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In Ecclesiastes 3:11, we read that God makes everything beautiful in its time. It is comforting to know that nothing is wasted in God's economy, but all of it will be used for our good and His glory. You're invited to join us for poignant conversations and compelling interviews centered on believing for His beauty in every season.
Shannon Scott (00:00.824)
welcome, welcome, welcome to the Everything Made Beautiful podcast. And I'm so excited about today because I have got my dear friend Lisa Harper joining us on the podcast. Welcome, Lisa.
Lisa (00:16.686)
I love seeing your face. I also love that you're wearing plaid because I'm like, she has, you are just fully invested to being the log home girl that you are now, aren't you? look like a hallmark commercial.
Shannon Scott (00:28.312)
I do now live in my log cabin and I love every minute of it and...
Lisa (00:37.865)
Cabin is a little bit of a misnomer. It's a little larger than a cabin. So I would not say cabin really fits, although, you know, that's nice, humble phraseology, but I've seen the pictures. It's more like the perfect dream log home with this fabulous view nestled in the mountains. I mean, it is, it's storybook.
Shannon Scott (00:49.272)
Uh huh, yes, yes.
Shannon Scott (00:58.976)
Yes. Yes. And I'm not sorry about that. I love everything about it for sure. and I didn't tell you.
Lisa (01:05.358)
I know. I know. I love it for you.
Shannon Scott (01:08.65)
I didn't tell you I was gonna do this because I know you'd tell me not to do it. So it's my podcast so I can do whatever I want. So I'm gonna do this now and just say I want you who are watching and listening to know that you know that you know that Lisa is the real deal. We live sadly in a culture where we brace ourselves a little bit with every open of Instagram because we're not sure what shoe is gonna drop on what
Lisa (01:15.426)
hahahaha
Shannon Scott (01:38.554)
well-known leader that we've all known and followed for years. But I can assure you because I know Lisa in multiple scenarios and across many years now that she's the real deal. So you can breathe a sigh of relief. She's as great as you think she is. And when I say I know her, we have been in cars and on platforms. We have been in back rooms and restaurants. We have been in the most insane situations.
we have had so much fun. we've also cried together and we've been in some hard things and i've worked alongside her and for her and with her and i'm just so thrilled that we get to talk today and let everybody else listen in as we have some fun together.
Lisa (02:15.406)
Yep. Yep.
Lisa (02:28.982)
Well, I love that you assured people that I probably will not have an epic failure. I can make no assurances myself because I told somebody the other day, said, actually, if every single thing we thought and did was under the microscope of social media 24 seven, we would all disqualify ourselves from ministry. I'm a hot mess. I I cussed at my child on the way to Christian school and had to repent on the side of the road.
Shannon Scott (02:36.728)
you
Shannon Scott (02:51.33)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (02:56.472)
You
Lisa (02:58.732)
I'm so grateful and I'm not qualifying sin. I'm so grateful for God's mercy.
But man, I also, wish we could take a rabbit trail for a minute and say the church has got to discipline their thumbs. I'm so tired of this vitriol in our culture, of it's almost a gleeful, we've gone back to the, you know, the circuses of the Roman Coliseum where it seems like people cheer when somebody else is eviscerated. And I'm like, oh goodness, that should drive us to our knees in gratitude that we haven't made the same wrong judgment.
Shannon Scott (03:15.126)
Yes. Yes.
Shannon Scott (03:27.5)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (03:31.138)
Yeah.
Lisa (03:36.015)
wrong choice, but also just to be on our knees for mercy, that God's mercy would reign in the season. I don't know, I think because I'm 62, there's this part of me that goes, y'all be careful in thinking as Christ followers, you can choose sin without impunity.
Shannon Scott (03:42.209)
Yeah.
Lisa (03:55.923)
because that's not biblically sound, but also as Christ followers that you can judge somebody else who's fallen into sin without impunity. That's on us. anyway, don't get me started, Shannon. I've been a little bit of a soapbox there lately.
Shannon Scott (04:02.028)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (04:07.97)
Yeah. Yeah.
So good. Well, and to your point, I mean, you've been in ministry for over 30 years and most people, they, no, I shouldn't say most people. It is, it is not rare, sadly, that people burn out after just a few years. What would you say has kept you going? Not just surviving in full-time ministry, but thriving. mean, you love it. And what do you attribute that to?
Lisa (04:30.466)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (04:35.224)
Hmm. Hmm.
Lisa (04:41.902)
You know, our friend Christine Kane asked me almost this exact question. She has a phenomenal new book now called Faith to Flourish. And she's talking about how do you flourish at 62 because you've seen a lot, done a lot. And I said, quite honestly, what keeps me running hard toward Jesus, and as you said, I love what I do, is kind of pulling a deuteronomy. It's looking back over my life and seeing all the
Shannon Scott (04:51.35)
Hmm.
Lisa (05:11.022)
I mean, golly jeepers, Shannon, I probably have more self-dug pits than anybody I know that God has pulled me out of and carried me to new places. So it's actually the testimony of my own life that God has no good thing will he withhold from him whose walk is upright, Psalm 84 11. I always augment and say, or for her who often stumbles, because I wouldn't have chosen myself.
Shannon Scott (05:37.484)
Yeah.
Lisa (05:39.137)
to do what I do. absolutely would not have chosen me. We're all in full-time ministry. just some of us are in vocational ministry. I say we're the weaker ones because we have financial incentive. We get paid for it. I wouldn't have chosen me for this. And God in His mercy has allowed me to be on platforms I didn't earn to write books that I can't write nearly as well as the people I love to read. So the fact that I still get to do this, I'm still kind of gobsmacked.
Shannon Scott (05:48.94)
Hehehe.
Lisa (06:08.854)
by the redemption of my own story.
Shannon Scott (06:11.32)
so good. and you i hear you say this same sentence that i'm about to say a lot of ways but this is the one i wrote down because i love it that accruing knowledge about god pales next to a real and intimate relationship with jesus and i know that you feel that way but you have also pursued serious theological education and you've got a master's with honors you're in progress on your doctorate so
how have you held those two things of just knowing a lot about God is not going to equal an intimate relationship with him but both are important?
Lisa (06:54.21)
Yeah. Thank you. That's a great question, Shannon. I will tell you initially when I pursued seminary education, I don't think my motives were that pure because I felt like a fraud for so much of my life. I was just always afraid somebody would look under the hood and find me lacking. And there's a lot of abuse in my back story. And so I was always spinning plates. If I'm not walk with Holy Spirit, I am performing.
And so initially, knowledge for me, even seminary education for me initially, was if I sound smart and I kind of cover up my own shame with multisyllabic theological terms and a little bit of Greek and a little bit of Hebrew, then maybe nobody will see behind that carefully crafted facade. And it wasn't until 15 years ago when just the bottom fell out of my life and God so graciously said, I'm going to take you to the basement.
I'm gonna sit there with you in the dark until fear doesn't own you anymore. That everything for me became about intimacy with Jesus because I couldn't carry the weight of my own life without it. And so that even shifted the way I pursue. I actually will finish, well, my dissertation is due at the end of this month. So I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. After six years for getting my doctorate, I actually finished the bulk of it at two o'clock in the morning, night before last.
And it has been a labor of love. I've had to unlearn a lot of bad theology, it is, Shannon, I can't remember half of what I studied. know, 62, my mind is part colander.
But I remember the kindness of Jesus. I remember the nearness of Jesus. I remember the fact that the transcendent God of the universe condescended so a mess like me can lean into him. And so again, I know this sounds selfish because I can tell you some stories I've seen that goodness gracious, something just happened recently where I go, I know that I know, I know that I know that this is not an existential construct, that this isn't just a belief system.
Lisa (09:05.616)
we have a very real God because of what I've seen. So I can tell you a bunch of other people's stories, but just the rescue in my own story is where it is much more about relationship to me than transactional education. If you're studying God's word to get information, it's...
It's not going to meet the deep hole in your soul. If you're leaning into this love story we call the Bible, so that you can understand who Jesus is more accurately, so that you can even understand your own need for Jesus, then that's a whole different story. That's leaning into this because you want to get closer. You want more intimacy. If you're accruing information, I can tell you from experience, that runway gets real short.
Shannon Scott (09:29.804)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (09:56.812)
Yeah, that's so good. And you you mentioned the abuse that you experienced in your background and you have been open about being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. But you've also said that someone told you that you wouldn't be a good candidate for motherhood because you might transfer the trauma that you had experienced. But we, know, so many of us who love and have followed you for so long know that God has redeemed that story.
and you adopted Missy and she is a delight. I love her. I love you but I gotta tell you if Missy's in a room with you I'm going to her first because she's she gives the best hugs and she's...
Lisa (10:35.822)
Listen, I totally agree. I totally agree. I have hitched my wagon to a star of a young woman, and I don't say that for her gifts, although she has a lot. I say that for her heart, the shape of my child's heart.
Shannon Scott (10:53.762)
Yeah.
Lisa (10:55.05)
I'm her second mama. Missy's first mama passed away in Haiti when Missy was a baby. Her name is Marie. I can't wait to meet her in glory. And then I got woven into Missy's story because there's no family to take care of her after her first mama died. But Shannon Missy has every excuse to be self-protective, be hard-hearted, to be bitter. The first four years of her life were beyond difficult.
And she's kind. She's a good, good human being. She loves Jesus. She loves other people well. Missy chooses kindness. It's just natural in her. And Missy didn't have an orphan spirit. Missy was orphaned in her, in her, you know, her personal life she was orphaned. Her mama died. There was no dad. There was a man who got her mom pregnant and then died long before Missy was born.
Shannon Scott (11:24.824)
Yeah.
Lisa (11:52.333)
because of a disease he gave her mother and that's what caused her mother's death. And so she was a literal orphan. Missy does not have an orphan spirit, never has. She had a great aunt who stepped into her story, who loved her really well. So she had a maternal bond. She had really healthy attachment from the time she was a baby. I'm the one who had the orphan spirit. So when God...
Shannon Scott (12:16.268)
Mmm. Wow.
Lisa (12:19.65)
kind of revealed that to me and I realized this is another step in his kindness in that I'm the one who I think has experienced more healing. Yes, she was sick and she was starving and there's some really hard things in Haiti, but I think my heart was more unhealthy than my daughter's.
Shannon Scott (12:40.768)
Wow, I mean, wow.
that that i think probably resonates for a lot of us when you talk about an orphan spirit you know the whole purpose of this podcast is we want to talk about the truth that god is always in the redemption business he's always making everything beautiful he is a restorer he is a repairer of the breach all of those things so what does an orphan spirit look like so for somebody who's maybe grown up in a two-parent home and they've lived in america and you know they're not an orphan
Lisa (13:11.022)
Thank you.
Shannon Scott (13:13.602)
the technical sense, how does someone like that identify that they may be living with an orphan spirit?
Lisa (13:20.822)
Yeah, and this is pretty simplistic, but I'll tell you, I've had lots and lots of amazing Christian counseling through the years, lots of counsel from my pastors. And this is kind of a personal thing, but I think it tends to be generally true if one of the key mantras, the melodies in your heart and mind is, I don't deserve, I don't deserve, I don't deserve. If shame has been a large informer of your identity,
then there's probably at least pockets of an orphan spirit in you. Because humility, I used to attribute this to C.S. Lewis, but it wasn't C.S. Lewis who said this, it was Rick Warren, said humility is not thinking less about ourselves, it's thinking about ourselves less. And I had, if.
If I could articulate the thoughts in my mind about myself for decades as an adult Christian, I mean, I would.
I would be I would confront someone who said the things that were in my head about myself, but they said it about someone else. And I'm not naturally confronted with cruel, horrible, horrible dialogue in my head about my own unwhitherness. You know, do we deserve the mercy of God? Well, of course not. That's the gospel. We have a transcendent God who, while we were still sinners, chose us, loved us, lavished us with grace. So is there an element of a lack of deservedness?
Shannon Scott (14:30.966)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (14:54.352)
after original sin? Well of course theologically. Are we all just these horrible worms that know we're Imago Dei so God created us with inherent worth and dignity and to grab on to the truth of Imago Dei and original sin that we need a savior, those are kind of hard to hold in the same mind and heart.
But as you grow up with, I'm his treasured possession, on my worst day he still calls me wonderful. That's, as you said, the glorious ongoing redemption of the gospel. And I think if you've got an orphan spirit, that becomes more cognitive than it does begin to inform the way you think about yourselves. And then I could hear the gospel for everybody else.
But at some level, I believe that God, that I had to work, work, work, do better, be better, do better, be better, or God would be disappointed that he had lowered the bar to let me into his kingdom. And that is not humility. That actually is a cousin of narcissism. That, that is thinking about yourself too much. That is, don't deserve, I don't deserve, rather than, well, yeah, even if you started, I don't deserve, but you get to, but look at what he gave me. Chris Kane says it well. Chris says,
Shannon Scott (15:47.788)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (16:15.618)
Yeah.
Lisa (16:17.136)
is that when she began to really process her own sexual trauma, she said she just came to this epiphany of, I was sexually abused for 13 years.
And now I've been a Christian and I've been being redeemed and restored by Jesus for 40 years. And when you begin to realize what was done to me is eclipsed, I'm not saying you don't grieve it. I'm not saying there aren't still scars that God does turn into beauty marks eventually. But she said, when I begin to realize what Jesus has been doing for me, eclipses what was done to me, then you begin living in the redeemed part of your story and you go that I'm not going to be a Pollyanna. I'm not going to say that didn't
As a matter of fact, it's raining today, Shannon, in Nashville. Probably isn't where your glorious log home is, but it's one of those dreary February days in Nashville. You know, it's real gloomy, real drizzly.
And when I was abused in my childhood, I like to think of it as my heart was wet cement as a child, as an adolescent. And so a handprint, a really ugly handprint got stuck in the wet cement of my heart. And so God has redeemed and restored in ways I didn't have the faith to pray for. But when it rains in my life,
Shannon Scott (17:19.127)
Mm.
Lisa (17:36.793)
When I'm sad, when I'm mad, when I feel like someone's been really unkind to me, when I feel like there's unfairness, when I'm physically exhausted, when my emotions are skewing way too high or way too low, I've gotta pay attention because that handprint in my heart still holds water. So for us to say, we're new creations.
And to say that salvific imagery where Paul was connecting us to the resurrection of Jesus means I will no longer have any issues based on past trauma. That's foolishness. That's not good theology. That's not biblically defensible. That's not what Paul was talking about. But to go, that no longer gets to have voting rights in my heart and mind. That is a historical reality. But it no longer gets to inform the way I feel about myself.
Shannon Scott (18:00.205)
Yeah.
Lisa (18:26.096)
the way I believe God has been in every step of my story. And for me, that has been a transition. That wasn't flipping a switch. That's been years and years and years of God redeeming the places that I used to feel that I was pretty much irredeemable.
Shannon Scott (18:44.63)
Yeah, that's so good.
that vulnerability with your story that you willingly share and teach from that place of I wish I wasn't standing on this platform I'm actually gonna walk off of it and get on the floor so that I'm with you. You I have been with you now at so many events where you've been speaking and you you are always the last person in every room at every event that we're at. You talk to every single person who waits in any kind of line or
wants to talk to you and I know you don't do that for any kind of recognition and you don't think you're all that in a bag of chips but we do in what we do we spend a lot of time in green rooms and areas that are inaccessible to people and while there's always a place for preparation and that sort of thing it's a very countercultural approach that you take in what you do. Why is it so important to you to be that
accessible and how do you sustain that amount of presence without being depleted or maybe you do get depleted and that's just part of it. How do you come to that?
Lisa (19:57.571)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I am. Gosh, when you study the scriptures and you see that the body of Christ is not a metaphor that he has called us to community, I think the hierarchy we tend to have, and especially you see it in the church where it should be the least obvious in the church. I get it in culture, but when we have in the Christian community hierarchy, I'm like that. That's the opposite.
of what goodness, gracious, study Acts, study Ephesians, study over and over again, God is saying, know, Chrissy McClellan, our friend, says it all the time, he came to establish kingdom, not empire. Empire is hierarchical. Human construct is there's a top and everybody else is below. That's the opposite of what God was creating. He says, it's family, it's family, it's family, come sit at the table together. And so if I can preach and teach from a stage,
but I can't love my brothers and sisters, then that's just noise. All that is is a performance. And so my favorite thing to do, not because I'm so humble and I'm so amazing, my favorite thing to do is to hear other people's stories, get to pray with, I mean, goodness gracious, the kindness that somebody would sit in a chair and listen to a windbag like me talk for 45 minutes. First of all, I wanna say thank you.
If you get a teaching gift out from under the umbrella of Holy Spirit, we are, as John Calvin said, we are idle factories. That is nothing but narcissism and performance. And so if we ever think God needs my voice or my understanding of a text to reveal himself, we are reading our own press release. You breathe your own exhaust for too long, you're gonna get sick.
Shannon Scott (21:35.501)
Yeah.
Lisa (21:52.045)
And so that's my favorite part is to be with friends, to be with family, to hear their stories, to get to pray with people. You study the life of Christ. And if we want to be more like Jesus, Jesus spent his life with people. He didn't spend his life in green rooms. And I agree with you, there's a place to prepare, but there's not a place.
Shannon Scott (21:52.354)
Yeah.
Lisa (22:16.68)
for a country club mentality in the body of Christ. We should always be working to flatten hierarchies in my opinion. Do I get depleted? my heavens to Betsy, yes.
Shannon Scott (22:19.35)
Yeah.
Lisa (22:32.364)
I mean, there are times when, first of all, sheep bite. And so if you're going to be around a bunch of other sheep, you're going to get stepped on and you're going to get bitten. you know, if I had a dollar for every mean thing somebody said to me or about me, especially on social media in the last couple of years, you go.
Of course, sometimes you're going to get dinged. You know, remember that old country song about having dents in your fender? I mean, I have dents in my heart, in my mind, in my fender. A lot of them I made myself and some of them have been made by mean people masquerading as committed Christians. So yeah, I get depleted. That's why I live all the way out in the boonies. You've been to my house. I'm so relational that
Shannon Scott (23:16.674)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Lisa (23:21.262)
Golly, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, because I had a little cottage in Leprechaun's before this one. The Lord just said, you have got to have respite. Because left up to me, I always pursue relationship. So I had to be really intentional about having a place to retreat, to be alone with Jesus, to not always be working, to not always be relational. And so, I get really depleted.
Shannon Scott (23:32.066)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (23:50.028)
And I can tell now just because I'm so old, when I'm depleted, it might not look like it. I might still look like I'm loving people. I'm not loving people well. I'm not.
Shannon Scott (24:01.708)
Mm.
Lisa (24:03.06)
really looking in their eyes. I'm not really listening. And again, not that anybody needs me to look in their eyes, but I'm just not being present. I'm performing and there's such a difference between presence and performing. Shannon, I am not finishing my answer, but this is important. I mean, I don't want to forget it because I know you would love this. I was with Scottie Smith the other day. Scottie was my first. He really shepherded my heart when I was a young adult. I had just moved to Nashville, been a Christian since I was a kid, but I never heard somebody talk about grace and intimacy.
Shannon Scott (24:18.86)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (24:22.84)
Mm.
Lisa (24:32.944)
and see the way Scottie to Scottie is who first encouraged me to go to seminary. And he was my adjunct professor of practical theology. I'm just amazing. But the other day we were talking and he talked about the difference between transparency and vulnerability. And you know, our world, especially now that social media is such a big curator of everything that's happening, our world has gotten really adept at transparency.
Shannon Scott (24:48.376)
Mm.
Lisa (25:00.75)
authenticity is such a buzzword. I can look like I'm being transparent and I am not being vulnerable because vulnerability, he said it means living in the data of your own life. I said it means living in the shrapnel of mine. You know, there's still some.
Shannon Scott (25:16.632)
You
Lisa (25:18.9)
some bleeding bodies lying around. So to live in the reality of my own life, the bad decisions I've made, the ongoing redemption God is doing means I'm going to get hurt. Vulnerability means I share something with you. And if you choose to, you can use that information. You can hurt me with it from past sin in my life, places I haven't yet completely forgiven place. I'm not places I don't look like Jesus right now.
And one of the things I'm trying to do in the way I live my life is to live more vulnerable than I am transparent. Transparent can be giggy. Transparent can be a spirit of woo that you go, she's so authentic. Am I really being authentic or if I just learn that behavior? So I mean, it was really, really good to talk to Scotty because I thought I...
Shannon Scott (25:54.306)
Mm.
Shannon Scott (26:05.816)
Mm.
Lisa (26:12.008)
I used to avoid risk like the plague because I was afraid you'd see the ugly knots, tangled mess of my life. I was afraid I'd be judged. I was afraid I'd be abandoned. And I'm better at being risk avoidant now. I try to be completely naked with Jesus and not wear Spanx with Jesus. But I still have a tendency to wear Spanx in community because I don't want people to see the places where I'm still really ugly.
Shannon Scott (26:36.129)
Yeah.
Lisa (26:40.17)
And I want to live my life more there. And I want to be more present than I have, you know, hooky answers that are good sound bites and have alliteration. Because there's a lot of stuff I don't know. And there's a lot of stuff I have had to unlearn. I some really cruddy theology that I could wrap Greek and Hebrew around.
And so I think it's always in a process of kind of keeping our hands open and going, Jesus, anything that doesn't honor you or others that you've called me to do life with, will you please take it out of my hands? And then anything you want to give me, will you give me bigger hands that I can hold it well? And so some of the things he's given me to steward, man.
Shannon Scott (27:22.988)
Yeah, so good.
Lisa (27:28.494)
If he doesn't give me help, I'm not stewarding it well. And then other things I go, wow, I've grown up a little bit there and I'm grateful.
Shannon Scott (27:36.952)
You know one thing I don't know if I've ever if we've ever talked about this at length but it's always a mental note I've been making. You know you know as your not much younger but a little bit younger sister I can I also have
Lisa (27:52.49)
You have much tighter skin, much tighter skin. So I'm going to say you are my much younger sister.
Shannon Scott (28:00.514)
But you know, I grew up in Atlanta. I'm from the ATL. So I have a side to me if somebody comes for my people.
that will come forward real quickly and be real defensive and cause real problems for my ongoing ministry and calling. But you're one of those people that I'll get my back up about and I've noticed if somebody does try to come after you on social media or some other equally you know cowardly forum it's usually around people that you're with that they don't think you should be with. You have made it almost an art
to have great relationships across what I would call the theological spectrum. And when I say that, you know, we don't have time for this now. People should definitely go listen to your podcast to go deeper into it on Back porch theology. But if we think about primary, secondary and tertiary issues in theology, you have made it a real art to have deep relationships with people that
you may not necessarily agree with on secondary and tertiary issues, but you're not going to let those things become a source of division and people cannot get their lives that you do that. So I'd love for you to just talk about, was that a decision you made? Did you just continue to find yourself in situations where you thought, this could be interesting. Like how have you gone about
Lisa (29:11.968)
Sure.
Lisa (29:20.142)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (29:37.858)
that unity of the church because that's what i see when i observe it is this is real unity of the church stuff like all these people aren't going to speak at the same conference but they're going to be unified in relationship how have you done that and what would you say to us who want to be more that way than we want to be in our particular camps and dying on our particular hills
Lisa (29:40.865)
Hmm.
Lisa (29:47.117)
Right.
Right.
Lisa (30:03.48)
Sure, You know, again, for me, it's not something that I.
that I have modeled as much as I see it modeled in the gospels. And so you see over and over and over again, again, Jesus demolishes camps. You see even with his own disciples when they go, these people are, and he goes, if they are not against us, they are with us. And so you see unity, I mean, he brings together factions that don't make sense. I mean, in his own,
you know, inner circle. Simon, you know, you've got Simon the Zealot, not Simon Peter, but Simon the Zealot. The Zealots were the camp that hated.
Shannon Scott (30:49.644)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (30:55.166)
any Jew that sympathized with Rome because Rome was complicit in trying to subjugate the Jews and overtax the Jews. And so you've got Simon the Zealot who would be anybody that's in any way aligned with Rome, with empire, is an enemy of us. And then you've got Matthew, the tax collector, who is complicit in
overburdened his own people by being complicit, aligned with Rome and overtaxing and probably skimming off the top. And so you've got two men in a small group who would have been diametrically opposed, theologically, philosophically, culturally. The zealots, Barabbas, when they said, give us Barabbas instead of Jesus, the zealots were known for going in crowded marketplaces. They took these little small daggers
Shannon Scott (31:30.69)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (31:46.072)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (31:50.497)
this is his first century.
and they would jab it in the back of anyone who was in their mind in kind of aligned with Rome and then they would jerk that jet dagger up. So it usually cut their aorta so they die immediately. But in a crowded marketplace, that person's body may be held up for a minute, just like if we were at an NFL game or something in a crowd and the zealot would dissipate through the crowd, they'd be able to disappear and then they'd murder somebody. And in their mind, it was a rightful death because they
Shannon Scott (32:12.098)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (32:22.158)
were, you know, oppressing God's chosen people. And so Barabbas was a zealot. So he's a brother of Simon the Zealot. And then Jesus picked Simon the Zealot to be a brother of Matthew, who was in cahoots with Rome. Not only that, but as a tax collector. So he's like,
totally betraying his people at some level financially. And you go, my goodness. And by the end of their three years with Jesus, they're willing to die for each other. They are closer than siblings. And so you see that unity modeled throughout the ministry of Jesus. And the last, the new commandment he gives us isn't, let me make sure your, your pneumatology is perfect, your eschatology. He says, go love each other. I want you to go love.
Shannon Scott (32:48.236)
Yeah.
Lisa (33:08.746)
each other and that's what you need to do. You need to be God and others honoring. You need to respect each other. And so I think that's so modeled, mandated and modeled by Jesus that for us to look for places where we can agree, if I can agree with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ with someone.
Shannon Scott (33:30.604)
Yes.
Lisa (33:31.681)
and the authority of scripture, then all the other stuff is, like you said, second or tertiary issues. Now, do I do, am I going to come on and go, yes, I agree with everything? Well, no, but usually nobody's asking that question. And yes, that is where I get the most heat, missy's hair. And the fact that I have dear, dear friends that, that may not fit in the camp, people assume I'm in.
Shannon Scott (33:38.936)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (33:46.562)
Right.
Shannon Scott (33:50.813)
Hehehehehe
Lisa (34:00.323)
whether that be theology or ethnicity or anything. Shannon, think homogeny is so overrated.
Shannon Scott (34:06.38)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (34:10.606)
You never see that as an ethic that Jesus says that's a good ethic in the ministry of Jesus Christ. You never see it in the New Testament church. You see this Roman, I mean, revelation. So we get to the New Jerusalem. Everybody doesn't look the same. It's every tongue, every tribe. It's a pan-national community. And so I've learned so much from people I disagree with on theological nuance.
Shannon Scott (34:39.094)
Yeah.
Lisa (34:40.58)
the people who speak into my life.
are people who love Jesus and love each other. And so, yeah, I believe real strongly in that. I believe we see that as a mandate and I don't think we do it well. And one of the places where you will get my backup is mess with one of my friends. mean, Christine Kane and I, know, Chris and I have been dear, dear, dear, dear friends for 15 years. And initially people could not get our friendship.
Shannon Scott (35:02.412)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (35:11.372)
Yes.
Lisa (35:12.856)
Because they would see Chris as just this, you know, she's a, she is Holy Spirit bandit. I mean, she is fiery. She is, she is Pentecostal. She, most people would think would be on the other end of a theological continuum as I am, because I'm so about theology and I'm, was raised Baptist costal. So I look a little more in some people's minds a certain way.
Shannon Scott (35:20.109)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (35:32.568)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (35:39.615)
And I'm like, listen, we are soul sisters when it comes to the love of Christ, the way he's redeemed us to the authority of scripture. And now I'm like, mess with my sister, mess with my sister. know, Missy has a Ford F-150 now and it is pressed on some latent need for me to be aggressive. And so you mess with one of my Christian sisters and I'll come for you. But also we shouldn't be messing with other image bearers.
Shannon Scott (35:46.136)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (35:59.0)
You
Lisa (36:06.206)
Even people who don't yet know the love of Jesus Christ, bullying does not work. So some of the vitriol you see being spewed by Christians and when they say, the Bible says, I'm like, if you were using the Bible to vilify somebody who doesn't think like you, most of the time,
Shannon Scott (36:11.746)
No.
Lisa (36:25.578)
First all, you don't know what in the world you're talking about. You need to do a deep dive and understand the socio-historical context of that passage, because usually you're taken out of context. But secondly, you're using in a way that Jesus never said, I want you to use it this way. And so I'm not a pacifist. I am very firm in my doctrine, especially when it comes to Jesus is the only way.
that we can be reconciled to a holy God as sinners. So I'm not a pacifist and I'm not loose in my theology. I do want to love people more than I have sound doctrine. I don't think those are incongruent, but if you're going to accuse me of one thing, I'd rather you accuse me of my doctrine not being as perfect as you think it should be, then accuse me of being a bully or being unkind to God's image-bearers.
Shannon Scott (36:49.634)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shannon Scott (37:02.209)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (37:16.952)
So good. Thank you for that. And thank you for just speaking to it. Cause I know a lot of times people, get a lot of pushback and that's not the thing we want to glorify. But I did want you to put some language around that for those of us who are trying to find our way in an increasingly polarized world. And that's just, that's not just politically or socioeconomically inside the body of Christ, we are polarized. And as, as our, my spirit animal,
Lisa (37:38.467)
Yeah.
Lisa (37:43.789)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (37:46.946)
James would say this should not be.
Lisa (37:48.879)
It should not be, well, know, Shannon, even biblical, sound biblical theology, when you look at what really got.
God's people in trouble and crooked, and that's in First and Second Kings in the Old Testament, a lot of what they were indicted for, it wasn't just the syncretism. They weren't just worshiping with pagan nations and kinda getting their theology diluted. They had completely gotten away from the mandate in Deuteronomy that I want you to leave grain at the edges of your field. Don't harvest the edge of your field for the foreigner, for the widow.
Shannon Scott (38:03.416)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (38:20.758)
Yes.
Lisa (38:26.038)
and for the orphan. So rather than saying, want it to be us four and no more, I want you to have high fences around what I've given you. He said, I actually want you to be intentional.
Shannon Scott (38:26.132)
Yes. Yes.
Lisa (38:38.272)
about loving well people who may not agree with you. want you to, that's what you see in Ruth. That's how Ruth got to Glean Grain and Boaz's field. That's what leads to the birth of Jesus Christ. So I'm like, boy, this community thing, this isn't an ax thing. From the very beginning, the Abrahamic blessing in Genesis, he said, I want to bless you so you can bless everybody else. Not just so I want you can bless the people who think like you, look like you, vote like you.
Shannon Scott (38:45.154)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (39:03.277)
Yeah.
Lisa (39:08.176)
worship like you. He said, I'm going to give you this blessing Abraham so you can bless the nations.
so that the nations will recognize I'm a good God. I'm not a mean God who they have to appease or they have to do all kinds of wackadoodle stuff or they have to they have to sacrifice their children or they have to have weird sexual practices to appease this angry God so that that God will make it rain so they can eat. I'm a God who loves his people. So I'm like we are still under the Abrahamic mandate as Christ followers. He blesses us so we can bless other people.
Not so we can hoard grace. We're supposed to leak grace everywhere we go. Sorry, I got on a little bit of a soapbox.
Shannon Scott (39:50.668)
yeah. no you know i love it and and we all we often the vast majority majority of us cast ourselves incorrectly we're actually the ruth we were the ones grafted in we are not yes
Lisa (40:07.662)
We're the Gentiles, baby. We are the Gentiles. That's right. That's right.
Shannon Scott (40:11.26)
We are the first recipients of someone leaving the grain for us. She gleaned in a field as a foreigner and we are her. We are not Naomi. We are her.
Lisa (40:17.826)
That's right. That's right. That's right. That's it. That's it. No, no, that's it. And we forget we were beggars. It's like we got to taste the bread of Jesus and then we're like, all right, the buffet is closed. I'm like, you yay-hoos, you were beggars who got to eat. Yeah.
Shannon Scott (40:29.527)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (40:36.352)
Yes.
So true, so true. Okay, so I want to talk about karygma. Because one of the passions of your life, which is now a passion of my life to help you bring it about is basically ensuring that I'm going to say regular women, not as opposed to superior women, but women who are not necessarily going to go
Lisa (40:52.302)
Yeah.
Lisa (41:04.216)
but as opposed to women who've had a seminary education. Right.
Shannon Scott (41:07.284)
yes women who are not either don't have the means or the margin or even the calling to go through a full seminary track can have access to deep theological truth and you do this regularly through back porch theology the podcast everybody go listen you won't be sorry it's a theological and seminary level education in and of itself but the cookies are on the bottom shelf as lisa always likes to say to ensure that you can digest and
understand and apply deep theological truth. but the other way is once a year through kerygma summit which is now in its fifth year and it is this incredible boot camp. boot camp for Bible loving chicks actually.
Lisa (41:47.714)
Can't believe it.
Lisa (41:53.238)
That's right. That's right.
Shannon Scott (41:54.626)
but world renowned scholars are there. I won't even start naming them because I don't want to leave anybody out. But what, you know, in a world that doesn't need more conferences and doesn't need more things, what made you go, this is what I want to pour my life into. I want accessible theology. Why did you want to create this pathway for women?
Lisa (42:19.138)
Yeah, I've had the grace of getting to go to seminary and part of it is being single and part of the reason I'm single is I was an idiot in my 20s and 30s and scared to death of vulnerability. And so, you know, again, even that was a grace of, you know, I was a train wreck and was self-protective.
Shannon Scott (42:28.44)
You
Lisa (42:39.306)
and God gave me margin to go to seminary. And so you go, golly, even that wasn't anything I earned. It was God's kindness. But because I had that luxury of having the grace to go to seminary, I've gotten to sit at the feet of amazing Old and New Testament scholars and theologians, I will find myself in settings with other women who go, yeah, but I don't have the time for that. Or I have three littles. How in the world can I do anything other than get us out the door and into the minivan? And I kept thinking.
Shannon Scott (43:05.228)
Yeah.
Lisa (43:09.25)
surely somebody's gonna do a conference where, I love women's conferences, you know, I'm at an estrogen festival almost every weekend, but they tend to be more inspirational than giving us.
Shannon Scott (43:13.516)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (43:22.562)
really, really, really deep theology and we need those and we need in a great exegesis at that level. But I thought for the woman who goes, I kind of want to go a step further. I want to be able to understand how to get to the socio-historical context of a passage. I want to understand because I'm leading a group of young moms in my living room. I want to be able to better communicate the gospel. I want to be able to better grasp it. I want more intimacy, my relationship with Jesus has been more
Shannon Scott (43:33.282)
Yeah.
Lisa (43:52.479)
theoretical and less experiential. I thought, man, it'd be so cool if we bridged the gap between these Bible scholars and just kind of the everyday chick. And there's more places for men to lean into that traditionally.
in Christian culture, especially evangelical Christian culture, and I thought, man, it'd be so cool to make the stuff that I've had the privilege of sitting under accessible to my friends. And a lot of people were like, ooh, that is not gonna work. Nobody's gonna wanna come to a conference where you have, basically that's too much.
Shannon Scott (44:17.453)
Yeah.
Lisa (44:27.254)
material to digest. And I thought, I think there's a way to have really substantive seminary level teaching that is not stuffy. And so we, the first year, the only reason I did it, Shannon, I didn't want to do it. It's just nobody else was doing it. And I was like, you know how the Lord goes, I actually want you to do it. I was like, no, sir, I'm pretty busy. But we had so many women even that first year ago, I was at the very end of my rope.
Shannon Scott (44:29.356)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (44:45.943)
Right.
Shannon Scott (44:51.832)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (44:55.502)
and I was hanging on by a knot and I was ready to leave, whether it was vocational ministry or teaching Bible study or I was in Elijah season and thought I was all alone. And to see all these other sisters from different streams of the church who are running hard toward Jesus and are really passionate about sharing the living hope of the gospel, again, whether that's vocational, we're all in full-time ministry. So whether that's vocational or doing a Bible study in your home or talking to your neighbor that's in the cubicle.
Shannon Scott (44:55.896)
Mm.
Lisa (45:25.456)
next to you, they're going, we just want to, first of all, we want to lean more fully into the arms of Jesus and get this love story called the Bible. But we also want to be able to communicate that a little more clearly. just, goodness gracious, you were there, the testimonies were unbelievable. And so we keep doing it and more more women are going.
Shannon Scott (45:41.41)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lisa (45:46.233)
This for me is kind of this deep, fresh pond that I get to dive in every year and drink deeply. And it kind of waters my soul for the rest of the year. it has become just a really, really beautiful oasis for women who want to understand the Bible at a deeper level, but also women who feel compelled to communicate the Bible to clear level.
Shannon Scott (45:57.73)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (46:12.514)
yeah it it i cannot recommend it enough it is coming april 30th through may 2nd we're at long hollow in hendersonville i was just there yesterday for a site visit for karygma and i've now my goodness i'm even more excited so many great scholars and theologians so much space beautiful
Lisa (46:25.856)
Isn't it gonna be epic? I don't know.
I mean, there's space, so much space there. Yeah. We, I mean, we really have drawn together.
I think we have eight keynotes, of whom, several of whom you would only hear if you went to Oxford or if you went to Australia, but they're men and women who are passionate about helping lay people. So yeah, it's like drinking from a fire hose. You're going to write until your hands cramp. And sometimes you're like, what was that word? But they're really intentional about, as you said, putting the cookies on the lower shelf. So you go, I get that. We have great worship.
Shannon Scott (46:49.858)
Hmm.
Shannon Scott (47:03.5)
Yeah.
Lisa (47:08.098)
Hope Dars to Meredith Andrews are doing worship. so those are those moments where you just, you know, kind of the pressure valve is unleashed and you are just running toward the altar and really leaning into worship. And then there's moments for, you know, hot chicken biscuits and coffee and gathering around, you know, the fire and just it, the friendships that are forged at KRIGMA are pretty cool too. We've got groups that meet.
Shannon Scott (47:11.266)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (47:27.415)
yeah. Yes.
Lisa (47:37.455)
all throughout the year now and they met at Kregma because there are women who thought I'm leading, but I feel like I'm leading by myself. And I also feel like there's a target on my back because I don't know anybody else who's leading, who's female in this area. And again, we have women from all different streams of the church. So you have women there who are able to lead in a church environment. And then you have women who go, I can't.
Shannon Scott (47:47.245)
Mm.
Shannon Scott (47:56.364)
Yes.
Lisa (48:04.962)
You know, I can't lead in my, in my church and I love my church and we encourage them to stay there. we do not want, there's a difference between being empowered and being enraged. So we want to give you the information and the freedom to run as fast and as hard as you can in the lane God has called you to run in. So this isn't a one note conference. We've got, I always say we've, we've got women from Anglican to Pentecostal and probably every other denomination in the alphabet. And, and the.
Shannon Scott (48:10.616)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (48:16.735)
So good Lisa.
Lisa (48:34.896)
really the note that you hear over and over again is we want to know Jesus more intimately and we want to be able to share who He is and how much He loves us more effectively.
Shannon Scott (48:46.018)
Yeah.
so good. if you were listening to that and something in you was like, that sounds good but it's probably not for me. i just want to dispel that for you and tell you it is for you. in fact it might primarily be for you. so please go to the show notes. you'll see the website. we would love to have you join us. and i'm just going to say if it is difficult for you to join us, if it's cost prohibitive, reach out to me. i want to know that.
Lisa (48:58.348)
Yeah, yeah.
Lisa (49:03.66)
That's right. That's right.
Lisa (49:17.452)
Yeah. And Shannon, we've made it. Yeah. And we've made it cheaper than it's ever been. mean, conferences that are like this, we did a cost comparison are in the thousands and thousands of dollars because of the type of material over two and a half day span. If you bring all your girlfriends, you get.
Shannon Scott (49:18.17)
because I think this is the way you should spend your time.
Shannon Scott (49:29.221)
Yes. Yes.
Lisa (49:40.59)
It's $100 a piece if you have 10 or more. And I think the price under that is about 200, but it's literally, it is a small, small percentage of what you would pay for a conference like this, kind of in any other setting. So we want to make it as accessible as possible.
Shannon Scott (49:44.14)
Yeah.
Shannon Scott (49:50.796)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (49:59.864)
So good. So you'll get all that info in the show notes. Okay Lisa, before we go, this you know you know that I am obs...
Lisa (50:08.426)
I know what you're asking. I know what you're asking. It's my favorite question. I love this question.
Shannon Scott (50:15.71)
we are obsessed with seasons. we talk about them all the time. i believe that god has shown us so much of who he is through the seasons that he's created not only in our lives and in our souls but in nature. we see so much of the character of god on display. the heavens and everything else are telling the glory of god. so the fun question that we ask all our guests is if you could design your perfect beautiful day what would it look like from
Lisa (50:24.642)
Yes. Yes.
Shannon Scott (50:45.594)
start to finish. And the caveat is there are no restrictions in your perfect beautiful day. So this is like an Edenic perfect beautiful day. So no gluten allergies, no unwanted weight gain, none of that. So what's your perfect beautiful day for Lisa Harper?
Lisa (51:05.418)
Well, I knew you were going to ask this question. This is like my favorite question and you are like the crafter of great questions. But this is, this is my, I also love that you got Edenic in it. So phenomenal, phenomenal, multislobic theological term in the best question. Well, it would start with, I am not a great sleeper and I rarely sleep late. So it would start with a really good late.
Shannon Scott (51:15.826)
hahahahah
Lisa (51:32.959)
sleep so I wouldn't get up until let's just say 7 45 or eight and then missy sleeps later than her mama if she has time because she's a teenager so let's just say we really get the day started we really get rolling around nine but before she gets up I have some really loud amazing worship music going usually it's going to be brook lauren carrie and many others but
Shannon Scott (51:57.67)
huh.
Lisa (51:59.875)
but we're gonna be going to town and I'm gonna have the best coffee from my Nespresso coffee machine with caramel sauce. So vanilla hazelnut coffee, caramel sauce, and then, you know, now they do the cold foam in like a whipped cream can, which is heavy. So I'm gonna have one of those coffees that you just wanna savor. And then I'm gonna go for a, this is all before Missy gets up, I'm gonna go for this really amazing walk with my rowdy dogs. And when I come up, you know, I live on,
Shannon Scott (52:09.197)
Yes.
Lisa (52:29.844)
a mini mountain and so it's, it's, really get my blood going and I'm gasping by the time I get to the top and the dogs have been in the mud and we've seen rabbits and we've seen deer and we've seen all kinds of stuff. And then she gets up and we get going and she loves as do I, we don't have them that often because we eat clean at least two days a week. The other five we eat trashy, but we're going to get a really good sausage biscuit from there's many locales here to get it.
Shannon Scott (52:30.7)
Mm-hmm.
Lisa (52:58.13)
And then we are now going to be listening to Missy's music because she is quite the musical girl, but we're going to be dancing. We do lots of car dancing. We do house and car dancing. So we're doing lots and lots of dancing and we are going to go straight to the lake because you know how much I love Tim's Ford Lake. And we are going to get on our boat and I'm going to have really good Boar's Head Turkey and Hawaiian Rolls and Havarti Cheese.
Shannon Scott (53:12.428)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (53:17.782)
Yes.
Lisa (53:27.702)
and lots of grapes and brownies. And then I love Fritos, even though I know that Jesus did not make them. I only eat them on the lake, but we do Fritos and hell of a good dip. And I'm not cussing, it is the name of the dip, but I do. The naughty in me is pleased that it's hell of a good dip. So we're gonna have that little extravaganza in our cooler. We're gonna get on the boat.
Shannon Scott (53:34.722)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Mm.
Shannon Scott (53:40.01)
huh.
Hehe.
Lisa (53:50.701)
and we're gonna go out on the lake and I'm gonna wake surf and she's gonna tube and we're gonna kneeboard and we're gonna have a couple of my favorite friends who also like Fritos and worship music mixed in with the Commodores and we're gonna stay out on the lake until we're all a little bit sunburned and then we're gonna come in and we're gonna take showers and then we're gonna go to this great, great, great either Tex-Mex or Asian or Indian because those are my favorite.
Shannon Scott (53:58.37)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (54:13.912)
Mmm.
Lisa (54:16.002)
and we're gonna eat and we're gonna laugh and laugh and laugh and linger over the, and we might have deep conversations too, because I like the deep and then the laughter and the same conversation. And then we're gonna go back and we're gonna sit out here in the boonies with a fire and we're gonna sit at the fire and talk about whatever comes up. So it could be a prom date, it could be a theological point, it could be our favorite movie, but we're gonna linger as we look out.
Shannon Scott (54:23.938)
Yeah.
Lisa (54:43.694)
over the beautiful expanse of the mountains of Tennessee, around a fire with amazing community. And I'm going to go to bed, I'm a night owl, so it's going to be 12, it's going to be midnight or one o'clock in the morning after I've finally sent everybody else with doggie bags of food. I'm going to go to bed with this massive smile on my face of getting to worship, getting to dance, getting to be with my child, getting to be in God's creation, getting to be in community. And
Shannon Scott (54:53.538)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Scott (55:03.596)
Hmm.
Lisa (55:12.226)
getting to be on the water and getting to laugh while I'm wake surfing all in the same day, that would be the most epic, perfect, beautiful day for me.
Shannon Scott (55:20.792)
Mmm. I love everything about it. We should plan that. I've just started making a list in my mind.
Lisa (55:26.67)
You're doing that day with me. You're doing that day with me this summer. Let me just tell you, that is not hyperbolic. That is a day you will do with our family this summer.
Shannon Scott (55:34.434)
Yeah. Yes.
Yet you had me at Fritos for sure. I love a good Frito.
Lisa (55:42.19)
And don't you, they're like, I don't eat them very often, but when I eat them, means I have the time to linger. Fritos represent just when my soul exhales to me.
Shannon Scott (55:48.288)
No, no, I never buy them.
Shannon Scott (55:53.25)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (55:59.286)
Yes.
Yeah, so good. Lisa, I love you. I have been sitting in the overflow of your faithfulness for many years now and I'm really grateful and I know that I'm speaking for many women who are yelling me too, me too, me too into their laptops and cell phones and many men as well. So thank you for the way that you've stewarded the gifts God's given you. You know, I'll follow you over a cliff and I just assume you know what you're doing.
Lisa (56:04.504)
Love you too.
Lisa (56:28.558)
You should not make that assumption. You should not make that assumption. But we will have fun. It might be a train wreck and we might get lost, but we will have fun and we'll be hanging with Jesus the whole time.
Shannon Scott (56:29.944)
so I trust it. I know there'll be a Bucky's at some point.
Shannon Scott (56:38.902)
Yes.
Shannon Scott (56:44.322)
Well, my friend, thank you for doing this. Just thank you for this conversation and I hope we'll see so many of you at Charigma Summit and whatever you do, make sure you tune in to Back porch theology with Lisa and Dr. Jim Howard and Alison Allen for such wonderful conversations around God, around the study of God and around God's word. So we will see you next time on the everything made beautiful podcast. And don't forget that God is
Lisa (56:47.97)
Thank you for inviting me.
Shannon Scott (57:14.266)
constantly and currently in the process of making everything beautiful, including you. And we will see you next time.
Lisa (57:23.009)
Amen.