Buc-ees, Wrinkle the Duck, and How to Lead Your Church

Have you ever sauntered into a place with an unexpected plus-one and turned heads? That's nothing compared to Justin Wood's foray into Buc-ee's with Wrinkle, his alleged service duck. In an episode that sounds more like a sitcom setup than a real-life event, I, Todd Rhoades, co-founder of Chemistry Staffing, unravel the curious case of a man and his duck against a gas station titan. It's a tale that quacks open a discussion about rules, grace, and when to ruffle feathers within the church community.

Wrinkle's waddle into the limelight at Buc-ee's isn't just about the sensation it caused; it's a mirror held up to the challenges ministry leaders face when unusual situations flock to our doors. As we navigate this amusing yet enlightening conversation, we're not just talking ducks— we're talking about how to extend grace while maintaining the core mission and values of our churches. It's a reflection on love, understanding, and the kind of community we aim to cultivate, even when it means dealing with a situation you'd never expect to quack up in your pews.

Have questions or comments? Send to podcast@chemistrystaffing.com

Be sure to subscribe to The Healthy Church Staff Podcast wherever you regularly listen to podcasts.

- - - - -

Is Your Church Hiring?
If your church is searching for a new staff member, reach out to Todd for a conversation on how he might be able to help.

Are You Looking for a New Ministry Role?
If you are open to a new church role in the next few months, add your free resume and profile at ChemistryStaffing.com.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

okay, we got an interesting story today about buckies and a duck named wrinkle. Hope you'll stay tuned. This is the healthy church staff podcast. My name is todd rhodes. I'm one of the co-founders of our chemistry staffingingcom and today on the podcast, an interesting story that was just recently in the news Maybe you heard about it.

Speaker 1: 0:30

A guy named Justin Wood showed up at a Buc-ee's. You guys know what Buc-ee's is. It's a huge gas station in certain parts of the country. I've been in just one and it was a remarkable experience. A remarkable experience, and just go look up Buc-ee's, b-u-c-e-e-s online and you will find a community devoted to Buc-ee's.

Speaker 1: 0:50

But anyway, justin Wood decided to go to Buc-ee's one day and he brought his duck with him. Wrinkle the duck is the duck's name and Justin says that Wrinkle is his service animal or his service pet, and he took Wrinkle inside the store. For the most part, wrinkle stayed in a stroller, but occasionally got out and followed Justin around the store. This did not sit real well, as you can maybe imagine, with some of the store staff. He had not one, not two, but three different store employees come up and you can look this up online. There are pictures of Wrinkle the Duck inside the Buc-ee's and employees and Justin following him around in the store. But one, two, three employees came up and said you can't have your duck, You've got to take your duck, you've got to take your duck, you've got to take Wrinkle out of the store. And he said but she's a service animal. And he said I can give you three forms of identification to prove it and to prove that Wrinkle is a service animal. And they just went back and forth and again, you can look this up online. There are pictures of Justin and Wrinkle the Duck inside and outside the store.

Speaker 1: 2:06

But eventually what happened was when Justin decided to leave the store, the police were waiting for him and they gave him a notice that he was banned, not from just this one Bucky's but from all Bucky's properties, all of the Buc-ee's everywhere, for life. And it just made national headlines. I'm looking at the story on the New York Post. There should be a link in the description here on the podcast as well. But what in the world are you talking about this for on a Healthy Church Staff podcast, todd? This makes no sense whatsoever.

Speaker 1: 2:46

I want to talk a little bit today about how you balance rules and policies in the church and grace as a church staff member, because if you've been in ministry very long, you know that there are people that will test the rules. There were people that will test the policies and, just like Buc-ee's had a policy prohibiting animals for health code reasons, and that's the reason that they used was that Buc-ee's is a place that serves food and ducks necessarily aren't the cleanest of animals, although I will say that Wrinkle looked like he was pretty clean. She was pretty clean. But just like Buc-ee's has rules and guidelines, churches have rules and guidelines as well. However, as a church leader, you need to consider sometimes it may be appropriate to make exceptions. It may be appropriate in some instances to extend some grace and to accommodate individuals' needs, as long as it doesn't compromise the church's core mission and values. Churches sometimes have rules and policies and are so rigid on them to the exclusion of loving people in the church, and other times the exact opposite is so, that there are no policies or guidelines and that anything goes, and neither one of those is a good way to be as a church.

Speaker 1: 4:11

So how do you handle unique situations with sensitivity? Let's take Wrinkle for Existence, the service duck. It was an unusual circumstance that the Buc-ee's employees, I guarantee you, when they went to work that day, never saw it coming and they really seemed uncertain as how to handle it. And if you're a church leader, you're also going to encounter some of these atypical situations that you never thought you would go to church and have to deal with this. You never thought that you would have to go to the office to deal with this, but you're going to have situations that really sometimes require some wisdom and discernment and some sensitivity to address properly, and it's important to listen and to gather information and to respond in a measured way. Of course you have to look at the policy. You have to look at how you do things and what should be right, but sometimes there are things that are blurry and sometimes you need to consider different perspectives. So here's a different perspective. This man, justin, felt that his service animal should be permitted and while the store prioritized its no animal policy, justin didn't take to that. And church leaders need to be able to see issues from multiple angles and sometimes this means balancing things like member needs and desires and theology and church doctrine and public perception and legal requirements. Seeking to understand different viewpoints is really key One of the best episodes of this.

Speaker 1: 5:45

I'm looking right now I should have had this already and I can't find which episode it was, but was the boy I should have looked this up before was the view of an elderly gal that wanted to be buried in the church's cemetery and she'd given for the church. She'd been there for 50 years and she had become homebound and hadn't been to the church for a year. And I think the new pastor decided that no, she didn't qualify to be buried in the church's cemetery, so that created just a huge problem for the family. They were very upset about it. They actually did a petition and got thousands of people to sign this petition against the church and the church eventually had to back down.

Speaker 1: 6:41

Sometimes policies are meant to be looked at and bent a little bit, but the other side of that is you can't bend the policy for everybody. You really need to do that carefully, dealing with disappointed or frustrated people, and we do this all the time in the church. It might not be a duck owner, but the people do get disappointed and frustrated at our church and our leadership and we must be prepared above policies. Here's the main thing I want to say today. Above policies, you have to pastorally care for people, and that includes people that are upset or people that feel let down when their needs or their wishes can't be accommodated. And going back to something we talked about early on in this podcast, exhibiting empathy and explaining rationale and suggesting alternatives is a big part of what you do as we look at this. Yes, this story, todd again, what are you doing here? This story about Buc-ee's and Justin and the duck.

Speaker 1: 7:43

It's a quirky one, but it does illustrate I think it's a quirky one, but it does illustrate, I think, a lot of the complexities involved sometimes in upholding some of your church rules, while responding to individual situations and understanding that sometimes the care and balance. You need to strike a compromise there between care and balance. The goal should always be acting with both firmness and compassion, but it needs to be principled and it needs to be personal and it needs to be can I say it pastoral. You need to lead people and pastor people through any kind of disagreements, particularly when it comes to policies or rules that you have at your church. I'd love to hear your comments.

Speaker 1: 8:26

What have you come up against with people being upset, or maybe a rule or something that you have in your church that people got upset about. How did you deal with it? Did you end up bending the rule? Did you just tell them no? How did that go with the person that was upset? I would love to hear how you pastored through and maybe some of the mistakes you made or some of the things that you learned through that situation. You can email me anytime at podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. That's podcast at chemistrystaffingcom. This will probably be the last episode on church leadership and Buc-ee's that I do, but who knows, maybe not. We'll see. Hope you can join us again on the Healthy Church Staff.