Latest / The Rachelle Starr Podcast / Flourishing Together | The Rachelle Starr Podcast Episode 7
Transcript
- Rachelle Starr: Hi, I'm Rochelle, the host of the Rochelle Star Podcast, where we equip the church to bring the hope and love of Jesus to women in the adult entertainment industry. We're going to be having honest conversations about what that really looks like. So if you've ever wondered how to engage in this space or how to do it well, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the Rochelle Star Podcast, and I am really excited. Today we are going to talk about flourishing. The word flourish. Love it. Isn't that a beautiful word? It it really is a beautiful word. I love it. It's because you we don't really think about we think about like survive or thrive or whatever, but flourish is this whole picture concept that we just got off of talking about at our summit. Our summit in Louisville is a place where we invite our directors from around the nation, as well as all of the leaders that are in like-minded ministries, to come together and really be equipped and encouraged to flourish. Yeah. So that's what we just did at the summit. Yeah, it was great. So the summit was built around this concept by Amy Sherman. She wrote a book called Agents of Flourishing. And I read this. in an executive fellowship that I am in this year. And I read it and I was like, this is the perfect framework for not only my flourishing and flourishing of our volunteers and our staff, but flourishing for the women. Yeah. I mean, God created us and intends for us to flourish. But the enemy works overtime to steal all of that away to make sure that we Sa stay stuck in survival mode. It's crisis. Yeah. Where we are certainly not flourishing in this world. I mean, I have felt like I'm not always flourishing, have you? ⁓ no, I have not always been flourishing. That's really No, no. I've had several seasons of I don't know what the antonym is for flourishing, but I've been there. Can seasons last years in a lifetime? Yes. Yes, they can. I mean, we've seen it. I mean, yeah, that's exactly right. And we're gonna go into it today. We're gonna talk about Flourishing as a person who is an agent of flourishing. So that's somebody who ministers to women or men or wherever you're at and listening to this podcast. How do you flourish while helping other people flourish? While helping and serving vulnerable populations come into their flourishing? How do we do that? What does that look like? And so that we're gonna explore all things flourishing today. Exciting. Okay. So jumping in, I wanna once again say this sort of concept and what we talked about at the summit is really based around that book, Agents of Flourishing. And I just want to stop there because the title alone brings a beautiful picture about our design as believers that God designed us to be agents of flourishing. Oftentimes I feel like and even in Christian circles and even a lot of my sisters that I, you know, study with, study the Bible with and go to church with, most of us are stuck in busy, busy, busy, looking at, you know, all the things we have to do. And it's hard to think that we're actually agents in this world administering not only the gospel, but also bringing people into a thriving relationship with Christ. And a thriving relationship with each other in the kingdom. So let's look at what does it look like to flourish as a staff member and a volunteer, working along walking alongside women in case management. What does it look like for yourself? And then what does it look like with women? Yeah. So I really like how you talked about flourishing in terms of community because I think that's such a crucial part of flourishing. You can't flourish without community. And I think Scarlet Hope does a really good job of creating that sisterhood, that community with volunteers, with staff. ⁓ prioritizing time of prayer, prioritizing time of diving into God's word. ⁓ prioritizing time of debrief after outreach. ⁓ and then prioritizing okay, what does ⁓ secondary trauma look like, warning signs of that, ⁓ training on you know, biblical self care. ⁓ for me, one of the things that I say all the time is the way to recover from ministry is covering yourself in scripture. And so that is something that I need to do daily in order to do what I do. I think just like the covering of God's word. Is just really critical. And there have been times in my life where I haven't been flourishing, times where at night all I could do was hold my Bible and listen to it be read aloud while I fell asleep. And so I really feel like that is number one of flourishing is just bathing yourself in God's word, really. And so I think we do that well at Scarlet Hope in terms of like community. But also in terms of promoting it individually because it's also not just community with each other, but also our community with God. Yeah. So we have kind of these two things going where we're trying to flourish in community with each other and flourish in our relationship with God. And so really asking each other questions of like how's your relationship with God? That's something that I ask women a lot, especially in like kind of diving into case management. really asking them, you know, what is God telling you? What is God, what are you learning from God today? What have you talked to with God? And ⁓ sometimes they ask really hard questions, the women that are in case management. And sometimes I'm just like, sounds like you gotta talk to God about that. It sounds like that's a conversation. But we should probably say that to a lot of people, not just women in case management. Yeah. Sometimes I just like sounds like you got and I think it's really interesting 'cause a lot of women ⁓ they'll they're kinda surprised by that. Like, aren't you gonna tell me what I should think? Or aren't you gonna defend God? And I'm like, God doesn't need me to defend him. ⁓ yeah, you can have you can have a conversation with God. I was talking with one woman just yesterday and she was in tears saying, I'm just so angry at God. I'm just so I'm just so angry at him and I I I I don't know what to do about it. And I feel like you know, we're not in a relationship. And I said, I'm actually encouraged that you're sharing this because in any real relationship there's emotion, there's anger, there's seasons of that. And to have a flourishing relationship with God, you need to have those real conversations. If you were like apathetic of ⁓ it's fine. That's not that's not indicative that you have a real relationship with God. But the fact that they have emotions, the fact they have questions Those are all characteristics of a flourishing relationship with God. Yeah. Okay, so that's such a good point. In this framework in the book, she talks about the very first piece of the framework is connection with God, is community with God or communion with God. Without that, we cannot flourish in this world. I mean, there are so many examples of how we as humans try to feed our flesh and escape and buy things and do all these things that we think are going to lead to flourishing. But really it's a connection and communion with God that first sets up our flourishing for success, if you will. ⁓ a couple of other things that she talks about in the book is beauty and creativity. And one of the things that I love about that is if you are somebody who is ministering to women ⁓ like yourself and and myself and a lot of our volunteers, if you are constantly in a place where you're not spending time with the Lord and you are overly busy, you have your your to-do list you, you know, you live by and you're not getting away with the Lord ⁓ to spend time with him, you can't really be an experience beauty and creativity the way God designed it. You know, I think so much of our world is very broken. A lot of what you and I see on a regular basis is dark, it's broken, it feels very unfixable, it feels very oftentimes hopeless. But we know through the power of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Lord that anything is possible with God and He can bring beauty from ashes. And we've seen that in many, many women's stories. So Can you think of somebody that you've walked alongside that you saw them when they were not flourishing, when they were not in relationship with God and they couldn't see how God created them with gifts and talents and treasures and ⁓ in his image and then how they began to walk with the Lord and begin to start to move towards flourishing? Yeah. ⁓ just so many different examples like pop in my mind. ⁓ but one woman in particular I'll call her Allie. And I met Allie when she ⁓ was pregnant and she didn't have a place to live. ⁓ she didn't have a relationship with the Lord and she was working at the club and she had a young toddler as well. And so yeah. Very hard. Very hard. Not flourishing at all. Survival mode a thousand percent. In that flight or fight or freeze or f you know, all those words, all the things. And ⁓ I think that can seem really overwhelming to a lot of people when they're introduced to a story like that. but it was really cool how the Lord just took everything step by step and how he revealed things like slowly and ⁓ through case management, ⁓ she's been in it a year. And ⁓ she has her pl a place to live, she has a job out of the industry now. ⁓ she's a wonderful mom to her two kids. ⁓ but most importantly, she's really asking great questions about God. And in order to get to the place where she was able to start asking questions about God, to start having a relationship with him, we had to get some of those other survival things. I mean, she couldn't flourish if she was didn't have a place to live. Right. She couldn't flourish if she was active in the industry and wanting to leave. And so just walking her through that has just been incredible seeing how the Lord reveals things slowly. Cause I think if the Lord revealed all of our sin or everything we needed to do all at once, like, yeah. I couldn't take it. ⁓ I could not take it. Like I'm so grateful that the Lord reveals my sin just kind of piece by piece. And I think that's something that we have to be really careful of as administers or what it Agents. Agents. Agents. Agents. Special agents. Special agents of flourishing is that we are not the Holy Spirit and learning to not decide, okay, this is what a woman needs to do to flourish. But instead approach a conversation with what is the Holy Spirit working with her that's her next step to flourishing. Yeah. So like a really good example of that is I had only been on staff maybe a month and I was talking with a new believer and she was still in the industry and she said, like, I really feel like the Lord is calling me to stop ⁓ drinking while I'm at work. And In my mind I'm like, You need to stop working. ⁓ but thankfully the Holy Spirit shut me up and I was like, Okay, if that's what God is convicting you of, let's like make a plan. So we made a plan of accountability, ⁓ support systems in place. And then the next time we met, a few weeks later, she goes, You know, now that I'm sober in the club, I really feel like the Lord is telling me to step away. If I had stepped into that and I had said, No, I know what's best I know how you can flourish. Instead of l listening to what the Holy Spirit was telling her, I could have ruined the whole thing. Because the Holy Spirit knows the layers that we need to go through. Yeah. And so, ⁓ I think that's really important as like agents of flourishing is listening to what the Holy Spirit is telling ⁓ each individual woman. Yeah. I mean there is a level in which we can see someone's life. And I'll just take for example this wonderful woman that's been a part of our ministry for many, many years. I met her and our team met her on the streets. She was addicted to drugs. She was homeless living in and off of her boyfriend's couch, but he would often kick her out. He would sell her. She was working at the club. That is the furthest from flourishing that you could get. and she had been abused most of her life, didn't have a mother, raised by an alcoholic father, and someone randomly one day gave her a Bible and she put it in the bag, the only bag that she owned with her belongings in it, put it in the bottom of the bag and then met us on the street, you know, months later. And when I look back at where she was and How the enemy was trying so hard to steal, kill, and destroy any flourishing that she it could have been available to her. ⁓ and really her life and where she is today, it's it's such a stark difference between not walking with Christ and what Christ can like with Christ, what he can do. But like you mentioned If you don't have a house, if you don't or a a shelter, if you don't have food, if you don't have clothing, then it's really difficult to have a connection with God, with God's people, and get to a place of flourishing. And so this a this particular woman, she she reached out and she took ⁓ the opportunity to get help and we began walking alongside her. But like you said, slowly but surely, we we thought you need to live l Leave this abusive boyfriend. You need to get another house. You need to do all of these things. But God knew in his timing how and what it would take to get her to a place where she's now flourishing. Here we are a decade later. And so, she came into our housing program, she came into our social enterprise, she came into different programs that we had. And all while she was in those programs, she actually stayed with that abusive boyfriend connected to him. Until she began to realize, until her basic needs were met, and she began to realize that God loved her, that her identity was being a daughter of the king, and she could trust him for her next her ⁓ the next thing in life. And it took many years for her to make the decision to leave that abusive relationship, but she eventually did. She got a job at a corporation, she went back to college. And one of the things that I love about, you know, ⁓ looking at a framework of flourishing is she has communion with God. She has ⁓ been able to use her gifts and talents in her corporation to where she's gotten promotion after promotion. She's now leading a team of people where those people have dollars allotted to their to their committee and they spend them out in the world blessing other organizations like Scarlet Hope and she's serving now on our outreach team and she's it's a full circle moment and that's what I when I look at flourishing. Yeah. None of us will flourish a hundred percent till Jesus comes back. Let's let me be just pretty honest here. Yeah. But when I look at her life and where she came from and where she's at now, I can say this is what it looks like to flourish. But these components all have to be met within a person's life to actually flourish. Provision through a career, communion with God, communion with other people, service to the kingdom, and and and also using her creativity and and how she serves at her company and how she ⁓ is creative with partnerships and different things that she does to serve nonprofits in our community. I mean, that's a beautiful picture of flourishing. That is, yeah. One of the things that it took though for her to get to that place is not only the Lord, he knew exactly what she needed, but he i it took agents of flourishing. She didn't just come into contact with me. She came into contact with hundreds of people through our ministry that were flourishing to be able to help her flourish. And so at our summit, that's why it was so important to focus on what do we need at as agents. Where do we need to focus some time and attention to be able to flourish ourselves so that we can come alongside people who are not flourishing and bring them into a relationship with God and his people and fully flourishing? And so at our summit, we, you know, want to we wanted to pour out encouragement on people who are in this space. We wanted to to break down barriers and walls and pray over people that feel tired and worn out. And so, ⁓ just while we wrap this up, Natalie, what does it look like for you to flourish? You said scripture, so maybe share a couple scriptures that are your favorite scriptures. Yeah. But what does it look like for you to flourish and to stay in this work healthy and flourishing and connected to God? Yeah, so lots of things put in place that I have done And the Lord has just been really gracious with me. ⁓ scripture, obviously, like I said, is one of them. ⁓ accountability and encouragement through mentors is really important. and then seeing my therapist also very important. Very important. Very, very important. We all have them. We all have them, we all need them. And I think just being aware of my own triggers and my own. ⁓ traumas and just recognizing like like you said, I'm not gonna be completely flourished until the Lord comes back. ⁓ but I also can't be not flourishing at all and help someone else flourish. So recognizing when I'm in a place where I'm like backsliding and not flourishing and asking for help, I think is super important. I really love ⁓ James one twenty seven a true and undefiled religion is this to care for to visit and care for orphans and widow widows and their affliction and to keep yourself unstained from the world. And I think th one of the things that I really hold on to is that word to visit orphans and widows because visiting includes going, but it also includes leaving. Yeah. And there are times where I do have to step back. That's good word. And recognizing that I am not the savior, but I can help point them to the savior. Amen. That I cannot be someone's only reason they're flourishing. It's the Lord. And so I think that's been a really important verse, specifically for me, because I can give and give and give and give and give. And but part of visiting is leaving. Yeah. And so realizing what boundaries do I need to put in place? When do I have to say I need to take a step back? ⁓ taking time off, ⁓ taking time to spend away with the Lord, and then meeting regularly with people who know the things that I'm walking through in mentorship and accountability. That's good. That's good. We hope that you listening today, you will pick up that book, Agents of Flourishing. And wherever you're at on your journey of flourishing, we pray for you and we pray that God will be with you. Thank you for listening today's podcast. And we Pray that you flourish. Thank you for listening to the Rochelle Star Podcast. If this conversation encouraged you or challenged you, I'd invite you to take the next step. Whether that's learning more, getting involved, or sharing this episode with someone else. At Scarlet Hope, we believe consistent presence changes lives, and there's a place for you in this work. You can learn more at ScarletHope.org.