Dr. Jennifer McNutt, author of The Mary We Forgot

BOW Team Member, Sharifa Stevens

Who is the Mary that we forgot? Mary Magdalene. Although she was the first apostle or messenger of the Good News, Dr. Jennifer McNutt says that her story is often confused, scandalized, and undervalued by the church. Don’t miss Dr. McNutt’s lively conversation with Sharifa Stevens about her book, The Mary We Forgot.

In this podcast, Dr. McNutt helps us see Mary’s prominence in the Gospels and how she serves as a model of discipleship for both men and women today instead of being the Mary we forgot.

This episode is also available on video.

00:21 Introducing Dr. Jennifer Powell McNutt

Sharifa >> Hi, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Ordinary Women. My name is Sharifa Stevens, and I have the distinct honor of welcoming Dr. McNutt to our program today. Let me tell you a little bit about this scholar Jennifer Powell McNutt is the Franklin S. Dyrness Chair of Biblical and Theological Studies and Professor of Theology and History of Christianity at Wheaton College.

She is an award-winning author, a fellow in the Royal Historical Society and an ordained teaching elder in the Presbyterian tradition. Dr. McNutt serves as a Parish Associate at her church and regularly speaks at universities, seminaries and churches across the country. She and her husband co-founded McNuttshell Ministries, which is fun to say, which serves as a bridge between the Academy and the church.

They live with their three children in Winfield, Illinois. Dr. McNutt is also the author of a book that we are talking about today, which is called The Mary We Forgot. Go out and get it. Dr. McNutt, it’s an honor to be with you today. Thank you for coming.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you so much for having me. I’m delighted to meet you and to get connected with your ministry and the good work that you’re doing.

Sharifa >> Thank you. Well, why don’t we just dive right into it?

So what compelled you to write The Mary We Forgot? And how did that conviction sustain you through the research and writing and in the process through the years—working and children?

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, I think, it’s been a long journey with Mary Magdalene. I talk a little bit about that journey in my book—about going to see Jesus Christ Superstar as a teenager and being super confused. And sort of wondering and I think, you know, because of the fact that in my church, we really did include the women of the Bible.

But with Mary Magdalene, it was so very muddled, very confused about who she was and what she means when she is this first witness at the empty tomb and before the risen Christ on that Easter Sunday.

You know, there’s so many questions. I think as a woman who was drawn and called to ministry, I have been, you know, wanting to understand the Gospels and women in the Gospels and how they have contributed to Jesus’s ministry. And also in the Pauline epistles as well. I think there are other women that I would go to before I would go to Mary Magdalene.

And a lot of that had to do with kind of the back story that, you know, traveled with her everywhere.

Then, you know, later as a scholar, I worked on the history of the Bible and history of the interpretation of the Bible. And I focused on the Reformation. And it was just so interesting to see how the reformers—both the male reformers and the female reformers—were engaging with Mary Magdalene. Sorting this out is a really important point in our history of interpretation that connects actually with Mary Magdalene’s biblical story. So that also became a question for me.

A friend of mine, a colleague of mine, we began to sort of combine efforts to think about the church, bringing some of this information to the life of the church through magazine articles. And that led to the opportunity to speak for a women in ministry gathering when they were like, “You can choose anybody who you know, who do you want to talk about?”

For me, it was like, “Oh, let’s tackle Mary Magdalene. Let’s retrieve her for the church and as a model of discipleship, not just for women, but for the whole church today.”

And so that was my passion. It just seemed like as the time was going on, I kept bumping into Christians with questions about it and just a lack of clarity.

And I think as again, as a scholar, my desire is to bring clarity—to highlight the things that we have misremembered or that we have forgotten. Or if there’s a part of something that can be edifying and illuminating, not only in the academy, but for me, with my heart for the church, you know, to bring that to the church. This book is meant for the church.

Sharifa >> It really does achieve what you set out to do. And what I appreciated as I went through, I wasn’t just reading about Mary Magdalene, I felt like you made church history quite accessible as we read through. I was just like, “Yeah, okay.”

So also introducing us to people like Gregory, to Charlemagne, and what happened with Charlemagne, and Charlemagne’s mother and traditions that maybe in the Protestant tradition we’re not necessarily aware of.

I think the Reformation was so pivotal in so many ways. But one thing that 500 some odd years later, one of the effects is there’s a lot of history, a lot of tradition that we are not aware of. And so the book does such a good job of uniting the cloud of witnesses. That’s our history, our shared history as Christians.

So thank you for that. I wish we had time to go through all of those nuances, but that’s a really good reason to pick up the book.

I did want to ask if there’s any daylight between Jesus Christ Superstar and what Protestant tradition is saying about Mary Magdalene now. Like, what do we forget as the Protestant church, especially in the United States, since a lot of our audience is in the United States?

Dr. McNutt >> Right. Well, one thing that we have forgotten that is part of the Western Church tradition (so not just Protestant) and then also part of the Protestant tradition is remembering Mary Magdalene as an apostle.

You know, we do have even the reformers (though they, the male reformers, limit the impact that Mary Magdalene can have). But even they recognize her apostlicity—at least in that particular moment where she is called by Jesus by name, sent with a message and witness to proclaim to his remaining disciples this very rich theological declaration that God is our father and that Jesus is our brother, and that we are part of the family of God.

And so that has been something preserved in the Eastern tradition, something that in the West we’ve forgotten, and something that even our Protestant tradition connects with.

I take that even further to say not only is this the tradition, but it’s a good reading of the biblical standard of apostle, which means messenger-witness. Jesus makes her his messenger and witness. So there’s many other things to unpack there, but I’ll start there.

Sharifa >> I mean, right, I’m always in awe honestly of the fact that Jesus chose Mary Magdalene specifically to be a witness of his resurrection.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Exactly.

Sharifa >> It’s empty tomb. She saw an empty tomb and the risen Christ.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Right. Well, the Gospels go out of their way to highlight her presence throughout. So that’s one of the reasons why we can claim her as an apostle is because she’s part of Jesus’s ministry from Galilee to Jerusalem and therefore permitted to be part of that, in participating in that, contributing in that, walking literally in his steps with him.

It highlights her witness at the cross; she sees Jesus’s death. She sees his body being placed in the tomb and the tomb being sealed. That’s another detail that’s highlighted about her witness.

Sharifa >> Yes.

Dr. McNutt >> Then we see her come in early at the dawning of the day and see the empty tomb and then encountering the risen Christ. And two of the accounts emphasize her, as the first or among the first. John, chapter 20 says she was the first. So that has been baffling to the church for centuries across the traditions. “What do we make of the fact that this is how it happened, that if God could do it any way, why would he use her?’

And I feel like that question has not always been answered very well in the life of our church in the preaching on Easter Sunday morning. When we preached about the women there, even in the history of actually Jesus, sometimes there’s been really helpful, insightful answers and sometimes it’s been very clouded by our cultural and social readings of women.

And also our assumptions about her back-story have prevented us, have obstructed us from really seeing her rightly and seen what she means in the gospel accounts and what she means for how we understand who Christ is in that resurrection moment.

So those are anyway— I’m going off.

Sharifa >> Would you care to elaborate on any part of that? Like I don’t know which one because it sounds like we’re seeing that like Mary Magdalene is kind of a Rorschach test, kind of like a mirror to what we believe about who God is and about who women are and about the inter-relationship between the two.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Exactly. Well, we have tended to read her story through the lens of prostitution, and that has been, that has been very harmful, or it’s been— sorry, I guess the way I would say it is a distraction. It’s been a distraction from being able to see what it means for not only a woman but a woman who was formerly demon-oppressed and delivered from that situation to be the one who witnesses Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

And, you know, so we’ve been missing that part of it. I think because we’ve been very focused on her model, her example as penitent prostitute.

Sharifa >> And that serves as a remembrance example.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. And it starts, it happens very early on in the history of interpretation, and it develops over time.

Then as you’re saying, she’s a test for how we are kind of a mirror for our own culture. Right? In the moments when the Christian culture was elevating monasticism, she becomes the perfect model of monasticism and as penitent prostitute, you know. When the church was emphasizing the need for preaching, she becomes a model of preacher-evangelist.

So we haven’t always rooted her in the biblical account and that’s what I’m trying to do.

Sharifa >> So when we rightly root her, who is she? What do you in your prophetic imagination see that she came from and was delivered from in order to be a follower of Christ?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah. So I would say that this part of Jesus’s ministry in the West we have often overlooked that Jesus is an exorcist, and he’s a very successful exorcist. And I am a Presbyterian. I just, to qualify—I’m saying I’m not a Pentecostal, like I’m a Presbyterian.

Sharifa >> Talk about the biblical record which is talking about demon possession and exorcism.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, and exorcism because it is the signal of God’s kingdom coming on Earth. And when we too easily cut that out of our stories of Jesus and we focus on these other things.

So there’s a few chapters that I would point to. One would be Matthew 12 and Luke, chapter eight.

I think that’s those are the places to start because in Luke, chapter eight, in those first three verses, this is where Luke names Mary Magdalene and names three women, and then mentions that there are many others who are with Jesus’s ministry. And so they are traveling with Jesus, this itinerant ministry. And we should be surprised by some of the things there.

One is that she is not identified with a man. She’s not identified with the father or son or husband. She’s identified with a location which is also interpreted in the history of the church, as well, as perhaps a nickname for her strength of faith. And so she’s a tower. So Mary Magdalene from Magdala to Magdalene, meaning tower, tower of strength.

And so we see that part. We see that she is a contributor financially to Jesus’s ministry and that she’s named first among this group, so perhaps the single greatest contributor. So to me the other element that’s included is that she was freed from seven demons. That’s where we would maybe go to Matthew 12. Jesus talks about the significance of seven demons specifically in that chapter.

And I think that can give us an idea. He talks about the extreme experience of a person perhaps who’s had a faulty exorcism and was only experiencing this grip of demonic power to one extent but then became magnified by a faulty exorcism. And so she is kind of in an extreme situation, I would say.

Then if you go from Luke eight and keep going in that chapter, you can see the parable of the sower and then we get the story of the Gerasene man. I think that we can use the other passages of Scripture that are highlighting people’s experiences with demon oppression as a way to at least think about, you know, biblically, what she might have experienced.

In Matthew 12, when Jesus talks about the, you know, the seven demons, there’s also someone who’s brought to Jesus who is a demoniac, and he is blind, and he’s mute and, you know, maybe not even aware of what’s going on for him. The Gerasene man is shrieking and unable to wear clothing. You know, it’s just very extreme.

So we don’t know. And I think it’s important to say that the Gospels invite us to remember her as healed, fully healed by Jesus’s power, and so that’s how we’re supposed to remember her. But we can still see this was a very significant case of oppression and you know, she was freed from that.

And so then in my, as you say, prophetic imagination (I love that!), I see her as just completely transforming her life from whatever it was she was doing before. We don’t know. She obviously has money. And so whatever she was doing before to walk with Jesus, to give of her resources, to support his ministry, to listen and learn as a disciple and to partake—

Sharifa >> Invited to participate.

Dr. McNutt >> That’s right. Well, we don’t get to see that encounter, but we know that other people who asked Jesus to join don’t always get to join his ministry. So it’s not just anybody willy-nilly.

But I think, you know, Jesus knew what an important witness she was going to be. And the gospel writers then know what has happened. They’re either writing it at the time or right after. And so they know how important she is, and so they are including her, and they include her at a rate that is surprising for a woman, and that is even more than most of the disciples. So she is really prominent in our New Testament.

Sharifa >> There’s so much we would not get without her testimony here yet. I love that you concluded by using the word surprise because in your book you mention a hermeneutic of surprise, which I think is a delightful description. But I would like if you could describe the hermeneutical surprise to our audience and tell us what that means and what the implications are for that.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, thank you. I am speaking out of the field of biblical studies and hermeneutic, meaning interpretation. There are all these different ways to interpret Scripture throughout the history of the church. Sometimes there’s been controversy over what’s the best way. But in the modern/postmodern approach, the most prominent way has been a hermeneutic of suspicion. So just to suppose that the writers are maybe hiding something or simply reflective of their time.

And so but as a historian, I’m bringing historian eyes to the text.

Because, you know, sometimes the past surprises us in its context. Not just that I don’t know very much about the topic, and now I am learning, and I’m surprised by what I’m seen. That’s not what I mean by a hermeneutic of surprise.

The hermeneutic I mean is that actually in the text there are surprising things happening in its context that we need to be alert to.

So, for example, we may expect that the Bible would name women because of how our culture is more and more, I think, remembering and including the names of women. But we would be missing the fact that the literature of that time, that would not be the standard for the time. And so sometimes I hear a critique, “oh, the Bible doesn’t name enough women,” That’s not actually what we need to, I think, concern ourselves with as much as the fact that it is naming women and that is not the standard for its time. So it’s already going in a different direction.

And really the best example of that is Jesus’s genealogy. The fact that there are women included just defies the genre. So what is happening in the Bible when in its own time period it is pushing the practices and pushing, you know, it’s countercultural in that way. And so that’s part of it.

So I think Mary Magdalene and the fact that the women are with Jesus, you know, there are all these little elements of surprise that are present there, but especially the fact that she is at the empty tomb and then is the messenger of this news.

Sharifa >> Yeah, so it’s an optimistic also. It’s a lot of hope, but it’s also—when I read your words about it in in your book, I also thought of Jesus himself using the hermeneutic of surprise or at least using the rhetoric of surprise and impulse. And so there’s a Samaritan being the good guy.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah. What do you do?

Sharifa >> You know, there’s a woman finding a lost coin. A woman as an example of God’s love, okay?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> So it’s just the Scriptures use this rhetoric of surprise. Why not use a hermeneutic of surprise?

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah, right.

Sharifa >> Okay, so let’s see. How does Mary Magdalene’s story demonstrate what power looks like and how it’s manifested in God’s kingdom?

Dr. McNutt >> Well, I think her story is evidence of God’s power.

You know in art history you’ll see John the Baptist will be depicted, and he’s always like pointing to Jesus on the cross. So I think that that’s what she does. She is pointing us to the fact that Jesus is not only Savior Messiah, but that he is King and Lord.

And I think really that’s what we have been missing.

If we refuse or are uncomfortable, usually, I think it’s probably uncomfortable thinking about Jesus and exorcism, but that’s actually how the Gospels highlight what that means. And her story is one especially (I mean, we don’t know for sure) but if she’s not even aware that Jesus is saving her, then it is about God’s activity actively pulling us up out of the pit, whatever it is that is constraining us, leading us into that despair and that hopelessness and is coming to redeem and bring us and pull us out of that to give us hope that only he can offer.

And that is a hope that is permanent. It isn’t one that can be lost. It is a definitive defeat of evil in our world and in our lives. And that’s the thing we can, I think we can hold on to. And that that transforms us. It transforms who we are, what we do with our time and what we listen to and how we use our our money and where we go.

You know, it should all pivot around Christ because of that transformation that’s possible through him. So that’s partly what I think she says.

Sharifa >> Oh, absolutely. And the vulnerability and helplessness of a person who is beleaguered.

Dr. McNutt >> Mmm.

Sharifa >> But God, being rich and mercy and compassion. You know there’s a form of power that is only for itself, that is consumptive. And that is not the way of the Kingdom of God. The power that is exerted in the Kingdom of God, it heals. The power exerted in the Kingdom of God, it frees. When power is exerted in the Kingdom of God, it, it makes family out of orphans.

Dr. McNutt >> Yes. Beautifully said. Yes.

Sharifa >> That’s also what I see with Mary Magdalene. We don’t know why she’s not associated with a family name. She is family.

Dr. McNutt >> She’s family. That’s right. That’s right.

Sharifa >> You know, she’s claimed. We don’t know what her experience—we know it’s got to be negative with demons. But we know that she was so fully liberated that she was trusted as the first to say, “I have seen the Lord.” There’s such a compassionate and merciful life-giving quality to power when it is in the hands of Jesus.

Dr. McNutt >> Yeah.

Sharifa >> So anyway.

Dr. McNutt >> That’s was beautiful.

Sharifa >> Preach it.

Dr. McNutt >> I was just going to say that.

Sharifa >> I’m going to do a, like, shift but not really.

Do you have advice for women who feel called by Jesus, but also feel hampered perhaps by a limiting church culture?

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, I have so much compassion for women in those situations who long to be faithful and obedient and right to follow God’s Word. And I’ve met so many women in that situation. I actually don’t come from that tradition, from that experience as much. And so it’s so interesting to me that the Lord has brought me to speak into those contexts.

I hope that it can be a comforting encouragement. But one of the things, especially as I speak, we speak to Protestant Christians, you know. So when Martin Luther was facing this challenge of he’s just been excommunicated from the church—

Sharifa >> Right.

Dr. McNutt >> When he has been called to stand before the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Fifth. And he’s written these things and he’s been asked to revoke his writings. You know we have often remembered that he says, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” but that might not be actually something he says—but anyway,

Sharifa >> Get out!

Dr. McNutt >> Yes, sorry. Reformation scholar here.

But what we do know that for sure that he says this: “My conscience is captive to the Word of God.” So that is probably the dominant principle I would say, of being part of the Protestant church is that our consciences are meant to be captive to God’s Word. And we want to know what God has revealed there and to walk faithfully in that example.

This is where, like the women of the Bible (Mary Magdalene, is a great example.) we don’t hear the whole story of anybody. But so we want to see the different examples of women in the Bible—Tabitha, who’s named as a disciple, Julia who’s named as an apostle, and Phoebe, who’s named as a deacon, and Mary Magdalene who’s remembered as an apostle, and I think for good biblical reasons.

All of those kinds of things can, I think, bring encouragement and bring a zeal that is allowed, and really that God encourages through the gift of the Holy Spirit you know, that is not gendered. The Holy Spirit’s gifts are not gendered.

And so I would say, the women of the Reformation when they were hearing what Luther was teaching (and they were reading Scripture often for the very first time and engaging with Scripture for the very first time), they looked to the parable of the talents as something to convict their hearts—to say, am I in this situation? Am I bearing my talents or am I growing and offering them to Christ?

And if you are in a place that is forcing you to bear your talents for Christ, then it’s probably not a good place to be in. But I wouldn’t say, I wouldn’t be able to say blanket statements in all of these cases because I think that the Word can be at work again in unexpected and surprising ways.

And, you know, we seek to be faithful in and also the place where God has given us.

And so that’s kind of my answer. You’re sorting out with the Lord. You know, what does the Lord have for me in the time that I have on this Earth? (None of us knows how long that is, you know). And in the disruptions of the Holy Spirit, in internal disruption to the Holy Spirit, pushing us to go beyond sometimes the limits of what we can see is also a gracious thing and a gift.

So yeah, those are some thoughts.

Sharifa >> So my last question, I wanted to ask you who you would identify as the Mary Magdalenes of our day who are unexpected people called by God to work in unexpected ways, or and how do we train ourselves to identify Mary Magdalene and run with them.

Dr. McNutt >> Right. I love that.

Yeah. So well, here is where I would think about that story of the widow giving her two coins, which those two coins together are worth the least out of the currency of the Roman Empire.

What I love about that scene is I think it’s that hidden faithfulness. It is that, you know, Jesus is like, “Hey, pay attention here. Do you see what’s going on here?” So it’s like putting on the eyes of Jesus to look around and to see some of that hidden faithfulness.

The fact of the matter is that because Jesus knew her and knew the sacrifice that she was making, it turns out it was a much greater contribution than any of those who are parading around in their wealth and showing off their great deeds and these kinds of things.

So I think there is something about the anonymity or the hidden, faithful life that is such a beautiful thing. Things that we would not esteem, you know, really are value that are actually these great contributions to the Kingdom of God.

Like Sunday school. Like teaching Sunday school. And raising children and caring for children and in equipping them in their spiritual lives, I think is something that is sometimes demeaned in our culture or even in our churches, sometimes as not a great kingdom builder. And yet it is this wonderful contribution and necessary one.

So I think it’s more about that is putting on to not be necessarily dazzled by the big expressions of faith but to also see it in those in the small moments, in the small things as well.

Mary Magdalene, the Mary Magdalene of our age I guess would be, kind of, could be anybody.

Anybody. Yeah that’s the beauty of it—it is anybody who has been called by the Lord to contribute and to proclaim who Christ is, the Risen Lord and all that that means for us—the kingdom come.

So yeah. So I wouldn’t want to just put it on one person, but it could be anybody.

Sharifa >> It’s the person who’s running, pointing saying, “I’ve seen the Lord.”

Dr. McNutt >> Right.

Sharifa >> Yes. I mean I could go on with you forever. I know you have to go, but your book is such a great remembrance of who Mary Magdalene was.

There is so much we did not talk about in this interview. I had no idea about who she is to France and her ministry to France. So people who are listening or watching can learn more about that, learn more about books like, oh, my goodness, is it The Golden Legend?

Dr. McNutt >> Golden Legend? Yes.

Sharifa >> Wow, what an epic!

So to learn more about our family history in the medieval times that you make so accessible to us. And so The Mary We Forgot is something that I think our audience will benefit from if they want to delve more into the historical, even extra biblical evidence of who Mary Magdalene is and just receive encouragement from one of our sisters in the faith. And that’s something that both men and women in the faith always benefit from.

So thanks again, Dr. McNutt, for being here.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you for having me. I loved our conversation. Thank you so much for having me. You’re so funny. We have to talk more.

Sharifa >> I would like to thank you for taking my giggles through it.

Dr. McNutt >> I love it.

Sharifa >> And I want to remind our audience who are listening or watching that you can find more resources about this topic and others by going to our website. We are Beyond Ordinary Women, and the website is beyondordinarywomen.org.

Thank you.

Dr. McNutt >> Thank you.

Julie Pierce

Kay Daigle

There is an art to giving and receiving feedback. Leaders benefit from feedback by growing as leaders themselves and helping those who work with them. Executive Coach Julie Pierce joins Kay Daigle to discuss how and why to give and receive feedback. Julie’s suggestions are very practical and transferable to any situation.

If you have been blindsided by critical feedback (as most of us as leaders have at some point), Julie will help you deal with that and learn to embrace it.

Julie provides great practical suggestions to help you start giving and receiving feedback so that you reach your full potential as a leader.

If you prefer, this episode is available to watch on video.

00:21 Introduction to Julie & why feedback is hard

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast as well as video. My special guest today is Julie Pierce. Welcome, Julie.

Julie >> Thanks for having me, Kay.

Kay >> Oh, we’re so happy that you’re here today and that we’re having this conversation. We’re going to be talking about the art of giving and receiving feedback, and that goes along with your role. You’re an executive coach. You develop leaders one-on-one through coaching. You consult with teams; you communicate with groups; you do all that kind of leadership communication stuff.

You can read more about Julie on her bio on our website at beyondordinarywomen.org. And Julie, I have your website as JuliePierceLeadership.com. Is that it?

Julie >> Yes, that’s me.

Kay >> And Pierce is P I E R C E, right?

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> Is there more than one way to spell Pierce?

Julie >> There are a lot of different ways, but the best way is pie.

Kay >> That’s good.

Julie >> About right. I mean, that’s one of my favorites, so that’s good.

Kay >> Well, today we are talking about feedback. And as Julie wrote in her notes to me, “Is feedback the other F word?” And why do you say that? Because we hate feedback? Because it’s tough? Why do you feel that way about it?

Julie >> You know, I say it that way, and obviously I’m joking! And yet there’s a little bit of truth behind every joke, right? Because we all are so scared of getting any kind of feedback because feedback has become this dirty word. Where we immediately assume it’s going to be this deep cutting criticism that is just going to cut to our core instead of this life-giving catalyst for our growth.

And so if we can shift our mindset around it, and if we can get some skills about how to give and receive feedback, it really can be one of the key things that just unlocks our potential and really what God has for us and for those we lead. So it’s really critical, and yet we just have that often had such terrible experiences,

Quite honestly, like each one of us probably has a horror story to tell about someone who offered to give us some feedback, and really they just wanted to beat us up a little bit.

And so that’s often we have just a little bit of trauma in our background from feedback. And so we just say, “Oh, never mind, I’m not going to touch that with a ten foot pole.” So I think if we can get the skills and if we can shift our mindset about how we think about it, it really can unlock some amazing growth process.

Kay >> Right. Well, you know, speaking of people having that kind of reaction, I remember that years ago I handed out to some Bible study leaders like a self-evaluation and I got feedback from one of my friends who said so-and-so was really complaining about it because she said, “This is just like a job evaluation.” And she was just really put out over the whole thing.

So I never quite did that same thing again because once I got that kind of feedback about it, it was like, “I guess I’ll just stay away from that, you know?”

Julie >> Yeah. And again, everybody’s come in with their own stories. Their own awful experiences they’ve had about it. And so again, really, if we can just change our mindset, change our thinking, about it.

Then really think about giving and receiving feedback as just this key essential ingredient for our growth and for us to step into our potential and for the people on our team as well, then it is no longer, you know, the other F word, and now it’s just really this life-giving, necessary element of our leadership.

Kay >> You think we’re afraid of what we think’s going to happen?

Julie >> I think we’re afraid of a lot of things. Well, I think the biggest thing is honestly, we want people to like us. And so I’m afraid to give any feedback because I don’t want you to be put out with me or not like me any more because of what I just said. So we really, we want people to like us.

And we’re also afraid to receive feedback because we want people to like us. You know, like I don’t want you to see anything wrong with what I did and now think that maybe I’m not good enough for this role or I’m not, you know—whatever all the things in our minds.

And I also think, again, like we just talked about, you know, we’ve got some of those previous experiences, you know, and so that’s coming to the table, too. And so we’re a little afraid of history repeating itself. And so that’s where those skills really come in.

And again, just changing our mindset and seeing those conversations as really a window to growth and to what God might have next for us.

Kay >> And it’s hard to grow if you really don’t have any idea how you need to grow.

Julie >> Yes. Yes, that’s a great word.

Kay >> It’s just sort of like you’re just kind of . . . And of course, I feel like and because I have been like this, I feel like so many of us have imposter syndrome. We’re just so afraid that somebody is going to unmask us and we’re going to find out that we don’t know what we’re doing, that we’re just incapable.

And so if we invite that in, that’s stupid. I mean, why would I want that? I don’t want to be unmasked, to let everybody know that I have no business doing what I think I’m supposed to do in this position.

Julie >> Yes. You’re absolutely right. That’s 100% true. That imposter syndrome prevents us from wanting to hear any of that. When the truth is, of course, none of us know everything about what we’re doing. None of us have it all figured out. You know, why do we keep trying to walk around as if we do? None of us have it all figured out.

Nobody has arrived. We’re all beginners in something. And the sooner we, like, accept that and are okay with that it has nothing to do with my calling. It has nothing to do with my value or worth. And yeah, we’re all kind of walking around figuring it out as we go along.

And so you’re right. I think that imposter syndrome that we all adapt sometimes really does set us back in the feedback department.

Kay >> So why is feedback so important? Why are we talking about that today?

Julie >> Well, like I said, it’s not only important for us, but it’s also essential for the people we lead.

I think, you know, we kind of go into one of two. They’re the spectrum of feedback. We either go into—we’re hypercritical and we you know, just pick apart every little thing.

Or we go to the other side of the spectrum. We’re just radio silent and everything’s great. You’re doing great, and we never give any feedback at all.

If we gave just consistent, ongoing feedback to those that we lead, we would see exponential growth happen. And also, if we invited that consistent, ongoing feedback for ourselves, the lid would be taken off our potential as well.

And so it really is one of just the key catalytic ingredients that takes us from here to our God-given potential.

Kay >> And so let’s start with how we give feedback to others, particularly since our audience in many cases is leaders. As a leader how do we give feedback to those whom we serve and minister to—like the woman who felt like I was just giving her some sort of a job evaluation instead of a self-evaluation for her to work through.

How do we do that well with those that we serve?

Julie >> Yeah, great question. Well, I think there’s a couple of foundational pieces that have to be there.

And one is a foundational level of trust between you and me on our team. Right? And so that comes through developing relationships with people, you know, all the things that we know to be true, you know, in any relationship, right? Is that we want to really know each other.

And what do they need to know about me as a leader? They need to know that I am for them, and that I will do anything to help them be crazy successful in their role.

And they need to know that I know them and I see them. So all of those things have to be in place right? That relational foundation, that foundation of trust between us.

Then I think another kind of foundational thing that has to be there before we even get into the skills of how to give it, is that there needs to be kind of a level set—sometimes even hitting the reset button, you know, on our culture of our team saying—hey, we’re going to be a culture, a coaching culture. We’re going to be a culture that we grow as a team together.

We want to get better in not only our skills, but in our leadership, because that’s going to help us step towards our God-given potential. And one of the ways we do that is through consistent feedback.

And so we just like reset, like, “Hey, this is just who we are as a team, who we are as a ministry, and who we are as an organization. As we are going to be growing together, we don’t ever want to arrive. We always want to be getting better in our skills and in our leadership.

“And so one of the ways is we’re just going to give each other feedback on how things are going so that we can improve for the people that we’re leading and serving.” Right?

So I think if we can do those two foundational things of just building relationship in order to build trust, and then also kind of resetting, “Hey, we as a team, this is who we are and this is how we’re going to grow together.” That really sets us up well to then actually start giving the feedback.

And so one of the things when I think about giving feedback, I think there’s a few things that need to be at play.

One, we need to give concise feedback, and it also needs to be specific, but that’s hard for us. That’s hard for us to be specific. And it also needs to be sincere. So concise, specific and sincere.

Now, what do I mean by those words? Concise, we do not need to write them a five page bullet-pointed message about that tiny thing that needs to be improved most often. It needs to just be a quick comment: “Hey, I noticed this. Would you try this next time?” “Hey, what did you think about that? How can we improve that next time?”

Right? Just a quick conversation, concise.

And it also needs to be specific. You and I both know there is nothing worse than, you know, working on a project, launching something new. And you ask someone, “Hey, what did you think about that? I’d love to hear any feedback you have to say.”

And then they go, “Oh, it was great.” That doesn’t help me. Not it. Not a darn bit. So we need to be specific in our feedback and say specifically what worked, what went right.

And then we also need to be sincere. We don’t need to be telling people, “Oh, you did a good job,” when everybody else around them is going, “Oh, no, that was terrible.”

We need to be sincere. And that being sincere, we’re laughing about it. But being sincere and honest and authentic about it builds trust. Because if everybody around you is watching, you go, “Oh, that was good,” when everybody around you knows that was terrible.

Yeah, that breaks trust with them, right? It breaks trust on the team. And so we really have to be concise specific and sincere in our feedback. And we want to do that with both praise and correction.

Sometimes we tend to only do one or the other, right? And we need to be real consistent in giving both praise and correction.

I’m not talking about compliment sandwich. Like that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about where when we see something great we say it. We don’t save it for our meeting. We don’t save it for some other time. We don’t think, “Oh, what? I mean, they know they’re great. If I just go around praising them all the time, then they’re just going to get a big head and they’re going to be so polite.”

Come on! Most people on our teams are so beat up by life, the world, all that. We can’t overpraise people like, let’s just complement them. You know, we don’t have to be have scarcity mentality when it comes to praise.

And then when it comes to correction, sometimes we can be real scarce with that. Oh, we don’t like it but again, if we built that foundation of relationship and trust and if we’ve set the tone, “Hey, we’re going to be given that consistent feedback all the time.”

Then it becomes, “Oh, okay. Well, of course that’s going to get course corrected along the way.”

Kay, the story I think of is—I played sports growing up, and what the listeners can’t see through the video is that when I have shoes on, I’m over six feet tall. So there was no question that I was going to play basketball whenever I was a little girl.

So I played a lot of basketball. But I just think about my high school coach, Coach Sims, who she was just a firecracker. When I think about the kind of feedback she gave for a basketball game, I’ll just well, I’ll tell you what would be absurd to me. If Coach Sims, you know, we’re playing a game, whatever. And if she were just silent on the sideline and like after the game was just quiet about what happened, whatever, you know, it’s just another game.

And then if later on in track season, because I went to a small school, she was also my track coach. If later on in track season, months later, if she came up to me and said, “Hey, Julie, you know that, remember that second game, the second quarter in that game, that third play where you did not block that girl out for that rebound.

“Do you remember that? Well, here’s what you should have done. You really should have moved in quicker because, you know, she’s always coming around that weak side. You should have moved it, blocked her out and then you could have had 20 more rebounds in that game.”

Like if she had given me that feedback in track season?

I don’t even remember that game, much less that play! What are you talking about? I could have really increased my rebounding percentage for the season if you told me back then.

And that is exactly what we do in leadership. Like we hold something for maybe like the end of the project or like if you’re, if you do performance reviews, we’ll save it for the performance review.

And it’s like, that would have been really helpful six months ago when it happened.

And so what we can take away from a Coach Sims and that kind of, you know, basketball analogy.

If she was coaching us and giving us feedback in practice when we were watching the game film to prep for the game, during warmups, during the game, you better believe she was giving us some feedback, not just during timeouts, but also as the play was happening.

She was giving us feedback sitting on the bench, and she was giving us feedback after the game on the bus ride home. You know, she’s constantly giving us feedback, right? Praise and correction. And it was concise. She was not like giving us a big sermon in the middle of a game about a play. It was concise and quick and specific. Right?

And so we will give that kind of consistent feedback ongoing as things are happening. Live time we will see the confidence grow in our team as they grow in those skills as we’re cheering for them. “Yes, that was amazing. Did you just see what happened?” Right?

So I think there’s just so much when it comes to the skill of giving feedback that if we will keep in mind that consistency and praise and correction being concise, specific and sincere because we have their best in mind. Because we want them to be crazy successful and to step into their potential, their God-given potential that God has designed in them.

Can you tell I’m passionate about it, Kay?

Kay >> But absolutely. Well, let’s talk a little bit about just women’s ministry because I know that you were very involved. You were the—what exactly was your title?

Julie >> What was my title? Well, my title was Directional Leader to Women. And before me, Sue Edwards had been the Pastor to Women. And I just felt like that title—the shoes were too big. So I changed her role and led the Women’s Ministry for quite some time.

Kay >> Okay, so how do you—this specifically for probably some of our audience—if you’re working with a team, how do you get feedback from them?

Or possibly if you’re leading a Bible study, what are your ideas for ways that those women out there who are in charge of these things and maybe have never been even in a job where they got any feedback?

How would you suggest that they move forward with getting feedback from their volunteers as well as their audience?

Julie >> You know, for getting feedback and receiving feedback one of my favorite questions to ask is, “Do you have any feedback for me?” And sometimes you know, the answer we’ll get from people is “No, that was great.”

You know, that’s the answer we get. And so we have to really prime the pump for what kind of feedback we’re looking for.

And so we use a couple of our tools from giving feedback to do the same thing. We say “Hey, I would really like some feedback on the flow of how Bible study goes today. Could you kind of notice and pay attention to kind of how the schedule flows today? How we transition in and out of elements and activities today? And maybe actually just watch it for this month.

“And then I’m going to ask you at the end of the month to share some of those thoughts with me, because I’d really love to hear what your thoughts are. And if there’s anything that we can do to change it, to make it better for the ladies, or if there’s anything that we could do to really make it better for the leaders, I’d love to hear that feedback.”

So what did I do? I asked for it ahead of time, so I didn’t put her on the spot. Sometimes people hate being put on the spot.

Secondly, I asked for specific feedback, I told her what to be looking for, right? And then I told her when I was going to follow up with her and get that back from her.

Right? And then again, I’m building trust. When I actually do follow up with her and ask her, “Okay, I’m ready to hear. What do you what do you have for me? What did you notice? What did you see? I’d love to hear.” Right?

So that’s like one tiny example but I think again, with any team, we can always just say, ”Hey, I want us to be constantly improving and I want to hear your thoughts and your feedback for me on how I’m doing, on how things are going.

What you’re noticing that I maybe am missing. And so I’m going to be asking you every week. I’m going to be asking you in my email that I send out. I’ll also be asking you in our monthly leaders’ meeting. I’m going to be asking you to give me some of that feedback because your voice really matters.”

And so I think if you let them know ahead of time, hey, here’s a couple of points where I’m for sure going to be asking you for that feedback and here is specifically what I’m looking for.

It really helps people then to be able to give that good constructive feedback. Those are just a couple of ideas. What do you think? What have you seen work?

Kay >> Well, I think those are really good ideas. I mean, I always found that when I was in a meeting with my main team that I just always would ask questions about how do you think, you know, we would sort of debrief on anything generally.

And so that not only helped give me feedback, but we gave one another feedback as we talked about how an event went, how Bible study went—those kinds of things. And that was always really helpful.

I can’t think of anything that we didn’t. We would hand out sort of a survey and with very specific questions for the women in the Bible study and get their feedback from how that went.

I’ve always felt like the hole in the whole thing was that anybody that had left and not made it through to the end of Bible study, we really didn’t know why they left and we didn’t know what their feedback would be.

And so that’s a problem. I mean, sometimes you hear from those people and you find out, but they’re not there just with the group to be able to do it and give us the specific things that we’re asking for.

Julie >> Yeah, that’s good. I love these surveys and I love having an intentional debrief at the end of each program ministry season, you know, whatever that ending is.

And I also love—there are definitely ways that you can follow up with people who kind of fade away and somehow—whether that’s your leaders following up with them and just asking a couple of questions because they had a closer relationship perhaps than maybe you did if you weren’t facilitating the table.

So I love asking those intentional questions. I also love asking for that feedback along the way.

Sometimes when we wait until the end—and we should always debrief at the end, always, always, always, and then take those notes and then pull them back out whenever we’re starting to plan that thing again. Right? So that we can make those changes that were so important to us as opposed to going, “What was it that somebody said?” You know, we just don’t remember.

But I do love finding those points along the way where we’re getting that consistent feedback so that we don’t have to wait until next year to make that change that could have a really big impact, could improve, could make things better for a group of people. So I love those ideas.

One of the other things that just talking about receiving feedback made me think of is, especially when that’s maybe hard for us because we’ve had some not great experiences with receiving feedback in the past.

There’s a couple of things that I’ve taught particularly younger leaders to do, because sometimes getting feedback is real, real hard for younger leaders.

And so I’ve said, “Hey, you know, if you will just be the one to ask for the feedback. And again, doing it and asking for that specific feedback depending on what’s going on.”

And then also— “Whenever someone does take a chance and give you some feedback, whether it’s praise or correction, say, ‘Hey, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to think about that, to give me some feedback that would empower my growth. Thank you.’”

So always start with the thank you. Even if you think that’s ridiculous or I’m probably not going to, I’m telling them thank you does a lot in building relationship, boosting your credibility, all of those kinds of things.

And then I really do like to think it through. Okay, is there something from that feedback from that constructive feedback that I need to just apply and try?

I don’t have to commit to it forever, but do I need to just apply it and try it and see if that will help me, help the audience, help the group that I’m leading—whatever it is.

And then I like to circle back with the person who gave me feedback and I’d say, “Hey, thanks again for giving me that feedback. I tried that at my next meeting and it was actually a lot better. I really appreciate you letting me know that and, and believing in me and coaching me up in that moment.” Right?

So anyway, those are just a few things in addition to just receiving feedback and how to do that and in a life giving way.

Kay >> Actually recently I gave some feedback to somebody, and I was sort of afraid to give it to her. You know, I don’t know her well, and I was a little uncertain about doing it, and she was just so thankful. She just kept thanking me. She thanked me many, many times. And I really did appreciate that because I felt like I was actually helping her rather than upsetting her.

And so that was really great that she even came back to it later. You know, it wasn’t just when we met that she thanked me. It was later on she would comment about it: “I just want to thank you again for being willing to come and talk to me about that.”

And, you know, I went in with a couple of women praying for me as I did this because they knew this was kind of a big deal, and I was really appreciative of that, too.

And I would suggest that to any leader who is really concerned about what they’ve got to say in their feedback—be sure that you’ve got others praying for you. You don’t have to tell them exactly what the person did. You don’t even have to tell them who it is. And you can say, “I have to give some feedback to somebody and I’m just a little nervous about it. And I would really like you to pray for me.”

Julie >> That’s such a good reminder. That’s such a good practical thing—just having that prayer support around us, whenever we go into any of those conversations that can feel hard or difficult for us for whatever reason—to ask for prayer support to just cover that conversation.

I was also thinking to about, you know, again, this goes back to mindset. When I get stuck—and now I’m talking about with a team member or someone in my sphere of leadership that I’m responsible for. When I find myself getting stuck and hesitant to give them the feedback that I know that they need, it’s because I’m making it about me.

But when I make it about me, I make it about how are they going to receive it? What are they going to think of me? What are they are they going to get are they going to like me? You know, all the things I make it about me. Oh, well, I wouldn’t have wanted someone to say that to me their best.

But as a leader, it is always about the other person. It is always about bringing out the best in the people we lead. It is always about helping them step in to their potential. And so when my focus is on that, I can push past the awkwardness, the butterflies in my stomach, the concern, whatever! I can push past all of that because I want the best for them.

Yeah. And I think about the countless leaders who have had those sharpening conversations with me, who have given me feedback. What? “Oh, you got to fix this.” Like “you can’t keep,” or “that was terrible.” Like all of those, right? They did it because they saw potential in me, and they didn’t want me to stay there and keep doing that thing.

And so if you notice inside of you that you’re getting stuck or hesitant or just like, ah, super afraid of having that feedback conversation, remember, if you’ve got relationship with them where you’ve established that trust.

If they know, “Hey, this is what we do, we consistently give all kinds of feedback to each other both ways in order to help us reach our potential,” it won’t come as a surprise that you’re having that conversation.

And also they’ll remember as you’re telling them, “Hey, I wanted to because I don’t want anything to get in the way of you stepping into your potential.”

Kay >> Yeah. I think that your emphasis on this is what it’s going to do for you. If we talk about this. This is going to be good for you. It’s going to be good for what you’re doing. And you’re going to grow as a leader, grow as a person, grow as a disciple.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> All of those things are just really important. And I love the way that you emphasized that. And I know that’s something that I can I can grow on from what you’re telling me.

Julie >> Well, all of us can grow with this. I’m right there with you, Kay.

Kay >> I mean, it’s really easy to forget after a while. You’re just kind of going along and you kind of forget that you need to be about this.

And so if nothing else, I hope that our conversation helps those of you out there realize that maybe you’ve done some of this, but you’re kind of now—things seem to be going well and you’re kind of forgetting to do it. That it’s something that needs to be a consistent part of your ministry, part of your leadership.

Julie >> Yes. That’s so good, Kay.

Kay >> Do you have any other final words for those who are out there? What would you say to somebody who is struggling with some feedback that they got that they felt like was particularly critical?

Julie >> I would say first to pray, Lord, help me receive what of this I need to really receive. The second thing I would do is I would think through, okay, what about this feedback? Really is helpful for my growth and what of this do I need to let go of so it doesn’t impede my growth?

And when I say it that way, what I mean is, you know, sometimes we can get critical feedback that’s just critical. It’s not constructive. It’s not coaching, right? It’s just critical.

And it’s either someone’s preference or they were just having an awful day or we are not their cup of tea. And so they just don’t particularly like anything that we do. And so, sometimes the feedback we get, it’s not constructive or coaching, it’s just critical.

And so you have to just kind of think that through and go, okay, I’ve got to, you know, consider the source. I’ve got to think through what’s going on with them. And I also have to think through, okay, is there anything in this that will actually fuel my growth and then I have to choose to release the rest of it.

Now, that might mean releasing their tone, releasing their approach, really all the things it might even be that I need to put up a boundary with that person so that they’re not giving me so much critical feedback anymore, you know, like whatever it may be. But I think first praying and asking the Lord help me receive from this what you want me to hear.

And then secondly, just thinking through what from this actually is for me and one of this is just critical and maybe mean spirited and maybe not for me at all.

Kay >> Yeah. I think those are good words. Those are good ideas. And, you know, I’m sure you like many have had some pretty harsh criticism before. I think the thing that bothered me the most was when I read somebody who wrote down on something like, “You know, I just don’t like her,” or something like that.

I mean, that’s, that’s not really feedback.

Julie >> Yeah. It’s not. Well, and that’s exactly right. It is not constructive coaching feedback to help me step into my potential. It’s just being critical. It’s just criticism—and criticism for the sake of putting someone down or expressing a preference is not beneficial. That doesn’t help me grow. And the truth of the matter is, you and I both know we are again, we’re not everybody’s cup of tea and that’s okay.

Just like everybody isn’t my cup of tea either, right? That is okay. Not everybody is going to love my leadership choices. Not everybody is going to love my leadership style. That is all right.

And when I release that and get okay inside of myself with that, hey, I am following God’s invitation for me in this season. I am being faithful to steward the resources he has given me, including the people. And I am being faithful to steward the gifts and the calling and the skills and the story that he has given to me.

And so if I am being faithful with all those things, I can release the fact that not everybody is going to like me and not everybody is going to think, “Oh, I’m so glad Julie showed up to lead today.” Like—that is okay. I may not be a ten on everyone’s survey, and that’s okay.

And so I think distinguishing between what is actually like coaching constructive feedback to help me reach my potential, and what’s just critical, and what’s just criticism—and releasing the criticism. Don’t let that like seep in and really choosing to focus on, hey, what’s going to be constructive and help fuel my growth?

Kay >> I think those are great words. Thank you so much for joining us, Julie. We appreciate your expertise and your wisdom.

Julie >> Well, Kay, it is always a delight to be with you and I am so thankful for your wisdom, your leadership, your example. You have been a mentor and a pioneer in so many ways. We’re so thankful for you. So thanks for inviting me to just partner with you in this.

Kay >> Thank you. And we will hope to see you again soon on another leadership topic.

Julie >> Sounds great.

Kay >> You can find Julie’s website, as I said, at Juliepierceleadership.com. You can contact her there if you’re interested in having some coaching done or just some help with some leadership stuff. She is an expert on those things, and I know that she would love to hear from you.

You also can watch or hear our other episodes that have to do with leadership skills, which is really what we’ve been talking about today, skills that we need to have as leaders.

And you can find those at our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. On our menu dropdown on Resources. You can go to Leadership Skills and just browse around and see what else would be helpful to you as a leader.

So until next time, we’re so glad that you joined us. And thank you again, Julie.

Nika Spaulding

Kay Daigle

Why celebrate Lent? In this episode of the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast, Nika Spaulding joins Kay Daigle to discuss all things Lent. Although we may think that Lent is only for Catholics, Anglicans and other liturgical churches, it isn’t. Nor is it all about fasting. Celebrating Lent means focusing on Jesus as we prepare our hearts for Easter.

So how do we celebrate Lent? How does it work and who should participate in it? When did Christians begin celebrating this season? What are its benefits? What is fasting all about? How should we celebrate it? Nika deals with all of these questions.

We encourage you to plan ahead to participate in Lent beginning on Ash Wednesday, which occurs March 5 this year.

If you prefer you can watch this episode on video.

00:21 Introduction to Lent

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women. Welcome to this podcast and video episode of the Beyond Ordinary Women Podcast. We are so glad to have you with us today. Today, our topic is “Why Celebrate Lent?” and our guest speaker is Nika Spaulding. Welcome, Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay. I’m excited to be.

Kay >> I’m always so happy when you join us. You give us such a depth and wealth of information, and it’s so encouraging and positive. A few months ago, and it seems like just yesterday, Nika and I recorded an episode “Why Celebrate Advent? We talked about why we thought that was a great thing for Christians to do. At that time, we decided we would do one on Lent as well.

And so here we are. It’s already time. It doesn’t seem right!

Nika >> Doesn’t seem right. I feel like it was yesterday.

Kay >> I can’t believe we’re talking about Lent. And you know the day we’re recording this, we still have a little bit of time. But still it’s coming up and it won’t be long before it’s here.

Nika >>Yeah.

Kay >>  And I suppose since we talked about the fact that neither one of us had ever celebrated Advent until we were adults. You didn’t grow up in the church, and I grew up in a non-liturgical church. And we just kind of thought that Catholics do that. We don’t; we’re Protestant.

So I’m assuming that you and I are the same on Lent, that we didn’t practice Lent until we were adults as well.

Nika >> Yeah, exact same. I would say the biggest difference was I probably didn’t even know Advent existed until I was an adult. But Lent I did know because of the very thing you’re talking about because I had buddies who are Catholic. I remember seeing them with ashes on their head and not being able to eat certain foods, and so I knew Lent existed. But to me it was this kind of bizarro thing that once a year my Catholic buddy’s did.

That was the extent of what I understood about it.

Kay >> Yeah, and all my Catholic friends— I heard them at school talking about what are you giving up for Lent? What are you giving up for Lent? And I thought, this just seems . . .

Nika >> Yeah. Why would I give up anything?

Kay >> Why are you giving up anything? And they weren’t real happy about it, so it didn’t make me want to celebrate Lent. You know, I just, I have to give up something. Is that the whole purpose? And they didn’t seem to be getting anything spiritual out of it. They were just complaining about it. So yeah, I never saw myself as celebrating Lent.

It was quite a surprise. And I started doing it because I had two friends who had together gone to some Lent services and decided to do it. And they decided to invite me. I think maybe they’d done it two years, one or two years, and they invited me to go. And of course I was a little bit uncomfortable because I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but it was very meaningful to me, very meaningful.

Nika >> I would say I probably started celebrating once I got to seminary and really started looking into church history and started seeing just the beauty and other church traditions. I would say it really started for me as my own personal devotion through Lent. I didn’t really do anything corporately, and I never attended an Ash Wednesday service when I first started celebrating Lent because my churches didn’t do them. So the ones I had been attending all those years didn’t have them. And I’m sure a whole host of friends probably invited me. And I just never went.

But I would say in the last eight years, being a part of a higher liturgical church that I planted—we celebrate Ash Wednesday; we celebrate Lent. And I am so grateful that that rhythm was instituted. I saw a lot of people had similar experiences that we’re talking about in our church where they either never attended church growing up at all or they were in non-liturgical churches or non Catholic churches. So they were always a little hesitant when we had Ash Wednesday, you know, you can tell there was a little—“Are we supposed to be doing this?”

Then after the season, I mean almost every person I spoke to, they are so grateful we did it, so grateful we emphasized it. And that’s why part of you and I talking about this series is not just because it’s interesting, but I’ve seen it impact people in really significant ways in their lives and in their rhythms with the Lord. So I think it’s a really beautiful heritage for the church and something that I would encourage any Christian to participate in.

Kay >> I totally agree. Well, just for the sake of those of us out there like us who didn’t really understand what it is, can you give us some background and explain it to us?

Nika >> Yeah, so the word we use for Lent comes from an old English word for like lengthen is the way is pronounced, and it’s for this season where the days begin to lengthen. I’m laughing as I’m thinking about this because can I before we hit record, we were talking about how we don’t particularly care for winter. These dark days are not for us. They’re for the dogs.

But in the spring, we get longer days, we get longer daylight. And so Lent is always in the spring or it has been over the last 600 years. And so that word reminds us of this season where the days are getting longer. It is 46 days before Holy Saturday, the Saturday of Easter weekend.

But we call it 40 days because we don’t count the Sundays. So it’s 46 days but basically count backwards 40, 40 days. And that’s when Lent begins and it always begins with Ash Wednesday.

What it has historically been, and what’s interesting when I say historically, it’s a very old church tradition. I mean we have from at least the fourth century, maybe even earlier authors like Athanasius and Augustine talking about Lent. In fact, Augustine (I don’t agree with him.) says all the other fasts are voluntary, but if you don’t fast during Lent, you’re sinning. I’m like, Okay, but it does show you just how significant it was for the early church.

And so it’s a season that’s kicked off by Ash Wednesday, goes into a holy Saturday, and then you end it with this massive Easter culmination celebration. And then that season, those 40 days are marked by fasting, repentance, and especially on Ash Wednesday. It’s a day of repentance and reflection and also almsgiving.

A big part of the church was just not only fasting, but also giving, especially in that season. And so it’s a longer period throughout church history that we’ve been celebrating. It’s a time of fasting, a time of almsgiving.

The reason why we don’t count the Sundays, depending on the church tradition you’re in, you stop fasting on Sundays. And I think this is really sweet. And I know that there are some traditions, especially in the East, that actually fast all the way through all 46 days.

But for a lot of traditions and the one that I’m in, you get to enjoy what it is you’ve been giving up on Sundays. And part of the reason why we do that is a reminder of yes, in this season we’re preparing ourselves for Easter. We’re preparing ourselves for this big celebration but historically and in reality, Jesus already did rise from the dead on Sundays. So we take Sundays off as these many celebrations throughout that season of Lent.

Nika >> Yeah, that’s exactly right. And if you if you’ve given up chocolate, what an incredible way to celebrate. On Sunday, you get chocolate back or you get, you know. So, yeah, I mean, the things that people sort of get back on Sundays, it’s a beautiful reminder of Jesus has risen from the dead. And on Sundays we don’t fast and we celebrate.

And that’s what every Sunday, all 52 of them really, should be our celebration every week of what Christ is done for us. But it’s especially, I think you especially feel it in a season where you are fasting. And so the fasting in the early church—they fasted. I mean they would from, you know, sunup to sundown—no food, no water.

Now, in most traditions that I’m in, people give up something. So they might do some food fast. I don’t know a lot of people in my circles that give up food for that long of a period, though, plenty do. People all over the world do that.

But a lot of folks think about what is it that I could give up that would allow me to then focus on Christ and what he’s done for me in this season.

And so, like, I don’t know if you have any in recent memory things that you fasted for. I’m like, I know I’ve done no media, which is which you’d be amazed at how much media you consume and how much more time than you have to do. It’s like—I’ve done media; I’ve done certain foods before; I’ve done different types of fast during Lent throughout the years.

Kay >> Yeah, I’ve given up different sorts of food. When I did that, I particularly loved Sundays because desserts. And I did give up desserts one year and you know, you’d find me every Sunday eating dessert. It made it easier to make it through the week, you know, knowing that Sunday was coming and when that happened, I would be able to have something fun to eat.

In the morning I like to work like crossword puzzles and things. And I’ve given those up several years, just various years, because I can spend a lot of time doing something like that. And I just felt like I needed to take that time and focus on the devotions I was reading and time with the Lord and just give it up.

Nika >> What about adding in rhythms? Because I think that’s the other piece that people—it’s often thought of as a season of fasting. But the reason we fast is in order to receive more of this, you know, sort of rhythms of spirituality. And so have you ever added things like devotionals, different rhythm things during that season?

Kay >> Yeah, I’ve had devotionals every single year. Many of the years I did one of N.T. Wright’s devotionals. He’s got three. (You know the liturgical churches have years A,B,C where they study Mark, Luke and Matthew. I don’t know in what order, but one year one’s A and next B, and one C. You can go online and find out what year it is.)

And I have all three of his devotionals that I’ve read multiple times. But I read other people. So sometimes it’s not so much a daily devotional. Maybe I’m just reading something that’s once a week, and then during the week I’m just adding more Bible reading and things like that. What about you?

Nika >> Yeah, I tend to read a lot of Bible already, so I felt like that was a little, but maybe if I say I’m going to read a little more Bible I was like, “Okay, that’s feels a little cheap.”

So I would say one of the things that I don’t actually tend to gravitate to in my normal rhythms of worship is listening to Christian worship music. That’s just not I usually have a podcast on, I have audible books on, you know, sort of all the things that come into my ears throughout the day tend to be knowledge based. And so there have been plenty of years where I’ve just created a playlist or borrowed someone else’s playlist and spent dedicated time listening to songs that worship the Lord, and talk specifically too, about the cross.

Like you’re focusing a lot about what that season—how significant Good Friday is, how significant Easter is. And so that’s one that I’ve done quite a bit. And I do love Lenten devotionals.

I—in fact, I was thinking when we did the Advent, when we talked about there was an Advent devotional that has excerpts from all these writers and they have a Lent one. It’s called Bread and Wine, and some excerpts from people like C.S. Lewis and all these authors. And so I’m sure we’ll link in the show notes, but I think adding in devotionals where great thinkers have thought about these seasons can be really inspiring. You know, something to really nourish and feed you and set your eyes upon what it is that we should be reflecting on.

I think those are a great way to celebrate the season.

Kay >> Right. I agree. And I have Bread and Wine also, and I’ve done it several times. I really do love that. Another thing that I did two or three years was that I read Fleming Rutledge’s book. Is it “The” Crucifixion or is it Crucifixion?

Nika >> Well, it’s the purple book. The big yeah, the big thick one.

Kay >> Very big and thick! And it was really I mean—I would spend a lot of time each day reading that. And so that’s only for somebody who really wants to dig into it. But it was very meaningful to me to do her book as well, which is a different kind of reading than a devotional, you know. But it all draws you closer to the Lord, and that’s really what you want during Lent.

You’re looking forward to Easter and you want to be prepared. You want to prepare your heart and your soul and your mind for Easter.

Nika >> That’s exactly right. I think, you know, in asking this big question, like what is Lent? If we could sum it up, the way I would sum it up succinctly is it is a time of preparation and that, you know, in the same way we talk about Advent, there are these two massive days in the church calendar, Christmas and Easter, his birth and his death and resurrection.

And it is so important that those days can just come and go. I mean, they can just whiz right past you. And we’re talking about the God-man who vanquished our enemies, saved the world like cosmically reordered reality in those historical moments. And I think having a couple of weeks dedicated to prepare yourself to celebrate in a way that really honors the Lord and allows you that moment, that’s what Lent is. It’s preparation and it’s something that you can join with believers all over the world and all over history and getting yourself ready for an event. If you only meditated on Easter morning, you’ve robbed yourself of the privilege of spending time to prepare your heart, your mind, your soul and your strength, as you say, for that big day.

Kay >> Is there any other way that you want to talk about that Lent matters?

Nika >> Yeah, I think so. When we, you know, when we talked about in the beginning is something that we experientially said, “Oh, that’s something Catholics do.” I mean, that is truly what I hear from so many Protestants still today when I talk about Ash Wednesday and I talk about Lent.

And while that is historically somewhat true that it is a tradition that Catholics have consistently from the beginning carried forward, it is not a Catholic tradition. It is a church tradition. And if you choose to not participate in Lent because you have mistakenly been told or believe that it’s only something that certain church traditions do, I think you’re robbing yourself of that season of preparation.

So I jotted down, you know, sort of what that season can prepare you to reflect upon. So one of the things that allows you to reflect upon is the reason why we do 40 days. It actually mirrors Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness.

And there’s a lot of 40 days or 40 years, you know, you’ve got the wilderness wanderings, you’ve got Elijah’s 40. But Jesus goes into the wilderness and for 40 days and 40 nights and he fasts. And then when he is tired and hungry, and I’m sure thirsty and wants a pillow at the moment, it is like great physical difficulty of the fast, here comes the enemy to tempt him with things.

Any soul not properly aligned to God would desire things like fame and power and all of these things. Jesus is the final perfect man that we are to follow because he perfectly says no. So this season of fasting allows you to participate in some ways as Jesus fasts and allows you to reflect upon, “Wow, you know, this is difficult for me to give up dessert.” Or even if I gave up food, to do it for 40 days and 40 nights like Jesus did on our behalf—to say no to what the enemy was offering him so that he could say yes to saving you and me is a really important part of this preparation time.

So, one, it allows you to reflect on that.

Two, It allows you to reflect upon your frailty. The reason why we start with Ash Wednesday is Ash Wednesday is a reminder that from dust we came; and to dust, we shall return.

You know, part of the reason why I think we go through life not preparing ourselves for these holidays is because we just go through all of life—we’re just churning, we’re just moving; we’re just doing the next thing. When we do that, for those of us who live in modern Western context, that means we often don’t wrestle with our own mortality and we don’t often wrestle with our own frailty. There are intrusions in our life when we lose someone, when we get diagnoses. And there are times in our life when we have to come to grips with the fact that we are, in fact, mortal and we are human.

What Lent allows us to do is to do that, but in a space where you’re reminded—but Jesus conquered death on our behalf. And so while I’m wrestling with my mortality, I also have the good news of knowing that death is not the final say.

Too often we live unexamined lives, and we just we just take the years in as they come instead of taking the time to prepare ourselves to live a life worthy of our calling as the Scriptures call us to. And the only way you’re ever going to do that is if you grapple with the fact that you don’t have unlimited years and the years that you’ve been given they’re gifts and they’re to be used to honor the Lord and to love yourself and to love your neighbor.

And so Lent gives us a time to really slow down and say, “Gosh, I really am . . .” You know, I love the way that the Hebrew in Genesis one talks about—it’s like, out of the Adam comes the Adam; out of the ground comes the groundling. Right? It’s sort of these—like dirt creatures is what I’ve heard somebody call us before. But this idea of, like, we will return, but that’s not the final say. Jesus will, of course, in the end raise us from the dead.

But it is an invitation to consider that mortality. And I think it’s important that we do that.

Especially, I’m I just turned 40, like you know, very recently, like a week ago. And I will tell you, turning 40 is a good mix of people going, “Don’t worry, you’re still young; you have so much life in you, which I’m like, “I’m not worried. I love turning 40,” and people going, “Wow, the best years are behind you,” and so forth. It’s this. . .

Kay >> No!

Nika >> . . fulcrum where I’m going. I know this is good. Every year is a gift from God, but my youth is farther behind me than it is in front of me, and that’s a gift. That’s a gift to have, hopefully someday, gray hairs on my head and to continue to see every new year as a gift from God.

And I don’t have the luxury of ignoring that forever that I am young. And so I think these are important opportunities in these seasons to say, “Gosh, like we are all moving toward the culmination of the end. How do we want to spend our years that God has given us now?” And so that’s another part of it.

Kay >> Yeah. You know, of course, I’m much older than you. My lifespan is, as my husband says—there’s this window of time that we have and it’s closing. And so we’re trying to be very active about what we spend our time doing. Very thoughtful.

What places do we want to go? Things we want to see? What do we want to do while we can?

Nika >> Yeah. And the truth is, yours is shrinking as much as mine is shrinking.

Kay >> And that’s one of. . .

Nika >> Mine might be tomorrow could be. And if we don’t acknowledge that, if we don’t live with that.

I mean, you read the New Testament and the fervency in which Paul writes, which Paul is very aware his time is coming to an end. I mean, people are actively trying to kill him for his religious views and his change and all of that. And of course, we know his life was cut short because of that.

But that fervency that remained ready, remained steadfast. Like gird yourself up. Right? At any moment, the Lord could return. That fervency after 2000 years of church history.

Sometimes I think the fervency goes away because we’re distracted. We’re distracted, you know? Yeah. I could, you know, on my 40th birthday, I could wrestle with my mortality or I can hop on Instagram and “like” videos that cats are running around, right?

I mean, like, we live in a time where if you do not want to face hard things, you don’t. And frankly, I think that’s plaguing my generation and younger generations where we are not facing up to hard things. And Lent gives you an opportunity to remove those distractions and to set your eyes upon what you guys are saying—there is a window; we are vapors.

The Scriptures talk about our lives as if they’re so short. And anyone who has lost folks that they love will say it wasn’t enough time. And so rather than wrestling with that and leading to despair, you in Lent wrestle with that, and you get reminded of the great hope that death is not the final answer.

It’s not the final word on our lives because of Jesus’s death and resurrection. And I get to be—this is a gift. Every breath I take is a gift from God. And I am invited in this season to consider what God would have me do with every breath that I am taking. And I don’t think that it should lead to a neuroses of—Oh, my gosh, we’re running out of time—so much as—Let’s enjoy what God has given us.

You know, Ecclesiastes is a perfect example: It’s—life is short; we’re but a vapor; so love God; love your neighbor; work hard; love your family. That is what Lent invites us into is to put meaning and purpose into the days that God has given us.

Kay >> And just really kind of assesses what you’re talking about. It’s kind of assessing where we are, assessing where we’re falling short; assessing how we can draw closer to God; how that can be more a part of our lives. And I really appreciate that about Lent.

Nika >> Yeah, I mean, perfect example of what you’re saying. One of my roommates a couple of years ago gave up all social media and when she got to Easter, she thought, I don’t think I want it back. I like the lack of anxiety and the fruit of having that extra time of what is producing in me. I want to continue in that.

And I’m pretty sure, I don’t think she’s ever gotten back on Facebook and this was like six years ago. Like, I think she’s just she uses Instagram from time to time. But I think for her, that was a really turning moment because of the assessment and the fruit of Lent.

And so, yeah, so you know, Jesus allows you to reflect on Jesus temptation or mortality. It allows you to reflect on Easter.

And, you know, in that preparation for that season, and to say out loud that God-man came here, died on a cross, rose from the dead three days later, and my entire life was changed. While you and I in our bones believe that, Kay, it is every mitochondria in your soul can be changed by that reality if you just sit and reflect and think. And the implications of the resurrection—what it means for your life, what it means for the lives of those around you, what, how it reorients your priorities.

And so part of Lent is just I don’t want to complicate it. It is a time to think about Easter and to prepare yourself for that life-altering, history-altering, eternity-altering moment. Like one day Jesus hadn’t died for our sins, and the next day he had. Like time changed in that moment. And I think it’s important that we reflect on that.

And then one of the things (and we said this in Advent, too) and I will always say that one of the beautiful things about allowing yourself to do the liturgical calendar is you then are united with believers all over the world. So part of the beauty of Lent is—you’re not supposed to do it alone. You know, you’re supposed to tell people what you’re doing.

I love that it was your friends that invited you and you did it with them because that is the true uniting thing as we ALL are wrestling with our mortality, we’re ALL wrestling with what Easter means and we are doing it.

I love on Ash Wednesday when I go out and I see the ashes on people’s foreheads and I look and I go, “Oh, that’s my sister; that’s my brother.” And I don’t know this person. I’ve not met them, but I know that if they express the same faith and hope I have in Jesus, we will be in heaven forever. And I just saw them in the Target, you know, deodorant aisle or whatever. Like there’s something really powerful about that symbol that unites all of us in that season.

Kay >> Well, if you see me on Lent, it just looks like I’ve got darker hair here in the middle because my bangs kind of cover it. Just a dark spot, you know?

Nika >> Yeah, I am someone who’s administered the ashes a lot! It’s funny how often I have to do this motion. You know, otherwise my first year ever I didn’t do it. And I got it just in one of the girl’s hair. She was like, “You didn’t even touch my forehead.” I was like, “I’ll do it again. Let me, let me have another chance.” So the bangs do hide it a little bit, but we know it’s there, Kay. We can see it.

Kay >> Well, I’m not sure anybody knows what it is. It just looks funny.

Nika >> Yeah, I love that. So, yeah, I think it’s Lent in that preparation. You focus on Jesus. If you focus on your own mortality in some ways, you focus on others because you realize you’re connected. And then that focusing on others also is an invitation for repentance. And so there, there is an opportunity throughout that season as you’re assessing, like you say, to be reconciled, like as you get closer to Easter.

Part of that reflection is going to be—that’s the day that God reconciled the whole world to himself, and that’s the day that he knocked down the dividing wall of hostility to unite Jews and Gentiles, slave and free, male and female, black and white, American and Ukrainian and Russian and Uganda. All of that falls under the lordship of Jesus.

One of the things that Lent can also be is a time where if you in your reflections are sensing—I have some broken relationships—it is an invitation for repentance and repair. I think that cannot be emphasized enough in our lives that if our lives are going to be marked by the seasons of Jesus, then we are meant to be ministers of reconciliation. And that is another thing that Lent provides.

Kay >> Yes, it really does. And that was one reason I loved the book, The Crucifixion, so much as it really, it really made real what Jesus went through.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> And really brought that to feel real in my life. I’m not just thinking, oh, well, Jesus died on the cross, you know. No. No, there was a whole lot more to it. It was much worse than we imagined. When we see our cross in the church, it’s just, you know, it’s just more than that.

Well, we’ve talked some about how to observe Lent. Do you have any other suggestions?

Nika >> Yeah, I love that we talked about it. Start with (because I do think you don’t want to overcomplicate it) so here’s what I’d say. One of the things that I would do is if you were in a church that doesn’t celebrate Ash Wednesday, but you have a friend who does, invite yourself. (Which— we should all be inviting our friends anyways.)

So if you are in a church tradition where you do celebrate Ash Wednesday, invite your buddies. It’s a great time. It’s a beautiful time. But that’s what I’d say is—I think to start this season with an Ash Wednesday service. That often helps because I know for our Ash Wednesday services, I often talk about what Lent is, how I personally am going to celebrate it.

And even have encouragements for others. And so that’s why I’d say if this is your first time ever thinking about celebrating Lent, you don’t have to go it alone, so to speak.

So that’s what I’d say. I would do that and think in sort of three categories for your first Lent.

And I would think, is there something I could give up that as I give it up will allow me to focus on Jesus.

I would ask myself, is there something that I can add to the rhythms of my life? A devotional I can read?

The Crucifixion is phenomenal. I mean, Fleming Rutledge is one of the best thinkers of our generation. It’s a lot. So if you’re not accustomed to reading big chunks and this your first, you know, Lent, I would say go for it if you feel motivated, go for it. It’s fantastic.

But there’s plenty of Lent devotionals that will take you five minutes.

And I would encourage you to read it in the morning because it’ll give you a chance for the rest of the day to kind of sit there, and it’ll, you know, it’ll marinate.

And so I would think about giving up, adding something.

And then the third thing I would think about is in the grand history of almsgiving, is there something you can give, whether it be your time, your money? Is there an organization? I think about just even the process of just like thinking about who you want to give to or where you want to give to you. That’s also formative.

And it’s a way to—Jesus gives himself for us on Good Friday and Easter. And so it’s a way for you to say—as the person who’s made in the image of Jesus and Jesus is the ultimate giver—he withheld nothing from us, including his very life. What can I give in this season that will allow me to then participate in Easter in that way?

So that’s what I would do. I would encourage you to think in those categories.

And then get a buddy and ask them to do it with you. Then talk about what you’re doing and then check in on each other.

Because part of the beauty is to say, “Hey, how’s that fast going?” Not just make sure you’re doing it, but to say what’s happening inside of you as you’re fasting. What are your conversations like with the Lord as you’re fasting? What are you learning about yourself? What are you learning about, you know, the crucifixion? And so that, I’d say, do it with someone and ask each other really intentional questions.

And I think you’ll find the season will be exceedingly fruitful as you prepare for Easter.

Kay >> Yes. And pray along the way and say, “God put the people in my mind whom I should invite, give me the thoughts of where I should give or how should I give myself, how I should give my time, how I should give financially—whatever, because God is always faithful to point us.

And it may be that over the course of the 46 days that he will point you in many different directions as far as ways to give to others.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> Yeah.

Nika >> And then I’d say the last piece of advice, the end of Lent is Easter. And so I’d say go nuts on Easter. Like—you should be in a church that celebrates, and I mean celebrates! I know of churches that do, you know, mimosas at sunrise, which depending on your church tradition, is a good or a bad thing.

But I just mean use that day apart for you and your family, go to church, celebrate your church, sing your favorite songs, and then do something as a family or as a roommate group or as an individual to say, “I’m setting this whole day apart as something really special.”

And when you talk about N.T. Wright, he talks about in Surprised by Hope, his book, where he talks about how churches should blow their entire budget on Easter. You know he’s saying like we should be, it should be a day where our neighbors go, “Wow, this is a big day for you,” you know, bigger than the 4th of July, bigger than even Christmas, for him.

You know it’s the day for us when you look at the Old Testament and you look at the Day of Atonement in Leviticus and you say, well, that’s a big day, you know, where all the sins of the community are atoned for. And it is a very important feasting, celebratory day after a season of repentance. The correlation for us would be Easter.

And I would say in addition to your church, at the end of this season of Lent, celebrate big, do something big, go out to a nice meal, you know, call your loved ones, do something big. Celebrate Easter as a way that is fitting and honoring of what Christ really did accomplish on that day.

And as I said, after a season of fasting, we’re supposed to celebrate. And so I would say go nuts on Easter would be the last bit of advice.

Kay >> I love that. That’s a great word. Well, thank you so much, Nika. I really have enjoyed this time talking about Lent. It’s truly one of my favorite times of the year. And for somebody who never understood anything about the church calendar, that’s saying a lot that this is that important to me in my life.

Let me mention that we have more resources from Nika and all sorts of topics. She has been our guest many times. I can always call on her and she’s willing to come talk about something, and we discuss what that might be. And that’s how we come up with Advent and Lent this year.

But we have many resources that you might want to go to. If you’ll go to our website beyondordinarywomen.org and just search for her name, you will find some of those resources. They will come up and you can grow in your knowledge and understanding of all sorts of things. She’s talked about justice in the Bible. She’s talked about lament, which I think is really, really important in our lives. It kind of goes along with Lent. She’s talked about what does it mean to be the image of God and she’s talked about things like Millennials and Gen Z to help us understand other people better or if we’re of a different generation.

So her topics are very broad and we’ve enjoyed all sorts of conversations. So I hope you will just search for her name on our website and also I hope that you will decide to observe Lent this year. And if you have any questions or need anything, just contact me at beyondordinarywomen.org.

Nika >> Love it.

Kay >> Thank you Nika. I hope to see you again soon.

Nika >> Yeah, same, Kay. I so love doing this. This is so fun.

Kay >> Yeah, we love having you.

Kelly Arabie

Debbie Swindoll

What does effective discipleship entail? What can we do in our churches to become more successful disciple-makers? How can we as individuals do a better job of discipling others?

Debbie Swindoll joined BOW Ministry Team Member Kelly Arabie to discuss this important topic. Debbie calls us to dive into community if we want to grow as disciples of Jesus. What does that look like? Debbie provides practical and insightful answers to guide us to effective discipleship.

You can watch this episode if you prefer.

Don’t miss the other discipleship video that Debbie did for BOW, Re-imagining Discipleship: A Spiritual Formation Perspective. It is part of a series that you won’t want to miss if you are involved in making decisions about discipleship or if you disciple others. Other podcasts in the Re-imagining Discipleship series: A Theological Perspective, A Church Leader Perspective, A Missions Perspective, and A Kingdom Perspective, and Reclaiming the Fear of the Lord.

Receive a free sample of Debbie’s spiritual formation curriculum Life with God

00:24 Introductions

Kelly >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast. My name is Kelly Arabie. I’m one of the team members here at Beyond Ordinary Women, and today we are talking with Debbie Swindoll of Grafted Life Ministries. Along with her husband Kurt, Debbie founded Grafted Life and serves as the Executive Director and the director of Church Formation. Debbie graduated with a Masters in Spiritual Formation and Soul Care from the Institute of Spiritual Formation at Talbot Seminary and Biola University.

Debbie also serves as the Spiritual Formation Pastor at her church, Journey Community Church. Debbie, welcome. We are so happy to have you.

Debbie >> Thank you. It’s a long thing there. I’m getting older. I’m old now.

Kelly >> No.

Debbie previously spoke with Kay about Reimagining Discipleship. And so I want to encourage our listeners to go ahead (and we’ll talk about that more at the end) but listen to that video as well. That will give you an introduction to our topic today. Today we are talking about effective discipleship.

Deb, why don’t you start with telling us a little bit about the Ministry of Grafted Life.

Debbie >> Well, we started Grafted Life in 2010 and it was a bunch of colleagues of mine that had degrees in spiritual formation, which is kind of another word for discipleship, or how people grow, how we’re formed as Christians.

And we really had heart for the church. We’d gone to this graduate program and we’d experienced a lot of life change and we’d seen people change significantly. And yet we knew that everybody can’t go to a graduate program. Everybody can’t go to seminary. And so what, what could we bring back to the church that would maybe be more effective, more meaningful, more transformational for people in their lives and in their growth, in their spiritual growth. So we started really praying into that and thinking about it.

We ended up developing some curricula and also starting an association for spiritual directors that could really serve people in the church and come alongside them in their spiritual growth.

Kelly >> So as today we’re talking about effective discipleship, what in your definition is effective?

Debbie >> Okay, that’s a really good question because I’m not sure when we think about discipleship, we always think about effective.

You know, if you just look up in the dictionary, what is effective, it is being successful in producing a desired or intended result. I think often when it comes to discipleship, people go, well, what is it really? Look, what are we going for? What’s the end result that we’re really going for?

And that’s really hard to define. You know, I think it’s easy to grow our churches because when it’s just numbers, we can count that we can count it and say, “Oh, well, we had 500 people last Sunday and then a year later, you know, we have 650 or whatever.” The numerical numbers or the amount that people give, it’s really easy to quantify that.

But what is it that we’re looking for when we talk about this spiritual growth thing, this discipleship thing? And that is very important when you’re talking about, well, what kind of methods are you going to use to get there because the methods actually have to suit the end that you’re going for.

So in just thinking about that, I think a lot of times in the church and in my own experience, that’s been a behavioral thing. You know, we want people to behave.

I remember raising kids and in my early years, it’s like I just want them to behave, you know, so I want them, I mean, I think I wanted them to know Jesus. But I think if I was really honest with myself, I just wanted them to behave. I didn’t want them to be an embarrassment.

And I wanted them to grow up and be good people and their life to be lived in a lane. I don’t know if that relates to you as a parent or not, but it’s like, yeah, it’s like you just you want them to be good people. And most of the time, we look at that from just our outward actions of conformity to some idea of what it means for us to be a good person. And so that’s kind of an interesting thing to look at.

I was looking at what Scripture talks about as the Fruit of the Spirit. And in Galatians 5 it’s a really interesting list. It’s love, joy, peace, kindness, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Now self-control may look like a behavior. We may have some idea of a behavior in our head, but most of these other things are like postures of our heart.

It’s like something about our heart, like who we are as a person. What motivates us? What is the thing that drives our behavior, but not the behaviors themselves? That’s kind of the core of that. That’s really interesting.

And I think that if we were really going to say, you know, what’s the end of discipleship, many people would say it’s conformity to the image of Christ or it’s having the character of Christ. That looks like that to me when I look at that list.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> The fruit of the spirit, that’s the heart of Christ. How do we develop that? How does that become our end and so that’s something to think about.

I think anybody that’s listening to this podcast, it would be good to pause and just think about what do I see as the end? What is it that I’m looking for in my own life?

What is it that I’m looking for in the lives of those I serve? And to really think about that because what you choose to get there, it matters what that end goal is.

Kelly >> Yeah.

All those things you just mentioned are relational words or happen in the context of relationship.

Debbie >> They do, which again makes it very interesting because not many of the means that we use today in the church are kind of behavioral means.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> I remember a time in my Christian life where it was like—I go to church or I would be in a Bible study and my list of to do’s would just keep growing. You know, of the things that I needed to do or ways that I needed to change my behavior or even in the sense of loving.

It was like, well, what does it look like to love? What are the behaviors I need to do in order to love? It may not have made that much of a difference internally for me as far as like what was actually motivating me. But on the outside I looked good. You know, I’m like, I’m controlling the response I really want to have toward what that person just did.

But that’s the loving thing to do. Or I’m not being honest with the person because I’m fearing some kind of reaction when actually honesty might have been the loving thing to do.

So I think that there’s a when it comes to being effective, we need to decide what it is that we’re going for. Now, I have an opinion about that.

Kelly >> Tell us.

Debbie >> What a surprise! Yeah, I think that it is that the end of discipleship is and is living a life out of your internal being from these places of love and joy and peace and kindness and all of this. That this is something, and I do think that that comes from people, not necessarily principles. I think it’s being connected with people that there’s really a people component, a relational component.

And to the degree that God is a person, too, he’s intimately involved in all of that. But there has to be this relational reorganization of our lives in order for us to really change because it’s not something we can sit at home and just make our list. Because even if we did, which is we just go out of our house and we interact with someone and then it would be over, you know, it’s like we need a personal connection with God, a personal connection with other people.

Yeah. Yeah. If you were as psychologist, you would call that we need attachment, we need attached relationships, bonded relationships with God and other people in order for real change to actually happen in our lives. Yeah.

Kelly >> So say a little bit more about that. How does that look in the church and if we’ve started defining the end goal, what are we shooting for? What does success look like?

Debbie >> Yeah, you know, there’s a lot more focus and literature and conversation about attachment, especially in younger generations. I think that young parents, current parents with children (you know, probably from babies to middle school) are having a lot more conversation about what is attachment, what value do relationships have in our lives than I did when I was a parent in the U.S.

You know, and this is a great benefit to us, especially as Christians because God made us to be relational creatures. He made us to be connected. And what we’re finding, just even scientifically, is this is the way our brains work. We’re formed a lot because of our relational connections. And in the end, our characters are really more about what do the people do that we love and we want to be like them.

So we’re motivated and our brain actually functions in this very relational place. When we make decisions like, well, I want to be like my people.

Kelly >> Right.

Debbie >> I want to be like the people that love me and that I love. And so that influences our choices more than just the ideas that we carry, or even necessarily the beliefs that we have, the principles that are our truth statements we have like a relational truth that is that drives our behavior quite significantly.

And so in this attached place, in this bonded and very secure place that we have with other people, I think there are several things that we can think about, like what does that look like? Like what does it even look like to be attached? What kind of relationships create this good, healthy kind of bonding for us? The first thing I’d say is that there are relationships where we’re seen and we’re known. You know, Brené Brown has done a lot of work on vulnerability and all of these things.

There’s so much it’s almost like buzzwords now—like was I seen in that, was I known in that?

But we at our core, we have this very deep desire for someone to see us for who we really are and to know us for who we really are. And when that happens to us (and it is incredible), it’s an incredible emotional experience. But it’s also like a brain experience, too. Like we experience joy, like when someone sees us and wants to be with us and knows us. We actually have a physical reaction to that, that lights us up.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> Yeah. And conversely, when we’re we feel dismissed or disregarded or, you know, we’ve all had those— “Oh, I was, you know, invisible.”

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> Which just feels bad.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> Yeah. Because we’re not really created to be in isolation or to feel disregarded. God sees us and knows us.

And so I think the challenge becomes, first of all, how do we experience being seen and known by God? And how do we create communities of people in the church that are willing to see and know one another and to be seen?

Kelly >> Yeah, which is the question that comes to my mind is—how is all of that that you’ve just described accomplished in the local church?

Debbie >> It’s hard work I mean, it’s not as simple as I just read this Bible verse and now I’m going to go do it.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> We have to bring something very personal to the table. We bring our own fears, our own experiences of being disregarded. Are sometimes our hopes and also this deep vulnerability that if somebody sees me for who I really am, will they really like me? Will they still accept me? Will they love me? Will I be rejected?

And we have experiences where that’s happened to us before.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> Where we’ve said the thing that was really true and we were told, you know, we were shamed by that admittance, and so it’s risky.

We really need God in the middle of that for us. The crazy thing about God is for all of us—our fear of him. And you know that a lot of people carry these God images of, you know, of he’s kind of waiting around the corner to pounce on you. You know, you got to get your act together in order to come into his presence, you know, and all this stuff. It just cannot be true because he sees and knows us completely and yet still chooses to be with us. But that’s really hard, I think, for us to always take in.

Kelly >> Yeah. And our relationships don’t always give us that experience. I mean, I can remember growing up hearing how you view your relationships defines your relationship with God. You know, how you view your earthly father is how you view your heavenly father. Or when those relationships are lacking or leave a lot to be desired, then you think, okay, strike out. There’s no hope for me in a relationship with God if this is what my relationship, you know, with an earthly person looks like. How does that translate to my relationship with God?

Debbie >> Right. And if my parents who are human like me or my friends reject me, I mean, what are the odds that the Holy God is going to accept you and bring you in? You know, but isn’t this the essence of why we need Jesus?

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> Jesus provides that way. Because now it isn’t about our marriage. It’s about his marriage.

And it allows God to be present with us in all of our messiness.

Kelly >> So what has that looked like? I mean, have you seen that done well in a local church or in a church setting? Things are really—I don’t know there’s a lot of disagreement in the world right now, and it’s difficult to love one another. And people have wildly varying opinions on a lot of different things in a church setting right now.

So practically speaking, what does it look like to be in relationship with one another in a way that’s loving and secure and attached? And that seems like a a hard process or a lengthy process.

Debbie >> It is a lengthy process. And you have to practice it. You have to be first of all, you have to be very conscious of it in the sense that you have to be intentional about creating those kinds of spaces. And we also have to be very intentional about moving into places with God that have felt scary before because in the end, it’s really God that’s going to hold us and community in this place because he’s the ultimate trustworthy one.

But we’re going to travel through all of our trust issues when we start doing this. We’re going to have to face places that hurt. We’re going to have to be present to that. And this is often where we get derailed because we just don’t want to feel that. We don’t want to feel our pain, and we don’t want to grieve things that have happened to us before.

We don’t even want to grieve. Maybe our images of God that have somehow kept us safe because we haven’t had to get too close.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> I do think it’s a really challenging time. I think that we have a lot of cultural habits of separating when it gets painful.

Kelly >> True.

Debbie >> And we’re not going to actually grow in community with one another until we can stay together when it gets painful and we can still lean into God when it feels uncomfortable.

Like if you’re going to grow your muscles, if you’re going to get in shape, if you’re going to move ahead physically, it’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be painful. You’re going to have to press through. You’re going to have to do more than you thought you could do.

And it’s also true when it comes to relationships, like you’re going to have to get comfortable being uncomfortable for what is possible on the other side of that. Like being seen and known and creating environments where that can happen and trust can start to be built even though it may take time.

You’re going to have to face the uncomfortable of that and be willing to say, “Okay, for the sake of growth, I’m willing to go here.” Yeah.

So the second thing I’d talk about, you know, what does it look like to be in these kind of attached relationships? It’s it has a lot to do with our foundational identity.

You know, we operate a lot out of who we think we are and who we’ve been with other people. And the amazing thing about God is he gives us this identity of being the beloved. Like he loves us constantly. And nothing we can do will make that greater or make it less. We can’t change the constancy of God’s love for us.

And at our very identity, he says, you are the beloved and that changes so much for us. It is a huge concept. I don’t know how many people I’ve talked with in the church in just my life, friends in my spiritual direction work where it’s like they struggle to understand God’s love for them. Like this is a significant part of our spiritual journey.

Like, How much does God love me? What, what? What do I need to do to keep that love, you know? Or What can I do to mess that up to cause him to be disappointed, to move away from me to in some instances I would think, be ashamed of me.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And and this is really a core thing about how we’re going to be in relationship with him.

Do we really trust that he loves us completely? And again, so much of this is influenced by the relationships we’ve had with other people where we feel we’ve disappointed them or we’ve been shamed by something that we’ve done. Is God like that? Does he really love us? When honestly, okay if we’re just really honest, it’s easier. It’s easier to keep God an idea than to make him that real, that we would have to be that vulnerable with him.

Kelly >> I mean, what you’re describing is very different from going to church, hearing a sermon, learning more truth, getting biblical principles, figuring out how they apply to my life.

You’re talking about something that’s really messy.

Debbie >> Yes. And personal.

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> If I let if I wanted people to take away one word, it would be this word personal.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> That it is a personal journey. Discipleship is a personal journey. I love that. I’ve had the opportunity to watch the series The Chosen. I think it’s highlighted for me. And people have very, you know, opinions about it’s not strictly you know, it’s not every word from the Bible.

They’ve taken liberties to create that story. And, but what they’ve created is a personal encounter these were men and women that traveled with Jesus. They sat with him. They listened, and they were present with one another. It was very personal, and that’s what changes us is the personal encounters. I think a lot about this these days because I wonder if we’re not losing touch with what it means to be a person, to have personhood to engage face to face with other people, to connect in that way.

You know this.

Kelly >> Say more about that.

Debbie >> This doesn’t do it.

Kelly >> A phone. Yes.

Debbie >> Yeah, yeah. I mean, this is easy if you need to get a quick message to somebody. But this doesn’t build relationships.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And this doesn’t build a relationship with God.

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> It’s long conversations, quiet listening, being open to some kind of spiritual experience where you’re impressed with the heart of Jesus. But long gazes. I mean, one of the things that we know about how people connect with one another and how we actually are formed is through actual eye contact, like long gazes with somebody else.

Like, there’s stuff that happens in our brains that, you know, our right eyes connect and we can actually think the same thing at the same time, you know, through that kind of encounter.

Kelly >> There’s an intensity there. I mean, I remember reading books when my kids were little about that attachment and sometimes that’s a very intense process. And, you know, when there’s neurodiversity, a person can’t look you in the eye.

Debbie >> Yes.

Kelly >> So I love that. I think thanks for bringing that out. I think that.

Debbie >> Yeah. And I think that there is a spiritual experience that we can have with the face of God, you know, may his face shine upon you. You know, maybe there’s lots of things in the Old Testament about God’s gaze being on us in a way that is connecting. Like what? What is it? What does it mean, you know, to look in the face of Jesus and to follow him in that kind of way? What kind of look is he giving back? Is it one of love? Is it one of I’m happy to be with you? Is it one of joy?

You know we’re recording this in the season of Advent. And I think that’s significant because when the angels come to the shepherds, they say, “We bring you good tidings of great joy for unto you is born a savior in the city of David.”

The joy was that God was present and God had come in a way to look them in the eye to be present with them. And that is a cause of great joy. That is relational joy. God wants to be with you. He’s happy to be with you. And this is tidings of great joy.

And that is just as true today. He’s happy to be with us. We are his beloved. Our very identities are grounded in his incredible great love for us. And that is really one of the cores of attachment.

So the last thing I would say about it is that because God put us in a family, he didn’t just say, “Oh, you and I are going to have a relationship.”

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> That we’re going to have a relationship, but we’re also going to have a church. We’re going to have a body. We’re going to have a community that establishes you as a person. And there’s lots of scripture about that. In that body we grow. It’s not just as an individual, but in the body we’re actually growing up together. So we’re connected in community through the Spirit’s work. And God provides the basis for our group identity because we don’t get our identity and our attachment and our growth from just God alone, but also the people of God who come along beside us. And that’s where it gets a little dicier because . . .

Kelly >> I’ve heard you say we don’t come with a clean, relational story.

Debbie >> We all wound each other. We all wound each other. And this is why we have to be committed to creating the healthiest relationships we can in the body, creating safe spaces.

There are three words that are kind of the three S’s that are kind of synonymous with attachment: You need to be seen. You need to be safe, and to be able to be soothed when you’re hurting.

So you need people that are glad to be with you in all your states. When you’re happy, when you’re sad, when you’re hurting, when you’ve messed up, they take you back and sit with you. They talk through it with you. They help you find your true identity again.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> This is the people that we are. We’re the people loved by God who are loving him back in the way we want to be like him because he is the ultimate place where we learn love and joy and peace and comfort and kindness. He demonstrates all of that to us through his heart.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> Yeah. And so he is our ultimate connected place, but it is personal we have to be personal with him and with one another.

It’s like our greatest hope and our greatest fear.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And that’s why it becomes a hard place. How does an interesting word it’s huh? Yeah. It just feels pinchy at times.

Kelly >> Yeah.

I have so many more questions about what this looks like in the local church, what this feels like. And I know you’ve had a lot of experience. I’m glad we’re going to have more conversations ahead of us because a lot of the things that you’re bringing up, you know, I’m thinking some. Yeah, but? And how does this practically look?

But I know that you have coauthored a bunch of studies. You have had a passion for this. And actually, I think you’ve actually seen it happen in your own life and in your church.

Debbie >> And I hear testimonies from many people. And so we did create a curriculum. The name is Life with God. It really comes alongside in this place and really holds people in these relational encounters and helps them to grow very incremental early because it is a process that takes time. You’re not just going to show up in a group and one day and just like blurt out your whole life.

Kelly >> Thank goodness.

Debbie >> It takes time to develop trust. It takes time to learn how to love each other well and to understand how God’s in the midst of that holding us all. So we’d love, if people are interested, we would love to give them a free sample of that. So they can get that off of our website.

Kelly >> Yes. If you go to GraftedLife.org, and click on “Life with God” tab at the bottom. It will show you “request a free sample.”

So I know that, Debbie, you and your organization made a lot of the material from your first study, The Genesis of Relationship, available to people interested in that.

Debbie >> Yeah.

And you know at Grafted Life we’d love to talk with them about how they could start on that journey because we have thought significantly about, well, iif this is going to be a relational journey, what does that really look like? Yeah. And you know, I think even just ending this time, I think even as people enjoy Advent this year, just to think about that, God came to be present, you know, Emmanuel.

But think about that personally. Like he came to be personal with me.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Debbie >> And he finds great joy in that encounter.

Kelly >> Yes.

Debbie >> Yeah.

Kelly >> Well, would you close our time together by praying for us and our audience?

Debbie >> I would love to.

Lord. I think one of the great things about everlasting life and the life part is so important is that you invite us to come into relationship with you that lasts forever.

I think one of the griefs we experience here on Earth is when people that we love die and we lose relationship. And your invitation to relationship is one that will never end. It is an everlasting connection. And it’s wonderful that here, while we’re still experiencing some separation from you in that very physical, personal way, you still give us this wonderful chance to be connected with you in in our spiritual being and in our depth and you even say, I’ll come live inside you, I’ll be so present, I will be internal. So Lord, for all those that are listening, I ask that there would be a little awakening to the possibility that a life with you, a personal connection with you, a deeper awareness and as Jesus said abiding experience could be really life changing.

And it could affect their community interactions and really the way they end up making decisions in the end, because they’re connected in a way that they just want to be like you, like you’re the best relationship they have. And they just long to be more like you. Thanks for this time, Lord, and may you bless all of those that are listening with a deeper experience of you.

I ask this in Jesus name, amen.

Kelly >> Thank you.

Debbie >> You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Kelly >> Yeah.

I’m glad we’re going to have more conversations. And just for those who are listening, we do have a lot of resources on the Beyond Ordinary Women website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. You can find Debbie’s earlier podcast with Kay Daigle. And again, if you’re interested in Grafted Life, a sample of the study Life with God, go to GraftedLife.org and click on “Life with God” and request a free sample.

OK.

I’m so glad to be with you today, and we look forward to next time.

The focus of this episode is our interpretation and understanding of women in the story of Scripture. We at BOW are thrilled to welcome once again Dr. Sandra Glahn of Dallas Seminary. In this recording Dr. Glahn talks with Kay Daigle about the way we interpret the stories of women in Scripture and how that affects our perspective of them. Additionally she suggests that we learn to understand them from the context and provides many examples of how to be true to the text–and there are so many!

Whether you’re a teacher of the Word or you’re reading through the Bible and want to understand the women in the story of Scripture, you’ll be encouraged as a woman by Dr. Glahn’s insights and helps. You can also access this episode on video if you prefer.

You may also want to access some of the many episodes featuring Dr. Glahn and her insights and scholarship.

00:24 Why this topic?

Kay >> Welcome to this Beyond Ordinary Women Ministry podcast. We’re so happy to have you on video or our podcast. Our guest today is Dr. Sandra Glahn, who has been with us many times. Welcome, Sandi. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Glahn >> Such a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Love what you’re doing.

Kay >> Thank you so much. I always contact Sandi once or twice a year and just say, what do you have going on? What can we talk about? Because I know what a blessing it will be to all of you out there. And today we are talking about “Women in the Story of Scripture.” And I’m particularly excited about this one.

Why are you working on this right now? Do you want to give us a little background?

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah. So I’m working on a book right now called A Woman’s Place in the Story. And my pitch was basically this: First we had men’s history, and we study David and we study the children of Israel, and we study Moses, which is important to study as Scripture is important. But we tended to initially just skip the women and then as a corrective have gone back and done studies on the women of the Bible, which we are not done doing, by the way.

So it’s still completely appropriate to have a women’s study Bible and studies of women because so often they were left out. Example, you might have heard a sermon series on Genesis that skipped the story of Tamar, that’s essential to the plot of Joseph’s life and to his brother Judah. So my argument is we need to go beyond cameoing women.

The ideal would be to just tell the story but include the women as they’re in the story because they’re serving an important function in the story. And so what I want to talk about now is some of the tools we need to see them so that we interpret what’s happening appropriately.

Kay >> Well, that’s great. I’m really excited about this as a Bible teacher myself. So I know I’m going to learn from you today, and I suspect that everyone out there will as well.

So first, let’s talk just a little bit about the elements of story.

Dr. Glahn >> You think about if you read a novel, you’ve got a character, you’ve got a plot, you’ve got a setting. One of the things to know when we’re reading the Hebrew Bible is that often the land acts as much like a character as a person, and God’s using the land and things like this—we’ll get to the daughters of Zelophehad later.

But just as an example: these women who come and they’re concerned that their father’s name will be forgotten, and the reason is because they’re not going to get land. We have tended to read that story as women’s rights. And, you know, they get left out, and they come demand it. Their concern is not that, although that’s an appropriate concern.

Their concern is our dad’s name is forgotten if we don’t get land and it doesn’t get passed down in the family. So it’s really—that’s an unusual element. You might find that in a story like The Road, like there are some stories where the actual setting is as important as a person and almost functions as a person. But that’s something that’s sort of unique to Scripture.

But even if you look at characters, so often a key character in the book of Genesis is going to be Judah because he’s the line of promise. So we’re getting the whole story of Jacob’s family, but we’ve got to not lose track of Judah. And we tend to do that because Joseph’s story down in Egypt takes so much real estate, and Judah’s story doesn’t take that much real estate.

We can say, “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph”, instead of “Abraham, Isaac, Jacob’s family, including Joseph, who saves it by going to Egypt and surviving a family famine.” But Judah, who saves it because of the faith of Tamar and not lose track of that line that we’re tracing to get us to Messiah, which is the point.

Kay >>Right!

Dr. Glahn >> So you’ve got character, setting, and you’ve got plot.

And another important element is character. Sometimes people aren’t mentioned by name and sometimes they are. And we have to pay attention to what’s happening.

For example, the daughters of Jacob, we only learn about Dinah, but we know he had other daughters. But the point is, how do we get 12 tribes? And that’s the question the text is answering. It’s not just answering—Who are all the members of the family of Jacob? It’s how do we get the 12 tribes from which we get Judah, from which right, we get Messiah. And so that means that we’re only going to learn the name of a female in that story because she comes back in in the essential plot of the other stuff.

But then sometimes when women aren’t named, it’s to make a point, a different kind of point. Not that they’re not essential to the question that’s being answered, but if we think about that the Hebrew midwives get named in a context where nobody else is being named. But then you come to the mother of the baby and she’s not named. You get the sister who’s watching him in the bulrushes, and she’s not named. You get the Princess, Pharaoh’s daughter, and she is not named.

And you, you come to a book where—name, name, name, name, name— and all of a sudden the Hebrew children are in slavery and nobody gets named. Even the baby doesn’t get a name until the princess gives him an Egyptian name. So those elements of even following what’s happening with the name are essential to getting what’s happening with the character.

Kay >> That’s really interesting and certainly should make all of us more aware of those kinds of things as we read it whether you’re teaching the Bible or just studying the Bible for yourself. Yeah, those are important and very that’s just very, very helpful.

So how can knowing more about narratives help us as Bible teachers?

Dr. Glahn >> Well, for one thing, it helps us to be better readers. And, you know, the Scripture is written for our benefit. And so just having some tools to know two things to pay attention to or some categories for framing, you know. What’s the back story before we dive into the Book of Ruth? What is a levirite marriage if we don’t know what that is? In that back story, then all the shoe exchange and none of that makes any sense.

So knowing that a story has a setting and a back story is important for setting it up. Knowing to pay attention to names but not read the wrong things into names, their absence can be a bad thing. Their presence.

Here is another example where, particularly in women’s studies, we’ve tended to be very upset that you know—Trigger Warning—you have the story at the end of Judges where a concubine is gang raped and she is never named or given a voice. And that has offended a lot of readers because they assume that the narrator is saying she doesn’t matter. It’s the exact opposite. It is an indictment on the people (which is the point of the passage), that things have gotten so bad that she doesn’t have a name or a voice.

And that is not the point of view of God, which is another essential element of character: who’s talking and whose point of view are we reading? So, for example, we can look at patriarchy wrongly. We assume that’s the point of view of God rather than the dark setting. So if we don’t separate setting from point of view, we can think God is cool with all this bad treatment of women, God approves of women getting nothing or not being named. And so get it, separating out the voice and the point of view from the plot, from the setting.

So to remember that patriarchy isn’t inspired. It’s the words in a context, but patriarchy that we can learn.

So those are just some examples of why it’s important to treat, to really look at as we’re telling a story, we’re looking at a story. Getting a bigger context than just the little cameo would be character, setting, point of view—what and how they’re all functioning.

And not to forget, the land might be serving as a character.

Kay >> Right. And what you’re saying is that if we get those wrong because we don’t know how to look for some of those things, that it can skew our view of God that we may not even understand who God is and what he’s like.

Dr. Glahn >> But you got to the core problem, and particularly for women and the women’s stories, because there are women that are silenced.

And yet you look at the end of the Book of Job, when he is restored, it says he has seven sons who don’t get names, and three daughters who are named. And also in the beginning, it said he owned a lot of slaves. And at the end, part of his restoration is not slaves.

Well if we’re paying attention to names, then we go, “Wait! Part of Job’s flourishing in the end seems to be that he’s decided to give his daughters an inheritance and names in a context where no women are getting that.”

Kay >> Yeah.

Dr. Glahn >> But if we don’t know if we’re not paying attention to if you’re named or not, for example, we might completely miss that and just think, oh, good, he got everything back.

And that’s growth in his character to throw off patriarchy and slavery in the Old Testament, no less. You know what a great end to the book of Job that we sometimes miss. He didn’t just get his life back. Something about him and flourishing had also changed.

Kay >> I never noticed that before. Thank you for using that example. I’m going to go look at it today after we’re finished with our conversation. Oh, that’s great.

So what are some faulty approaches that we sometimes use as we’re relating to women in the Bible?

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah, well, the first, as I mentioned, has been to just skip them or to think they’re not important, and another one is to just cameo them. So, for example, when we have the story of Abigail, it appears in a context that is making an argument about how, yeah, Israel blew off God as their king. But they’ve got to have a king or it’s going to be total anarchy. They have to have some kind of king.

So when God kind of pulls back and said, “Okay, you rejected me”, there’s an argument saying there is no king in Israel, everybody is doing what’s right in their own eyes. And the plot is moving toward making an argument for a monarchy. If you’re not going to have God, you’ve got to have a monarch.

And so you can come to the story of Deborah and think it’s just a story about a woman getting rid of an abusive husband instead of going—“Every story has a bigger context. What’s the plot?” It’s fitting in a section of Scripture.

Kay >> You mean Abigail?

Dr. Glahn >> I’m sorry. Who do I say? Deborah? I’m sorry. I’m glad you said that. No, that. Yes, Abigail and Abigail story. We have to bear in mind that an argument is being made for king as pro-David argument. So David isn’t king yet, but we’re showing that he has the potential to completely blow it by just wiping out somebody in his impulsiveness.

And she comes along as the voice of wisdom, and he listens to her. And even his marrying her at the end, which isn’t ideal because he’s already married, is also part of the argument that he’s embracing wisdom literally, rather than giving into his impulses. We get this sort of foreboding sense that David is going to be quick to bloodshed later. It sort of sets up his character for that.

But I’ve heard a message on Abigail that argued the point was that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Like that is not what this is.. Yes, that is not the point of the scripture. So sometimes our Bible teachers about women have made them all lead to the ideal of domesticity.

And they’ve seen that the Hebrew midwives were delivering babies and that Moses’ mother is caring for a baby and her sister is caring for a baby. And that Jael is a stay-at-home mom in a tent, you know, and that Abigail, you know, thinks about food for a man, and that’s how to win a man. Like all of that is prevalent and misguided.

But how can we correct that part? How we correct that is understanding the elements of story. And so what that means is if we’re going to do a message on a woman like an Abigail, we have to ourselves, as Bible teachers, read the whole book, not just the chapters or a chapter where a person appears. It doesn’t mean we have to teach the whole book, but it’s part of giving the setting.

What is the argument that the author is making and how does this story fit into the whole story of the book and then the whole story of Scripture?

And if we fail to do that, we can come up with some pretty wonky application. We could just look at an Abigail and go, Well, she sneaked out behind her husband’s back, and that’s bad—which is basically what Bill Gothard said—you know, she’s a rebel.

But there are so many hints with the names in that story. If her husband’s name is Fool (which I think the narrator’s having a little fun with us), it’s a little bit like changing the name Bob to Boob, right? Or Stan to stinky. You know, like I don’t think we’re necessarily supposed to think his name is literally Fool, but it’s probably close enough that that’s what his guys call him behind his back.

Kay >> Yeah.

Dr. Glahn >> You know, so Abigail is thinking about God and honoring God. And David mentions Yahweh, but Fool does everything wrong. And I mean, those are pretty big hints in the text about how we’re supposed to read it as Abigail being good and Nabal being bad. So those are some elements that are actually in the names.

But then again, looking at the bigger story, well, why does it say where Nabal lives? Well, it’s in Saul country. It’s in a part of the world where Saul has set up a statue to himself, and David has to win them over if he’s going to be their king. If he had slaughtered the richest guy in town and his guys and killed his family, it would have completely undercut his journey to the throne. But instead he listens to the voice of wisdom because God is preserving what he has said he will do, which is put David on the throne.

Kay >> What are some of the women in the Bible we tend to skip that you mentioned earlier?

Dr. Glahn >> I think of Tamar, the midwives. I think the whole section of women in the beginning of Exodus is a really important thing that sets it up. Who’s writing Exodus? Moses is writing his own life story, and not only does he mention Puah and Shiphrah, but he mentions them by name. And again in a context where women aren’t named because they have saved his life.

And then by the time you get to his sister and mom, who is going to name them later, but he’s making the point that now that we’re Hebrew slaves, we don’t get names, we don’t get voices. Even he himself doesn’t get his own name. Still women save Moses. All through the beginning of Exodus from the two named midwives to the three women: his sister, his mother, and the Princess, Pharaoh’s daughter.

And then you have this weird story about his wife and a foreskin, and God comes after him in the wilderness to kill him. And it’s pretty enigmatic. And I think the narrator, Moses, means for it to be enigmatic, because his point is not exactly what happened. It’s do you see how many women have saved him before he ever even makes it to take on Pharaoh?

Yeah, that’s essential information. And that often gets missed in the story. There’s a heading that says “The Birth of Moses,” but the birth of the baby takes up one line in that whole passage and he’s actually not named. So by our adding headings, sometimes we wreck the surprise or we wreck the subtlety of what the author is trying to do.

If I were going to, if I were going to title them, I would say “The Women who Saved Moses,” not because I’m a woman and just because I want to emphasize women, but because that’s the emphasis in the passage.

Kay >> Right!

Dr. Glahn >> So all of those women are working together with not much social power, which would have been very encouraging to the listeners. You might not have a lot of social power, but they used what they had and saved the savior of Egypt in the process.

So those are definitely names that we that get skipped. Some other names, I think are some stories that get skipped, or we tend to focus on people who have whole Bible books written, like Ruth and Esther.

But we there are lots of other like Hulda— she’s a prophet. Why is she not a household name? There aren’t that many women prophets, and the Book of the Law has been lost for all these years. Jeremiah is in town, but you know, it’s not that Hulda is plan B or that a good man can’t be found. There are good prophets in Israel and the king sends for her.

Her husband is the keeper of the wardrobe, which I find very fascinating in terms of gender, you know, at the temple. And she’s saying, “Thus saith the Lord.” That is a woman we need to know about. She’s another woman that is worth study, along with the daughters of Zelophehad.

Actually, I should go back to them for a minute. So you have these five daughters of this guy who I mentioned earlier whose story is mentioned in five different chapters of the Old Testament. I’ve never heard a sermon on them. I’ve never seen a women’s Bible study on them. But they are mentioned in as many books of the Bible as Miriam and Moses are mentioned.

Why is their story so important to the writer that it keeps showing up? That should flag to us that that we’ve neglected them and we need to go back and look at who they are. What is it about them that is important?

Kay >> I never knew they were mentioned in all those books. Yeah. I mean, I’ve read through the whole Bible, so that’s not the problem. I just never connected.

Dr. Glahn >> So they’re there mentioned in five different chapters and they actually close out the book of Numbers, and they reappear in Joshua when it’s time to actually give them land. And not only that, for the five times they’re mentioned, we get their names spelled out every time.

Again, in Numbers really it’s the census of who the soldiers are going to be. So it’s male name, male name, name after name after name. And then all of a sudden it’s Mahlah, Tirzah, Hoglah, Micah and Noah—Moses names his daughters. What have they done that’s so essential? Well, they’ve made sure that their father, who has no legacy gets one. And again, the land is operating like a character, and they want to make sure that their dad is remembered.

And the irony to me is not only do we remember his name, he’s one of the only names we’re still saying of that whole generation that had died out in the wilderness. So his daughters honored their father, which is, you know, given a promise that you all dwell long in the land.

Kay >> And are there any New Testament women that we tend to skip?

Dr. Glahn >> Yes, the whole book of Romans in chapter 16, we tend to study the first 15 chapters because it’s good theology and then go—yeah, it’s a bunch of greetings. I think we should be pairing—we take the teaching of Paul and women. but we have his practice in Romans 16 (what is he actually doing in his ministry life): You got ten different women that he’s mentioned calling ministry partners; one called apostle; and one is a deacon of the church in Cenchrea; one is like a mother to him.

You’ve got every kind of possible ministry role that women are fulfilling as his ministry partners. Paul doesn’t say, “Hey, greet the elders and deacons of the Church of Rome.” He says, “Here are my people.” And that is really important. In fact, I know one Bible teacher who calls it the Romans 16 woman, because we’ve tended so often to focus on the Proverbs 31 woman.

And none of them, interestingly, are mentioned in association with biological children. That is not to say biological children aren’t important, but it’s not the only thing that a woman using her spiritual gifts can do, obviously, because these are Paul’s ministry partners, right?

Kay >> Absolutely.

Dr. Glahn >> That’s a biggie.

There’s something else we do with women of the Bible and the New Testament in particular, as we tend to take the evil women and evil-ize them more than we might the men.

Here’s an example. We look at Jezebel who is wicked evil for her idolatry. And I was just reading actually, somebody had a Threads spoof recently where they said okay, We can talk about a Jezebel spirit, But why are we not talking about—Oh, he had a David spirit when he basically exploited people and had somebody killed. Why are we not talking about, you know, a Jehu spirit? He’s too violent. And, you know, a Solomon spirit because he’s a womanizer.

It’s like, okay, she’s evil. We’re not going to vindicate her. But also, we’ve made her the epitome of all evil instead of saying it’s an equal opportunity thing.

Another thing that we’ve done is with the Babylon the Great, who is called a harlot. There are also kings that she fraternized with that are involved in harlotry, but we don’t call them, you know, the male whores of Babylon, okay? Like she’s the one we give that name to. And the problem with that is the word whore anymore says as much about the person using it as it does the person being accused.

She’s not called the Whore of Babylon. She is described that way, but she’s called Babylon the Great way more.

And again, we have to think about the language that we’re using and what that communicates. If we take out good women in the Bible, when we skip over good women in the Bible—if when we do teach them, we domesticate everything that they do. And then when we talk about evil in the Bible in women and we make them the only personification of women. We do that with the women in Jesus’ genealogy.

And then we take the evil women and call them the whores because but the men get a pass. What that communicates to the women who are leaving our churches is that a woman’s place isn’t in the story. Or if it is, she’s a villain.

Kay >> And that’s so sad. I mean, this is so sad—what that does to the women in the audience who don’t really think through it.

And so what are some questions about some of the women in the Bible that people might be asking that we need to address more fully?

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah, great question. And this comes on the heels of what I just said. Some of the questions women are asking are why don’t we appear more than we do? Well, because the culture isn’t inspired, but it is the context for the book. It’s part of how we know it’s true, because it’s true to the context of the time. It’s how we date the Bible. It’s how we trace the words.

But what we need to address is why are women not talked about more in the Bible when they are named? Why aren’t they named more? But also when they are named, why are our preachers not necessarily flagging them as people of honor or somebody we need to pay attention to?

Other questions?

I alluded to the concubine at the end of Judges. “Why in the world isn’t she given a name? Why doesn’t she get to speak?” And how is she functioning in that story? It’s actually to show how far things have fallen and how much anarchy has taken place so that Israel does need a king.

And so one of the questions would be, “How are women actually functioning in this story?” If they’re not functioning in the genealogy of Jesus to show us what sinners God redeems, which God does. But you could make that the case with Judah. You can make it with Solomon. You can make it with almost all the kings of Israel. Right? So how are they functioning then?

Other questions that women are asking have to do with—“Is this how God feels about women? Are they just seducers from the beginning to the end from Eve on?”

Was Eve’s sin sexual seduction? If not, we need some correctives on that. And then you get to the end of the book where you have, you know, Babylon the Great and was Jezebel’s sin sexual sin. And so Dorothy Sayers at one time said, you know, “There were six other deadly sins! And you know, her main sin is idolatry,” which in the Old Testament becomes metaphorized as harlotry or adultery because it’s unfaithfulness to God.

Right. But that’s not the same thing as saying women as a class are seductresses, right? So these are the kinds of questions women are asking. Are we seductresses? Is that how God sees us? Does God not want us in his story? Is it better to be a man or am I equally in the image of God as a man is?

Yes.

Kay >> Yes. So how will just understanding this basic understanding of a story and the way that story works, particularly in the Bible, how will that help us avoid approaches to the women that are misleading, totally wrong, insufficient, whatever.

Dr. Glahn >> Because so often the story itself has the clues for the corrective and how we’ve gotten it wrong.

When I was working on the book, Vindicating the Vixens, since I was the general editor, and all I told the contributors to do was to give me a chapter on Tamar and show how she’s been missed, you know, wrongly interpreted. Give me a chapter on the woman at the well and show how we’ve sexualized her.

What I didn’t expect and what I learned was part of the seed that led to this study. In every case, the way the writer corrected what we’d missed was to go back to the bigger context, look closely at the story and say the story itself had the clues in it that told us how to read this.

So for example, in The Bathsheba story, Sarah Bowler said it says she’s washing. That can even mean washing your hands. It doesn’t mean she’s bathing nude. It says David sent and he took and he took and he took. That’s one place where Bathsheba’s silence vindicates her because it doesn’t say she seduced him. It says he send men, plural, and brought her. Well, what do you do if your husband’s a soldier and the you know, the commander in chief sends his guys for you? All these are in the story.

And then when you look at Nathan the Prophet coming and confronting David, he’s not saying y’all committed adultery. He’s saying, “You’re the man!”

And then the fact that Bathsheba’s son ends up sitting on the throne—like all these clues are really there, we’ve just read the wrong thing into them.

Even when you look at the argument of the Book of Matthew, when you look at his genealogy and you ask the question, “What argument is Matthew making of the four gospel writers and how would those genealogies make that case?” And it becomes easier to see these women are not there because they were seductresses, but they are—in at least three cases, maybe four—they’re Gentiles. And so that our Lord is Lord of the Jew and the Gentile and you cannot have a Gentile father in that line if he’s going to be in line to the throne. But you could have a Gentile mother to give him Gentile lineage and that then can fulfill the promise to Abraham that through him all the nations in the earth will be blessed.

And these are faithful women. And if we look at each of their stories, Tamar is another great example when she disguises herself and her father-in-law comes along, he’s the one who propositions her. She doesn’t actually seduce him or proposition him. He just sees her, and you know that it is done. She knows his character well enough to know he’ll go for it. And she is recorded as having words in the text. But the words in the text do not include turn aside here, brother.

It also helps in that story to pay attention to details like it says his wife is dead before she gets the idea. And so we know from the backgrounds that in the Levirite law, The Law of the brother-in-law has not been written yet, but we see it practiced in Ruth. So we know it’s practiced before it becomes codified in writing. And we see that early on there in Genesis and the nations around included a father as well as a brother-in-law in that.

And so that would explain—that little detail that his wife, he’s widowed—he’s fair game. And the fact that he says to her , and we’ve translated it, “You’re more righteous than I.” We wrongly think that that means a degree. I’m righteous, but you’re really righteous. It’s the same thing that Saul says to David when he realizes “I’ve been trying to kill you and you haven’t taken advantage. You’re in the right, not me. You say you’re the righteous one, not me.”

And what’s beautiful about that story is up to that point, Judah has sold his brother into slavery. He’s watched his father bowed down in grief and continued to hide the lie. He’s married a Canaanite woman. He’s had such evil sons, which, like where do you think they picked it up?

That God kills them for their evil, and then he’s willing to have his daughter-in-law burned to death for adultery when he himself has committed the deed. But after he says, “You’re the righteous, not me?”

The very next place we see him, right? He’s giving his life for Benjamin. She is essential to his character arc. But we’ve been so focused on getting back to the Joseph story that we have missed that his encounter with a woman who valued the seed in his family line more than he did, changed his life since he never slept with her again.

And again, he is giving himself up for his little brother, who is Joseph’s brother. He’s a changed man. We miss what a good story that is. If we skip that the clues are in the text itself. They’re there. You’ve got to go back to the story, you look for them.

Kay >> So do you have any like final words for the teachers out there?

Dr. Glahn >> Final words for the teacher is remember to read the big picture. And my encouragement would even be whenever you teach the Bible (you don’t have to give us the whole story of Scripture, all that) but it helps if you’re introducing like a book of the Bible or a character, remind us of where are we in the story.

Where is this happening and how does this story function in the whole? It’s a little bit like taking a book like The Firm and opening it, opening it up at random. And the character is in Memphis and making a point of Memphis. Memphis and you’re like, What? We would never do that with a book on our shelf. We shouldn’t do that with the Bible.

That’s not how literature works.

Kay >> Absolutely.

Dr. Glahn >> I would also say, that God is for women in his Word. Once we pay attention to the names and the absence of names, and how they’re functioning in the story, how patriarchy is functioning in the story, and God keeps overturning it by choosing the second. He chooses the second Adam. In the end, how he restores Job and part of Job’s healing is to throw off patriarchy.

All of that says God is for women and men. Don’t lose sight of that either.

Kay >> Amen. Thank you so much for sharing all of this wisdom and all that you’ve been thinking about as you’ve written your new book that we look forward to reading. When will that be out?

Dr. Glahn >> Not due out for another year.

Kay >> Okay

Dr. Glahn >> I let you know the study happens. You know, I have to turn it in about a year ahead of time. So you get the sneak peek of everything I’ve been marinating in.

Kay >> Yeah, well, you’ve done a great job in explaining a whole lot in just a short period of time here. So thank you so very much.

And those of you out there, we have a number of resources from Dr. Glahn. We have many interviews with her about her books and about other topics that you will find really helpful. And, you know, I never really introduced her at the beginning, but she is a professor at Dallas Seminary in the Media Arts and Worship Department of Dallas Seminary.

She teaches courses in writing, medieval art, and spirituality, as well as gender and sexual ethics. She has talked with us about some of those things previously. We’ve talked about gender quite a bit.

You can find all the links to all of those if you just go to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. Just type her name into the search engine.

And all of those will come up and you can browse through them and find the subjects that you’re interested in. You can also go to our website and find other resources for teachers, those of you teaching the Bible.

If you’re just studying the Bible and want to go more in depth, some of those teaching videos will help you and podcast will help you as well. And to find those, you go to the dropdown menu at the top, Resources, and from there you go to Leadership Development and then to Studying and Teaching the Bible. You’ll be able to find a multitude of things there to help you as a Bible teacher. How I wish I had some of those resources when I started teaching the Bible!

How I wish I had had your comments today, but I did not!

So, you know, we can help you prevent you from doing the things that I didn’t know.

Dr. Glahn >> Yeah, I used to vilify the woman at the well. So all we had, I had to work on.

Kay >> Thank you again. We loved having you and we look forward to the next time.

Rebecca Carrell

In BOW’s latest episode, Rebecca Carrell talks with Kay Daigle about the biblical term “the fear of the Lord” and the need for reclaiming it. What does it even mean? And why is it so crucial to our discipleship?

Is the fear of the Lord simply revering or honoring God? Do we find that there is there more to it when we actually study it biblically?

This podcast is part of a series on Re-imagining Discipleship. Don’t miss our other episodes: A Theological Perspective, A Spiritual Formation Perspective, A Church Leader Perspective, A Missions Perspective and A Kingdom Perspective.

You can connect to the video version of Reclaiming the Fear of the Lord if you prefer. When you click on the podcast episodes of the other conversations in this series, you will find the video links as well.

00:23 Introducing Rebecca Carrell

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to this episode with Rebecca Carrell, our special guest. Welcome, Rebecca.

Rebecca >> Thank you so much for having me, Kay.

Kay >> Oh, we’re so happy to have you again. And I’m really looking forward to this topic today. We’re going to be talking about reclaiming the fear of the Lord, and it’s going to be part of our series on Reimagining Discipleship. In that series, we’ve talked about various things that seem to be missing in the church today, and it all affects our discipleship.

It’s all part of our discipleship. And so this particular topic, when I saw that Rebecca had done some work on it and spoken on it, I felt like it was just perfect for what we do. Thank you, Rebecca, for doing that.

Rebecca >> Oh, you know, this has just kind of been a burden on my heart for the last few years. And so it actually feels good to give it some expression.

Kay >> Yes. Well, and that’s the way I’ve felt about the whole discipleship thing, it was really a burden for me to see what I saw as a real lack of discipleship in the church. And so I’m really excited about this conversation.

Rebecca holds a master’s degree in Christian education from Dallas Seminary, and she is now working on her doctor of education degree. That is wonderful. I’m so excited to hear that you’re doing that.

Rebecca >> I am not sure how any of this happened.

I’ve been in school since 2015. It’s like when, oh Lord, will we be done? Hopefully in a couple of years.

Kay >> My husband always says that if I could, I’d go to school all the time and that really is true.

Rebecca >> And when you work there, it makes it easy because you know they’re like, Sure, you can take some classes. So it’s like, Well, we’ll just keep going then.

Kay >> That’s great. Well, I’m really thrilled that you’re doing that. Rebecca also produces and hosts a podcast, Honestly Though, and the subtitle is Real Talk, Real Life and Real Faith. And I highly recommend that our audience connect with that podcast. After spending 20 years on the radio in Dallas Fort Worth, she now mentors and teaches students at Dallas Seminary.

Tell us what you teach.

Rebecca >> So I have been working with the Great Dr. Sue Edwards and Dr. Joye Baker. They are nearing retirement. And so the plan is to have me work with them. They mentor me. And so when they finally decide to hang it up, I will be taking the classes that pertain to women ministering to women. So right now we co-teach a class called Women Teaching Women, which teaches women how to write and teach their own Bible studies.

And we teach a class called Effective Ministry to Women, which is really all about how to build a thriving women’s ministry. And then there’ll be some other classes down the road as well.

Kay >> That’s wonderful. And we have had Sue several times on our Beyond Ordinary Women Ministry podcast and our videos, and Joy has also joined us. And I love both of them. And what a gift to be able to have you work with them and take over for them. That’s wonderful.

Rebecca >> Huge, huge shoes to fill. And I know that full well. I should also add that I also teach a class in the media arts and worship department on podcasting and social media marketing for ministry, which was born out of my vocation.

Kay >> So I am thrilled that you are doing that. And the media arts, that subject is obviously right, exactly what you should be doing, but so is the Women’s Ministry. I’m thrilled with that. So let’s go back to the fear of the Lord. Let’s get into our topic. What really caused you to be interested in this?

Rebecca >> That’s such a good question. It comes primarily from watching the state of the church over the last decade or so. There is not a denomination that has not been rocked by scandal. And living in Flower Mound, Texas, just over this past summer, the summer of 2024, you know, we live in the middle of three giant mega-churches, each of which had an issue that made headlines.

And also seeing a lot of the rhetoric that comes out on Twitter and various social media platforms of these giant media personalities who are also pastoring churches. And just some of the tone and some of the things that they’ve said on social media really is just not very reminiscent of the way we’re instructed in Scripture to be dealing with one another.

And as I started to research this, I saw that all the way back in the sixties, A.W. Tozer had written on this in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, which he wrote to call the church back to a healthy fear of the Lord. He talked about the loss of majesty in our view of the Lord.

And then just in studying the Scriptures, we are called to holiness, and we can’t achieve holiness unless we have a healthy fear of the Lord.

And so I think that if we could, the church at large, if we could recapture and what it really means to fear the Lord and to walk in that healthy fear, then we would hopefully prayerfully be once again a voice that can speak prophetically into the culture, especially in this day and age when everyone has their own truth. And truth is relative and there is no, you know, what once we called evil is now celebrated. And so that’s my hope and prayer that we can just open up some discussions about what it means to walk in a healthy fear of the Lord.

Kay >> And so that brings us to the question, what is the fear of the Lord and why does it seem hard to understand?

Rebecca >> Why is it so hard to understand? It should be so easy. But the problem with the fear of the Lord is that it’s what’s called a syntagmatic phrase, and in a syntagmatic phrase, you cannot define it by breaking down each little part of the phrase. So we can’t really define fear of the Lord by defining fear and then defining Lord.

We have to understand that the meaning of the concept of the fear of the Lord comes in the relationship of the words to each other. And so that’s super confusing.

I’ll say it this way, the Bible doesn’t really offer us one clear, crisp definition of what the fear of the Lord is. Instead, it’s mentioned hundreds of times in both the Old Testament and the new descriptively.

So the author of the Book of Proverbs references it 18 times. I have some notes I want to say 13 times as a noun, five times as an imperative in that it’s something that we should do. And so as the author of Proverbs talks about it, he’s telling us it’s the beginning of wisdom. It’s the beginning of knowledge.

It is evident on the one who walks in obedience. It’s a blessing. It’s a treasure. So it’s all these descriptions, but no precise definition. And so what I tell people the fear of the Lord, oh, and it’s also difficult to define because no two people really define it the same way. So if you drag out a bunch of commentaries or if you line up a bunch of scholars you’re going to hear definitions like it’s respect, it’s awe, it’s reverence, it’s fear, it’s terror, it’s horror.

You hear all of these things and it’s just hard to boil it down to one specific definition. So when I’m trying to explain the fear of the Lord one of the things I tell people is that yes, it’s awe, yes, it’s reverence, yes it’s respect. But the authors of Scripture, if you read from Genesis to Revelation, the authors of Scripture will not let us stop at awe or reverence or respect it goes deeper than that.

Kay >> And, you know, I always sort of felt that way. I would hear people preach on it and say it’s just awe and reverence. But then I would read passages that didn’t quite seem to fit that definition. And I would think it just seems like there’s more to this, that there’s actually something in actually a fear, something that we’re supposed to be afraid of.

Even though God totally loves us. I mean, I’m not trying to minimize that at all, but there always seem to be something more. Recently I’ve finished writing a Bible study on the Exodus, and one of the passages in there just really confirmed the way that I felt about this. It’s in Exodus 20. It’s when they’re ratifying the old covenant, the law. The people are preparing for God to come down on the mountain of Mount Sinai and speak to them. And they’ve prepared, and then they all gather. And there is lightning; there is smoke; there are clouds; there is a trumpet sound; there is an earthquake. I mean, it is scary and they are afraid. And then God speaks the Ten Commandments.

And so, you know, it’s paired with the law that God expects them to follow. You know, here’s all these scary things and it’s paired with “This is what you’re supposed to do. This is the way you’re supposed to live.” And then in Exodus 20:18-20, I thought I might just read it.

It says, “All the people were seeing the thundering and the lightning, and heard the sound of the horn and saw the mountains smoking. And when the people saw it they trembled with fear and kept their distance. They said to Moses, ‘You speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us lest we die.’ Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you so that you do not sin.’”

And it’s really that last part. God has come to test you that the fear of him may be before you so that you do not sin. That’s always seemed to me a little more than just awe and reverence.

Rebecca >> Yes. You know, if I can share an illustration.

Kay >> Absolutely.

Rebecca >> In October of this year, October 2024, that will mark 21 years since Siegfried and Roy discontinued their show, and Siegfried and Roy were known worldwide for producing the most magnificent magic show ever made. And the magicians’ favorite part of the show was called “The Rapport Act.” And during The Rapport Act, Roy would lead one of the great white magnificent tigers around the stage, and he would get close to the audience there was no barrier between the stage and the people.

And so he would lead the tiger around. And then the tiger would stand and put his paws on Roy’s shoulder and lick his face. And the whole point of The Rapport Act was to endear the tiger to the audience and show them that this mighty ferocious beast could actually be tamed. Well, on October 3rd, the show is going on as normal, but something happens.

No one knows what. And the tiger kind of goes off script. He breaks his routine, and it appeared as though he saw something in the audience and he’s making his way toward the audience. So Ray leaps in front of him, tries to control him, tries to get him to get back into the routine. And the tiger pushes him down, drags him by the neck, grabs him by the neck, drags him off stage.

Well, Roy flatlined three times on the operating table. The next day he had a massive stroke, had to be rushed back into surgery. And the USDA and a counterterrorism unit and the local police, Kay, spent two years—two years trying to understand why Mantacore, this great seven foot tall, 400 pound tiger, attacked Roy. I mean, I like to say, you know, they could have saved themselves a lot of time if they would have just asked me or you, because we all know that you can’t tame a mighty beast like that.

You can’t tame a tiger. And the proper response when you are in the presence of something that can destroy you like that is fear and humility. And the God of the universe. When you look through the prophets, particularly, let’s talk about Ezekiel or John, who received the revelation on the island of Patmos.

Ezekiel saw this vision of God high and exalted and surrounded by the cherubim. He saw that vision six times. Okay, every single time he fell on his face and an angel essentially had to revive him and get him up. You would think by the fourth or fifth time this would become routine to Ezekiel, but it never did.

And then we have John who walked with Jesus. I mean, Jesus, like mentored him. They, I imagine, stayed up late around the campfire. John watched Jesus heal people, multiply food, raise people from the dead. And still, after three, three and a half years of an intimate relationship, even seeing Jesus transfigured on the mountain, even seeing him in his risen state, when Jesus in his full glory appeared to John on the island of Patmos, he fell on his face as though dead. And so I think that’s what the church has lost.

We are still kind of recovering from the seeker sensitive movement when in what I think were good intentions, we tried to tame, we tried to domesticate the lion of the tribe of Judah and make Jesus a little more palatable for people who are anti-religion. And what’s happened is that now we’re seeing the ramifications of that, and the ramifications of that are blatant disregard for God’s commands, blatant disregard for the way we are supposed to behave with each other, the way we are supposed to do church.

And so no wonder we are seeing these scandals and no wonder our culture is the way it is.

Kay >> Right. Absolutely. It is exactly what we’re seeing. And it’s really giving the church a bad name.

Rebecca >> And that’s what’s so heartbreaking about it, is that really if you trace it back to God’s people, Israel, and then to the church, if you connect those dots, the original intention was always to fill the earth with the Lord’s glory. To fill the earth with the glory of the Lord. And we cannot behold the glory of the Lord if we cannot stand in fear of him.

Those two are so intricately related, and Israel failed. And the church is—there are so many good churches I don’t ever want to paint with too broad of a brush—but if you look at the Western church, and specifically you look at the American church, what we are seeing is not, I think, what Paul envisioned for the church being a light to the nations.

Instead what’s happening is people are looking at us and thinking, I want nothing to do with that. And that’s the tragedy of it.

Kay >> That’s what breaks my heart the most.

Rebecca >> Me, too.

Kay >> That’s what breaks my heart the most. So is there anything else you want to add to the fear of the Lord?

Rebecca >> Yeah. Let me share another illustration, if you don’t mind.

When I was eight years old, my parents were having people over. And I always like to say there was nothing more terrifying than my mother on the day of company. You know, like she will run you over with the vacuum. She will spray you in the face with Windex if you’re in her way.

And so my mom is getting the house ready, and my dad and I go to the grocery store. You know, my mom had given us this big list, and so we’re getting all the items. And as we’re coming out, I remember seeing (eight years old, so the memories are a little fuzzy), but I do remember there were two guys standing outside of a liquor store that was adjacent to the grocery store.

And I remember in my eight-year-old mind, they looked big and scary. And as we started to walk toward the car, they started to walk toward us. And one of them yelled out something and my dad, just without saying a word or looking behind us, just kind of put his hand reassuringly on my back and opened the door of the car, put me in it, you know, instructed me to keep the door locked.

And then he turned around, and he just did some business with those two guys. And I remember him raising his voice and smacking his hand on the car. And those two guys, they turned and left. And the whole time I am sitting in the car very much afraid. I am an eight-year-old girl, but I am not afraid of those two guys.

I am absolutely afraid for them because my dad was Superman. He was the biggest, strongest man in the world. He lifted weights. He could pick me and my sisters up with one arm. He ran marathons. And in addition to that, he showed us or told us every day of our lives how much he loved us and how we were always safe when we were with him. I was afraid my dad was going to beat them up and get all messy.

And then we’d get home and my mom would yell at both of us.

And so that’s what a healthy fear of the Lord should stir in us. If you look at the Psalms, in Psalm 34, particularly, I think in 11 verses, David mentions the fear of the Lord four times. But you’ll notice as you read through that Psalm, that the fear of the Lord doesn’t drive him away from the Lord screaming in terror.

It drives him to the Lord in praise and thanksgiving. I had a healthy fear of both my father and my mother growing up, but it didn’t cause me to run from them. It caused me to cling to them. And so a healthy fear of the Lord is something that absolutely knows that we stand in the face of a Holy God, and the only reason we can stand before this God is because his Son came to take our sin upon himself.

And that fear of the Lord, knowing who he is and what he can do, should cause us to have a great fear for the people who would come against us and drive us both to the Lord and to the world in an effort to introduce them to this magnificent Holy God, who, quite frankly, in Jesus’ words can destroy both the soul and the body in hell.

Kay >> Right. That’s a great illustration. Another great illustration. So what do you see as the way forward here? How do we reclaim the fear of the Lord?

Rebecca >> Yeah, yeah—by what you’re doing right now. When I spoke on this to our students at Dallas Theological Seminary, you know, I said the church is in a terrible, we are facing a terrible crisis. And so what is the solution? And the fact of the matter is that you are, you are the solution.

Psalm 34:11 says, “Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.”

And that tells us two things: we can make an observation and an implication. It tells us that the fear of the Lord has to be taught, that we don’t know it instinctively. We’re not going to stand at the foot of Mount Sinai and see the thunder and the lightning. (You can’t see thunder.)

But hear the thunder and see the lightning in the thick darkness coming down on the mountain. We’re not going to see that. But we can see the words on a page. We can read Scripture, and we can we can find a church that walks in a healthy fear of the Lord. And we can place ourselves under the teaching of people who model a healthy fear of the Lord.

And then the implication for that, for the mature Christian, is that we are to teach the fear of the Lord. We’re to learn it, and we’re to teach it. And so I think that one of the interesting things about the fear of the Lord is that it’s a lot like faith that the more you step out in faith, the deeper your faith grows.

The fear of the Lord requires a Christian to walk in obedience, staying close to the side of the Lord, practicing the spiritual disciplines of prayer and worship and periods of silence and studying the scriptures. And what happens when we walk in obedience is that it actually increases our fear of the Lord.

It’s so counterintuitive, but the closer we stay to the Lord, the more secure we feel in his presence and the deeper that intimate relationship grows, and the less we want to grieve the Holy Spirit.

I mean, you can’t make God mad at you because he sits outside of time and space. He knew the worst thing you would ever do. He knew it before you did it. He still saved you. He has no buyer’s remorse with you. But the intimacy that we get when we walk in close, close fellowship, in step with the spirit we walk in, that close fellowship with the Lord is something that once you taste it, you just can’t ever get enough, and you will keep going back to that well.

That’s why David said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” The more we walk with him, the more we fear him. And the more we fear him, the more we cling to him.

Kay >> Would you say that the mega-church model is working. Is that part of the problem?

Rebecca >> Oh, what a good, yet loaded question. Okay, so there are some mega-churches who are doing it so well. And the mega-church has something to offer the body of believers and the community at large that the small rural church just can’t—and that’s resources. When you have a church of 12,000 people, you have an army of volunteers, you have a vast treasury of financial resources.

You can do so much good in the community. We see churches that are putting out curriculum and worship albums that draw us into the presence of the Lord. So when the mega-church is done well, it can be a beautiful thing. When it’s not…

Kay >> And let me say I’m in one of those.

Rebecca >> Right. And by definition so am I. I think a mega-church is defined as maybe greater than a thousand, or maybe it’s 2000.

Kay >> 2000. I mean, maybe it’s less than that.

Rebecca >> I’m not sure. OK, well, it’s probably in Texas. There’s the mega-church and there’s the Texas mega-church. Right that is really true. And we go to Rock Point Church in Flower Mound, which is creeping up to 3000 people. So I mean, by definition, I go to a mega-church, too. We’ve also gone to mega-churches of 12,000 people. When it’s done well, it’s a beautiful thing.

And I hold up my own church as an example. Our pastor is so humble, he just rejects celebrity culture. But when it’s not done well, when there is no accountability set up, when you do not have to answer to a denomination or a bishop, it is imperative that you have a system set up where there are layers of accountability, where no one person calls all the shots because no one person is ever meant to be entrusted with that kind of power.

And so one of the things that we’ve seen happen in the mega-church movement is a movement away from participative, a participative model of church where you have liturgy readings and people up reading scripture and a call and response prayer and prayers of confession where you are praying words that are centuries old, that saints have prayed since the beginning of the church. You move to a more performative model where instead of someone who is standing and kneeling and responding and then going up to receive the communion elements from a person, you are sitting in a chair. You have a praise and worship band that could be releasing albums.

And then you have the pastor speaking for 45 to 55 minutes. And so instead of Christ being the main focal point of the service, a pastor is the main focal point of the service. Now that doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it’s something we need to remember if we are trying to get our congregants to participate in actually being the body of Christ and not consumers who are sitting there receiving a message. Then we’ve got to do some work.

We’ve got to find ways to become more participative and less performative. The performative model can only produce celebrities, and you get someone up there who is, you know, slick and good looking and a tremendously charismatic speaker and funny and wears all the cool clothes and knows all the cultural slang. I mean, people are going to worship that person.

And so these are just things we need to consider. These are things we need to consider and ask what is church meant to be? When Paul was describing church and orderly worship to the Corinthian believers, he said everyone should come with a psalm, a hymn, a word of knowledge. The church was built on a participative model and I do think that the celebrity culture is one of the things causing all of the problems in the church today.

Kay >> Well, I think you have to see that that’s part of it.

Rebecca >> Yeah. And a mega-church can hold that off. You know, you can have a preaching team instead of one person that’s up there. You can have a worship team, but then you can have a choir back them up every now and then. You can involve people. You can have people up on the stage reading a chunk of Scripture, you can do a call and response prayer. So there are elements that could be introduced into the mega model that I think could steer us away from the solely performative model and back into somewhat of a participative model.

Of course, a mega-church is also going to have to be very intentional with small groups and finding a way to build that intimacy and make sure all of your people are shepherded because one pastor cannot shepherd 12,000 people or 3000 people or 1000 people.

Kay >> Right.

Rebecca >> So there needs to be a much larger support team if you’re going to do a mega-church model. And I’m in one that does it well. So it can happen.

Kay >> Right. But the truth is that kind of model can even be in a small church. And it still has the same dangers to the congregation, to its people, as a large church. In a large church, I think they have to fight against it more.

Rebecca >> I think so too. And as long as humans are involved in church, we’re going to have problems of scandal and sin. This is not something we’re going to solve. This is something we can bring awareness to. It’s something we can start having conversations about. And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to say, hey, is the way we’re doing church working, are we walking in a fear of the Lord or have we taken on this attitude that Jesus is my homeboy and really the job of the pastors to fill seats and produce baptisms?

If we’re not walking with people and if we’re not encouraging them to holiness, then we’re not doing it right or well or really at all right.

Kay >> Yeah. Well, do you have any final encouragement for those who are listening and watching?

Rebecca >> You know, I want to say this. If you go to a church that’s doing this well, particularly if you’re in a smaller church, you would give your pastor such a gift to tell him. I interact with a lot of pastors of smaller churches, and I can tell you they are doing it. They are walking with their people.

They are loving them well, and they’re doing it for very little pay and no recognition. And so if we can really make sure that we are affirming the people who are doing it well, I think that goes so far because, you know, I think the best thing that can happen to any of us is that we would minister for the rest of our lives in obscurity and not have to face the temptations of celebrity or recognition or admiration or affirmation that brings just a terrible, soul destroying temptations.

And so just affirm the people you know who are doing it well and thank them because we are losing pastors right and left. That is another terrible problem in the church we’re facing that the ones who are doing their best and doing it well are sometimes being maligned for it. The ones who are standing for truth and teaching the hard words are taking a lot of heat for it.

And so write a note, visit their social media page, thank them in person, give him a hug, but let them know that they’re making a difference in your life.

Kay >> Those are good words. Thank you so much, Rebecca. This has been a really insightful conversation and I think that those who listen to it will really have something to think about and something to do: to teach the fear of the Lord; talk about the fear of the Lord; and to live out the fear of the Lord.

For our audience out there let me say that we have other episodes that are already posted on Reimagining Discipleship. We encourage you to connect with those and watch those. We have a variety of topics, a variety of people, and I know that we’ll probably do some others after this one. We just have to have the right topic. So thank you again, Rebecca.

Rebecca >> I’m so honored to be on the great Kay Daigle show.

Kay >> You’re so sweet!

Rebecca >> For real. This is such an honor for me. Kay, thank you so much.

Kay >> Oh, well, we’re honored to have you and so happy that you had the time to be with us.

Rebecca >> Any time, any time.

Jodie Niznik

Julie Pierce

Identifying the best support for Christian leaders is crucial when we deal with personal issues or leadership problems. What kind of outside professional will provide the best kind of guidance and wisdom for whatever has us stuck? Will a spiritual director, coach, counselor or pastor best help us with our difficulties? What are the differences in the kind of counsel and wisdom we would receive from these various professionals?

Joining host Kay Daigle are Jodie Niznik and Julie Pierce who discuss the differences and provide guidance for those of us who need support of some kind. Identifying the best support for us as Christian leaders is the first step in moving forward.

Connect to the video of this conversation if you prefer.

00:32 Introducing BOW’s guests and the topic

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle. Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast and video episode. Today’s topic is designed to help you as a leader when you feel stuck or if you’re struggling personally or in your ministry. We want to help you, and to do that we have invited two special guests to be with us, Jodie Niznik and Julie Pierce.

Welcome.

Jodie >> Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Kay >> Well, thank you for giving us your time and being here to help leaders in this situation.

And we’re really reaching out to you as leaders. You may not even need this right now. You may not need it right this moment, but you may need it later, so this episode is very important. It will help you if you need some support just because you’re not sure what to do next in your ministry, or how to deal with a problem—whether it’s that you have burned out or whether you just need some emotional support, whatever it is.

We are here to help direct you to the right person because there are choices. And we’re going to talk about the choices of going to a spiritual director, a counselor, coach, or just a pastor. What are the differences? And when would you go to one and not the other? We’ll talk about their areas of expertise to help you make that decision.

So let’s talk about you, Jodie, for just a minute. Jodie has a scripture meditation podcast, So Much More that is excellent. Jodie has been on a church staff, and she understands what it’s like to have that kind of pressure on you to be a spiritual leader.

And we’ve had some great previous conversations with Jodie. We’ve talked about leadership lessons from the life of Moses. We’ve talked about taking a personal retreat. We’ve talked about spiritual practices that can help us.

So look at her full bio on our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org, and learn more about her. So, Jodie, we’re just thrilled that you were able to be with us again.

Jodie >> Thanks, Kay. It’s always so, so good to be here.

Kay >> And Julie, we are delighted to have you come for the first time—and hopefully it won’t be for the last that you’ll be able to join us. Julie and I first met years ago. We were on the same church staff. I believe your title was church Communications Director.

Julie >> Yes. Good memory, Kay. It feels like a long time ago.

Kay >> Yeah, I started thinking that was probably it. Julie has a whole list of churches where she has served and also helped with their leadership situation. And she just has had a lot of leadership development roles, I know, Jodie is the one that suggested that Julie come on here as well because of her expertise with coaching and working with leaders.

So thank you for being here. I think your input is going to be crucial.

Julie >> Well, thank you for inviting me. I’m just thrilled to get to be a part of that conversation.

Kay >> Well, great. Well, what are the reasons? Well, really, the main reason I thought of this topic is because I was that person some years ago. I was that person, and I wasn’t okay. I was working on a church staff. I’d been a volunteer leader for most of my life. And then I ended up on two church staffs over a total of ten years that I worked on church staffs, and I found myself just not okay, and I wasn’t even really sure what was wrong. So I took some time off that didn’t really fix it, so I did some reading. I eventually decided that I’d burned out, but I didn’t know what to do about it. I really needed some help, but I didn’t know who to go to.

And eventually I ended up with a counselor and a spiritual director. But the spiritual director didn’t work out. We just didn’t really seem to click, and I’m still not sure where I should have gone. So I’m hoping that y’all will help me decide. Then if I ever have these problems again, I will have a better idea of where to go.

So let’s start in here by talking about counselors first, because people know more about counseling than they do about spiritual directors and coaches. Pastors they know a little more about, but they may be expecting too much of their pastors. So, Jodie, do you want to start and talk some about counseling and how that has impacted you and what you know about the expertise we would get there.

Jodie >> Yeah, I would love to. And I love your example of burnout because I think that is a very common something that leaders, ministry leaders, especially female ministry leaders, face. And we’re not sure. We’re experiencing a symptom. And what we need to do is get down to the root of what’s really going on. And part of that is trial and error. Part of it is trying different sources of help.

Counseling may be a great first stop for people because counseling, especially a good license professional counselor, will help you start to dig down into what are the roots of what’s really going on deep in our soul. Usually counseling is kind of going back to go forward. So we’re kind of uncovering what are some patterns maybe I’ve picked up along the way, some unhealthy messages even that I’ve received all through childhood that just kind of started to get embedded into my life.

And a trained counselor will just start to know the questions to ask and the places to go to help you start to discern what those messages were and and replace them with good things. And like you with burnout, there’s usually some sort of inciting incident that makes us think, I need help for me.

I’ve been to counseling a couple of times. One was for ministry burnout, and another time was for a toxic relationship that I found myself in. And I was really confused by how I had wandered into such an emotionally unhealthy relationship when all the other parts of my life seemed to be okay.

And the counselor really helped me start going back and looking at my childhood and things that I had picked up along the way that I needed to heal from. So for me, counseling brought me healing, and she was a Christian counselor, which I also highly recommend. Definitely, if you’re going to go to counseling, try to find a trusted Christian counselor because you want somebody that is also informed about Scripture, about who our God is, who’s speaking that truth into your life as well.

So for me, it was uncovering some of those things to help me move forward. But there’s a lot of reasons why you might want to see a counselor for anxiety, depression, burnout, trauma. If you are experiencing significant relationship stress with people that you love in your life, that is a pretty good sign that there’s something going on below the surface.

It may be both of you. It may just be you that needs to do some work. But as most good counselors will say, there’s things on your side of the street and there’s things on their side of the street. But we’re going to deal with your side of the street because that’s all we can do. But we can become healthier through good counseling.

So that’s that would be my advice for someone looking to know if they should need a counselor.

Julie >> Jodie, I would just add to that. The truth is, trained professional counselors have tools in their toolbox that the rest of us do not have because of their training. There’s a lot that emotional help, that mental help, that relational help, that we need to lead in a sustainable, healthy way. And when those things are off and not quite working well, or when we’re stuck in a cycle or a pattern that is not healthy for us, we need those experts with their tools to come and help us unlock that and find that help that we need to move forward.

Like you were saying earlier.

Jodie >> Yeah. And another thing, Julie and I are also friends outside of this. And one of the things that we’ve said to each other is you always need to have a good counselor in your back pocket. You need to know somebody that you can go to because things like this, you know, it’s not on schedule. We don’t get to schedule our crisis.

Julie >> Right.

Jodie >> Right? We don’t. We they just happen at unexpected times. And all of this stuff seems to start to come out at once. And so it is helpful to have a place to know that you can go someone you trust. And like you said, Kay, somebody that you do click with right?

Kay >> Right. And I definitely applaud your suggestion that it be a Christian counselor because that’s who I went to. And really, the help that she gave me was all centered on the fact of her being a Christian counselor. I don’t think another kind of counselor would have given me the same advice that she did. It was it was very good.

So let’s talk about that. Our second area of coaching and Julie, let’s let you talk about coaching.

Julie >> Yes. So I’m not going to say this one is my favorite because I think they’re all super valuable. It’s just the one that I am living in the most right now as a leadership coach. And like Jodie was talking about, counseling is really looking, you know, to our past to unravel and heal up some things so that we can move forward.

Coaching is very forward focused. Coaching is very action oriented. The great gift that I see comes from coaching is clarity: clarity around what all I’m facing, what I need to do next and confidence—confidence in who I am and what I bring to the table, confidence in that decision, confidence in my plan, and then the encouragement and coaching to just keep moving forward.

So often in our leadership, we just get stuck because we’re overwhelmed by all the stuff, all the demands, all the pressures, all the decisions, all the things. And what coaching does is—really with a great coach—they sit across from you and they help bring that fresh perspective and a path forward. And so, like I said, it’s very action oriented.

A great coach also has some training in that particular expertise. So like I work with leaders, my expertise is leadership coaching. I have some certifications in that space. And so any coach that you’re going to, you want to make sure that they have the kind of training and equipping to help you in that specific area. Just like you would go to a trainer that has all kinds of certifications in how to lift weights and all those kinds of things if you’re wanting a physical coach.

So making sure that you have the right kind of coach who has the certifications and training you need.

And I’m passionate about coaching. The reason why I chose to stay in there and invest my life in coaching leaders is because of the difference that a leadership coach made for me when I was just at this crossroads in my leadership and my career, and I just wasn’t sure. Everything felt like too much. I just found myself stuck for a while.

And I’m usually able to kind of just like, grin and bear it and suck it up and push my way through. And I was not able to push through and figure out the path forward. And she just asked me such powerful questions in our sessions that just unlocked that fresh perspective that I needed to make a plan forward.

So that’s the distinction between counseling and coaching and how it can really serve the leaders listening to your podcast.

Kay >> That’s great. Really, really great. Insights into coaching. And I feel like a lot of leaders in the church, a lot of ministry leaders, don’t really tap into coaching very often.

I know very few that have gone to a coach. Do you think that’s true?

Julie >> I would agree with that. I think often times it has to do with—we feel like we should already know all the answers. We feel like we should have already figured this out by now and that somehow going to an outside resource feels like some kind of admission of weakness or I’m not quite up to the job or whatever, when it actually couldn’t be further from the truth.

You know, a coach like I am is not an expert on your leadership situation, Kay, you are. You’re the expert. And so a good coach really just helps ask those powerful questions to unlock that fresh perspective that you need, and then to help you develop that plan. Right? And I think we get stuck a lot of times because we feel like to ask for that support in whatever area it is.

We feel like—oh, well, am I really just admitting that I’m really not up to the task they really should have asked somebody else. I’m just not a good enough leader. Really good leaders would know how to handle this. And that’s just baloney. Like, none of that is true. We all need people around us to provide support and help so that we can lead in a healthy, sustainable way.

Just like going to a good counselor helps us unlock some of those things we need for our help. A good coach can help unlock those things. We need to make a path forward.

Jodie >> Yeah, and I think even what we’re touching on right now is any time we ask for help, we have to humble ourselves a little bit. And that is I mean, that’s something that God calls us to do. It is not an admission of failure. It is not an admission of, you know, being a total hot mess or whatever.

It’s an admission of being human and needing and needing support of people. For me, coaching has been so, so helpful in that they’ve also including what everything Julie has said. They’ve also provided accountability for me because I know I’m getting back on the call and they’re going to ask me these questions about how I’m doing with that thing I was working on.

And you know, what? What have I done to make progress on that? How am I not living in this chaotic way? Because a lot of times I would go to coaching because there was too much all at once, and I needed to figure out what are the things that only I should be doing and how can I do those in a way that God is calling me to do them and not in a way that’s going to lead me to burnout.

Kay >> Yeah, that’s really great. Back to what you said, Julie, that the term imposter syndrome has a lot to do with this because we already feel like we’re sort of imposters in these roles because how in the world could I be the person that God would put here? And so that makes it harder because if you’re really an imposter, everybody’s going to find out if you have a coach or a counselor or a spiritual director. It just confirms that you’re an imposter.

Julie >> Yes. The truth is, a lot of times we find ourselves in situations that we have never been in before. So how in the world would we automatically know everything we’re supposed to do in that situation? Like we would never expect that of somebody else, but we expect that of ourselves. Right? Yeah. And so going to that outside resource for help and support and guidance and coaching sometimes is just what we need so again, build that confidence that we have what it takes and to figure out the path forward.

Yeah.

Kay >> Those are good words.

Well, listen, I never knew spiritual directors. I think that, I mean, years ago I’d never even heard of one, and it wasn’t that long before I went to the spiritual director that I hadn’t even first heard that there was such a person and there seemed to be a lot of question about how biblical they were.

And now I know many spiritual directors, but at the time that I burned out and was trying to go to someone, I really had to just use someone else’s suggestion. And she just didn’t end up being right, so I just gave up. I do think I would have been benefited a great deal from a spiritual director at the time.

So tell us what that means. What is a spiritual director, Jodie, and how has that helped you?

Jodie >> Yeah. Spiritual directors are on the rise, so likely you have heard of that term now and perhaps you’ve gone to one or you’re curious about one. But in a nutshell, a spiritual director is someone that holds sacred space with you to help you discover God’s presence in your life and how you’re responding to him. So let me break that down and what that kind of means.

Unlike coaching, you’re not looking for the goals of how to do your job better. And unlike counseling, you’re not going back into your past to kind of unearth some things to help you live healthier. Spiritual directors are about listening with you, creating space for you to see what God is doing in your life. And then look at how are you listening to his voice, how are you heeding his voice?

The spiritual director that I meet with, she even creates sacred space in the middle of our meeting. We just stop and we listen to God together. And then she says, “Tell me what you’re hearing. Tell me what God is saying into your heart.” And we talk about that. And it becomes this place of prayerful listening together. I wish so much that I had had a spiritual director when I was pastoring and when I was leading because I was so busy about doing the work for God that I was having trouble listening to him for me and listening to what he was guiding and leading.

Now, I was earnestly trying. I mean, I deeply wanted to have a very intimate relationship with God, but because there was so much busyness and so many things churning, it was hard to really settle my soul enough that I could start to hear and discern God’s voice in leading specifically for how I was supposed to be leading in ministry, or how I was supposed to even just be taking care of my own soul.

So I do think it is something that you have to maybe try one or two before you find somebody that you really can settle in with because you need to feel really safe with a spiritual director because you’re going to be quiet with them. And that could be awkward. It can be awkward to sit in silence with somebody whether that’s in person or over zoom.

I meet with a spiritual director over Zoom, and thankfully I felt instantly connected to her. And so there was something like it was the time was right, the person was right. But if you don’t feel that, do keep trying because I think this is a really incredibly helpful tool for us. This especially as ministry leaders.

Julie >> Jodie, I 100% agree with you. And I just want to echo what you shared about they help you hold the sacred space. They help you turn down that noise. I mean, there’s so much coming at us as leaders all the time that it gets so hard to hear his still small voice, which seems crazy and yet we all know that’s exactly true.

And so a spiritual director really does help you turn down that noise, helps you listen, helps you hear the echoes of what he has been saying over and over. Oftentimes, I found that my director just affirmed what I was hearing from the Lord. And I’m thinking, oh, that’s just me or oh, no, you know, maybe I’m making that up.

And she’s like, no, I heard that loud and clear as well. And, you know, like, they help you just listen and create that space. I love how you shared that.

Jodie >> Yeah. And spiritual directors will listen to you over time. And because they’re getting these little snapshots into your life, they can hear themes that maybe get lost in the muddiness of our daily life. And so they’ll point that out. And another thing I want to say about spiritual direction is a good spiritual director will not give you advice, but they will ask you good questions, open-ended questions to help you lean more in, okay?

Yeah, you’re right. I am. I have said that three times in the last couple of meetings. Okay, well, what does that mean? Let’s look at that a little closer— that type of a question instead of, you know what I think? So that’s perhaps a counselor and there is room for that. But this is really you and the Lord together, figuring that out.

Kay >> That’s great. Well, let’s move on to pastoral counseling. Julie, help us understand how pastoral counseling is different from all of these others.

Julie >> Yeah, I often think another term could be pastoral care. You know, we hear that term a lot as well. And when I think about pastoral care, pastoral counseling, it really is to provide that spiritual support or the short term. And that’s important because most of our pastors could not walk with us in the weeds eight hours a day for six months.

You know, like they just do not have the capacity for that. And what they, what their specialty is, is providing that spiritual guidance sitting with us and being the physical presence of Jesus with us in the middle of those really hard situations and those hard seasons. They point us to the Scriptures. They remind us of where God has been present, how he is present, and how he will be present in the future in the middle of this.

And they oftentimes, too, will be able to rally the resources in the church that can further support us in that season or point us to those outside resources that we may not have even had a chance to even think about. And so it really is that presence reminding us that God is with us, reminding us of his care and his goodness and his love in the middle of all the hard and then again, that rallying of resources that might be available in the church or even outside that can support us and our loved ones when we’re in the middle of that.

Jodie, how else would you describe pastoral care?

Jodie >> You know, one of the things I was thinking about that pastoral care offers us is help within community and help within relationship already. So hopefully if you are calling a pastor for care, you already have a relationship with them. The benefit (and I think why a lot of us might turn to pastoral counseling first) is that it doesn’t cost money.

And all of these other resources that we’re talking about cost money because this is this is somebody’s vocation. And so they, you know, a workman deserves her wages. But a pastor is paid through their vocation as a pastor. So that is attractive.

And and yet the other thing I just would say as a caution for us, as especially the women listening to this as ministry leaders, getting pastoral care in your church, if you are leading in your church, may not be the best place for you to go because you may not feel completely safe to be as vulnerable as you need to be about what you’re really struggling with.

And if you know, it just it may not yeah. It just may not be safe.

Julie >> Just complicated. Well, just.

Jodie >> Yep, sometimes it’s complicated, period. That’s you all know that. I don’t need to tell you that going to your boss and telling him you’re really struggling—or her that you’re really struggling may not be the best idea. So I would also take that into consideration as you’re praying through what kind of support and help you need.

Kay >> And the other part of that is sometimes you are struggling with somebody else in the church.

Jodie >> Right.

Kay >> So you don’t want to, you don’t want to be, you know, ratting on this other person by going to the pastor. And even if you don’t use a name there, you can accidentally tell enough about the person that you are basically revealing who the person is. So I do think that’s another reason that you need to be cautious if you are on this staff.

Now, it may be that other staff members need to help you with this person and that’s a different situation. But you need to be more cautious about those things, I think. Anything else to add to that?

Jodie >> And you know, one other thing I would add is a lot of times we go to pastors expecting them to give us counsel and care that they’re actually not really equipped to deal. And we shouldn’t be expecting a licensed professional counselor type relationship from our pastor and so I would just I think there should be a baseline of general health, right?

There’s a, there’s a crisis that’s happened in your life. Maybe a death or something that has come in that’s kind of just causing you some turmoil and some some pain. And I think that is where a pastor can really help you. If if after a few times with that pastor and just being listened to and prayed over brings healing and relief, then that probably was good.

But if it starts churning up, you know, because somebody died that you love and all of a sudden you realize you have all these abandonment issues, it’s time to go to a counselor. So you need to just make sure that you’re expecting you have the right expectation level from each of these people that are helpers.

Julie >> Yeah. Jodie, I love what you’re highlighting there of recognizing what expertise and capacity each one of these roles have to provide support for you. And you know, anybody who is a great pastor is going to recognize whenever they’re in a conversation with someone and they need actually oh, actually, you need counseling or actually I think you need to go sit with a spiritual director, right?

Like all of us in all of these helping professions, want to make sure you get the help that you need. So, you know, I’m real quick to point people to a different resource if I think that’s going to be better than them sitting in a coaching session. Right. But recognizing, hey, what expertise do I need and then putting the right expectations on that person.

Am I going to the right source and are they quick to refer me to someone else if it’s beyond their scope of care?

Jodie >> Mm hmm.

Kay >> And so how do you as a ministry leader help someone discern where they need to go.

Jodie >> I think, so I look at it this way. If you’ve got some things coming up from your past counseling is probably the next direction. If you’re feeling stuck on forward movement, especially in regards to career or how you’re living your life, I would say coaching is a great next step. If you were wrestling in your relationship with God, hearing his voice, understanding what he’s asking you to do, or you want to just go deeper, you feel this longing to go deeper with God in prayer or just in communion with him that I would say go to a spiritual director. I think a pastor is a great place to go, like I said, for just a few times.

So I think that would be how I would help somebody discern where to go.

Julie >> That was such a great synopsis. Every leader needs to just save that right there or whenever we need to figure out who to send someone to. That was a great synopsis.

Kay >> Jodie, that was very good and works for whether we’re trying to discern where to go or whether we’re helping someone else decide somewhere to go. And if if you learn that or decide that you need a counselor or a coach or a spiritual director—whatever, how do you find out where the qualified people are?

How do you know whether this is really an expert who can help you?

Julie >> Well, I always read through their bio to see where they’ve received their training. So that’s always important to me. And if that training source is a qualified source and one with a great reputation. I also, you know, word of mouth is a great way to find out about other resources, trusted resources, especially leaders on a church staff like asking other leaders, asking your peers, hey, I’m just I used to do this all the time.

I’m building a list of counselors that I trust. Who do you know that you’ve either had a great experience with or someone that you have sent to them, has had an amazing experience. And tell me why. I’ve also gone and done a lot of interviews with people. Hey, tell me about you. Tell me what you would do with this person who brought this situation to you.

And that works for any of the helpers. We just walked through going and just spending about 15 minutes with them, 30 minutes with them, asking them questions around their story, their approach, their experience and expertise. All of that will help you get a better sense. And it also gives you a sense of, you know, do I click with this person? Do I like the approach that they just outlined?

Does that, you know, match up with kind of the approach that I think would be beneficial to me or those that I serve? And so I think looking through those qualifications, asking peers that you trust for their recommendations and then having those conversations and asking questions around their expertise, their approach, all of that is a great way to kind of build that list of trusted resources that would not only be good for you, but for those that you serve.

Jodie >> Mhm. Yeah. And I would add to that that most people, perhaps not counselors, but for sure the other three, will give you a short call (they might call it a discovery call or an introduction conversation) to start thinking through together. Are we a good fit? I know I’ve done that with coaches. I’ve done that with my spiritual director.

I did meet with a counselor before I met with her in person and we just had a brief conversation to for me to say, “Hey, this is what I’m dealing with. Do you have expertise there?” And for me to hear her kind of talk through that and, and to know, yes, I think you’re the right person, so you should be able to do that without you know, feeling like every time you turn around you’re giving money to a question mark. Is this the right thing or is this the right thing?

Kay >> I think that’s really good suggestion. I think if I had sat down with this spiritual director that I went to for just a short time and if I had known of any questions to ask her, I think I would have figured out pretty quickly that we were not going to be on the same page because we just weren’t.

So that would have been really, really helpful because she was recommended by people. And I’m sure she’s a wonderful spiritual director. She just was not what I needed.

Julie >> And yeah.

Kay >> So I think your suggestion of questioning people before you really commit to some long term coaching situation or counseling situation or spiritual direction or situation. Really those are great suggestions.

So as we sort of end our discussion do you have some encouragement to our listeners on this topic? What would you say to them?

Jodie >> You know, one thing that comes to mind for me is that when we know that we need help, it’s usually because we’re in pain in some way and we’ve hit some sort of roadblock that’s causing us pain. And usually what we want is relief. This is something that I as a pastor witnessed a lot, is that as soon as we would get just a little bit of relief, we then walk away from the process.

And what I really want to encourage people to do is not just find relief to where, you know, that the hemorrhaging has stopped but the wound is still there because this is the perfect time for you to start digging. And pain always points to something, and so God is using that as a signal in our life to show us something that he wants to heal.

And so take the time and do the work to go deeper. Because what is going to happen is you will get faced with another pain point, another crisis, and you’ll either repeat the pattern or you’ll move back into burnout or you’ll get stuck again or whatever it is. And so use this as an opportunity to really do the work because there is good, good healing on the other side of it.

And that is what God wants for us. He wants us to be as whole as we can be so that we can serve Him in better ways.

Kay >> And He wants that deep healing, not just you know, dealing with the scar.

Jodie >> Yes.

Kay >> Julie, what would you say?

Julie >> I just figured that was such a good word. I’m just letting that sink in for a second. Okay, much to like what we were discussing earlier, I think we are hesitant to get the help we need oftentimes because we do not think we have time for it.

I don’t have time to slow down. I don’t have time for another appointment on my calendar. I got meetings, too many meetings as it is. I don’t have time for six months. What in the world can we fix this, you know, in 5 minutes? If so, we think we do not have time for this business of slowing down and getting the help we need and that as we all three of us have experienced.

Well, you either slow it down now or you get shut down completely in a hot second when you’re burned out and you can’t do anything. So which would you rather do? Right? Would you rather be in the emergency room.

Would you rather have a few doctor visits down? I just think we have got to take off this myth we’ve got to stop believing this lie that we just do not have time for that. The world will stop spinning. If I take that extra meeting once a week or whatever, that’s just a lie that Satan would love to use against us, to keep us on the sideline, to keep us stuck and unhealthy, to keep us stuck, not knowing which way is up, to keep us from hearing the voice of God.

All of those are just lies. And we have got to slow down, take the time we need so that we can live and lead in a healthy, sustainable way and still be in the game next year, ten years from now, and not be taken out by one of these things. That we didn’t have time to address right now.

So that would be a word I would share. Obviously, I’m passionate about it.

Kay >> And I guess I would just add to that, that our problem Is that we think we’re so essential is a lie because.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> God has it, God has it. And so we’re not trusting God. We’re trusting in our own abilities and our own necessity to be in charge of whatever it is that we have to take care of it.

Julie >> Yes.

Kay >> You can trust God.

Julie >> I remember Kay. I was staring down a sabbatical one time and as the days ticked off and we got closer, I was just like looked at my husband one day. I was like, well, I can’t take the sabbatical because we’ve got this going on and this is about to start. And two weeks later this is going to launch.

So I guess I just have to cancel it. And he looked at me and he said, Do you think the Lord is on his throne? I think he can handle this for you to take three months off. Oh, well, when you put it that way, I guess we can trust the King of the universe, all of this.

Well, I go to a counseling session or well, I take a little time off so I don’t end up out of the game forever. Okay, when you put it that way.

Kay >> Yeah. Sometimes our husbands have wisdom that we don’t have.

Julie >> Oh.

Kay >> And we’re thankful for that.

Well, thank you so much, both of you. You’ve just really given us a great idea of the differences in where to go for help. And I hope that the women out there will take advantage of them and remember this conversation if later on they’re in need, if later on they’re stuck, if later on they’re struggling in that don’t even really know what’s wrong.

Get some help. Get some advice from people who’ve been to some of these different types of experts. And if the first one doesn’t work, go somewhere else, but don’t just leave it alone. And I think that’s what we all agree about.

And let me invite all of you out there to browse our other resources on similar topics that might help you if you go to our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org and on the pull down menu, to to leadership development. And that will open another menu. Pick general leadership, and that will open another menu that is You As a Leader.

And so going in that on that page, on that topic, we talk about things like burnout. We talk about things like, in fact, Jodie’s conversation with me about taking a personal retreat is on there and is very helpful. We have other people. Jodie also did one on pacing our lives so that we are following God and doing what he wants us to do.

So we have many resources there as well as other resources for you as a leader. And we’d love to have you browse those and take advantage of those. And you can always contact us at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org if you have further questions. So let me thank you both once again for taking the time for being with us.

I’m really excited about this conversation that we’ve had and the help that it will be to women out there.

Jodie >> Thank you, Kay.

Julie >> Thanks for your invitation, Kay. And thanks for all that you’re doing to serve women leaders. What a gift to the kingdom. We’re thankful for you.

Kay >> Well, you’re sweet to say so, and it’s been my honor to be able to do that. This ministry has been a real gift.

Nika Spaulding

Kay Daigle

Why celebrate Advent? In this episode Nika Spaulding talks with Kay Daigle about what Advent is, why we should consider celebrating it, and how to do that in a meaningful way. If you’ve only done the wreath or the calendar at Advent, this episode will give you new insights as well as ideas to make it more personal to you and your family.

This episode is available on video for those who prefer watching it.

If you’re interested, you can connect to other BOW posts centering on Christmas.

00:36 Introductions

Kay >> Hi. I’m Kay Daigle of Beyond Ordinary Women Ministries. Welcome to this podcast episode and video. Whichever way you’re watching or listening, we are thrilled that you have joined us. I am joined today by Nika Spaulding. Nika is a speaker, an author, a writer, and she is almost finished with her DMin in New Testament. Welcome Nika.

Nika >> Thanks, Kay. I’m excited to be here. And I’m excited for this topic. I think you and I both are, so this will be fun.

Kay >> Yeah, I think so too. So when do you finish this New Testament degree?

Nika >> So all I have left is the thesis, so I suppose it’s as quickly as I can write, which means not for a while. So it’s not going as fast as I anticipated, but I think I’ll be done in June 2025 and ready to graduate. So hopefully I’ll knock that.

Kay >> That’s really right around the corner.

Nika >> Yeah, it feels like it’s right there. Like I’ve done all the, you know, the classes and you know, how it goes. Can you do all this work? And then you’re like, the finish line is, I can see it, but what’s between the finish line and now is like 90 pages. So I can knock that out.

Kay >> Yeah, well, I can hardly wait to read it.

Nika >> Thank you.

Kay >> Anyway, Nika and I do want to talk about Advent and I think that we both have really benefited from celebrating Advent through the years. For me, I didn’t grow up in a church that celebrated Advent in any way. We weren’t a liturgical church in any way. We didn’t do things like this, and it was really only as an adult that one of the churches I was in even had the Advent wreath and the candles in the church.

But I have really grown to love Advent over the last few years. What about you, Nika? What is your background with Advent?

Nika >> Yeah, it sounds so similar to yours.

So I not only didn’t grow up in a liturgical church, I didn’t really grow up in the church at all. So my only experience of Advent was I had a great aunt who had sent my brother, sister and I chocolate Advent calendars, so I thought Advent was like chocolate. Like I thought it was like you get a piece of chocolate a day and my sister would eat all of hers before we even got to December 5th, and my brother would like hoard his and hide, you know?

And so I had no idea Advent was a part of a church tradition until I was an adult. And it’s interesting because I asked my two roommates who did grow up in the church but did not grow up in liturgical churches like you, and neither of them had any concept of it until they were adults. And I asked them as well, Did you have a concept of Lent?

You know, you think of these two seasons: Advent prepares you for Christmas and Lent prepares you for Easter. And they both knew what Lent was growing up, but not Advent, which I thought was really fascinating. Once I learned what it was, once I learned sort of the rhythms of it, and once I learned how significant it is throughout church history, I love the season of Advent.

And I think it’s incredibly important to my rhythms of worship and what would otherwise be a very busy season because Advent is during the month of December typically and sometimes it leaks into November but very busy season for me and I’m sure for many people listening. And without Advent, I think I would whiz right by it. I mean just completely miss the significance of the season.

Kay >> Yeah, I’m kind of like you because I think the first time I really heard about Advent was more about the Advent calendar that you were just marking the days. It was more of a marking the days until Christmas, til Santa, actually.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> I really think that originally those Advent calendars just kind of got you to Santa, and I didn’t realize that they were really rooted in the church either. It was just more of a fun thing to do with your kids. And that was really all that I knew about it.

I have a quote from Tish Harrison Warren. She’s got this book, Advent, that I really like.

And as we think about what Advent is, I thought this was sort of a good start to our conversation. “We begin our Christian year” — and as Nika just mentioned this will be the start of the new Christian year as Advent.

“We begin our Christian year in waiting. We do not begin with our own frenetic effort or energy. We do not begin with the merriment of Christmas or the triumph of Easter. We do not begin with the work of the church or the mandate of the Great Commission. Instead, we begin in a place of yearning. We wait for our King to come.”

Nika >> So good.

Kay >> It’s a time of waiting, really.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So tell us more about it. You mentioned four weeks.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> What is that?

Nika >> So yeah. So Advent is really just the simple word. It just means arrival. And we get it from a Latin term that the church would use. But the Greek word was parousia, the idea of like the coming of Christ. So when you think about the original first time Jesus comes, and you think about how long the people of God waited for that moment, right?

You think about Protestant Bibles, our Bibles, end with Malachi. And so we kind of go, oh, Malachi ends, and then Matthew opens, and now we’ve got Jesus after 400 years of what we typically call silence or waiting and all of that. But the way the Bible was originally designed is actually 2 Chronicles was the last book of the Bible.

And when you get to the end of 2 Chronicles, the temple’s rebuilt, and they expect the glory of God to descend upon it like it did in the days of old. And God doesn’t, his glory does not descend. And so the people are left like, Oh no. And so there’s this massive like oh, at the end of 2 Chronicles where you’re going, when will God’s glory return? Like when will God come to dwell with us again? And so then you open up to the New Testament.

And so Advent is really just a word that means like arrival, but it’s arrival like Tish says, like after a long waiting if you mark the Christian calendar. So you mentioned the Christian calendar. If you didn’t grow up in liturgical tradition (I didn’t), so if you’ve never heard this before, you are in a in a club of people that I belong to for the longest time. So you have Advent, then you have Christmas Day. Then you actually have two weeks of Christmas season, which is where if you go to liturgical church, you’re still singing Christmas songs well into January, which is really fun.

And you sing them until when the Magi would have come. And then we move into Lent and then Easter. And so you have these rhythms of the Christian church. Well, Advent starts it all.

So you start with four Sundays prior to Christmas, and typically purple is the color of Advent. So you might see churches put purple out and you’ve always maybe wondered why they do that. Purple is for Advent and purple is for Lent, and those are seasons of waiting and preparation and they end on the big days, on the two big days of our calendar, Christmas and Easter.

Prior to those big days, we have a season of waiting. And so the four weeks prior to Christmas, each week represents like a Christian attribute or an ideal or this, you know, this thing that we want to become more of, these things that God has called us to be.

And so the first Sunday is hope. The second Sunday is peace. The third Sunday is joy. And the fourth Sunday, to the surprise of no one, is love because that’s obviously the most important one. And then you end on Christmas Day whenever Christmas Day falls, and that is the Christ Sunday or the Christ Day, which is of course, Christmas. So you have these four weeks.

And what’s really fun is if depending on the churches you go to, you might focus on that. So you might preach on hope and talk about hope and do readings on hope. And then you light a single candle typically in the wreath, and now you’ve got hope. And then the next Sunday hope is already lit and you talk about peace.

And so you can spend your four weeks really thinking about these really important things that belong to the Christian heritage, these ideas of I mean, big ideas. I mean these like big things of Christ, which is, you know, hope, peace, joy and love. You would think like what a great time to focus on those things when the world is focused on buying more gifts, making more treats, going to more parties.

And none of that is bad merriment. Good. All of that is like beautiful. We should celebrate all through the seasons but if you focus too much on those, you miss out on the real reason of these weeks leading up to Christmas.

Kay >> Right. I read something really interesting. I don’t know if you’ve read this before, but originally in the medieval times, the original Advent that surfaced the four Sundays were death, judgment, heaven and hell.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. So the season of Advent. So this is what’s interesting about Advent. Advent has it’s been around for a really long time, so nobody knows exactly how it started. Right? We know by the four hundreds, Christian churches are celebrating and acknowledging Advent. We know that. But what’s interesting is in some of the earliest traditions, there was a season of fasting and a season of repentance.

And when you think about that, if you think about the original waiting on Jesus, the original first coming of Jesus, that was an invitation to fast and repent. If you think about you know, the Israelites had really forsaken the direction God was calling them. They had forsaken, you know, they’ve already lost the land. They’d been in exile.

God very graciously allows them to come back into the promised land under, you know, Darius and Xerxes. Like you see Ezra, Nehemiah, this idea that they’ve come back into the land after they’ve lost it because of their rebellion. But in coming back to the land, they don’t really get back all that they’ve lost. They’re talking about the glory of God.

And so that 400 years was an invitation to worship again. Are you going to repent of all of your revolt? Are you going to walk with God? And so throughout the church tradition, many, many many years and still I believe in the Eastern Church today, it is a season of fasting, which is something to think about that.

Think about if you were fasting in the middle of December. I actually did a fast in December and I did it as part of a seminary assignment. And it was the dumbest time to fast because every party I went to would be like Have a cookie. And I was like, I can’t really have a cookie, you know, like, Why can’t you have a cookie? And in my mind, you know, you’re trying to fast in secret. And I was like, this is hard.

So imagine you are fasting and you’re thinking about all that Christ will save you from when he comes. And that’s a very different posture. And I don’t necessarily know that’s a bad posture I prefer to focus on the positives, but it is a part of the church tradition.

Kay >> Yeah, it is. Prayer, fasting and alms were the traditional disciplines that the church used during Lent as well as during Advent because the big celebration days, the big feast days are Christmas and Easter. And there’s always fasting before those days. And I think even the Anglican Church still encourages those traditional disciplines in their churches.

And I’m with you. How do you fast in December? But the great thing about fasting is you never fast on Sunday. So even if you were fasting, you ve still got those Sundays.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So you can convince your friends to have their parties on Sundays.

Nika >> When I first learned about Lent just like you understood it from Mardi Gras perspective, like this, like cultural Lent. And then when I really studied what Lent was and realized, oh, Sundays don’t count. Like I realize like oh, that’s sweet. Like we still recognize in the midst of our season of preparation: Christ has come, Christ has forgiven sins, Christ has died on the cross, Christ has risen.

And that to me is like it’s this really beautiful, refreshing break in the midst of, not that fasting, I think should be laborious. I think fasting is an invitation to greater intimacy with the Lord. When you think about what you just said, you think of the Sermon on the Mount and the examples he gives, he talks about fasting, prayer and alms giving, right?

And he’s like, and do it like this and do it cheerfully and don’t announce it, but do it because you are the people of God. And this is how you want to show your allegiance to the one who you belong to. And so it’s a really beautiful thing that I’m so grateful I’ve brought into my life are these rhythms of the church calendar because I missed them and I I’m grateful for what they produce in me in those seasons.

Kay >> Well they were very thoughtfully done. I mean, there were reasons for all of those things and I appreciate the fact that they did this for such a long time, and that is still with us, and that I know about it these days.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> So tell me a little bit more about some of the ways, or maybe let’s go into why someone should celebrate or acknowledge Advent. And we’ve sort of talked about some of that. But go ahead.

Nika >> Yeah, I think with any you know, we’ve talked so many times about discipleship you and I, Kay, both on these podcasts and in other ways. And the thread that seems always go through all of these conversations is there has to be intentionality. I never get around really mature Christians and I think, okay, how did you become what God is making you into and there is a part of it always that God is at work in your life.

Always. God is at work even when we don’t want him to be. But the thing that mature Christians seem to have in common is they set aside time, they institute rhythms, they are intentional about how they spend their days, how they spend their time, how they spend their money, how they connect with the Lord. And so, like when I talk about this frenetic pace of Christmas, that’s fun, that’s enjoyable, all that’s fine.

And you know what? I’m super intentional in that season. I have a favorite things party every year. My roommates go and buy napkins so that every season we have, I don’t understand this, but this is important to them. They change out the pure air filters so that they’re more Christmasy smells, if you can imagine what that is.

So if we’re going to be intentional with that, I think that Advent is an invitation to be really intentional. And so we say on Christmas, this is crazy. We don’t say, Santa’s fine. Whatever. Keep your Santa traditions. We say that a God man was born to a virgin teenage girl in Bethlehem in the middle of the first century when Herod is trying to murder all these babies, and we believe that little baby grows up and saves the world like, that is God incarnate.

That deserves more than one day. That deserves more than waking up giving presents to your kids in your favorite matching pajamas. Like that deserves to be ready to celebrate Christmas, I believe you have to prepare yourself for the full weight of that. And that is what Advent is.

It will form you into the person that is when Christmas comes, you are experiencing what that day really means for you, what it really means for the world, for the people that you love. For this cosmic re-creation that we’re all waiting on. And it prepares you for the next time that he’ll come. Because that’s the thing about Advent, is that it’s interesting.

Like depending on your church traditions, they’ll say, well, there’s two advents that we’re celebrating, some say three. And so the first one that we’re celebrating is the first advent. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and the second one is he’s going to come again. And that is our great hope of a final salvation.

And Advent is an invitation to reflect on both of those.

The third one, depending on the church tradition is his being with us in the Eucharist. So for the higher liturgical, they say there’s also an Advent every time we serve Eucharist, Christ is there with this. I’m not a part of that tradition, but I didn’t want to ignore that because I think it’s important. But I think that’s part of it.

And then I would say, too, we are such a divided church on so many issues. I mean, as we are recording this, we are heading into a election cycle where I don’t know about you, Kay, but I am sick of the commercials. I am looking forward to the election being over for a whole host of reasons.

But the divisive, vitriolic commercials! And I see that leak into our churches. And what Advent is and what all of the church calendar is, is a chance for the catholic church, I mean, small “c”, the united church, to come together and with one voice say this is our season where we prepare ourselves for Jesus coming. And I think there’s something significant and important about a united church using these seasons to prepare ourselves to be a more hopeful people, a more joyful people, a more loving people.

And so that’s another part of why I think Advent is so significant it’s bigger than you and it’s bigger than your family. It’s global and it’s 2000 years old. I mean, maybe! We don’t know that it goes all the way back to the first century. So will say 2000-ish years old, but it’s old.

It’s beautiful and it’s global, which means there are Christians in Ethiopia celebrating Advent. There are Christians in Africa, which is Ethiopia. There are Christians in Asia.There are Christians, the whole world of Christians celebrate Advent together if we would receive that. And I think that is an incredibly beautiful thing to be a part of.

Kay >> Yeah, that’s something I’ve always loved about some of the liturgical things or even saying the Lord’s Prayer regularly in the church is that you are united with all the global Christians in doing this. It is not just you. It is not just your church community. It is all of the church. And really if you focus on that when saying those kinds of prayers, it really is awe-inspiring to think about it.

And the fact that it goes back so far, we are still saying the same things that they have said for centuries. And I really love that.

Another thing that you were talking about was just the coming, and I like the idea of us sort of putting ourselves in the place of those who were waiting for Jesus.

And I like Advent devotionals that help me do that because the people of God have been waiting since Adam.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> You know.

Nika >> Yeah.

Kay >> For the coming of Jesus and all those centuries waiting and waiting and waiting. And it, you know, it puts us in their place thinking about his coming and the way the world was. And it also is a time and this is part of Advent for us to think about his next coming because our world is just as broken and just as messed up.

And we are messed up still, despite the fact that we have been redeemed by the cross, we still are messed up and everything around us is messed up. And you’re talking about, you know, the whole electoral thing. If nothing makes it more clear, this does. We are broken and we have a really hard time in life. And then the world is broken and we deal with all kinds of suffering and pain, and we need Jesus to come again.

We are waiting. We’re sitting in this darkness waiting for the light to come.

Nika >> Yeah, if there’s one thing that mature Christians will tell you is God doesn’t ever seem to be in a hurry. And the invitation to wait is not new to our generation, and we wait horribly. You know, I remember, you know, not having the Internet.

It’s the Internet. Like you’re being connected to things that five months before that, I could have never known or whatever. But I remember those dial tones, like ringing, mingling and like waiting to get on the Internet and having no patience for that. I mean, having no patience for anything like I want solutions now. I want things fixed now. I want everything.

And so Advent goes, hey, let’s go put on the sandals of those who they watched the temple be rebuilt. They believed God’s glory was going to come down. And he didn’t. And they waited. And they waited. And they waited. And does that mean God wasn’t working? No. Does it mean that God forgot about them? No. Does that mean that God wasn’t true to His promise? No.

God is always remembering us. He’s true to his promises. But you look at even you know, I’m in the beginning of Exodus right now in a personal reading plan and 400 years of them enslaved. Right? And you just sit here and you go, how long, O Lord?

And how long, O Lord, is the refrain of the Psalms at times is the refrain of the people of God. And so Advent allows us to be almost comforted by this waiting that we experience. That in the midst of the brokenness we’re asking God now, right now, how long O Lord until you will make all things right? How long O Lord till you’ll heal this person I’m praying for, until you’ll fix my marriage, till you’ll save my kid. Like how long is the heartbeat of those in lament. And Advent allows you to go, Gosh, there have always been seasons when God’s people weren’t sure God was working, weren’t sure how long it was going to take, and yet we see God’s faithfulness in the end.

We see how the waiting brings about greater trust and greater dependance on God. And so Advent is a season where we go, Gosh, I’m going to put on the sandals of those who did wait and that helps me to wait now.

If anybody who’s listening to this right now, if I were to say to you, is there something you’re waiting on God to do? And if you’re really honest with yourself, you’d say, Yeah, yeah. At a minimum, we’re all cosmically waiting. Like the creation itself, like Paul tells us, groans. Like the creation itself is like, Hey, we’re — This isn’t good enough. We’re ready for the new heavens and the earth.

But all of us people are waiting on God to do something. And we need reminders that when it feels like God is slow, he’s still at work. And when it feels like God has forgotten us, he never forgets. And when it feels like God isn’t going to keep his promises, he always keeps his promises.

And Advent prepares you for that and allows you to be comforted in your waiting because saints have always been. When you’re talking about the things we do with believers every Sunday when I was a resident theologian, when we get ready to do the Apostles Creed and I would this how I’d say, “Hey, we joined believers all over the world and throughout history who say, this is what we believe.”

Like this idea. Like right now we’re connected to believers all over the world in different time zones and we’re connected through history. And that is also part of this is like you’re connected to those who had to wait, those who are currently waiting, those who will continue to wait. And in the waiting, we trust that God is good, God is at work, and he doesn’t forget us.

And that is a part of Advent that we need. I mean, we need to be reminded that God has not forgotten us and he’s still at work in this broken world. And we need him to come back and fix all of this.

Kay >> One of the things that I found interesting when I first started studying about Advent was that John the Baptist is one of the main figures in the weeks of Advent. And in the liturgical church, he’s a normal thing that they preach on during this time period. And I think it goes back to you talking about lament. If we’re really sitting in the waiting, really waiting with hope, John the Baptist is a great character because he calls people to repent. And we may not fast, but I do think repentance is very helpful as a time to think through what is wrong with me and my world and what am I looking forward to in hope that Jesus is going to come and fix.

Nika >> That’s so good. Yeah. John the Baptist, right? Because you have these Isaiah passages.

Kay >> Yes.

Nika >> The voice crying out in the wilderness.

Kay >> John the Baptist — they’re the 2 biggies.

Nika >> Yeah. And then he’s like, this connection, right? I mean, it’s really beautiful what the New Testament authors do with him. Also when people are like, Oh, that’s a little weird. I’m like, right, he is. That’s by design. He looks like Jeremiah wailing. He looks like all the weird prophets. He’s the last prophet before the real prophet comes.

And I even think about what you’re talking about with he comes, he calls people to repentance and you think, okay, he’s, he’s the cousin of Jesus, right? I mean, this is like imagine being the cousin of Jesus and you grow up with this guy and it’s like — you know, he’s Jesus because you were called to call everybody to repentance for this guy.

And then you call out Herod and then you’re going to get your head cut off. And you send your disciples to Jesus and they’re basically like, hey, John’s in trouble. Like, are you, in fact, him? Like, are you actually the guy? Because I’m in danger here. And Jesus, maybe what John’s expecting is that Jesus comes in and knocks Herod off his throne and sits down on the, you know, the chair. You don’t know, but what Jesus sends back is, oh, yeah, no, yeah, I’m him.

And then John gets his head cut off and you go — what? But when you think about John the Baptist even this guy who’s family of Jesus, he knows what it is to wait. He knows what it is to suffer. He knows what it is to call people to repentance. And he is such a beautiful figure of what Advent is.

And don’t you know, when the new heaven and earth come, John the Baptist will be there. And he might be able to say like — Gosh, I wish I had a few more years on this earth, that was like a crummy ending. But he lived his life faithfully and he did what God was calling him to do. And Jesus goes — Yeah, no, I am the Messiah, but this isn’t how it’s going to go down, John. And I think that is such a beautiful reminder, too.

The Christmas season is like it’s almost like instant gratification, right? I want this present. If you have the money and the resources and someone who loves you, I want X. Oh, no, X is under the tree. I’m so surprised. Right? At least that’s how I did presents with my parents growing up. I just told them like, one thing I wanted so I always got it. And that is like, okay, great. That’s sweet. We buy each other presents. There’s nothing wrong with that. We should do that. We should buy people presents. We should celebrate people. We should celebrate Christmas.

But that instant gratification is so different than what we typically experience in the Christian life. Does God often answer prayers instantaneous? Of course he does. But if John the Baptist teaches us anything, sometimes it’s continued suffering. Sometimes it’s the end that we didn’t want. But it’s not the end of the story because there is a second coming.

And that is an important reminder in the midst of, because if you’ve lost somebody, then you know the holidays are hard. And so I want to speak to the person who’s listening and going, I don’t plan to have a happy holiday. We’re missing someone around the table that would be there or relationships right now are really hard or I’m not going to be able to go home for whatever reason. And I want to tell you, like in the midst that Jesus comes into the darkness as a light and he will come again in the midst of this darkness and make all things right. And so Advent is also hope for those who are brokenhearted.

Kay >> Yeah, I love that. Absolutely. So what would be some ways that you would suggest for people to celebrate Advent? If they wanted to really have a meaningful Christmas, and they wanted to spend the weeks in advance preparing for that and sitting in the waiting, how can they do that?

Nika >> Yeah. I think, one, what’s so beautiful is because the churches have been doing this for so long, it’s actually like you’re beautifully resourced to do this. And what I mean by this is depending on whatever church tradition you’re in, chances are that church tradition has a list of readings for Advent. So I would encourage people, and in fact we wrote our own for St Jude, and I’ll give them to you to put up on the Beyond Ordinary Women website.

Yeah. In case someone says I don’t even know where to look — look no further, we have that. But one of the things that I think any family should and could do is I would get an Advent wreath. So it’s three purple candles. One pink. Pink represents the joy, so goes purple, purple, pink, purple, and then white. okay, and if you just google Advent candles, everybody has them. Hobby Lobby sells them. Michaels sells them. You don’t even have to try.

But I would get that and I think I would have readings. I would do it on Sunday evenings with my family. And I have roommates and we do liturgical traditions and we’re not family, but we’re family. And so that’s one of the things is I would find readings because I think they allow you to slow down. It allows everybody in the family to participate.

And so I’d find readings and I would light the candles and I would go through, but I would go a step further. And I would do this if I were leading a ministry. I know a lot of times ministries take a break during December, and that’s like I never did Advent with any of the women’s ministries I led because we didn’t meet during December. But I did finally lead an Advent class when I was at St Jude because I was like, “Nope, dang it, we are doing Advent.”

So we had we had a class each week. I would each week focus on that week’s word. So if you want to do the repentance, the prayer, all that, fine, but I would recommend Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love. But we talked all about hope and we read passages about hope, and then we would talk about what we’re all hoping for.

So I remember I got sticky notes and I just had people put things that they’re hoping for on this board and then we read it together is really beautiful to think about because that also what I didn’t do is what’s something that you hope for that only God can do? Like, you can’t make that happen. God is going to have to make, God is going to have to move for that to become a reality.

And like, let’s hope big because hope is vulnerable because if you hope in something, you pray for something and it doesn’t happen, you risk heartache and God’s worth risking heartache on. So that’s what I would do. Each week then we talked about what brings you peace and then we talked about what brings you joy. And we did this each week and this is what I would do, whether you’re leading a family, whether you’re leading a ministry, a small group, a devotional group, I would spend each week talking about those things and then asking people what it is they’re hoping for.

And if you don’t know how to talk about them, the Bible project has an Advent series. Their videos are phenomenal. I think each of them is 5 minutes. I mean, you’re talking a very short explainer video, all about hope, all about peace, all about joy. So you can just play that video and then talk about hope. And so that’s one of the things that I would do.

I would also spend time in prayer asking God to come again. I think that’s also a part of the season is an invitation to say you came once and you changed the world when you came once. What you were saying, Kay, earlier, like we still need more. We need you to finish the rescue operation. We need you to come and fix all these broken things.

I would pray as I read through Revelation. Go read Revelation six and then go read Revelation 20 and 21, where it talks about there’s no more hunger, there’s no more pain, there’s no more tears and go, God, I want that.

And I pray to that end that you would come again and fix all that’s broken. But as I prayed, I wouldn’t lose sight of what the scriptures also tell us that God is not slow in how we count slowness. But he doesn’t desire for anyone to perish. And so this waiting that we’re in is so that more people can come to know Christ.

And so I would be bold talking about Advent with coworkers, with friends, with family to say like, hey, this is a season where I’m focusing on Jesus coming, and I want you to know he came. He came for you. He loves you. He came for you. And so I think that’s another thing that I would add into rhythms is being intentional.

I think, again, that sums it all up — be intentional. That’s what I would say. And so at our church, I don’t know if y’all do this, Kay, we only sing Advent songs in Advent. It drove me crazy because I wanted Christmas songs. Like I wanted to sneak a few Christmas songs in.

Kay >> Not us.

Nika >> Okay, yeah. But to that end, I do enjoy singing Advent songs like Oh Come, O Come Emmanuel. So if you’re not sure what I mean by this, like there are Christmas songs where Jesus has been born. Yay, yay, yay. And then there are songs are like, Come O, Come Emmanuel kind of songs. And those tend to be a little bit more somber.

And so we only sing Advent songs in the season of Advent, and then on Christmas Day and then the two weeks after Christmas, we sing Christmas songs. Which means we’re the only people singing Christmas songs. Well, that’s not true. A lot of Christians do that, but we’re still singing Christmas songs in January. But create a Spotify playlist and play it during carpool and talk to your kids about why these songs were written and what it means. And a lot of them are really old.

Like they’re really old songs are hundreds of years old. And so talking about how we as a church have been singing Advent songs since the first Advent. And so I think that would be what I would encourage people do is just be intentional. Do something to mark this time and say, I’m setting this apart to prepare me for the weight of Christmas.

The weight of Christmas is big. We’ll never fully comprehend it. You can sit through the rest of your life and ponder Christmas, and you’ll never fully wrap your brain around it. But I want to be prepared to ponder it in a way that honors the Christ King who came on Christmas.

Kay >> Yeah, yeah. I love all those ideas and definitely encourage that. One of the books that I have that I’ve enjoyed the most just if you want to have a little devotional for yourself or maybe your whole family, depending on how old they are, is Watch for the Light.

Nika >> It’s so good. Yeah. Highly recommend.

Kay >> Yes, I really, really love this one. And it is readings for Advent and Christmas. And it has readings from a lot of ministers and Christian leaders and Christian writers through a long time. They’ve pulled from their writings, and it’s really good. This is my favorite devotional for Advent that I’ve used and I really do love it. If you’re used to doing a devotional every day turning to something specifically for Advent in this time is another intentional way to get your mind thinking about our waiting, thinking about the coming of Jesus and what he did for us.

All those things that are going to prepare us really for Christmas.

Nika >> Yeah, I think that’s so good. Those readings that you just pointed out, friends, I always think like, Oh, reading that takes time, five to 10 minutes per devotional. You could read it as a family. You can read it to your cat. I mean, it’s in there. They’re so beautifully written. What they pulled, they’re meaty. You’re not going to get to the end of it and be like, Oh, okay, that was kind of fluffy. They’re beautifully written reflections on Advent.

I would add Tish’s book to that. I think that’s another recommended resource. And then if you really want to nerd out, I mean, if you really, Fleming Rutledge it’s like this big has a book, Advent, which if you really want to nerd out, go for that one. And that will be a good reading.

But I do think like having that daily reminder, and you know what? Buy yourself a chocolate advent calendar, like grab that little piece of chocolate and then read your little devotional. You get the best of both worlds. But it all comes back to intentionality.

So whether you’re leading a ministry, whether you’re leading a family, whether you’re just leading yourself and whether you’re leading a small group that meets in your house, or whether you’re not leading anything but you have influence or you want to influence a group that you’re a part of. I mean, do not underestimate like what intentionality can do. Kay and I both have led large ministries, and so many of our best ideas were someone else’s who took the time to say, Hey, have you ever thought about this?

So just be intentional is what I’d say. And it’s not hard to find beautiful, incredible resources out there. You just have to decide, I want to spend this season really joining with the rest of the church throughout history and all over the world and saying, I’m preparing myself for Christmas morning. And then celebrate, yay, Christmas is yay, yay, yay, you know, and that’s a really beautiful way to end that season.

Kay >> Right. Well, thank you, Nika. I’m so glad that you brought up this topic when we were texting back and forth about what we might talk about, because I think it’s so timely for us to just go ahead and do this and have it ready for this Advent that’s coming very quickly here. And I think by the time that we post this, it’s going to be right at the beginning, right before Advent starts.

So I hope that this will be an encouragement to each one of you out there to not only participate in Advent intentionally this year, but also encourage others, as Nika said, those around you to participate with you. I think that would be great.

Nika >> I love it. I’m excited about this, Kay. Thank you for letting me be a part of it.

Kay >> Oh, thank you for coming. This was terrific.

And we just invite you to browse our website BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. We have many resources. This is the only one on Advent, I’m sorry, but we do have many resources. But we will also have a list on our website of the resources that Nika and I have just been talking about, in case you’re not quite sure what we said, that will be written down, you can read and we’ll give links to those things.

But browse our website for other thoughts about really your own soul care and how you relate with God. How you come before him and wait for him in a hard time. Advent is one of those ways.

Nika >> Love it.

Kay >> Thank you for joining us.

Claudia McGuire

Kay Daigle

Several weeks before the election, Claudia McGuire and Kay Daigle discussed seeking joy in the Psalms. Our hope and prayer is that whether the candidate you voted for won or lost, you can raise your voice in thanks to God for his love and care today and find his joy.

About half of us are likely disappointed in the results, whatever they may be. Although we may not understand what God is doing in our world, we can trust his heart and his wisdom, knowing that his priority is his kingdom, not an earthly one.

Relying on what we know about God’s power and his character, knowing that our God is the true ruler whom we all seek, and recognizing that he has purpose in whatever has happened, we seek joy in the Psalms today.

This episode is available on video as well.

00:21 Introduction

Kay >> Welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast and video. I’m Kay Daigle your host today. And I am joined by Claudia McGuire. Welcome, Claudia. I’m glad you were able to join me today.

Claudia >> Me too.

Kay >> Claudia and I attended Dallas Seminary together, and it’s getting to be a long time since that happened. I was thinking about it’s being a long time. That’s where we first met, I think.

She has served on our BOW ministry team since its inception, and she brings a wealth of experience and knowledge in life and in ministry to our conversation. But you can read more about her on her bio on our website at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org.

Our topic today is Seeking Joy in the Psalms. Before we start, I want to make it clear that we recorded this session in October weeks ago from when it drops. So we don’t know what happened in the election, but we guess that about half of the people in the country are upset this morning as this particular episode goes online.

Of course, that assumes that the results are in and we have no idea when that will actually happen. But as we think about today, the day after the election, and even ongoing, it’s important just to remember that joy is an important quality for Christians. Whether there’s disappointment, whether there’s fear—no matter what it is—God wants us to have joy instead. And joy is a fruit of the Spirit.

So it is something we all should be exhibiting because we are believers and the Holy Spirit lives within us. So we should want to seek joy. That’s the reason we decided to have this particular episode on Seeking Joy in the Psalms. I have found that the Psalms are a great place if you don’t feel that you are joyful, If you’re struggling, or if you’re unhappy in any situation. It may have nothing to do with an election. But whatever it is, whatever your circumstances are, the Psalms are a great place to go.

So the big question is how do we as Christians handle bad news in general? Grief? hard times? whatever it is? How do we as God’s people of faith deal with those things? And how do we exhibit joy in the midst of that?

So the Psalms are going to tell us to put our joy in the Lord.

Claudia’s going to start us out.

Claudia, what Psalm has really been meaningful to you when you’ve dealt with things that are hard, things that your circumstances, that you’re struggling in? Is there a certain psalm that you go to?

Claudia >> Yes, especially for the past two years. I think I have one that I have gone to over and over. I find that sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and I just start saying it to bring peace into my sleep, into my room and to my head. But the 23rd Psalm is one that I’ve just really concentrated on for a couple of years.

And a little background on that is just that I’ve had five years of just really hard in my life, hard things for me and my family. This past season, this past year has brought its own additional hard things. I just realized as I’ve read through the Psalms and read through the Bible, which is just such a comfort to me, just the word comforts my heart in so many ways.

But I realized that, you know, we can’t choose our method of pain or suffering or even challenges in this world, in this life. The Bible informs us that in this world we will have trouble, but we’re supposed to take heart. The good news is that Jesus has overcome the world. That’s a good thing in the midst of our struggles, or in the midst of our circumstances that we might be in.

But it’s also good news that he walks with us through it. He says he’ll never abandon us, and I’ve had to just cling. I have had times where—and still do—where I just have to cling to the truth that God is with me. No matter how it feels, he’s with me.

And so I love Psalm 23 because it’s both about the here and now, the present that we’re experiencing, and it’s also about the future. There’s just comfort throughout it if you will just dive into it. And that’s what’s really ministered to me.

Kay >> Are there specific verses in there that you would cling to in particular times or just overall that psalm?,

Claudia >> It’s really the whole psalm. And so I’m just going to kind of walk through it, if that’s okay, because I feel like by going through it kind of verse by verse, that’s what has calmed my spirit and restored my joy and filled my cup. So that’s where I want to go today.

The thing about this Psalm is, as with many of the Psalms, David wrote it, and he was fleeing, he was talking and writing about a time where he was really wandering in the wilderness and even going to some of Israel’s enemies at that time to escape from Saul, who is the current king.

So Saul was the king, but David had been anointed, and yet Saul wasn’t cooperating in that at all. Saul was vengeful; he was jealous; he was out for David, and so David’s running. And just like today, Saul started great. He started with great intentions—I think a great vision for Israel, for his people, I think a great desire to follow God.

But he didn’t end so well. And as true as that was thousands of years ago, it’s true today—many of our leaders start well. They have good intentions, but it ends badly. Whether that’s due to ego or pride or just getting off on a different path that wasn’t really the path God intended for them. So let’s just dive in.

Okay, the Psalm starts: “The Lord is my shepherd.” We all know that, right? Most of us have heard this psalm over and over. Sometimes, though familiarity makes us forget how important the words are. So I just want to look at those words. Jesus refers to himself throughout the New Testament as a good shepherd, right? So knowing that that he specifically says, I care for my sheep, right?

He’s the good shepherd. David is acknowledging it. Jesus said, “I’m the good shepherd. I feed you, I guide you, I’m going to sustain you. I’m going to shield you”—Just what shepherds do. So “the Lord is my shepherd.” That’s an affirmation that we just need to sometimes claim when we’re like, “I don’t have to find my way out of this”

“The Lord is my shepherd.” I can follow him, you know?

And the next verse makes it difficult right away. “I shall not want.” Really? “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” Sometimes we just need to sit in those difficult words that we hear, because sometimes I want a different option. I want out. I want things to change.

But I also know that even if I’m struggling in my wants, that Jesus is there, that he knows the Lord knows what I need and he knows what I want. Right? He knows what I want. And when I pray, I can bring that to him. I can just like Jesus in the garden, “not my will, but yours.” I’m not comparing myself to Jesus but I think that was Jesus in his greatest act of, or part of humanity, saying, I don’t really want to do this God if there’s another way. But I know your way is the best and I’m committed to it.

So as my shepherd, he knows how to provide for me. He knows exactly what it is that I need and what I want. And I just need to trust in that provision. Right? I just need to trust in it.

The next verse says “he lets me lie down in green pastures and he leads me beside the still and quiet waters.” Just saying that makes me feel better. I’m a water person and thinking about a meadow and water together is like your perfect kind of picture. It’s a great word picture. God is a God of peace for Christ followers. He’s not a God of confusion. He says that he will bring peace to us. So there can be peace in the middle of the mess that we’re in.

There can be that peace that flows like a river, even though the storms are raging all around us, we can be right there. I wanted to quote, someone once wrote this, We don’t have to figure out where the green pastures and the quiet and still waters are. We just need to keep our eyes on the shepherd.

We don’t have to fix it, and we don’t have to be all anxious about how am I going to get out of this? How am I going to change this? We just need to know where the shepherd is and just run to him and say, I cannot do this, but you are my good shepherd and I’m going to follow you and I’m going to trust you in the middle of this unknown, this unknown place.

So I love that. I love that he leads us there. And like I said, it’s just a picture that speaks to my heart. And I think all of us can find that thing in the Psalm or in the word that we can just return to again and again when those feelings start to flood over us again and we become anxious or we’re like, this is never going to end. So just find that place of peace with him and let him lead us to that quiet still waters.

The next verse tells us that he refreshes and restores our soul or our life, basically. He restores us. He leads us in the paths of righteousness for his namesake. And there’s a couple of things I just love about this.

Again, I don’t have to pretend that I’m doing wonderfully when I come before God in prayer. When I seek his face, when I seek his joy, when I seek his answer, it’s okay that I am feeling extremely unprepared for what life has dealt me or what’s come my way. It’s not that I’m handling things so well, Lord, I need you to come in and fill me up. And I think that’s when I really receive mercy.

And I receive his grace is when I can just follow his path, follow him and know that he’s there regardless again of how that feels and what I think ’cause our emotions and our thoughts can kind of take us down those paths that we don’t want to be in. So the other thing about that particular verse that “he leads me in paths of righteousness for his name sake” that’s touched me as I’ve thought about it, it’s not for me. I do receive the benefits of his mercy and his grace, but it says he’s doing this for his own glory, for his name’s sake.

And I can take incredible joy in that—that whatever I’m going for or whatever I’m going through, God has a stake in it. I might be his ambassador, as you were just referring to out in this world, to reflect joy to reflect the fruits of the spirit, to act within the fruits of the spirit. But God’s got a stake in this.

It’s His glory. It’s not for my glory. And we know bad things happen when you start taking the glory for your life. The good things.

Kay >> That’s true. That’s true.

Claudia >> So receiving help from God really again puts our focus on him because it’s for his name’s sake. And I can rest in that, like, “Okay, God, you’re in this. It is about you. You’ve got a plan you’re going to bring me through. Just help me to put my fears and my emotions aside.”

Kay >> Right.

Claudia >> Right in your hands. Right? And just know that you’re there. Know it.

Again, we see God moving in a way that I think is very comforting because the next verses say, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me,” and they console me. And even though we do follow the shepherd we might have to go through valleys, right? I mean, we do. Again, the Bible says we’re going to have problems. We might feel like we are walking in the valley of the shadow of death.

And two things there is we’re walking through it. David’s not stuck there. He’s walking through it with his shepherd. And it’s the shadow of the valley of death. It’s not death. Christ has conquered death. It’s the shadow of it. Which means we still might feel some fear. We know it’s not a good situation. We know we’re in a place that makes us want to run away from it. But God doesn’t take away that threat necessarily. Again, he walks with us through it, and that’s a good thing. That’s a good thing.

Kay >> Right.

Claudia >> Yeah. He comforts us and he consoles us even when life might feel like death. And I don’t think I know anybody right now that isn’t going through something difficult. There’s a lot of heartache, a lot of hard things that are happening in people’s lives right now.

And you might be at a place that you’re blaming God, but God is still standing there with his hands and his arms open to you, and he wants you to come to him and let him be your good shepherd.

I think what also happens sometimes is we forget this next verse that says, “You prepare a table for me, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Wow. I haven’t even really given that much thought until this last year that in the middle of the mess, God’s already prepared this table for me in the middle and in the presence of my enemies.

And when I pray through this, it’s like, Okay, what is my enemy right now? What is my enemy? It’s not always a who, although there’s many times a who behind it. But is it fear? Is it illness? Is it divorce? Is it panic? What is it that’s driving your feelings? And what is it that is causing you to feel like you’re surrounded by enemies?

But take heart again. God’s prepared a table in the midst of those enemies. And so we have the choice of either sitting down with God, trusting him, okay, this is weird, because who does that? God does that. Nobody else prepares a table in the midst of their enemies that I’m aware of. And we can just sit down and enjoy the presence of God in the midst of that and just say, I don’t like this, but I know, I am 100% sure, that you are with me and you’re going to walk through this with me.

So anyway, you can either sit down, you can praise God, thank Him for bringing you to this place, or you can worry. And I believe that the chronic worrying is what renders us ineffective. And that’s what the enemy wants.

Kay >> Right.

Claudia >> That enemy wants you to be ineffective, to not be able to give God the glory, to not be able to sense the presence of the Lord with you. And God says, I’m right here. I’m right here. You’ve anointed and refreshed my head with oil and my cup overflows. I am a glass half empty person. And when I read that my cup overflows, I’m just like, Okay, help me feel that. Help me feel that. Because it’s hard to feel.

But this is true, right? God’s here for you. And wherever we might find ourselves, in whatever mess, whatever trial, whatever set of awful circumstances, this verse tells me, Hey, I’m set apart for God. I’m anointed. And He has a purpose for my life. And the reminder to me that there is this anointing, this oil that refreshes me and causes my cup of gratefulness and praise to just overflow, again brings me back to truth.

This might be the reality of what I’m experiencing, but the truth is God refreshes me and he makes my cup overflow. I just need to soak in that joy for just a little bit. That’s amazing.

And David ends this psalm with “Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love will follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house and in the presence of the Lord forever.”

David has taken this full circle. He started out with the Lord, the Lord is my shepherd, and he talks about I and me and you. They comes back again to “I’m going to be in the house of the Lord forever.” It’s about the Lord. He runs through this Psalm along with David. So it’s even a picture of the Lord walking with us, even through this Psalm.

So David’s cup is full at this point, and he is trusting God for His mercy and his presence and his provision to continue to be with him both in his present situation, in the here and now, but also he looks forward that forever, through eternity, I’m in the presence of the Lord. I always am. I am and I am and I am. And I will be. It’s a continuous thing.

And I love that even though we know David had more troubles (They weren’t over.) that David got to a place of rest and a place where he was full of the Lord’s goodness and he could rest in that. And that’s really what brings my joy to the surface that causes that overflow.

It’s like if it wasn’t for God or his presence with me, I could not be standing. I’m not sure I’d be speaking. I think I would be many times a puddle of jello on the floor, to be honest. But because of God that’s where my hope is. He’s my good shepherd and I’m with him now and I’ll be with him forever.

And so that Psalm has impacted and continues to impact my life. But I think one of the things I just want to stress, though, is don’t think that you’re so familiar with something that you gloss over it, whether that’s a psalm or some other scripture. It’s a living word. It’s alive. It has new messages and new emphasis. It has new meaning for your life wherever you are and whatever you’re going through.

Kay >> Yeah. It’s those very things you’re going through that brings out those nuances that you had not thought of as you read through there and as you dwell on the words and the promises that you get in there. That’s one of my favorites psalms as well.

Claudia >> I love it.

Kay >> I do, too. I remember my mother-in-law was in the hospital. She was really, really sick. I think we thought she was going to pass away at that point. And I read her that psalm and she just asked me to keep reading it to her just over and over. I wasn’t in there very long, so it wasn’t many times, but it really was very meaningful to her. But I’ve always loved it for myself, which is why I suggested that I read it to her.

Well, my story about the Psalms in general sort of starts (and I’ve got a longer story), but this is just over the last couple of years. Over the last couple of years, I’ve actually been in dread and fear of this election. Just what if, what if this, what if that and all those things. And as I’ve watched the country be so divided and people be so angry at each other, it’s just been on my mind a whole lot.

And because I realized that I was really not very joyful because this was weighing on me so much.

Claudia >> Yeah.

Kay >> A couple of years ago, I turned to the Psalms and I decided that I should be reading the Psalms because they are I think for me, a real answer and seeking joy in my life when I’m concerned about something, when something’s going on that concerns me.

And so what I did was I went through the Psalms over the course of a year two or three times. I can’t remember exactly what it was, but I had a plan and I went through them according to this plan and it was more than one psalm a day. I actually did that for two years, I think.

And then this year I decided I needed to slow down and just read one psalm every day. And I really have to say that it really, really made a difference. It just made a difference because it took my focus off of these things that I was worrying about and I was turning my focus on God and how great he was. That was the reason I knew I needed to go to the Psalms, because the Psalms are so full of the praise of the Lord just over and over telling us who he is and what he does for us.

And they’re just very powerful for your life. As you have just really attested to. And so as I went through them, I prayed something out of each psalm every day. I got one of those Bibles that has the text of the Psalms on one page and then a page to write. And so each time I went through it, I would pray something else and just write it down. God would bring different things each time I went through the Psalms, as far as that psalm was concerned.

And so I was praying. I was asking God that I would trust him the way that the psalmist did. I prayed through various specific things depending on what was going on in my life that day. And a couple of months ago, as I was reading my one psalm for the day that I’m doing this year, I was really praying about being joyful because I knew I need to be joyful. I don’t need to be weighed down by things that could happen that haven’t even happened, number one. But also just letting the things of the world have more power over me than the Lord. My joy needed to be in the Lord. And I knew that. But I had been praying and praying about it, and the Lord knew that.

And one day he just took it all away. All of the fear, all of the worry, all of the anxiety, it was just gone. And I was so joyful. At first, I didn’t know if this is going to last, and it has. It has not returned. I have been joyful. Even my husband said I had just generally been more joyful. And I know that as we focus on the Lord, that we begin to have more joy.

But there are times when he can just take it away. But remember, I had prayed through them for two-and-a half years before this happened. So it’s not like he necessarily going to take those fears and concerns away overnight. But the more we focus on them, the more I believe he can give us joy in the middle of things.

I’m really thankful. It was a gift. It was a gift God gave me. And every day I thank him for that gift, that joy, and that peace that he’s given me.

Claudia >> Wow.

Kay >> But in times like these, one psalm that I can just sort of give you as an example of how the Psalms have helped me. As I was praying about and thinking about which one I might look at, I decided we might look at Psalm 27, which is also a psalm of David. We’ll just go it through it quickly as well.

“The Lord is my light and my salvation. I fear no one. The Lord protects my life. I’m afraid of no one.” Now I’m reading this out of the NET Bible, but for this particular verse I really like the CSB, which says “Whom should I fear?” “Whom should I dread?” And those are questions that really got to me when I was fearing things or dreading the future or what might happen.

There’s no one because God who protects my life. God is my light and my salvation. There is nothing to fear. There is nothing that I should be dreading because God is in control of those things. He is my light, my salvation. I can get joy in him instead of focusing on those things. I shouldn’t be dreading them.

In verse two, David talks about “When evil men attack me to devour my flesh, when my adversaries and enemies attack me, they stumble and fall.” So here he’s just stating that God had protected him already, that his enemies would fall, that he would when these battles that he had with his enemies.

In verse three, “Even when an army is deployed against me, I do not fear. Even when war is imminent, I remain confident.” So no matter what I can imagine in my mind of what was happening, I shouldn’t be afraid. I should be confident. I should be whether civil war, maybe civil war could come to our country, I should be confident that God has me. It doesn’t mean I will be protected from danger at all times, but it certainly means that he holds my future and I don’t need to be afraid.

Then in verse four he says, “I have asked the Lord for one thing — this is what I desire! I want to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord and contemplate in his temple.” I think that that’s what the Psalms did to me. It gave me a place to contemplate God’s greatness and God’s beauty. That each day I was coming to it and that’s what I was gazing on instead of what was going on around me. And that gave me joy. It gave me joy.

And then verses five and six, “He will surely give me shelter in the day of danger; he will hide me in his home. He will place me on an inaccessible rocky summit. Now I will triumph over my enemies who surround me. I will offer sacrifices in his dwelling place and shout for joy. I will sing praises to the Lord.”

And really back to what you were talking about — What is your enemy? — fear and dread were my enemies. They were my enemies. But God has given me victory over those enemies. And so I shout now for joy. I offer thanks to him and joy to him. I will sing praises to the Lord just as David did. So I love that.

Then in verse seven, “Hear me, O Lord, when I cry out. Have mercy on me and answer me. My heart tells me to pray to you, and I do pray to you, O Lord.” And so David is just talking about how God draws us to prayer, how he’s telling us to seek him in the midst of whatever is going on.

And as both of us are talking about, one of the ways we do that is going to the Word and finding places that he can speak to us really personally through.

The line that says — “And I do pray to you, O Lord” — the CSB says here, “Seek his face. Lord, I will seek your face.” When God turns his face toward people he is pleased with them. He turns to us in grace. It’s sort of a metaphor for God turning to us in grace and delighting in us. And acknowledging that God has been our helper. God has, as David says, the one who cares for him.

He goes on to say — “Do not reject me. Do not push your servant away in anger. You are my deliverer.” And some of the translations say, you are my helper. And when it says, “Do not reject me,” that’s do not hide your face from me, literally. So it’s that same idea of continue looking at me with grace, continue giving me your joy, continue caring for me.

“Do not forsake or abandon me, O God who vindicates me. Even if my father and mother abandoned me, the Lord would take me in.”

And I was thinking about it might be that somebody watching or listening to us might think Wow, do I have to worry about God abandoning me or God forsaking me? And no you don’t. The Psalms are not God speaking to you and telling you that this is what he might do. The Psalms are the heartfelt prayers of God’s people. And sometimes we feel like God might abandon us or we feel like God has abandoned this, or we feel like God was going to put us away in his anger because we’ve sinned and we realize how this has affected our relationship with the Lord.

These aren’t things we should be concerned about but this shows us that when we pray to God, we can tell him how we really feel because he knows anyway. If we feel like he’s abandoned us, it’s okay to say, “God don’t abandon me. I feel abandoned here.” If we’re struggling, we need to tell God, “I’m struggling here to even hear your voice,” and it’s okay to do that.

I’m sure that’s a lot of what you dealt with these last five years.

Claudia >> Yes.

Kay >> Yeah.

So a lot of times our circumstances, a lot of times it’s just our feelings and that’s okay. Those are written down in the Psalms for us and that’s one of the reasons that the Psalms are so precious to help us.

Then down in verse eleven — “Teach me how you want me to live, Lord; lead me along a level path because of those who wait to ambush me. Do not turn me over to my enemies, for false witnesses who want to destroy me testify against me.”

David was in a hard place. He was in a hard place. And yet he goes on to say in 13 and 14. “Where would I be if I did not believe I would experience the Lord’s favor in the land of the living? Rely on the Lord! Be strong and confident! Rely on the Lord!”

He calls us to do the same thing. Rely on the Lord because we believe that we will experience his favor in the land of the living. It doesn’t mean that the danger will go away. It doesn’t mean that the circumstances would change. But God can give us favor, just like he took my dread and fear and gave me joy. He shows his favor to us. And we can trust him.

So wherever we are, whatever we’re going through, I think it’s so helpful for us to seek joy. Psalms are such a good place to be able to do that because we see who God is. We see how we can pour out our hearts to him when we see that he wants to give us joy in him, not in what’s going on.

We don’t have to be joyful about what’s going on around us. Our joy is in him, and that’s what we need to see instead of trusting in any person or if things would just change I can have joy. We have to put our trust in God.

Do you want to add anything to that, Claudia?

Claudia >> I think you touched on something about that joy and how God answers our prayers. And you said you prayed those psalms for two years, two-and-a-half years before you finally felt like, okay, I can lay this aside now. God’s in this, and he’s got me.

And I feel like sometimes we can get into a place where we look, again, it’s taking our eyes off the one and look around at friends or whatever and think, gosh, they don’t seem to have any problems or they don’t seem to be struggling at all or, you know, whatever that might be. And I would say that God doesn’t always answer our prayers the same way. We kind of want oh, I want their answer. I want their answer. That’s what I want.

But going back to I shall not want, God knows how to answer me. He’s a personal God. He’s going to answer and speak to me in a way that he doesn’t speak to you. I look at the past, I look biblically, I look in history and I think, I’ve never gone out and caught a fish and found money in its mouth when I needed money or when I was in a financial bind. I’ve never gotten swallowed by a whale when I was disobedient. Thank you, Lord.

It doesn’t mean I won’t be someday, but God deals with us as a personal God. And therefore, I shall not want, I should not want what my neighbor has. However, God answered that prayer for them, it’s going to be different for me because God knows what I need. And even in that aspect of being able to cooperate with the Spirit moving, cooperating with God, is important.

And you touched on that as you read through the Psalms you just knew, this is where I need to be. This is where I need to dwell. This is what I need my mind on. And you saw God show up time and time again.

Kay >> Yes.

Claudia >> It’s a difficult world out there, has been difficult, and friendships have been upset over it. Churches have been divided over it. Country, city, state. It is not where we all want to stay, in that stress and anxious place. Right?

Kay >> That’s right. But we need to always keep our eyes on the fact that this is not permanent.

Claudia >> No.

Kay >> It’s not our permanent home and someday Jesus is going to return and all will be well. God is going to fix it all. All of these things that upset us, all the things that we deal with, will be gone. And we need to look ahead to that and the joy that we have before us, just as Jesus did as he faced the cross. The joy that’s before us knowing that we serve God well on this earth in the midst of all the things that we struggle with and all of the hardships we face—that should give us joy. That we want to serve him well despite what we’re going through, because we look ahead at the joy that’s ahead. The day when we see God and he says, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”

Claudia >> One day.

Kay >> One day, one day. And for me, the day is getting pretty close just to see him. Not when Jesus returns. But you know what I’m saying?

Claudia >> Yes.

Kay >> Well, thank you, Claudia, for joining us.

I know that this will be a very beneficial conversation for a lot of people.

And so if you’re out there listening and it’s been that for you, I hope you share it with somebody else that you know is going through a hard time. I think it would beneficial.

Claudia >> Thank you for inviting me.

Kay >> Well, any time, you know that.

Let me mention some other resources that we have.

Nika Spaulding came on and had talked about joy also a few months ago from maybe a little bit more theological perspective, but then also a real practical perspective as well. So I would definitely suggest that you listen to that if you feel like you are seeking joy and that might give you some good ideas. If you go to our website, BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org to access that, and on the pulldown menu on Resources go to the Godly Living page, and you will find that there.

Also we have a study on the Psalms. If the idea of the Psalms captivates you and you’re thinking God might want you to spend some time in the Psalms this might be a good introduction because we go through just a few of various types of Psalms that God uses. Psalms that are just really Praise Psalms, it’s like our lives are going well and there’s no hint in the Psalms that there’s anything wrong. We are just so grateful to God and praising Him.

And then the Psalms of Lament, which we can really identify with when we’re going through times like Claudia has been through in the last five years. They give us words to pray when we are so sad and low that we don’t even know what to say. But the Psalms of lament can help us with that.

And then the Psalms that come after God answers those prayers are the third type of psalms that we look at in that study. So that might be something you’re interested in as well. So just wanted to mention those resources.

And of course you can browse our website at beyondordinarywomen.org and find resources for all sorts of situations and we hope that you will do that.

So thank you again. Claudia, and we will see you soon.

Kelly Arabie

Kay Daigle

If you’re struggling with prayer, we have some practical prayer solutions. Kay Daigle and Kelly Arabie discuss some of the causes and practical ways to get past them.

Do you long to feel successful in your prayer life instead of dealing with distractions, repetition, a disorganized prayer list or the fear of praying with others? Kay and Kelly confront all of these issues and provide practical solutions to your prayer struggles.

You can link to the video version of this conversation if you prefer.

You can access the slides from the video version of this podcast.

Or you may want to browse BOW’s other resources on the topic of prayer.

00:33 Welcome & introductions

Kelly >> Hello and welcome to the Beyond Ordinary Women podcast. I’m Kelly Arabie and today I’m talking with Kay Daigle. The podcast that we’re doing today is Practical Prayer Solutions. Kay, I’m so excited that you reached out to me about this topic when we talked about the two podcasts that we would be recording this month. Bible Study and prayer were two things that I was really excited to talk with you about.

So I’m glad that we’re going to be talking about prayer today. I can honestly say that’s not always the case. Maybe earlier in my life I can remember one of the first women’s retreats I helped plan. The topic was on prayer. And when that was announced, it kind of went over like a lead balloon. It was perhaps not the most the topic that everybody was excited about.

And I say that regretfully, I have learned a lot in my spiritual life in the area of prayer. And I know that there’s a lot that you have experience with and have to say to that as well. Tell me a little bit about why you wanted to record today.

Kay >> Well, I’m excited about this recording too, Kelly. In January. the women in charge of the Bible study that I’ve been part of in our church asked me if I would, they actually asked me in the fall, but they asked me if in January I would do a four part series, just more of a lecture format, on prayer.

And they just really left it up to me as to what to do. And so I had a plan for that. But I also realized that there are impediments to prayer. Things that stop us from praying, or we’re not comfortable with it, or whatever. So that very first week I passed out blank cards to all the women who were there, and I asked them to write down what was the hardest thing for them about prayer. And these practical solutions are the answers that we discussed over those four weeks.

And I was really amazed at the variety of problems they came up with. But these were the main four. These were the ones that the most people commented on. And I thought that perhaps this would be helpful to our larger audience as well, because it really seemed to be meaningful to some of the women in the group.

Kelly >> So what are some of those impediments to prayer?

Kay >> Well, the first one that I covered (and this was even before I had the cards, because I needed to go ahead and talk about something), is something that people had told me over and over. I’d already been hearing it, and that is distractions. We start praying, and then we’re distracted by other things, and we get our minds off it and often never go back to prayer—or just cut it short, whatever.

And I think there are a lot of ways we can deal with that, but it really depends on our personalities as what works best for us. So I’m just going to lay out a number of things that either I or other people have found helpful.

And obviously, I think most people know this, it’s best if you can find a quiet place in your home and pray regularly there. And I know that’s difficult when you have small children at home. But if you can get up early, if you can choose your time, if you can ask your husband to help you with the kids after dinner so you can have a prayer time, I mean, whatever you have to do to do that. And some people even have a prayer closet that they have just made into a prayer room where they note prayers on the wall and all those kinds of things.

I’ve never been able to do that. I have too much junk in all my closets and I cannot possibly empty a whole closet out for me to go in and pray. Of course, this time in my life, I don’t really need that anyway. I don’t really have anybody here with me most of the time. But if you do go into whatever room it is, whether you’ve just gone into your bedroom and you have a chair in there that’s comfortable and you use it, it’s just best to leave everything outside that would distract you, and that includes your devices particularly.

And I know that’s hard, but it really wasn’t that long ago before we didn’t have those devices that are with us all the time. And so if you can just take some time away from them, leave them outside, turn off the notifications and the ringer except for emergency calls. So that way if it’s the school or your husband or your mother, whoever would be an emergency call, you can set that up on your phone. But that’s really important. Otherwise, you’re just going to get notifications all the time. You’re just going to be interrupted.

But one of the things that really helped me the most probably in my journey in prayer was when I learned to write out my prayers. And I just have a journal and I write down exactly what my prayer is, dear Lord or Father in Heaven, whatever I say, and then I write every word down that I’m thinking and it keeps me focused more than anything else that I’ve ever done.

It also helped me that if I really was distracted by a thought or an idea, I knew exactly where to go back to in my prayer, because all I had to do was look down at my journal. I could see where I had finished praying, what I had not yet prayed for. And it was a very simple way to do that.

It’s real easy to just pick up then where you were. And if you do have an interruption or you do have a thought and you think I better take care of this. That’s what we usually think, “Oh, if I don’t do this now, I’m going to forget to do it. I have to do it today.”

Instead of that you need to keep a piece of paper near you and write down what it is you’ve got to do when you get up. And it’ll just take you a minute, and then you can go back to your prayer. And if it keeps coming to you (I read this in a book and I thought it was really wise), if you still just can’t get it out of your mind, maybe it’s something God is telling you to pray for. Instead of going off and doing something about it maybe we need to be praying about it first, and then God can lead you in a better way when you get up. So I think that’s really helpful about it.

Another idea—I think I tried this years ago and it just didn’t work for me—but some people pray aloud because that helps them focus as well. Instead of just thinking the thoughts that you’re praying, you pray aloud.

So those are just some practical ideas for dealing with distractions, because I think we all deal with distractions. That’s an impediment to prayer that we all face, I believe.

Kelly >> Yeah, a distraction is a serious component of what we face right now, just with our minds, whether you’re talking prayer or solitude or silence, it’s being able to silence those and give you the capacity to interact with God, really to talk with him is very important. And it sounds like journaling has been a big part of your process as well.

Kay >> It has and I do think that that’s all very true. I think that for me, outside distractions are not my problem. It’s these distractions in my mind that are the problem, my mind’s going all the time. And to really sit down and really focus on the Lord and what I want to pray is, is difficult.

And so those things have helped me.

Kelly >> Yeah. And I know I’m an external processor or a verbal processor as well. So I am one who tends to pray out loud. I go into a room and close the door. I’m no longer at home alone all the time. And so it’s a little more challenging, but I like to be able to find space where I can verbalize my thoughts, and that helps conversation as well with God, with me.

What are some other distractions or struggles that people have encountered in prayer?

Kay >> Well, there were a number of women, this one surprised me a little bit more, but there were a number of women who just said their prayers had become boring. They prayed the same thing every day. They’re just repetitive. And frankly, they’re bored in prayer.

And I think that the best counteractive to that is using God’s word as your catalyst for prayer. That you’re reading something every day in the Scripture, and you’re letting that Scripture help point you to something that God would have you pray. It can be a verse that makes you respond personally. Possibly you repent over something, or you realize there’s an action here I should take or something you just need to talk to God about—something going on in your heart or mind that the verse brings up. Sometimes it causes you to repent for the whole church.

I mean, that happens to me often. I read something, I think, well, this isn’t just me. The whole church should be repenting of these problems. Or it may just be that you need a change in attitude because of what you read. And that really helps me. I mean, every day my prayers are different. I’m not praying for the same thing because I’m reading something different.

For the last few years I’ve been reading at least a Psalm a day. Last year I read three Psalms a day. This year I’m just reading one. And the Psalms are really a good place to start this. If you’ve never responded in prayer to something that you’ve read in the Scripture, just an immediate prayer, the Psalms are a good place to start. And I thought I would give everybody an example that I used when I did this in January. In Psalm 19 verse 14, it says, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

So I actually went through that psalm a couple of times before I really felt like there was one that the Lord was speaking to me about. And once I landed on that verse, I read it a couple of times. Sometimes I’ll read it in a different translation just to get it. And I’ve been using a Psalm book, it’s got the psalm, and then it’s got a journaling page.

Kelly >> I love that. Yes,

Kay >> So that works out really, really well because I just read a psalm a day and then I write on the opposite page what my prayer is. So this was my prayer from that verse. “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

So just wrote the verse. I said, “Oh Lord, I feel so short of this. Forgive me in your mercy. Help me to remember all this day to listen, be slow to speak. May my words to my grieving friend be comforting.”

So I started with just really repenting of not incorporating this verse in my life all the time. And then I asked God to help me and applied it to a specific friend that was grieving that I was going to see that day. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. I feel like if you’re responding to the Bible, and you’re going through the Bible, whether it’s one particular book, the Psalms or something like that and responding, your prayers are not going to be boring and they’re not going to be that repetitive.

Kelly >> You mentioned books and I can think of one that you gave me a couple of years ago. What are some that you enjoy reading that perhaps also stimulate your prayers?

Kay >> There’s a couple of good.

Kelly >> I’m thinking of the John Bailee.

Kay >> Yes. I really love that book.

Kelly >> Diary of Private Prayer. Is that what it’s called?

Kay >> John Bailee’s A Diary of Private Prayer. And then just about a year ago, I found this one that I’m trying to trying to look at the name, The Valley of Vision, which is Puritan prayers.

Kelly >> Right. That’s a good one.

Kay >> That’s another really good one. So places like that are really good. I’ve used the Book of Common Prayer before. It has a lot of really good prayers in it as well.

Kelly >> And I’ve enjoyed recently finding Every Moment Holy. They have a volume one, volume two and volume three now. They’re liturgies that are prayers that are also helpful. I enjoy those as well. And sometimes an app can be helpful. I know there are many nowadays. I enjoy Lectio 365 which has a daily prayer and verbalized prayers and then silence for you to pray on your own. And so it’s kind of an interactive experience. One for the daytime and one for nighttime. So that’s another helpful prompt as well.

Kay >> Yeah, I like that. I like a little daily prayer. The people who are real distracted, however, by their devices, probably need to buy a book and use it because if you get on your computer then you’re very likely to be distracted.

Kelly >> It’s true.

Kay >> It would be hard for somebody.

Another thing I would say about varying your prayers is I always found the acronym PRAY to be one of the best prayer prompts. You Praise, you Repent, you Ask and you Yield. Those are really four different, totally different kinds of prayer. And so if you incorporate all four of those in your prayers each day and vary it with scriptures and with what’s going on in your life, all those kinds of things, your prayers will be more varied.

They won’t be the same all the time. Sometimes when I read a psalm, my main prayer is just praise because so many of the psalms are about praise. That’s a good way for me to start my day anyway— just praising the Lord, remembering how great and wonderful he is and all that he’s done for me.

I think that the emphasis on repenting is important. I think in our day we don’t tend to focus on sin very much. And it’s not that I’m suggesting we dwell on it, but I think we should be constantly looking at our inner lives and who we are, what’s really going on in our thoughts and our motives helps.

Kelly >> Reflection.

Kay >> Absolutely. Yes.

Kelly >> So say a few things about prayer requests. How does one navigate prayer requests personally or groups? I’m not sure or both.

Kay >> Yeah. I think this is really important. A lot of people ask me about this, and that was another sort of surprise when I received these cards. I didn’t know people were having that much trouble with prayer requests. And some of the questions were things like, “How long do I pray for this? . . . How do navigate all these prayer requests; I don’t know what to do.”

So as far as how long you pray for something, it’s not like there’s a rule here. You aren’t being graded. Just ask God to show you, to guide you and give you peace about when you pray for somebody and when you don’t. Many of my prayers that I pray for people are just when they come to my mind and not even necessarily in my prayer time, just people who have mentioned things to me that God brings to my mind, and I think I need to pray for that person.

If you’re in person with somebody and they ask you to pray for them, I think it’s really helpful to pray immediately, especially if you’re like me and you might forget by the time you get home. Just take time if it’s possible, take time and pray immediately for that person.

We did that in my Bible study the other day. A woman really just shared on one of the questions. It was just a personal type question. She went on with this challenge in her life, which was really very, very major. And so we just stopped, and I prayed for her because everybody heard the requests. We all wanted to do something, and we needed to pray right then while she was there with us. And I think it was real meaningful to her that we would pray for her.

As far as people who’ve given you requests, maybe they’ve emailed you a request, they’ve called you with a request, whatever, and how often you pray again, I think a lot of it is just how much God brings them to your mind.

And I think you pray as long for people as God nudges you to pray or until the person who requested prayer tells you it’s been answered or tells you you don’t need to pray anymore, things have changed. If the person hasn’t updated you in a long time, pray about taking it off your list and see if God gives you peace about that. Or you can contact the person and ask for an update to try to figure out what to do.

But I think you just need to let God lead on those things. He knows when and if somebody needs prayer, and you don’t need to feel guilty if you have not heard from somebody in two years and you’ve been praying about something and you have no idea what’s going on. God sees time in a different way than we do anyway. You’ve prayed for that person and you don’t need to necessarily feel like you’ve got to keep these people on your list forever.

Kelly >> Release is important and benevolent detachment is a real concept and it’s beautiful to be able to know that God brings people in your life for a time, and he also releases in time. So I think that’s very helpful.

Let’s talk a little bit about organizing your prayer requests. Do you have some thoughts on that?

Kay >> Yes. I also had questions about this as far as prayer requests were concerned. They’re like—how do I keep track of all these people who want me to pray for them? And again, this is one of those things that may not work for you particularly. It’s going to be different for each person. So just take what you will from these ideas.

The first thing that you might try to do is organize them just by topics or groups of people and pray for each topic or group on a specific day. Like I have a prayer team for me and the day I pray for them is Monday. I don’t have a lot of things I do by day, but that is just a reminder, it’s Monday, I need to pray specifically for this group. You might pray for your pastor, your church on Sunday. Since Sunday is the day that you normally go to church, it would be a great day. You could probably remember to pray for them on Sunday.

I pray for my small group the day that we meet specifically and usually other days too. But that’s just an example of how you can kind of let your calendar help you remember groups. Missionaries, you could have them on certain days. Whatever kinds of group you’re part of people in your family, of course, you’ll probably pray for daily, but other groups you could organize them that way.

Another idea is for people for whom you want to pray consistently. You want that to be consistent. And I actually got some of these ideas as I was reading books on prayer as I was working toward this seminar that I did, and I really liked it. And I have incorporated some of these ideas in my own life now.

I now have notecards where I write down for people that you pray for every day. You can have a card for each person. Like I have a card for my children, my son-in-law and daughter-in-law, my grandchildren, my husband, my sister, people like them in the family that I want to pray for very consistently. I have a card, and on the card I’ve written a verse that God has led me at least once to pray for that person.

And sometimes it may be more than one verse. If we want to pray for the deeper things of life, finding verses that talk about us growing in our faith, talk about becoming more like Christ, talk about those kinds of things that are spiritual things.

Kelly >> Right.

Kay >> If we write those verses down and pray those consistently, we’re praying for spiritual requests. We’re not just praying for temporal request things, things for today. We’re praying long term in somebody’s life.

Kelly >> Right.

Kay >> So that’s the reason I write the verse down. And for some people, I have two or three verses that I’ll pray. And you can do that on a notecard, you can do it in a notebook. I do that with my small group. I have a name at the top of each page and each week I write down what their requests are.

And again, you could do this on the computer as long as you print the list out and don’t take the computer with you, if it’s going to distract you. And so that’s just kind of up to you.

Or I’ve got one note card that is for people who are struggling health-wise, and I sort of have it divided by different types of things like sickness and surgery. I also have grief on there. Pain, I have separately, I have a number of friends who are dealing with just pain that they can’t get rid of.

Kelly >> Yeah.

Kay >> Those kinds of things. I think the cards are real helpful. I think a notebook works really well. Just someplace that you’re going to remember to consistently pray, not just for the thing next week that they’re going to that they wanted you to pray for, but also pray for spiritual growth, spiritual help in their lives.

Kelly >> Yes. One year I was given a prayer journal that was broken up chronologically by month. There was a section for January, February, March, April, so forth. And they were identical. They were sections for me to pray for family members and a section to write out those. It was just highly structured and organized. And it was really, really helpful.

I found that it helped my prayer life quite a bit that year in my conversations with people and in my conversations with God. And so the next year I created my own. I took a spiral notebook and created those same categories by month. And that was helpful to follow as well. I just I think having a structure is beneficial, having a place to be able to write down requests and prayers. I know for those of us who enjoy writing, that’s been very important.

And I think writing scripture is really helpful. I think it does something in your brain that’s beneficial for you in both your spiritual life and physically. So I like that as well.

Talk to us a little bit about praying out loud with other people. What has been your experience with that?

Kay >> Well, of course, this was one of the big ones. It’s like probably half the women said this is what they feared the most about prayer is they don’t want to pray in front of anybody.

Kelly >> Fear, OK.

Kay >> Yeah. And yet Jesus calls us to pray together. I mean, we’re called to pray together. He says we’re two or more together and I’m in your midst. I mean, there is something special about praying as one with a group of people. And there’s something special about hearing people pray for you. That’s another part of it. It’s such a supportive thing for us to hear other people praying for your request.

So I think one of the main things about praying aloud with other people is honestly, we just have to get over ourselves. We’re so focused on me, am I going to say the right thing? And I can’t pray like she does. That’s all really about us when prayer is supposed to be about God and the other people that we’re praying for, not about us.

Kelly >> Right.

Kay >> As I told the women in January, do we really think that all the people in our group are sitting there thinking, “Well she gets an F today. . . That’s the worse prayer I’ve ever heard . . . I just can’t believe she prayed like that . . . That was just terrible.”

I mean, you aren’t sitting there grading other people on their prayers and why do we think, we know we’re not doing it, but for some reason, we think everybody’s doing that when we pray. That ours are just so bad.

I think another thing to know is that praying simply is very helpful.

Kelly >> Yes.

Kay >> Because then you’re not going to intimidate anybody. If you’re one of those who has this elaborate and wonderful prayer, you’ve just intimidated everybody. So if you’re in a group, I think praying simply together is really helpful. Just speak from your heart, what’s on your heart and how can you pray for this person that needs prayer.

And another thing that people need to do if they’re in a group praying together is to raise their head and speak up, because we’ve sort of been taught to pray like this.

But if you’re in a circle or a larger group of some kind and you pray, your voice goes down instead of out to the group. And so deliberately raise your voice and speak, speak up, not yelling, but just speak up so to make sure everybody can hear you.

And as you pray, as other people pray, if we’re going to be praying in agreement, in oneness, then just in your heart, don’t be thinking of what you’re going to say when you pray. Think about that prayer and in your heart be agreeing with what the person is saying. And you can even just whisper an amen or huum, those kinds of things show agreement. They show that we’re listening and that we’re agreeing with those prayers. So those are some of the things.

Now, some of the horror stories I’ve had in groups that we were praying in is that people spent so much time sharing their request that we never prayed.

Kelly >> Yes.

Kay >> Have you been in a prayer group like that?

Kelly >> Well, I would like to share my experience with prayer group here in a minute, but that was a significant shift in what changed everything for me in praying. And prayer as a conversation. I have one friend who never uses the word prayer. She always uses, “Have you talked to God about that? . . . Are you talking with God? . . . Talk to God about that. . . Conversations with God.” I think prayer feels mysterious or mystical, but it’s conversation with one another and conversation with God, and it’s talking to God and it’s listening to God.

And then I heard my pastor say one time when we had a corporate prayer service in church, Who are you talking to? . . . Are we talking to one another? . . .Are we preaching a sermon with our prayer?. . . But we’re really talking to God. . . What are we saying to God? . . .And what are we hearing from him?

I think listening is key.

Kay >> Yeah, those are really good because I do think that we’re very cognizant of our audience and that’s why we get fearful or that’s why we don’t want to pray, when it really is we’re talking to God. I like that idea of not using the word prayer, but talk to God. I really like that.

What I have done, particularly over the years when I was in charge of women’s Bible studies, I would have them write down their request in their small groups in short, just a couple of sentences. Instead of sharing requests, just write down what you want them to pray specifically. Write it down that way, then pass the card one way or the other, and then go around the group. All anybody has to do is read the card. If they want to add a sentence or two, that’s fine, but they don’t need to add a whole lot. Just pray what the person has requested on the card.

And I have found that that helps people be comfortable praying with other people. It goes a long way in teaching people who aren’t comfortable to pray. And I think it works for just about anybody. I know that I have a friend who is still involved in Bible study that I used to be involved in, and she said that she thinks being able to pray aloud with the women has been one of the best things that they have done all these years, writing down the request and sharing them with one another.

Kelly >> Yeah, I think actually praying with one another and not just sharing requests has been significant for me. Probably about ten years ago, maybe a little longer, we at our church, we started trying to get together in groups to actually pray together. And this one group that I’ve been with recently, we realized we’d been praying together since March of 2014.

So we’ve been praying together twice a month for ten years. This same group of five ladies. And it’s been one of the most positive experiences in my spiritual life I’ve ever had. It’s probably been the thing that I’ve been most consistent with. A Bible study has been seasonal for me, but prayer group has been consistent. And I think one of the things that has made this group work for me is that we’re highly structured and that we pray.

There is consistency. The group meets twice a month, whether there’s five of us or two of us, no matter what we get together and someone prays together. It’s also that there’s this structure of sharing requests and praying for each other. And maybe we’ve evolved in our learning of this. We know sometimes we can be sharing too much, but it’s actually more valuable to pray together.

So we’ve learned that each person goes and spends maybe 5 minutes sharing their request and then we spend 10 minutes praying for the person. Each person has an opportunity to share. And then two other people pray for that person, like you said a minute ago, just right then. And then we move to the next person. The next person shares her requests and sometimes we’ll ask for updates on things we’ve prayed for in the past. But then two people pray for her right then and there.

And so that consistency and that hour and a half of praying together has been so meaningful. We’ve walked with one another through all the things that life can throw at you through births and deaths and marriages and divorces and hard times and great things and job endings and job beginnings.

But just having that rhythm together has been huge. And we’re there for one another. And we also know we can text each other prayer requests. We do text each other prayer requests. But it’s the actually praying together that is the game changer. It’s not just sharing request, it’s praying out loud together.

Kay >> Yeah, I love that. That sounds like a wonderful group, Kelly.

Kelly >> It has really been wonderful. And, you know, I asked some of the ladies what has made this work for you? Why have you kept coming back? What have you really appreciated? And one of the ladies shared, she said, “I love how each of our group can trust us so that sharing very personal requests are possible.” The safety of the group is very important. And over time, you grow in your trust of one another and your safety.

Another lady said community is the number one thing that she has valued out of these praying together groups. “When there’s a heart request I have and that it is so tender I may not even have words around it,” she said, “I pray in feelings and I’m comforted that the Holy Spirit can still communicate and translate my heart to the throne of God.” She said, “When I am known by others and they take my requests to the Lord and I hear them pray over me, I often feel more supported and more seen. It gives me tangible hope that God will hear that he will act that I will survive whatever circumstance I’m in, that the Lord can make it fertile soil for me to thrive whatever the circumstance.”

Another lady said that personally praying in a group has been the most meaningful and powerful when there is evidence of the Holy Spirit’s presence and when the group is safe. So I think that’s critical.

Another lady said specifically, “When someone uses Scripture, I feel comfort and hope.” So I think praying the scriptures. There’s so many prayers, Old Testament and New Testament prayers and Psalms that can shape our prayers.

Kay >> Absolutely. Well, I think that’s wonderful. That your group has stayed together and developed those feelings of being that safe that they can share anything with one another—real community of prayer. I think that’s what we would all love. I think.

Kelly >> Yeah, it’s you’re bonded together, but really it starts with just doing it. I’ve been in groups that have made it. I have been in groups that haven’t. But the best thing I can say is just do it. Just get together and pray even if you’re praying over, this brings technology back into the picture, but if you’re praying over FaceTime or praying over WhatsApp, you have the ability to be able to connect with someone else wherever you are and pray together. And that’s huge for me personally.

Kay >> Yeah. And if you’re doing it with a group, then I don’t think technology is quite as much of a distraction. I think it’s if you just bring your own stuff there.

Kelly >> Right.

Kay >> And you’re just trying to do something on your own devices that the distractions really come in. And I think FaceTime, I’ve done FaceTime before. I’ve just done an audio group before praying. And those can be very very encouraging, just like a personal meeting to pray.

Kelly >> I know too finding someone. There have been times in my life where things were dark and I found that I couldn’t pray. And that’s just reality and seasons of life. I think every believer will go through dark nights of the soul. Some people may struggle with clinical depression. Some people may feel you’re not struggling with either of those things, but you just think, I can’t pray.

And someone wise told me in one of those times when I said, I just can’t pray, she said, “So find somebody who can and be with them.” That was huge in that particular time in my life when I couldn’t find the words, I was with someone else who could have the words for me and pray with me.

And that time that season passed and that community and fellowship and those words that someone else had for me that I didn’t have for myself was very, very significant.

Kay >> Those are wise words. Those are really wise words because I do think that at least most of us will have those times when I just don’t think I can pray. Thanks for sharing that.

Kelly >> Yeah. Are there any other thoughts that you want to share before we end our time together?

Kay >> I think I’d just say to the women out there that even if you feel like you’re failing at some of this, God wants to hear from you, God wants to talk to you. There’s no grading. Just your prayers are so welcome. He wants to hear your voice and to hear your thoughts. He wants you to share your deepest things with him.

Kelly >> Yes. So I’d like to close with a verse that I found in the Message. It’s from Matthew six, he’s talking about how to pray. And it’s right before Jesus goes into the Lord’s Prayer, the disciples prayer. But he says, “This is your father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply. This is your father you’re dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this, loving you, you can pray very simply.”

And I want to leave our audience with that, that they have a father who loves them and who longs to hear from them. So, Kay, would you close us in prayer?

Kay >> Certainly.

Father God, thank you that you invite us into conversation with you. Thank you that you want to hear from us. Even though you already know what’s in our hearts, you want to hear it from us. Thank you that you are always there. Even if we stumble in our prayers, even if we fall away in our prayers for a time, you’re there. You’re waiting for us to come back. You love us so much.

We just give you all the praise and all the glory in Jesus name. Amen.

Kelly >> Well, thank you for being part of this conversation on prayer with us. I want you to know that we have other resources on prayer at BeyondOrdinaryWomen.org. If you go to our Resources tab on the dropdown menu and select Podcast/Video Extras, you can search for the title Practical Prayer Solutions and browse for other resources that you might find helpful as well.

We are glad that you have joined us and we will see you next time.