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Study Gateway's First Listens: Find your next Bible study! Join host Shelley Leith as she curates first sessions of Bible studies on various themes each season, taught by some of the world’s most influential Christian authors, teachers, and pastors. To learn more, visit https://StudyGateway.com.
First Listens Season 4: Episode 2
Better Together by Danielle Strickland
Plus interview with Danielle Strickland
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY LEITH: Welcome to Study Gateway’s First Listens, where you get first listens of the first sessions on Study Gateway so you can find your next video Bible study. We’re in Season 4 where we’re taking our inspiration from Women’s History Month and focusing in on Women Bible Teachers You Should Know. I’m your host, Shelley Leith, your host, and today I have the joy of introducing you to Danielle Strickland, author of Better Together: How Women and Men Can Heal the Divide and Work Together to Transform the Future! Welcome, Danielle.
DANIELLE: Hey, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.
SHELLEY: I dug around the internet and found out some fun facts about you:
• Captain in Salvation army
• You spent years carry out social action initiatives, but you did it by actually living in the toughest neighborhoods in Canada and Australia
• You started a cupcake ministry where you took cupcakes to women in the brothels
• You were a juvenile delinquent
• A church planter
• And a teaching pastor
One writer said that you have the effect on people of rocketing them out of their comfort zone. And I fully expect you to do that today with your teaching that we're going to be listening to in a bit. But I'd like to know what it's like to be you—give us a description of your life right now.
DANIELLE: I would say it's like a beautiful chaotic frenzy of loving, passionate activity! I have three boys at home, so that's full, and then just a whole bunch of beautiful initiatives that I get to help cheer and lead and, yeah, just even watch, and it's beautiful.
SHELLEY: What kind of initiatives are you are you working on right now?
DANIELLE: Oh, you know, we're always creating these beautiful ways of people trying to live out the deep values of the Kingdom of God. So we're trying to build tiny homes in people's backyards to meet an affordable housing crisis. And also model what the kinship, what a family version from the Bible looks like, you know, radical inclusion and welcome. We're doing this thing called Infinitum Life, which is an order, really a way of life. Just trying to find rhythms and posture that are deep and true, to hold us to Christ in a really chaotic time. I do a thing called the Women’s Speaker Collective, where we raise up women's voices, just recognizing there's a bit of a deficit in training, coaching, and connecting women communicators together. And there's a few others, but I don't want to bore you, but there's a chaotic beautiful mess going on here that we love.
SHELLEY: That explains the “chaotic beautiful” terminology. Thinking of the study that you wrote, Better Together, what were some of the inspirations that triggered the writing of that for you?
DANIELLE: Well, to be honest, I was a little despairing in light of a lot of exposing of abuse and
injustice and damage between women and men. And I was in situations where there was a lot of fear—almost a paralysis. Sort of like, what are we going to do? And I felt prompted in the moment to ask God and dig deep and say, I think we don't have to be paralyzed by fear here. I think the fear is real, and I think the situation is dire. And I think it's harder than we think it is, because every time someone tries, it doesn't always go super well. But I think we must, because I think at the heart of God's design for humanity is a mutual flourishing. So I just wanted to answer to create some sense of like, well we could move forward, there's some answers here. There are some ways. We don't have to be paralyzed by fear. We don’t have to be suspect of each other. We don't have to be in our camps and just sort of accusing each other nonstop; we can move forward. There's real things we can do. And so that conviction grew in me and became this book.
SHELLEY: And so what would you say are the biggest challenges to women and men working together?
DANIELLE: I think fear of difference is probably one of the biggest issues that is probably at the heart of a lot of things we're facing right now. So there actually is an intersectionality. There's like, literally an intersection of gender and race. So there's a lot of things In Better Together that are actually about diversity and just welcoming people who are different than you and then getting really intentional about celebrating that as a strength rather than seen it as a threat. So I would see that difference, if you see it through the lens of threat, will always lead you to oppressive fear-based living, no matter what difference it is. Difference through the lens of opportunity on the other hand can lead you to some beautiful expansions. And so I think that just viewing each other, getting rid of the lens of fear that we've really had on for a long time, but looking at each other difference as an opportunity.
And then I would also say, mutuality—we need each other. And there's a bit of humility required for some people and then a little courage required for some others, where we meet each other and we say, we actually have things to offer one another that we need. And so I often say, if you're a leading in a team where there is no difference, you're missing a lot of what God has for an expanding flourishing leadership.
SHELLEY: I found in your materials in your curriculum that the actual exercises that you have people go through in order to explore how to embrace difference and make use of it and not be afraid of it. I think I found it to be very very impacting.
DANIELLE: I'm thankful for that. This book was designed not for light reading. This is why we did the course to go with it. We'd really like it to make a difference in the way people lead. So for teams or if you're a manager or if you're just even someone who's like, I gotta figure out how to do this because I don't do this naturally, that's what this book was designed for, to really help. So there's lots of practical things to do in there. There's exercises, all kinds of stuff. But I you know, I hate to just wax eloquently about the idea. And I think this is this is what's been done, is we either avoid it and everybody separates and segregate and we call it a day because we can't get along. We can't figure it out. Or we wax eloquent about the idea of it, but without the actual practical reality of how do we do it. And that's really where I felt like people were stuck. Like, we get it. A lot of people are like, I wanna do this. It's just not easy. And then the question becomes how do we do it?
SHELLEY: So why do you think that Better Together is resonating so well with some many people?
DANIELLE: I think people really feel that fear. I think there's a generation—I mean, seventy percent of the people leading the church right now, according to Barna, are female. That's gotta say something. I think the church is at a critical moment. I think Christians are at a critical moment in history where we know things need to change. We are not experiencing a flourishing. And so I think some of the questions of, like, why are we at half strength in many places or at a lesser sort of empowering practices, like, why? Why are we doing this when we need all hands on deck, we need to think differently, we need to move differently. And I think this is one of those answers.
SHELLEY: Now we have a number of people listening today who are interested in being Bible teachers themselves. And so they're curious of it kind of about the mechanics of writing a Bible study and teaching it and recording it and filming it. So talk to us just a little bit about what that whole process was like for you.
DANIELLE: I don't always follow the normal procedures of this. So it's always a bit dangerous, but for me, I don't think knowledge is always what we need. I think we need—from the Scriptures at least—we need an encounter. We need revelation. And you can tell the difference. Now revelation includes knowledge. You know, there’s that beautiful passage of Jesus walking among the disciples on the Emmaus road, and they said, “were not our hearts burning within us as he explained the Scriptures to us?” So, I think sometimes we get co-opted by this kind of user-friendly idea of, like, it's gotta be easy and it's gotta be quick. Like, sort of this fast food version of like, you know, distill it down to its most basic and then tell people I think people want more than that. And I think one of the things that the Scripture does and Jesus himself does, which I think is maybe one of the most powerful things in the world is Jesus asks way more questions than he gives answers. And I think a really good study and a really good Scriptural insight is to ask really deep questions—of the text, of the Scriptures, but also of what it means. I don't always think we have to have the answers. I think we can lead people to the mystery of wrestling with God.
SHELLEY: That's great. Well, Danielle, are there any current projects that you're working on that you'd like to give us a peek into?
DANIELLE: I've got a couple of projects. If anyone is looking for some Lent resources, we partnered with World Vision to create a resource. And we also just launched this new course called The Liberating Move of God. And it chronicles the life of the five women before Moses existed. So we talk about, like, how did the liberating move of God happen through the Exodus, and we talk about the rumblings of the beginning and then we chronicle some of the lives of the women around Jesus. And we just talk through what does it mean to begin to see God move and God liberate people. And how can we participate with that? That's pretty exciting. I'm excited about that. So I can give you a link for where those are, or you can just go to daniellestrickland.com and all the things are listed there.
SHELLEY: Fabulous. We will include that link in our show notes, but that's marvelous Danielle. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to share with us today.
DANIELLE: Thanks, Shelley. It's been an honor.
SHELLEY: And now I am so excited to be able to share with our First Listens audience the first session
from your study called Better Together.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DANIELLE: I am Canadian. And what that means is that I'm a survivor skier. What that means is that if I go skiing by myself, I'll probably survive. But if you go skiing with me, you might not. I'm not that good. But I had a friend, Jenny, who was an avid skier. And she convinced me to go with her one night skiing.
So we went skiing together, and we're on the chairlift going up this hill in the evening. And that's when I saw it. It was unbelievable-- the moon. It was full. It was bright red. It was the kind of red that kind of puts a little bit of fear in you, like Jesus might come back any minute now. I saw a bumper sticker one time. It said, Jesus is coming. Quick, look busy. It was one of those moments of fear for me.
And I said to Jenny, Jenny, look at the moon. Is that the best moon you've ever seen? And Jenny looked at the moon and said, well, it's full. I thought that's crazy. It's full? It's not just full. It's, like, crimson. It's, like, apocalyptic. It's like the end of the world kind of red. And this went on all night long.
Finally, we're on the last chairlift of the night. And I say to Jenny, I think you need to look at the moon one more time because I feel like you're missing a moment. This is the best moon in my entire life I've ever seen. Look one more time.
So Jenny looks at the moon one more time. She's really trying to take it in. And then she looks at me, and she looks at the moon, and she looks at me. And she goes, oh, I see, she said. You know those are rose-tinted goggles, right? I said, I do now. Rose-tinted goggles.
Now, I immediately wanted to get a pair of these and wear them every day of my life because they made everything better. And I want to have a look at how the way you see things matters in terms of what you see.
There's no one like Jesus to help us reframe how we see the world because he sees everything and everyone differently. He's not wearing rose-tinted goggles. He's not naive. It's not idealism that Jesus is seeing. It's actual kingdom lenses that he's looking through. He sees everyone and everything through the lens of God's kingdom.
Here's a great example of this from the Gospel of John chapter 9. I want to read it because the story has principles in it that will help us see everyone, and everything, and every situation differently. It says this-- Jesus is walking along, and "he saw a man who had been blind from birth. ' his disciples asked him, 'why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents sins?' 'It was not because of his sins or his parents' sins,' Jesus answered. 'This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.'"
Verse 6 says, "then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man's eyes. He told him, 'Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam.'" And Siloam means sent. "So the man went and washed and came back seeing!"
The first frame of the situation are the disciples asking Jesus this question-- whose fault is it? We can spend a lot of time on this question-- whose fault is it? We can spend all of our energy and time looking for blame. And this is a normal response to suffering, or darkness, or anything that makes us uncomfortable.
But here's the thing Jesus understands and what I think we should know. It won't get us anywhere. In this particular situation, the disciples are on the outskirts of a city where a man is begging because he's born blind and they ask this question-- who sinned, this man or his parents? In other words, whose fault is this?
Now, this is in keeping with their social and religious framework. Someone has got to be blamed for this kind of suffering. The reality is that there is blame to go around. If we wanted to, we could spend this whole teaching series on who is to blame for how the relationships between women and men have been eroding for generations. Is it men's fault? Yes. Is it culture's fault? Yes. Is it Eve's fault? Sure. Is it the devil? Yes.
Now to be sure it will be important for reconciliation for people to take responsibility for what they've done or haven't done that has injured and contributed to the state of affairs, but to simply think that finding blame might be an answer to our dilemma is naive at best. It can be a very big and easy trap to fall into. But even if we answer all of the blame questions, where will we be? We'll be in the exact same place. We'll still be at the side of the road with a blind guy.
My experience tells me that we choose to find fault with current situations when we want to escape responsibility to change them. But Jesus refuses this framework. This is what he says. This is not his fault or his parents. This has happened so the glory, or the power, or the light of God might be seen in him. What? Jesus absolutely reframes the situation. This is no longer about finding blame. Now it's about looking for opportunity.
Instead of why me or why this, it moves to a what now. And this is a massive and important shift to make in our lives. Finding where you're located on this map of change is not bad news, although an honest assessment will be helpful and somewhat painful. It's not the ending place. It's the starting place. The question that dominates us is so what now?
How might the power of God be seen in the situation between men and women right now? Far from escaping the reality of the situation, this is a proper evaluation of where we find ourselves. We're at the side of a road where a lot of women and girls find themselves excluded from boardrooms, and church platforms, and leadership teams, unable to really choose their own future. Right now all the research tells us that a woman's self-confidence peaks at nine years old. Think about that.
When you hear that you might think to yourself, whose fault is it, and we could make a long list-- puberty, culture, advertisers, male figures, abusive or dismissive behaviors, systems of exclusion, toy makers who use gender biases to market toys that determine outcomes for our children, competitive peers, mean girls. The list goes on and on and on. But what if we asked what God might want to do right now? What if we started to take this opportunity-- as horrible as it is-- to change things, to look for ways to partner with God in helping change the outcome for the next generation.
Think back to that story about Jesus and we could get some clues about how we do this, how we bring a transformation to a difficult situation. There's a few principles in this story that I want to break down.
Here's principle number one. Jesus uses every natural means necessary. What I mean by this is that Jesus does well we don't see coming. This man needs a miracle, so Jesus spits on the ground and makes mud. I don't know. This is the weirdest response to need in the gospels, I think, for Jesus just to spit and make some mud. Jesus is using dirt and spit to do kingdom work. It's because Jesus is not above using very natural material things to help bring healing in our world. Sometimes intentional practices of affirmation, for example, or great examples of strong women leaders, or journals, or modeling equality through equitable relationships can all be natural remedies for change.
Here's some other natural ideas when it comes to women and men working together-- quotas. Think about a brace made for a child's foot that's pointing in the wrong way. Without intentional correction the child will not be able to run properly ever again. See, global research and experts in creating equality at work suggest a corrective measure for gender balance at work. They call it the 30% quota. It's like a brace for gender equity. 30% of women on leadership boards or actively at work avoids what they call the only syndrome. This often tends to be women who are the only ones in the workplace, or the only one on the leadership team, or the only one at that table. This turns into tokenism or the woman becomes an exception to the rules. If you want to change the rules, then aiming for 30% of women in leadership is the best way to do it.
Women who are the only one in leadership settings tend to leave. They're simply exhausted trying to fit in or being the only dissenting voice at the table. They get tired of being the exception. All the research suggests that women bring something powerfully transformational to leadership cultures when they're 30% represented. This allows them to have community, peer support, be part of collaborative approaches, and it benefits the entire team.
I remember hearing years ago about a test for Hollywood created by activists wanting to see women represented differently on screen. The test for a movie that represents women well is this. It has to have at least two women, with names, talking to each other about something other than a man. It is absolutely crazy how hard this is to find. Think about it-- your favorite movies and TV shows. Give it some thought.
Even more than that, think about your own culture. Can you name two women speakers, for example, who influence you powerfully? Can you name two women leaders that you regularly learn from? Two female theologians, or athletes, or writers, or inventors-- well, you get the idea. Without natural intentional practices, there will be no changing the situation of men and women working together.
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY: Okay – Jesus uses every natural means necessary, just as we should engage in natural intentional practices to change the situation of men and women working together. Are you enjoying this first session of Better Together with Danielle Strickland? If you wish you see what a juvenile delinquent church planting Salvation Army captain looks like, then I have good news for you! You can! We have unlocked Session One of Better Together on Study Gateway, so you can go there and watch the entire first session for free! Better Together is published by HarperChristian Resources and it streams on Study Gateway. Study Gateway is a streaming video service, and we’re the only one that has a subscription plan especially for small groups. For our First Listens listeners, we offer you an exclusive rate on our small group plan. When you use the promo code FIRST at studygateway.com, you’ll get 20% off of small group plan for up to 20 people. And, for a complete experience with Better Together, take advantage of our publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide designed to be used with the videos. You’ll get the group discussion questions and leader materials, the Scripture text and key ideas, and personal Bible study and reflection exercises to do between sessions. Get all the details at Studygateway.com.
Okay, Danielle has just covered the first principle in the story of the healing of the blind man, which was, Jesus uses every natural means necessary. Let’s pick up now, with the next principle.
[MUSIC PLAYING] DANIELLE: Here's principle number two in the story-- supernatural power. This is where faith comes in. See Jesus infuses natural things with supernatural power. And I think it would be crazy to suggest that we can heal our fractured relationships or even our own wounds, frankly, without supernatural power. Natural remedies are helpful, and useful, and God will use them. But we need transformation. And to get that, we need God. I believe God will fill us with power to accomplish what he wants us to do, if we'll ask him.
He can help us change what we think is impossible. Even if we're born into systems, and structures, and perspectives, and prejudices, we have the capacity to choose to live another way. This is part of what it means to be human, which leads us back to another principle Jesus uses to bring healing and transformation in John chapter 9.
This principle number three is empowering practices. Jesus gives people choices. The definition of poverty is not just economic, it's about power. Poverty is disempowerment. It's the inability to choose. Jesus gives this man on the side of the road a command to obey. He tells him, "Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam." And the scripture tells us that the word Siloam means "sent."
Jesus is giving a man who has no choices for his entire life the chance to make a choice, the chance to choose for himself, to participate in his own healing, to obey God. Jesus does not have to do this. We know that Jesus could heal that man any way he'd like, but he gives him a command and commissions him as an apostle. You know that word sent, that's the same definition of what an apostle is a "sent one."
And when this man does what Jesus tells him to he becomes an apostle-- a "sent one," a witness-- to who Jesus is. This is mind blowing when you think of the implications. I mean someone who is completely outside of every system of power is now empowered to apostolic standing-- the highest office in the church. Jesus empowers him. And this is consistent with the practices of Jesus when it comes to everyone who is disempowered.
Women are a fantastic example of the empowering practices of Jesus. To the Samaritan woman at the well, he asks her for help. To Mary, he extends the gift of discipleship. He teaches, and heals, and engages, and empowers women through his entire ministry. The early church also reflected this to the world-- leading the charge of valuing all humanity and seeing the amazing image of God in every person.
Paul talks about this in the gospels as a strategy in the book of Galatians. What Jesus has done is erase the barriers that were used to disempower people. But in Jesus "there is now no longer slave or free, Greek or Jew, male or female," the apostle Paul tells us. The gospel is truly radical when it comes to empowerment and Jesus is the most empowering leader who has ever lived.
What does this mean for us? It means to follow Jesus' example we'll need to be empowered and be empowering. Power is about influence. Power is about setting people free, releasing people to be all that they are capable to be.
Now I know when I talk about power we have a lot of triggers that come up and we should. Most of us have believed what Lord Acton wrote over 100 years ago, "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." We nod our heads in agreement because far too often people in power have used their power to exercise control, to limit people, to use people, even to abuse people.
But Jesus is the exception to this observation. Think about it. Jesus had absolute power and remained completely uncorrupted. How? In a word. Love. But first we should talk about how the way Jesus uses power challenges what we have traditionally understood about power. Consider these three corrupting ideas of power that would be helpful to address in our relationships with each other.
Here's number one. Power is a corrupting influence, if your view of power is as a limited resource. But what if power isn't a limited resource? How would that change the way we view it? Jesus understood that power wasn't limited to a specific office, or position, or occupation, or social standing. He tapped into the eternal resource of power, which meant he could give it away generously. How do you use your power-- like it's limited or unlimited?
Here's number two. Power is a corrupting influence, if your view of power is controlling other people or events. What if power was less about control and more about influence. See, Jesus understood that the more power he gave the more that power grew. Think about how you use power. Do you use it to empower or to control?
Here's number three. Power is corrupting if you think it's yours. What if power is infinite, and influential, and a gift. What if power doesn't belong to us? What if power is a gift that we're called to use and not possess? What if true power is about stewardship and not ownership? This is some powerful shifts that could help many of us become great stewards of God's unlimited and glorious power. The influence you have, the privilege, and any power you hold is a gift and how you use your power is the measure of your leadership.
There's one more principle that Jesus uses to transform this man's life. Jesus uses just enough mud and spit to break the Sabbath laws. Jesus breaks those laws on purpose because those laws are controlling and excluding people instead of setting them free. And here's something that Jesus is very consistent with. Jesus will break every religious or social barrier that prevents people from wholeness and freedom. He does this consistently with women, and slaves, and Romans, and rulers, and beggars, and friends.
When it comes to women and men working together today, there are many religious and social barriers that try to prevent us from thriving. The principle that Jesus gives us is that breaking those barriers is what great leaders do. The higher purposes of God can not be stopped by constructs designed to exclude. Leaders who empower people to live their best lives, using their gifts for the benefit of the world will, like Jesus, break every religious and social barrier that keeps people out of the good news of liberation.
How we see people matters. I don't know about you, but I want to have a look at our relationships from a kingdom perspective. To do that, I'm going to take a page out of Jesus' leadership book. I'm going to see this time as an opportunity instead of falling into the blame game.
I'm going to use every natural means I can to bring healing and wholeness to people's lives. I'm going to humble myself and ask God for his power to help me. I'm going to use power to empower other people-- refusing to misuse power by controlling, limiting, or keeping it for myself. And I'm going to challenge and resist every barrier that keeps the good news from getting where it needs to go.
[MUSIC PLAYING] SHELLEY: What a fascinating and insightful teaching Danielle Strickland brought to us from the story of the healing of the blind man! In every session of Better Together, Danielle chooses an encounter from the ministry of Jesus and challenges us with lessons we can learn about men and women healing the divide and working together to transform the future. Better Together is a video Bible study published by HarperChristian Resources and streaming on Study Gateway. Here at Study Gateway you can find your favorite authors, pastors and Bible teachers, all in one place. We’re the only streaming video subscription service that offers a small group-sized plan, AND has user-based pricing for churches, no matter what the size. And don’t forget, you can use the promo code FIRST to get a 20% savings on a small group plan, and that discounted rate lasts as long as you keep your subscription!
With Study Gateway, you also get a direct link to our store, where you get publisher-direct pricing on the essential Bible study guide for Better Together. The study guide gives you everything you need to have a great discussion with your group, and then go deeper between sessions with activities and study to help you take action on this material and learn to live out the principles. Is Better Together going to be your next study? Get started right now by going to studygateway.com, click start free trial, choose the monthly small group plan, and use the promo code FIRST for your 20% discount.
Make sure you rate and review this podcast so other people can find this show too. And come back next week for our next episode in the season on Women Bible You Should Know. In Episode 3, we will be meeting Lori Wilhite, whose ministry called Leading and Loving It is really striking a chord with women in leadership. In our interview you’ll get to know her, and then we’ll be listening to the first session from her Beautiful Word study on the book of Ephesians.
See you next time on Study Gateway’s First Listens.
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