Latest / She Speaks Life - Christian Women, Strengthen Your Faith, Bible Study, Grow Spiritually In Christ / Jesus Love and Tacos With Carrie Stephens

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Jesus Love and Tacos With Carrie Stephens · She Speaks Life - Christian Women, Strengthen Your Faith, Bible Study, Grow Spiritually In Christ

• 0:00
  Hi there. Welcome back to she speaks life,
• 0:03
  and this may seem a little bit late and saying, Happy New Year,
• 0:09
  but I'll say it anyway. I ended up having the end of our
• 0:14
  last year of 2022 over the holidays with, so great events.
• 0:21
  Me being sick. Two times back to back and my
• 0:26
  son broke his fibula slipping on ice.
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  And he ended up having to have surgery and all that going on
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  the holidays. It just set me back, but I'm
• 0:39
  just now feeling like it could move forward with what all that
• 0:42
  God has for 2023. He is so good and faithful and I
• 0:48
  am ready to give you encouraging stories of Women of Faith, to
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  support our growth, in our relationship with God.
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  And we all know that by hearing There's going through their life
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  circumstances and how God pulled them.
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  Through builds our faith and trust in God's goodness and
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  faithfulness. So I'm excited, I already have a
• 1:14
  great lineup of gas to give to you this year and I am just
• 1:21
  motivated more than ever. And I wanted to let you know on
• 1:25
  March 4th in Naperville, Chicago is a mom.
• 1:29
  Conference that God has graciously entrusted me to be a
• 1:34
  part of and speaking about the sacred calling of motherhood and
• 1:41
  if you'd like to get away or you live near that area or even know
• 1:46
  someone share this info, you can get your ticket a table mom's
• 1:52
  dot-org. That's a be Lem OMS dot-org and
• 1:58
  you can find out all about This amazing.
• 2:01
  TurnKey mom Ministry that I've been writing devotionals for for
• 2:06
  the last maybe couple years now and I just love what they do.
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  I don't collaborate with, just anybody I collaborate with
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  something that I can get behind and, and be passionate about and
• 2:22
  you really are doing just such a great job and, and building
• 2:27
  moms-to-be at shakeable. Oil and capable and memorable
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  and how to disciple your kids to honor and love Jesus.
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  And it's just a neat mom Ministry, that is spread
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  throughout the nation and different churches, different
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  states. I'm so proud of the founder,
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  Amanda and just how this all got created, it was so God inspired
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  and a laundry room. She was talking with other moms
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  and so I really would love for you to just to check it out.
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  Maybe your church needs a mom Ministry and maybe you want to
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  start one in your home, go on, they're able moms at work, you
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  find all about it and about the conference in March.
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  So my guess the kickoff for 2023 is the author of Jesus love and
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  Tacos Carrey. Steve.
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  Even's and she lives. Literally the next town over
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  from me. It was so funny to find that out
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  before we hit the record button and Carrie talks about what it
• 3:41
  looks like to have. God be lordship in our lives.
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  Even tackles on the challenges of getting back into church
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  which is really interesting. You think oh nobody is really
• 3:53
  struggling with that now. I mean it's been so long after
• 3:57
  this pandemic but you'd be Surprised that a lot of us are
• 4:02
  not going in person to church. We're doing what's convenience,
• 4:07
  still and going online. And she really presses on the
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  fact that we need others. And we need that Community.
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  God designed it for a reason ever since the beginning in
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  Genesis 1. And so she also talks about
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  being on mission for others and really motivates us to start
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  thinking about Getting out there and what that looks like in our
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  community and in our lives. And so her husband have served
• 4:38
  at the Campus Ministries for 10 years at the UT University of
• 4:43
  Texas here in Austin, and they are pastors at Mosaic Church
• 4:48
  right here in Austin. So, without further Ado, let's
• 4:52
  dive into my conversation with Carrie.
• 4:55
  Hi Carrie. Welcome to.
• 4:57
  She speaks life. I'm so glad you're here.
• 5:00
  It's so great to be here. Thanks for having me.
• 5:02
  Well, it was so fun to kind of get to know you before.
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  I hit record. We just found out that we're
• 5:07
  both from California lived there for some years and we are
• 5:14
  practically neighbors here in Austin didn't realize it and
• 5:18
  then found out that you're basically the next city over so
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  it's kind of fun. So I know your book came out is
• 5:28
  called Jesus love. And Tacos.
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  So before we dive into your story, I would love for you to
• 5:35
  share with the listeners with us to things.
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  Your favorite scripture, verse, and what is your favorite taco
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  place here in Austin? Because I think many people know
• 5:47
  that Austin's real famous for their tacos, but maybe your
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  favorite places even in Austin. Maybe it's in California.
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  I don't know. Well, my as far as favorite
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  Highball verse goes, I was really sitting with that when
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  you asked me to share that lately.
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  It's so funny. I had a whole conversation with
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  my husband. The other day, I was reading my
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  Bible and I've been reading all the gospels this year, like
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  again, and again and again, just cycling through the gospels.
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  And I opened up my Bible. I was realized I'm super excited
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  because I was in John 2, which sounds sort of random, I guess,
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  or felt random to me. But I realized like one of my
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  most favorite parts of the Bible is when Jesus Turns water into
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  wine as wild as that is. I don't even drink wine but I
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  just telling him like I had to sit for a minute.
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  Like why am I so happy? I get to read this story and
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  partly it's because there's an exchange between Mary and Jesus
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  that I have an adult's and I mean, he just turned.
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  He's in college just turned 18. He's on his own and living out
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  of the house and all of that. And there's something about his
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  Jesus's exchange with Mary. That's so familiar to me as I
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  was like, you know, Mary's like hey they're out of wine and
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  Jesus is like, leave me alone, mom, like I'm doing my thing,
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  you know, which is very familiar to me.
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  But then just the exchange they have and and how Jesus then
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  takes this ordinary moment in someone's life, the celebration
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  that, you know, my husband was like, yeah, where they didn't
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  plan so great for the, for the hospitality side.
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  And he's so interested in to that and shows his Divine glory
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  in a moment when he didn't have. Have to.
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  And there's something about that, that's really reassuring
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  to me as a Christian, like the parts of my life.
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  When I think, a lot of times, I realized, I have needs that
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  don't feel like desperate need to have Desperate needs and then
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  I have like, you know, kind of like everyday things.
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  Like if it happens, if it doesn't happen, we'll work
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  around it. And that God is concerned about
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  all of those things. Both the impossible situations,
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  I find myself in which we see Jesus do so many times of
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  healing, you know, just enormously sick people and
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  Really challenging raising the dead, those are just impossible
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  needs but then here's this couple getting married and you
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  know, they they need help and Jesus enters into it and shows
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  his glory in such a cool way. And so I just really love that
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  passage. I love that story.
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  It's really meaningful to me. And then, as far as tacos, go,
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  if you come to Austin, if you're not from Austin, there's so many
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  great taco places. I'm going to stay a bunch of
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  taco places because I cannot pick one.
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  Okay, yeah. Okay, there's a place called
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  cuantos, Taco sits down on 12th Street.
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  That's amazing. There is a restaurant called
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  paprika. Fantastic.
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  There's one called Moon, Moon do this award which means like a
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  world of flavor in Spanish, fantastic amazing.
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  Those are all kind of like downtown ish.
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  Obviously we have Torchy's Tacos and Austin.
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  It's a fantastic place to go for tacos and whatever their Taco of
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  the month is, I will always eat it.
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  It's just, it's always something.
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  All and then there's a little play.
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  Okay, this is not a taco place technically but it's over there.
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  In Far West off Mopac. It's called Wally's.
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  I think it's like Wally's Chicken and Burgers.
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  It's it's just like a little local fast food.
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  Place has been in Far West for like, I don't know, 50 years or
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  something, but they have like the most, I'm they're super
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  Americanized. Those other places.
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  Well, not so much Torchy's with the other place.
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  I said, authentic this place is like the most kenai's version of
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  a crispy beef taco and I do I love them.
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  Like I do really love them. So if I'm getting a crispy beef
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  taco I will go to Wally's but otherwise if I want something
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  authentic I had downtown. Yeah.
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  Good to know because the only one I'm familiar with is
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  Torchy's right? Toward you not always a good
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  torches has the best case so I think in Austin.
• 9:50
  Oh yeah okay so and I always go, you venture out where you do the
• 9:57
  Tocco the month I just go for it.
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  The Amigas? Yes, that's it.
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  And I just stick to that because it's usually after church or
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  something and you know, it's crunchy, but I got Venture a
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  little bit and do those ones downtown.
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  That's so, yeah, it's there. It's really fun, right?
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  I mean, yeah, I know when you live where we live, it's not
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  easy to get into downtown, but always worth it.
• 10:21
  Yeah, I know. It's not, right.
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  It's like an adventure. Hey, I'm parking.
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  It's always complicated pack your bags.
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  Yeah. That's how I feel.
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  Sometimes we gone for hours. No.
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  Oh so yes, I love your title of your book.
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  Jesus, love and tacos and I just wanted to really just start out.
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  You know what? What was it that stirred in your
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  heart? To write this book?
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  Where did it come from? Really it started in the middle
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  of 2020, my husband, and I Pastor a church.
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  And so obviously, you know, right around mid-march of 2020,
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  our lives really changed. I'm everybody's lives really
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  changed in 2020, as far as the lockdown went.
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  But for pastors, it was particularly strange.
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  And a lot of I had a lot of conversations with my friends as
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  they sort of Tried to process all the losses and all the
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  changes in their lives. And I was just hearing a lot
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  from different people. We spoke with in our church and
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  in our community group, we have a small community of that meets
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  in our house which we start a meeting on Zoom.
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  And it's real diverse as far as we had singles.
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  And we had married people with kids small children, who had to
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  figure out childcare while they worked virtually, and people who
• 11:51
  are empty, nesters, who couldn't see their grandkids, and they're
• 11:54
  just a lot of disconnection, a lot of Challenge, and All
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  around, all of that. There was also, a lot of
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  questions from these different spaces, about what does it
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  really mean to walk? My faith out in this
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  unprecedented time, as we always said, and, and so, as I started
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  trying to think about what could help stabilize us, how could we
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  grow spiritually, even in the midst of so much change and loss
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  and disconnection. I started landing on these three
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  areas and I thought Write a book about this.
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  I really, I really want to better understand what the
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  authority of Jesus. Really means.
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  What is what is it really mean in our modern era where our
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  ideas about Authority are so kind of strange and convoluted
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  and the messaging about Authority from our culture is
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  just very confusing. You know, what does it mean for
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  Jesus to be both the Lord of all, and our friend who sticks
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  closer than a brother? You know, how does that work?
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  And so I wanted to press into those ideas.
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  I really wanted to press into the idea of what is church for.
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  Why are we the church? What does God really say about
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  being the church? And what about people who have
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  had a lot of hurt and church? Because our church has many
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  people in it who have been through a lot and different
• 13:16
  Church settings, there from different Church backgrounds,
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  different denominations and how they process Community is
• 13:24
  different. Depending on the way, they were
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  raised in the ideas. They brought into our church and
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  So, I wanted to think about that.
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  Like when we were disconnected, we had to relearn, how to as
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  people be the church. So I wanted it, I wanted to
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  examine that and and think about that and write about that and
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  Learn and Grow myself to under better understand what the
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  purpose of the church is and what my purpose within the
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  church is meant to be. So there are three chapters
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  about lordship and Jesus love and Tacos, three chapters about
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  the church and then there are Three chapters about tacos,
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  which is the metaphor I use for Mission, because the other thing
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  during that lockdown, we just, it was challenging as just a
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  regular everyday person, living your life.
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  You how do you, how do you love the needy?
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  How do you serve, people who need, you know, help.
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  And when you're not supposed to even be face-to-face with anyone
• 14:21
  for so long and 2020. It was like that.
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  And, and then, even after the lockdown was done, we still had
• 14:28
  a lot, you know, some People didn't want you to show up at
• 14:31
  their house with a meal when they were sick.
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  You know they want to do, stay away.
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  And how do I love people and serve people in a world where
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  it's sometimes, tricky to navigate those spaces and so and
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  I personally, I'm very introverted.
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  Actually, I don't Mission. Can sometimes make me nervous
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  when people start talking about, let's go on Mission and our
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  church does a lot of homeless Ministry, Street Ministry here
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  in Austin, we We provide mentors at local schools for kids at
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  risk and we do a lot of Outreach within the city and those things
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  started to shift and change as well.
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  And even I don't you remember the storm we had in the middle
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  of all of that and Austin just snowstorm.
• 15:18
  Yes. Yeah.
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  I know. We're like her to be panting.
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  Yeah, we felt we felt Survivor guilt or whatever you call that
• 15:27
  because our power On because I think depending on where your
• 15:33
  power comes from some of them were off and some of them were
• 15:36
  on and so we were basically putting it in four-wheel drive
• 15:43
  to take heaters to our neighbors who are living just to three
• 15:48
  streets up, you know, and doing things that we can to help them.
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  And then meanwhile the next day were sledding down our Hills,
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  you know, Downing Street and A great all time and taking
• 16:01
  advantage of the snow. So that was just a very awkward
• 16:04
  time. It was very strange and Mosaic
• 16:08
  actually became a 24/7 shelter for people who are displaced, a
• 16:14
  lot of people were displaced from apartment buildings during
• 16:16
  that time because the pipes burst like it was usually the
• 16:21
  sprinklers, the fire sprinklers first and so we had, you know,
• 16:27
  it was just it was a wild wild time.
• 16:29
  And I was starting to write this book during that time like oh my
• 16:32
  goodness were in the middle of a viral pandemic was.
• 16:36
  Yeah you know go out at your own risk and engage with other
• 16:39
  people, the snowstorm hits and we have, you know, I don't know.
• 16:45
  70 people sleeping in our church about half of them were people
• 16:50
  who were Street lived on the street to start with and so we
• 16:52
  had to have fine police off of there.
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  There's just so much it was just crazy.
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  We needed so much help and It was a really wild time.
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  So I, my hope my hope with this book is just that we can look in
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  those three areas and help and see where God wants to help us
• 17:10
  grow. Basically, is that idea of, how
• 17:12
  do I grow more in my personal faith and relationship with God?
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  And how do I grow more in my relationships with people, which
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  are just messy and challenging? Always, churches.
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  Always a challenging space, then how can I grow to engage more in
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  God's mission in the world? And I really think that if we
• 17:28
  focus Focus on those three areas and sort of you know just are
• 17:31
  sensitive to what God is asking us of us in each area.
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  It's a good recipe for growing and not just sitting back and
• 17:41
  waiting for things to happen to you.
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  But strengthening yourself for what lays what lies ahead you
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  know. So that's my heart for the book.
• 17:49
  Yeah, I saw that you had the word lordship and I think we
• 17:54
  don't hear that much. So I would love for you to stay.
• 17:58
  Expand on that more. What do you mean by lordship?
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  Okay, so I am when I speak about lordship, I'm talking about the
• 18:09
  idea that God is the supreme authority.
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  So, within the Christian faith, we really have a unique
• 18:18
  religious spiritual concept of God.
• 18:22
  As far as world religions, go in that, we both believe there is
• 18:25
  one God. And obviously, with the Trinity,
• 18:28
  there are three persons in that one God but there's one God and
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  he's Lord of everything. He made everything, he his word,
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  upholds, everything, he existed before.
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  Right? John 11 like in the beginning,
• 18:45
  we had God and so he is Lord of all meaning.
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  He has all power. All knowledge mean it's a pretty
• 18:54
  incredible claim that Christianity makes just that
• 18:58
  there. One God to start with not very
• 19:00
  many religions, even have that concept.
• 19:02
  But then on top of that we have because he's Lord as in king
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  supreme authority over everything, he's also our
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  friend. The Bible says he sticks closer
• 19:13
  than a brother. It says that God is personally
• 19:16
  invested in our lives. That that Jesus personally came
• 19:21
  to Earth in order to redeem what had been lost in his creation.
• 19:25
  And so there's this interesting. Ship that Christianity offers.
• 19:31
  As far as you, you get a God who is capable of anything and you
• 19:37
  also get a God who is deeply deeply in love with the idea of
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  knowing you and being connected to you and being known by you
• 19:46
  that he wants to reveal himself to you.
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  So when I talk about Jesus being Lord and lordship, I mean that
• 19:53
  as a Christian is are we living our life in a way in H, if we
• 19:59
  recognize an area of our life where God is speaking or
• 20:04
  bringing truth in some way, are we willing to submit ourselves
• 20:06
  to his authority and to his truth in a way that would create
• 20:11
  change. Repentance, Faith, Greater
• 20:16
  Grace? Are we willing to allow his word
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  and his law to rule in our lives, which is not easy and our
• 20:27
  postmodern. Modern world.
• 20:29
  I love how you interlace humor in your book, you know,
• 20:32
  laughter. So essential and want to ask
• 20:36
  you. How do you tie that in to help
• 20:39
  people connect with God when it comes to lordship community and
• 20:46
  Mission? Okay, well, I personally, I
• 20:50
  think God is really funny. Even the story that I shared
• 20:53
  from John to when Jesus is talking with Mary, it's a
• 20:56
  humorous story. If you Leave read it.
• 20:59
  I find that. If we look for it, the Bible
• 21:02
  actually has a decent amount of humor in it even, you know, say
• 21:07
  like the scripture, when the time when Jesus is talking
• 21:09
  about, if you have a speck in your, you know, your neighbor
• 21:12
  has a speck in his eye, you have a log in your own eye like
• 21:16
  that's supposed to be ridiculous, you know?
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  Or when he talks about a camel passing through the eye of a
• 21:21
  needle that's supposed to be ludicrous.
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  Like, you know, I think we've heard those things so many times
• 21:27
  that they lose. Who's the shock value at the,
• 21:30
  the humor, that they would have had on their original hearers?
• 21:35
  And so my, in my own personal time of prayer and reading my
• 21:39
  Bible, I find myself laughing a lot.
• 21:42
  I think God is really funny, I don't think he's a with him,
• 21:45
  kind of, you know, with his arms crossed and wishing.
• 21:48
  I would get my act together. And why hasn't carry figure to
• 21:51
  her life out yet? You know, I think that a lot of
• 21:54
  times he's delighted in the ways that I even fumble around.
• 21:58
  And as I'm trying to figure things out and so when I write,
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  I try to, I try to represent my faith in a way that doesn't take
• 22:07
  it too. Seriously, let's take the idea.
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  Let's take the desire to know God, seriously, but let's not
• 22:14
  take the idea of God to seriously to where we miss out
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  on the lightness of God, the just humor that he brings into
• 22:23
  his relationship with you. I think God laughs at our jokes
• 22:26
  a lot. I think just like Like, when you
• 22:28
  think about a parent with their child and how, you know, when
• 22:32
  kids do funny things, parents half the time parents are
• 22:35
  disciplining, their children are correcting them.
• 22:37
  They're laughing at the thing that their kid did later, you
• 22:39
  know, I just think God is so like that.
• 22:41
  So I look for those things when I write about lordship and just
• 22:47
  the Ridiculousness of the idea of God expecting us to live our
• 22:53
  lives, in this crazy way like he wants us to trust him, no matter
• 22:57
  what. There's no way we're not doing
• 22:59
  that without looking awkward and funny.
• 23:01
  And, and when I view it, the same way.
• 23:05
  Not in like I have to get everything right way.
• 23:09
  I can see that more, you know, and so, yes, I use a lot of
• 23:13
  humor, I think humor is a big part of who God is so I look for
• 23:18
  humor in the world and how it reveals more about truth and how
• 23:22
  it reveals more about who God is to us.
• 23:24
  When I was watching the series, The Chosen And how they would
• 23:30
  the director would would give Jesus the the actor in that TV
• 23:35
  series some humor. And, you know, it's just funny
• 23:40
  to watch a show and see like, Jesus laughing and, you know,
• 23:44
  some of the things he was saying in scripture right through
• 23:47
  laughter, and it really made me realize Jesus had a personality.
• 23:54
  You know, I think we forget that he had a personality.
• 23:58
  Tea and he had fun with others and he laughed with others.
• 24:04
  And I think that's so easily too easy to forget when we read
• 24:08
  scripture. So I'm sure I love that.
• 24:11
  You're sharing that. What do you feel by reconnecting
• 24:14
  with Jesus as Lord? Can help Believers understand
• 24:18
  what God is doing in the world. I tell a story in the
• 24:22
  introduction of Jesus seven tacos and it was a really Huge
• 24:29
  thing in my own life at happened in December of 2019 and I went
• 24:35
  in for my yearly mammogram, you know, like you're supposed to
• 24:38
  do. Because I'm going to do the
• 24:40
  things I'm supposed to do and came back.
• 24:44
  You need to come back. I had to go back, had to go back
• 24:46
  again for a biopsy, like, all the things, and I was visiting,
• 24:50
  my, one of my dear friends in Frisco.
• 24:53
  And when I got this call from the doctor and saying, Come back
• 24:58
  in. We're going to do a biopsy like
• 24:59
  we're still worried that there's something going on.
• 25:02
  And so at the time, I was getting ready for my, very, my
• 25:05
  first book which is wholly guacamole.
• 25:07
  It was coming out in February of 2020, my husband and I had a
• 25:12
  trip to for our anniversary plan.
• 25:14
  We'd never gone on a big anniversary trip and we had our
• 25:17
  first ever big anniversary trip plan to go to Italy in June, and
• 25:22
  our family was supposed to go to California, which we hadn't been
• 25:24
  back to California and years, and we're going to do the whole
• 25:26
  Beach, you know? A desert, everything and had all
• 25:30
  these plans for 2020 and got the phone call cried with my friend,
• 25:36
  told her, how scared I was the next day, we went to church
• 25:38
  together and I was standing and worship couldn't even sing.
• 25:42
  I just was so worried about the future and what was coming and
• 25:48
  and I heard God say to me in the middle of worship.
• 25:51
  I just heard this little voice inside my head and I knew it was
• 25:53
  God and he said, let me do something for you and I'm sure
• 25:58
  there are people, who would like be feel like, oh, this is good
• 26:01
  news, God's going to do something for me, but I was
• 26:04
  like, yeah. I was like, I don't really want
• 26:07
  you to have to do something for me.
• 26:09
  Like, can you just tell me that it's going to be?
• 26:11
  Okay, can you just tell me, not to worry about it?
• 26:14
  Like, I mean he was telling me not to worry.
• 26:16
  He was telling me that he's Lord, right?
• 26:18
  Like, I'm capable of anything carry.
• 26:19
  I can do anything for you but what I really wanted was for him
• 26:23
  to take away all the hard things, you know, I wanted him
• 26:26
  to take away my all my Fiona Tell me, don't worry.
• 26:29
  You're going to get to go to go. Launch your book?
• 26:31
  You're going to get to do your book tour.
• 26:32
  You're going to get to do your trips.
• 26:34
  You're going to be fine. You're not going to be sick.
• 26:37
  You're not going to have to worry about being sick this
• 26:39
  year. So God said, let me do something
• 26:42
  for you. So I was like, okay, don't love
• 26:44
  it, but it's better than nothing came home.
• 26:46
  Went to the doctor. Did the biopsy waiting for the
• 26:49
  test results and so I had convinced myself that they were
• 26:52
  going to tell me I had cancer. I mean, I was 100% prep prepared
• 26:56
  for it, you know. Because I thought if God's going
• 26:58
  to do something. For me, it's got to be like,
• 27:00
  he's gonna heal me and some miraculous way after the bad
• 27:03
  news, it's just what I thought was going to happen.
• 27:05
  Okay, right. And also I think I was, you
• 27:07
  know, preparing for the worst. So my phone rings.
• 27:10
  I see it's the the doctor's office.
• 27:13
  I answered the phone and the voice on the other lines like
• 27:15
  you're good. Shipshape, nothing wrong biopsy
• 27:18
  came back. Fine.
• 27:19
  Wow. So I hang up my phone and and I
• 27:22
  immediately told God, like I just don't like the drama you
• 27:25
  created in my life. Lord.
• 27:28
  You just made that really really stressful.
• 27:31
  Why couldn't you just told me that they were going to say it
• 27:34
  was fine. And so I was like, whatever.
• 27:38
  Okay. Fine, it's all good.
• 27:40
  So this was mid-January. So my book came out February 1st
• 27:45
  and life is going along. Fine.
• 27:48
  Start to hear something about this thing happening in China.
• 27:51
  You know, don't really did not expect obviously for my life to
• 27:54
  be impacted by something happening in China.
• 27:57
  And then everything happened. And so, about two weeks, after
• 28:02
  everything. Got shut down, my kids are at
• 28:04
  home. No school, no church, no hardly,
• 28:06
  no grocery stores. You know, we're running out of
• 28:08
  groceries, all the things were happening at the end of March,
• 28:11
  and I'm in the shower, you know, washing my hair, I talked about
• 28:16
  a lot in the shower and I'm washing my hair and, and I was
• 28:19
  just like what I'm so scared. I'm so everything is Champs.
• 28:22
  So, scared, our life is, this is not how we thought, I would.
• 28:25
  Our life was going to go. You know, we had to cancel our
• 28:27
  trip to Italy. My book is no longer selling
• 28:31
  anywhere. You know, so much for a book
• 28:33
  launch. We had to cancel our trip to
• 28:34
  California and I'm really scared.
• 28:36
  I'm I might get sick like I'm terrified of getting this.
• 28:40
  This virus and God Kinder patterning and you're pastoring
• 28:46
  a church, right? Pastoring, a church.
• 28:48
  That's right. And God just kind of like nudged
• 28:52
  me, you know like remember back in December when I I told you
• 28:57
  let me do something for you. And I was like it was like this
• 29:01
  moment where I went, I mean, I just froze and I thought, oh my
• 29:06
  goodness, I missed the point completely and I missed it
• 29:13
  completely. God wasn't talking about my
• 29:15
  biopsy results, he wasn't talking about cancer, he was
• 29:19
  talking about this. I was afraid of my trips, being
• 29:23
  canceled of my book release, not going well of Our Lives being
• 29:28
  turned upside down. Because of sickness and God
• 29:31
  said, let me do something for you and I realized that's
• 29:35
  everything that's happened. That is all those things did
• 29:37
  happen. All the things I was afraid of
• 29:39
  happening because of cancer happened because of a virus.
• 29:43
  I had no idea was coming, all right?
• 29:45
  And in the middle of that, as I pondered how completely dense
• 29:51
  and clueless, I am, I thought of all the times in the Bible, when
• 29:55
  Jesus is explicit with what he says to the disciples, Right?
• 29:59
  Like he'll be like the son of man has to be has to die and be
• 30:02
  raised on the third day and they don't get it, you know, like he
• 30:05
  spells it out time and time and time again.
• 30:07
  And of course, when we look back from now and we read the whole
• 30:11
  Bible and we get the whole story, It seems impossible that
• 30:15
  they wouldn't get it. I mean, at the Last Supper,
• 30:17
  Jesus is like the one who dipped his, you know hand last in the,
• 30:21
  in the bread and wine is the one who will betray me and they're
• 30:24
  all like not Judas impossible. Judas is your guy like, how
• 30:28
  could you do? Be the ones.
• 30:30
  Yeah they just they never get it.
• 30:33
  And so one of the things about lordship is that beneath what we
• 30:39
  grasp and what we don't grasp beneath what we can see coming
• 30:42
  and what we can't see coming underneath all of it
• 30:46
  undergirding. Our lives is the belief that no
• 30:49
  matter what happens, Jesus is going to be able to do whatever
• 30:54
  needs to be done in order to rescue us, to save us to keep us
• 30:57
  safe to For us. And so lordship gives us this
• 31:01
  massive Solid Rock to stand on because we're not going to
• 31:07
  always get it for not going to always understand.
• 31:10
  But even when we don't understand Cuts, not going to
• 31:12
  stop doing what he plans to do in our lives, he's never going
• 31:16
  to stop doing. What's best for us.
• 31:18
  Bible says he, he tries to overtake us with his goodness,
• 31:21
  even when we don't know what's coming or were afraid of what's
• 31:24
  coming or when what's happening to us, seems unprecedented and
• 31:29
  Impossibly unfair, and unjust, and terrible.
• 31:32
  And not what we expected at all. Underneath, all of that we stand
• 31:36
  on the truth, that God is capable of meeting.
• 31:39
  Every need, we have and working out every problem and redeeming
• 31:43
  what is lost even when it seems unredeemable.
• 31:47
  Yeah, so good. That's right.
• 31:50
  How can the understanding when you we talked about?
• 31:54
  We're moving from lordship. Now, we're moving to community
• 31:57
  how can understand Value of community stabilize and grow a
• 32:03
  spiritually in order to really talk about the value of
• 32:06
  community and the importance of community.
• 32:08
  We really have to go back to the very beginning of everything in
• 32:11
  Genesis. The first problem people ever
• 32:14
  faced with the person God made first was alone, that was the
• 32:17
  first problem, the Earth ever the world ever experienced,
• 32:22
  right? Everything else, God created, he
• 32:25
  created it and he said it's good, it's good, it's good, it's
• 32:28
  good. And then he makes this first
• 32:30
  person who, and he's like, is not good for this for this man
• 32:35
  to be alone. It's not good for a person to be
• 32:37
  alone. And our deepest need were made
• 32:41
  in the image of a God, who is a community, you know, God is
• 32:45
  three persons who continually relate to one another.
• 32:49
  And I talked about this in the book that theologians call a
• 32:52
  crisis. It's the dance.
• 32:53
  That's how they describe the Trinity that like the person's
• 32:56
  of God Arkansas constantly dancing around.
• 32:59
  Each other. It's an incredible thing if you
• 33:02
  really want to get into it and beautiful.
• 33:04
  Yeah and so were made in His image so we're not made to be
• 33:08
  alone and when it comes to church and relationships and
• 33:13
  Community, the difficulty is that where flawed humans?
• 33:18
  And when we interact with one another, when we try to dance
• 33:21
  together, we step on each other's toes.
• 33:23
  You know, we offend one another, we don't get the Rhythm, right,
• 33:26
  we can't follow in step with. A ideas about what the dance
• 33:30
  should look like and creates conflict and that's hard.
• 33:34
  I talk a lot in the book about just how hard church is, no
• 33:38
  matter what, you know, pandemic or no.
• 33:40
  Pandemic churches. Just a messy difficult place.
• 33:43
  I can. I use a lot of metaphors in the
• 33:45
  book. I compare the church.
• 33:48
  I drive a 2001 Toyota Sequoia. It's a very old car.
• 33:52
  It has a lot of broken things on it.
• 33:55
  Like, it's a bit of a beater and I joke and but I'm serious.
• 34:02
  I think that when we think about churches really like an old
• 34:05
  beat-up truck, like, you know, it's kind of been knocked into
• 34:08
  some stuff and there's some dents over here and the backlash
• 34:11
  is really tricky to get open and you know, the seats are a little
• 34:15
  cracks. It's sometimes not very
• 34:16
  comfortable to sit in it and Church community makes us
• 34:19
  uncomfortable. It's not it's not a quiet Tesla
• 34:23
  with perfect leather and a clear screen and you know created
• 34:28
  exactly how you need it. To without making any noise or
• 34:31
  making you uncomfortable at all, churches uncomfortable.
• 34:32
  And it has been from the beginning.
• 34:34
  I mean, read from acts on, there's nothing but conflict in
• 34:39
  the early church. So where people gather there
• 34:42
  will be conflict isn't about trying to find a church where
• 34:45
  there's no conflict or where you're never uncomfortable.
• 34:48
  If you're never uncomfortable in church, then you're probably
• 34:51
  alone. You're very alone and
• 34:53
  disconnected from what's really going on in that community.
• 34:56
  So it's just important when Attempt to relate with one
• 35:01
  another, to recognize this is, never going to be smooth and
• 35:04
  perfect. We're never going to be
• 35:05
  perfectly choreographed together, but but there's a real
• 35:09
  Beauty and how God then enters into our kind of fumbling
• 35:12
  dancing dancing together and create something out of it that
• 35:17
  really does release his glory in the world.
• 35:19
  It is a miracle in my opinion, that God looks at us.
• 35:24
  Jesus looked at us and was like, you know what, you guys, I want,
• 35:27
  I want you to be my representative.
• 35:29
  Natives. I want you to be my people.
• 35:31
  I want you to be my bride. It's an incredible thing because
• 35:35
  we don't look Flawless. You know, right?
• 35:39
  But it's encouraging, you know. He doesn't expect us to show up
• 35:42
  perfect. He knows we're going to step on
• 35:44
  toes. He knows we're going to bump
• 35:45
  into one another and he's ready to pick up the slack.
• 35:49
  Yeah. Which brings me into how can we
• 35:52
  benefit being on Mission? Share with us the mission part
• 35:56
  of your book? Yeah.
• 35:59
  So I think that the idea of mission it can, it can really
• 36:04
  affect people in multiple ways, but for some of us, the idea of
• 36:10
  going out and doing something missional, whether that's
• 36:13
  feeding, feeding hungry, people or serving at a school or going
• 36:19
  to another country to build houses or anything like that.
• 36:23
  There's a, there's automatically, you know, if I'm
• 36:27
  doing missional work, I'm going to be uncomfortable.
• 36:29
  Able and it's scary. It can be scary for people who
• 36:32
  don't feel like their natural talents or wiring places them in
• 36:37
  an area of strength. In those spaces, I am one of
• 36:40
  those people I have done truck runs with our church.
• 36:43
  I've done homeless Ministry, we have homeless men, people in our
• 36:46
  church all the time. I talk with them, I don't like
• 36:48
  talking to strangers, you know? Like it's hard for me and so I
• 36:55
  know, like, I'm not the person who when they go, we're thinking
• 36:58
  about doing something. Really cool for God.
• 37:00
  I'm never like me. Pick me?
• 37:01
  I wanna go. Yeah.
• 37:04
  So I attempt to address that in the book and, and our reticence
• 37:10
  to engage in Mission, but at the same time, on the flip side, I
• 37:14
  know I have lots of friends who love missional work, they love
• 37:16
  doing anything for God. They would fly all over the
• 37:19
  world to do anything. They could.
• 37:21
  If they thought that it was, something that could increase
• 37:23
  God's kingdom and build things that were, God could move and
• 37:26
  Reach people and heal people and feed people and me. medical
• 37:29
  needs and they love doing those things because the way that
• 37:32
  they're wired and their talents, Make them predisposed to be able
• 37:38
  to really flourish in those spaces.
• 37:40
  But the downside to that is a lot of the time.
• 37:45
  If they're not careful, they can do that to the detriment of
• 37:49
  their own health and the health of their families.
• 37:50
  You know, they can burn out, they can do too much because the
• 37:54
  thing about mission is there's always more that needs to be
• 37:57
  done. Like we're never going to be
• 37:59
  done all, the hungry will never be filled, all the thirsty will
• 38:02
  never be sated. You know, we'll never have a
• 38:05
  world where There's not a deep need and so it can be
• 38:09
  overwhelming and discouraging when you're trying to climb the
• 38:12
  mountain and you realize the mountain can never really be
• 38:15
  scaled. And so I talk a lot in the book
• 38:18
  about the importance of holding Mission and recognizing that God
• 38:24
  has created. All of us to love a hurting and
• 38:26
  Dying World. He's made all of us for his
• 38:29
  purposes. He's called us to his purpose,
• 38:31
  which is to build his kingdom and that missional work doesn't
• 38:35
  have to be necessarily. Necessarily something terrifying
• 38:38
  but it will probably be something that stretches you.
• 38:40
  It doesn't necessarily have to practically kill you, you know,
• 38:43
  like where you out burn you out, but it will probably create a
• 38:47
  deep need and you for more of Jesus.
• 38:49
  And so in a way, you know, you wind up with a cycle.
• 38:53
  And I that's what the conclusion of the book is about that, you
• 38:56
  know, each one sort of feeds into the other.
• 38:58
  If you think about it like lordship, you know, you
• 39:01
  recognize, oh God is the authority and oh, he's called me
• 39:04
  to love others. Jesus said, go and make
• 39:07
  disciples. So I need to know other people.
• 39:09
  And I'm in, I'm in community there and in community, you
• 39:11
  recognize other some real needs in the world that God could
• 39:14
  maybe use me to help me. And so, you wind up in Mission
• 39:17
  and then Mission, you know, you give give give maybe and you're
• 39:21
  like, I feel so empty. And, oh my gosh, I need to fill
• 39:23
  up. I'm I'm God, I need to be filled
• 39:25
  by God and you get filled by God and you reach out to people, and
• 39:28
  then you end up in Mission. And so, it is in itself, a
• 39:31
  Dance, a beautiful dance, and it, and we grow, we just get
• 39:35
  stronger and And stronger. The more we cycle through.
• 39:38
  Yeah, so good. All right, I would love for you
• 39:41
  to close with a take away. Something that our friend here
• 39:45
  can ponder on or take action in. I would encourage listeners to
• 39:50
  really examine their hearts and spend some time thinking about
• 39:54
  the way that they relate to God the way they think about Jesus
• 39:58
  and The Nearness of God. And the way they think about how
• 40:01
  they relate to him as as a friend, also to really spend
• 40:04
  some time thinking about About your community and I mean in
• 40:07
  community I'm I do mean church. I mean I hope that you're in a
• 40:11
  church if you're not in a local church, you know, I would
• 40:14
  encourage you to just pray and ask God to help you sort that
• 40:18
  out. If you feel like you'd like to
• 40:20
  be in a local church, you are part of the body of Christ,
• 40:22
  there is no doubt about it. If you believe in Jesus, you
• 40:25
  follow God and your submitted to him.
• 40:28
  You're in the body of Christ. You are a part of the church,
• 40:31
  you know. But is there a specific local
• 40:33
  community where he's asking you to?
• 40:35
  Invest yourself in an effort to help build his kingdom, by
• 40:39
  relating to other believers and growing together.
• 40:42
  And if you are in a church, just how can you, how can you engage
• 40:47
  in connecting and fortifying and growing your church, whether
• 40:50
  that's praying or serving or, you know, send send your pastor
• 40:54
  a nice email. He gets lots of complaints.
• 40:57
  Send him one telling him, you think he's great.
• 41:00
  I know that sounds crazy but, you know, just like everything
• 41:03
  else. You definitely hear from the
• 41:04
  squeaky Wheels. Not always happy one.
• 41:07
  So, very cool. Well, thanks Gary for sharing
• 41:10
  with us. Thanks for having me.
• 41:12
  It was really fun. I enjoyed it.
• 41:15
  Thank you so much for listening today and I trust that God has
• 41:19
  encouraged you through this story.
• 41:21
  Did you know this podcast is on YouTube, hop on there and
• 41:25
  subscribe and you can see a live recording of each episode and
• 41:30
  for more information on this ministry and to access free
• 41:34
  downloads, please visit Visit my website at Jamie Elizabeth.com
• 41:38
  that's ja, yme Elizabeth.com and let's connect Beyond this
• 41:44
  podcast. By going to my Instagram handle,
• 41:46
  Jamie Elizabeth she speaks life or Facebook until next time my
• 41:51
  friend. I hope God reveals himself
• 41:53
  through your own life story. Visit my website at Jamie
• 41:37
  Elizabeth.com that's ja, yme Elizabeth.com and let's connect
• 41:43
  Beyond this podcast. By going to my Instagram handle,
• 41:46
  Jamie Elizabeth she speaks life or Facebook until next time my
• 41:51
  friend. I hope God reveals himself
• 41:53
  through your own life story.