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Philippa Channer: When God Says, "Trust Me" · Why I Believe

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome back to Why I Believe.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Michelle Von Ruden, and today I have Philippa Channer joining me.
• 0:07
  How are you today?
• 0:08
  I am doing fabulous yourself.
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  I'm doing well, thank you for asking.
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  Can you give us a brief introduction into who you are?
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  Yes, so Philippa Channer.
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  Um, I am, let's see, many things.
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  I wear many hats like a lot of women.
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  I am a uh wife of twenty-two years now, uh mother of three amazing teenagers, boy, girl, boy.
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  So nice balance.
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  And I'm a business owner.
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  I started my business six and a half, almost seven years ago, doing business and marketing strategy for female entrepreneurs and just enjoying life.
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  Awesome.
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  Yep, lots of hats and I think we're all pretty used to that, right?
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  So how do we wear the hats and how do we juggle But today, let's talk about you and let's talk about your journey and your faith and where it all started.
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  And I believe you told me it started at your brother's wedding when you were just eleven years old.
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  Yes.
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  So the story goes, my brother had recently at that time, uh this was 11, so 1990, 89, he had joined the army.
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  He's my older brother, he's nine years older than me.
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  And he met his future wife.
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  And um they wanted to get married.
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  But of course, both of them being in the army, stationed in at that time, I think it was Belgium that they were stationed in.
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  And so we had they had very limited up options in terms of getting married.
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  Of course they could just go to the courthouse, but they wanted a a uh
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  uh marriage and a a wedding based off of you know start with the f original religious foundation and so my mother and I were tasked with the chore of trying to find a church
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  and pastor that would be willing to bless this marriage and officiate the wedding with very minimal time with the couple.
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  Usually they want some like marriage counseling at least a few weeks to just kind of assess the relationship all that good stuff.
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  And they're done that.
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  uh And so we found
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  a Baptist church that was wasn't too far from where we lived that was willing to do it with three sessions and they could rapid fire those sessions within the few days that they
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  had.
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  Like I think they had two sessions on one day and then another session the next day and then they got married the next day.
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  um We were just so appreciative of how supportive and accepting they were of the situation and were willing to do it.
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  And so his name was Pastor Potter and this was uh Goldenrod Baptist which is no longer there now sadly.
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  um But we just were so touched by the commitment and how they helped us and how they really showed up that my mom and I decided, you know what, we want to continue going.
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  So my mom, my dad, and I, and my oh I have two older brothers, the one that just got married and another one that's six years was older than me.
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  He had already moved out of the house and was kind of living life, still in the area.
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  So the three of us, me, my mom and dad, really started to make that church our home.
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  I think we were baptized within two months of the wedding.
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  And that's where I'd always been Catholic before that.
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  And I say Catholic loosely because we visited, but never really like we weren't like practicing like every weekend doing all the things.
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  Like I don't even think I got Christianed, that type of things.
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  Um, but when I was eleven and had this wedding and all the good stuff, we really made that church our home.
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  And that's when I really started realizing like, oh, I can have a relationship with Jesus.
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  It's not just a building thing.
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  Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah, and I think that's important.
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  You know, we can go to church every Sunday, we can do all the things on the outside, but it's what really matters is that relationship on the inside.
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  And so how did you go about developing that relationship, right?
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  So you went from Catholic to Baptist, which I think is an interesting turn of events, but Catholic to Baptist.
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  And then realizing that it didn't matter where you were, you still needed to have that internal internal relationship.
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  What was really helpful is that pastor like
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  So many other Baptist pastors had a lot of children.
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  He had eight children.
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  And many of them were around my age and a lot of them are girls.
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  I think the boys were much older or much younger.
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  And so a lot of the girls that his daughters were my age.
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  And so we got along really quickly.
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  And they were the ones that really took me in.
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  It was one of those, I don't know if they even still do this anymore.
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  I we visited, we did the wedding, we visited.
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  uh
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  And they came to my house, I think, within that week to actually kind of greet us personally.
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  And I'm like, I really remembered because it wasn't just the pastor, it was like the the kids came too because they knew my parents were there and I was there.
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  So they wanted to have a kid, kid to kid, you know, kind of connection.
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  And that really meant a lot.
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  And so since then, like they really took me under their wing and walked me through a lot of things to think about.
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  practices to put in play and just really opening my eyes to the truth of God's word and how it's not about just going through the rituals of certain things, but it's really the
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  relationship with him and how the many different titles that he has and how he shows up in our life.
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  And that really was an impact for I think till I was 18, 19 of
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  Learning all the things.
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  Well, it sounds really nice.
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  It sounds like you kind of went there and got a built in community, which as kids, that's important, right?
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  You know, if you're hanging around people that aren't necessarily believers, you know, were so easily swayed at that age that I think it could have gone either way.
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  But the community came in and surrounded you with love and knowledge to help you build your own faith.
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  Yeah, that's beautiful.
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  and what they did that was really helpful.
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  I don't know if they just they just didn't, it wasn't intentional, but they were real.
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  I've seen families of you know, pastors' families or leaders in a church and their families, and they sometimes are so concerned about their
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  I guess their persona or how they are appear in church that it come off kind of fake sometimes.
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  It's hard to get a relationship with them because they're almost like they're performing.
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  They were very real and raw.
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  Like if they had issues, you know, it it was a it was a two-way street.
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  I know sometimes I can be dangerous, but like you know, like they wanted to make sure that they we understood that they're real people too.
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  They make real mistakes, they're real sinners as well, they're not perfect, and we were
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  able to learn from their example of how they overcame different issues and that really helped not make the walk of Christ be something that is so you know a walk of perfection
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  that I had to live up to some type of expectations like no I could be me I can be the flawed person I am and still have a relationship with Jesus and that really helped.
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  Yeah, I think that's so important to highlight highlight, especially like when we're talking about the pastors or, you know, fathers, priests, whatever you call it, call them,
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  you know, in your denomination.
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  But it's really important that like I think it's easy to put them on a pedestal and realize that they are and think of them above the superhuman level.
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  But r and some of them try to portray that, right?
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  Like you said, some of them really try to portray the perfectionism, but
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  At the end of the day, they are human just like we are, and they make mistakes just like we do.
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  And I think it's really hard to develop that relationship with somebody when you think that they're above you, when really they're your equal.
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  And for you, they came, they came at you as you called it real, right?
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  They were truly who they were, flaws and all.
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  And I think that's so important because a lot of people think that when we accept Jesus into our life, that our life is going to be perfect and we
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  I keep saying this I think almost every podcast, but that's not how it works.
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  Um, all right, our life isn't perfect and we're gonna have those flaws.
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  And it's so nice to be able to see that from somebody that we respect and admire who's a leader within the organization.
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  Yes, yes.
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  They they they modeled how to recover when things happen.
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  Um and to just d be honest about it and not try to cover it and just work through it and were open to speaking with other people than other leaders within the church when they
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  knew, okay, this leader can help me through this issue.
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  And it wasn't like, okay, everybody needs to know all my business, but it wasn't like, okay, I'm gonna hide it.
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  That really made a the difference, yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  So what did that look like as you went on in your life, right?
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  So we know your young adulthood was really formed very nicely with community, which is very important.
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  How did that look like when you went off to college?
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  And did you keep the faith or like a lot of people, they kind of sidetracked?
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  Yeah.
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  Thankfully I so all through college I was home.
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  Um I went to high school, but basically I went to elementary school, middle school, high school, and college, all within five miles.
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  Um so I was I was able to maintain that, but it was that switch for me happened literally when I got married.
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  And so which was really nice, I should go back to the original story about my brother and his wedding.
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  Not only did Pastor Potter marry my brother then, my other brother, the the son that's six years older than me, he came
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  back um and he got married with that pastor as well.
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  Um two cousins of our of mine got married with that pastor and me and my husband.
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  um And so when we got married, we were living in Florida.
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  This all this was happening in Florida.
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  And then we moved to uh the D the DC Maryland Virginia area where we are now.
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  And thankfully my husband's parents were already here in the Maryland area so they already had a home
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  church and so it was really easy to just transition into that new church life.
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  And what was different was it wasn't too big of a change going from Baptist to non denominational.
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  That was actually a pretty easy transition because it was this pastor is so focused on being a teacher, not a preacher, and really teaching practical ways to apply what we're
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  learning in the Bible to our faith.
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  So that really helped significantly in the first years of our marriage.
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  ah Because and one of the
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  big difference was not only the Baptist to non-denominational, but it was a I say my church in Orlando was maybe 75 on a good day.
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  This church is like 7,500.
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  It was huge.
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  And so it was a big change in culturally in terms of what church looks like.
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  Um
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  But what really helped was the amount of resources a larger church has.
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  So we had my husband and I then had a lot of marriage classes that we could go to, couple classes we can go to to learn from other couples, to talk with them, get that foundation.
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  And then the pastor's preaching, teaching really, really helped solidify as an adult what I was learning and how to apply, continue that relationship with Christ, but also apply
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  what I'm
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  Learning beyond the church.
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  Yeah, that's that's a really big jump from seventy five to seventy five hundred, right?
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  So how did you how did you handle that and how did you find your community within the community?
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  So at first, I think the first year, year and a half, we spent really getting into the small groups and trying to get active and volunteer.
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  We were volunteering and serving, as I say serving, not necessarily volunteering, serving in the God's kingdom.
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  We were serving in a lot of different ministries, and that was giving us the ability to see the common faces.
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  You know, that whole, I forget the I forget the proper term, but the principle, 80-20 principle, 20% of
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  Of the 80% of the success of the church is done by 20% of the volunteering staff.
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  Um, really, yeah, thank you.
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  we really saw that in action because we kept seeing the same key leaders in different areas of ministry, but that allowed us to be able to build relationships with them, get
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  really connected.
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  Um, and then that led me to actually being on staff with the church for about 15 years.
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  And that, of course, really helped me.
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  make a big church small.
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  By joining those small groups, having those different spaces that I was serving, it took the seven thousand five hundred to maybe a group of fifteen or twenty over here and be
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  able to just actually have conversations and not get lost in the crowd.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, I I've been to a couple bigger churches, but not anything close to that.
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  Um, you know, our parish is I think a couple hundred people, you know, at our full extent, right?
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  Which is usually around Easter, Christmas, or Lent.
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  So right.
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  So yeah.
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  So how would you say that you continue to walk and grow in your faith each day?
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  Each day, honestly, so now that I've have three kids and they push and challenge and stretch me so much, um, running my business has really been a step in a walk in faith.
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  Cause I I would say the biggest thing that I'm really navigating right now is learning how to on paper be the CEO of my business and try to execute what I need to do while also
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  understanding and trying to respect that I'm technically
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  Not the CEO.
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  It's really God's the CEO of the business.
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  I am running and doing the things that He's called me to do.
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  So learning how to stop when I see myself making decisions and going forward and doing things and realizing, okay, did I really pray about that?
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  Do I really know if this is what God wants for this business?
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  It's helping me to slow down and realize, okay, when I see a lot of doors closing and things are not happening the way, it's like, okay, wait a minute.
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  When was the last time I really checked in with God the way I should be?
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  I can have my morning devotion where I'm praying for my family and praying for, you know, a good day, but am I really actively saying, God, this is your seat?
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  And this is the things that the business has presented, the different opportunities is presented.
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  What do you want me to do?
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  If when I'm not doing that enough, that's when I feel like I'm struggling and disconnected.
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  And that's a good warning sign for me to get back into his word, get back into just really spending some nice prayer time with him and trying to actively listen to what he's telling
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  me to do.
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  I think you hit hit it right on the head.
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  You have to listen.
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  Right.
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  I think a lot of times we go into prayer and we ask for what we need 'cause he tells us to, right?
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  Um, but then we don't take the time to sit still and listen.
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  And I think, you know, how is he supposed to empty you, fill you, and use you if you don't listen to what he says?
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  So how do you actively practice listening?
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  Because that can be a hard skill to learn for some people to sit back and just go, Okay, I'm listening.
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  And how long I mean, 'cause sometimes it can take a while to get your answer, right?
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  And you're like, how long do I sit here?
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  I say that, but I mean, in all fairness, it can take time.
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  Yeah.
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  I I I I try to picture it.
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  I I try to picture I try to give it some human terms and apply it to the more spiritual reality that's happening.
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  And so I I I liken it to, okay, I'm sitting there in my time of prayer and I pick up a phone and I call and I leave a message and I'm waiting for that return call.
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  And if I don't get that return call that day, which you know, human terms, there's many people that we've called and we're waiting for them to get back to us.
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  We've sent emails and we're waiting for them.
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  They're not gonna they don't they'll get back to us when their time is ready.
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  And trying to respect that, okay, God's kind of doing the same thing to me.
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  where his timing is perfect timing.
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  It's not necessarily my timing and what I want and what I expect, but if he didn't reply to my email or answer my phone call or return my call when I wanted him to, I have to
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  learn how to be patient and just wait because I know if it's the good and the right opportunity, he's gonna get back to me.
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  And so sometimes my prayer session will just be I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna put the call out there, I'm gonna wait just a couple minutes to see if I see something, I feel something, I
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  hear something.
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  And if I don't, okay, I'll move on with life.
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  And sometimes I will get the response, the email, the phone call, um, while I'm doing something else completely different.
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  Through somebody else, maybe I I'll listen to your podcast, I'll listen to the church message on the weekend, or somebody else will call me and say, Hey, you know, I was
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  thinking.
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  About this, have you ever thought about that?
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  And that's what I've been praying about.
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  I'll usually hear from God that way through other people.
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  And sometimes if I'm like, okay, was that really you?
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  I'll go back and pray.
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  Give me, give me confirmation.
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  I've I I'm gonna embarrass myself now.
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  I forget where in the Bible it was, but somebody asks God to, you know, you know, have either you know rain in a certain spot or not rain, make it dry, kind of like asking for
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  that proof.
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  If it's really you, show me that proof.
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  Sometimes if I feel like, okay, that person.
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  is offering this opportunity.
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  I've been praying about it, but is that really God answering me?
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  Or is that a distraction?
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  And then and if God hasn't answered me, is it gonna take me away from what I'm supposed to be doing?
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  So I'll ask for give me another confirmation just in case.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah, and you point out a really good point.
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  So it may not always be direct communication.
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  Right.
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  I think for me it's easy to be like, nope, that didn't come straight from him because I get a lot of things direct.
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  But it might come from somebody else.
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  It might come from that conversation.
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  It might come from that conference that you attend.
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  It might come from that meeting with your coach.
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  Right.
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  It could come from so many different places.
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  It's not always gonna be, you know, loud and proud and right in your ear.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  I've I've I've I've feeled I've started to get like a I can feel it in my body sometimes when I get the answer from somewhere else, if it wasn't just audible directly from God, if
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  I'm reading it somewhere or watching it or hearing somebody else's conversation and it's almost like this a wave just comes over me of saying, Yeah, that was me.
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  Yeah.
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  Did you hear that?
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  Did you hear what they just said?
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  Or did you read read that again?
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  You know, that was me.
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  And that that is it helps when I can feel it in my body and know, okay, that's not just, okay, that was really cool.
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  Because I can see a lot of really cool things and be like, all right, but I can move on with my life.
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  These are like I feel it.
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  And if I turn away from it, like something will be wrong.
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  Like stick with whatever that was just said because that's God giving me some type of instructions or direction or confirmation on something.
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  Yeah, that's great.
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  I am curious.
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  So as a marketing strategist, how do you utilize your faith within the business?
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  Because you might have clients who aren't believers, you might have clients who believe but don't know how to listen, you know, or that that waiting period.
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  What is your process and what is your thoughts behind that?
• 20:16
  Yes.
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  So for me, behind the scenes for sure, I'm trying to incorporate Christ into as much as I can do, making sure things are prayered up.
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  Um, every program that I have, uh trying to say, Okay, God, I feel like this is what you're called me to do and how you've called me to help these women is this program that
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  I'm developing the right thing.
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  So definitely behind the scenes getting that covered.
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  For sure, if as I'm talking with a client, I'll try and find a way to kind of ask about their
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  You know, belief systems and how it applies to their building their own business to get a get a feel of where they are and if there is a connection there.
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  I'll definitely bring it out more and more as we inter interact and and guiding them through some of the stuff I'm coaching them through.
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  Um and then the last thing that I do is a lot of, you know, as I'm t I'm a teacher.
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  So I'm a as I am a marketing strategist.
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  I don't come in and do your strategy for you.
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  I coach you through how to how to think more strategically about how you market your business, um, how to how to you know how to decide which opportunity.
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  are the right opportunities for your business.
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  So it's more of like a coaching process.
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  As any coach you've probably interacted with before, they're gonna give you examples.
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  That way you can visualize and up, you know, mentally apply what you're learning before you start executing it.
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  And I what I try to do is take a lot of the examples without using exact names or saying, okay, in the Bible, I da-da-da-da.
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  But I'll take biblical stories and how it applies to running a business or how it applies to making decisions, and I'll bring those examples and stories into what I'm
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  teaching and sometimes people will catch on and be like isn't that from the Bible and be like yes it is but that I that's how like I'll try to sneak it in
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  Right, 'cause if they know this from the Bible, then they know something or something.
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  Yeah.
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  No, I like that because I think and I asked about that because I think that's a start smart move not only in our business, but also in life, right?
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  So when you're walking through things, like you have to have a strategy in mind, you have to have a plan in place, right?
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  'Cause if you don't have a plan, then you're really planning to fail at the things that you're gonna do in life.
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  Yeah.
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  Exactly.
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  Yeah.
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  Yeah.
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  Well, it's been such a pleasure to talk to you today.
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  Um, I always ask my guest one final question, and that is, what is your favorite Bible verse or what are you walking through these days?
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  So one of the things that I've been trying to do is I've noticed over the years, past few years, which everybody goes through seasons in their walk and in their life of when they
• 22:58
  need to focus on themselves, really make sure take care of them mentally, emotionally, spiritually, make sure that they're solid.
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  Um but then I realized so sometimes where it's like, okay, I need to stop ignoring other people in my life, making sure that they're covered as well.
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  And so the
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  Bible verse that I've been praying and singing, if you know the song, is um Numbers 6, 24 through 26.
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  The Lord bless you and keep you.
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  Lord make his face shine upon you and gracious be to you.
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  Uh, and then the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.
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  Uh Evelise for Elevation Church has a song that's basically sings that verse.
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  And so I'll kind of just sing it and remind me to just really not just think about but really dwell.
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  On the people in my life, my husband, my kids, and think about okay, what are the struggles they're going through and asking God to bless them, to keep them, to be gracious
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  to him, turn his face to him, give him peace.
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  And so it's been helpful to kind of get out of my own head sometimes and focus on the others around me.
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  Yeah.
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  Oh, I love that.
• 24:09
  Well, Philippa, it was so nice to have you on today.
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  I appreciate you taking the time to be with us.
• 24:14
  Thank you.
• 24:14
  Thank you for having me.
• 24:16
  This has been awesome.