A podcast designed to encourage believers that God can use you to impact His kingdom no matter your story. Yes, it requires surrender and trust, but His grace is enough.
Episodes
Tuesday Jul 21, 2020
Tuesday Jul 21, 2020
You can listen to {Part 1} EP. 76: Rosaria Butterfield | Radical Hospitality.
{Part 2} Rosaria and I dive deep into the topic of intersectionality and how that type of identity thinking differs from Christian identity.
1:50 You often speak and write about intersectionality. Will you define intersectionality for our listeners?
- Rosaria summarizes what led to intersectionality.
"Most people did not realize that for decades and decades and decades, there's been a conversation going on in the universities and that conversation basically is this, your identity is rooted in the things you don't have that you want, and the things that you need to have in order to be fully formed. In other words, intersectionality comes from this idea that who you really are, is determined by how many victim statuses you can check off and liberation can only be had if no one disagrees with you."
- Obergefell decision
"But in 2015 in the Obergefell decision, which was the Supreme Court decision to legalize gay marriage in all 50 states, there was an additional, kind of beefing up of a clause that inserted this idea...of dignitary harm. This idea that people are harmed or done like violence to their person, not only because of material things that are denied them, but because their dignity has been insulted or hurt. So now with intersectionality, it isn't just race, class and gender... it could be ageism and looksism."
Intersectionality and The Church by Dr. Rosaria Butterfield
Two ways in which intersectionality is at odds with the gospel by Denny Burks
Intersectionality as Religion… It’s infecting evangelicals too by Denny Burks
Follow Rosaria Butterfield at https://rosariabutterfield.com
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Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
Tuesday Jul 14, 2020
Rosaria and I chat about her conversion, experiencing Christian hospitality as a lesbian professor, how her family practices hospitality, and how hospitality and the gospel go hand in hand for her.
6:42 For those who aren't familiar with your books and your story, briefly share with our listeners how you came to know Jesus
"The Lord saved me 21 years ago, and at that point, I was living in serially monogamous lesbian relationships. I was a tenured professor at Syracuse University in English and women's studies, and was the co author of our domestic partnership policy, which was the forerunner for... gay marriage, both the Obergefell decision and prior to that all the little state ones. I've always had a burning desire to be a truth teller and to understand the truth. I had a sticker on my desk that said, 'I'd rather be wrong on an important point than right on a trivial one.'
I just really wanted to know why Christians hated people like me and why they just wouldn't leave consenting adults alone. So after my 10 year book was written, I started working on a book on the religious right. And in the process of that met a pastor, who was also one of my neighbors name is Ken Smith. He and his wife Floy and I became friends. And they entered my world, I entered their world....So there has this Christian world and their hospitality and my gay world and my hospitality and it had enough of a familiar sense that it was not terrifying to walk into that world and that fact that they were willing to walk into mine. Well, it was that that really allowed them to put the hand of this stranger called Rosaria into the hand of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ."
9:51 Hospitality is woven through your story from your years in the LGBTQ community to being welcomed in to Ken and Floy's home to eat and to dialogue with a couple who had vastly different beliefs than you to how you interact with your current neighborhood. How did previous models of hospitality help shape your families current model?
"What we were practicing the Bible wouldn't necessarily call hospitality because that has a particular Christian grounding to it. What we were practicing was a kind of liberal communitarianism. We wanted to create a community that was bound by certain values and was willing to show up in hard places. The gospel is more than that. The gospel is that. But if the gospel isn't more than that, then it's not the gospel. Because what hospitality is, is it's welcoming a stranger to be part of your neighbor connection and then by God's grace, watching neighbors, come to Christ and become part of your family....there's a there's a difference between liberal communitarianism and hospitality."
"Every layer had so many idols attached to it. It was the idol of feminism. There was the idol of lesbianism. There was the idol of being a tenured professor at an important research university. There was the idol of my students and my dissertations that I had to direct. There is the idol of the books. There were so many idols and you know what, you don't come to Christ with your idols. Well, I mean, you do, but then they have to be destroyed."
Follow Rosaria Butterfield at https://rosariabutterfield.com
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Tuesday Jul 07, 2020
Tuesday Jul 07, 2020
Jessica and I chat about walking forward in faith after rejection. We discuss changing the narrative surrounding rejection, being humble, and growth that can result.
3:10 Share a little about your faith journey with us. How did you come to know Jesus?
6:48 Today we are going to talk about how to keep walking forward in faith after rejection. Will you share a time when you experienced rejection and how that experience launched you into this pursuit of helping women know their worth?
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Pete Scazzero
11:21 What are some of the things you do now to help women view rejection differently?
- Change the narrative
- Be humble in the face of rejection
- Every time there is a rejection, a no, there is an opportunity to grow
“We still have work in the promise. We still are called to show up. I think that is what we see in David. He still served the king. He played the harp, right? He served his brothers. There was servanthood in the midst of the waiting and even when Saul was after him, he still wanted to serve him… There is this heart posture that we need to get to in in that process of waiting.”
“A rejection from humans. a no from humans does not mean a no or rejection from God.”
17:48 Are there some questions that you ask yourself after experiencing rejection?
“You can generally ask yourself, what’s going on right now (both parties)? You have to understand both sides. Where is each side coming from? Because the more you can take yourself out of it, meaning, your identity and worth…. then you can start to formulate this kind of subjective view of the situation to be able to learn and grow from.”
“What can I do moving forward?”
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Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
Tuesday Jun 16, 2020
Susan and I chat about how her family vision of the love the Lord your God and your neighbor as yourself led her and John to begin hosting a Cousin Camp for their 21 grandchildren. We also discuss letting going of the expectation of being appreciated and creating meaningful family connections through extended family gatherings.
1:43 Susan shares about her new book Cousin Camp
Free Download: Camp at Home: 100 Practical Ideas for Families
5:06You have 21 grandchildren and have hosted a cousin camp for the past 11 years. Take us back and share what led to the first cousin campand what the week looked like.
"We had always prayed for our kids from the time they started coming...that they would learn to love the Lord with all their heart, mind and soul and then the second commandment, to love their neighbor as ourself.That's sort of been our family vision as we've raised our children."
"We've now had camp for 11 years, and all 21 of our grandchildren now come, but one of the hallmark traditions is the largest Sunday in our county, Warren County in Virginia. I bought a gutter the first year at the hardware store and then lined it with aluminum foil...and put rows and rows of ice cream and toppings and nuts and whipped cream all down the gutter."
Follow Susan Alexander Yates at susanalexanderyates.com and IG
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Tuesday Jun 09, 2020
Tuesday Jun 09, 2020
Bethany and I chat about spiritual formation, consistently showing up to meet with God, how she handles questions about being a woman who teaches God's Word, and what led her to seminary.
Bridgetown Church
3:38Share a little of your faith journey with us. How did you come to know Jesus?
"I think there's a lot of merit to just that slow, good work of Jesus in our lives."
5:28What led to you to seminary?
"I feel like my seminary experience had so much to do with God healing me, as opposed to just learning."
"I remember God... saying, Bethany, you can build a kingdom, you have enough charisma....You can build your kingdom and you can have influence and it would be good, it will produce goodness, but if you make that your ambition as a woman in ministry, it will be limited. If you instead yield to the reality that I am one who orchestrates my people and brings fullness of the imago dei, it means you'll have to die a lot more deaths and it will have to be your ambition is really the advancement of the kingdom of God at all costs. Which means you'll have to bow the knee in certain places, you'll have to go lower in certain places, you'll have to withstand things that you don't necessarily want to withstand, but it will mean the expansion of my kingdom on my terms."
Ephesians 4pastoral gifting
14:49What is it like to serve alongside a group of men who do look at you and value you as someone who can teach the Word of God?
"I think it really helps that I grew up in a context where my dad has always championed me. My dad's one of the most humble people in the kingdom of God. I remember him always saying, I would sweep the floors of the kingdom, if I could just be a part of it."
"I have prayed every day for friendship and favor with these men largely because I desire that more than I desire a place on the pulpit."
"I would say to anyone who asked me because it's true, he [John Mark Comer] is just as good if not better than you think. He's just as godly and humble and he's perfect? No, absolutely not. Am I? No...Those men I serve with are some of the most humble men I've ever known. They are both my covering and I'm not afraid to say that that's not triggering language for me. They are my advocates and they are my friends."
Show notes CONTINUED at www.graceenoughpodcast.com
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Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Tuesday Jun 02, 2020
Justin and I chat about habits and how they form us. We chat about practicing habits of purpose particularly as it relates to our digital and media consumption.
4:57Justin shares how he came to know Jesus
"I did have my serious wanderings in late High School and early College. I describe it as the period for me where I personally never really doubted that the claims of Jesus were true, I did experientially wonder if they mattered and if they mattered to me. Through some significant moral failure, and realizing that I was less happy... and more ashamed, living the way I was living. Finally I had my 'I'm gonna follow Jesus, not just because my parents said', but for myself in early college. And it was really because I started to think about who I was becoming. I realized I don't like who I'm becoming, but I like who my dad is. I like who my parents are. And just because they modeled a life of following Jesus."
7:22You have said, "My habits wrecked me."
Share with our listeners a little about what life looked like for you early in your law career and how that led you to develop habits of purpose.
"I look back now and I think the house of my life was very sincerely decorated with the Christian content of calling, but I look back now and I also realize that the architecture of that life was exactly like everyone else's. I completely assimilated to all the typical practices of a top 20 law school, an aspiring young lawyer, just busy all the time. Always waking up earlier. Always staying up later. Always adding more. And that worked in a sense. I graduated around the top of my class and got my dream job at an international law firm doing mergers and acquisitions. And, you know, life was going well, of course, until it wasn't."
"How is it that this missionary to law and business became converted to the nervous medicating warrior, and especially in such a short order? The answer for me...was by habit.... After about a year of this, I realized that my my body and my mind, and all the anxiety that wrecked it, was happening because I had finally become converted to the anxiety and the nervousness and the busyness that my habits and routines worshiped. I was being formed in anxiety even while I was in my head clinging to the gospel piece of calling."
"I think our cultural moment is familiar with the significance of worldview. For example, what we believe about the world has a serious impact on our life. But I do think we're less acquainted with the idea that the practical ways we live have significant impact on who we become."
"Our brain becomes attuned to certain habit activity such that our head thinking can go one way, but our habit activity can go the other way and that's very normal. Then, I started digging into the theology of this and realizing that when your head goes one way and your habit goes the other way your heart follows the habit."
"It is possible to believe all the right things, but but very unwittingly, worship idols of productivity, busyness, exhausting yourself to earn the approval of others just through the little habits of the ways you check your emails or never turn off your devices or never schedule a day off."
16:02 The Common Ruleis a way for people to practice formational habits together and today we are primarily going to talk about digital habits.
You write, "The smartphone is a tool that enables many things, but it will never multiply our presence." What do you encourage others to do to begin practicing presence?
"We are often connected to people, but we are very rarely actually present with people."
19:22One of the daily habits you recommend is Scripture before phone. Why do you recommend that?
"I recommend that and almost everything else I recommend, because of the ways I fail at it."
"We wake up and our heads are asking our phone a really simple question, which is what do I need to do today? But our hearts...this is not totally conscious, or verbalized even, our hearts are asking a really different question, who do I need to become today in order to be lovable? Anything will be happy to answer that question for us, especially the phone."
"Whether we approach our phones looking for love or set out to them to share love makes a world of difference in how we use them. For me, the practice of Scripture before phone is one of those keystone habits to help check myself on what I'm doing when I go to my phone."
Techwise Family by Andy Crouch
SHOW NOTES cont. at graceenoughpodcast.com
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Tuesday May 26, 2020
Tuesday May 26, 2020
Krista, the co-founder of We Start Now chat about building an internal framework within your child when it comes to values and digital habits. Krista also shares a variety of tips to help parents and families flourish in the digital age.
1:57 Take a moment to introduce our listeners to you, your family, and tell us a little about We START Now
A couple of years ago, my oldest daughter was in fifth grade. At that time, the hot Christmas gift was a smartphone and I knew that our family was not ready for a smartphone....I really became concerned about that and started reaching out asking if anybody else wanted to talk about it. What happened was it became a conversation ironically, of a close tiny group of people who started talking about this issue and it grew to 3000 people almost overnight. People who really were talking about what does it look like to give our kids smartphone. How do we get them ready for that? What age is the right age?"
START. It's an acronym that stands for sit together and rethink technology.
5:16 What are some of the key take aways that you applied as your family began to re-think technology?
"I think that there is a very hopeful, promising movement of the next generation of parents who are beginning to say, we want to do it different and it's gonna look a little bit more incremental."
6:40 I read a study recently that the average U.S. household has eleven connected devices with seven of those, including screens to view content. What are some first steps and things that we can do to really begin to rethink technology?
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Tuesday May 19, 2020
Tuesday May 19, 2020
The founder of Better Life Bags, Rebecca Smith, joins me to talk about growing Better Life Bags(BLB) from an Etsy shop to a large company that provides meaningful work for women in her community. We also chat about slowing down to get ahead, the mission of BLB and pursuing dreams in every season.
A Better Life: Slowing Down To Get Ahead by Rebecca Smith
4:40 Share a little of your faith journey with us. When and how did you come to know Jesus?
9:34 Take us back to being a young married woman in Savannah, Georgia and how you ended up in Hamtramck, Michigan.
"I was giving micro loans with each bag purchase to a woman who lived in a third world country."
"We moved to Michigan to this little city called Hamtramck. Our point in doing that was we were going to live here for two years immersing ourselves in a different culture. This city is very diverse... There's 26 languages spoken here in two square miles."
"I had never imagined myself going overseas for missions, but I knew God had this heart for the world and I was willing to follow if that was His plan for our life, but I was terrified."
SHOW NOTES continued
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Thursday May 14, 2020
Thursday May 14, 2020
Sam and I chat about what led us to implement a weekly Shabbat meal and Sabbath rest into our family routine. We discuss challenges and benefits from our experience.
0:34 What led us to begin a weekly practice of Sabbath rest?
Sam: “We had started looking at some of the family teams stuff with Jeremy Pryor and Jeff Bethke and some of the research they were sharing about people leaving the faith in western Christendom versus religions like Mormonism and the Hebrew faith….Part of it was that there weren’t rhythms that were part of the standard daily family cycle. And so for me, we were researching that and it really hit me that it was something I wanted to give to my kids to help them see the realness of our faith, but also to give them a practice that gave us an identity as a family.”
3:20 As a family of 5 (3 kids 10 and under) we understand the challenge with actually getting to rest, so what does our weekly Sabbath look like?
Our family currently Sabbath’s from 5 p.m. on Friday-12 p.m. Saturday.
Shabbat meal Friday evening followed by 5-10 minutes of quiet time, then family game time.
Tips:
- Choose a day that works for your family and can be repeated
- Form a habit of removing digital distraction
- Make the Shabbat meal special. Ex.) plates only used for that meal, special drink for the kids, table cloth, etc.
Shabbat meal practice:
- Stand behind our chairs
- Pray
- Sing Doxology
- Read Deut. 5:15: Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day
- Light the candles
- Oldest generation present blesses any sons and daughters present
- Kids speak Aaronic Blessing (Num. 26: 22-27) over us in Hebrew
- As a family we bless one another with the Aaronic blessing
- EAT!
Amber: “It’s not an easy thing to do. It’s not like you just wake up in the morning and are like, Okay, I’m going to rest now and it just happens you actually have to plan for rest.”
EP. 49: Jeremy Pryor | Family Teams
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Tuesday May 12, 2020
Tuesday May 12, 2020
Pastor Doug and I chat about the heart attack that changed his life. He began the journey out of workaholism toward healthy boundaries and consistent practice of Sabbath rest.
The Heart Attack that Saved My Life by Doug Gamble
6:08 Share a little of your faith journey with us. How did you come to know Jesus?
"I love the church. I'm quite familiar with all of its flaws and faults, because we're not perfect people. But I do love the church, what it can do what it has done, I still think it's God's best plan on earth."
10:45 There was a point in your pastoral life years ago, where you were just burning it at both ends. Share with us a little bit about what happened during that season in your life?
"Religious addiction is not like drugs or alcohol...you know, people like when you're doing good and yet it has the same toxic effect. Workaholism, like most other things, involves lying and stealing. In this case, you're lying and stealing time that should be spent with God, with your wife, with your kids, and you're not practicing good boundaries, like we've learned are so important."
"I had a Christian cardiologist, so I went back to him... [he said,] 'I'm going to help fix your heart, but you and your elders are going to have to totally change your life. You can't be coming in here to my office at 49 as a missions pastor with a heart problem, you're not living right'."
"The reason Sabbath has become so meaningful to me is it's really not well understood in the Protestant world. We think Sabbath as you go to church on Sunday, then you watch football or you go out to the beach or you do whatever you do in the summer or in the winter. [But] discovering the Sabbath is as Jesus said in one of his parables, man wasn't made for the Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for man. And what that means is we need it more than we realize. We tend to think it's a duty. It's not a duty. It's a one day in seven to live differently, so that you can be different the other six days of the week."
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