Latest / Made For More Leadership Podcast / The More You Know Jesus, the Less You Have to Prove | Aaron Burke & Lisa Harper

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The More You Know Jesus, the Less You Have to Prove | Aaron Burke & Lisa Harper · Made For More Leadership Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I spent so many years really afraid somebody would look under the hood of my life and find me to be a fraud.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I was pretty convinced emotionally that there's no way our creator, Redeemer, could really love a woman like me because I was just too dirty and too damaged.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_02: You replace a brokenness that now you can learn.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems like the more and more you study, the more you see him clearly.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: What I know to be true of God is he's a good God.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: His holiness and his accessibility just slays me.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: For the people who are the keyboard warriors, I think they have such good intentions.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think they all have good intentions.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think outrage has become the new Christian morality.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, welcome to Make for More.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Aaron Burke.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so excited you're joining us today.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: Every month we put out a new podcast, and I love hearing the responses of how this podcast is helping you get better, helping your company get better, your church get better.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: And um, I am so excited about our guest today.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's a new friend, even though I have followed her life for a long time.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Lisa Harper is with me today.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Y'all have already made me grin so much, like my cheeks are starting to cramp.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, we had a hard time even getting this podcast started because we're just catching up and talking.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so incredible to have you with us.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: You have been one of uh our favorites for a long time from a distance.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: And love watching your life, love watching what God's done through you.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: Um, always inspired.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't know who Lisa Harper is, you've been living under a rock somewhere because God's using your life, uh preaching something very church.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: But uh today uh I could have gone 50 different directions.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, I was working on this for a while, just thinking what do I want people to learn from you?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: And there's so many things, but I really want people to learn about this art of just being an ever-growing and ever just hungry to get better leader because I look at your life, and we were just talking about the fact that you've gotten your doctorate and you didn't get your doctorate when you're 25.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_02: You, you know, this is something like so.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted, and I'm just always listening to you.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to honestly, you didn't just have a birthday or something.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: But um, I I do want to talk, like, what has kept you from just coasting?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you have such a well of information.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: You could have coasted, but you went and got your doctorate.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: Give us kind of the behind the scenes of like, why was it important for you?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was a couple of reasons.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I became a mom through the miracle of adoption year I turned 50.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So old mom.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, absolute grace of God.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I knew Missy didn't speak any English in Haiti.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought school's probably gonna be a bit of a booger for her, learning English and learning in a totally different way of educational system.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, you know, I want her to see learning as fun and learning as something you do for the rest of your life.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, well, it'd be cool.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll go back for a doctorate, not for a doctorate, but just to lean more fully into, you know, we we get to know Jesus more through a revelation of Holy Spirit and revelation of holy writ.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I'll just go sit in there some some smart people who love the Bible and love Jesus, but then she and I can do our homework together at the at the kitchen table.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we did.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It took me forever.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was the dumbest person in my doctoral candidacy, but I just love to learn.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I should say that better, pastor doctor.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I love seeing Jesus more clearly.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: And and so some of the things in you don't have to go to seminary to see Jesus more clearly.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so many of my mentors don't have fancy letters behind their name.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: They've just spent so long walking with Jesus.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I just love being re-gospeled, wowed again by the wonder of the gospel.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so it was partly so Missy would love to learn, and then it was to lean more fully into Jesus.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I also think the best preachers, teachers I've ever sat under are better students.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you can lead if you're not a learner.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't think you lead well.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes if you're not a learner.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: There is a world where there's been like this pushback on higher education because it seems like there's people that they go there and they get less in love with Jesus.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: So what was it about you?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Because you went there, and it seems like the more and more you study, the more you see him clearly.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like Um, I I think, and I'll I'll say first world countries.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think we tend to get really enamored with cognitive information because then we can spout it or slap it up on social media and we become the hero.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I think it is really imperative to go wherever you're learning, go someplace where you see people who look like Jesus.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was just really, really fortunate to go to a place where the professors are madly in love with Jesus, not um overly impressed with their own bios.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I chose the school I went to specifically for that.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: So uh where I went a lot of academic rigor, but one of the men I went to sit under, I had been reading his stuff in the New Testament for 30 years.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought I was actually in the last doctoral class he taught before he retired.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought to sit under a saint who's so in love with Jesus, I was just really, really blessed.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was real fortunate to have some, you know, some peers in the program that also like you, pastors but lifelong learners.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so to get to be with those brothers, um it it was less about certainly there's I mean, writing papers and dissertations, it there is an academic element to it.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: But as soon as you get um enamored with the information instead of with the God that the information is about, yeah.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Then I think you've just, I mean, the whole thing's just noise, isn't it?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you do that?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think in our world today, we can we see these kind of different camps where it seems like you get really, really, really deep into the cognitive side of it, but you lose that passion and that awe of Jesus.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, my background, we're very uh Pentecostal Age, and we were all about the experiences.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: You want to do a little laugh about it?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, please do.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: But we there was very little depth of like the the knowledge of God and the depths of God.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, man, how have you found that that balance between the two?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_02: Of like I'm failing.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Failing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was opposer for so long.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I spent so many years um, pastor, just really afraid somebody would look under the hood of my life and find me to be a fraud.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of abuse in my backstory.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I learned pretty early on.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just pretend like I'm um not that I have it all together, but that I'm a hard worker.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was pretty convinced emotionally that there's no way our creator redeemer could really love a woman like me because I was just too dirty and too damaged.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I resolved at a a pretty young age, you know, you make those vows when you're younger and you don't even realize you're making a vow, but it it morphs into an idol.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And my idol was I will work hard, I'll keep my head down, and I'll be a good Christian.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And um, in my 40s, I had a massive breakdown.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I I just went through this season of I don't know if I can do this anymore.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not so sure I can keep putting one foot in front of the other because I feel like there's so much pretense and there's so much performative nature in me.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I never doubted how good our God was, but I really struggled with some of what you see in first world Christianity and mostly in myself.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like such a liar.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um, God was so kind that I've never heard an audible voice, even though I'm mostly Pentecostal.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um I've but you know how sometimes Holy Spirit is so loud, he may as well be audible.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Clear Zabelle, Lisa, um I'm gonna take you to the basement and I'm gonna sit there with you in the dark until fear doesn't own you anymore.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um for about six months, I just I I felt so weak and I was mortified that I was weak.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because to me, weakness is just the the you know, that's a scarlet or sin is the W.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and in his kindness, he made me weak, you know, with the um with the paralytic at the sheet pool of Bethesda.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not until he says, I can't heal myself.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't even have to go to the water.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus just says, you have to admit your own neediness.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's healed.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I had a Bethesda season.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Mine wasn't a day because I was so scared and so stubborn.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and he was just so kind to lift shame and fear that had owned me for a long time.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's where I'd always loved to learn, but that's where it became relational instead of cognitive.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, really, it's like me in a bathing suit.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're 63, who wants to see me in a bathing suit?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a sag, a bag of crepe.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: When you're my age, nobody cares what letters are behind your name.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And quite frankly, in some arenas with women's ministry, that can be seen as um that can almost be more of a hurdle than a bridge.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so it, and I knew I didn't want to go into academia.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I just wanted to see Jesus more clearly.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And and so had I gone and gotten a doctorate in my twenties and thirties, I think I would have been insufferable because I was already so performative.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But after failing and after learning what it is to be held by God, not just to behold him and use multi-syllabic theological terms, um, it wasn't as hard.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: But again, I think had I gone, I think had I gone into school earlier, I would have been, I would have cared a lot um for people, um, what they thought of me.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it comes down to so much of motive and intention of your heart.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_02: And what you're saying is there was a place where God kind of you were a place of brokenness.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_02: And now you can learn.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh talk to me through.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you were in, it seems that you're in so many different streams that everybody loves you.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just I'm sure there's some world.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: You just have a lot of friends who can tell you where all the bodies are buried.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I am so grateful to get to be.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I I I used to think ecumenical was a bad word.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And now I love the breadth of the body of Christ.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_02: I I agree.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I just love it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't care if you're wiggly or stiff, if we can agree on Christ crucified and resurrected, then you know, some of the stuff.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I had somebody the other day say, Well, what is your eschatology?
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I bet it's different than yours, and I bet it doesn't really matter that much.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's very good.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said, Dad hasn't told me when I'm coming back.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, here's my eschatology.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you're stockpiling lentils from Costco, you better be making soup for the neighborhood.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus said, occupy until I come.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, we can we can dive deeper, but let's start there.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I Chris Kane and I were were talking recently.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: She loves y'all.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: She is just a trip.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: She's a hero, yeah.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: But she said, you know, now that we're Chris is turning 60, and I just turned 63.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So she loves to talk about how she's so much younger than me.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: But but we were saying, man, there's so much we thought we knew at 40.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I was I've been studying my Bible for a long, long time.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then you get to be 50 and you go, huh, some of those things I was so emphatic about at 40.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm I'm not so sure now.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm sure of at 63, I'm sure of to the marrow of my bones, but the subject matter is is is much narrower.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I I am kind of a jack of all trades, but man, what I know to be true of God is he's a good God.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He's a kind God, his holiness and his accessibility are the hypostatic union is one of my favorite things.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is fully, completely, totally God, same substance, and he condescended to be noble.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: That supremacy and accessibility just slays me.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can agree on that if you're hardcore Pentecostal run and laps, right?
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you are reformed, sitting on your hands, you know, scared to death to be demonstrative and in it uh physically, you you still go, we have a good God.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Jesus is the only way to be reconciled with a holy God.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's not an option, he's the only way.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is the revelation of God.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't, we don't cut and paste this.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's still true from cover together.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's some basic theological truisms that I think we can agree across the breadth of the body of Christ.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I I find myself, you know, last year I went from I got to be with uh Billy Graham at the Cove, um, with uh obviously Dr.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: Graham's in glory now, but with that group that tends to be a little more what we would probably call a little more conservative.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I went straight from Billy Graham to Bethel, which is awesome and wiggly.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Chris called me and went, How do you go from Billy Graham to Bethel in four days?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, It's awesome.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't, I I people who who know me well, there are a lot of reasons not to love me.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I love I love finding people who love Jesus.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, when you find their love for Jesus, you go, oh, some of these things don't matter quite as much.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they're not worth breaking fellowship over.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to ask me about nuance, I'll go there.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: I might be wrong, um, but I'll go there and talk about these things.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to break fellowship.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't want to die on on any hill except for Jesus.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's so great.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll die on the hill of Jesus, but I'm I'm not gonna I'm not gonna die on secondary.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Your advice for the people who are the keyboard warriors who are going, I'm gonna find everything wrong with, you know, and and I think they have such good intentions of I'm trying to correlate.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_02: I would disagree with you, Pets.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, tell us, tell us.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I would disagree with you.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think they all have good intentions.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: I think outrage has become the new Christian morality.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it is the most unbiblical thing.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I will be 63 and get there.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Is nowhere in scripture that you will find outrage other than from our Savior Himself toward the religious elite who were keeping people from the gospel.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's the only place you find moral outrage.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think we have the righteousness to carry righteous indignation.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so if that's where somebody's getting their jollies, I just think I'm so sorry.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you hurt?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because usually moral outrage comes from a bruise that has not been healed and carried to the altar, in my opinion.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so, no, that that's one of the few places I will give it, uh probably a little, I stand a little too much on a soapbox there because I see so many young believers and unbelievers wounded by unkind Christians.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And what is real clear in here, there's things we can argue argue about that are ambiguous because they're not primary gospel issues, but what's real clear in here is God hates one who causes division among believers.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm not I'm not a fan.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: I love what you're talking about right now because I feel that, you know, as a pastor, I always want to say, you know, I'm sure they're just trying their hard.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_02: No, but there's no and it makes us look crazy to the world.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's there's nothing christoformic about it.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: You don't you see um who's the greatest leader ever, Jesus.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: When do you see Jesus outraged at unbelievers?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, at people who aren't religious.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so some of the stuff we're seeing, I'm like, there is no template in scripture.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: If we're called to be like Jesus and be increasingly more like Jesus as we grow in our walk of faith, there outrage is not a fruit of the spirit.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm just I'm not I'm not a fan.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I also think if I had a really sweet situation recently with a woman who had I I don't pay a whole lot of attention to social media.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the great gifts of being 63.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: I forget about it.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I have to for certain publishing contracts you nowadays.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's marketing, so I have some contractual obligations.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I post about flowers, Jesus, and weight surfing.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um usually in that order.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um but then I'm off.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I have a timer set on my phone because it doesn't do my heart good.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not, I know some people go, it can be used for good and it's great.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, can be used for good.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So so can carbs, and we just get to enjoy them and live in a demounce, unless you want to live in elastic waste pants.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we have to be really careful.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, there was a woman who had evidently really just eviscerated me on social media, and we met at an event and she said, I am so sorry.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, you don't have to apologize.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: I said, actually, because somebody had told me what she had said.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, actually, there's so much worse than that.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I said, you know, there's so many things that God in his kindness has disciplined me for in private.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And in his mercy, he has not made that public.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, There's really nothing you could post about me that as is as grievous as where God has disciplined me, because when I'm not walking with Holy Spirit, I am I am a flagrant sinner.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: C.S.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lewis says, we're all idle factories.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And and it was just really sweet to see her go.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so sorry.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I was judging your platform.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know you.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, there's plenty to judge if you knew me personally.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um I Brennan Manning uh is one of my favorite writers, and uh just really, really brilliant Christian writer, and he got dissed at the end of his life because he struggled with alcoholism.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll I'll you may know this quote for Batam.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is a paraphrase, but he basically said in Abbas Child, if we could see what makes our enemy weep, they would no longer be our enemy.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and so when I when I see people that are the keyboard warriors and they lead with outrage, I once I get past my own criticism over their personality, which is ungodly, I think I wonder, I wonder why they're so angry, because in my experience, um, anger is not a primary emotion.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Anger is usually a defense mechanism.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: There's a big bruise under that.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, where were you hurt?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Where were you judged?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: And why are you leading like this?
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And when I lead that way, then I can hug those who are outraged.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if you mess with one of my friends, I'll cut you.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I will come find you and I will cut you.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, I just I don't think there's a I don't think there's any place for it.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm glad that we're friends now.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we have Lisa Harper in our corner at Radiant Church in my own.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody just says you, you just send me the tweet or whatever.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, yeah.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: I don't even look at them either.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm just I did see somebody sent me again, I'm not on social media that much, but there, I don't remember her name, but it's this woman who her whole thing now is called, I think it's called taking out the trash.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And she she walks to the like a trash can to the curb.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody sent me a clip of it, and she calls people out who are bullies online and she digs into their file and then she outs them with their whole name and everything.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, this is hilarious.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I, you know, I I think that's just kind of same, same song, different, different verse.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_02: When you travel around and you see so many churches and so many streams and so many different movements out there, what are you excited about in the body of Christ right now?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: I I think there is a it as, and I'm not speaking as a as a responsible leader, because I can't give you stats on this.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this is all anecdotal, but I see a real turn back toward uh relationship with Jesus.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I I see even this, you know, you and I were talking before we started recording about some of the revivals we've seen break out on college campuses.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it and it's not the, you know, it's not the um, it's not the cognitive information that's pulling people back to church.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is relationship with Jesus.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's we have this creator redeemer who still chooses to woo us into a personal relationship with him.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm seeing people really falling back in love with the nearness of God through a working person of the Holy Spirit.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so that thrills me.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I was at a uh a church recently, and this just slayed me.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's a big birch like radiant, and they had a An altar call and all these people going to the altar.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I just sense the Holy Spirit prompted me to go pray for that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know how you'll see one head at the altar?
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: It could be 200, but you're like, I got to go pray with that head.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: She's just the back of this woman's head.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: Long story short, which I could never do that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even know why I qualified that way, concise it's not my gift, but I make a beeline for this young woman at the altar.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I just kind of get myself around and sit facing her with my backing at the altar.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, baby, that's another fun thing about being old.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: You get discounts at McDonald's, but you also can call everybody baby when you forget their name if you're a Southern Nana.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, honey, I'm so sorry to bother you.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: I said, but I really felt the Holy Spirit prompted me to come pray with you if that's okay.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And she went, and she just began to sob.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, what in the world?
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: I had met her at an event three years before, right after she had gotten out of, she had been incarcerated.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: She had come to an event with uh John and Debbie Lindell, amazing church, James River.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she had come to their event and she had just come to Christ uh through a prison ministry.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd got to pray with her that event.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, been through heck and back in that time period, had moved cross-country to this new place, was driving by, saw my giant fat head on a billboard for this revival.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And she just said, Lord, you know, I know you're there, but I am just, I feel totally invisible.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And she had just gotten fired.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody found out she had a felony on her record.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, she'd just been through a lot.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: So she comes to this event, 2,000 people.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many people have thought her, a lot.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, You know how it is as a pastor.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: They don't really need to connect with you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just need to be reminded God sees me.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just got to be the donkey and the rock in that story.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I just told God, if I could just say hi to her, she hugged me.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I believe that God loved me more the way she hugged me.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you should, I was just a safe old woman.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and that was the head I was so drawn to.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, we are not making this up.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is true.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: We have an approachable God.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: He orders our steps.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: The boundary lines he has for us fall in pleasant places.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am constantly like, I can't believe it's true.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited it's true.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm more excited now.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I think too, Pastor, it's looking over my own story and seeing all the places I disqualified myself from ministry, from leadership, from being loved by a perfect God.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he has carried me to new places.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm more undone by the gospel today than I was when I was that fireball in youth ministry.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I love that so much.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_02: Let's imagine you're speaking at a pastor's conference.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: There's thousands of pastors there, which we have people listening to this all over America.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: And you could give one corrective challenge.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, as you lead in the body of Christ, here's my wisdom at a nice young age of 63.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: 63.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: What's your wisdom for them?
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, first of all, I probably plagiarize you.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I I I think I would say maybe two things, Pastor.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: One is lead low.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think empathy is more important than a platform.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so make sure you still see faces.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: If God has given you a platform, see see faces.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then this I would say, and then hope I wasn't hit by a lightning bolt.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of my professors said Jesus did his ministry at the pace of three miles an hour because he walked everywhere he went.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he just didn't miss people.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was so incredibly interruptible.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that dovetails with seafaces that lead low, hear stories.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I know you don't, it it would be logistically impossible for you to talk to every single person on all of your campuses every time y'all met.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't, I don't ever, I don't ever want to see a congregation.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I want to see people, I want to see individuals.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And just because we have a microphone, actually, if you believe this is true, Paul says the ones with the microphone are the least of these.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I always say if we're in vocational ministry, we're the least of these because we have financial incentive.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: So people who lead much better than me, who are selling cars or dental hygienists, and and this that's their temp making.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: I get to do this for a vocation.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: So what an undeserved gift.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: But I just always want to see people and I want to do my life a little slower so I don't miss the miracles and the stories and the broken hearts along the way.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, for the person in the pews, and they hear you talk about getting your doctorate and always learning, and you're using uh theological phrases that they go, why does this matter to me as a Christian?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: What is your challenge for them to just crave the theology of it?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_02: Why is it something that really matters?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's a great question.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, theology, people get so sick of me saying this, but theology is uh is a word that breaks down into two Greek words, theos, which means God, logos, which means conversations or words, phrases.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so at its most basic definition, theology is simply conversations about God, which means every single image bearer on this planet is a theologian, because everybody has conversations, at least in their head, about God.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: They might not be a Christian.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: It might be somebody in the middle of Timbuktu who's never heard the gospel, but they're like, is there something bigger than this?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Is there a supreme?
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's a theological thought.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a thought, it's a conversation about God.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would say, even if the term sounds like an old man in with, you know, short pants and dark socks to you, and it sounds boring, I'm like, oh, just don't let wind bags like us bore you.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: Dive into who Jesus is, have conversations about God with people who care about you.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: If if you're not close enough to pastor to ask him if you can go for coffee, find people that you go, that person loves people.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: That person does not read their own press release, that person seems authentic, and ask them to meet you for coffee and then ask them every question you have about God.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, I think in, and I'll I'll keep saying first world culture, we forget that in rabbinical tradition, asking questions was a form of worship.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus didn't talk from a platform on LED screens, not that there's anything wrong with that, or smoke machines, but he actually walked around and people were able to ask questions.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: He asked over a hundred questions in the Gospels.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the Synoptic Gospels.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I I I love, I have learned so much from other people.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: I will learn something tonight from your oldest daughter, Lily.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Lily will say something about Jesus and I'll go.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't seen that fastet.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Of Jesus.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, so for people who go, Oh, I'm not an academic, well, you don't have to be, you don't have to go back to school.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: You you just have to go, God, I want to see you bigger and start asking questions.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we'll end this with some rapid fire.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Some of these are fun, some of them are serious, but let's make them really, really uh fun.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, let me just make it fun.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you could eliminate a fast food restaurant on the earth today, like Oh, that's hateful.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can't go there.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Southern.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: You're Southern.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so if you had your go-to fast food restaurant.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, because my daughter, it would be hers is chick like mine's Chipotle.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, very good.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: So there's not one you hate.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but I'm not gonna say it on your artist because I was raised to not talk smack about people or fast food restaurants.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: I will tell you, there's one, and I and I I won't tell you the name of it, but when I eat the really bad um Mexican food from there, it makes my hands stink.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, okay.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: We can imagine.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like that.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I've gotten E.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: coli from another one that's open late at night.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but so we won't talk about that.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: All right, sounds good.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: The waitresses were super nice.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Favorite cereal.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: I oh are you a cereal person?
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, really?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: No, my mom was healthy before healthy was cool.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like there's no Whole Foods.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: My mom was when I'd be like, Mom, is there something sweet?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, there are oranges on the tree outside.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: We weren't allowed to have cereal.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: She thought I thought it was from the devil.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: I thought there'd be a grease tube that led straight to H E double hockey sticks if you had sweet cereal.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, if I got to choose, it would probably be frosted flags.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, very good.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't get it, I mean that's kind of good.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: A fun day, like a day off from Lisa Harbor.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: Wake surfing.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Wake surfing.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I've just learned to eat foil, which is I don't even know what that is.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you do.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's the it's a it's a surfboard with a mast and a motor, and you stand on top of it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they have it all over Tampa, Tampa Bay, but y'all have sharks and Tennessee would have sharks, so it makes me so happy.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you're out there on the water.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect combination of absolute primal fear.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: I can't promise you I haven't said words that aren't in the Bible.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and exhilaration.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: At the exact same time, you're like, this is amazing.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to die.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's incredible.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's my new favorite thing.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um anything water, I love.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_02: Last couple will be kind of serious.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: So uh oh shoot, I thought you were gonna ask me favorite carbs.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, let's do favorite carbs.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_02: Chips and queso.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's my wife's favorite carb, too.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: So y'all will be best friends over chips and queso.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: We already are.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're getting matching tattoos after this.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: I love that so much.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: Um how have you kept your heart from getting bitter?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_02: People hurt you.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I wasn't bitter, but I was self-protective for a long time.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: People who knew me and knew all the fluffy bits, all the rough edges, all the parts that I should have covered with emotional spanks, and they just loved me anyway.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it was um pure grace.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: People, people uh people who look like Jesus who loved me really well.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because I would have, I would have been a self-protective, bitter old woman with cats had I not had really um, I've had some really amazing friends.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: That's incredible.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, key to longevity in ministry.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh humility and gratitude.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um somebody starting out in ministry.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, starting out young woman, listening to this.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: She wants to be Lisa Harper one day.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, raise the bar.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Umster Bevier or much better.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um I this is pretty simplistic, Pastor, but I would say um pray that God would help you care less about what people think about you and more about people.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_02: That's beautiful.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: Lisa Arber, you are a gift to the body of Christ.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: It is amazing how the Lord has used your life.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, we always say it, but it's the truth that the best really is yet to come.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I look forward to seeing what you're doing.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love not being I mean, you're way younger than me, but don't you love getting older?
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: It does get a joy, isn't it?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: I tell people all the time don't believe the hype that that it gets stiffer or slower.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Walking with Jesus gets better and better and better and better.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: I I mean, I I am in a Caleb season.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's give me a bigger hill, you know, give me a bigger lake to e-foil on.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, even if I'm playing chef aboard or, you know, in a scooter with a flag, I'm gonna have racing stripes, baby.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: I love it.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, thank you for all that you're doing.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And uh hey, I hope this has been helpful to you.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Share it um with some friends, and I hope it inspires you to just love Jesus more, to be a better leader, a vivacious learner, and constantly getting better.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it's been a joy to talk to Lisa Harper.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, the first Wednesday of every month, new podcast comes out.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_02: So join us next month.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't liked and subscribed, make sure you do that, and we'll see you next month.