Gwynne Johnson

Kelly Arabie

Gwynne Johnson and Kelly Arabie, authors of Soul Thirst: Discerning Your Divine Design, explain how seeking to fulfill our needs in the wrong places harms us and our relationships. They provide a roadmap to enable women to recognize what they are thirsting for in place of the only one who can provide true satisfaction. God alone quenches our soul thirst.

This book is a blend of accessible story and biblical life principles that have transformed women around the world as they come to understand God’s design for the human heart.

You can also watch this episode on video.

00:20 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. I’m so excited to welcome you to this episode of our podcast and it’s also on video. We are just delighted to have you joining us, and I’m thrilled with our two guests today—Gwynne Johnson, Kelly Arabie. I’ve known both of them for many years now, and I consider them good friends of mine.

Kelly and I actually met at D.T.S., where we were both starting DTS, I think the same semester and went through the same program. Definitely. So I got to know Kelly really well there. And Gwynne and I have crossed paths in many situations. We’ve been on a couple of boards together, so we’ve worked together on things. And I really have respected all of her ministry that she has done through the years.

If you want to know more about Gwynne and Kelly and their backgrounds, go to our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and go to the pull down menu that is About Us. And look at Video Podcast Contributors. And you can read more about them, although I think they will probably talk some about some of their experiences as we go through this conversation today.

So thank you both for coming. Welcome on our podcast.

Gwynne >> Fun to be with you.

Kelly >> Yes, thanks for having us.

Kay >> Thank you. And you know, I did want to mention Gwynne and I are part of a group of women, and I just want to mention that because to me it’s been such a helpful group, all of us who had been involved in ministry for years and we started gathering somebody invited us to gather together at Christmas and we so we started having Christmas luncheons together and we just became good friends and we pray for one another.

We support one another and encourage one another and challenge one another. And it’s been a great encouragement. So for those of you out there, you don’t even have to be leaders, but everybody needs a group like that. So I just wanted to throw that in there too.

Today we’re talking about Gwynne and Kelly’s book Soul Thirst that they co-wrote.

And first, I just really kind of wanted to ask Kelly, what was it like to co-write this? How was your process here? Is it hard to do two people doing different things?

Kelly >> You know, it was really fun. And I would say being able to collaborate with Gwynne and the conversations that we’ve had over the years were just such a blessing and a gift. It was a gift that Gwynne invited me to this project. And I’m sure she’s going to talk a little bit about, you know, how this started with her ministry. But in 2008 was one of the first times that I think I went through Developing a Discerning Heart.

And as part of that, Gwynne came and spoke to our small group, and we just talked about the study and how amazing it had been. And then she said she was looking to write this for a popular audience and asked me to help with that. So it has been really a wonderful journey.

Kay >> Gwynne, do you want to add anything to that?

Gwynne >> I’m laughing because she said 2008. People today asked me, how long have you been working on this? That’s been at least ten years. But now I know it was 20 already. Well happened is that Covid came along and it gave us both some opportunity time-wise to really focus in on what we had been doing and to really try to bring it to fruition.

We still kind of are and we’re still working on it, but we’ve been working on this for a long time and we feel like we both feel very strongly that this is something God has asked us to do. I tell my friends that this is my last Ephesians 2:10 project. If you remember the verse that says their good works that God prepared before for you to participate in.

And I believe that first writing the curriculum Developing a Discerning Heart was something God had me do that God has blessed. And I feel like this book, this project that Kelly and I have been working on, is maybe the last assignment he’s giving me, maybe not. But anyway, I’ll be delighted to finish it and to get it on Amazon and make it available to a popular audience.

Kay >> Well, tell us more about Developing a Discerning Heart, because you have now mentioned it, and now I know it’s more of a curriculum type, and this book is different. So, Gwynne, tell me about that first. First, tell me how you came to develop Developing a Discerning Heart.

Gwynne >> I guess it’s good for me. Most of my ministry life has been in teaching the Bible and I taught for many years with Bible Study Fellowship. And I’ve done a number of other things. I think in terms of spiritual gifts, teaching is my gift. But many times as a teacher (and you know this Kay), that women would come to me and pour out their heart and their difficulties in just the most painful circumstance. And I would know that God and the Scripture had help for them to help them navigate those waters.

But honestly, it was often like they’d thrown a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle on the middle of the table and don’t know how to start. And give them the word of God in a way that didn’t seem like putting on a Band-Aid aid. And I was sharing that frustration with a mutual teaching leader at a particular time. I had spoken with another heartbroken woman whose husband had just left her and the children, and I was just struggling.

And she said, Well, you know, my pastor is doing a series. He’s been to Institute of Biblical Counseling with Larry Crabb and Dan Allender, and they’ve encouraged him to share their material, and he’s doing that. And it just so happened we were not living far from that church.

So I started going and there I began to discover the principles that about how to know how God designed us and I came to understand not only how to help others, but it was a huge step in my own personal journey with God.

And as I began to learn and be transformed by many of the principles that I was learning (again, I’m a teacher, so I’m always wanting to share it with someone else). And that’s actually the beginning of Discerning Heart. My husband and I were on staff at Dallas Seminary for a period of time, and while we were there, I was not teaching in Bible Study Fellowship, but I was invited to teach a course for how to counsel women.

This was some of what I’d been talking about, what I’d learned through the Larry and Dan seminar. And I developed the beginning of this outline, and I began to teach it because it had had such impact in my life. Because of that being publicized in the Dallas Seminary magazine, a girl who was a missionary, Wendy Wilson in Austria, saw that and invited me to come to Romania and teach that course.

<p>And so I went to Romania shortly after the wall came down, taught the course, and what happened was the women in Romania had been deceived so much, all they believed was the Bible. And of course, I love to teach the Bible.So I came back to the States and began to revise the course that I had taught through the seminary. I began to revise it using the characters from the Scripture to develop the principles right out of the Scripture Exposition.

Really, I personally think that’s probably why the course has been so well received internationally. Because all the truth that we develop comes right out of the Scripture. And so as we did that and we began to field test it, working with Entrust which was BE International at the time, now Entrust International.

We were amazed that God could use this very simple, clear really statement of how God designed people to allow women to look at their own hearts and draw closer to the Lord and find satisfaction and so as we did that, we ended up changing the name of How to Counsel Women, became Developing a Discerning Heart, and God has blessed. We have it now in at least seven of the languages of Eastern Europe and Africa.

But it was a very, it’s a college-level curriculum, ten sessions, which usually took, you know, several hours. And many times people had asked me, could we not get this into a more popular format? But it was difficult because much of the power in the course came from the interactions that we had as we listened to one another in a small group.

And so that’s really, I think, what Kelly and I, the strategy that we had. And I asked Kelly, “Is there a way that we could do this?” And Kelly suggested this idea of having fictional people in a small group go through the course. Kelly, why don’t you fill in a little bit of how that hit you?

Kelly >> Well, you know, when we talked about the material, its story is a way to deliver content in a way that is accessible and real. You know, recently I read some information by Eugene Peterson, and he says that, you know, “story is the Holy Spirit’s favorite literary genre.” That story is God’s revelation in the way that he reveals it to, you know, his self-revelation to us.

And so I have been there through the small group myself. I led a couple of other groups through it. And then my experience in pastoral counseling and Gwynne’s experience in pastoral ministry, you know, we just had encountered so many women who were transformed and through the curriculum. But we wanted to make not just the didactic teaching there on the page, we wanted it to come alive and to let our readers see how women could interact with the teaching.

So a lot of the stories are just stories. They’re fictional. But we have come in contact with a lot of people who lived through some of the same things that we wrote about.

Gwynne >> And one of the things that I’ve really appreciated. And so in format, what we do is we alternate chapters where we have a fictional chapter and then as we go through the curriculum with the group, we’ll have a nonfiction chapter. So the chapters tend to alternate between fiction and nonfiction. And then Kelly develops, which is such a wonderful thing, not only the interactions that the women enjoy, but they can also we can also share in a book what they’re thinking as they are processing the process and the information that we’re delivering.

So it allows us to have sort of a mini-small group experience, but within a reading situation. So that was our strategy.

Kay >> Well, and I think it comes across very well. I enjoyed reading it and learned a lot so let’s talk a little bit about that.

We’re calling this you’re calling the book Soul Thirst, and what exactly is soul thirst then?

Gwynne >> Well, thank you for asking. That’s a great question. And we decided to center on the concept of thirst. We talk about four capacities that’s part of our divine design. But most of us have been familiar with the mind and the will and emotion. Those are not new concepts to us. But within Dan and Larry’s material, as they began to share with us, was the concept that we were created for relationship with God. Well, we all know that Augustinian quote that “our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

But we forget that when we fell in the garden, when Adam and Eve got us started on this journey of brokenness, there was created within every heart a vast emptiness. And that emptiness is painful and motivational. That is to say, how can I get away from this pain?

And that pain is the pain of the thirst. The soul is thirsty. What the soul is thirsty for is God, but it doesn’t know that that’s what it’s looking for. And so what we emphasize in this book and in the dialog with the women is while the way we go to quench the thirst may be sinful, the thirst itself is legitimate and not sinful.

So often when we something happens and we feel the pain of a heartbreak, we feel it’s our fault. And sometimes it is. But the pain is often related to the fact that we are not connected with God in the way that we would want to be. And sometimes it’s just the pain of a fallen world.

But the pain is designed to draw us to living water. I think of the woman at the well when she encounters Jesus. She’s been trying to quench the thirst of her soul with men through her life, and Jesus offers her living water. And even in just that moment, he awakens in her an awareness that there’s another way to meet the deep thirst of her soul.

And so that’s really why we emphasize the concept of thirst, because when I recognize that it’s not sinful and I learn how to turn to God in the midst of thirst, then I can choose with my mind and with my will. I can choose actions and obedience toward God so that my emotions can reflect constructive movement rather than simply acting on my emotions and trying to get away from the pain as quick as possible in ways that perhaps really are not productive. So as we begin to deal with each of those, how they relate to our desperate search to quench the thirsting of our soul.

Kay >> So this book, I mean, if you really want to get the most out of the book, it requires a lot of a self-exam and action.

Gwynne >> Yes.

Kay >> So you’re examining what you’re thirsty for, you’re examining what wrong thinking you have. You’re, you know, it all seems to go together, the thirst. And go ahead and name the other three.

Gwynne >> The thirst is motivational in that we are, it is a driving factor that moves us into something. And then with our mind, we think, how can I quench that thirst with my will? I choose those actions based on what I believe. And then I’m going to experience the consequences in my emotion of what I think and what I choose.

So it’s thirst, mind, will and emotion—those four capacities.

Kay >> And Kelly, you do a great job as you develop your characters in this material as far as giving some various thirsts that we as women may often have. Do you want to just tell our audience a little bit about what some of those might be? And they might be able to identify with those and realize that this would be helpful to them.

Kelly >> Sure. We really wanted to offer people this is a relational journey and we wanted to offer people an opportunity for reflection. Yes, there’s examination, but I think too often we don’t stop and examine ourselves. And as Gwynne said, the understanding of ourselves and our understanding of God go hand in hand together.

So in our story, most of the thirsts or many of the thirsts that are examined are relational.

<p>We have women who are in difficult marriage situations. We have women who are single. We have women who have had childhood trauma. And for a lot of them, they’ve simply pushed their emotions down. They’ve dismissed we call it deadening, distracting or dismissing.And you know, a lot of our healing happens relationally. So the women are invited along into a journey where they examine their relational wounds and they have the opportunity in relationship with each other to find healing in a relationship with God and as they walk alongside one another.

That’s been part of my own journey, and I know that it’s been part of Gwynne’s as well.

Kay >> And ideally, I would think that Soul Thirst, even though it’s not the curriculum laid out as the original was, that it would still be helpful to do it with friends, right?

Kelly >> Oh, absolutely. Yes. One can do it as an individual reflective, a study. But it’s best done in community. We are created as the body of Christ to live in community and getting together with a small group of friends to dialog about this is really our intent to be purposeful and intentional in that.

Kay >> Gwynne, do you want to tell us about the various resources at the back of the book that would be helpful to those who have the book?

Gwynne >> Yes. Because as you go through the book and because the chapters alternate with fiction and nonfiction (and with permission from the mission), we have substantial parts of the curriculum that are in the book with the same kinds of illustrations. And so at the back of the book, we have, I believe it’s an 11-week study designed for group participation.

And then because we also know that sometimes when you get a book, you end up working with it yourself. So we also did a self study with, I think, a six-week timeframe where an individual could take the book and use it for themselves.

And then also in the back we give a shout out to the mission and where a person could actually get in and study the curriculum itself with the mission if they so wished, or also then to take other people through the curriculum as well. So kind of getting at it from a lot of different directions.

Kay >> Right it sounds like you’ve kind of covered all the bases for what people might want.

Gwynne >> My hope is that we can help people develop a template for thinking about life. I found that (and Larry Crabb said this), that it’s a new way of thinking. It’s thinking about God with a reality of his care and love for us and his great desire to meet us in the difficulties and challenges of this life. I think I wrote you this note that the curriculum is teaching us how to count it all joy, as James 1 says, even if I’m not feeling it all joy.

Kay >> And that’s such a hard thing to do.

Gwynne >> It is. It is. And often when we’re in a difficult situation that doesn’t feel joyful, if we can stop and identify the thirst. And the thirst, really, sometimes I define it as saying, “What would life have been like if I still lived in the garden? What would this relationship, what would this circumstance be like if we still lived in the garden?”

Well, most likely whatever is going on, it would not have happened.

We had a precious— our daughter-in-law and grandson, not daughter but granddaughter and son became pregnant a couple of years ago and found out she was carrying a trisomy 13 precious baby Oliver, who lived only 30 minutes. He’s enjoying heaven while we’re waiting to get to know him. But my first words to Reagan as we talked it over, I said, “Honey, this isn’t the way it was supposed to be.”

I always kind of go back to the garden because then you go, “Oh, so I’m not crazy for feeling like I want to whatever fault broke down and cry.” So that going back to how would it have been like in the garden. “And now I’m not in the garden, so where do I go from here?”

The thirst is because we don’t live—we live in a broken world and not in the garden.

Kelly >> And that question has just been really wonderful to meditate on over the years. And as Gwynne and I have talked through various situations, this is just part of her thinking. She just automatically runs so much of, you know, any circumstance through that grid and would ask, you know, “What would this have been like if we lived in the garden?” And then asking Jesus, “When did you feel this way?”

Allowing yourself to think through, you know, what Christ, how Christ related to a particular situation is just also a valuable valuable peace.

Gwynne >> Well, and that peace, Kelly, thanks for reminding me, because what happens then as you think about how it would have been in the garden and you think about that we’re not in the garden. And then you think about the fact that the Lord Jesus left heaven’s glories and encountered our broken world.

And when you ask, “When did he experience this,” you are drawn inexorably to, first of all, worship and love him more, but also to experience through the Holy Spirit the comfort that only he can bring in unique situations. But he is faithful as you come to him and ask him, when did you feel this way? What He gives you through the spirit is greatly enhancing your relationship with him.

Kay >> Do y’all have some final words of encouragement just for the women out there.

Gwynne, you want to go first?

Gwynne >> Well, I loved what you said at the beginning, and even as you mentioned our group, that prays for one another, I just don’t think there’s anything that can replace women to women fellowship. That’s why all of us have been involved for years, and as you and your listeners are, involved in women to woman ministry, I absolutely believe that women do desire relationships with other women and that they and in those relationships can find the kind of comfort that God wants to give us.

And I always joke about, if you remember Esther, when she was captured by the King and put in the harem, she gathered around her choice maidens that walked with her for a year before she went into the King. So women have always been surrounded by and encouraged by other women. So just find a way to connect with other women.

And nowadays, with Zoom—Kay and I, we’re all on Zoom together and on text. And you can do it long distance.

Kay >> Absolutely. And that is true in the very fact that we are recording this on Zoom. When we first started this ministry, we used to bring people here live. Well, when Covid came, we could not do that. So and then people started using Zoom for everything, and we thought, “Well, we shouldn’t just be sitting around. We could do this on Zoom!”

And of course, that expanded our reach of guests, people and wonderful speakers that we would have missed out on if we had not been willing to try having conversations this way. And it’s just worked out great.

Well, Kelly, what about you? Do you have any words of encouragement that you want to add?

Kelly >> Well, I would just say that telling our stories is important that, again, I’ve been reading Eugene Peterson, and he says that God reveals himself to us in the kinds of stories that we tell and that we tell our friends who we are and what it is like to be human. So in sharing our story, it’s just a very, very important part of our journey to be real, to be open and honest.

And we tried to show that in this book, characters who are becoming aware of themselves and are willing to be honest in relationship with one another. I think that is really, really important.

And also just, you know, the encouragement that we have through this book. Really in John 7:37, when Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are thirsty.” It says, “Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me. Anyone who believes in me may come and drink. For the Scriptures declare ‘Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.’”

And in the Holy Spirit we have that. So we just invite that, it’s an invitation to the Lord and an invitation to fellowship with him into one another. And that’s really what our heart’s desire for this book is.

Kay >> I love that. That’s really wonderful reminder of taking our thirsts to him. And I read, I read the book very quickly, you know, getting ready for this conversation, but I know that if I had had the time to really reflect as I went, to really examine as I went, it would have been a really great practice for me to go through this because I’ve not ever heard this put in exactly the same terms that you have done so in the book.

And I really appreciate it. I know it can help many, many women. And as you said, Gwynne, we’ve run into many women who told us these stories for years. And to actually have a resource for them to go to would be great.

Gwynne >> Well, Kay, I hope, as I said at the very beginning, about a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle thrown on the table. We would hope at the end of the book that you would at least know what the straight edges and the corners look like. So you could begin to piece together situations that not only you encounter, but that others encounter in order to turn them toward the Lord and find comfort from him.

Kay >> I am just pretty sure I’m going to be giving this book to people, you know, for that very reason. Where can I find the book? Kelly, where is the book available?

Kelly >> It’s available through Amazon. We also have our website at SoulThirst.net, and we will have a link on the website as well to that. But you can find it on Amazon.

Kay >> Great. That’s easy for everybody I think. The name of the book again is Soul Thirst and what is the subtitle?

Gwynne >> The tagline is Discerning Your Divine Design.

Kay >> Discerning Your Divine Design. And in this context, your divine design are these four aspects thirst, thinking, choosing and feeling. Correct?

Gwynne >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I really highly recommend this. And let me just mention a couple of other resources we have that might help you as you grow as a person and move through hard times. Elizabeth Woodson and I had a conversation about Embrace Your Life, which is a book that she wrote.

And we have a conversation between me and Sharifa Stevens that is part of our Reimagining Discipleship series. And it’s The Kingdom Perspective, which is sort of about how you pray and how you think toward what would be God’s perspective as I move forward. So I thought maybe those two would be helpful to some of you out there as well.

You can find all of these resources at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and you can just browse and look at our many offerings that we give you all for free.

And we’d love to see you again and look forward to having you again.

And thank you, Kelly and Gwynne, for giving us your time today and for writing this great resource for women.

Kelly >> Thanks for having us.

Dr. Nijay Gupta

Dr. Kelley Mathews

Dr. Nijay Gupta, author of Tell Her Story, joins BOW Team Member Kelley Mathews in this fascinating discussion of persecuted women in the early church.

What can we learn from their stories? How do their stories encourage our faith and our own courage? What can we learn from them? What do we miss when we fail to study them?

These women’s stories provide models for us today to stand up for Christ, to know that he is better than anything that comes into our lives, and to be willing to cling to him no matter what happens to us or our country in the future.

This episode is available on video if you prefer watching.

00:22 Introductions

Kelley >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. I’m your host Kelley Mathews. And today I have with me Dr. Nijay Gupta. He is a professor at Northern Seminary and a prolific author. Welcome, Nijay.

Dr. Gupta >> Hi, Kelley. Looking forward to our conversation.

Kelley >> So this is going to be fun, I think. I mean, well, fun. That’s relative, I guess. But it’ll be intriguing I think.

Nijay has written a lot of books. He’s been a professor for a while. A lot of his books have to do with Paul and the New Testament letters that he wrote. But he’s also written one particular book that is specific to our topic today, and it is called Tell Her Story came out a couple of years ago, and it basically tells about the women in the New Testament who were really involved in leading and participating in the mission of the church.

So it has become quite popular, from what I understand. I certainly enjoyed it.

Dr. Gupta >> Yes, thank you.

Yeah, it’s funny. I, you know, just had an idea to write this book, and I sent it to an editor friend of mine, Anna Gissing, and she was so excited. And then it just sort of took off from there. So a big thank you to Intervarsity Press for publishing it.

Kelley >> Oh, they’re great.

So one of the women in that book we’re going to start with. Our topic today is specific, not that broad of women involved in the church, but specifically ones who were imprisoned for their faith. And one of the women you cover in the book does hold that honor, I suppose. And we’re also going to talk about one who is post biblical days who are still in the early church and maybe will hit a third one.

So, Nijay, tell us who Junia is and why we need to know about her.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. A lot of my work on this subject owes a debt to Romans 16, which is the last chapter of Paul’s big letter to the Romans. And I used to think of Romans 16 as a bunch of kind of hellos that Paul gives at the end of the letter, almost like end credits in a movie. And you sort of get up, you don’t pay attention.

You leave the movie theater. And so I had a friend in seminary who actually memorized the whole book of Romans, and he asked me, how should I memorize Roman 16? And I said, You’re at the end. Just finish it off. But there’s that sense of you’re preaching through Romans. You kind of, you know, have so much to work with.

Just in the first four chapters, let alone get to chapter 11, let alone if you get to chapter 15 that I don’t know if I hear from any very many sermons on Romans 16. But what’s amazing as a Roman 16, you have dozens of names mentioned. People where they say, greet so and so, greet so and so, and actually it’s hard to tell who might be a man’s name and who might be a woman’s name. Like Persis, Tryphaena, Tryphosa.

Some of the stuff, they’re just names are unfamiliar to us. But right there in Romans 16 verse seven, you have these two people, Andronicus and Junia. Now, we probably won’t get into the entire controversy, but there’s been a long standing discussion about Andronicus we know is a man, and Junia sometimes appears with an S at the end of her name.

Now, if you open up your Bible and you look at Romans 16:7 and Junia has an S at the end, that means that the translators intend for us to think this is a man’s name. And if it has an A at the end, then it’s intended to be a woman’s name.

Well, skipping over the whole controversy,

Kelley >> Yeah.

Dr. Gupta >> the vast majority of scholars agree that this is a woman.

And it’s interesting when you read all the details. At first glance, it doesn’t appear to be all that important. But when you really take stock and understand exactly who this person is, Andronicus and Junia are actually very, very important. We learn a few things about them. One, it says that they’re Jewish, which is interesting because Paul has kind of a tendency to have a special appreciation for his fellow Jews who are believers in Christ and leaders.

Secondly, he says that they’re in Christ before Paul, which means they became believers before Paul. He became a believer pretty dang early.

Kelley >> Right he’d been around awhile.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. It says something special about them. I get the sense that they could have been either part of Jesus earthly ministry, which is amazing before he died. Or perhaps they were commissioned during his resurrection appearances. We learn about that in 1 Corinthians 15, book of Acts chapter two, one and two. And then two more things it says. One very well discussed and on the other not so much.

One as it says they’re prominent, noteworthy among the apostles. Now that can be taken in two different ways. It could be they’re taken as noteworthy to the apostles, but they’re not apostles or it could be taken that they’re noteworthy among or as apostles.

Now there’s been cases for this and that I won’t go on the whole controversy, but what I will say is I think that, taken as noteworthy as apostles, is the more natural reading of the text for me.

Kelley >> Right.

Dr. Gupta >> And then you have other folks that counted as apostles like Barnabas and Mark and others so we think maybe there were even hundreds of apostles because they’re people that Jesus commissioned for ministry, and we learned that he appeared to hundreds of people. He could have commissioned them for ministry. So I think of an apostolic community.

Okay, last detail and this one gets ignored. It says their fellow prisoners with Paul.

And very few sermons talk about this, very few commentaries talk about this. But as I was researching for my book, this is a huge deal because Paul kind of takes pride in being in prison for the Lord. And it’s a kind of place you don’t want to be.

And it’s a kind of thing where one thing I say about Junia because thinking about women in the early church—just whenever I talk to churches, just to kind of get their imagination going—she had to be in prison long enough for Paul to commend her. So it’s not like overnight, but short enough for her to live. Think about that.

Kelley >> True. Okay, so a couple of years ago, I got to visit Italy and we went to, it’s called the Maritime. Is that it?

Dr. Gupta >> Mamertine. Yeah.

Kelley >> Mamertine in Rome. And it’s the prison where traditionally Paul was held. And so, you know, they let you go down into it. It’s a carved out a hole in a rock with a tiny hole at the top where they would let people in. And so you think of men living there. I mean, I want to say maybe 30 people could be crammed into that space, like without personal space.

It’s horrible. Like, we wandered in and, you know, you look around, it’s unimaginable by today’s standards. And then you think of women being in there with men and just the further dangers that they would have encountered. So, yeah, this was no easy stint, you know, in the local clink.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, one of the problems with Bible translation and reading the Bible is we bring to the Bible certain assumptions, modern assumptions, because we just assume it was like the same now as it was back then. So when you hear jail or prison, you know, you kind of think of what jail or prison is like in America today. And it’s really not like that at all in the Roman world.

So when I was in elementary school, we went on a field trip to the local jail in my small hometown, and I don’t remember much about it, but I remember two things. I think this wasn’t what I was supposed to have learned from this. Number one, they had lollipops. I remember that. And number two, they had cable TV.

Kelley >> Oh, boy.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. So today we differentiate between jail, which is kind of short term, you know, more minor crimes than prison, which is a bigger deal.

In the Roman world, they didn’t really have jail. They really just had prison.

And when I think of prison today, I think of like The Shawshank Redemption or I think of Alcatraz where you have we went to Alcatraz not too long ago, my family. And you have these individual prison cells. And as you kind of hinted and noted, that wasn’t what Roman prisons were like. There were a few like prisons that were built as prisons in the Roman world, like the one that you mentioned. But in many cities, there weren’t official prisons.

They would just recommission another building to be a prison. And they really didn’t have individual cells you wouldn’t you wouldn’t be in a cell by yourself unless you were like a special person of interest that they wanted to make sure didn’t die.

So really, you would be in what we get from some of the ancient sources is you kind of mentioned this is you’d have a room that fits ten, but they’d have 30 in there or 40. So we actually don’t have a ton of information about it except maybe some like fiction things that kind of ramp up the drama.

But what we learn about it is poor ventilation. So people died of suffocation, disease. No lighting. You mentioned underground. So they don’t have artificial lighting obviously unless they have like a torch or something which they don’t want to give fire to the people. People are chained. We know that from the New Testament.

But here’s what’s really interesting. Men and women would not have been separated, and I always thought, oh, they have a women’s prison. They have a men’s prison because we do that in the modern world. But they didn’t. Actually exceptionally few women were in prison statistically. Very, very, very, very few.

If you were a woman and you committed a crime worthy of prison. Well, let’s put it this way. If you committed a petty crime, you would probably be beaten or you’d be sent home to be punished by your family, if you’re a woman. If you’re a man beaten, fined, whatever.

Really prison was for major crimes, because you have to use Roman resources on these people and prison wasn’t an end in itself. Nobody was given life in prison. You could be life exiled. Ovid was exiled. John at Patmos. But nobody was put in prison for life.

Now, you may end up being in prison for a long time waiting for a trial because you’re kind of low in the pecking order. And then when you’re in prison, there could be random beatings, flogging, whatever, but you could also be assaulted by other prisoners as well.

And so when we think of a woman in prison, in many ways it’s actually riskier than a man because she’s worried about being assaulted and there just aren’t a lot of women in prison. So she doesn’t have any strength in numbers. There’s no reason to protect women. You’re fearful of the guards. You fear for other inmates.

This is one of the reasons I think, that Junia probably would have been one of Paul’s heroes, because he’s thinking she went to prison, she got out, and then she went back into ministry.

And if I went to prison as a woman in the ancient world for Christianity, I’d be like, I’m done. Afterwards I’m like, I’m going to retire, give me a mansion, whatever. And she went right back into ministry.

Kelley >> What do you think were egregious enough activities that would put a woman in prison?

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, as I said, these are major crimes. These are crimes against the state. These are crimes that earn you a trial with a magistrate. Right? And so when we think about big crimes, we can rule the really sinful ones out. So not murder.

Kelley >> She’s there as a Christian. Yeah.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah. Not like grand theft horse. You know, like, we’re not talking like we’re talking about things that Paul would consider noble, right?

So then I think we have a few options. And these are kind of guess this is kind of guesswork, but that’s you know, we have such little information we have to guess. One is teaching a dangerous philosophy. I don’t think that’s very likely because even when Paul did this with the Mars Hill counsel, he didn’t get thrown in prison.

It would just be like a weird cult. Kind of like in America. You kind of monitor—weird cult not dangerous, just monitor, but weird cult dangerous, you know, let’s send the FBI in. So I think it’d be like that where I doubt it would be a dangerous philosophical teaching. But take, for example, Socrates. He’s teaching against the gods, and he ends up being executed.

A second option, which I think is probably more likely because this is what Paul got in trouble for, is inciting a riot or civic strife. So they’re not so much worried about what this person is teaching or doing, but the effect of what they’re doing.

Kelley >> Okay, she might have been, she may have been involved in kind of like Paul, teaching something that then resulted in a mob or something to that effect.

Dr. Gupta >> Exactly. So you know, so I ended up writing this fictional set of letters between Junia in prison and the church in Rome, like as if like Paul writes letters from prison. So I thought, what if Junia did? So I wrote these letters and I read them in class sometimes. And the inspiration for kind of how I constructed the narrative was Paul’s experience in Ephesus, where, you know, he’s teaching the stuff and then people are upset because they’ve lost some income, because magical books are being burned and all kinds of stuff.

And so they kind of come after him. And then, you know, someone says, hey, let’s chill this out before the Roman soldiers arrive and, you know, lock everybody up or worse, I imagine, something like that.

So what’s really interesting about that, Kelley, is Junia can’t do that sitting behind a desk at a church. She can’t do that sitting at home. She’s got to be a public facing figure to be rounded up because if it’s like, oh, Andronicus was doing these things and then Junia is just sort of lumped in together, we don’t really see that happening in the ancient world if it’s just sort of the tagalong wife, she’s left out in the dust, there’s no reason to lock her up.

It would really be, and we’re guessing, but it’d really be she’s got to be equally implicated in whatever.

Kelley >> Okay.

So active, public, that sort of behavior, obviously courageous enough to be willing to risk this sort of thing. And so that’s all we really know about Junia, because she is a brief mention among other people whom Paul appreciated in Rome.

So we all transition from her to a second into the second century. We’re going to go, I believe, they were in Carthage—Perpetua and Felicity.

Dr. Gupta >> Right.

Kelley >> Perpetua is a wealthy young woman, married, we think, married with a child. It’s true, though, maybe one or two still nursing that kind of thing. And her slave woman, Felicity, who is with child so we’ve got these two very I mean, their womanhood is accentuated in this story. And yet they are in prison because they are Christians.

So can you tell us any more give us a little bit of their story?

Dr. Gupta >> This is really interesting because when I went in search of stories about women in prison in the ancient Roman world, other than Junia and Perpetua, there isn’t a whole lot and there’s very little with named women. That’s because ancient literature just doesn’t focus on women. And especially when you get in the Roman Empire, you know? Yeah, there just aren’t these kinds of stories.

So even Roman, modern Roman historians, classic scholars have to rely actually on the diary of Perpetua for most of what we learn about women’s experiences in prison. She’s the most extensive account and certainly the most extensive firsthand account.

Kelley >> Okay, I love the fact that we have a woman’s writing that still exists from 1800 years ago. Yeah. And so, yeah, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I wanted to accentuate that. What we know of her comes from her own hand and the appendix maybe as she would say, that somebody added on to the end to give us the rest of the story.

Dr. Gupta >> We learn a lot of interesting things from her story. We learn that the Roman Empire obviously was non-discriminating when they throw people in prison in the sense that she is thrown in with men. And that was actually one of her concerns in the story is that she has a baby, and she’s worried about her baby.

She’s worried about herself. She’s worried about her purity being compromised. And so she kind of requests to get put, you know, in a safer place. Now, this tells us another thing, which means if you had money and connections, you can get things done, maybe not get out, but you could maybe, you know, create a little better environment for yourself.

So she does. In terms of kind of her circumstances, we do have to differentiate first century Christianity and second and third century Christianity. Because in the first century, Christians really aren’t on the radar of the Roman Empire. It’s this upstart, you know, cult, cult meaning new religious group. And they weren’t really calling themselves Christians until the end of the first century.

They would be mistaken for kind of an offshoot, kind of a subcategory, let’s say, of Jews, zealous Jews for this person named Jesus. When we get to Perpetua, we have to think in terms of like now Christianity is a thing that that the Roman Empire is aware of and concerned about because, you know, the Roman Empire was pretty tolerant towards new religions or foreign religions as long as they kind of respected the Roman way.

And I just want to pivot really quickly a story of Polycarp. So Polycarp is a second century Christian leader who, you know, gets on the radar of Rome and they arrest him. And it’s really kind of a funny story. If you read the story. Polycarp, it’s really enjoyable.

He’s super old. These police arrive at his house and he’s like offering them food and then he’s they’re come to take him and he’s like, I need to pray. They wait for him to pray, and he’s really entertaining.

And then he gets taken the Colosseum. And there’s a really interesting moment where, you know, the emperor says, “You have to swear. You have to swear by my genius,” which means by the spirit of, you know, the emperor, and say to the other Christians, “Away with the atheists.”

And Polycarp turns to the pagan crowds and he says, “Away with the atheists,” to them instead. And then Caesar’s like, “burn them up,” you know, “Let’s kill this guy.”

And it’s this, you know, there’s this story that’s often retold of these heroes kind of dying peacefully, even though they’re being tortured, et cetera, et cetera.

Similar story with Perpetua, where they weren’t necessarily going out looking for Christians, but by this time they are concerned with a cult that is so anti-worshiping the Roman gods, the Roman emperor and that sort of thing.

But what’s really fascinating and I don’t know that you know this, you wouldn’t have any way of knowing this, Kelley, but I’m writing a follow up book to Tell Her Story. You may know that. And actually, the first chapter is about Perpetua.

Kelley >> Perfect. Here we go.

Dr. Gupta >> And what I say. So I’m leaking some of this.

Kelley >> Dump it all. Go. Let’s hear it.

Dr. Gupta >> I’m leaking some of this. So the second book is going to be about women prophets in the Bible. And the hook for the idea is in the Roman world, you definitely had a hierarchy of power and women were lower on that hierarchy. However, there was a loophole, and the loophole was prophets, prophets and soothsayers and oracles. I mean, these people basically operated independently of power systems because they had a direct line to God, or the realm of the divine.

And so all that to say, it’s focusing on prophecy. Now, I consider Perpetua a prophet, but I’m defining that pretty broadly because she could compel visions from God at will.

So the hook for my book, the very beginning of it, says, Did you know three women were wildly famous and second century Christianity, wildly famous celebrity Christians? One was Perpetua and two were (they were actually heretics), but they were women, part of something called the New Prophecy, which is the Montanist movement.

There’s two women Maximilla and Priscilla, not the Priscilla from the New Testament, but these three women were wildly famous. They were celebrity Christians in the second century, and they were all prophets. Two of them were condemned. One of them is praised, Perpetua. Anyway, something you probably didn’t know.

Kelley >> Had not made that connection. No. How was Perpetua such a celebrity in the second century when she was.

Dr. Gupta >> Second and third century. Yeah, I fudged it a little bit because I wanted to just sort of yeah, no second and third century.

Kelley >> And I say that for the audience because she was killed in 203. Which is technically the third century.

Dr. Gupta >> She was. I’m reaching a little bit there.

Kelley >> Right around then. Yeah, okay.

So she’s in prison. She’s got her slave girl with her. They’re both condemned to die in the arena, which was a favorite way for the Empire to get rid of their dissidents, that kind of thing.

Tell us a little more about Felicity’s experience.

Dr. Gupta >> It would be odd to put a slave in prison. Slaves were expendable. And so you wouldn’t waste government resources on a slave, no matter how educated they were, no matter how. So I think this must be a special circumstance. The special circumstance being they rounded up a group of catechumens, which means they were in training.

And so she must have been lumped together and somehow kind of was just taken as a package with these other catechumens.

I’m honestly not as familiar with Felicity as I am Perpetua because of the work I’ve been doing lately on Perpetua.

But it would be odd, I mean, what these stories reveal and why they were passed down from generation to generation is what people were willing to do for the sake of their Christian faith. And what tended to rise to the surface of popularity was the more extreme examples: imprisonment, martyrdom, speaking out against authorities.

But I think there is a perhaps a flavor, just a taste of that sense of the early Christians defying the structure system of the Roman Empire, saying, we’re going to focus on a slave, we’re going to focus on a woman slave, we’re going to focus on a pregnant woman slave. If there’s someone that you don’t send into battle inside the Roman Empire.

But obviously today you don’t send a pregnant woman.

Kelley >> Even now.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. Into battle. And yet this is what the early Christians are saying is, you know, “We don’t do what other people do. We are willing to risk everything because of our passion for Christ.”

This actually reminds me of a story. This is getting a little bit nerdy and in the weeds here, but reminds me of a story from the era of the Maccabees. So the Maccabees were these freedom fighters that were fighting for the sake of Judaism in the second century B.C. and they were fighting off a tyrant named Antiochus.

And there’s all these stories about heroes. And one hero is this mother of seven sons. And this tyrant is trying to do everything to get these people to recant their faith.

And one of my favorite moments (I want to say this is in fourth Maccabees, but I don’t remember exactly) is they say to her like, “We’re going to kill your children and then we’re going to kill you.” And most of us would say, “Don’t kill my children.” And she says, “As horrible as that would be, I stand by my faith.”

And then they’re like, “We’re going to gut you.” And she rips out her own intestines and throws it at them and says, “Take, take my intestines.”

Now, the fact that that’s a woman in that story in the second century B.C., this before Jesus, is fascinating because you just don’t see stories like this you have the Amazonian women, you know, you just don’t see stories like this.

And both in early Judaism and in early Christianity, you have stories of these incredibly daring, courageous it’s literally death defying in the sense that, you know, they survive. They’re experiencing, you know, you know, pious transcendence while they’re being martyred. You have these women in of the faith in our stories.

Kelley >> Yeah. In the second century, right before Perpetua and Felicity, about 25 years before them Blandina is another slave woman. She was outside of Rome or over in Gaul, modern day France. She again was sent to the arena. There’s a whole story about her, and she pretty much laughed in their face like fine, do your worst.

And she was there with mostly men who again rounded up with her, and her courage inspired the men to die honorably. She lasted till the end. Apparently, the story goes that she ended up being crucified. They just stuck her on a pole right there in the arena, and the image that reminded them of Christ so much like that was an inspiration to the people in there.

And so her story has lived on because one of the things that these women are showing that is anti-cultural or countercultural, as we would say. The virtues in Rome, as you well know, were gendered and courage was male, strength was male, honor was male.

And there were ways for women to show that, but not it was not their dominant thing. They had piety and other sorts of virtues assigned to them. But what these women are showing us is that no courage can be female to courage, strength, honor. They’re just human virtues.

Dr. Gupta >> Absolutely.

Kelley >> They’re not gendered. And that all of them, all of these women displayed these virtues because of their faith in Christ. Really brings honor to him and also inspires the rest of his followers.

Dr. Gupta >> Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And I’m certain that these second, third century accounts go back to the Old Testament and women like Moses’ mother. Women, you know, who courageously save, you know, Moses’ life. Moses’ sister, who follows, you know.

Kelley >> She’s smart.

Dr. Gupta >> You know from the movies, Miriam who follows the boat, the little boat, and, you know, make sure he’s okay. The courage of the Egyptian princess who takes in this child. The courage of the midwives who are protecting you know. The courage of Rahab, who hides these spies at the risk of her own family.

You have this over and over and over again.

Shout out to my colleague, Ingrid Faro and Joyce Dalrymple, who co-wrote a book coming out called Redeeming Eden, which show women at strategic points in the story the Bible tells of salvation. Fantastic book coming out this year.

And then in the New Testament, I think we do see this pattern of courage. I think of, for example, Mary, the mother of Jesus, showing up to the cross. I’ve talked to numerous historians about this. We don’t see a lot of women standing in front of crucifixions in normal Roman accounts. They just it’s not a place where you would find—it’s not a safe place.

Yeah. And to have Mary there and have these other women there when the men were actually hiding. It says “Strike the shepherd, the sheep will scatter.” It’s interesting.

You have that courage. You have Mary Magdalene, you have you know, you have Euodia and Syntyche in Philippians 4 where Paul says they contend or fight side by side with me for the faith gospel. I mean, they got to be doing really risk taking, really dangerous things for him to use that language. He’s using language of battle when he’s doing that. And so he’s saying these are warriors.

Kelley >> Good point. Yeah. I think the language that we have in our New Testament, Old as well, the words become common to us. And so we gloss over them and don’t necessarily see the connection of what was the significance of using that word to describe these people. Coworker is another word he uses for Euodia and Syntyche. And he uses that same word with Timothy and Mark and those sort of guys..

So yeah. So women in the early church and biblical times and beyond, we’re just as courageous, just as active.

Dr. Gupta >> Risk taking.

Kelley >> And spreading the gospel and defending Christ, and just living for him in really extraordinary and dangerous ways specific to these women who experience prison and sometimes martyrdom.

Dr. Gupta >> I remember coming across, kind of by chance. I was reading Saint John Chrysostom’s homilies on, I think it was Colossians.

Kelley >> You’re a nerd.

Dr. Gupta >> I know – occupational hazard.

And what’s interesting is in modern Pauline scholarship, scholars, we won’t get into it, but they don’t think Paul wrote Colossians, Ephesians and therefore those texts get kind of sidelined in academic conversations. That’s not what I think. But those ideas are out there.

And if you go back to Chrysostom, he didn’t talk about authorship issues but he says the prison letters are more precious than the non-prison letters because Paul courageously wore the bonds of Roman imprisonment. And in those moments his thinking would be clarified about what’s really important.

So Chrysostom goes on this whole sidetrack of saying blessed be the bonds. Blessed be the bonds that Paul wore. And he wishes he could kiss the bonds. He wishes he could wear the bonds. There’s this whole idea of like suffering for the name, right? We get this in Philippians One. It’s been given to you as a gift, not only to believe in him, but to suffer for his sake.

You have in the Book of Acts where they were praising God when they left prison counting it an honor to suffer for the kingdom and so forth.

And I think Paul would have had a special circle of honor for people that went to prison for the gospel. And he had a special respect for them.

Kelley >> And the uncertainty of.

Dr. Gupta >> Uncertainty, degradation, anxiety, all of it, of imprisonment.

I think it’d be worse for women than men. And so for someone like Junia, I mean, Andronicus face the same things and we should acknowledge that. But for Junia to do it means that she has to realize she belongs to Christ. Her life is not her own. And she’s called to, as Paul says, not to live for themselves, but for the one who died and rose for their behalf.

That’s what she was doing.

Kelley >> Like you said a minute ago, when you read the words the suffering, you know, in the Scripture, I think that as 21st century people we think one thing of suffering. And often we just think any confrontation is suffering or any pushback. You know, it could be real weak or it could be some actual I lost my job versus, you know, or I lost a relationship—actual suffering.

But the stories of the physical and the life-threatening and the just your whole life could fall apart because you chose to stick with Jesus. You were aligned with him. Your faith was in him, you’re team Jesus, not team Caesar. It made a huge difference in how your life went forward. And every person that we’re talking about, basically, they are a witness to say, well, Jesus is better, even though he might not look like it right now, Jesus is better.

That’s my new catchphrase. I love it. I stole it from a friend of ours. But yeah, I appreciate your insight, the historical perspective that you bring to us. We can’t wait for your second book, this next one that’s coming up, not your second, just your next one.

So yeah, maybe if you have the title, we will put that in the show notes or you can tell us when to be looking for us, okay?

Dr. Gupta >> It’s called well, it’s tentatively titled (IVP does a great job with titles), but right now it’s called God Spoke Through Her and hopefully late 2026 or early 2027.

These things take time.

Kelley >> A year, year and a half. Okay, that sounds good. Well, thanks for being here. This will be a great addition to our library. Beyond Ordinary Women has plenty of resources that are free to access for anyone who’s teaching or leading women. And we even have some that relate to the early church and these sorts of things.

So thanks for being here, Nijay. And we’ll catch you again soon.

Dr. Gupta >> My pleasure. A great conversation. Appreciate it.

Kelley >> You bet.

Laura Murray

Laura Murray joins Kay Daigle to discuss her book Becoming a Person of Welcome: The Spiritual Practice of Hospitality. She increases our understanding of what hospitality is, suggesting that it is more about relationships than spaces. Perhaps you’ve never felt comfortable with hosting others in your home. You may not have a space that’s conducive to what you’ve considered hospitality. Laura’s wise counsel and suggestions based on her own experiences will open your mind to new ways to practice Christian hospitality.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:21 Introductions

Kay >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. I’m Kay Daigle. I’m your host today. And today we are talking with our guest, Laura Murray. Welcome, Laura.

Laura >> Thanks for having me.

Kay >> Oh, we’re so excited that you’re here. Laura is a pastor. She is an author. She’s a spiritual director. She is the Director of Spiritual Engagement and Innovation at Fuller Seminary’s Center for Spiritual Formation. That’s kind of a long title.

Laura >> It is long.

Kay >> She is a retreat creator. And we’ll mention that at the end as well, that she just has been doing many things. She has a lot of experience in the church and as a spiritual director. And so we’re just delighted that you were able to be with us.

You can find out more about Laura on our website. If you just go to the top menu and go to About Us and look at the Video/Podcast Contributors, and we will have more information about Laura and how you can get in touch with her.

So we are talking today from your book Becoming a Person of Welcome: The Spiritual Practice of Hospitality. And I have to say that I was just really interested in that title when I saw it online somewhere that your book was going to be coming out and the spiritual practice of hospitality just really intrigued me as I read about that.

And so tell us a little bit about it. We’re not talking about just hospitality where are you having people over to your house,

Laura >> Right.

Kay >> This encompasses way beyond that, and I’m sure you picked that up as we go through. We’re not going to tell you how to set your table. We’re not going to tell you how to manage your menu or anything like that. We’re going to talk about spiritual hospitality.

So, Laura, just tell us where this idea of writing about hospitality begin.

Laura >> Yeah, thanks for that question. And I was talking to somebody about this the other day, said, why did you decide to write on hospitality? And I thought, I think it found me. I didn’t go searching for it. It found me. I was in the middle of my doctoral studies and the pandemic hit and shelter in place hit.

And I didn’t necessarily have a context for my studies. When you’re doing a doctoral study, you have to have a context. And I had just stepped away from a role of pastoral ministry in a church and I found myself really struggling in my relationship with God because those anchors weren’t there anymore. Like the anchors of worship or the anchors of gathering together, those things weren’t there anymore.

So I thought, if I’m struggling being with God, maybe others are struggling being with God. So I designed a space called Digital Silent Retreats, where we came online on Zoom, and we met together just a few people off of my very small email list and invited them to come onto Zoom. We met together, and then I sent them off for an hour and a half and solitude and silence with spiritual practices on retreat with God.

And then we came back in that last hour. We shared how God met us, what happened during that time. And we kept on doing this. And as this ministry, this experiment, turned into ministry kept going, I thought, “What are the pillars? What is holding up this ministry?” And one of the three pillars was hospitality.

And I thought, “This is interesting. It really, I need to welcome people in the Zoom space and have them feel welcome and connect with God and connect with others. They’re all strangers. What in the world?”

And so I went into a further study into hospitality and scripture as a part of my doctoral studies. So I did a whole independent study that researched that.

And then I started to see that hospitality wasn’t only a place, but that it was a posture. It was something within us that we take with us wherever we go: whether it’s on a Zoom screen, holding a retreat for people who are trying to find their way forward in this shelter in place, or whether it was later, you know, to the grocery store or whether it was to a home or a school.

But that welcome was this inner posture that I could take with me and create these little places of welcome or big places of welcome for someone where they felt connected with another person. They felt seen they felt like they could be themselves. They felt like they could learn. And so when I think about studying you know, writing about hospitality, it ended up finding me.

And then, Kay, what happened is I started to see it everywhere. I started to see the opportunities for it everywhere. I started to see it in my family of origin upbringing, how hospitality was offered. I saw it in leadership. And then I saw the pains of hospitality where there was rejection and where there were places that I thought were welcoming but then weren’t all of a sudden.

And so this just went into a deeper dove for myself, for the ministry, and then ended up writing, writing the book. So that was a really long story, back story to how I ended up in this space.

Kay >> Yeah, but it’s a great story. It certainly explains things, how you came up with this.

Well, how do you how do you differentiate that kind of hospitality that we normally think of from the hospitality that you found in Scripture as you began to study more about hospitality?

Laura >> You know, we all start with a definition of what hospitality is because hospitality is experienced. It’s not just a definition on the page. It’s something you have felt. It’s something you’ve been a part of.

So some cultures would say coming into a home that’s beautiful and prepared and thought of and welcomed in and food, which is all part of hospitality. Some would say it’s a communal event where we go out and we have a picnic and we invite the whole neighborhood and we’re out there at the park and we’re enjoying one another. And anybody’s welcome to join.

So we all have a definition of hospitality that is rooted in our experience of it. And so we all start there. Yet, I think for all of us it’s been limited to whatever our culture is or whatever we’ve practiced.

And so the biblical definition of hospitality invites us to see that hospitality is deep care, that hospitality does the work of repair and restoration, that hospitality and welcome looks for those who are on the margin. And it intentionally provides for people who are on the margin. We see that in the Old Testament, as the Israelites were told to take care of the foreigner and the widow and the stranger. And so we see that outward looking and that provision, provision in that generosity.

And then in the life of Jesus, we see this movement towards people. So this leaving of his home with God to enter our world and to be in our world.

So hospitality moves out of the places where we’re comfortable, the places that we can control and manage, which those are all great things to hold those spaces. And we’re responsible for those spaces. But to move towards the other for the sake of them and for the sake of their care, for the sake of what they need where they are. Not what they need in order to come to us, but what they need where they are.

And so it extends beyond walls and extends beyond comfort zones. And what it does is it provides security, care, freedom, all those things for the one who receives it.

Kay >> Yeah, I love that, that we carry that posture of hospitality with us and it makes us look at people differently. It makes us see them in ways that we would not normally see them if we’re just thinking of ourselves busy with our own families and our own stuff. But if we began to carry hospitality with us, I love that thought.

I love that I can internalize that. I can put that in my heart as I go to the grocery store, as I interact with other people.

Laura >> Kay, as you’re saying that I think like it. In some ways, it takes the pressure off because often we think about hospitality of you know, is my house clean? Is there enough food?

Like there is so much pressure of perfection and performance and presentation that sometimes we have defined hospitality as like who do we need to be?

How do we need it? And there’s just so much pressure. And it’s really focused on ourselves. So the invitation of the posture is to be so transformed by Jesus so have welcomed Jesus into us. That we welcome him in us. That we are so transformed that when we walk out its—we’re carrying us and Jesus is being carried through us, you know. That you don’t have to worry about the food, the temperature, you know, just all the things we worry about.

You actually just can be present to the person in front of you. And it can be just a few moments. It doesn’t have to be huge and magnificent, although those are wonderful. It can really take the pressure off of loving one somebody freely without some of the demands we put on ourselves that we have.

Kay >> Yeah. I think back to when I was women’s minister in a church and actually couple of churches, this sort of the same thing—that we would have something sometimes it was an event sometimes it was a Bible study, a MOPS group that they had a culture of such huge decorations and food that it was really ridiculous.

And, you know, I felt that they were misplacing their attention to all this stuff, and they were working so, so hard. A lot of pressure was on everybody.

In one church, we had had this dinner before I ever was the Women’s Minister, a dinner, and I mean, the elaborate decorations for the tables for the table host were—I mean, most of them were beautiful. But for those of us who aren’t really gifted in that area, it was a huge weight on us as to what am I going to do with my table.

And when I was in another church, we did the same thing, but it was not to that extent.

But it just can make it hard to be hospitable when you’re so burdened with all these things that really aren’t—you can be you can be not hospitable at the table. Because you’re so burdened with what, you know, the decorations look like and how are you doing. You know, and you’re focused on yourself, just as you said.

So I love that idea that we take hospitality with us and we’re not—we just need to quit performing.

Don’t worry a little bit. We need to consider the other people and some kind of balance there between having. Yes, you want to make sure you have enough food, but you don’t have to make all of it yourself. You can buy things. You can you know, you can ease some of that pressure off yourself.

So the kind of hospitality you’re talking about, is this for everybody to practice? Because I know that Peter mentions a gift of hospitality or seems to be talking about a gift of hospitality. So is this only for the people who have that gift?

Laura >> No, I think it’s for both. There are definitely people who have whether the gifts or just called to be able to serve in that way. And I think a reminder, too, for me, as I understand spiritual gifts, is that spiritual gifts are gifts of the spirit that are meant for the community. So it’s to serve another.

So it’s beautiful for those who have the gift of hospitality.

Yet what we have done is said, “Oh, I’m not gifted in that or and it’s a comparison. It’s not like honoring them like, “Okay, yes, they have the gift of hospitality.” And then it’s like I don’t do anything. That’s not the case. It’s a both and. And so I don’t want to diminish those who have that gift and are called to do that in these really important ways, in the ways that they’re called to do it. Absolutely.

And at the same time, we’re called to do it as well, that we’re called to show hospitality to one another to strangers. We’re called to live as Jesus did in that way. And so it’s a both and. So I think it’s an invitation to have it be a spiritual practice, that it’s something we grow in, that something we develop, it’s something that God does in us that we can offer to others.

But I would just say maybe sometimes we have used that definitive definition of hospitality and then said, “That’s for the person that’s gifted in it or that’s for the person who has resources or that’s for the person who can create those tablescapes or the food.” But it’s something that all of us all of us can do.

Kay >> Absolutely.

So let’s talk about you as the leader now for a little bit, because I know that a lot of what we do at BOW is to prepare women for leadership. And as a leader, as a staff member, you have led other people. How did the experiences that you have had help those of us as leaders?

What can you say to us? How can you help us be hospitable and welcoming as leaders?

Laura >> It’s a great question. And as I was thinking and praying about our conversation today, as I imagine they’re already doing a lot. I imagine they’re already being hospitable. I imagine they’re already being intentional. They’re already moving towards those who are on the outside. So as leaders, I just want to say you’re probably already doing the work.

And so just an encouragement for that in regards to the work that is being done in your contexts.

The one place I would say (and this is my also my spiritual director hat being put on as well as a shepherd’s heart) is that we often in leadership or look to serve the other, which is good, but we get it imbalanced with receiving the gifts that God has for us, receiving the joys that God has for us, receiving the healing God has for us, receiving the rest that God has for us.

So I think in this work there is definitely the external work that we do and yet there is a lot of internal transformation that needs to happen in us to continue to sustain the work in a good way, in a healthy way.

And so for me, one story I talk about in the book, it’s a phrase I use I call it the pastoral pivot and that as leaders, you know, we’re there to serve. So if somebody asks us how we’re doing and, and we’ll kind of say a general thing and then we’ll turn around, how are you doing? And we just serve them. We just operate.

And yet there are sometimes people who know us really well, and they’ll ask, “How are you doing?” And we won’t let them see. We won’t let them well, we’ll do the pastoral pivot and we’ll focus that back on them again.

There’s nothing wrong with serving, but we lose the ability to receive from others. We lose the ability to receive the gifts of other people for us. We lose the ability to receive that from God.

And something that actually just I’ve been working through the past few years and just a couple of months ago, God was reminding me of the Scripture in the story of the fish and loaves and the little boy and how the little boy we talk about, Okay, offering our fish and loaves and Jesus taking it and multiplying it, the disciples distributing it.

And I just remember God reminding me and saying, “By the way, that little boy was fed too. That little boy also was nourished. It wasn’t only sacrifice that he offered up. He also was taken care of. And so I think for us as leaders to believe God is taking care of us where we neglect or reject his care. Where we said, “No, I’ve got this God.” Or even to people around us say, “Nope, I got it!” You know?

And so I think for us as leaders is paying attention to where we weary, to the places that we are wounded, even the little micro tears that add up over time.

And then I would say the other piece is where are we welcoming friendships and the joy that people bring and delight and those things that can be really healing and beautiful?

So back in Scripture, in the Old Testament, God said to remember the stranger, but remember that you were strangers, that you actually needed me. So I think remembering that we actually need and then receiving it.

Kay >> I think those are really good words for leaders. It really is very hard to accept somebody else’s care for you sometimes because you do feel like this role is I’m supposed to be serving them. I’m supposed to serve. And instead of realizing that you need their gift of hospitality, they’re welcoming of you. They’re caring for you, all those kind of things.

So I really do love that. And you talk about receiving welcome. Are there any particular practices for women in leadership that you think allow them to receive God’s hand hospitality. Is there anything you would suggest that they do beyond what you just talked about?

Laura >> I think all the, any of the practices are good. And the reason why I say that—any of the spiritual practices are good, as long as you are receiving the gifts that God has for you in them. So this the spiritual practice of study is good. But if all you’re doing with your study is offering it to others, then maybe think about what God is offering you in this study.

The spiritual practice of prayer. If you’re only form of prayer is intercession for others, then maybe consider how you can receive prayer. If it’s receiving not only the intercession of others, but receiving God’s Word. So if it’s meditating on Scripture and asking God to give you a prayer, asking God to speak to you.

So when we think about the spiritual practices they do bring about fruit, they do bring about something, but it’s not our job to bring it about.

And so when you engage with study, prayer, worship, those are some of the classics, right? You know, intercessory prayer, Bible study and corporate worship. And in the book I talked about I talk about some kind of nontraditional practices in there. And so a practice of suspending judgment right the moment that judgment comes into your mind and you want to go running with that, like how do you stop it?

Talk about confession that the role of confession and saying I have limitations that I cannot do these things and those limitations are not a place of shame, but of being human. And so how do we confess to God we have been over functioning or we have been trying to save this and it’s not ours to save.

Where have we picked up a cross that you never asked us to pick up? And so there’s confession in those things. And again, the practices are to connect us with the heart of God. The practices are for our relationship with God. It’s for freedom and joy and delight and transformation. And so I think somebody taking their practices, they already do.

And even seeing them in that view is the first step or it can be a great first step.

And I think also some of these other practices that go a little deeper of confession, of practicing non-judgment, of receiving from others, and in entrusting God with the fruit that comes from them for you. And here’s the shift that I would invite to—is that you would see yourself as a guest rather than the host.

Because when we’re the guest, we don’t have control. When we’re the guest, we’re at the mercy of what’s offered to us. When we’re the guest, we’re far more vulnerable.

And so if you went to any of your spiritual practices as the guest of God, and that God is the first host, I wonder what would happen just in regards to healing, being met, and cared for and learning to receive, learning to be the guest.

Kay >> I love that. I think that that that is a really memorable help to people when you put it that way.

Just as going out with a posture of hospitality everywhere you go. I think those two ideas are things that probably everybody out there can hang on to those attitudes that you go into life realizing you’re God’s guest. You think of yourself as a guest and also to just look for how to be hospitable to everyone around you and make that part of your life. I love that in the book.

I did want to mention how the book is set up. Laura has written a chapter about a certain aspect of hospitality, and then she has a specific spiritual practice for you at the end of that chapter that fits with what she’s just said. That’s very helpful. I went through a number of them, actually spent the time doing it, but I kind of ran out of time because we were going to talk today, and didn’t get to actually practice some of the spiritual practices that you mentioned in there.

But I plan to go back and do that.

Laura >> Well, Kay. I mean, I’ll just go ahead and say the book is not a fast read. I mean, you could read it fast if you wanted, but the book is meant to invite you into deeper practice, transformation. And so in some ways, it’s a guide, it’s a guidebook, it’s a spiritual practice guidebook for you. And I would say just really encouraged to do it with others. That’s the other thing I would say in all of this.

I’ve been thinking the whole time, okay, remind them to do this with others. Like do this in community, take this on. Try this and go, “Oh, that’s what this was like,” or “This was awkward” Or “I did this,” or “Oh, that was so beautiful.”

And just sharing those, really testimony and stories of what your experience was like and reflecting on it with others only deepens the transformation, that communal aspect of doing this with others. I would highly recommend, and take your time. I mean, there may be something there—may be a chapter or a practice or a phrase that like—you’re just going to sit on this. Like there’s a scripture that is just going to sit in you for a month. And just let it sit there. Let it percolate, let it grow.

And I was just reminded of this. I am not a gardener in the literal sense of the word. Now spiritually and in that I do think I do cultivate soil in places and in that. But physically like, no. But we have this huge flower bed in our front yard and a few years ago, someone told me about a place you’re like, oh, you can get native plants. They’re better, you know?

Now, currently, the first two rows have changed in so many different ways. But the back row has been what is called Turk’s Caps, and they’re supposed to be these big, beautiful bushes that in the summer just come out with big green leaves.

And often they have these little tiny red buds and they’re beautiful, or I have pink ones, too. So I have three red and two pink on the outside. Okay, so I just I plant.

I planted these four years ago. They’ve survived two ice storms. They’ve lived in the soil and they have done nothing. I mean, I go to gardeners, you’re like, oh, they should be full and robust by year two.

Like they’re not year three. They’re like the tiniest fraction. There’s maybe ten leaves that they burst out with. I go and I help down in another part of the city and they have Turk’s Caps that are just exploding. And I’m going, What is going on? It’s driving me crazy, and I just want to dig them up and get rid of them, like just replant, start again.

And one of the gardeners like, don’t, don’t do it. Just, just leave them there. They’re growing their roots. And I just thought, “These are taking forever. And our garden looks horrible.”

And then this year they’re starting to burst. And I have never been so proud of these Turk’s Caps that are coming out. And all I did was, well, I mean, water, make sure they had sun. I mean, I and I’ve been waiting I’ve been waiting for the fruit I’ve been waiting for the beauty. I’ve been waiting, and it’s been so frustrating. And I just.

And you’re tempted to dig it up. You’re tempted to let it go. And stop trying. But then year four, right when it was supposed to happen in year two. And here these Turk’s Caps. And every time I walk by them, I’m like, “There’s a new bud.”

There is a new, you know, I send pictures to my friends. “Look at my Turk’s Caps.” I mean, it’s silly.

But there’s this just this beauty and this joy that comes whether you’re in a hard season in leadership, even if you’re weary or you’ve got some wounds, just allowing the Lord to tend to those. Allowing the Lord to meet you, allowing the Lord to minister to you.

So you may be in a season of that. Just keep on letting the Lord minister to you, you know. And there will be joy. There was joy in the little growth that was happening. And now there’s great joy.

And so I share that to say with some of these spiritual practices, they sink down really deep and they’re developing really deep roots.

You just can’t see it for a while. So my encouragement is to stay with them, even if they’re not producing something right away. So I just felt compelled to share that story and celebrate my Turk’s Caps with you guys.

Kay >> Well, I think that’s wonderful, and I know that that will really speak to many people out there, whether they’re leaders or not. Because you can’t always see the fruit immediately—that God is working, God is working when you come to him and practice that.

Well, thank you so much for this. It’s been great.

Again, her book is Becoming a Person of Welcome, and I hope that you will purchase the book and go through it as she said: take your time; meditate; do the spiritual practices; maybe do it with a friend. If you’re a leader, with another leader. It doesn’t have to be somebody in your church context. It can be another leader somewhere else. I’ve found that to be very important for me when I was on church staff that I had friends in other churches and church staffs there. So they understood a lot about what I was going through and what they understood what they were going through as well.

And it was really a help. So I think that community part is really important.

In fact, this year, Laura, I am taking you through a number of circumstances and conversations I’m now sort of the leader of a group that we’re reading through the Bible in two years together, and I had never done that before. And it’s just been such a blessing that we’re sharing what we’re seeing, we’re sharing what God’s doing.

It’s just made a big difference in all the times that I’ve read through the Bible on my own.

Laura >> Yeah. Yeah.

Kay >> Right. So I really appreciate what you’re saying about community.

Tell us just a little bit more about your digital silent retreats for people who would be interested in that.

Laura >> Sure. So these are retreats that we hold two Saturdays each month except for July. Take a little break. But we hold them two Saturdays and they’re about 3 hours. And so you come on to Zoom, we send you a link. We send you a retreat guide. You come on to Zoom and you meet other people. You have hosts and facilitators, and we welcome and we start you off on your retreat with a spiritual practice.

And then we send you off with the retreat guide that we have provided for you to print out. And you go on your own in solitude and silence for about an hour and a half with the retreat guide again, you go at your pace. You don’t have to do the whole guide. So it’s time for you and the Lord.

And then you come back after about an hour and a half, and then the last 45 minutes or an hour, there’s a facilitated discussion and a listening of what happened and how God met you. You get to share whatever you would like, and you also get to hear the stories of others and how God met them on their retreat time. And then we, you know, pray and bless and send you out. So it’s 3 hours on a Saturday morning.

And I will say I started it with the goal or not the goal with the felt need of we need these anchoring time of solitude and silence with God, which is really needed. Then I found out that last hour of communal conversation and sharing was really gold. That was really beautiful.

And you just got to hear real life from other people. You got to hear how God was meeting them. And it was just such an encouragement for one another. And I think we need those encouragements. We need to know that God is active in other people’s lives and our own.

And so you can go to the website. It’s DigitalSilentRetreats.com and sign up.

We put them up month by month with a theme and we’d love for you to join or send me an email, ask questions about it.

Kay >> I’ve been on several silent retreats with a friend. For awhile she was doing like a little half day retreat, probably similar time frame to your what you’re talking about. And we would go together somewhere. And then I went with her on a couple that were two night retreats, silent retreats. And with very similar format—that we would go off and be on our own, that we would come back together and have conversations.

So I highly recommend those. They’re really, really helpful. Really helpful to a Christian to really spend time with the Lord in silence, but to have a little bit of direction in that really makes it richer somehow also having the other people around you.

Laura >> Yeah. Silence can be daunting, you know, so to have a guide there who’s guiding you through it a little bit is really helpful.

Kay >> It really does make a difference. Well, thank you. Again, I’d like to mention some other resources. Laura, do you have any other resources you would recommend to people.

Laura >> If you could go to my website and sign up for a newsletter you’ll get resources through there. There is a resource for Jesus as being the hospitable leader on there that you can download. If you have a specific question or you’re thinking about a specific context, feel free to send me an email.

I have retreat guides as well. And that is another thing. I have PDFs like I can share. It’s like low, low cost. I mean, it’s like $2 a use for a guide. If you want to use those for your ministry. I have those as well. And so I’m just really some practical resources for you as you continue to grow in your faith.

Kay >> That’s great. That’s great. And we’ll put your contact information on our website so that people can also find it there. We also have some other resources on our website that might be helpful under leadership development. Look at under You As a Leader. You can find some other videos and podcasts that we have done talking about spiritual practices and other things that leaders deal with.

We also have a section on Godly Living that has some items that you might be interested in. So I would just encourage you to go to BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and just browse our resources for other things that you might find helpful.

So Laura, I’m excited about your book, and so I appreciate your taking the time to be with us today.

Laura >> Yeah, thanks for having me, Kay.

Kay >> Oh, you’re so welcome. And we’ll see you all next time.

Dr. Sandra Glahn

Dr. Kelley Mathews

Dr. Sandra Glahn, Professor at Dallas Seminary, joins BOW Team Member Kelley Mathews in this episode. They discuss the fascinating archaeological discovery of the Megiddo Mosaic and what it reveals about women and worship in the early church.

The Mosaic was found in what is the earliest Christian church known in the world

This Mosaic is currently on loan and can be seen at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C.

See pictures of the Megiddo Mosaic at the website of The Museum of the Bible.

BOW’s podcast series on how Biblical archaeology can enhance our faith with Angela Everett: 1. Biblical Archaeology: Why It Is Important; 2. Old Testament Discoveries; 3. New Testament Discoveries. Or link to the videos of each where you can see images of the archaeological finds: Part 1; Part 2: and Part 3.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:20 Introductions of Dr. Glahn & the topic

Kelley >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. I’m Kelley Mathews and I am delighted today to host Dr. Sandra Glahn, a longtime friend and colleague. And she’s a seminary professor. But today we’re going to talk to her in her context of being the co-founder of the Visual Museum of Women in Christianity. Welcome.

Dr. Glahn >> Thank you. My pleasure.

Kelley >> This is fun. Yeah. So today we’re going to talk about something old, really old. And archaeology is a big part of biblical studies that gives us lots of background. And there have been some discoveries in recent years that really apply to women in particular. So tell us what we all heard of the Dead Sea Scrolls or most of us probably.

And those were discovered decades ago and they’ve really revealed a lot. What are people saying is the biggest discovery since then?

Dr. Glahn >> Since then. So it’s a floor that was found in Megiddo, which is connected with Armageddon. That’s where you hear the “magid” in there. So it’s not just notorious. It’s also known for some great stuff in church history and in biblical history.

And some folks were digging in a prison courtyard and came upon a preserved floor that’s a beautiful stone mosaic. And the thing I love about mosaics is they can look like they were set yesterday, whereas a fresco fades, a statue usually in 2000 years, loses a nose or an arm, or archer loses a bow or whatever.

But the mosaics are much more preserved. And this floor was intentionally preserved. So it was clear that it was hidden for a reason, but it was intended to hide it for a long lasting preservation.

So it wasn’t just covered over with sand and dirt as the years went by, it was more like a plaster-ish substance that said, “We want to protect this, but we want to hide it.”

So I should probably back up and tell you what in the world I do. I’m a seminary professor who mostly teach writing and all those hard verses about women in the Bible.

What do I have to do with archaeology? And because that will be relevant in what we talk about.

So one of the courses I teach at a seminary level is medieval art and spirituality. And we take men and women to Italy for about 17 to 19 days every other summer and look at the visual record of the church. That is particularly relevant for women because often when we teach church history, we’re teaching about the councils, which are the men gathering. And we can call something church history, which is really the history of the councils, and we need to broaden that toolkit. But what’s happening in the church?

I liken it to reading the elder minutes and thinking that’s all the church is doing. Rather than looking at the church bulletin and seeing there’s AWANA, there’s VBS, there are Bible studies, there are meals served there, prayers being prayed, there are sermons and messages and gatherings. And the visual record does a lot of that.

And I have to say that our African-American friends in particular have reminded us that the oral history is also legit. We tend to coming of many of us coming out of a written tradition, prioritize the written tradition over the oral tradition and then also the visual tradition. So you think about enslaved people. They might not have known their letters, but they were telling stories through quilts, for example.

We see something fairly similar in the walls of ancient churches. And so as I’m taking people to these spaces, I’m noticing women predominant in the early church and realizing my own education has been truncated and start noticing the thing I love the best is how often I would see men and women partnering together.

You see men and women serving communion at the altar. You would see men and women you know, you might have an ancient church like when in Ravenna we’ve been to together, where one side of the upper wall is mosaics of 22 women, martyrs the other side is 27 male martyrs. And, you know, they accommodated because they put the three magi in the first because it’s all Eastern women and Western men.

But you walk into this church that was a worship space for over a thousand years, and you’re flanked by not just the men and women, but their names are written in the mosaic above them so we can trace who it was the early church is honoring as those who we want to remember and be inspired by.

Well, if you fast forward to the Protestant tradition, we got rid of the Saints, and rightly because in one sense, because we’d read our New Testament and say, well, if we’re calling somebody saints, we’re all called saints. You’re Saint Kelley. I’m Saint Sandra. Right? So we shouldn’t be elevating people like there’s some sort of spiritual step.

But the problem with getting rid of the Saints altogether is that we lost the biographies as part of our worship. And so this course led me to start noticing and collecting. And that led to the Visual Museum of Women and Christianity, because as I wanted to teach on some of these things, I found that all the photos were behind paywalls.

Kelley >> Let me ask you a question real quick.

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah, yeah, sure.

Kelley >> All right. Give us a little bit of background on the museum. We may have covered this in other podcasts, but no telling who’s watching or listening here. So give us a brief just explanation of what the museum is.

Dr. Glahn >> So it was driven out of a desire to get great visual images outside of the paywall. So we got a grant we’ve now had two. It’s a partnership of Lynn Cohick at Houston Christian, George Kalantzis at early Christian Studies at Wheaton. I’m at Dallas Theological Seminary. The grant organizations really wanted collaborations, which is great. We have male/female, we have different institutions.

George, you know, grew up within a stone’s throw of Athens. He has a beautiful accent. And so we were looking for diversity in our team and we hired professional photographers to go with us to document some of these—whether it’s statues, whether it’s mosaics, whether it’s frescoes, it’s the early art and make it accessible at Visual Museum Galleries.

So your listeners can download it for free in their high quality images, and you don’t even have to credit the museum. We wanted just to take that out of the equation and ultimately we’d love to have all the women of the Bible represented it. But anyway, so this was part of what it was rooted in me noticing all these women and the story they tell and how they’re often in leadership positions.

What in the world is that have to do with the Megiddo thing? Well, it’s why in the world am I involved in art and archaeology? So back up—2005. These people were excavating this floor, and as they uncover it and study it, they discover that there are five different women mentioned and one man mentioned.

The man is a Roman centurion, and he’s the one who bankrolled the thing. And it was probably, it’s been dated to 230 the year 230, which is long before Constantine is legalizing Christianity. And so he bankrolls it. And that tells you that there are is at least one Roman Christian here.

And it’s not so it’s not a church because you can’t build a church structure legally at this point is probably a prayer hall. It’s in a garrison. So like it’s on a military base but it has never a name of a Semitic name for a woman. It’s got a Latin name for a woman. It’s got a Jewish name. So you have a Roman centurion. So the first thing we see is Jew and Gentile evidence. We know from Galatians they’re working together, but this is the art history evidence that tells us of a place and how male and female are worshiping together.

And then then we think about the New Testament and what it says about centurions. And there are at least three really good guys who are, you know, appear to be concerned for helping the infrastructure of their community. So you have him bankrolling it. And then you have four women who the inscription says, remember these four and then and this is the big deal.

Then there’s an inscription that says, “I Akeptous paid for this table, this memorial table.”

And it’s the same word for Memorial that we find in 1 Corinthians. So we know that this is the Eucharist table. This isn’t just some table. And it’s and it’s important enough to this gathering structure to be a separate donation. But that also tells us that the other four women that are not mentioned as donors are probably not listed because they’re donors. If you’re a benefactor, you’re named as such.

Kelley >> Okay.

Dr. Glahn >> Okay.

Kelley >> Okay. So we’ve seen benefactor in Romans. Romans 16. Phoebe is seen as a benefactor. Explain exactly what benefactors did.

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah, well, it’s a significant deal. It’s a very exciting time to be asking that question because for the longest time, people heard, oh, female benefactor, she’s the hostess is opening up her home and serving chicken. And that which is an honorable thing to do. I’ve been the recipient of that kind of hospitality. But that is probably included, but not the limits of what it involved.

And so often we think well, if you have your name on something, you’re really arrogant. And yet you look at all the church halls and you know, at my own campus we had a huge lounge that was donated by the Mabee family whose name I see elsewhere. Sometimes it’s a foundation. Sometimes the name of benefactions is to honor somebody else. So it’s not that you’re arrogant, right? You want to honor somebody.

So in Phoebe’s case, she has been a benefactor, both to Paul and to some of his friends. She probably bankrolled her trip to deliver his book of Romans, which is his most thorough and wow. It’s a pretty expanded theology of our faith. And good chance that she also would have read it out loud and maybe even done some explaining as part of that.

So in that tradition, you have the centurion which sometimes we wrongly think is 100 because we hear century of that. But by this time it probably is over 60 to 80 men. But it’s still it’s a massive job, a very respected job.

And then Akeptous. How do we know that’s a woman? Because you just hear that name and you’re not sure we know it’s Semitic, but the big deal there is that in the same way that Spanish has a, you know, “el” hombre or “la” donna may be an Italian that you know somebody is a male or female based on the gender of the article.

That’s a fancy way of saying the “la” or the “el.” And in this case the article in front of Akeptous’s name is female. So it’s like “La Akeptous donated it.” So we know it was a female donor bankrolling the beautiful communion table. Now all we have left is the stone foundation for it. The table itself is gone, probably removed when they covered the floor.

Kelley >>Makes sense.

Dr. Glahn >>Yeah, but then the other question is why? Why are these other four mentioned in it? And the reader is called to remember these women.

And the memorial is not the same as the word used in the memorial table, which might be (I’m guessing it’s not necessarily) that they’re memorialized because they’re martyrs.

It very well could be they are of, you know, members of the Order of Widows, which was a church office, as best we can tell, in the early church. So to me, it’s significant that there are five women, the earlier church that we have, the earliest church that we’ve had up to date has either the five women preceding to the tomb or more likely the five virgins who are waiting for the returning king.

Kelley >> So you think these are connected by biblical allusions?

Dr. Glahn >> I think it’s very possible that the church chose to name five women in a really early setting to honor. Could have been a wink to that simply because in those traditions that follow the church year, the last week of the year is Christ the King Sunday.

But then it’s followed by the first Sunday of Advent, which in the early church, the story for Advent in the beginning was those ten virgins, five of whom were waiting for the king. And Advent’s focus is not on Christmas coming and pretending Jesus has been born yet. It’s reminding us we’re going into the, you know, looking toward Christmas. But you’re going to wonder why it still really hurts. It still really hurts because we’re in the already, not yet.

Okay. All of that is interesting. Here’s the most interesting thing and here’s where we need to focus. This year marks what? I’m going to ask you.

Kelley >> Uh huh.

Dr. Glahn >> What is 2025?

Kelley >> It is the 17 hundredth anniversary of the Council of Nicaea.

Dr. Glahn >> Of Nicaea.

Kelley >> Which was in 322. Yeah, 325.

Dr. Glahn >> 325. Yes. 325. And the mosaic we’re looking at is 230.

Kelley >> Yes.

Dr. Glahn >> And what is significant about that is that up to this point we’ve had Philippians that tells us Jesus is God. We have the, the scriptures that tell us Jesus is God, but we haven’t had the art record that affirmed that. So when I’ve taken students to the earliest start in the catacombs, what I find is you might find fish and anchors. You might find the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. You’ll often find the Jonah story because that’s, you know, Jesus uses that to refer to the resurrection of three days in the belly of the whale.

But what you don’t see in the catacombs is Christ on the throne as a king. And that has been—oh, Dan Brown loved that. In The Da Vinci Code he really popularized that—basically the idea that Jesus was just a good shepherd. And you do see the Good Shepherd a lot in the earliest art but he got promoted after Constantine. This is the lie—Constantine comes along and now Jesus becomes an emperor and God. But the early church just saw him as a good shepherd. Okay?

Kelley >> Was that a Dan Brown thing?

Dr. Glahn >> Well, it wasn’t it didn’t start with Dan Brown, like the Kahn Academy still says it. And in one of their videos is on the Church of Pudensiana or Praxedes in Rome in their early art. So it wasn’t sort of an academic thing, but that has been said for a long time. And we didn’t have the visual record until, drumroll, we have Akeptous dedicating her altar to, wait for it, Jesus God.

So this in the quote lips of a woman in the 2025 celebration of the 17 hundredth anniversary of Nicaea predates Constantine and the Council of Nicaea by 80 to 100 years. So we have the earliest testimony in writing in the art record outside of Scripture that the early church is worshiping Jesus as God. This is not a promotion that he got. It’s not an invention.

And my hypothesis this is. The last time I went to a funeral, Psalm 23 was on the front of the bulletin, not Philippians two. And the reason for that is because it’s true that Jesus is God. But when I’m grieving, I want the one who’s carrying me through the shadow of death where I’m very no evil, because you’re with me. And that’s a comfort.

And so I think I, I’m going to assume, hypothesize that the reason we see so much of Jesus as the Good Shepherd of the catacombs is because this is a burial space. The minute you get Christianity legalized and then you have another, you know, a few decades pass to get the places built, you do start seeing Jesus on the throne.

And so that’s where the argument came that the art changed once. Once they argue that Constantine came along and influenced the Council of Nicaea. And now we have solid evidence that that’s not the order in which it happened. And how fun is it that it’s in the testimony of a woman who’s dedicating a memorial altar for the Eucharist to Christ?

Kelley >> I’m thinking of arguments of how involved were women in church life and this really seems to affirm not only were they Benefactors like that continued on past the first century with Phoebe. And that this was a continued practice. So women had agency. Some of them had money and were able to do with it what they willed, and they were supporting the church.

And that, man, what we call the ancients right? They were into beauty, like art as a thing for them. I think even more than we in America probably appreciate. And of course, they made it to last. Mosaics when I first went to see them. You’re right. There was like, oh, that could have been put up last week, you know, still bright, shiny.

Dr. Glahn >> Stone never fades. It may get dusty but you can get up there with a rag and clean that off. Yeah.

Kelley >> Right. It’s pretty amazing.

So I’m thinking of the women named and how do we know that? Do we know anything about the four women? Is there any hint, the text or the design about who they might have been?

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah. So we see one of the names is a derivative of Christ. And so we think that was often a name of a martyr who, like we see it in the Ravenna mosaics—Christina or Christine. And it’s very possible that somebody whose name we don’t know or maybe like our Tomb of an Unknown Soldier, that could be a name—that might have been a proper name, but it’s also possible that it was a name Jane Doe.

Kelley >> Like a representative.

Dr. Glahn >> Doe is a real name but it’s probably not a real person. Right. So that’s a possibility of one that last name that is a derivative of the name of Christ. But the combination of acceptors, which is Semitic, the Roman Centurion, which is Roman, and then you have Greek and Latin there. And so the combination of names tells us there is diversity. The fact that there are five women and one man also is it aligns with what we know about the early church, which is that it had a massive number of women.

Now, here’s the wrong narrative with that and maybe a better narrative. One of the wrong narratives of that, which Jamie Levine.

Kelley >> Amy-Jill?

Dr. Glahn >> Amy-Jill. Thank you. Amy-Jill Levine. So she’s like a Jewish scholar who’s a New Testament expert, but not a Christian, but is helping us understand a lot of the Jewish idiom and backgrounds. Right? And one of the things that she talks about is how often Christians will say, “We have a lot of women because the Jews treated women badly.”

And that is that is not the right narrative.

A better narrative might be that the early church cared about the vulnerable and the powerless. They were the most likely to adopt a baby found exposed. And then the chances that a baby exposed is going to be a girl is much higher than it’s going to be a boy.

And so often if we read a reference to widows and orphans, we you and I might think today that means all the people who’ve lost husbands and all the kids who’ve lost parents.

And that would be true, but probably they go together that the widows in the Order of Widows are raising children, which could help us understand 1 Timothy 5. We might think it refers to widows and their qualifications. And it says they’ve raised children and they’ve washed feed of the saints. That doesn’t mean that they themselves had to have been mothers or married.

And in fact, the word widow could just mean without-a-man woman, very much like a nun.

Kelley >> So single for any reason?

Dr. Glahn >> Well, yes. It could be that you were married and lost your husband. It could be that you were a consecrated virgin and as you got older and turned 60, they called you a widow to differentiate the older and the younger, the virgins and the widows. So we need we need to think more broadly about the term widow.

And it’s very possible that Akeptous was a widow, because that is going to be the most common way that a woman is going to be moneyed and have her own money to spend, to invest. Very likely Mary Magdalene is going to fit in that category. And the women in Luke 8:1-2 that are bankrolling Jesus and the guys and what they’re doing, it’s not typical for women to be traveling around on their own unless they’re older and they’ve inherited and they’re not married or they don’t have sons to legally have to give all that money over to.

Kelley >> Makes sense. Makes sense. So we have a diverse early church. We have a church that this physical piece of evidence is confirming what we also see in their written record. So I feel like this big Megiddo Mosaic is kind of just a cherry on top of things that we think we know. And also it’s correcting some false narratives.

Dr. Glahn >> Correct? It’s about affirming some hunches. I mean, we’re like it’s in the written record. We just need to find the visual record that Jesus is called God. And now we have the evidence. So right now, as I’m speaking, this is on display at the Museum of the Bible. Till by the time your listeners hear this, it’ll be probably on its way back to Israel. [You may want to check.]

But the plan is for them to return it to Megiddo and for the Megiddo Antiquities folks to have a display so people can visit it and see it so that it will be available to the public. It’s taken 20 years to restore it, to research it to find out the names, to sort of get the history.

One thing that is maybe worth mentioning is that our hunch on why they covered it was in some decades of the church, emperors are more tolerant than others.

And we do know that there was a decade that followed an emperor that was a little more tolerant of Christianity, but long before Constantine, where things were really bad. And it’s entirely possible, maybe even probable, that that floor was preserved knowing that they could no longer be the aboveground church. And I say that not literally, like they weren’t literally having church in the catacombs. But right there they had to go into hiding and maybe not be so overt in their gatherings as a prayer hall would indicate.

So it’s fun that this is getting all this press and hit the museum to be closing in the year of the celebration of Nicaea. Because the big thing that happens at Nicaea is the church has worshiped Jesus as God. But we’ve been talking about how is he wasn’t created. We know that that’s bad doctrine.

Kelley >> Right.

Dr. Glahn >> But, you know, how do we give words to “begotten not created,” “very God of God.” “Light of life” that we sing about in a Christmas Carol is language out of that Nicene Creed that is said by Orthodox of the capital, Roman Catholic, Protestant like this takes us back to something that we are united on for 1700 years.

And we’re celebrating that this year. So what a great time to have somebody affirming you know 80 to 100 years before that was written down that Jesus was God and was worshiped as God.

Kelley >> Nicaea didn’t create our doctrine.

Dr. Glahn >> Correct.

Kelley >> It was already yeah no no that’s great.

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah it gave a better as better language to articulate in what way is Jesus God he’s of the same substance of the father. He’s not a junior God, a demigod he’s not created. He is God of God, light of light of the same sort.

Kelley >> And this discovery kind of just confirms, well, this is what’s been believed all along, that.

Dr. Glahn >> Some of us had to learn it by faith. Now we have sight to go with it.

Kelley >> I love it. Well, that’s great.

So the mosaic doesn’t belong to America, obviously. So it’s an Israeli artifact. Are images going to be available up of this? I mean, I’ve seen a few around, but I’m sure the museum has been the one to release that. What I really want to know is, can we get it in the visual museum?

Dr. Glahn >> Sure. Well, I think BOW is going to get it first. But we’ll be working on getting it in the Visual Museum for sure. But yeah, so you can go to the Museum of the Bible website. And even after it’s gone, you can find images there. We’ll be uploading links to the BOW website. So your listeners will be able to access and look at. It’s very fun to look at. There are really just three sort of square sections, one for the Roman Centurion.

And then it names the guy who actually did the art as well.

Oh great. Yeah. And then the memorial by I’m going to call the La Akeptous calling Jesus God and then the women whom the worshipers are encouraged to remember these four women.

Kelley >> Great. Okay, well I’m excited that we can share that image with our viewers and our listeners will know where to go. So thanks for your time. This was wonderful and I’m sure that we will see you again here soon.

Dr. Glahn >> Okay, thanks.

Dr. Nika Spaulding

Dr. Kay Daigle

Dr. Nika Spaulding makes the complex simple for everyday people. In this episode she joins Dr. Kay Daigle to discuss the first booklet in her series Theology in 10. Her purpose is to help us all easily understand theological issues. Her first booklet tackles the topic of the Trinity. It’s hard to grasp, but Nika finds a way to simplify it so that all believers not only understand it but also apply this truth in real life.

Don’t miss Nika’s easy explanation of the series and this topic. If you want to dig deeper into understanding the Trinity, consider ordering one of the resources that Nika suggests below.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:20 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. I’m here today with Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay.

Kay >> And welcome to all of you out there. We’re so glad that you joined us for this conversation. We’re going to be talking about theology for everyday people. And let me tell you just a little bit about Nika, why she is an expert in theology. She has a DMin in New Testament. And she also has a master’s of theology from DTS. And she is a storyteller and a theologian. And I’ve heard her described herself as actually a Bible nerd.

Nika >> That’s so true. Yeah.

Kay >> So those are things that I know about Nika. And she has been working on a new project, Theology in 10. I’ll let her tell you about that. But it is that theology for everyday people that she has come up with. And so I really want to talk about all those things. And I could but first, I really thought, particularly since we’re talking about you as the theologian and theology, that maybe some people don’t know anything really about you.

So tell us a little bit about your background and why you got into theology in the first place.

Nika >> Yeah, it’s such a good question. So I didn’t grow up in the church, so the fact that I’m like now a Doctor of Ministry in the New Testament is like more shocking maybe to me than anyone. So I actually have a science background. I grew up in a non-Christian home. My parents are believers now. I grew up in a great home. I loved my family.

But theology was this really foreign thing to me! This like I knew that books existed. I knew that theology was like a discipline, like zoology, which is my bachelor’s degree or like psychology or all of these things. But I got to college and I thought for sure I was going to be a doctor because I love science and I wanted to help people.

But to this day, if I see blood or vomit, I get weak in the knees and I pass out like till this day. And I knew this even going into college. So. Oh, yeah, everybody with common sense kept going “Maybe you should pick a different career,” but I didn’t have enough common sense at 18.

So eventually I realized, Okay, I’m not going to make it through medical school. So now what? And that started me on a journey of trying to figure out what is it that God was calling me to do. At that point, I was walking with the Lord faithfully. So it’s sort of like, “Okay, God, I guess you get a vote. I guess if I had been asking all along, maybe, maybe the fact that I can’t handle those things was your way of saying to me, That’s not what I have for you.”

So I worked at a residential care facility for troubled teens, and that really is what started me on the trajectory because these kids, they had faced, I mean, so much trauma and so much chaos in their lives. And they asked really important questions about the Lord. And I remember I couldn’t answer the questions. And I was like, well, that’s fine, because I hadn’t been in the church that long.

So that’s normal that I wouldn’t be able to answer them. But I would ask other folks who’d been in the church a long time, and either they would be really dismissive of these kiddos’ questions or they just didn’t know. And I thought, I think these questions demand an answer. And they didn’t seem like beyond my, you know, some questions people ask.

And I’m like, yeah, we’ve been asking that for 2000 years. Like, no one’s quite figured that one out. But some of these questions, I thought, “No, I think there’s probably an answer to that.” So that started me down the path of going to seminary. And I don’t know if I’ve ever told you this. I always said I went to DTS because it was warmer than the other seminaries and I didn’t want to be cold, and I always said I would just drop out when I got all my questions answered.

And then if you go to seminary, you realize all you do is leave with more questions than answers. And I fell in love. I fell in love with the study of theology. I—this whole field that I had never even dipped my toes in. Once I got to seminary, I was hooked.

And so pretty quickly on, I thought, I want to do this the rest of my life. I want to pursue the Lord with my mind. And I want to make that available to everyone else.

I’ve always been that person that can take really complex things and make them simple. And when I got to seminary, I thought, everyone needs to know what I know now. How do I make it available to everyone?

And so was it similar for you when you got there? Did you think, Oh, I have a lot of people that need to know this stuff?

Kay >> Oh, absolutely. In fact, I talked two or three of my friends and to go on to seminary. Oh.

Nika >> I love that. Yeah.

Kay >> Because they were also Bible teachers and I was learning so much and, you know, they were kind of like me. We kind of felt like we knew quite a bit, but not really. Yeah, not really.

Nika >> You think you do. And then you read and you go, Huh? So much I don’t know. I still feel that way. I mean, I’m finishing with a Doctorate of Ministry and going, I there’s so much, there’s too many, but I’m surrounded by books. As you can see, there are thousands more I want to read. And one of my favorite stories, actually, during COVID, one of my roommates was living with me, of course, at the time.

And she would see me preparing sermons for Sunday morning. And one day she came in, she goes, “You know, it’s really interesting that we’re both working from home during COVID because I really never knew what you did with your day.” And I go, “What do you mean?” And she goes, “Well, I didn’t know you prepared sermons.”

And I thought, “You think I just walk up there on Sunday and just, like, open the Bible and like, a sermon comes out?

She goes, “Well, yeah, that’s what I thought you learned in seminary.”

And I thought, “Oh, no, no. You learn how to prepare a sermon, you know? You know?”

And so she goes, “Yeah, it turns out you work pretty hard on those.”

And so it was a very funny moment for us as roommates where she’s like, “I had no idea how much you had to study to do what you do.”

But it was seminary was phenomenal. It’s part of why I kept going. I’m not even sure I’m done. I’m not sure I won’t go back for more school at some point because Bible Nerd is a very accurate descriptor of who I am.

Kay >> I thought it was too. That stuck with me ever since I heard you say it. So I thought I ought to use that just for you today because it’s so apt to who you are.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> Well, let’s move on to this latest project that you’ve taken on–the Theology in 10 series. It’s not quite a series yet. But you plan it to be a series, don’t you?

Nika >> I do, yeah. That’s the big hope. And I’m starting to work on the second one, so it’ll be a series. We’ll say that, Lord willing. So yeah, this is one of those projects that for years I’ve been teaching theology, thinking about theology, describing theology. And as you do that, you tinker over time, you kind of figure out like phrases that you use that you come back to often.

And for me, I always think to myself, “Okay, can I take this really big concept let’s say the Trinity, which is what my first booklets on, can I make it to where my mom, who has no seminary background, she, you know, is bright as can be but has no reference point for theology other than what I’m going to tell her in this moment. Can I explain to her the Trinity in a way that I’m not going to bore her, I won’t lose her, I won’t go over her head and that there’s a so what?”

And over the years, I found like that’s kind of how I’ve built my classes.

So could I create a ten page booklet where I take really complex subjects like the Trinity, where you and I spent a semester learning and we spent a whole semester learning and training? Can I boil a whole semester down into ten pages? And it turns out I can. And this is one of my unique ways of how I think I see the world is I make the complex simple.

And so that’s what started the idea for this and it was really fun making the first one.

Kay >> Well, I think you’ve done a great job with this first one. In fact I’ll put it up so that people can see it. And why did you choose “Ten”?

Nika >> Yeah. Part of my doctoral work whenever I was doing my dissertation prior to landing on what I chose, I started looking at reading habits of just adults and I looked at reading habits and the ancient world because they’re very different than literacy rates and all that.

And I came across this data point and it stuck with me and I kept looking at it: the average American adult, their attention span for reading is ten pages. So I thought, Okay, so there was a part of me like, like this irksome part of me that thought, well, this is our problem. People need to read more.

But there’s a thing in sociology called desire paths. And what they mean is let’s say you and me, that we’re on this campus and we’ve got to go from one building to the other. And they have put a sidewalk up, but it’s kind of out of the way and it’s kind of longer. And there’s just like a clear path between the two buildings. What will happen is the desire for us to go just like point A to point B, we will eventually actually kill the grass between the two buildings.

And so architects and sociologists call this the desire path.

You can either fight against it and put up signs. Please don’t walk on the grass, put up you know, you know, you can try to prevent it or you can just put a path there. You can just put a little walking path because that’s the path people want to take.

So in sociology, the question always becomes, can we change this? Can we make people read a hundred pages or can I meet them at the ten pages?

And I meet moms who are getting a couple of hours sleep because they’re nursing. I meet busy folks who have long commutes. I meet, you know, some of my best friends are transplant surgeons who are lucky if they get five pages of reading a month.

And I’m going, “Okay, what about for them? You know, the nerds that are going to read 200 pages, they don’t need me. What about the folks that need something for them? Because they’re missing out on really good theology and nobody’s writing ten pages for them.”

So that was the heart behind the ten pages. Can I consolidate down into ten pages and meet folks where they’re at? And that’s why we won’t go any longer. I’m pretty committed to the ten pages, which makes me as a writer have to say, Okay, what’s absolutely essential that you need to know about this topic and how can I fit it in here?

Kay >> Well, you packed a lot in these pages. I was really very impressed that you could get this much information in ten pages. Yeah.

Nika >> Yeah. I always tell people if you can go to Starbucks and sit down with somebody and they, they go, Hey, what’s the Trinity if you can, on a napkin at Starbucks, do a decent job of defining anything, then you (1) know it, and (2) you’re able to really teach it. And most things are— I don’t know quantum physics may be I don’t know—there’s probably certain subjects that need more than that.

But a lot of things can be boiled down to these really simple things. And so yeah, the ten pages where we filled them up, that’s for sure. Every page is significant. There’s no fluff in here, but it is sufficient, I think, to teach it.

Kay >> Right and you know, I noticed, you know, you have some you have a big picture in here of helping define the Trinity and all. And we’ll talk about the Trinity in a minute. But what other elements do you have in this ten page booklet?

Nika >> Yeah, so some of them are those are my actual hand drawings, which is really fun. So one of my roommates is a graphic designer. And so on the front page, you’ll see like those are my actual initials. And then within the book, there are just you know, things that I figured out over the years, like these little graphics that can explain, you know, the Father is not the Holy Spirit who is not the Son, who is not the Father, but they all are God.

Like this is one of those things I tell people. If you can draw a triangle, you can understand the Trinity. And so there are little like hand-drawn things that one I think are visually they’re nice. It breaks up the monotony of the booklet, but they also show like, hey, there really is a simplicity here. Like I can communicate a lot in a picture. I can communicate a lot in a drawing.

So those are some of the elements we were talking before we hopped on here. There are QR codes. One of them is currently broken, but we will get it fixed, dear listener. But one of the goals of all theological instruction for me is worship. At the end of the day, I want people to know that the whole reason why we do this is so we’ll fall more in love with God and come to realize how much God loves us.

So there’s always a goal. And the goal is not to make people smarter so that they’ll pass a theology test, which, oh, that’s great. The goal is, can I convince you of the love of God?

And so since that’s the goal, then there’s a QR code for songs about the Trinity because, you know, I’m like, “Hey, I want you to respond in worship. I want you to have a moment with the Lord.” And so that’s part of the element.

And then there’s helpful charts. And then if you’ve ever heard me teach, anybody who’s ever heard me teach knows at the very end, you’re going to know when I land the plane, you can snooze. And then when I say, “And so what’s the ‘so what?’”

Everybody can perk up because I’m going to land the plane after this. So and all of them are going to end with us. So why does this matter? And so I’m taking 2000 years of theological church history data. I have a whole shelf actually. I’m pointing up because I have a whole shelf of just Trinity Books.

All of that is consolidated in ten pages but the “so what?” on the last page is this is why it’s important that we know about the Trinity in our personal lives.

And so that’s part of the goal is it’s practical, it’s helpful, it’s clear it’s nice on the eyes, and it should lead people to worship. And so all of that, the reverse engineering that goes into the book is designed to help people encounter the God of the Scriptures, the actual triune God.

Kay >> I love that. And I’m not surprised that that’s your heart, that that’s what you want people to know because I have heard you speak about that a few times.

Nika >> Yeah. It’s kind of all the same. I haven’t really changed my style at all over the years. It’s like three points and the “so what.” But, you know, they seem to work for me.

Kay >> So why did you start with the Trinity? Yeah, I found that a very in fact, when I first got your book, I thought, “She started with the Trinity?”

Nika >> Yeah. So I would always I tell people this is the whole shebang of theology. So at the end of the day, all of these subsets of theology. So theology is just the study of God. In the study of Greek word, theos, God, study of God, but there’s different subsets. So if you go to seminary, when you get your course workbook, you’re going to have like pneumatology, the study of the Spirit. You’ll have soteriology, the study of salvation, you’ll have all these “ologies.” And so Trinitarianism is one of those subsets. But for me, at the end of the day, they all fall under the subset of “Who is God?” because in order to understand salvation, you actually have to understand the Trinity. In order to understand who you are, you know, the humanities.

You cannot fully know who you are if you don’t know what it means to be the image of a Trinitarian God. And so for me (1), I like to just go for the swing for the fences. So why not the mother lode of all theology? But (2), I want this to be the bedrock. The series will unfold, the next one’s going to be the essentials of the faith.

And so we’re going to hit kind of all of them in the next one, we’ll talk about what you must believe to be a Christian and the essentials.

But here, what I wanted to do is put God at the center of it. Start with God. Everything else falls out from that. But if you even look at the way our Scriptures are formed, God is there in the beginning, before we have salvation, before we have creation, before we have humanity, before there’s any of that stuff.

And so I wanted to give God the proper preeminent place, like he comes first and then everything else is subordinate. And most people’s conceptions of the Trinity are a little off, sometimes a lot off. And so I also wanted to start with a very loving picture of God. Because if at the end of all of this, people are buying these, learning these and all of this, but their picture of God is this angry wrathful, disappointed in you God, I’m not sure how good of good news is.

Like if the good news of the gospel says we go home to God someday. But your understanding of God is he’s kind of a jerk. You know, then it’s like, well, is that good news? Like, is it good news that we’re going to spend eternity with this God?

But if I can convince you, no, God is love by nature of being triune we know he’s love. Then suddenly the gospel is more beautiful, the essentials are more beautiful. All of this stuff that comes after this is more beautiful in light of God’s love. And so I wanted to start there, and then hopefully everything else gets more beautiful as you understand in light of who God is.

Kay >> So you said that you’re always going for “so what?” And I assume that you’re going to use that in all of your booklets. However many you end up with in this series that you’ll always end with a so what— “What do I take from this?”

So what are some of the “so what’s” from the Trinity?

Nika >> Yeah, so the first big “so what” is when people talk about the Trinity, they often, depending on the background that they come from, they have one member of the Trinity they’re more familiar with. So some people grow up in in churches where God, the Father of the Old Testament is really highlighted. Those churches can sometimes focus on, for better or for worse, like sort of a fire and brimstone type of teaching.

And they mean well, I mean, judgment and wrath that’s in the Bible. You shouldn’t shy away from those passages. And then there’s folks who grow up in churches where Jesus is really highlighted. And for them, what can inevitably happen is sometimes the way they talk about the Father and the Son as if they’re two radically different people. You know, the father is the angry, wrathful Old Testament God. And then meek and meek and mild, Jesus shows up, and we kind of look the other way when he cleanses the temple. He’s just acting like his dad then.

But for the most part, he’s sweet and kind and he saves us from his father. That’s what people can end up saying. Or some people grow up in churches where the Holy Spirit’s really emphasized and the spiritual gifts are really emphasized, but they neglect the other parts of the Trinity.

When you have a full understanding of the Trinity, what that does is (1) you begin to understand all three members of the Trinity are united. They are all full functioning members of God. There’s no J.V. God, there’s no junior varsity like, well, Father, Son, and then the Holy Spirit or all of that.

And one of the questions I ask people and part of the “so what” is “Let’s say God, the Trinity shows up in a Volkswagen bus. This is how you know that you’ve grown up in different churches that have shaped your understanding. And God the Father is in the front that Jesus is in the middle seat and the Holy Spirit floats in the backseat. And God says, “You can sit in any seat you want. The front seat is open the middle, where are you going to sit?” And that doesn’t necessarily reveal a certain bias.

But if I say to you, “Is there a seat you don’t want to sit in?”

Then suddenly people go, “Ooh, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I would choose the front seat.” Or in my faith tradition, people don’t choose the front or the back seat. They all want to sit next to Jesus, which again, that’s again, that’s fine that you want to sit next to Jesus, but would you dread sitting next to the Father?

So the “so what” of the Trinity allows us to present a unified Trinity where all three members are coconspirators in saving you. All three members are coconspirators in loving you. And it opens up the ability for me to say, “God the Father loves you, God. The Son loves you. God the Holy Spirit loves you. All three of them are worthy of worship.”

And the great salvation story of our lives is that God who loves you wants to bring you home to him. Home is not a place; it’s a person. And so part of the “so what” is helping people figure out all three of those seats in the Volkswagen bus. Those are all great seats like pick, pick anyone you want, and you’re going to encounter a God of love and goodness and beauty and justice and grace and all of that.

And so that’s one of the “so what’s.”

Kay >> That’s really great. I’ve been this year I started a small group to read through the Bible together, and we’re doing it two years because the gals that I well . . . I started throwing it out to a group that I was kind of shepherding and, you know, so I knew that they all had some Bible background, but that there were probably some of them who had never read through the Bible, but also know how busy they are.

They all have little kids and all that kind of stuff. So I’m like, maybe in two years. The first person I was talking to about it, I said, maybe a two year plan would be good. So as I prayed about it and thought about it and threw that out to this group that I was going to read through in two years, if anybody wanted to join me, we would sort of connect with each other once a week by text. And then maybe every few weeks we would get together and just talk about it. It’s been really interesting. I gave them all a journal and said, “Write down every day. Just something. Just something that hits you, something that you like, something you didn’t like, something that you’re going to question about, just something that was meaningful to you, you know, what do you learn about God?”

That kind of thing. And so as we obviously began going through the Old Testament, and we got to . . .

Nika >> Name any chapter you want, there’s probably going to be some quote to be on.

Kay >> Yeah, yeah. I mean, starting some in Exodus and then got you Leviticus and Deuteronomy. I mean, by the time we got to Deuteronomy, which was just the other day, several of them said, “I just liked the God that I liked that I really wasn’t reading about here.”

Yeah. And that’s exactly what you’re talking about. They just don’t have that sense of all this is all the same God. I mean, it’s not that they thought it was a different God, but you know what I’m saying?

Nika >> Yeah, Yeah.

Kay >> It was sort of bracing to them to read through some of the things there.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So I really appreciate this book being short. In fact, I may buy it for all of the gals in my group. Some of them didn’t have any problem and some of them did. But I don’t think that’s unusual if you suddenly send somebody into a different part of the Bible that they have never really focused on.

Nika >> Yeah. And I think that’s part of I would always tell people, you know, when you read through, you get people in January, they’re reading through it. If they make it through Leviticus, they’re wandering in Numbers, right? You get and there’s a fatigue that comes. And I actually tell people, I think you’re supposed to, but instead of walking away going, “Wow, God’s really scary, you should walk away going, Wow, people really do bum me out like and I think there’s a fatigue that is actually supposed to be created so that when Jesus comes on the scene, you’re like, Oh, like God came to us.”

But there’s always these moments where I tell people the Old Testament is so surprising when you’re reading through it and like, take Genesis one and two. God gives this lush garden to Adam and Eve. He says, Do anything you want. Just don’t eat from the tree. And of course, they, you know, they go eat from the tree, and God’s like, “Well, all right, we’re going to take you out of Eden.”

And then the most surprising thing to me as you turn the page and he’s right there with them, East of Eden, like he goes with them in exile or, you know, you know, Daniel’s sitting on the riverbank. He’s like, “Bummer, we lost the land.” Like, oh, and then God’s like, I’d let these just those surprises there in Babylon with them.

And so all that to say, I think you’re supposed to be fatigued by humans. There is the way that God’s wrath is described in the Old Testament. It can be fearsome if you don’t understand how Old Testament writing works. But what I would say with people is when Jesus comes on the scene, he’s the visible image of the invisible God.

And so what we actually get to do is we get to take Jesus back into the Old Testament with us. And so it helps us understand those passages better. And so rather than saying, “Oh, Jesus is so different,” we say, “What if I grant that Jesus and the Father are one because of the Trinity?” If the Trinity is distinction, unity and equality, “d”, “u” and “e”, we give God his “due.”

This is in the book. You can guys, this is free. I’ll give it to you now.

Kay >> You don’t have to remember it.

Nika >> Yeah, it’s in the book. Yeah. So distinction. There are three separate members of the three separate persons of the Trinity. We always say personhood, but yet they’re unified. There is one God. We don’t worship a multiplicity of God, and they’re equal.

Even though some of us have a favorite God, we really shouldn’t. There’s one God, right? And so if we will allow the theology of the Trinity inform our Bible reading, suddenly we can say, when I see Jesus come on the scene, his harshest words are for those in power who are oppressing people.

So when I turn around and I take that back to the Old Testament, and suddenly I realize, “Wait a minute, when God is saying this to his own people, it’s because they’re privileged beyond every other nation and they have a special calling.” And also hyperbole is a lot of how God, I tell people nobody talks trash better than God.

When God is talking to the idols and he’s like, “Um. Can he hear you? Is he asleep? Is your idol asleep?” And I always tell people, why would God talk trash about idols? It’s because he knows the idol can’t save you. So if you’re crying out to that piece of wood to save you God is like, “He can’t hear you. He’s a piece of wood.”

And so I say I’ll just say there’s a right fatigue when you go through the Bible, which is what makes God so much better when you realize, man, people really do bum me out and then God never gives up on us. He’s always showing up in the most surprising of places. And that’s part of the “so what” of the Trinity is not just that we recognize they’re united to each other, but when we get to Genesis 1 and we find out we’re made in the image of God, if that’s true that God eternally exists three persons, one essence, which is the simple definition of that God being triune, what does that mean for us as his image bearers?

That means who we are as an individual and who we are as a member of a community have equal ultimately. And for so many of us, we like individualized Christianity. So I actually love that you’re doing the Bible reading in a group because that is very much a “so what” that is born out of the Trinity is we’re meant to do things in community.

And so if your life is not built on self donating loving relationship like the Trinity is, it’s like, Kay, you and I have been around the block. We’ve been pastoring for a while. People will seek after money, sex, fame, you name it, and then they get to the end of themselves and they go, “Huh, this wasn’t satisfying.”

And then the Trinity says, “Well, that’s because you’re made in my image. And so you’re pursuing the wrong things. If you want to be who I made you to be, you have to pursue a healthy, loving relationship.”

And so there’s the Trinity, there’s more practical “So what’s” in the study of the Trinity than I think people realize.

Kay >> I never even thought of it that way til I read your whole book. Oh, things about, you know, about the fact that, you know, we’re designed that way because the Trinity. I mean, I realize that, but anyway, it was good. It was good and practical and very easy to understand it, I think. Although there’s some deep things in it that you might have to read over and over a few times to really grasp it, but overall, it’s only ten pages.

Yeah. You know, it’s not going to be that hard. Yeah.

And I’ll just throw out that I would encourage anybody who wants to read through the Bible and has struggled with it because it probably took me three to five years before I actually made it all the way through the Bible in a year. You don’t have to do it in a year anyway. You’re just putting that on yourself. It’s certainly not necessary.

But do it with a group, even three of you, more than that of you. We’ve got eight in my group and we have somebody who wants to join us late because she just heard about it and she’s so excited. So she’s going to go with us.

But as many times as I’ve read through the Bible, and that’s a lot of times, it’s never been as easy as it is doing it with these other people.

Nika >> And I agree. I mean, that’s where the dissertation work I was doing. So much of the reading habits was because I was this American version of a quiet time, which have gotten really loud actually because people post them on their social media. So I’m like, Well, but this idea of me in the Bible alone with God, certainly there’s nothing wrong with that.

It is exceedingly fruitful for so many people. I meet people all the time, that is their daily habit. Without it, they, you know, they tell me they become monsters. I’ll believe them, right? I’m just like, You don’t have to tell me. Get in the Bible. However, the early church just they read together, there was just communal reading practices and really reading was done out loud.

Even when you read alone until about the ninth century, and so there’s something about auditory, there’s something about doing it with people and there’s something about journeying together that is part of how reading took place.

And again, this is what I mean, you know, everything comes back to the Trinity in my life. You ever have those things are like it’s a little bit like a call, like pickleball. I can bring up pickleball anywhere. I’m like, well, speaking of pickleball, it’s a little bit like, you know, once you love a topic.

So for me, the Trinity, it comes back to this over and over again of this sense of while the Scriptures (it’s such a gift that we have them) like I have probably five Bibles in this room that I’m in right now.

That is a beautiful gift that we have so many English translations, but for the longest time in history, that just wasn’t an option. And literacy was really low for folks as certain parts in history. So people had to read them together. But part of reading it together is the y’alls of Scripture. You realize, “Wait a minute, I can’t even fulfill what I’m being called to do without each other.”

And that’s part of the y’all of the Trinity is you’re not meant to. And so I think so many times in life we burden people with walking with the Lord, but we don’t give them what they need to do it well, which is each other. You know, we say, “We’ll do this and do this and do this.”

And I go, “Yeah, we all know we should wake up and read our Bible every day, but what if you had a group to do it with? And they encouraged you. And then when you had questions, you have a Kay Daigle or I mean, I want to be in this group. I would want to be able to ask you questions any time they came up.”

Like, I cannot tell you the number. My phone goes off at 9 p.m. and people will be like, Where’s Moses body? Or random things that they got doing their Bible. I can always tell in February I’m going to get some wonky little questions because of the Bibles starts out so wonky in a way, but it’s like, what a gift that they can ask people that have.

You know, this is part of what I do. I study the scriptures. And so the Trinity is going to not only impact the way you understand yourself, but it impacts the way we read the Bible. And I think that’s a really beautiful thing that you’re doing.

Kay >> Yeah, well, it’s been great and I know that if I had had somebody encouraging me those first few years, I would have stuck with that better. And I’ve enjoyed that conversation among us because they’ve seen things that I haven’t noticed and I’ve noticed things that they haven’t noticed. You know, it’s so good.

Nika >> I saw this I was there’s this study that was done about the Prodigal Son. So we all know the story pretty well. If you’ve read the Gospels where he demands his, you know, inheritance. His dad gives it to him. He goes away and then he eventually comes back.

So there was a study done where they asked Americans and Russians to write down, how do you remember this story?

And then they asked the question why did he return home? And Americans say, “Well, he spent all his money, so he ran out of money. He came home.”

What’s interesting is the Russians would write, “Oh, the famine (which there is a famine, which I always forget about). There was a famine in the land and nobody cared for him. And they pick up on that because when they’ve had famines. And they think it’s a community responsibility to care for each other. And so they’re like, “Hey, that community kind of failed at that. And he had to go home to his dad.” Of course, as an American, an individualized Western mindset, I’m like, “Well, he was responsible, and that’s why he went home.”

So I think actually both are true, which is why we need each other. He is foolish. That’s part of the story. But then there’s a community piece where the famine makes it where he’s not able to be taken care of.

And those little things, when you’re reading with a mom, when you’re reading with somebody a little bit older, you reading with people who are accountants, versus, you know, I think about Luke, the doctor. He adds in things that have to do with medicine that, you know, that Mark and Matthew don’t. And you think, well, yeah, because he’s a doctor when he writes his gospel. And so the beauty of diversity and all of this is, yeah, it’s just a wonderful gift, which is why if you get this book.

And I do mean that if you get it, one of my goals is to write discussion questions for each day because I’m realizing part of my part I’ve undercut my own value as teaching the Trinity by not making this communal. So at some point I’m going to write discussion questions because again, I want people to study in the context of community.

Kay >> That’d be great. So again, it’s Theology in 10 and you can find that at NikaSpaulding.com.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> And so they can order it right online, right Nika?

Nika >> Yeah. Easy peasy. It’s NikaSpaulding.com. It’s right up on the website you guys can. The nice thing about my name is you can Google me and you’ll find me. And so if you just type my name and your Google search bar, you’ll be able to find me.

Kay >> Well, speaking of finding you, we have a number of podcasts with Nika that we have done through the years. A lot of different subjects like Justice in the Bible, Lament, Choosing Trustworthy Resources. If you’re responsible to choose resources for your church, maybe your Bible study some sort of curriculum for something. She gives some really great hints on how to do that or if you’re a Bible teacher.

Nika has given us a lot of resources on that. And that’s just a handful of some of the things that she’s talked about. But you can go to our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and you can search for Nika there, and all of those resources will come up.

So Nika, do you have any closing remarks that you want to say?

Nika >> Yeah, I can’t talk about the Trinity without saying this. So one of the things that I want everybody listening to this whether you buy my book or not to understand is when we talk about the Trinity, there’s this big theological thing called inseparable operations, which means that even though sometimes we see one member of the Trinity doing something you should assume they’re all united in that thing.

So I want you all to know that it’s not just Jesus that saves you that the Father authors your salvation Jesus accomplishes and the Spirit applies it. And if any member of the Trinity does not participate in your salvation, you’re not saved. And I don’t say that to scare you. I say that to encourage you that the God that is Triune loves you and save you and cares for you beyond what you can fathom.

And so if you have grown up with a church background where maybe the father was talked about in ways that kind of scare you, or maybe you just grew up with a dad, that makes it hard to understand that you have a loving father. Or maybe you grow up in a church where the Holy Spirit kind of scares you because you saw expressions of it. You thought I was scary a little bit.

I just I want to drive home this point that all three members of the Trinity not only love you, they participate in saving you because they want to bring you home and they want to rescue from sin and death, and they want you to find life in them.

And so that’s what I’d say is like I love theology. I’m a Bible nerd. I can spend all day talking with you. You know this. We love talking about this stuff. There’s not a topic we haven’t brought up. We talk, what should we talk about? Study new things but my heart behind all of this is to convince people that the love of God is so big and it’s more than one member of the Trinity loving you. All three members love you and care for you and save you. And that’s a God worth worshiping. So that’s what I want to leave everybody with.

Kay >> There is no better way to end this. Thanks, Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay.

Kay Daigle

Claudia McGuire

Most if not all of us have had questions about prayer at some point in our lives. Perhaps yours were never answered or the answers you heard didn’t satisfy your curiosity. If so, this episode is for you. BOW Ministry Team Member Claudia McGuire is here to help. Don’t miss her insightful and helpful conversation with Kay Daigle.

This episode is also available on video.

00:21 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I am Kay Daigle. I’d like to welcome you to this episode of the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. Today I’m talking with Claudia McGuire. Welcome, Claudia.

Claudia >> Thank you.

Kay >> Claudia spent years on staff at a church in Plano, Texas, at Chase Oaks, and she now still does Bible teaching, and she speaks at retreats, leadership, training, conferences—whatever. And we are so glad that she is one of our BOW Ministry Team members. So she’s not really a guest, but she is a co-worker in this ministry. And it’s been a privilege to know Claudia since we were in seminary together.

Claudia >> Thank you. You, too. I feel the same.

Kay >> Yes. So today we’re going to talk about prayer. We’ve talked about prayer previously, and we’re going to talk a little bit about prayer today. We’re going to talk about your Prayer Questions Answered. So if you have had a question, possibly Claudia will answer that question today because I think she’s come up with some general questions that a lot of people ask.

Is that right, Claudia?

Claudia >> I think so. I’ve heard these questions. And then I’ve also just thought through these seem like logical questions to me. Some of them are kind of seem harder than others, but I think they’re all relevant. Right?

Kay >> Right. I totally agree.

Claudia >> So I just have observed that over the years, as I’ve been in Bible study or led Bible study or been in small groups, or mission groups or, you know, all kinds of situations like that with I should say, fellow Christians, fellow Christ followers, I’ve just observed that there are people who seem to be uncomfortable with praying, right?

Kay >> Yes.

Claudia >> So just praying, just uncomfortable with it. Even if maybe they’ve been a part of your group for quite a while. Or even if maybe they’ve known the Lord for quite a while, there’s this uncomfortable thing that happens. And, you know, not to call on them when it’s prayer time and whatever situation you’re in. Some don’t like to pray aloud.

I’m not saying that they don’t pray. That some don’t like to pray aloud. They just don’t like that.

Kay >> Yep.

Claudia >> And some people are uncomfortable when other people pray. Like, I just kind of sense that sometimes from people. And then some others don’t. We kind of touched on this in another recording that we did, but some others don’t want to share requests because they feel God’s not going to hear me, this isn’t worth his time. Nobody wants to hear this or it’s just something that I’m not ready to put out there before people, which is I understand that.

So maybe we can address some of this mystery that seems to surround prayer or at least have a discussion of things that might keep us from praying in all kinds of situations. And hopefully as a result of this, that we who pray out loud or don’t have a problem with prayer might discover a more vibrant prayer life from knowing more about why and how we pray.

And it might even help others engage in the act of prayer, public prayer, private prayer, prayer request, those kind of things. So that’s how I came to do this, to just delve into these questions. So again, I just hope it’s helpful.

Kay >> I’m sure it will be. I’m sure it will be. Well, let’s just kind of start with the basic why pray? You know, we believe that God knows everything anyway. So why in the world does he call us to pray?

Claudia >> Yeah, you know, it’s interesting because I wasn’t raised in a particular well, I guess I was. I was raised in a religious family. And although my family started falling apart, there was divorce in my family when I was about 21 years old. We went to church, but we prayed. I mean, prayer was—I don’t remember my mom, like, coming into my room at night praying about a situation I was involved in, although she might have. My memory isn’t as wonderful as it used to be.

But, you know, we prayed for people and we prayed about our meals, and we prayed. You know, we prayed. We knew what prayer was. And I think that what you just mentioned, that people are like, why do this? God knows what I want anyway. Or God knows I’m thankful. God knows my heart well.

Prayer is actually encouraged and commanded, both in the Bible. So it’s a practice that we see throughout the Bible. It’s modeled for us as being this deepening, really ongoing relationship with our Heavenly Father. And I do believe that if we are Jesus followers, then we need to follow Jesus, and Jesus prayed.

Jesus actually appears to me that he speaks a lot less about prayer than he does actually praying when you read through the New Testament. It’s kind of like, Oh, well, he didn’t talk a whole lot about prayer, but he prayed. You know, you see him going off. It’s interesting. Yeah. So in Philippians 4:6, we’re told. (Many of us are so familiar with this verse.)

“Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.” And this leads to God’s peace, right? It’s a peace that the world can’t give. Only God can give it. That’s a major reason to pray. Peace is something we all need in all situations. We need peace. So that’s a good reason to pray.

And then in Luke, 21:36, Jesus tells us as he’s talking about his coming again, he tells us to be on alert be on alert, and to pray at all times to pray for strength as life gets harder and as stranger things begin to take place.

He tells us, You know what? You’re going to need to pray about this. And so even though prayer is encouraged and commanded and we know what it’s for, to just solidify and keep open that relationship with our father, Jesus also told us to do it. We’ve had there’s lots of examples of it throughout the Bible. We are supposed to pray.

Again I wouldn’t call you and ask you to go to lunch. And we sit down at lunch and I just don’t ever I don’t ever ask you about you. I’m just there talking, talking, talking. And then I get up and leave. You know, that’s not going to do a lot for our relationship. So a relationship is this communication.

It’s a reciprocal thing. It’s us communing with one another, me and God. And I love that. So that’s why we pray. There are million reasons you could probably find throughout the Bible, but those are a few.

Kay >> Yeah. I mean, our relationship with God is a big one. And I don’t know about you, but I have actually sat down with people who only talked about themselves and never asked about me. So I know exactly what you’re talking about. And that is too often how I’ve prayed in the past, and some days I pray that way anyway.

Claudia >> Yes.

Kay >> Even though I know better.

Claudia >> Yes. True.

Kay >> Yeah. So that’s great. So is there a specific way we’re supposed to pray? I mean, I think that’s one reason people don’t pray. They think, you know, I don’t know how to pray because they think there’s only one way to pray. So how do you answer that?

Claudia >> Yes. Like, it’s interesting that Matthew 6:9, begins with a prayer that Jesus told his followers to pray. Right? And that started out with acknowledging God as your Father. But you can only do that if you understand that you’re a child of the father. Right? And a father and a child need to have a relationship. They need to. There’s a relationship there.

So that’s an example of things to that whole Matthew 6:9. It’s an example of things to or elements to include in a prayer that you might say. But it isn’t a magic formula. You know, you can say the Lord’s Prayer, you can say Psalm 20. There’s a lot of songs that you can say as a worship to God.

Or as part of your prayer life. But it’s not a magic formula. If someone’s looking for that, there isn’t one. And I know there have been books that have been sold on the fact that there are magic formulas and there are magic handkerchiefs and there are magic books and there are magic things that you can use to get closer to God.

But that’s not true. I don’t believe that is true.

Kay >> God is not a genie.

Claudia >> No.

Kay >> Just say the right words and call genie forth and get it to do what we want him to do. That’s just misrepresenting who God is.

Claudia >> Right.

Kay >> To think that our words are what make the difference.

Claudia >> Exactly. Yes. And again, help is an honest prayer before God. It’s only one word. But if you’re saying, “Father, I know that you are my God and I just need help.” God knows what that is. Sometimes that’s all you can say because you’re speechless. Or you’re breathless or you’re in an awful situation or that kind of a thing.

Also in 1 Peter 5:6-7, we’re told to “humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God.” And I think prayer is a humbling experience. And again, as Americans, we don’t like being humbled very much. We like being strong and mighty. God looks at that sometimes as being proud, and so that’s not really the way we want to approach God.

And then Hebrews 4:16 tells us, on the other hand, to “draw near with confidence to the throne of grace.” So there’s a balance there, confidently not that, hey, I’m so wonderful. But confidently noting that knowing that you’ve been invited into this relationship and into God’s presence through prayer. That’s a good thing. So just remembering that there is a balance there.

And so there’s a million ways to pray. And we could say that for every one of these questions that we’re going to talk about. But there are ways that we do want to approach the father. So that there’s not right words and magic formulas. Definitely.

Kay >> Right. So why did the disciples ask Jesus how to pray?

Claudia >> It’s interesting because when I thought about that, I’m like, well, people prayed all through the Old Testament, and these disciples would have had access to those prayers and those stories where God was involved. And on the other hand, I thought, well, if Jesus was with them every day or whatever physically, and they observed him, and yet they still had to ask Jesus, How do we pray?

I feel like I’m in good company. You know, I feel like, okay, well, we shouldn’t feel so bad if the disciples asked that. And I realize it wasn’t just for their good. It was for our good also. So again, we can go back to Matthew 6:9.

This is Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2 where Jesus gives his model of prayer to his disciples. Again there are prayers all through the Old Testament that I believe these disciples would have been aware of.

And I think they were aware of prayer and they probably prayed in some way, but they might have seen a modeling by their religious leaders, based on what the Bible says, of prayers that were more about were about something else other than praising God. And maybe they just wanted Jesus’ input, like teach us correctly how to pray.

On the other hand, I also know, again, as they were hanging out with Jesus, the Bible tells us that Jesus would go away to a quiet place and pray. He would leave them and go pray on several occasions and go to a mountain. And he would stay behind. Maybe that was a new thing to those disciples because they had never really seen that model before.

And that might have made them wonder what’s he saying or doing like when he goes away by himself, like, why can’t we come? Why can’t we be there? Why doesn’t he just say it with all of us? You know?

So that’s kind of why I feel they asked that and why Jesus gave the answer he did. Again, as a model, not repeat this prayer every time you get on your knees, every time you go into your room or your quiet place to pray.

He’s not asking them to say this every time, but he does want certain things acknowledged I believe in prayer. So that kind of led me to the question. So is there a wrong way to pray? Is there a right way and is there a wrong way? And that’s kind of a strange question, but there are a few things that we’re told in the Bible that aren’t really good for our prayer life.

In Matthew 6:5-7 Jesus is recorded as saying, “Don’t pray in order to be seen and admired.” We’re also told “not to use meaningless repetition, as some do, thinking that a lot of words will get us a lot more attention.” Right? You kind of alluded to that a minute ago. So don’t pray selfishly or arrogantly for other people to be impressed.

And going back to the disciples, the question we just answered, I feel like maybe that is what the disciples witnessed. Were their leaders, their religious leaders praying loudly and long and these repetitive prayers over and over. And when they saw how Jesus prayed, there was a difference. There is a major difference there.

And so I think that would have made me want to say, “Well, Jesus, how do you pray? Because we’ve been taught that these guys are loud and they yell, and they want to be seen and they’re on the street corner. And they’re, you know, all these and over and over and over and over and over, they’re saying these same sentences over and over. And so I think that that is definitely I think that’s definitely a way not to pray.

That can be wrong. And I think also what that comes down to is your heart. You know, your heart is an indicator when you come before the father, are you coming humbly? Are you coming arrogantly or you doing it so other people will hear what you say? Are you saying these things to impress someone who’s in the room?

Or are you know, that could be a way that again it’s a heart check.You know, it’s a heart check.

Kay >> Yeah, absolutely.

Well, what about answers to prayer? Because I think some people don’t pray because maybe they tried it, maybe they prayed and nothing happened as far as they were concerned. So what about my answer to prayer? God never answered it. What’s the point in praying?

Claudia >> I hear that. And you and I both know people who say I’ve been praying about this for years and nothing’s happened.

Kay >> Yeah.

Claudia >> We don’t know that nothing’s happened. Again God works in a different realm than we do. And he might have been doing five billion things that we’re just not ever going to be aware of in that person’s life, in that situation, in whatever that might be.

But going back to Matthew 6 in verse eight, Jesus says, your father knows what you need. He knows before you even ask him. That goes back to why pray? He knows what we need before we even ask him.

So you might ask for something different. You might ask for something you want, but your father knows what you need. And so I think we can miss the answer by looking for that thing we wanted. Right?

Just because we pray something that we think would be fabulous for us or someone we know doesn’t mean that God’s not working. That goes again to listening and looking to see where is God at work? Did he answer that prayer? And you just blew past it because that’s not what you were expecting. You were expecting an answer to your prayer.

But you know what? God’s infinite. He’s got a million ways he can answer your prayer. And I just don’t think we see that sometimes. Sometimes we just don’t see it.

Kay >> Well, in a sense, sometimes we kind of think of praying to God as giving Santa Claus a list, you know, here’s my list. This is what I want. Do it, you know? And we have that perspective of who God is. Then it would cause us to think, to really not listen, really not listen to what God’s trying to tell us about him.

Claudia >> Right. Right. You’re right. We have something in mind that we want. We’re expecting. So why would we look for anything else? Yeah.

In 1 John 2, there’s something said about the confidence that we have before God, that

And I’m like, those are that. But I think I have faith but I don’t know that I can move a mountain. I mean, I couldn’t. God could, right? Nothing’s impossible with him. But when we pray and this again, is a heart attitude, we want our will to line up with God’s will. We want that to happen. And although we might not know what that is at the moment, we’re asking or praying about something.

We still can pray “God not my plan, but yours would just keep my eyes open in my heart open that I can see that, and then I can follow that,” you know?

And so we have to trust that God, in his infinite knowledge might be keeping us from something that would be even more painful, keeping us from something that would just knock the legs out from under us or, you know, just keeping us from a path that he doesn’t want us to go down, that he knows.

He sees the beginning of the end. He knows. And that takes trust also that if it just turns out differently than you want sometimes that’s just God really protecting you.

Kay >> Yeah. So what is God’s timing have to do with that?

Claudia >> Well, I think that is right hand in hand with what you just said, that some people are like, let’s pray that doesn’t work. You know, God doesn’t hear me. Or like you said, I don’t know how, but and the truth is and you let me know if you have something else to say about this, but I’m not sure of God’s timing.

Again, God has a personal relationship with each one of us, and he knows the timing for me. If I believe in a Heavenly Father, and I believe that he’s perfect, I have to believe his timing is perfect. But man, it’s not going to feel that way all the time. We are impatient. Not only are we proud people are impatient people.

And, you know, I think about the Israelites when Moses went up on the hill right? To get the Ten Commandments and they made an idol while he was gone because it just took him so long they couldn’t even stand it. So they had to have a golden calf too. And I’m like, “Yeah, don’t go looking for the golden calf.”

That’s probably not good. Being patient, because God’s timing is not ours. You know, that’s a good thing. And again, as you’re waiting patiently, God’s answer could be no. We’ve heard this before. It could be no or not now, yes or now, next year or wait.

Or it could be “I’ve got something else for you. Just be patient. I’ve got something else.”

Kay >> Yeah, yeah. That’s good. So what role does faith play in praying? I mean, we know we’re supposed to have faith, but is there a certain amount of faith we’re supposed to have for God to answer our prayers?

Claudia >> That’s a good question, too. And even recently, I was asked in a situation where someone was praying for a healing and someone had made them feel like they didn’t have enough faith, and that’s why it hadn’t come. And it just broke my heart. I don’t believe that. I do believe that faith is involved. But it also goes back to God’s will and God’s plan.

And we’re just infinite people. We can’t see it all. But of course, selfishly, if someone we know is struggling or hurting, we’re going to pray for their healing. We’re going to pray for that. And that’s our obedience. That’s what we’re supposed to do.

So in Matthew 17:20, it does refer to that faith of a mustard seed. If you have faith as a mustard seed, nothing shall be impossible to you. So some faith is needed, obviously, when we pray. Some faith is needed. You must have faith that God is God and that God’s able to do more than you can ask or imagine. If you don’t believe that God is God, who are you praying to? It’s just a question.

In Matthew 11:22, Jesus tells his disciples to have faith in God, and that faith is what is behind prayer. Asking for things in prayer, going to the Father in prayer. You cannot be a doubter of God and his ability and at the same time ask him to move on your behalf. Right? I mean, you might not have this magnificent faith you might not feel very faithful or full of faith or full of trust. But you can’t come to God and be a doubter of God. It just doesn’t make sense. Does that make sense?

Kay >> Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I feel like what people have done often is take the faith and put it in God doing exactly what you want. Do I really believe God will help me? Do I really believe instead of the faith being in God? God is God, my faith is in God. Whatever ends up happening with this request, I still have faith in God.

Claudia >> Right?

Kay >> If you don’t work up enough faith, well, then it’s your fault.

Claudia >> Right?

Kay >> You know, and it’s like going, “God, I don’t have a whole lot of faith that you’ll do this, but I do trust in you. This is the best I can do. I don’t know if you want to do this. I trust in you. I’m humble enough to say I trust in you. And I have faith. My faith is in you, though not necessarily in this being the answer.”

Claudia >> Right.

Kay >> I don’t know if that makes sense or not.

Claudia >> It does. And you know, there’s also we hear a lot there is a wise person recently said, “don’t mix your Christianity with paganism.” It’s kind of a hard thing to hear because we live in a world that’s full of paganism. Really. There’s just an old word for current reality.

And you talk you know, people talk about putting that out to the universe or doing certain exercises that are going to get them what they want or stir up God to answer.

You know, there’s just a lot of, and people sell things and make a lot of money on self-help or things that come across as Christian or based in Christianity. But they’re full of paganism. They’re full of things that bring an idol or a strange practice alongside God. And I don’t think God honors that.

Kay >> Yeah. Yeah. Because, I mean, it is magic. It’s trying, you know, incantations, if I say the right words, then God will act. And, you know, a few years ago I ran across some women that had been through a seminar, and that’s pretty much what they were believing. That there are certain words and they took some words out of the Old Testament and somebody was teaching them this prayer from the priest in the Old Testament.

If you pray this way, then you know, God is going to move. And it is, it’s just paganism.

Claudia >> Yeah. And that I think probably more than many things that really bothers me because I’ve seen it within my own group of friends, you know, my group of friends. Things that they’ve done or they’ve talked about doing I just feel like, why would you go to a shaman? Why would you go to this thing? Why would you, you know? It’s like God’s not good enough.

Like, I have to drag myself up these steps and be broken and bloody and bleeding so he’ll hear me when I get to the top.

Kay >> Yeah.

Claudia >> Yeah, no. Okay.

Kay >> All right. Let’s move on. What is intercessory prayer?

Claudia >> Okay, well, that’s a big word for a simple thing, I think. Simple as far as how we can engage in it. Romans 12 verse 10 and 12. We’re told to be devoted to one another, right? With brotherly love. And that brotherly love includes preferring people over yourself, others over than yourself, humbling yourself. It involves serving the Lord, rejoicing, persevering, but it also involves being devoted to prayer for one another.

It’s just one of the “one-anothers” that we should do, be praying for someone else, praying for a situation. It could be praying for someone you don’t even know. It could be a situation that’s going on in the world that you have just felt very burdened to pray for. That’s interceding in a situation either in a people group, some place in the world, whatever, that you just feel like it’s touched your heart and God’s put it on your heart to pray for them.

Galatians 6:2 also says that we’re to “bear one another’s burdens” and that also includes prayer, you know, praying for people, not just thinking about people with compassion and saying I’m thinking about you, but praying for them and then serving them out of that compassion for them, you know, out of your love for them.

Paul says in Ephesians 6:18.”With all prayers and petition, pray at all times in the spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”

That’s intercession. “And pray on my behalf (That’s intercession.) that I might make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel” He was asking the church, pray for me. That’s intercessory prayer. And Paul asked for it. And that’s a good model that we’re supposed to ask for that too.

I remember a time in my life when my husband and I, we just found ourselves prayed out over a situation. No more words. It was so painful, just didn’t know what to do. And our pastor met with us at the time, and I will never ever forget as we talked through dinner over dinner with he and his wife, you know?

He just said, “You know what? Can I just take that from you? I want to pray for that. You let it go. It’s become such a hard thing for you that I would like to just take it up and give you all some rest in this prayer that you have been crying out to God for.” And he did. And I completely trusted him to do that. Some people can say that and they might forget about it. They might forget about in a day or a week or two months, I don’t know.

But God still heard it. If it was just one time, they prayed that. But that was a huge introduction to me for a new phase of intercessory prayer. That I might be able to bear someone’s burden by just saying, “hold off unless God puts it on your heart. Let me just pray about that for the next week, just to take it off your plate. You’ve got so much going on.” And that was just a godsend to us, you know?

Kay >> Yeah, I love that.

You know, even the Lord’s Prayer is our father, give us this day our daily bread. So Jesus taught it right there in the model prayer as well, because it’s all about us. We pray for us.

Claudia >> True. That’s true. True.

Kay >> Well, is there a prayer that God doesn’t answer?

Claudia >> Oh, this is getting harder, Kay. These are harder questions. I should have saved easier one for last. I think that’s just a hard answer. Okay. And many people might disagree with me on this, and I don’t I’m not saying this, it’s what I found in the Word. It’s not my word. So I feel comfortable saying it, although it doesn’t feel great, if you know what I mean.

So Proverbs 15:29 says, and it’s Proverbs, but, “The Lord is far from the wicked but he hears the prayer of the righteous.” And we know that righteousness comes through our faith in Jesus Christ, right? So he hears the prayer of the righteous, but he’s far from the wicked.

Okay, in John 9:31 (Let me see if I can find this other.) Jesus healed a man and then he was brought into the synagogue. I think his parents were brought to the synagogue and then he was brought into the synagogue also. And the Pharisees questioned him because Jesus had healed him and they wanted to know who is this guy and why did he do this and whatever.

And that man in his either new found faith or in the excitement of his healing, he says he offers this reply to the Pharisees: “We know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God fearing and does his will, he hears him.”

Well, that’s a hard statement, but I’m not there yet. In 1 Corinthians 2:14, we’re told, a natural man. And that’s someone who is a pre Christian, someone who is not yet saved by Christ. “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually appraised.”

Someone who does not accept the Spirit of God would have a hard time praying to God or being heard. Again who is he praying to if he doesn’t believe in God? So he can pray. I know of people of many different faiths that pray but we’re talking about the prayer of a Christ follower. Someone who believes in God believes that he is, and I believe has the Holy Spirit working for them.

In Hebrews 11:6 the Bible says, “And without faith it’s impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.”

Those are really hard verses. But I’m also convinced that if you come to God wanting to believe in him, wanting to be heard, that God comes to you. I mean, it works together. God knows your heart.

But I do believe there are prayers going on all around us that might have nothing to do with the God that we believe in and follow. And again, that’s a hard thing.

Kay >> Yeah. And of course, we know God’s sovereign. He hears them. But this is a hearing that means he’s going to act in accordance with that. It is a different kind of hearing than just yeah, I hear those words. But you know. God knows people’s hearts and he, you know.

Claudia >> Exactly yes, he does know. He does know our hearts. And again, that’s hard. But this prayer is a relationship with God.

Kay >> Yeah.

Claudia >> Yeah.

Kay >> Well does Jesus pray for us?

Claudia >> Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you, Jesus, for praying for us. John 17:9 and 20 says Jesus. It shows as a prayer that Jesus prays to his Father. And he says, “I ask on their behalf, speaking of his disciples at the time, I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom thou hast given me for they are thine. And I do not ask on behalf of those alone of these that are here right now, but for those also who believe in me through their word.”

So for all believers to come, that’s just a beautiful prayer from Jesus that he’s so aware of the now and the yet to be that he’s saying, “I’m praying for you. I’m asking on your behalf for these things from the Father, but also for those who are coming, that they will know that I’m praying for them, that I prayed for them, and I’m praying for them.”

And I just love that. I love that. That’s kind of the way Jesus went out of this world, talking about him praying for us. Ahh. Luke 22:31 and 32. This was an interesting one to me that another pastor actually brought this up and I started thinking about it. That at the Last Supper Jesus tells “Peter, Satan has asked to sift you like wheat.”

Oh man, that would be horrible. But I believe it happens all the time, right? Like living in this world kind of feels like being sifted like wheat sometimes.

So Jesus says that he tells him, “Peter, Satan’s asked to sift you like wheat,” but Jesus also says, “I’ve prayed for you, Peter, that you won’t fail, and that when you turn again you will strengthen your brothers.”

Ahh. I love that!

In just that one little thing. Jesus, his words are so packed with power. Within that one thing he’s confirming Satan’s out there, he’s going to be working against you. And he’s had to kind of ask us, “Can I mess around with Peter?”

But I’m going to be praying for you. So, okay, we know that’s about the fourth thing, okay, and Jesus prays for us and he’s praying that Peter’s faith will not fail.

Another incredible thing. And that when Peter realizes what he’s done, he repents, that’s the turning. He turns again. He’s like Jesus said, “I was going to deny him three times. And I did. And I can’t believe I did this.” He turns and he is so disappointed with himself. But Jesus says, I want you to use that to strengthen your brothers.

Ahh. And you know, we’re suppose to comfort others with the comfort that we receive from God. And I just love that little picture of a huge present that Jesus gives us through his prayer for us.

One more thing. In 1 Timothy 2:5, we’re told: “there is one God and one mediator between God and man, and that’s the man Jesus Christ.” Jesus is actively involved in our prayer, and he is, I have no doubt that He’s actively mediating for us today.

Kay >> I love all those verses. I’m with you on them. They’re so encouraging.

Claudia >> I need them.

Kay >> Yeah, they’re just such encouragers. Do you feel like we have to work hard to be heard? I mean, do we just have to? I mean, I hear some people talk about really wrestling in prayer and struggling in prayer. Is that always necessary? I mean, maybe it’s necessary for, like, the situation where you talked about you and your husband praying.

You were wrestling with God in prayer, but the burden of that became very too much for you, really. And your pastor took it off of you. And that’s a wonderful story. But does God hear you more because you work so hard or was it maybe just the wrong time? I mean, I don’t know.

I don’t have the answer here.

Claudia >> Well, I’m not, I have an answer, but I’m not sure it’s a complete answer because, again, we serve this infinite God that has a million answers. But one thing is in Romans 8:26 and 27, you know, we’re told that we don’t really know how to pray for ourselves. We really don’t know how whether that’s working hard, barely praying, not whatever.

But that’s why we have the Holy Spirit that intercedes for us with these groaning that are too deep for words. And he helps us in our weakness.

So that makes me think I think I have to pray the way God has put something on my heart. And if it is a thing that he’s given me every day, or if I feel very compelled to continue to lift that thing up to him, I will. I believe when it becomes a barrier between me and God that I begin to resent him or that he’s not hearing me, that he doesn’t see me, that he doesn’t.

If it’s affecting my faith in a way that is not productive then I might need to look at that again. I might need to just say, God, “I surrender. I’m laying it down on this altar. I’m not going to pick this up again until I feel like you are calling me to do it.”

I think there is a time I mean, we Jesus kind of in the garden. I don’t know he was wrestling with God, but he certainly was sweating. But I think that’s because it was such an emotional and physical aspect to his being that he maybe never imagined, couldn’t really think about what that felt like in a human body. Do you know what I mean?

It was he knew what was coming and he was praying, if this can pass, please let it pass. But I want your will, not mine. He knew what was at stake, but he was praying hard that night. And there was a lot on the table.

One of the ways that I do want to address this, though, is kind of what I went back to earlier was about the paganism mixing with Christianity and also people telling you… oh, but if you just and these come across my Facebook feed, pray this prayer and you’ll have three blessings before Monday morning.

Well, it’s Monday morning and you know, I had a million when I woke up. I was alive and got out of bed, and I could walk and breathe. I had a house, you know, all those things but you know, that kind of a thing. And that instance where someone was told you don’t have enough faith, that’s why the healing didn’t happen.

You know, the shame aspect of it.

But there’s a story. I say that because this story just seems very real to me right now based on just our world and kind of going back to the just the weird ways we might pray or try to get God’s attention. The story in 1 Kings 18 about Elijah and the false prophet.

And that what they were asking for is that god would just consume, you know, just consume the offerings. Let’s see him act, do something. And so they do that. So the false prophets go first and they’re calling on their god and it says they call from morning till noon.

I don’t know if that’s 5:00 in the morning, 9:00, but they called for a long time and nothing happened. No one answered, nothing happened. Everything was the same.

And then from noon until like midday, they leaped all around the altar. They were leaping and cutting themselves and crying out with loud voices. And then they started cutting themselves. Yeah. So the blood was gushing out, trying to get the attention of this god. And it says they raved until the evening.

It just wears me out reading that, you know, that chapter and no one answered. And I thought, Thank you, Lord, that I don’t have to do that. I don’t have to cut myself, yell, scream, rave and jump around to get your attention.

I’m just so thankful that Jesus is the reason why I can pray and come before you very humbly and softly and quietly, sometimes just looking for you.

So the story then turns to Elijah, and Elijah does the same thing.He builds an altar out of stones. He does it in the presence of all the false prophets and the people that were there. He digs a trench around it and he puts the wood on it, and then he puts the ox on it for the offering. Then he douses the whole thing three times until the trench is filled with water.

You know, it’s already been absorbed into the ground, but he put so much on it that it’s filled up, the trenches filled. Everything’s been doused with water, the offering, the stones, the wood. And he just offers this simple prayer you know, he’s like, “God, please make yourself known. Please make yourself known.”

And man, did he. Fire fell it consumed the altar, the stones, the wood, the ox and lapped up the dust. It says even the dust was consumed and lapped all the water in the trench was gone.

And so that very humble prayer of Elijah is inspiring to me, that I can just go and say, “God for your glory, for you to be known would you please hear my prayer?” And that is so peace-giving instead of thinking, yes, I have to have all this, well, how much is enough faith?

I mean, is it finally enough faith when that mountain moves into the ocean? Is it finally enough? I mean, what’s enough faith?

He’s like, “Really? How much is enough? If you prayed 24 hours a day, would that be enough?”

Kay >> Yeah.

Claudia >> And what good are you to anybody if you’re praying, you know, he just made it feel so much more doable when it’s like, just pray. Just get out there, acknowledge your Father, ask for what you need, thank him for what he’s done, lift up others before him and wait. You know?

Kay >> Well, I know years ago when I was a young adult, that you know/ I was never really comfortable praying because in the church that I grew up in, it just seemed like the people who prayed at the front used all these big words all these thees and thous, which was popular at the time because of the King James Version of the Bible, you know, just all those things.

And so yeah, I mean, I talked to God myself, but I just felt very inadequate about it. And I know that one day my kids were taking their naps. They were just a little bitty at the time, and I wanted something to read. And I went to my bookshelf and apparently my mother had planted a book there that was called Prayer A Conversation with God or something like that, by Rosalind Rinker.

And she just you’re just talking to God it is not about these words. It is not about, you know, saying it the right way. It is just you are talking to God. And it just revolutionized my prayer life because I felt like I could just be I could just pray in more the sense of Elijah that you’re just simply asking God for what you want to happen.

It’s not there’s not a mystery about it. There’s not a process that you have to go through. It is just you’re talking to God as if I’m talking to you now.

Claudia >> Yeah.

Kay >> And it made a big difference in my life. So I hope the people out there will recognize that. And not make this something that it’s not supposed to be.

Claudia >> Right. It shouldn’t really be about you. And I think that when I’m in a prayer group or we’re praying wherever, whether that’s over a meal or in a group or whatever, I know I’m not judging somebody’s prayer, you know? Unless it’s to a foreign deity or some situation that I’m uncomfortable with. But I don’t!

Oh, every prayer is I think it’s just music to God’s ears. You know, every prayer offered in faith from a heart that’s devoted to him or just searching for him. I believe it is. It’s music to his ears.

Kay >> It is. Well that kind of brings me to some of the other resources that we have. Kelly Arabie and I did one on Practical Prayer Solutions, which talk about praying aloud. We talk about distractions in prayer and just some practical ways to overcome these impediments to prayer that we have. Just some practical ideas on what to do when your prayer seems boring.

What do you do about that? And how to deal with all these prayer requests you’re given? You know, if you’re in the church and you’re active in the church, you just hear all these prayer requests, and there’s just so many. What do you do with that? How do you organize it, or how long do you pray for them? Those kinds of things.

So you can find this on our Media List if you will go to BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and go to the Resources, at the bottom of the pulldown menu, you will see the Media list, and that would be on there. If you just want to search for prayer, that would be a topic that all the prayer resources would come up. And you can look for Claudia for our other conversations that we have had.

We just did one on praying with obedience.

Claudia >> Yes.

Kay >> So you can search for that. We have other guests that have talked about prayer. And I would really encourage you to do all those things. Claudia, I’m so grateful for all the work that you did researching all these verses to help us see what the Bible says about these questions in prayer.

Claudia >> Well, thank you. My privilege. Again, I learn every time I get to do one of these with you. So thank you for that opportunity.Kay >> Well, thank you for joining us. And we will look forward to all the rest of you joining us soon on the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast.

Kat Armstrong

Kay Daigle

Leaders are always on the hunt for good volunteers. The question is what to look for in a potential volunteer. The answer? Recruit gifted volunteers. In fact, look for those more gifted than you are.

What does it look like practically? Kat Armstrong discusses with Kay Daigle why and how to find and empower such volunteers.

As a leader, this episode will make you think about what gifts you need in the people working under and with you. Keep in mind that you need to recruit gifted volunteers, people who are even more gifted than you are!

This episode is available on video as well.

Kay >> Hi, I’m Kay Daigle with Beyond Ordinary Women, and I am delighted to welcome you to a series of videos that I’m doing with Kat Armstrong, who is the founder of Polished Ministry, a nonprofit. And Kat is sharing lessons in leadership that she has learned through leading in Polished. And we have some others that we’re discussing as well. But this particular session we’re going to talk about seeking leaders that are more gifted than you.

And so, Kat, there are probably people out there wondering why in the world you would want to seek leaders more gifted than you, because don’t you want to sort of be the one who knows all the answers and, you know, you’re sort of at the top of the food chain. Why not?

Kat >> Well, yes, I used to think that way. I read this book by John Maxwell, probably 15 years ago called Developing the Leaders Around You. And that book changed my mind about this. And he said, “Think about your leadership on a scale with zero being not such a great leader, got to work on some things, and ten being really high capacity person.

He said, “Let’s say that we’re seven maybe six-and-a-half. If you start recruiting eight, nines and tens in your organization, they’re going to bring you up. They’re only going to encourage you in leadership and make you a better leader. And I think Stephanie and I, when we co-founded this organization, really took that to heart.

But I started to see quickly that if we were going to reach our peers with the gospel—young, professional women (I only had experience in sales and marketing), we needed women who were great in accounting and logistics and administration and technology. Things that I’m not going to be able to learn really quickly or efficiently. But they know how to do it.

And so we just decided let’s recruit the smartest, fastest, most efficient women we can think of. And it is a little intimidating. I walk into a leadership team meeting, and I think everyone in here is better educated and could do a lot of things better than I can. But it just makes our team really strong.

Kay >> Absolutely. I totally agree with you about that. Do you have an example to share of someone or a group that really was just an amazing recruit?

Kat >> Sure. If we look at our staff right now, I wish I could talk about all of them. We don’t have time to do that. But I think if you just go to our website, look at the headquarters staff, they’re incredible.

Felicia Benton really stands out in my mind is someone I watched behind a microphone and I thought, wow, she is better at interviewing than I have gotten in a decade. And I’ve really been practicing. We’ve done over 200 events. I bet I’ve interviewed a slew of people and it was like magic to watch her behind a microphone.

And then I watched her emcee an event, and I thought of all the things I’ve read in the training I’ve been to that is just raw, natural talent right there. It’s and now she’s joined our staff as the regional director, and she helps all of our directors and see and speak.

And so she’s training people on how to do that. But I think she probably stands out as a great example for that.

Kay >> Well, what kind of mindset do you have as a leader as you start looking for volunteers? What do you first notice about somebody? How does that move forward?

Kat >> So I think really the key is when someone is I wouldn’t say complaining, but ives you constructive criticism on how you could improve something. Something goes on in my brain. It doesn’t feel personal. It doesn’t feel like it’s toward Polished. Instead, I think I bet you they would be great at improving that because if you have the forethought to come to someone and say, “You know, I noticed on your website things don’t flow very well on step number two. It was hard for me to make my payment.”

Well, I never would have noticed that. Right? But they did. And so then I usually approach that person and say, “Do you have a background in technology or do you know anything about Squarespace? Have you ever thought about volunteering with Polished? Because we would love for you to improve that step number two across the whole board.”

And so as crazy as it sounds, when we get constructive criticism from women who attend our events, we kind of flag them as our future leaders because they usually have a passion to improve that area of our organization.

Kay >> And they usually are women who know something about it, too. That’s why they noticed it in the first place.

Kat >> Yes, exactly.

Kay >> Yeah, I totally agree.

I can’t tell you what I would do if I did not have like these women behind the cameras that our audience cannot see because they do all this technical stuff with videos and podcasts and things like that. I would never have any idea what to do. And I depend on many many women for various other little things, just someone with expertise that I can call and say, now, I was thinking about this, what do you think?

It’s just really important. I totally agree with you on this whole thing.

Thank you Kat for joining us. This has been really, really helpful. And I’d like to invite all of you to go to our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and look over all of our resources. Those resources include two other sessions with Kat on Lessons in Leadership, another one on volunteering. And then the other one, the third one is Love the Lord Your God with all Your Mind is a lesson that she has learned. So I think you’ll be really interested in that as well as all of the various leadership resources that we offer.

If you have a suggestion for something you would like help with, just contact me on the website and I would be glad to get back to you. And who knows, we may make a video or podcast about that particular topic as well.

Kat does have a book and I know that you can get it on Amazon, No More Holding Back. And you can also find it on her website, KatArmstrong.com, or on Polished Online, I assume. But you can find out more about Kat and her ministry at PolishedOnline.org.

So thank you, Kat. This was really very helpful.

Kat >> Thank you, Kay.

Lynn Hoffmann

Kay Daigle

Lynn Hoffmann joins Kay Daigle in this conversation focused on shepherding a small group. Lynn shares from her extensive experience as a small group leader, including many years in 12 Step studies.

What does shepherding a small group entail? Lynn suggests beginning with a well-defined purpose for your group. She focuses on the importance of making it a safe place for each group member.

This episode provides specific and practical help for any small group leader who wants to disciple a group to flourish and follow Jesus.

This episode is also available on video if you prefer.

00:21 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. Today I am talking with my friend Lynn Hoffmann. Welcome, Lynn.

Lynn >> Well, thank you, Kay. I’m so glad to be here.

Kay >> Well, we are so glad to have you today. I’ve been looking forward to this and a lot for a long time in fact, I’ve been trying to get Lynn on here for a long, long time. And I think we finally hit on some things she wanted to talk about. So here we are we’re going to talk today about leaders as shepherds. We’re going to be talking about shepherding small groups. And really shepherding is an aspect of discipleship. And so that’s where discipling people were shepherding them.

And so let me just tell you a little bit about Lynn, but you can find more about her on our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. Go to the dropdown menu where it talks about the “About Us” and look under video podcast contributors and you’ll be able to read all the details about Lynn and all the things that she’s done. But I will tell you that she’s had years of involvement in recovery ministry. She taught she led groups, she’s mentored women, and she wrote her own book that she began using Steps into God’s Grace.

And we’ll let her talk about that at the end of our podcast a little bit. Now, she’s the certified spiritual director so she’s done a lot of different things. And I know that she’s going to be a blessing to all of you out there. Since we’re talking about shepherding, I thought we would just talk for just a few minutes about sheep a little bit and shepherding since it’s used so much in the Bible and there’s a reason because we are like sheep in a lot of ways.

And I’m not going to talk about how we’re like shape, but I’m going to talk about shepherding a little bit So I thought we would look at a few scriptures. I’m not going to really open all these and read the whole thing for you right now. But I would encourage you to read back through Psalm 23. I’m sure everyone is familiar.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want He makes me dwell down in green pastures. He restores my soul.”

It says that the shepherd thinks of what the sheep need, what kind of food they need. He leads them there. He protects them from their enemies. And he’s a companion. He helps heal them. And we see all of that in Psalm 23.

And then in John 10, Jesus calls himself The Good Shepherd, and in John 10:1-16, I encourage you to read the whole thing, but what we see there is he talks about that he knows the sheep so well. That he knows them by name and that they follow him because they trust him and they know him. He cares for them and says, “I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

So there’s a sacrificial aspect to being a shepherd. There’s giving up some things because of the of the sheep under you. And certainly we aren’t saying small group leaders need to be crucified in any way, but we’re talking about just you give up your own time, you give up your own things that you might want to do so that you’re providing and caring for your sheep.

And then the last place that I want to look at is actually the longest. And it is back in the Old Testament in Ezekiel 34. The whole chapter is about sheep and shepherds and basically God is calling out the spiritual leaders in Israel for not taking care of the people of Israel. So the whole chapter is about that. But I thought I would read verses 13 through 16 because it sort of summarizes some of the things that the shepherds do for the sheep.

So verses 13 through 16. God talks about the fact that since the shepherds have not taken care of the sheep, he will tend them, he will take care of them himself, he will become their shepherd. And he says, “I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries and bring them to their own soil. I will shepherd them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the land.

“I will tend them in good pasture, and their grazing place will be on Israel’s lofty mountains. There they will lie down in a good grazing place.” We saw in Psalm 23 that it talks about the sheep lying down in the presence of the shepherd and it reminded me a lot of Matthew 11:28-31 Jesus says, “Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden I will give you rest.” He gives us rest. We lie down in his presence so good shepherd helps the sheep be at rest be peaceful.

“I will tend my flock and let them lie down. This is the declaration of the Lord.” And then here is the summary. “I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bandage the injured, and strengthen the weak.”

So those are some of the qualities and characteristics of the shepherd, some of the of the areas of need of the sheep the shepherd cares for.

So Lynn, in light of all of that and in light of all of your experience, how can a leader care for her heart? Small group as a shepherd does direct just as is your at the meeting. How does that translate into caring for the women who are sitting there with you?

Lynn >> You know, I think that there are a lot of things that we can talk about, about how you can care for them. And I think that before we even maybe discuss that, I’d like to just kind of just talk about why we’re in a small group to begin with, because generally speaking, I don’t know about you, but I think that many people that I talk to are in small groups because it has generally been kind of expected by the people in their church. That part of your spiritual growth includes being in a small group. So we have created a lot of small groups and we have a lot of people who are leading small groups. But I can’t I don’t know that I would say that all the people that are in small groups and leading small groups are really been trained to be a leader and what they’re really going to encounter leading a small group.

So I’m really excited about having the opportunity to talk about that because for me, I realize that I talk to a lot of women who are very frustrated by being in a small group that they’re doing it because they feel like it’s something they’ve been called to do. And it’s part of their Christian life is to be in a small group.

But many of them are just very frustrated by the whole process. They’re not necessarily finding it meaningful or they’re not necessarily wanting to try to make time for it. And they’re not really sure what the purpose is for doing this, other than this is what I’m supposed to do.

So I think that my frustration and my passion in this has been more related to I keep hearing all these people telling me about this and saying, “Well, I understand that because I remember being in small groups and doing the same thing, getting in a small group because it’s what was expected.

And yet feeling like the leader wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be doing that we were kind of following this rote thing, okay, this is what you do in the small group. You know, there’s going to be some time of worship, some time Bible study, some time of prayer. You know, maybe we’ll share a meal together. I mean, there was this whole litany of things that we were to do, but I can’t necessarily say that I felt like we were actually coming together as a group of people and actually growing together spiritually.

And yet, I think that that’s the main purpose of the group, right? Is to really because we do grow in community. To really recognize that this is where we are going to grow as we get to know each other better, as we wrestle together, as we, you know, discuss the difficulties in life as well as celebrate things.

But that we’re coming together because we are challenged in talking about the tension between living our Christian life in the world and the tension that’s created before those two. So it really does create, you know, a lot of responsibility for the leader to recognize that this is a challenge of what’s happening within the people who are coming to my group.

And so in addition to us participating in a Bible study or participating in some time of worship or some time of prayer, that a big part of our time together should be devoted to actually connecting with each other, because that’s what people are really looking for. They can go and listen to a great podcast. They can go hear a great sermon, they can go. You know, they’re getting a lot of their, quote, spiritual teaching needs met, but not necessarily feeling like they have a close community of people to share that journey with.

So I think that recognizing that is the struggle within our small groups and I really think that it means that we need to kind of look at, okay, what is happening in our groups differently?

And I honestly hadn’t experienced any kind of groups that were different until I went to recovery. And as a matter of fact, I remember one of the first small groups that I was in, I’d only been in it about, I don’t know, maybe six months. And then the leaders announced one day because it was the same people who led every week.

Then the leaders announced one day, okay, well, we’re not going to be meeting anymore because we’re changing churches and we’re not going to be leading this small group anymore. And it was the first time any of us in the group had heard that this was even going to happen.

And we were all just very confused. I thought we were in a small group to be connected to each other and to know each other and to, quote, do life together. And I don’t see how this represents that. Where I don’t even know what is happening in the lives of the people that I’m living with and doing life with.

So when I went to recovery are really recognized that they did groups differently and that there were a number of things about that, you know, that were different. But the main thing was they were trying to foster connection.

And I think that that’s one of the things that it’s not that we’re not trying to foster connection. I think that the reality is we just don’t know how to foster connection we haven’t maybe been in a group where we’ve experienced it. We’re only doing what we know to do. And you know, people have been in small groups before, so okay, now I’m going to lead one. Well, that’s great, but do I really know how to lead and shepherd a group?

Kay >> Well, you know, I think that a lot of people are just asked to lead small groups. And I think in many cases the leader is just desperate to find somebody to do it, and so they tell them, all you have to do is go through these questions and all you have to do is just make sure everybody talks and that’s it.

Lynn >> Right? Right. Exactly. And I don’t think that that’s it. And I think that we have to be more intentional. There’s a lot more things involved in leading a small group than we’ve experienced or have been showed how to do. And I feel sad about that because I know that our leaders are —they have a heart for the people and they so want their groups to do well and to be successful and the people to want to come.

But the reality is we’re dealing with people who are very busy, especially where we live here in Dallas. And so people want something. They’re not going to come if it’s not meaningful, if it’s not life-changing, if it’s not helping them connect with others and connect with God in deeper ways.

Kay >> Yeah, I totally agree with that, which is one reason I liked the picture of shepherding because it tells you there’s more to it than just reading some questions or sharing prayer requests or you know, whatever, whatever you’re doing.

Gary and I were in a small group together for a couple of years, two or three years, and everyone was very nice while we were there, you know, very nice couples.

You know, we studied the Bible some, and we had some just general conversations. But we never talked about the reality of who we were and what we were doing and how we were growing in their faith in any way. We really knew nothing about anybody’s. I mean, there were exceptions to this, but most of the time we didn’t know what was going on in their lives.

Lynn >> Right. Yes, I think that’s a perfect example. And so was just like you start coming away with a sense of what are we doing? You know, I mean, I’m just being showing up as a sane person. Everything’s fine. I’m okay. My life is good.

You know, I’m just going to have a meal, a laugh and, you know, learned some things about the Word, but we’re not necessarily applying them to our lives within the group in a way of, okay, how are we practicing love? Because if what we’re called to do is to love, how are we actually practicing it within the group? Not just studying about it, but actually being intentional about showing up. And so for that to happen, there have to be some really specific things for us to start doing within the group: to start creating a space where those kinds of conversations are going to be had. So that hopefully by the time you’ve been together for two or three years, you actually do know each other better.

You know more about your hopes and your dreams and your failures in your hearts and your struggles. And, you know, we know each other like real people instead of just somebody we show up and do a thing.

Kay >> So I know that because you gain so much from the 12 Step program, what elements can you pull from the way that those groups work and put them into other small groups. What do you think is essential that you did in those groups that we need to be doing?

Lynn >> Good question. I think that one of the things that needs to happen early on is the group needs to have a very clear purpose and some guidelines for how they’re going to operate. And so what is our purpose here? Is our purpose just to study, okay, do a Bible study, and that’s where we’re coming, Okay? This is why we’re coming.

But if we’re really coming because we want to grow spiritually and develop connection and intimacy with each other and with the Lord well, then we need to start having some conversations about how we can interact differently to start fostering some space for that to happen. So once we’ve done that, I think that one of the most important things that happened when I was in recovery that I saw happen in those meetings was that they established some guidelines. And they were very specific. And they were important to put in place because what we want people to start doing is to be willing to show up and be authentic and to be honest and to be vulnerable.

And if we want people to do that, then we have to create a space that people are going to feel safe. And so for them to feel safe, you know, we really need to have some things in place that are going to be helpful. We have to be able to have people that are committed to confidentiality really number one. So that whatever I say here now, I’m not going to hear from everyone else that is a friend of yours that you have gone home and talked about.

And so I think that we don’t always recognize how important it is to keep a confidence when people are sharing things that are there deep on their heart. Right? And so if we’re going to be willing to talk about our struggles or if we’re going to be willing to talk about our questions that we have regarding what the Word says, our struggle to actually put that in place, and to believe that that’s who God is, then we have to be willing to keep confidences.

And we have to learn how to not be judgmental we have to start practicing the fact that we’re not called to judge other people. We’re called to live life together and to point people to Christ, but more how can I help you grow in your faith with the Lord by being honest and open with you, but also being a companion. And I’m going to share my struggles and you’re going to share yours. And we’re going to talk about those.

And so now I can maybe see how somebody else walks out their faith. How did you get through this difficult time? How can you give me some help for something that I’m struggling with? Probably if you hadn’t been willing to say that, you know, you’re going to keep this confidential, wouldn’t have necessarily been open to sharing.

Kay >> And it’s also about I mean, there’s all of this and a lot of this is like the protection aspect of being a shepherd, that the leader has to teach this to the group so that they’re protecting the individuals from anyone else in the group.

Lynn >> Absolutely.

Kay >> Hurting them. And one of those things is keeping the group from not jumping on somebody or trying to fix them when they do share these things, isn’t it?

Lynn >> Yes, absolutely. Because unfortunately, maybe because it’s how other people treated us. Or it was because of other groups we were in, or we thought it was what was expected of us is to fix someone else’s problem. So that I can very quickly come up and give them a scripture or a new book to read or, you know. Tell them how they should do something differently instead of being able to first listen because most often people aren’t really heard anywhere.

They’re not really listened to. And so for us to the leader and the people in the group to learn how to listen to what’s really being said. And ask questions more out of curiosity and not just jump to giving a bunch of answers. So help me understand help me understand what you’re going through. What is the struggle? Why are you feeling this way?

Have you talked to God about it? Or is God saying anything to you about that? Are you feeling led in any way by him? Is he trying to teach you something? Or do you feel like he’s encouraging you to step out in some area of faith that maybe you haven’t been willing to do? How can we support you in that?

You know, those are the kinds of conversations I think we want to be able to have that can happen in safe places that don’t necessarily happen in groups with people who aren’t safe.

Kay >> Yeah, absolutely. So do you as a leader talk about those kinds of guidelines before you ever start the group, or do you wait until it comes up in the group and then suggest that “Let’s just listen to her?” Tell us how that actually works practically.

Lynn >> I think it’s probably both. I always think it’s better because to actually explain to people and talk through it with the group to get a consensus about this is how we want our group to operate. Do we agree this is who we want to be for each other? And if this is who we want to be for each other, then are we willing to say, “Yes, I’m willing to practice confidentiality. I’m willing to ask more curious questions and listen? I’m willing to consider that I don’t have all the answers and really allow someone and encourage them to go to the Lord?”

And so I think talking about those things in the beginning is really important so that everybody kind of understands that this is how we’ve kind of covenanted together to operate as a group. And then we can then move on to when things start happening in the group.

Then it’s kind of incumbent upon the leader or the shepherd when he sees somebody stepping in and talking over someone or trying to, you know, change someone or fix someone that he can kind of step in and just say, “Okay, you know, remember we sort of agreed that this is how we want to be to each other. And I’m sort of sensing we’re moving into a little place of trying to fix. How can we come back and maybe just ask some questions or be more supportive?”

Kay >> And I know that’s hard for some leaders, but if you see yourself as a shepherd that you’re there protecting and caring for those who need you, those who have strayed, those who are weak, those who are vulnerable, and they’re sharing all of that. Then you need to care for them particularly. And that might involve being a little bit uncomfortable, you know, sort of butting into somebody who’s talking over them. Right?

Lynn >> Yeah. It can get a little messy, but I think that it’s not unlike when you’re in, you know, living in a family. You know that you have to sort of confront things sometimes when they come up and when we’re not being kind or respectful. So I think you do the same thing within the small group. So you have to have someone who’s in a leadership position who’s willing to take that on and take it on from a perspective of I’m here to help Shepherd. I’m not here to try to tell anybody how to live their life. But I am here to try to guide us back to being in alignment with what we’ve sort of agreed to do and how God, we feel like the Lord has called us to live with each other. And how can we learn to be more accepting? How can we be more supportive?

How can we be more encouraging and challenge people in that way? Versus just allowing the group to kind of become somewhat chaotic and at times can create some real hurts.

Kay >> Yeah. Yeah. So how do you know if the group is starting to really gel and grow together?

Lynn >> Well, number one, I think that people keep coming. You know, I think that people don’t come to things anymore if it’s not something that’s important. And it’s important to them, if they feel like they are connecting and they are growing and then they will continue to show up. So I always can tell if my groups are working if people come, then, okay, we’re making some real progress.

But also we’re sort of growing with an understanding and a knowing of each other, a much deeper knowing of each other than we’ve had before. I really know kind of what some of your hurts are. I know how you struggle maybe with your mom or with your teenage daughter. I really hear that in your conversation and I’m really praying for you and support trying to support you in that.

So our relationships are actually growing deeper. It’s not the same superficial. “Hi, how are you? I’m fine. You know what’s happening in your life and well, I went to, you know, carpool today.” But now, I mean, we’re actually having conversations where I feel known and you feel known and we feel like we have a place to go, to be honest and to say I’m really struggling.

The reality is I have led I don’t even know how many groups, and I have counseled so many people. And honestly, that just the deep desire of their heart is to be known and just be able to be real.

And they don’t feel like they have a lot of places where they can do that. And it’s really sad that as the church, this is what should be what we are and who we are as who Christ has called us to be. And yet some of us can be just, you know, some of the worst offenders of putting up some barriers to love.

Kay >> Right. Well, I know that like in the Bible study that I’m in right now, as the leaders, we have not been given enough time to delve into some of this. It’s just that that’s not the small group time is not really the focus. And so it has created a bit of a burden in figuring out exactly how to gather the group and find other ways to connect, to really get to know each other and those kinds of things.

So I do think there’s some ways to work with them individually as well. How have you connected with maybe some of the women who’ve been in your small groups outside of the group itself? So that you’re pouring into their lives as well?

Lynn >> Yes, I realize that, you know, when I was involved in women’s ministry that that was a continual challenge because we just had again, everyone has limited time. And so we’re here to do Bible study or whatever wasn’t enough time to connect. So we really encourage people and the leaders to meet as a group sometimes without it being for the purpose of it.

Some other time go to lunch, you know, after your group meets. That’s a really often easy thing or just have people have bring their lunches and they stay and we eat together and then just talk and share and really try to connect that way. Or outside of that, you know, have coffee with somebody. Unfortunately people are not going to want to hear this, but it’s going to take time and intention.

And honestly, if you’re going to be a leader, you really need to set aside time. This is not something to be an effective leader that you can do quickly. It takes time and intention to say, “I kind of sense that somebody in my group is really struggling. Maybe I’m going to reach out and see if they want to go to lunch or if they want to have coffee.” And not just send them a text.

I mean, because we all get lots of texts, but for somebody to actually sit down and get in front of us and say, “How are you? What is going on with you? Tell me about you.”

And even if it’s just something to celebrate, you know that. But that you’re recognizing there are things happening in people’s lives that we want to acknowledge and we want to have a meaningful connection.

I actually had a, you know, a situation where I was in a small group and they had this policy of the small group leader kind of reached out and like phoned you once a week.

And so I always ended up getting home from work and I’d have this message and it was, “Hi, how are you? You know, I’m from, you know, whatever. I hope you’re doing well. Contact us if you have any needs for prayer, blah, blah, blah, whatever.”

Well I never did that. I mean, I had lots of needs for prayer. I had lots of needs and things that I could have used some input from, but I wasn’t going to just pick up the phone and call this person who I didn’t know hardly at all and say, “Would you pray for me? Or I’d really like to, you know, really would appreciate some input on the struggle that I’m having right now.”

And we were so unconnected. When I ran into her again a few years later, she didn’t even remember I was in her group. And so, you know, that’s the inauthentic part of it.

Sometimes I think people they pick up on, you know, are you really a devoted leader or are you just kind of doing this, as you know?

Well, I’ve got some time somebody said I could lead. As you were saying, I was in a small group and somebody said, “Oh, why don’t you lead?” Well, yes, but you’re not doing a service to your group if you’re not really present. And allocating the time and energy to doing it.

Kay >> Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the reason I wanted to read that passage about Jesus saying, you know, he lay down his life for the sheep because if you’re really going to be a shepherd, there’s just a certain amount of your time you have to give give up, not just going to the group meeting, but outside the group meeting.

Lynn >> Right, right. And I think it’s helpful if the shepherd calls upon other people in the group too. This doesn’t have to be just the shepherd link that, you know, there are people in the group who are really gifted in different things. And so to really have people be involved and connected and offering their gifts in different ways so that it isn’t all about, you know, the leader has to do everything. But the leader is at least trying to make sure that it’s happening.

Kay >> Absolutely. Yeah. I you know, I think about a lot of the one another’s in the New Testament, and it seems to me that that’s what a small group is supposed to be about. And some of those are hard things like confessing your sins to one another.

Lynn >> Right. Right. And we talked about that some earlier that in 12 step recovery, those are some of the things that we learned to do early on. And that part of and for many of the groups that I lead now, that’s something we do like right in the beginning. Even if it’s in our prayer group, you know, we always we don’t go into prayer without, you know, confessing and trying to at least ask for forgiveness for ourselves before we go in and pray on behalf of someone else.

And the same thing is true is if I’m getting together in a group Bible study, “What is it you want to bring to the group today that maybe you want to confess to just bring before the Lord and ask for forgiveness?” Because it’s such an important, critical part of us walking in freedom that Christ wants us to have and that we are learning to be forgiving people.

People who love also forgive. Forgiveness will heal more of the things that are wrong with us than anything else that we can do for people.

Kay >> Now, Gary and I are in a small group now that our whole agenda is really just delving into how our walk with the Lord is going. There’s no Bible study. You know, we pray some, and we have certain questions that are were asked every week. And one of them is where have you fallen short in your discipleship this week?

So every single week we’re being asked, you know, what do you need to confess to the rest of us that has happened in your life and it’s been a really good group to be in, very different from the other group that I told you about at the beginning of our conversation. This group is concerned about our spiritual lives. This group is concerned about what’s going we and we talk each week about what are we going to do this week?

What’s going on? What’s happened this last week, what’s, what’s coming up next week. And it’s been a really good thing for us. And we feel more connected with these people. We’ve been doing this almost two years now. We were with that other group that I think we ended up three or four years with them. Right.

Right. You know, they were just people we knew.

Lynn >> Right. But now. Well, but not well. Right. Yeah. And I think that once you start getting in with a group like this where you’re talking about the things that you’re really wrestling with, you know, that I’m having real doubts about, you know, the Lord’s ability to, you know, step into this situation and to give me the strength I need or to, you know, to provide some hope for this struggle I’m having with my kids, whatever that is.

But that to have a place where you can come and talk about that and be open about it and confess your doubt or confess your fear, and just to have the opportunity to say that this. Those are the things that have been binding us and keeping us frozen and not able to really receive what the Lord is doing.

And if you have people that are challenging you in that way and say, well, tell me about that, what is that that’s going on with you and how what is it? And maybe you can start looking for where might you see the Lord working? Because nobody asks us that, right?

And we just get really busy in our lives. And I’ve got all these problems, but I’m not really noticing where is the Lord working? Because he’s probably working in big and small ways all around me, but I’m just looking for him to work in this like one thing.

But if I really stop and consider gosh, I’m becoming a lot more patient. Or I just really didn’t react and to not fly off the handle the last time I had to deal make have a different conversation with one of my difficult kids.

I’m changing. The Lord is changing me.

Some of the circumstances that I wish for change aren’t changing but the Lord is taking more ground in me. And that is the bigger issue, isn’t it, for all of us? Are we being conformed to the image of Christ? And so is this a place where we can talk about that, encourage each other in that walk versus getting so stuck in talking more about whatever else we want to focus on?

And we have lots of groups, you know, for those kinds of things. But for me, being able to be with groups of people who really want to talk about their faith and their struggles in this life and how that can be so meaningful and life giving and life changing for people.

Kay >> Absolutely. And, you know, I believe in Bible study. I mean, that’s what I have spent most of my life doing. But I think that too often we have just restricted the time so narrowly that it’s very hard to do this unless a group stays together for many years. And which is the way I like groups to do.

I’m not crazy about the changing groups every year or every six months or something like that. But I just don’t think you ever get what we’re talking about here.

Lynn >> Yes.

Kay >> With that kind of group, you think you can spend time if you’re really applying the scriptures as you’re going through them.

That’s going to bring out some things if you’re being honest with each other. If you set the stage for it, we’re going to be vulnerable. We’re going to be honest, and we’re going to really talk about when we come to these questions. This is going to be an important part of what we do here. It’s not going to be just what did Jesus say? It’s not going to be just the factual things.

It’s going to be how does this affect you? What is Jesus saying to you from this, from his words here? What does that mean to you? How is that affecting your life?

Lynn >> Right. I think that that’s so true. And you’re right. It us being able to find groups that are willing to commit to that. There aren’t a lot of them. And so, you know, I think that the fact that you have a group like that is wonderful. I’ve actually been in the same community group now for 18 years and thankfully over the years we have really grown and changed and ultimately we all ended up going to recovery together.

So we all started understanding about the concepts of being honest and vulnerable and being broken. And that we’re just as broken as each other and that we can talk about some of those things. And we can talk about, okay, so what is how I feel like Jesus has challenging me in this way? He does call us to confess. So, okay, I’m going to, I’m practicing that.

And he does want us to repent. So what would it look like for me to repent and how can I ask people around me to maybe help me support me if I want to go in a different direction from what I have been doing, that I need that support and encouragement from people around me and in my group.

There are other people in the world who have no idea that I have those struggles or that I’m finding it difficult to make choices in my life. But hopefully we are in a group where we do have a group of people who know those things and are praying for us and are really encouraging us in ways to support us, to make hard decisions and hard choices.

Kay >> Well, I wouldn’t just encourage the leaders out there to really picture yourself as a shepherd of your group and think about the things that we have talked about today. And if you’re in a situation where you know, you’ve got sort of some guidelines and you only have a limited amount of time, find ways that you can be the one to step out and be vulnerable about these things, because I think that will open up your group.

And if you take advantage of time outside of the group to continue those kinds of conversations and one-on one-conversations, I think it can make an enormous difference.

Lynn >> I agree. I mean, I think there is some of the groups, like Bible study groups, that even meet on a regular basis or try to get together and just really not only go a little deeper in what they talked about in their Bible study, but also now start applying it. “Okay, this is the part that I was really struggling with and let’s talk about that. And then let’s kind of connect on levels that we weren’t able to within the study and within our time at church,” or wherever we were. I think it’s a very important part of the reason why the Lord said it’s important for us to live in community.

We’ve got to live and be able to live in community and it’s going to be messy. And I think that’s also why people avoid it. They’d just as soon not go there because it’s going to be messy because people are messy. We’re broken. And sometimes we get angry and sometimes we get sad and sometimes we do things we shouldn’t.

And so when you get into that part of people’s lives, it can get a little messy. But honestly, that’s really where we want to be. And I think that shepherds can help set the tone for that. They can help create the space. Or they can start a group that that’s providing some of that. As you were just saying, you’ve got a new group now and that’s kind of what you are doing.

And so, you know, consider whether or not you want to start a group like that, these the guidelines of what we think we’re trying to accomplish. And we think that this would help us grow in our spiritual life. And is that something that, you know, find people who would be willing to do that.

Kay >> Well, how would you challenge your audience before we go?

Lynn >> You know, I think I would challenge my leaders first to just say, do you feel equipped to lead? And if you’re if you’re just feeling that you haven’t really gotten some of the training, then go get some training. That’s available. I mean, everything you probably need to know about leading small groups is available in various and sundry places on the Internet or sometimes our churches offer training sessions for small group leaders. They’re great and they’re very helpful.

I think the worst thing we can do is assume that we already know what it means to be a good leader, because generally, we don’t. There’s always more we have to learn. And I love to go back and look at the Gospels and just see how Jesus was with the people. You know, he just was with them. He didn’t spend all of his time, you know, trying to preach some high doctrinal truth. He was just trying to help them get through their lives.

So I think just getting some more training if you need it, and then calling your group together and saying, “What do you think about this? How do you think we could maybe make some changes in our group to go about, you know, pursuing a little bit more authenticity or a little bit more time to have hard conversations?”

But, you know, give yourself some grace because you’re not the only leader that doesn’t know how to do this.

I mean, becoming a shepherd is something that the Lord is going to take a lot of time to build into you. And studying the Word and just praying and asking the Holy Spirit to lead is so important because we don’t know how to do this. I don’t think that people have taught us well how to lead groups.

Kay >> Well, I don’t think we’ve had many examples.

Lynn >> Right. Yeah, we haven’t, you.

Kay >> Know, are just talking about the groups we’ve been in that didn’t work and I found a lot more of those than I have groups that have worked. So it’s not like we’ve been able to watch somebody do this well. And that helped us but I appreciate that challenge.

We do have some other podcasts on small group leading that I would encourage you to connect with on our site BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org.

And Lynn, tell us just a little bit about your book that you wrote and how that might be helpful to some of the people out there.

Lynn >> Well, I appreciate you bringing that up. I wrote Steps Into God’s Grace a number of years ago when I was in and was leading recovery. And I really wanted it to be a foundational book for helping groups practice all these things that we’re talking about.

Basically it’s a Bible study. You get to study Scripture, but at the same time, it’s a workbook. You work together as a group, preferably as a group, and really learning about what does it mean to be vulnerable, what does it mean to, you know, practice things like an examination of how is my life looking as it compares to what Scripture is saying? And what are the things? I feel like the Lord may be leading me to change. What does it look like to practice some confession or repentance or forgiveness.

So it really will help people in groups learn how to walk through and practice being more vulnerable, being more honest, being more authentic and really putting to action many of the principles and disciplines that Jesus expressed to us as he was walking on this earth.

So I think it can be really helpful. And I’m always happy to help people. There is there is a leader’s guide, so people just don’t feel like there’s enough direction. Or I’m always happy to meet with leaders to I have a number of different groups of people. I had a lady in a group here in Dallas, and just recently I got an email from her she had gone back home.

She is from Jordan, and so she’s now leading two groups in Jordan. And just getting to hear, I get to connect with them on Zoom sometimes and getting to hear their stories and how all of our struggles are universal struggles. You know, it’s not just we Americans or we people that live in Dallas or the people that attend our church.

It’s these are universal struggles with all of us finding it difficult to walk out our Christian faith and know what it really looks like to start practicing these things and living in community together.

So I would just encourage people to check it out.

Kay >> Where would they be able to access your book?

Lynn >> On Amazon.

Kay >> Amazon.

Lynn >> Yes, on Amazon.

Kay >> And again, the name is Step into God’s Grace by Lynn Hoffmann.

Lynn >> Yes.

Kay >> Great. Well, thank you so much for your time. This has been great. I always enjoy talking to you anyway.

Lynn >> I know we’d love to just get together and have coffee. It’s great.

Kay >> We do. We do. We have good conversation. So I look forward to the next time we do that. And thank you for sharing, really just such rich teaching that you have incorporated into your life. And in helping to teach other small group leaders to have that same kind of heart, that same kind of spirit, and that same sort of sacrificial attitude toward those in her group. So thanks again.

Lynn >> Oh, sure. Thank you again for having me, Kay.

Kay >> Oh, I loved it.

Lynn >> Great.

Kay >> See you all next time.

Sharifa Stevens

Kay Daigle

Sharifa Stevens, author of When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women, talks with Kay Daigle about her book. Although it’s written with black women in mind, any woman can identify with most of the feelings that permeate this beautiful book.

This is a book that prays women’s feelings, as the Psalms do. There is something for each reader as Sharifa pours out her heart in these prayers and poems.

This episode is also available on video.

00:20 Introduction to Sharifa & her book

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay with Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to our podcast. Our guest today is actually one of our ministry team members, Sharifa Stevens. And today she is the one being interviewed rather than just one of our team members. So, Sharifa, it’s so great to see you as always.

Sharifa >> It’s always a pleasure to see you, Kay.

Kay >> Now, Sharifa, according to her book, Sharifa is a writer, a poet, a speaker, and a singer. And it’s all true.

Sharifa >> It’s true.

This is going to be so fun!

Kay >> I don’t know… I’m not quite sure why you think this is so funny. That’s the wonderful things that you are.

Sharifa >> It is. It’s wonderful.

Kay >> She looks so sad.

Sharifa >> I’m so sorry. I’m not. I’m so happy.

Kay >> Anyway, we won’t talk about you anymore if it’ll make you feel better.

Sharifa >> Okay.

Kay >> You can read Sharifa’s entire bio on our site BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. So today we are talking to Sharifa because she has a book, and it is beautiful. It is one of the prettiest books I’ve ever seen. And it is When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women.

So Sharifa, actually, I was just really blown away by your book, by the beauty of it, by so many of the poems and prayers in it.

It just really touched my heart in a lot of ways. It reminded me a lot of the psalms, which mean a whole lot to me, because you had a lot of raw emotion in there like the psalmist, and it all came from your heart. And there’s no doubt about it. That kind of expressed your deepest thoughts. And, you know, just like the Psalms that give us words to pray when we don’t know what to say to God.

I see your book is doing that for a lot of people there. There will be a lot of poems and prayers in here that will be very dear to many women who will read them and pray them over and over. I think, just like the Psalms, it will help people when they face difficulties be anchored in the Word when that happens.

Thank you for doing this.

Sharifa >> Thank you for those affirming words. And I am especially honored that you would draw a parallel to the Psalms because that was my goal. And I see the Bible as being so vivid and rich with emotional depth that it’s not just an intellectual exercise to read the Bible. It is spiritual, and it’s also emotional, and it reflects the fullness of God’s love and of our humanity.

And so in the book, I wanted to reflect some of that back to the frankness and intimacy of the Psalms and the prophetic voice of the prophets, and the thirst for justice that echoes throughout the prophetic books, and also the playfulness of the Song of Solomon. They’re just different beats in the Bible. There’s history, there’s lamentation, there’s so much praise, and there is a connection that’s really highlighted in the incarnation of Jesus, a connection of God with humanity.

And it’s gritty and tactile and real and a woman’s life is pretty and tactile and real. And I just noticed that there are a lot of beautiful, beautiful works that are geared toward women, spiritual lives, but not all of them talk about things that happen uniquely to women. And so I wanted to address those with care and humor and lamentation. But I wanted to address them.

Kay >> And so I think that that all of that purpose is what was behind the book.

Sharifa >> Yes, all of that.

Kay >> Yeah. So how did the book come to be?

Sharifa >> Well, the book came to be because it was it was something needed. There were a few things that happened. I was presented with the opportunity to write a book and I wanted to write to black women specifically because the cultural landscape tends to forget about us sometimes when it comes to our spiritual journey.

And it’s a mixed bag for black women a lot of times. We, just like women overall, are over half the church. And a lot of church support comes from the unpaid labor of black women—as well as the paid labor. But I don’t believe that the church could exist the way it does without the devotion of women.

But to be a woman in the church can be a complicated thing.

To be a black woman in some churches can be an extra complicated thing. But this specific cultural landscape can be really hostile towards black women. And so I wanted to remind us that God created us in his beautiful image, that we are also the children of God, that we are worthy, that we are valued, that Christ died and lives for us. And not to buy a narrative that would say that our presence, our bodies don’t count as much as another’s.

Kay >> Well, I felt like in reading through it, that it helped me understand a little bit more about what it feels like to be a black woman because you put that emotion in. So thank you for doing that.

And one of the questions I was going to ask is I know it was written for black women, but how do you see women of other backgrounds connect to it? And but I’ve just told you that I did. But you might have other reasons or other thoughts on that.

Sharifa >> Yes. I think that the I center black women in the book explicitly, and I think that women can relate to menstruation or motherhood or miscarriage or impostor syndrome. I think that black women are human, and these are human experiences. And so other humans will be able to connect to the themes.

I think there are some things that are so unique to black women that to read them would be to be informed about your sibling. Even if it’s not if it’s not about you, that doesn’t mean you know, when you’re in a family, you want to know what’s going on with your siblings, even though you’re not identical it. So I think that there’s a lot of commonality in the book. I wouldn’t say if you’re not a black woman then just leave this book alone.

I would say yes, this book is centering the experiences of black women, and any good sibling would be interested in knowing what’s going on with their sisters.

Kay >> Absolutely. And I really loved the book. I mean, even though, yes, there were some of the poems or some of the things that you wrote about the prayers that I don’t personally identify with as much as I did others. But for the most part I identified with almost everything in the book. What would you hope that black women of faith would take from your book?

Sharifa >> I hope that this book is a love letter. I hope that they feel loved. I hope to reinforce the message that God loves them fiercely and that they do not have to fear talking to God. God adores honesty and open communication. And I keep going back to the incarnation of Jesus and how Jesus said, “I came here not to condemn the world, but that the world through me might be saved.”

That’s what He said. And He said, I came to seek and save those who are lost. And so I think that there are a lot of prohibitive messages that come at so many of us, that there are so many like you black women, you can’t come. You can’t come to God unless you get this, this, this and this together.

And that’s a lie. You can talk to God and God will listen because God cares about God’s children.

Kay >> And I think you almost specifically say in there that nothing in your life is off limits to you to talk to God about. Yeah, I have found that attitude to be difficult for women in general.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kay >> That they don’t feel worthy, that they—I don’t know, there’s some sort of fear often of just really opening up to God. They don’t seem to feel worthy, worthy to do so.

Sharifa >> I think there are a lot of messages that we receive, some explicit and some just implied that our spirituality is not the same. We are the daughters of Eve, and Eve is the person who was deceived and set the world into, hurled the world into sin and death.

Kay >> Right.

Sharifa >> How do we move forward confidently with that on our shoulders unless we know that there is well, first of all, that Adam ate that fruit as well. Yeah, first of all, but and that’s a whole other ball of wax.

But also we are, if we are told more about how dangerous we are, how we are temptress, how we cannot be trusted with the gospel. Or if we’re told these things incessantly. If we’re told that our only good comes from who, what man we’re connected to and how many children we bear, well, of course we’re going to have a warped sense of spirituality.

But when Jesus came and when he sacrificed his life for all of us, it is finished. So these warped ways of viewing women are finished. They’re finished. And he made sure to put an exclamation point on that. And we had Jennifer McNutt come in here and talk about Mary Magdalene. He entrusted women from the womb to after the tomb and said to Mary Magdalene, “You can be trusted with the gospel.”

Well, we need reminders because I don’t think women are getting the message enough that we are also entrusted, that Jesus trust us with this good news. That we can talk to God, we can talk to God and God will talk back. And if he doesn’t wait to talk to us, depending on whether we’re married or whether we stopped whatever cycle of sin or shame we’re in, he does, he wants to talk.

He just he wants his children to have a relationship with him. That’s what he wants.

And this is what we see in the movement of the Bible. This is all that God goes through to reconcile us is great love, not fear that wins the day it’s great love. And at the end in the new Jerusalem, when time is no more it’s love, not fear.

That will be the constant chorus. And so anyway, obviously I’m passionate about this.

Kay >> Yeah, you’re preaching.

Sharifa >> And so, yeah, but and that’s why I think people, when they open the book, they might be surprised at some of the prayers that are inside. And they might say, oh, why this? Why we. And it’s because I, I well, I want people to survive and be reconciled to God, number one. And number two, I don’t want people to think, well, this is a thing that’s a bridge too far for me to talk to God now if a thief on a cross was not a bridge too far, there is no use anyway.

So I feel like God is generous and in love and I’m trying to communicate that.

Kay >> Yeah. And I could see that because some of the topics will be a little bit challenging for some people, I think, because they don’t know that they can talk to God about those things, right? They don’t know that you should be talking to God about those things.

Sharifa >> And I put it there for the people who need it.

Kay>> Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know, this book exposes so much vulnerability in you. And I just, you know, you must have had to relive some very difficult times in your life as you wrote it. How did you go through that? How did that work?

Sharifa >> I’m still going through it. I feel like I went through it the first time with writing it. And I know you know that sometimes when you write things, you have to live them first. It’s not true for all of the prayers. But as I was writing, I was diagnosed with two forms of hair loss, and I have a lot of hair.

So it was just a shift in identity. And then I became like perimenopausal. And now I just was like, What is going on in my body? I experienced the unexpected deaths of friends and family. And I would have preferred not to have to walk through some of the things that I wrote about. But that’s not life. Life is walking through it. And I feel like I’m walking through it again now that it’s been released and my words are no longer just mine. They are vulnerable to the interpretation of others.

If it’s an exercise for me to have the boundary line now that this is now not just my words for me and my little circle, but it’s being given to others. And some people will use the words and some will abuse the words. And I still belong to God.

Kay >> You just have to entrust it to God.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kay >> You know.

Sharifa >> So it’s an act of faith.

Kay >> Absolutely. What can you share a favorite poem or prayer from the book?

Sharifa >> No.

Kay >> And would you read something to us? This really look like.

Sharifa >> You and really hard, like “Which child is your favorite child, Sharifa?”

Kay >> I know. I mean, I was trying to find my favorite and I had a hard time and I thought I’m not going to do that.

Sharifa >> Well, it would have been so much easier if you did.

I think, oh, this is perfect. It’s not even long. My favorite right now is “Moving On Up,” which is a Psalm 121 re- mix.

“I’m down here where the earth cracks too hot and tired where you can’t get caught slipping where money is protected but people disposable. I am looking up.

“I want to see you Maybe if we lock eyes, you will come down and change things here. I know you haven’t fallen asleep on the job, right? You stay woke.

“Can you move me up a little higher? I want to look at your face. Higher up your face shines.

“I know who you are. Maker of the air I breathe and the land I tread upon. Maker of me, of us.

“I know what you’ve done. You’ve kept me.

“Nights we would have starved You fed us.

“You have delivered us into days we thought we wouldn’t live to see, here where the politics are dirty and the guns plentiful, Here where love is fickle and therapy unattainable

“Here your watch for love will be a covering of supernatural safety

“Lift us, move us up to a safe harbor.

“Expand your loving attentiveness over me and over us today tomorrow and for life.”

Kay >> Beautiful

Sharifa >> Thank you.

Kay >> And where did that come from? Was there any particular event, any particular feeling that you had?

Sharifa >> That came from reading Psalm 121 and feeling the timelessness of it. And I wanted to build on what the psalmist wrote in order to express my own frustration with living in a time where guns are plentiful, and therapy is unattainable.

Kay >> I love that well, thank you, Sharifa. Thank you for writing this book. Thank you for entrusting your emotions to God and letting him use them in the lives of other people.

So you can get Sharifa’s book off Amazon.

Sharifa >> Or bookshop.org or Barnes & Noble.

Kay >> Absolutely. When We Talk to God: Prayers and Poems for Black Women.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Kay >> And I would like as well to go to our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. We have many resources. You can go to the dropdown menu at the top and the resources and browse there.

You can also search for Sharifa’s name because she has done other podcast episodes for us. In fact, she has actually spoken at some of them, not just interviewed other people, but when she does interview other people she has a lot of really good things to say, so I think you’d be interested in those as well.

So I hope that you will check those out, and we have some other prayer episodes as well. If you’re interested in prayer, you can search our website for those.

So until next time. Thank you. Thank you, Sharifa.

Sharifa >> Thank you Kay, it was so wonderful to talk to you.

Kay >> It’s great to talk to you. And I just know that God’s going to use this.

And so until next time, I’m Kay Daigle. Thank you for joining us.

Kay Daigle

What does prayer with obedience look like? Claudia McGuire, BOW Team Member, talks with Kay Daigle about it. She uses Psalm 31 as her example of exactly how she prays and obeys God from reading and meditating on the Word of God.

This is an episode for any Christian who is searching for a deeper prayer life and application for her Bible reading. Claudia’s honest insights into her own prayer life are invaluable.

This episode is available on video if you prefer to watch.

00:18 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to our podcast for Beyond Ordinary Women. My friend who isn’t actually a guest because she is a member of our ministry team, but this is Claudia McGuire, and we’ve had her on many times. Welcome, Claudia. I’m so glad you’re with me today. Thank you.

Claudia >> I’m happy to be here today. Thank you for asking me.

Kay >> Right. Well, Claudia is going to talk about praying with obedience.

Now, Claudia has lots of experience in the church world. She worked at Chase Oaks Church for almost two decades, I think, a long time. She still speaks and teaches Bible studies and does leadership stuff and will speak at a retreat or a training of any kind.

And so today, she’s going to talk about prayer. We’ve talked about prayer before, but today, Claudia wanted to talk about praying with obedience. So I have to ask you what does that mean to pray with obedience?

Claudia >> Well, I think that is a great question.

Kay >> You never expected one!

Claudia >> I didn’t very well, actually. I don’t think we think about it. I’m wondering if we think about that aspect of prayer enough for those of us who who do pray. I think that we just don’t take into account that prayer is more than just casting our cares on God, just throwing things at him and saying, “Help me. Get help me get out of this—or whatever.”

There is an aspect of obedience, and that’s kind of what I want to talk through as I go through this psalm. Psalm 31 is what we’re going to look at. But prayer in itself, which is the ability to communicate with our creator. I think it started way back in the Garden of Eden, and Adam and Eve used to walk in the cool of the day in the garden and talk to God.

And I don’t really see or know specifically how that morphed into our current prayer life. You know how we pray today, but we do see prayers all throughout the Bible, and it’s just a privilege that I think our God has given us. Not only is it a privilege, but it’s also something I think that involves an aspect of surrender when we come to God. It involves trust that he’s there. It takes vulnerability on our part to actually come before the throne of grace, as the Bible calls it.

And then, really when we open our hearts and our needs to the Father, that also involves listening and believing that he hears. So if we’re actively praying about something without listening or looking for God to answer, we might be missing one of the biggest aspects of prayer, which is obedience.

Like if I’m praying about something—my obedience or what I might hear or sense—it’s that I just really need to keep praying about this. It’s something I don’t have a peace about. I have no idea what the answer is or the outcome is going to be. That could be my obedience is just keep praying about it.

It could be that maybe God impresses on me to go to somebody. Maybe I need to ask her forgiveness. Maybe there’s something that’s creating a barrier between me and God. You know, that’s obedience.

Do I hear that? Should I meet that person? Or do I pick up the phone and call them? Has he put someone on my heart that I need to talk to? Maybe it isn’t about forgiveness. And so do I do that? Or am I thinking, Oh, that’s just my brain, the way it works, you know, maybe it is God, but it doesn’t hurt to send a text or pick up the phone and just say, “Hey, I just thought about you today. What’s going on?”

And it could be, though, that as a result of our prayers, God wants us to start something, start something new, start doing something we haven’t done before. Maybe he calls us to stop doing something that is not healthy for us or it’s not putting us on the path that he really wants us to be on. So starting something or stopping something that practice of listening actually just opens up what our next steps might be as a result of prayer.

Again, instead of just lining all this up before him and then walking off and expecting the magic wand to make everything right, you know, there could be something more that we need to do to cooperate with God right now.

Kay >> Yeah, it might be for God to answer that prayer that we have to act in some way.

Claudia >> Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So in Psalm 31, I really started studying it with that in mind because I love David’s psalms. I love David. I cannot wait to meet him in heaven. And this again is a heart cry from David. He pours out his heart. He’s so honest in most of the psalms that he’s written. But in this one, he’s in trouble and he’s exhausted. And he says he feels like a broken vessel.

And I don’t know about you, but I can relate to that sometimes feeling like a broken vessel. I’m just exhausted. Exhausted sometimes that I just don’t feel like praying, and so I just want to go to bed and sleep. I just, you know, maybe the main thing that I need to do is prayer.

So it’s again, it’s just this honest prayer that David writes, speaks before God and telling him about the situation, and how David’s feeling, and how he’s interpreting it. Because sometimes our interpretation isn’t the correct interpretation of our circumstance, right? But it’s also a reminder which we’ll see of just David’s faith and his trust in God, that God will take care of him. Just like we see in lots of David’s psalms, you know, regardless of what life looks like, what it felt like at the time, because we can’t rely on our feelings on our emotions all the time.

And then we’re also going to see how David was not only here, but again, in many of the things he wrote, just how he was obedient and how he worshiped and how he trusted and loved the Lord. So Psalm 31 is 24 verses. It’s not short, but it’s not really long. And so I just thought maybe if we just go through it and we pick out some things, quite a few things.

That’s really the basis for this is to see, just see what we need to see here. Right?

So three distinct lists emerged out of this psalm, and I don’t take the credit for being the first one to do this. I’ve not seen it, but I’m sure everybody who studied Psalm 31 in depth does the same thing.

But I did it because I felt like that’s what I was supposed to do. So as I looked closely through these, mainly I saw this thread of obedience that just spoke to me. And I want to keep going back to that to see how does my prayer life show obedience? Is it fruitful that way? Because obedience leads to transformation. I believe.

So let’s just run through this. I’m just going to read through the Psalm and the three lists are: first. we’re going to look at who is God; what does he do; and what am I supposed to do?

Or what did David do? And David, you know, basically is the best example of what we’re supposed to do. So that is where I’m going to go. So we’re going to start with Psalm 31.

Right off the bat we see some things about who is God. David calls him Lord. He says he’s a righteous God. So that’s who is God. He’s Lord, He’s righteous.

What does he do? David says, “in your righteousness, you rescue me.” So God is a rescuer. That’s what he does.

And David says in this same verse, “I’ve placed my trust and taken refuge in you.” That’s obedience. And I just love David just right away, starting out with that statement of obedience.

In verse two, “Incline your ear to me. Deliver me quickly. Be my rock of refuge and a strong fortress to save me.” Yeah. And we see God as a deliverer. That’s who he is. He’s a rock of refuge. He’s a strong fortress. And David says, being those things save me. And that’s what God does, right? He saves us. So that’s what he does, and he delivers us. He saves us.

He says, “Yes, you are my rock and my fortress for your name’s sake you will lead me and guide me.” God is a leader, and God guides us. It’s not just WHO he is that he’s a leader and he guides our lives, but it’s WHAT he does. God acts out of his character right of who he is.

And I have to ask myself, is that what I do? Do I act in line with my character or do I act like somebody else? You know what? Would people be surprised that I love to read the Bible because of the way I act in other words? So I love reading that too, that we see who God is and what he does just comes out of who he is.

“You will draw me out of the net that they have secretly laid for me, for you are my strength and my stronghold.” God is a strength and a stronghold—verse four. We see that very clearly in verse five: “Into your hand I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me. Oh, Lord, the God of truth and faithfulness.” David obediently commits himself to God.

That’s obedience, you know. Have we done that? Do we do that? Or are we just like, “God, you’re my last resort.” You know, I’m just going to tell you—I’m not saying God won’t answer when we come to him as a last resort. But, David, just right up front, “I commit to you, my spirit. You have redeemed me.” So God redeems. He’s a God of truth and faithfulness.

And then he says,” I hate those who pay regard to vain idols, but I trust in the Lord.” Once again, he makes that statement in obedience. I trust in you and God is trustworthy. That’s who God is. We can trust him with our worship and our faith and with everything.

In verse seven, David says, “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love because you have seen my affliction. You have taken note of my life’s distresses, and you have not given me into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a broad place.”

David starts off that verse with “I’ll rejoice and be glad.” That’s obedience. Rejoice and be glad in what? In God’s steadfast love. God loves—that’s who he is. That’s what he does.

And in both that verse and verse eight, David says, “You’ve seen my selection. You’ve not given me into the hand of the enemy.” So we see God as someone who sees us. He sees us. He knows what we’re going through, and he protects us.

When David says, “You haven’t given me into the hand of the enemy. God’s our protector be gracious and compassionate to me, O LORD, for I am in trouble. My eyes clouded and weakened by grief, my soul and my body also.” We see God as gracious and compassionate. David just says, “This is who you are, Lord.”

And then his obedience comes in when he admits his weakness. He says, “I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble, and I’m weak.”

And in one of our previous discussions on prayer, we talked about we don’t like to be weak. People don’t like to admit that they can’t do something or they can’t overcome something. And I think that sometimes comes into our prayer life. Is it embarrassing that we’re weak?

So he says his eye is clouded and weakened, so he’s admitting his weakness before God. He is submitting to God’s strength when he has none of his own.

And then we’ll see in verses 10 through 13 this deeper aspect of his vulnerability before God.

He says, “For my life is spent with sorrow and my years with sighing. My strength is failed because of my iniquity. And even my body has wasted away. Because of all my enemies, I’ve become a reproach and a disgrace, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances. Those who see me on the street run from me. I’m forgotten like a dead man out of mind. I’m like a broken vessel. For I have heard the slander and whispering of many. Terror is on every side. While they schemed together against me, they plotted to take away my life.”

So as I alluded to earlier, we see David just laying this—this is what’s happening. This is what’s going on. Not that God doesn’t know it, but again, we can put it before him, just letting him know this is where I am. I really need you. I do not know what to do and not hiding things because God knows anyway.

So just admitting that before the Father is not only obedient, it’s a very healthy thing to do and not to try to hide those things or think things aren’t as bad as they really are. Sometimes we do that, we kind of gloss over it or we have this pat answer like, “But God’s got it. It’s going to be okay.” Is it?

You know, I see a lot of people and stories in the Bible where it’s not really okay for a long time. And maybe you just need to continue that prayer life or ask others to pray for you.

So there’s David laying out his situation in front of God.

And then in verse 14, he says, “But as for me, I trust confidently in you and your greatness. Oh Lord, I said, you are my God. My times are in your hands. Rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from those who pursue and persecute me.”

This verse has been like a life verse to me for longer than I can remember.

Well, you are, my God, my times are in your hands. I didn’t really talk about the rescuing aspect, but I probably should have because there have been times that I’ve needed rescue. I did kind of add it in there for a few years because I felt like I had some enemies.

But I love again that David just declares his trust that he confidently trusts in God—that God is great. And he says, “You are my God. That’s just a confession. God likes to hear that. That’s praising his name and declaring, “You’re my God, I want to worship you. And I know my times are in your hands. They’re not really in mine, but you are going to rescue me out of the hand of my enemies.”

And that’s just such a beautiful picture to me of again, of just praise and confession of who God is. That was verse 14,15.

So in verse 16: “Make your face shine upon your servant. Save me in your lovingkindness.” The obedience I see there is that David asks. He says, “Save me.” It brings it all down to this one thing. He talks about rescuing me and things that are going on, but he just says, “Save me in your lovingkindness.”

And I wonder sometimes if we just don’t ask for what we need in a situation or with a person or in a relationship, whatever that might be. That could be one of the problems right there. In obedience you need to ask. You need to come before the Father and ask for what it is that you need. Again, not that he doesn’t know, right? But we’re told to ask.

In verse 17, 18. And 18, he talks about—Well, I’ll tell you in a minute. Let me read this verse. “Let me not be put to shame. Oh Lord, for I call on you. Let the wicked be put to shame. Let them be silent in Sheol,” which is the netherworld or the place of the dead.

“Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently and arrogantly against the consistently righteous with pride and contempt.”

Well that’s kind of a hard verse, but we know that in there we’re supposed to pray for our enemies, right? I’m pretty sure the Bible tells us to pray for our enemies. Yes, and it’s sometimes very hard to do well. But after reading, I feel like it is David’s prayer for his enemies in these verses.

“Let me not be put to shame. Let them be put to shame”, which sounds so wrong if you’re supposed to love your enemies, and pray for your enemies. But the truth is, these people are— they’re denying Christ. They are against David. They’re against everything David stands for. And so David’s just saying, “I’m just asking you to come in and see the difference here between them and between me.

And help these enemies to stop what they’re doing, what they’re saying, because it’s not in their best interest to continue to be insolent and wicked.” Right? It’s not in their or anyone’s best interest. So for me, I see. That is almost like David being obedient and praying for his enemies. Maybe that’s a stretch.

Kay >> Well, you know, if David’s going to be protected and safe from them, then something has to happen to them. I mean, you can’t be saved from somebody who continues doing what they’ve been doing. So it’s sort of like, yeah, there’s got to be a balance here, because for one thing to happen, then something has to happen on the other side, too.

Claudia >> Exactly. That’s true. Yeah.

In verse 19, “How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who reverently fear you, which you have prepared for those who take refuge in you before the sons of man!”

Again, we see David speaking of God’s goodness, and he is good and he acts out of his goodness.

“In the secret place of your presence, you hide them from the plots and conspiracies of man. You keep them secretly in a shelter from the strife of tongues.”

That’s just a picture again of God’s protection and sometimes a protection that I believe we’re not even aware of. When we’re in a hard situation, we don’t even know what God is protecting us from, right? Like maybe it could be a lot worse.

Kay >> I just said, isn’t that the truth!

Claudia >> Yes. And David says, “In this secret place of your presence, you hide these people, the ones that fear you and take refuge in you.”

So that’s just a beautiful picture, too, of God being a protector and just his goodness and his compassion I think.

In verse 21: “Blessed be the Lord, for he has shown his marvelous favor in lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.”

Blessed be the Lord. Again, praising God obediently praising God. David starts with that.

Blessed be the Lord. And sometimes I struggle with—who am I to bless the Lord what does that mean? Right? Do you ever think that?

Kay >> Yes, when I first kind of started reading verses that said that, I was like, “How do I bless God?”

Claudia >> Yeah.

Kay >> You know, it’s. Yeah.

Claudia >> This is an interesting—-we’re supposed to do it? But sometimes I’m just saying it may be God knows what we mean or it’s a way to just praise him, you know, and be thanking him.

“For he’s shown his marvelous favor and lovingkindness to me in a besieged city.” So God has shown his marvelous favor and lovingkindness. That is what God has done. And David blesses him for that.

“As for me, I said in my alarm, ‘I am cut off from your eyes.’”

Now, we sometimes say things that aren’t true. Right? And David wasn’t cut off from God’s eyes, but he certainly felt that way. Right. And I love that he clarifies because he says, “I said this in my alarm.”

Like, when you are first kind of overcome with something, you might say things you didn’t really mean or aren’t really true. And I feel like that’s where David is right there.

“I said in my alarm, I am cut off from your eyes. Nevertheless, you heard the voice of my supplications.”

These are specific requests that he had made when I cried to you for help.

Basically, again, we’re supposed to cry out to the Lord, and we see a lot of people through the Bible crying out to the Lord.

It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s something that we do because we know that God is our help.

“Love the Lord, all you, his godly ones,”

Love the Lord—that’s being obedient.

“Love the Lord. The Lord preserves the faithful and fully repays the arrogant.”

Once again, we see God acting. He preserves the faithful. And that’s part of our hope and trust, right? Not just in situations, but for life. You know, end of life, eternal life.

The last verse says, “Be strong and let your hearts take courage. All you who wait for and expectantly, confidently actually, expect the Lord. Be strong and let your hearts take courage. All you who wait for and confidently expect the Lord.”

That is just a statement, I think, that brings it all home for David, for the people that were on his side, so to speak, that might have been in his own camp. And for all of us today, everyone who has ever read this psalm. I believe that that statement is for them.

“Be strong and let your hearts take courage.” Those are two calls to obedience, really. Because we don’t always feel like we have courage. Like we could move into this statement that he calls us to do that.

“All you who wait for and confidently expect the Lord.”

I’m waiting for the Lord. I consider myself in verse 24, and I confidently expect him to come. I love that David ends this psalm on a note of just pure obedience and trust in God that in the midst of all this, when you feel like you’re cut off from God’s eyes, we can still be strong in him. We can take courage and have faith that he’s still who he says he is. That he is still going to hear us, help us. And that’s a, that’s a great—I don’t know—comfort, is it not the comfort? Yeah.

So in reading through that psalm, and I’m sure there are a lot of other things, if anyone read through it, God might show them other things of who he is and what he does and how he’s calling them to be obedient, what are some steps they can take to be obedient in their prayer life.

So we heard David’s belief in God and in we really read a lot about his vulnerability before God. And like I said before, God knew David’s struggle. It wasn’t that he wasn’t aware of what was going on or he was surprised by what David said.

And he knows ours too. But he wants our humility. He wants us to submit before him. And that is, I guess it’s the place where obedience kind of starts with God—is just humbling ourselves before him, right?

And I believe that God wants to answer us. He wants to help us. He wants to use his Holy Spirit to comfort us and also help and guide us. That’s what the Spirit does for us. And that can only happen when we do come before the Father very openly and honestly. And I just feel like if our pride or shame or fear keeps us from praying, or from being, from listening or for being obedient by praying, then that just reveals a lot about not just our faith but our hope.

It I get kind of grieved when I’m in a situation where people are just not comfortable praying because, right? Even “Help!” is a prayer. Or someone doesn’t really want to share a request that there are things going on, but they just don’t feel like it’s big enough for God or that God really cares about that particular thing. But I just know that through our prayers and keeping our heart tuned to God, and asking what we might need to do to cooperate with him in our request, we can learn a lot more about obedience. And I’m kind of looking forward to pursuing that more in my prayer life.

Walking away from my prayers, “God, what is it I need to do or not do or stop doing or start doing?” And that’s where I feel like I am in the whole obedience through prayer or obedience in prayer. Just that aspect of it that, as I said in the beginning, a lot of us maybe don’t consider.

Kay >> Right unless we’re reading like in the epistles and are reading actual commands. You know, there are there are other things besides just actual commands that call for you to do something. And I think like you are telling us, the psalms are full of other types of calls from God— to trust him, to believe in him.

If we read something that says, you know, “I trust in you”, we need to. Are we trusting in him? We need to ask ourselves those questions. It’s not a command necessarily, although sometimes it is a command, but often it’s the psalmist just saying, “I’m putting my trust in you.” And we can obey that same prayer, having that same attitude, reading what the psalmist has said, even though it doesn’t necessarily say “Trust in me.” I think that’s what you’re trying to teach us to do here, and I think that’s a really valuable lesson.

Claudia >> Yeah. It’s just something that just really impacted me. And I just want to pay more attention to it. Just the obedience aspect.

There’s a lot more. I mean, prayer to me is an amazing thing. Right? It is an amazing privilege. So if I’m not participating in that relationship with God as I should be, I want to know how I could be.

So I can improve not only my trust in him, but just deepening our relationship by walking away from prayer and feeling like I am involved. And God does have things for me to do as a result. Of my requests and my circumstances.

Kay >> Yeah, I think one thing that the psalmists do, and David, particularly is to really show us how to be honest with God, which means we have to be honest with ourselves first. Ask where we are and what we need. To ask God about those things, we have to realize we need help, and it’s not just in us to do it.

I think what you said earlier that sometimes people feel like their requests are not big enough for God, and that suggests they’re big enough for you—that you can do everything on your own and you don’t need God. So it’s really a lie that sometimes we believe that we aren’t in need enough.

Claudia >>Right. Yeah.

Kay >> Thank you, Claudia. I think this is really helpful and I think that many people in our audience may have never really thought about this, just never really thought about just reading and realizing that we can do the same thing that David did. We can draw near to God, and we can also see how we need to change. What are we missing? Do I have the faith of David? Yes. I pray the way that David prayed. Yes, I think that’s wonderful.

Claudia >> Okay, good. Yeah. Thank you for just giving me the opportunity to really dig in to it and I enjoyed it.

Kay >> Yeah, well, I’m glad you did. Thank you for sharing with us your insights. For those of you out there, we have some other resources. Claudia and I have talked about prayer before.

And our other resources are on our podcast. We talked about answering questions about prayer. We talked about practical prayer solutions. Kelly Arabie and I talked about that. Claudia and I talked about finding joy through the Psalms, which is really about prayer.

I mean, just like you’ve pointed out here, that’s another way to do it. And so I would encourage you. You can look on our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. You can go to Resources and go down to the bottom of that. There’s a media list where you can search for Claudia’s name or you can search for prayer, the topic. You can do it. Anyway you can take one at the top titles and search for it.

I also wanted to mention that we do have some articles that I wrote on our website, “Why is Prayer So Hard?” And it’s a series of three.

You can search our blog for those. “Why Is Prayer So Hard?” And it would be really easy for you to find. So I would encourage you to do that. I would encourage you to grow in prayer and just pray more and ask and listen. As Claudia said, listen to what God’s telling you as you go through the verses. Just don’t just talk to him about what you need, but listen to what he’s saying to you.

So thank you, Claudia. I look forward to our next time together talking about prayer.

Claudia >> Thank you.