Nika Spaulding

Sharifa Stevens

Cultivating joy is an important part of our discipleship, as Nika Spaulding explains to Sharifa Stevens, BOW Team Member. Nika explains what joy is and why it is important for disciples of Jesus to manifest this fruit of the Spirit. We can have joy even when experiencing sorrow and duress. Both can be true at once. Cultivating joy in any situation of life allows us to look more like Jesus, especially during this time when leaders are causing God's people to fear.

This episode is also available on video if you prefer watching it.

Timestamps:

00:33 –Introductions

02:47 - What is joy and how do we see it in others?

07:37 - God delights in us

14:50 - How does believing that God delights in us affect us?

15:17 - God's love and joy are constant

16:00 - What does cultivating joy look like?

21:45 - Joy under duress and sorrow

25:14 - Feeling two things at once

28:00 – Jesus' example

29:19 – Giving people permission to lament

30:54 - Importance of modeling joy

34:03 - The goal is looking like Jesus

34:10 - Joy is vulnerable

38:49 - Resources

Resources

The Other Half of Church: Christian Community, Brain Science, and Overcoming Spiritual Stagnation By Jim Wilder

BOW series with Nika Spaulding on Lament: 1- Understanding Lament and 2- Practicing Lament.

TranscriptSharifa >> Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Ordinary Women. I am your host for today, Sharifa Stevens and I have the distinct pleasure of talking with Nika Spaulding today. Let me tell you a little bit about Nika. Nika is a proud graduate of both the University of Oklahoma and Dallas Theological Seminary, where she has a Master of Theology.

She's currently working on her Doctor of Ministry at Northern Seminary. God gave her the privilege of planting a church in Oak Cliff, Texas, called St Jude Oak Cliff, where she is Resident Theologian. And when she's not cheering on her Sooners, playing with her cat, Clive, who we might see later, or enjoying a good meal with her friends, she's probably sneaking off to Oklahoma to snuggle with her favorite humans, her nieces and nephew.

Nika, thank you for joining us today.

Nika >> Oh, I'm excited to be here. It's good to see you, friend.

Sharifa >> Good to see you, too. And I'm really excited about the subject for today, which is Cultivating Joy.

Nika >> Yeah. A big topic.

Sharifa >> Right. It is! So let's get into it.

Nika >> Yeah. Love it. It's interesting. Before we started recording, you and I were talking about how this topic of joy seems to be coming up in our individual lives. And then, of course, we're talking about here. And really, I would argue starting in 2020, because of both global tragedy and then just tragedy in my own personal life, I was very acquainted with the idea of lament and grief and all of that.

And it's been a really sweet gift to come up a little bit and have the Lord drop this idea, this massive, huge idea of joy in front of me. And so it's a topic that I've talked about in both teaching opportunities as well as something I'm trying to cultivate on my current staff team at my church, and then also just in my own personal life.

And so it's a small, tiny, big, huge topic that we get to try to talk about today.

Sharifa >> Absolutely. And I hope later you can touch on this more, but it seems like there's always accompanied with joy, there's a sense of grief.

Nika >> Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Sharifa >> Let's just let's get into it. What is joy and can it be recognized in us and God, is it written all over our face?

Nika >> Yeah, it tends to be. One of the ways that I was reintroduced to the idea of Joy was I was talking to a friend about wanting to really come up with really good questions as part of a discipleship program. So my idea was, hey, I'd love to partner people together, have them ask really important questions about God, about themselves, about their neighbor,