the only people who got the truth were the Pharisees, the ones who are binding people with heavy burdens and all of these things, we win people and we win on issues through compassion. And I’ll walk through that a little bit more because I talk about how the early Christians exposure in Roman times was very popular and popular i shouldn’t say it that way, when if they didn’t want a child, they’d take the child out to the riverbank, leave it on the riverbank to die. Well, the early Christians went out and got the children and brought them in, as Andy Stanley calls it, the early foster movement, the early Christian foster movement. And over time, people began to take notice of their compassion and what was accepted practice became unacceptable. And then under Constantine it became illegal. And under Valentinian, later on in the later three hundreds, I think three seventy four, it became a capital crime to expose your child and it was all because the Christians showed compassion. They changed the culture without the right to vote, without the right to redress their grievances or anything like that. They change the culture in modern day. And I know I’m getting this off track sorry, but I’m just going to.
Jacob Barr :
Talk oh, I know it’s.
Kirk Walden :
Good. But in modern day times, if we can call it modern day, we all know Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers, first African American to play baseball. Why did that happen? It happened because Branch Rickey, who is the president of the Dodgers 42 years before he signed Jackie Robinson 42 years earlier. He was a baseball coach at Ohio West Wing. He had a guy on his team named Charles Thomas, who was who was African American and in Ohio wasn’t a big deal well, he took him on a road trip with the rest of the team to Notre Dame and in South Bend the hotel operator said he can’t stay in this hotel and Ricky in nineteen oh three was stunned. I can’t believe this. And he talked the innkeeper into allowing Charles Thomas to stay in his room. And while he was in there, Charles Thomas was rubbing his arms and he said, if I could just get this skin off, if I could just change the color of my skin, it all be OK and he was crying. And Branch Rickey decided right then that when the opportunity came through compassion, you know, his compassion for his friend Charles Thomas. He knew that when his opportunity arose, he was going to change baseball. And he did. After Jackie Robinson became part of the Dodgers another couple of years later, one year later, Harry Truman desegregated the military for the first time once they had seen Jackie Robinson play. All of a sudden we see the president saying, you know what, whites and blacks could fight alongside each other. And then after that we had Brown versus Board of Education. And after that we had Rosa, Rosa Parks and after that we had Martin Luther King a case can be made here that Branch Rickey’s compassion changed America on the race issue. He at least speed the process along. And I think if we do the same thing with the life issue, I think we can turn the tables we’re even if Rose overturned, we’re still a 5050 country. I think we can take it from 5050 to 9010 but it’s going to be through compassion. It’s through pregnancy centers and we’ve just got to take our game to the next level and it the people I’m talking to right now are already doing that, but we’ve got to get more people on board and that’s why I wrote the book. So we just need to pull more people in to the compassion because everybody’s watching the elections, which are important. Everybody’s watching the court, which is important, But the highest priority is compassion. And if compassion drives us to build these pregnancy centers, and if compassion drives our politics and compassion drives us in the in the judicial realm, if it’s all about compassion, I think we win the day.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, and I think compassion can be offered to one person at a time and it can become something that all of us can offer to one person at a time.
Kirk Walden :
Exactly.
Jacob Barr :
Or a small groups and large groups. But yeah and there’s a lot of correlation between, you know, the racism and the way that the unborn have been treated and, you know, dehumanizing a people group in a way that is terrible and dangerous and, you know, it’s.
Kirk Walden :
I tell you though, getting back to pregnancy centers and race people, sometimes they’ll be in different parts of the country and they’ll say, well, what’s it is there a lot of racism in the South and that sort of thing is that a real struggle? And I smile and I say, you know, the pregnancy center banquet that I went to, that was the most integrated that I’ve ever been to in my life. It was like 4060 sixty 40, something like that. I said guess where that was and they go where I said Selma alabama. And I think of all places where the civil rights movement, you know the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge which they just celebrated a few days back and here it was Selma. We’ve integrated the pregnancy center movement in such a way that a town that is known for, that was known for its racism is now one of the most integrated and it’s shown at their pregnancy center event. And I was talking to a black pastor there at that event and he said. Yeah, this guy on the board over there who happened to be white he pointed him out and said that doctor over there he tells me where we’re going on a mission trip we all go together and I think yeah we’re getting there and I think a lot of the you know you talk about race look we’d take any color comes into pregnancy center and it’s and we work together in all colors and I think we’re seeing that really take off and it’s fun to see.
Jacob Barr :
Oh, that’s good. So Kirk, where would you switching into a new area, where would you say Precy clinics need, well, what’s an idea that you have that you’ve come across that’s relatively new. You know, let’s say it has a minority of clinics are currently using it, but it seems like a good idea that would be good to promote that is still just a minority. Yeah, maybe 20 % of clinics or something, you know, some small amount currently do it, but yet it’s something that should be shared and talked about.
Kirk Walden :
Here’s the thing and i’m going to be I’m. I am maybe I’m wishing and hoping. Maybe I’m maybe I’m wrong. And that may be very true. But here’s what I’d like to see. A lot of us, a lot of pregnancy centers have fatherhood initiatives we’re talking about it. You go to Karen, they’re talking about fatherhood all the time. You go to heartbeat conference we’re going to and there’s going to be a fatherhood talk or something going on and people are doing different things trying to get this off the ground i got friends involved in it and everybody will tell us we got to do this right, this. And so it’s in more than 20 % of centers. But what I keep seeing is it’s just hard to get it to take off. Just hard to get it to take off because we’re using volunteers. And here’s my challenges i just went in the dark on my light here i don’t know what happened but.
Jacob Barr :
It’s fine don’t.
Kirk Walden :
Hey, people don’t need to see me too well, anyway, maybe it’s kind of like I’m a I’m Acia undercover operative. But here’s the challenge and I may be dead wrong, but if 86 % of women, that’s a figure we’ve heard over the years. Your child on ultrasound, choose life. We’re all going to get the ultrasound, right we’re going to get an ultrasound and we’ve done that. We’ve got a nurse manager we’ve got, we’re doing all these things and we’re doing advertising for this oK, great. Well, 83 % of women who end their pregnancies polled later surveyed later will say that if the dad had been more involved, they probably would have chosen life 83 Yeah, and I’m saying, OK, are we willing to make the same investment in dads that we’re making an ultrasound. Somebody says, well, to get a fatherhood staffer on board all the time because we get a part time person and hey, that’s a great step or we do volunteers and that’s a great step But would be we be willing to go the whole thing and say we’re going to get a full time coordinator, we’re going to pay him well so that he doesn’t have to do 3 different things to work with us. And that’s a huge step of faith. And so I’m not telling anybody they have to. I’m not saying that if you don’t you’re, you know, I’m not I’m, I can’t go there because i’m not on the ground i’m sitting here in my home, in my little sitting room where I write stuff and it’s easy for me to say, but I’m just asking the question, what would happen if we invested fully in a fatherhood coordinator who then brought in staff members and said, hey, we’re going full speed ahead on this? I wonder what the results would be. I wish I could tell you, I know, you know, I wish I could be that dogmatic and tell you, Jake, if we do this is going to happen. I don’t know because we could pay a father of three kids or whatever, you know, 6070 grand or whatever it is. I don’t know i’m just throwing out numbers is almost as much as our executive director whatever that number is and we might not have great results. So I don’t know but i it will be interesting if we could try.
Jacob Barr :
I do think we know that a woman in our crisis, if she knows that she has a support system such as the man in the relationship, then the chances go up dramatically for her to believe that she can continue on and you know, not think of abortion as her only option i think that’s you know that that’s important care that sometimes a volunteer speaks that into her life through care and time and listening and after building rapport and trust then deliver some really good direction. But if we can reach her significant other or the person that she’s listening to in her tight circle of, you know, her boyfriend, her husband, her friends. I think there’s, yeah, there’s a lot of value in her support system supporting her in the in a good decision and being there to, you know speak life into her decision or to speak direction and life into her, you know her world. And if the dad would, you know have confidence and excitement in becoming a dad or the father becoming a dad, that that’s going to provide her with a lot of support. One of the men’s programs I heard about is they would, it would have the you know, they had a men’s program that would involve woodworking and they would build a crib. And then and it would allow the guy to do something that would make sense to him while he was being able to talk. You know, maybe in a discipleship type of woodworking room with someone else and then, you know, but then actually to build something that it felt like he was doing something to contribute, which has a lot of value for him. Whereas normally he might feel like he’s lost in the pink building and not sure how to navigate, you know, the feminine world of, you know, some Prancy clinics. It feels very yeah, feminine and so and so yeah, having a way to help helping the guy navigate it, helping out, helping, you know giving him an option to like get involved and to contribute and to feel like and then for him to make something out of wood that could then become like a family heirloom you know It just went from him feeling awkward to now he feels like he’s taking some ownership and you know he’s got some buy in from like his splinters and woodworking work and so I love it. But yeah, I think in the end we got to find out. There’s lots of ideas that would allow you know, find more ideas for that are representing him feeling included and needed more so than a third wheel of some sort.
Kirk Walden :
I like it and one of the things I challenge setters on is we keep all these statistics, decisions for life, faith decisions, all these things. And one I would love to see us put into our statistics is how many two parent families have we seen come out of our ministry either through adoption or through bringing the father in or building a shaky relationship and rebuilding that. How many two parent families Because that’s what that’s one of the things that we would love to see. You know, obviously single moms are courageous and I and I want to give them everything, all the accolades I can. But I think most single parents and I was a single parent for nine years. Most single parents would say I sure could use somebody else. So with all of our, with all of our supportive single moms, and I think that’s great. When I was a single dad for nine years after my wife left, before I met Jennifer, I was just, can I have somebody else, you know? And those nine years were long, nine years so I know what a little bit of a single mom of what she goes through being a single dad. And yeah, let’s count two parent families in our statistics. And if the numbers two or three, one year, that’s OK Let’s just try to raise it to seven or eight or nine or ten. But the more we could be proactive about it, and intentional anyway, we can’t think the better off we are.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, there’s a there’s a few subtopics that sort of branch off of this one would be if one, let’s say if one person’s a believer and one person’s not a believer. I think the priority would be that the person who doesn’t know Jesus yet meets Jesus before promoting marriage as being maybe the right, you know, idea to pray about generally. I think that’s true but yeah, then again, you know, every situation might require its own set of creative.
Kirk Walden :
Thinking every situation is different i mean, there is a principle there about unequally yoked and all those things, although here here’s the one we can go back and forth on sure once they’ve conceived the baby, are they already yoked anyway? You know, I mean that.
Jacob Barr :
Is a yoke, are they? Yeah, I think. I think the unequally yoked is, yeah, they are already. They’ve already got a lifelong connection at that point.
Kirk Walden :
Now obviously, I think here’s the easy one if the two had a, you know, one moment or something like that and they’re just they are not at all together, then I understand we don’t need to just have shotguns and get people married i mean that’s not.
Jacob Barr :
But.
Kirk Walden :
It just being thought.
Jacob Barr :
Of if someone’s already yoked, the whole idea of not being unequally yoked is maybe that’s a decision that’s already been yeah, it’s.
Kirk Walden :
That’s interesting. And that tells us that there is no easy answer here and I can’t sit here on a podcast and tell somebody this is what you do in this situation, this is what you do in that situation but a lot of times what we’re seeing more than anything is we’ve got a couple that’s already together, they’ve been together for a long time and they’ve got a baby and it’s like, hey, you may as well you’re already basically living a married life. Why don’t we go ahead and support that as a real marriage and make a real marriage here and go from there. But again, there’s no, there’s no cut and dry to answer here and but it makes for fascinating discussions that’s for.
Jacob Barr :
Sure, yeah and then the other subtopic that and I don’t know how to navigate this one very well, but when someone doesn’t choose to get married but yet they did, they both decide to parent in some kind of capacity. So it’s almost like and that’s what that’s even called, Is that like a Co parenting? Co parenting oK. And I don’t know much about Co parenting, but it feels like that’s, you know, that’s one of the options that is sort of can you speak to Co parenting like what do you. Yeah what are your thoughts on that as a one of the options that’s on the table?
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, it is an option on the table and i think it can be awkward, but it can be done. And the point here, I think that we’re really talking about the foundational aspect here is we want a father to be part of the equation with the child and instead of her being on her own. And if he can come in and be part of the child’s life, if marriage isn’t in the cards for whatever reason, OK but if he can be part of the child’s life, then that, then I think that’s great and then it takes a lot of maturity because when another man comes into her life, how does all this work? So again, we have a our society is messy and I wish I could clean it all up and say do this and do that and do this and it’s just not that easy but I know dads are good when they’re good dads. That’s what I know.
Jacob Barr :
There’s a clinic in Tucson where I’m at. And one of the things that they’ve done, I think they’ve done it nine times over the last maybe seven years, is that they have paid for the justice of the peace they found a church to put on the wedding. They found someone to make a cake. They found someone to bring some flowers and they put on the wedding for a couple and the very and for most of these couples they couldn’t afford the wedding and so it was the very first one. I remember Kathy was saying, yeah, she couldn’t afford to go to the justice of the peace and pay 50$ to get. Married and so, that you know, essentially she started like feeling the burden of that, you know, financial strain and said well, we’ll cover it. And then they ended up, yeah, doing a lot more than just a 50$ license fee and just. And so that’s a really fun idea that ties in with the men’s program in a in a way for certain situations where yeah, finances are tight and there’s a couple that wants to get married but doesn’t see the, doesn’t see how to get there because of, you know, weddings are expensive and they can be very overwhelming when it comes to the financial side of a wedding but they can also be done with some help and with. Yeah, without being expensive.
Kirk Walden :
Well, all goes back to what does compassion look like in this situation And to throw that couple of party and say we’re with you and we’re behind you, this tremendously compassionate and it takes a few dollars out of our wallet i get it but it goes back to the Good Samaritan who when he came across this person hurting on the side of the road, he ended up giving the innkeeper 2 days wages to take care of this guy and he didn’t give him his entire wallet he didn’t say I’ll, you know, I’ll take care of him forever. But he said, hey, if he uses up that money and when I come back through, I’ll pay you for that. And I think that’s what we do. You know, just a little compassion can go a long ways and giving people that start is a really exciting thing. And as we could go on all night talking about a lot of the dads we have in these centers have never known a dad and they’re learning for the first time what this is all about. It is tough i had a moment with a young man in my office when I was director and I asked him what are you going to do if she’s pregnant and he shrugged his shoulders and he said I don’t know whatever she wants to do. And my first thought was, wow, this is a deadbeat dad, he needs to step up now i didn’t say that I wasn’t, but i was thinking all those things in my mind i’ve talked to him a little bit and I’m i think I was kind but on the inside I was seething at this guy. Why don’t you step up? But when I had a little time to step back and think about it, I thought, and this was in the early nineties I thought, you know, for 20 years this guy has been told he has no choice in this matter. All he can do is write a check she gets to choose. He has to shut up. He was telling me what he thought I was supposed to hear. Well, he was saying the right thing. So I’m understanding. I began to understand these guys who haven’t had a dad i had a dad, went to my ball games and did all these things and these guys have never known of that except come by every once in a while and maybe want some money from their mom. Yeah, and they’re supposed to know what dad is. We got to help them.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah, that’s a good, yeah so essentially a men’s program that provides an opportunity for mentoring and support, you know, so that men can find out what it what it takes to be a man in these situations and having that kind of community support is desired and needed or needed and desired.
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, but yeah, we can do that and just come alongside and say, hey man, I’ve screwed up as a dad a bunch. But I’ll tell you at least, at least I’ll tell you where I screwed up. And we can work together on getting you wherever you need to go, ’cause I think the best mentor is a guy who’s willing to be transparent and vulnerable and say, you know what, I messed up with my kids. You know, I’ve not been the perfect dad all the time. And you know, I, Jen, my wife has to tell me that I’m a good dad a lot of times because I feel like i fall short more than I get it right.
Jacob Barr :
So, yeah, but yeah, one of my colleagues at work today was saying he wanted to email one of our clients and saying something, you know, since I sent something wrong. And he’s like, I don’t want to send the right thing and just, you know, call you out i’m making a mistake and I told him, just send the right thing and say this is what Jake should have sent you and I’m like, yeah, I told him all leaders make mistakes and good leaders will tell stories about their mistakes and so I think I think some of the best leaders that I’ve ever experienced are ones that are that show vulnerability and authenticity by sharing where they have fallen short. Because just like we started in the beginning you can you can offer healing from your brokenness and where Christ has provide healing you can speak to you know where I’ve got this big crack and yet yeah, here it is i’m able to still offer out of that.
Kirk Walden :
And we don’t have to barf all of our problems all over everybody but there are times with, you know, with wisdom and with timing and all those things when it when it’s just the perfect thing to do and I’m i know a lot of times when I speak at events I’ll tell the story of not being excited about this unexpected pregnancy and struggling with it because I was 45 at the time and I’m like, I don’t need to do this because here I am i’m 59 my hair is Gray and I’ve got a 14 year old and a 12 year old but and I had to play a father son basketball game a couple of weeks ago. It was hilarious, Jake, because I had to play two games i had to play the middle school and junior high game and I was like, I can do this the quarters were only like 6 minutes and they said, oh we got enough dad, so you just play the second and fourth quarters of each game i thought this is not a problem. By the time I got to the fourth quarter that second game, I was winded i could barely breathe. I was running it is like I ain’t going to shoot the ball because the ball is not going to go anywhere near the goal. I will just pass, but I don’t know where that was going but I’m an old guy and so when I tell that story, it events, I inevitably have somebody come up to me and say thank you. Because, you know, we go to church we’ve been Christians forever, and we’re in this great church. I didn’t want to tell anybody I wasn’t excited about this pregnancy i couldn’t. But thank you you’ve given me the courage to say it was tough. You know, I had the baby baby’s great, but I wasn’t happy. I get it, you know, And we have to be honest about that.
Jacob Barr :
So tell me what what is your day-to-day look like at Heartbeat International like what is, what is the Kirk Walden schedule look like what do you what do you find yourself doing as you’re working with well, this just this large group of Princey clinics with a variety of needs what? How do you fit into that puzzle?
Kirk Walden :
Well, interesting thing i actually went off of paid staff at the end of May last year.
Jacob Barr :
Ok.
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, to write this book and do some other things so I am a volunteer staff member with Heartbeat and in fact i’ll at the conference, I’m the MC and that kind of thing but. So it’s a lot of fun but what I do day-to-day is all right. And the other thing get ready for events. But I feel questions all the time from friends I’ve made over the years in fact if somebody wants to email me and has a question, kirk walden.com just do that and holler at me because that’s what I do and I do that that’s just part of the joy of doing what I get to do it’s not something where I’m on some paid staff somewhere but I get to do like I get to do this podcast and I’ll do about a podcast every month or something like that and I’ll do a Zoom call somebody have some questions i had somebody today who’s leaving her position and was talking about transition transition to the new director and that kind of thing what does that look like? And so we go back and forth with questions and that’s what I get to do. And after 30 years in this work, it’s kind of nice. I don’t feel old i feel like a kid, you know? And but after 30 years in this, I started as a director at 28 and I’m 59 now. I get to tell people where I kind of fell short or what I learned through this. And I find I have answers that I didn’t have 20 years ago. And if somebody has a question, I don’t always have the right answer. But I’ve been through enough wars and stuff to be able to jump in there when somebody has a question, so I love.
Jacob Barr :
Doing that and that’s so that is so treasured when they have to have someone with advice when you’re, you know, essentially to help, to help someone fast track.
Kirk Walden :
Well, hopefully to avoid.
Jacob Barr :
Pitfalls and as they’re trying to work down their learning curve quicker than maybe you or I did to be able to share. You know, you know what to what to try first before and what maybe what to skip. Possibly because it may not work as you might expect possibly.
Kirk Walden :
What the heck in this situation or whatever. And I still talk to a lot of people about fundraising events and that kind of thing since I’ve trained on them. I’ve trained people in events for years and the only difference is i’m not I’m not an official trainer for anybody but i can look at different ways people do events and say this works really well and this group over here has some ideas that you may want to look at so that’s a lot of fun and I think I’ll do some coaching here in the future as well.
Jacob Barr :
Awesome well, the last question I have for you, Kirk, is if you can think of a story that would be encouraging to, let’s say it’s an executive director, it’s she’s in her first four years of being that executive director. How would you what story of encouragement would you share with someone who is feeling overwhelmed by, you know, by her new role? What would you say to someone in that scenario?
Kirk Walden :
Well you kind of asking 2 good questions there one of them is what would I say to her?
Jacob Barr :
Ok.
Kirk Walden :
And the question is, and the answer to that is you don’t have to know it all. It’s OK if you make mistakes, draw on other people when you need to. Don’t be afraid to ask dumb questions because this is weird what we do is weird. It’s different than any other ministry in so many ways you know, there’s so much warfare going on and so many different challenges that we face. It’s not only spiritual in people who, when we think about evangelism, but we’re also thinking about human lives or hanging into balance. And we have got to reach that point where we say, OK, God, I’m going to do what you have called me to do best i know how to do it. And we always say leave the results in God’s hand, and that’s really important that we’ve got to let go of that. But the other thing is, I think there’s just a story that came to mind that you need to know that whatever you do, you’ll be shocked at the legacy you’re leaving. That pleasantly surprised i should say I was in Walmart, which I have to admit, i have shopped at Walmart on many occasions. But I was in Walmart one time a few years after I was director, and I was still living in the same city. I was working with the school, helping them with fundraising and starting my own company, Life Trends for Pregnancy Centers but I was working in school during the day. I go into Walmart, I’m getting batteries or something like that, and this girl behind the counter says.
Jacob Barr :
Where do you work?
Kirk Walden :
And I said, well, I work at this school said, no, not there, not there no, I don’t know you from there. Where’d you work before that? And I told her, well, i you know, we’ve got a line of people at Walmart here and I and I’m like third in line and she’s looking at me and I and I’m going, OK what do I say here well, i worked at this, you know, Women’s Hope Medical Clinic. And she goes, that’s you helped me have my baby. You helped me and she showed me the picture and all this kind of stuff. And I go, OK, you know, but the first people looked at me when she said you helped me have my baby, is like, OK, who is this guy? But she was, she was happy and she wanted to show me your baby and he’s doing fine and all those things and you don’t just hang in there because there will be a legacy that I think a lot of times when we get to the Kingdom of God, I could not imagine what we’re going to see as people come up to thank us for what we’ve done and so on those dark days, remember there’s a legacy that you can’t see yet. You just can’t see it yet. And I’ll close with this i was in California at an event and they told me this is going to be a powerful client story. And OK, great. I’ve heard a lot of client stories a lot of them are powerful. Some of them you don’t know but we’ll see. This lady gets up she says it’s our this is the thirtieth anniversary of this center and she stands up and she says, I was the first client that walked in the door and I’m like, wow, their thirtieth. Anniversary they got their first client that walked in the door and she said, I didn’t want to have the baby, but I began to talk to so and so and as I did, I began to feel a piece and she went on through the story and as she begins to finish, this young man stands up in marine dress Blues and he stands up and he begins walking toward the podium and he’s about 30 years old. And boy, it connects really fast what’s going on here. And he walks up on that stage and he hugs his Mama and he says, he says, I want to thank you, Mom, for taking making this courageous choice. He says, I’ve had the honor of serving my country in Iraq and Afghanistan and all these different places around the world and he says, I’ve just completed, I’m completing my degree at the University of Southern California, and I’m going to be, and I think he’s going to be like this astrophysicist or something i’m like, holy cow, could you ever get anything better than this your first client ends up being a Marine who’s saved countless lives, who is now graduating from a prestigious university in this advanced curriculum somewhere. And he’s retiring from the Marines at 2930 years old. And I just looked up there and I go, there’s a legacy right there. You want to know what you do you want to know why we’re raising money you want to know why we get up every morning we go, This is going to be a hard day you want to know why we do this is because one day when we get to the Kingdom of God, we’re going to see that happen over and over and over again. We’re not going to believe it. And I think that’s why I do it.
Jacob Barr :
Yeah when you when you when you tell that story, I think of, you know, being in heaven how i don’t know how we’re not going to have tears of joy.
Kirk Walden :
Yeah, we’re not supposed to have tears, right?
Jacob Barr :
I think that’s what, yeah. But I don’t quite understand how we can’t have tears because there’s going to be such amazing emotions. It’s going to be great and so well, Kirk, I really appreciate your time and I’m looking forward i’ll see you at the Heartbeat conference in a few weeks and so awesome well, I think, yeah, I just, I’m excited to share this with executive directors so that they can find encouragement and hope and yeah, really just simply a nice thing for them to support them in the work that they’re doing.
Kirk Walden :
Well, they do great work and I love being. I love encouraging, and I hope this has been just that.