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Follow one church's journey as they depart from modern church growth trends and reinvent themselves by equipping everyday Christians to live out their faith in real life. Find episodes and show notes at www.dereksanford.com/reinventingchurch
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Todd Moore from Simp Missional Made Simple. He's, you all around the all around the world. He's and he said this about Christians. He goes, it doesn't matter what country I'm in, South America, Europe, Africa. Christians are at the worst at asking questions. Welcome to season four of Reinventing Church. I'm Danielle Hartland with Derek Sanford here. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi, everybody. Hi, Danielle. Hello. Love to see you today. Yeah.
Me too. Lovely. Love to see you today. Love to see you today too. Good to see you today, Danielle. This season we're exploring the practical hows of moving from purely attractional to a missional multiplication model of church, what it looks like, not just organizationally, but for everyday real people, real leaders walking this out. So every other week we're going to talk to a real person at Grace with no formal title, but who's living out their calling in everyday spaces. But this is a practitioner week. So we're going to be talking to Shane.
From Clarity House about leadership development today. Yeah, we had a great conversation about that. So I'm excited for people to hear it. Yeah, I had to miss it. I was bummed. Yeah, it's good. No, it wasn't good, Derek. I mean it's not good that you missed it. It was a good conversation. Okay, question as we begin. Okay. In
Yeah. Well, I already know the answer, but I'll ask it for the audience. What is something you can talk about for twenty minutes that has absolutely nothing to do with this church? wow. That's a good question. Thank you. There are some things. I you know, football is one of these things. Yeah. Football is one of these things. I'm very I really do enjoy football.
So I do fantasy football, but just football in general. I'm a I'm a big fan, so I know, you know, we've said before, I use a lot of my non working brain space that's just kind of like fun space to know things that n normal people shouldn't know. Yeah. Like, you know, two to three positions deep of every position on every team, pro and college football. Yeah, it's like a lot. It's like just like a
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Pokemon Guardian. Pretty much. I was talking to somebody at a party recently who is a big fan of one particular team. Yeah. That I should not know anything about. And you and I was rattling off the second and third string quarterbacks who might do a better job than the quarterback that they have starting and this person's like jaw drops. Yeah, it's just weird. It's like useless information that I've Yeah, I've I've got yeah. What's your take on the blood clot? Jalen Hurts thing. you know, I think ca
It's terrible. I don't know. You know, like this is you know, the evil NFL trying to not protect their players or whatever. I don't know about any of that. But I I think stuff happens and people have all kind of stuff that happens and so weird. I think if yeah. Ultimately players are responsible for their own physical health, so if they know things that are happening, they they they need to wave the flag hard. So but it's terrible. Like I'm I'm bummed. He's a great
Yeah. He's great athlete and player. Seems like a great teammate. Yeah. But I don't love the Philadelphia Eagles. So like that part of it is like And I get that, and we won't judge you for having two thoughts about what's going on, probably. Which I totally get. I have more than two, but that's all right. Those are the two that I'll say. Yeah, great. Wow. What about you? What could you talk about for twenty minutes with I can talk about I'm lucky that my job is very tangible to what I'm passionate about as well.
I could talk about like certain books for a long time. Yeah, books would have been my second one. Yeah. Like I can really like go deep on some stuff. Is there a particular topic? Topic that I can talk about? Yeah. I would say like any kind of like well recently AI stuff, but also really any kind of like creative arts thing, like
I could talk about Broadway for a long time. I could talk about certain processes of like how movies are certain directors' processes, like Christopher Nolan and stuff. I can talk about stuff like that for a long We go deep on movies. Kind of that kind of stuff. Yeah. And I get like real Yeah. And I can get real what's the word? Obsessed with like
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Culture stuff. Yeah. Like can like really get me going. Like just like trying to figure out not even con conspiracy stuff, but like what's really behind what's happening? Right. Yeah. Like none none of this certain stuff is happening by accident. People aren't tripping into these PR situations. Like, you know, just stuff like that. interesting. Yeah. Ha have you heard about this new documentary, The The Holmes Ladies? Have you watched it? No, I can't wait. Yeah, I'm curious about it 'cause I've heard like it seems like it
Total zero or a hundred from people. Right. Well that guy, the filmmaker's crazy. Yeah. He does stuff like that on purpose. That's like weird. Just to drive people nuts. I heard people watching at the theater. I'm like, no. right. Because it it's one of he does stuff where it's like what is his name? It's escaping me. But he does stuff where it's like it's psychologically uncomfortable. And so it's like a three minute second party embarrassment thing the whole time. And so
Having that in a theater of people eating popcorn. Speaking of, do you remember that time we did Passion of the Christ? okay. And that family walked in with tubs of popcorn. Danielle, I remember every detail of it. You were like, we can't wait. This is gonna be And they're slurping and crunching. There was a lot of people that bought a lot of snacks. No, there were I just remember one particular family because everyone had their own drink, own popcorn, because we had like the lights on. This isn't really a snacks movie.
That's also when we saw the headrests. Right. I was disgusting. Don't ever Well you know this from your past. Yeah, you don't want to see a theater with the lights on. You. Amen. Is it is greasier than you would ever imagine. Sick. all right. So today with Shane, we're gonna talk it. Speaking of passion of the Christ, we're talking about outreach events today. We did. Anyway, go ahead with your intro. We did. No, that I mean that's better. So yeah, we're talking about outreach today. Mm-hmm.
And I I saw this thing. I actually didn't know this exist. it's called Time Left. I haven't heard of it. Time Left dot com. So it arranges restaurant dinners among strangers. Whoa. Like out in public. And yeah. It was just like an article recently. It was like an A P article or something talking about it. And like you j it's like a I mean, it's not dating. It's like you're just going to dinner. Like a meetup. Like a meetup with people you don't know. Yeah.
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Anywhere from like four to however twelve people or something like that. Yeah. Yeah. I kinda wanna try it, but I'll never do it. Correct. Thank you for joining us. But like it's I know you won't. So but peop people are signing up. Yeah, d this is a legitimate Well, but is this not a s testimony of the moment we're in? Yeah, sure. And I mean just like s
We've been talking about this for a while. Like people are so lonely. Yeah. And so desperate for a relationship and we don't know how to do it anymore. Like we don't know how to Right. We talk about like we have this dream disciple skill called intentional friend where it's like I've I've said this at the outset, like we actually have to teach people how to be friends with other people. Yeah. Because that's where we are. Including me. But I've always been like it's my weakest one. Yeah, me too. Yeah. But yeah, so like the something like this that steps into a void where it's like, yeah, no
Peop human beings actually need to be in relationship with each other, but they don't know how to. So we'll do it for you. We'll we'll take it's like Serveri. We'll take care of all the things. Yeah, we'll we'll take all the guesswork out of it, make it a frictionless experience so you can sit with people you don't know and have a conversation. Yeah. That's wild. it is very wild. It should be a wake up call for the church. Correct. Yeah. Because people are hungry for something that we have. Right. Cause I think one thing I one note I wrote was like.
We will have the narrative, and I know this narrative is shi is shifting in America a little bit, but like we have this narrative of like people will be closed spiritually. Mm-hmm. That doesn't mean they're closed relationally. That doesn't mean that like you're saying, like loneliness is still loneliness. Yeah. No matter if you're a Christian or not. So like if that could be the door. Entree point, you know. Mm-hmm. That'd be really cool. Yes. And you guys will get into this, but like
Another question that popped up is like, are we waiting for people to be interested in church before we'll be interested in them? Mm. Yeah, that's really good. Maybe. Yeah. And it is it I mean, it is this whole shift that we're talking about in a very microcosm of just going an attractional church says, Hey, we're gonna do all this attractional stuff and hope that people come to us. Yeah. And, you know, it's been my hunch for a long time. People don't
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care at all what we are doing on a Sunday morning. They are not thinking about us. They are not wondering what's going on inside those buildings. They are not they are not curious anymore. And so, you know, the the flip is, yeah, what just what you said, like the actual starting point is not to go, man, we gotta create more clever and clever things so that people will want to come. It's like, no, no, how can we actually get interested in them as a person, build relational connections with people and
And do what Peter says might happen, which is be ready to give an answer when they ask. Well, and even even when the attractional thing quote unquote worked. Yeah. I think about even myself, it worked. That worked. Yes, right. It worked for all my friends, worked for everyone. Got us there.
If nobody cared about me, I wouldn't have stayed. Right. Yes. Like So even if it works, there still has to be a little Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah. And we we yeah, like to your point. I know you're gonna talk about this here, but yeah, we rely on the system.
But I don't know anybody who I mean, maybe in like a Billy Graham situation or whatever, someone came to Christ and somehow got themselves started. At some point a human's interacting with that human. Yeah. Right. And
Yeah. It's just an interesting it's just been an interesting run here. Yep. So okay, so let's talk about how the church grew before we had these like outreach events and things like that. So, you I've been thinking about this and like all the methods we use and we've talked about these on episodes before, so if people want to go back, like we we did some little pokes at the mega church movement. I think it was last season about the stuff we used to do, but it's like
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Yeah, before we had, you know, invitation cards that we would print in mass or billboards or those sorts of things like how did the church actually grow and how did people actually come to faith. So as we've been doing this whole season, I I want to do a little bit of a monologue here and some history and where we've been and maybe how we drifted and and Shane will help us think about a vision for the future. But you know, I I think that
when you think about what the modern church right now, I feel like we've trained the church to inv invite to be to be inviters and to invite specifically their friends to events or certain Sundays that are geared more toward, you know, those who are who are looking and but we haven't trained them to be the church in their neighborhoods and we haven't trained them to d do some of this relational work that we're talking about. And believe it or not, we have to do that these days.
Because people don't exactly know how to do it anymore. And so Can I tell you something real quick before I know you're doing a monologue? No, that's right. Yeah. I this is just like a confession thing. Like about three or four days ago, my neighbor across the street was crossing the street and I was going out with our dog and she's like, he didn't even have a question for you. is that like church, like Grace Church church? Is that like a good church? And I'm like, Holy crap and I go
And I'm like, Yeah, it is. I w I work there. And she's like, And I'm like, my god, my whole world is just crumbling. Right. Right? Like all everything you're about to say is like I'm a terrible person. I never live this pr yeah. And here's the thing. So she starts talking about her friend, I start asking questions, but her friend is looking. She's not looking, her friend is looking. Got it. So blah, blah, blah. We talk about that, whatever. And she's literally walking away from she's like, Yeah, 'cause I know, I mean like
I go to that Christmas thing that they do and I really love it and I just thought maybe she should come with me this year. And she's well and I'm like go potty Brighton. Go potty Brighton. Go potty Brighton. I mean, obviously I'll talk to her again. But like it was just one of those moments and knowing you're gonna talk about this, I just had to confess it. Danny I lo so I'll confess it. Like I we have one of those too. Like we we had a neighbor that was literally in a grace church life group in our home.
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One of our neighbors had been coming to life group for a year. Yeah. And speaking of passion with Christ, that was like literally the thing that like moved them across the line of faith. Right. And at the next life group, they asked our Grace Church Life Group, Do you guys know of any good churches we should try? No. Well, and and in part of it, it's like it's terrible. But in part of it it's kind of a win because it's like they just saw that as a group of friends. Right.
Th that there was not an awareness that this was some like church group trying to push themselves off. It was just like these are friends we meet with at our neighbor's house and we love it so much. But and and so it's like they knew it was you know, obviously we were looking at the Bible and we were doing community, but like the whole church thing never came up. So anyway, sorry, sorry. And and here's and here's another confession to me, like
I I I was going back through you know, obviously to get ready for these, I go back through lots of the stuff that I've taught before and and studied before. And in twenty ten I preached a series called The Sent Ones and so we s kind of laid the foundation, God is ascending God, Christians have been sent to the world. And here's the big application of that whole series. Ready? We were launching a new campus. So we it was a building it was we're building a new building. Yeah. And again, nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with church multiplication. Like I'm a huge, huge, huge believer.
And the c that campus has reached tons of people since we launched it. But our instinct still was we're sending people out, but we're sending you out to invite people to our new campus and bring back in. And so here's the here's the how did the gospel move before we had these sorts of programs? And I I hi the the the line I wanna stick in the the front end here is the gospel has always moved fastest.
Through ordinary people in ordinary settings, blessing first and telling the gospel story in its time. That is when you look historically, before we had these modern inventions, that is how the gospel spreads. And so let me go back through the history. We'll start the scripture. The the first kind of move here is just the that mission and sending is at the very heart of God. And so mission is not primarily an activity of the church, it is an attribute of God.
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And so this goes right to the heart and character of God. God the Father, God the Son, and the God the Spirit have had lived for eternity past in this circle of love and devotion and honor to one another, relationship with one another. And love didn't stay put in that little circle. It had it it moved outward. And this was the first outre actually the creation account is the first act of outreach in history.
It was God reaching outside of himself to include others in this love that that he had within himself. And so very early in the Bible, Genesis 12, you know, he comes to Abraham, I'll bless you. But here's the thing, you I will bless you so that you will be a blessing to others, and all the people on earth will be blessed through you. And so this is where we see kind of this first commissioning of outward motion and mission, the love of God.
The blessings of God, the forgiveness of God, all these things that He brought to this first family were never meant to stop at the first family. They were meant to be spread and reached out. And so, you know, we use that term blessed. Like, I'm so blessed, you know. And and that usually means, you know, I got a new kitchen or whatever. You know. But when when God
Blessed Abraham, it was an assignment. Yeah. It wasn't meant to end with him. It was meant to be passed along. And so this is the first kind of sense of outreach. It comes from the heart and character of God. there's a very fascinating, I could go a lot of different directions with this. But there's a very fascinating moment when the blessing of God it it becomes almost controversial. It's in Isaiah 19. And so
God takes the two nations that Israel hated the most. Okay, so Egypt, who had enslaved them and threw their babies into the Nile River, where just I just preached about that this weekend. And Assyria, who was just the evil empire, wiped out the ten northern tribes. Nahum calls the capital the city of blood, like this was their mortal enemies. Isaiah in Isaiah nineteen describes a highway running between all three nations and he imagines
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All three of those nations worshiping God together. And God saying, Blessed be Egypt, and here's the part: Blessed be Egypt, my people. Yeah. Assyria, my handiwork. These are the words of God. And Israel, my inheritance. Okay. And so God's blessing gets aimed at people that you don't imagine that He wants to include. And our brains go.
Those aren't n those don't get in. Yeah. And God is going, outreach extends to everybody. And so John twenty comes and the disciples are behind l these locked doors, meeting in fear. And that's the room where Jesus comes and he says, As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. So God in his love and mercy sent Jesus. He's ascending God. Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit now say, Now we're sending you. Yeah. And that sending happened from this locked room.
to people who are hiding from the world. Right? They were hiding and he said, No, no, no, you're going. Yeah. Jesus is fascinating. Again, we could go a bajillion directions, but how did Jesus do outreach? You look at the woman at the well. This is a famous Jesus outreach story. Well the very first move is he put himself in a vulnerable position. Yeah. So he comes and he asks her for something. He comes, he's tired, he's thirsty, he's alone at the well, and he opens with, Will you give me a drink?
Right. And so he's now putting himself in the position of vulnerability to this woman. He lets her surf him first and then he changes her life. And she runs back into this town. She's still unsure. I don't know who this is. You know, she's not even got it all figured out yet. She just says, Come see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ? And I just love that. That whole scene kind of c challenges the way we think about outreach. Yeah. Because we think of it as
We have to we're in the position of power. We need to tell them all the stuff we know. We need to have it all figured out and all the answers or whatever. She's challenging all of that. She's like, I don't know any of that. Yeah. All I know is that this person changed my life. Yeah. And I think it's just a great lesson for us. Jesus went to these parties and he had, you know, so to go to parties. Yeah. Le Levi's, you know, first move after following Jesus was to throw a a dinner party for every tax collector he knew, and Jesus showed up and Jesus gets accused
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by the religious leaders of being a glutton and a drunk, and a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Like this is the big the big problem that's levied against him. And so again, nobody calls you a glutton if you're skipping meals. And so he's he's he's partying man. And he's I love this r quote from Robert Karris. He says in Luke, Jesus is is either going to a meal, at a meal, or coming from a meal. And so yeah, this was just his one of his methods.
He also, the this famous story of the Garrison demoniac when he, you know, he goes to the other side of the lake, they meet this crazy, just you know, demon possessed guy. The demon poss possessed guy says, I want to come with you, I want to be one of your disciples, let's get in the boat, let's go back across, let I'm in, I'm in. And Jesus says, No. He says, I want you to stay here and I want you to go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you. And by the time Jesus comes back to that shore.
It's the feeding of the four thousand. And so again, I always love this content. The first time he comes over, it's one crazy guy. He tells that crazy guy to stay and tell his story to everyone he knows. They come back to that same region and now there's four thousand men. Yeah. So what the only thing that changed was one person told their kind of social network, if you will, about Jesus. And again, if you've ever thought, you know, well, I wouldn't know what to say or whatever.
This guy had been following Jesus for like twenty minutes. Right, and social network, he probably isolated from everybody. Exactly. He build that all correct. He was not exactly a trustworthy source. And so but he just told people what happened to him. And people got curious. And so I think again, loving people, blessing people, being in a position of vulnerability and then telling God's story to saying what Jesus did for you, that is our business. I think we've gotten confused when we think Christians have to
Be converters. Right. We we have to seal the deal. And but God only asked us to tell the story. Changing hearts is his part of the equation. Yeah. All right. I want to do three quick stops through through history, starting with the early church. So from like one hundred to four hundred AD. Again, there were no outreach events.
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Early quit Christian worship was actually closed to outsiders. They would put deacons at the door as almost bouncers. They wouldn't let non-Christians in. If there were people in who were interested but not baptized, they would get excused when it came time for communion. So this is like the anti-attract attractional church. They were closed off. Alan Kreider calls this the way that they grew a patient ferment. And so they were just patient, they were behind closed doors, they were letting it all bubble up, and eventually it it grew.
then Rodney Stark estimates about that that the church grew about forty percent a decade for nearly three hundred years and from roughly a thousand believers, you know, in AD forty to around six million by AD three hundred. And so it did grow. It grew expon exponentially, but a church growth consultant wouldn't be happy with the the methodology that they used. and then people probably heard this before, but th this during the Great Plagues
Christianity really grew like in the two fifties. Dionysus of Alexandria writes that Christians cared for the sick, he said, heedless of danger. while other people were, you know, pushing their own relatives out the door or fleeing away from people who are sick. While people were running out of the city, Christians were running into the city to care for the sick. And Tertullian quotes what the pagans said, they said, see how they love one another. And so it was their love that was on display.
And was really the cause, one of the only causes that can be pointed to for the incredible expansion of the church. So then there's this thing called Christendom and and so Christendom is what happens when Christianity becomes the religion of the state. Yeah. Okay. And so when politics and faith kind of get merged together and and and so it's where people are forced to be f Christians. And this happened. and and so
the once a baby's baptized they're in and so like you look around a neighborhood and you just assume everybody's in. Right. And when that happens, you know, obviously outreach doesn't have the same luster because you just assume everybody's a Christian. And so mission then becomes something that you have to do somewhere else. And so, you know, again, some of the crusades, some of the th it's like we have to go out to make Christian because everybody here's already one. And which is obviously a misguided idea.
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But there's one exception to this during kind of four hundred to about fifteen hundred, and that is Saint Patrick. And believe it or not, Saint Patrick is is not responsible for green beer and being a lewd idiot in March. But the this kind of Celtic way, around four thirty two, Patrick goes back to Ireland to the people who had enslaved him as a teenager, by the way. And the Celtic monks built these communities.
near tribes and they invited then people to live alongside them. It was a very relational approach. And George Hunter describes the difference kind of between Christendom and and this approach that Rome presented the message, called for a decision, and then welcomed people in. The Celts welcomed people in first, and in time as people found they believed, they invited them to commit. And those are two very different processes. And so
It's where belonging happened before believing. Yeah. And Ireland was evangelized within a few generations using this approach because it was relational first. so and then we kind of come more to the present. So from about eighteen one until now, this is the age of the event. Okay. So outreach was more of an event. The altar call was born. the the number of people that I talked to that think the altar call is like in the Bible.
Is incredible. It's a very modern invention. You know, people treat it? Well, but no, I mean they just treat it like it's a dude that it's part of our, you know, we're we're we're sinning against God if we're like if we don't do it every day. So but it's a very modern invention. Cane Ridge, Kentucky, eighteen one. There was this six day camp meeting with big crowds between ten and twenty five thousand people. And really it was the advent of this kind of tent revival idea.
And I love looking into the the names of furniture that they would use in these tent revivals. And so the one of them was called the Anxious Bench. What? Where people would sit and kinda You have to build along one of those. This nowadays. In the age of anxiety. the mourner's bench, the inquiry room. Yeah, so that it's just great. But
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by Billy Sunday's big revival campaigns coming forward was called because they had sawdust on the floor, hitting the sawdust trail. that's cool. So that's what it was called when people would come forward. Yeah, exactly. So th there was this whole kind of revivalistic moment movement that made kind of outreach and salvation. You invite people to the tent revival, hopefully they'll walk the aisle, and you know, we've done our we've done our job.
So in the nineteen eighties then Willow Creek were very familiar with this. They they built kind of this seven step strategy. So this was part of the mega church movement. And it was really a a return to h helping the church see outside its walls. And so it's one of the reasons I'm very thankful for the mega church movement is because I do think the church was getting very internal. Yeah.
And the the the ages of these tent revivals and stuff was kind of in the past and the church had kinda isolated. And I think that movement in the seventies and eighties started to get the church thinking outside its walls again. And so Willow had this seven step tra strategy. Step one, a believer builds an authentic relationship with someone far from God. Step two, they share a verbal witness. Step three, they invite to a service design for seekers. I don't know if you remember this, but we we had this plastered everywhere. So
Thousands of churches, including ours, copied kind of this strategy. the problem is step three, invite them to a service design for seekers was the easiest to measure and the other two are not. And so you can't count conversations, but you can count how many showed up at our services and and so the the thing that we measure became the thing that we did. And so I you know, I think about our playbooks over the years you've been involved. So bring a friend weeks and invitation cards that are pre printed and Christmas ornaments and
series that are built to I remember saying this sentence, ten ten to twelve new opportunities every year to invite somebody. Like we want series to to be these inviter opportunities. And so again, inviting somebody to church is great. But i here's the here's the lesson I think from history is that every era where the gospel fr spread fast, it wrote on ordinary people blessing their neighbors and eventually telling the story of Jesus. Yeah. That that's how outreach really happens. And so
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I just wanna name a couple drifts and then we're gonna hand off to this interview with Shane. here here's one of the drifts. I think we've turned sent people into church inviters. And so you know, we've established every Christian is sent. The as the father has sent me, so even I'm sending you. But that's the that's the the idea. What we've actually trained people to do is to go invite your friends to church. Yeah. And that's a different that's different
And so I think that's one drift. The second drift is the what was intended to be blessing turned into bait. And so when we do outreach events and there's the free carnival or come to the community picnic or the Easter egg drop from a helicopter or whatever, or we're in a service and the mu you know, or even at those events and the music suddenly changes and every head is bowed and here comes the altar call. And it's it's
Classic bait and switch. We we drew people in with one idea and we kind of hit with another. let me just b say though, most churches do these things. I'm not knocking. Right. Because most churches do these things because they love their community and they want people to know Jesus and they want to share Christ with people. And so the motive is good. But I think w it's time to kind of relook at at those methods.
And this idea of blessing, like what if we could reclaim the idea that we are this kind of blessing to the world? and that all the nations of the earth would be blessed through us. This was God's original vision with with Abraham. the third is that we ask an an event to do the work of a relationship. And I think that's kind of where we even started. It was just like people are hungry for relationships. And
Because we've gotten worse and worse at relationships, it's almost like we've built this crutch that goes, but here's this great event. And so I don't know you very well. But I'm trying to do what I'm supposed to do and bring you to church. And so hopefully this event will be, you know, attractive enough to pull you in and and if anything happens, you know, talk to my pastor and hopefully they'll need to meet you. So again,
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I I think the event has kind of taken place of of relationship and people are actually hungry for relationship. So anyway, that's that's a little history through the years of like where outreach has been, both from the Bible and and in, you know, different stages of the of the church. But I'll I'll come back to that statement. The gospel has always moved fastest through ordinary people at ordinary tables, blessing first and telling the the gospel story in its time.
Okay. So Shane's back with us. You guys had a really good conversation. I think we're gonna let him take it from here. Just a reminder, he's Dave Rhodes' partner at Clarity House and he's been coaching our team for years, so you can blame him for anything we do. but honestly a lot of what yeah we're training people, we we've learned a lot of that from from both of those guys. So Yeah, and this is really our vision, you know, the the next horizon. What what you know, I I try to pick Shane's brain about.
Like what what what it could the future look like if we were to kind of reclaim some of these ideas? It was great. Hey, we're here again with Shane Stacy. Hey Shane, how are you? So good. Great to see you again today. Likewise. Hey, good to be here. We're talking about outreach and thrilled to do that. And it's such a such an interesting concept. Obviously, this has been part of the heart of God from the very beginning of creation. And so
This is not some new idea that we're talking about, but the you know, we've come through a certain stages and and maybe some ways we've drifted maybe away from God's original heart and not not everybody, not all the time, but sometimes. And so I I th I w I just wanna give you a little space here to name the drift when it comes to kind of the church's approach to outreach, where we find ourselves right now. And then we'll talk a little bit about
Like if we were just given a blank slate and dream about the future, what could this look like going forward? So why don't you talk about where we're at right now? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the things that we see and hear a lot is we have invested a lot of time into maybe using Jesus language on this in on into a come and see kind of approach to ministry. and
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And we've maybe lost the go and tell and end part of that. So we say, you know, come and see is important, outreach events are important, and can have a place that in the in the mix of a church's outreach. but we have invested so much into hey, invite a friend that people that people end up going, I I don't well, but what does this look like on Tuesday?
And I think we've lost, and this is I think you know, what we need to name, Derek, that we've we've lost. So we we talk about this, you know, often. if people in their lives, sociologists would say have an average of somewhere between thirty and a hundred and fifty people in their relational sphere of influence. so let's just say on average is about a hundred on that. That means a church of a hundred has a potential gospel impact of ten thousand. Cool.
but when we're focused on the come to the church as the primary, you know, come to the worship service as the as the primary means, we never really release people to the places that they live, work and play. And I think in a growingly post-Christian context, this is really important. There was a season in in era of our culture where outreach events maybe played a, you know, a little bit different role than maybe they
have naturally played today, and I think in a growingly post Christian context, showing up at a church sponsored event isn't necessarily the first place that people engage. Yeah. Yeah, that it's interesting. And I think that, you know, I it's it's I I just heard a a recent podcast with with Mark Sayers. I don't know if you know that name Australia does non anxious presence and but he he was just talking about this
the the the trust deficit, you know. And it is just such a major, you know, the and I think that's kind of in a way the heart of what what what we're talking about here a little bit. And when when you think about the actual, you know, person who's outside the church and you know what what would it take to get them to consider Jesus, you know, just the idea of they don't trust
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churches anymore. They don't trust people like me anymore. So if somebody's like, hey, come hear my pastor or like come to this thing in my church, that doesn't have quite the same bite that it had, you know, in the 50s or 60s or whatever, you know, whatever coming up because there's so much distrust. But what people do still trust is people that they know generally. And if they have an opinion like, you know, so it's like if you tried a new fabric softener versus them seeing a, you know, a
a commercial about it. If you say, hey, I tried this and it worked, yes. There's a whole lot more trust there than there is in media or churches, any kind of institution left. And so I think this idea of equipping people to really kind of be a presence where they are is not just because it's kind of biblically effective, but because even just our cultural moment right now calls for us to to kind of have a different approach to that. So
Yeah. And there's the work of Don Everts around this. I mean, I think even just naming that, I think they did some study around I think it was like a thousand people who had come to Christ over, you know, and they just listened to their stories and like what were, you know, what was it that was necessary? And to your point on the trust thing, the number one threshold, the first threshold. There's five like they kind of identified after they heard all these stories, like there's these kind of common five thresholds that p people needed to kind of move through. The number one threshold.
was trust. I needed they needed they had come in contact with a a Christian that they could trust that was a friend that saw them gen as a genuine friend. And that was often and is often such a significant starting point for so many people. Yeah. And I I think that all I you know, I don't know about that study exactly, but I I do know that like there's another factor is time. Like
Well one of the things with an event based approach is like you're expecting people to come and kind of like make a decision in a moment or whatever. And most most, you know, walks with Jesus even and and when they initiate, it's over a period of time. Like we've made it into this like one shining moment thing, you know, in our altar call culture. But like, man, it for most people it's a gradual over time. And the best way to kind of like nurture that is through relationships. And so
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Yeah. You know, as we look to the future of the churches, we think about like what's ahead and what could what what could our dream for the church of the future be? I'm talking very specifically about my church. You're dealing with lots of churches, so you have a little bit of a broader view. But like you know, I think about what what could a shift look like from an event-based outreach approach to more of a distributed, you know, people in their spaces approach. And could could you just talk about that? Talk about
that shift in thinking that I think it will take for the church and like what what does that actually look like? Yeah. I think, well, a couple of things on that. and again, we always say use every tool in the toolbox. so it's not you need to throw all, you know, events out on it. It's like, you know, they can be helpful. We'll use every tool in the toolbox. But if we can release our people in a way that is not just through rhetoric. And I think that's actually one of the other challenges is that
It is sometimes like, hey, you're entering the harvest field and it's like, great. But if we were empowered, like, what do I do with that? How do we how do we actually move to an equipping and empowering? But to where ministry, we see that ministry is taking place, not just in the confines of the organized ministries of the church, but out into the places where people live, work, you know, learn and play. And that that table, I mean again, I would I would name this as like I I really genuinely believe.
that one of the practices around that is is empowering people to open up their table if you will in many in many places because I think the gospel you know I we describe it this way the church was never meant to be a a place alone. It was meant to be a people who fill every place. And I when I look out to the the future, like what we long, you know, to see is that more and more people are empowered to
experience the joy of not just knowing Jesus and coming to know Jesus, but are empowered to invite or an invite their friends to respond to Jesus, to see Jesus and be part of that blessing in their in their lives. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. And I I think, you know, if if we can pause there, just like you know, this idea of just like having some simple skills.
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in our toolbox that that will help us in those everyday spaces. I know we've with your help leaned into some of those and you know, even you you mentioned the table and and just hospitality and simple, you know, as we've you know, trained and explored this idea of friendship, you know, if friendship is kind of this combination of two things, time and vulnerability. Right. that as time increase time alone doesn't make friendships and vulnerability alone doesn't make friendships. But when you have those two things together
you have a chance at building a real kind of like gospel friendship with somebody. one of the best places that those two things can come together is around a meal. You know, you you have the time automatically. You have to maybe create a little bit of vulnerability with some good questions or some good like, hey, let's go around and talk about highs and lows or, you know, whatever. It doesn't have to be rocket science. But like I I think about skills like that that
That if we could reframe evangelism a little bit around like getting to ordinary skills that people could implement in their homes, in their neighborhoods, in their workplaces. So maybe just talk about that skill development. Again, it's a it's something that we've learned a lot from you on. Yeah. And you know, just any any advice you have there, any stories that you have about how that actually worked out. Absolutely. I mean, one we name, I again.
You hear me say this often, it like I feel like we rip everything off from Jesus. so one of Jesus', you know, favorite methods. In fact, in fact, I think this is important, like, Jesus actually describes the way that he came. John in Luke chapter seven. they're criticizing Jesus, right? And he says, you know, hey, John, you know, John the Baptist, he came feasting, he came fasting
and things, says the son of man has come feasting. and you, you know, you still criticize so he actually tells us some of his methodology was actually around the table. And so I don't want to skip over that because I think the space of hospitality, I was just talking with a a 20 24 year old yesterday on this because he's watching it and he's opening up his table and he's watching what it's creating.
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And the people that are like gathering around that that space. And I this is something that's available to every single believer, right? Like every single and again, table doesn't have to be you know, I don't have a house or you know, whatever else things. It's like it just simple enough. I have a friend, Todd Moore from Missional Made Simple. and Todd just goes, You get get it down to the simplest thing. So like in Minnesota it might be your, you know, beer and brats. He says, like in when he's working in England, it's beans and toast.
like get it down, don't make it broad presentation. But there is something around when you think about this. You you don't invite your enemies to lunch. Rarely, right? I mean, there's just this like if you're inviting someone to a meal, to a table, to get a cup of coffee, you're immediately naming that we're friends, that I want time with you in a very
safe, you know, you know, space. And then around that is the, I think tied to table, you you know, you started the name it can go to some other things too, but is just training people on how to ask good questions. We're doing this in our in our own context right now, like the church we're part of, we're in a church plant, about three usually here in in Minneapolis, Derek. And one of the we're we we like literally describe it as like it's like pre evangelism training. And it literally is just how
How to ask meaningful questions to get to someone's heart, not to share the gospel with them even yet. Like just to listen, I think people have to be, and I think in this culture, we have to be discipled into how to ask good questions. one of the challenges that a guy named Chuck Chikkowicz, what a great name. he worked with
He owned outfitters, like in Colorado, whitewater rafting and backpacking and whatever our stuff. And Chuck would would say, like, hey, he'd have a hundred guides. It was Christian outfitters and things, but they'd take everybody out, thousands of people down the river without put on the trails. He's like, How do you get to the heart in three questions?
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like trying to get to someone's heart. So move like here's one of my favorite, you know, favorite ones. Instead of just asking like when you get to the table, like, hey, how's it going? Talking about politics, we're you the stuff up here, of just even something as simple as just hey, how's how's the week been? On a scale one to ten, how's the week been? Okay, as soon as they name a number, they either just told you a five and they're telling you something challenging and you can tap into that. Like, whoa, and what would have made it a
Like what would it take for it to be a but they're starting to tell you something about what's what's happening here, toughness that they you can click down into. If they say ten, like it's easy to start exploring that. you know, what's been giving you life lately? Right. Like becomes a different kind of question that gets past the surfacey stuff that we often do, sports and you know, whatever else. news weather sports. Yeah.
And you I I mean, I'll just say this, Derek, you've like we've stolen one that you've created. Like the three Ts to me, friend, is one of my favorite like you I yeah, I'm sure you've talked about on here before, but it's worth talking about 'cause I think that simple practice of like even what are you then listening for when you're asking simple questions of things. I don't know if you'd be willing to share it here, but we've stolen it by the way. we we give you all credit for it. But the three teas is super helpful.
yeah. It's it. We just say if you hear words of transition, trepidation, and I just forgot the third T, but that w when you hear somebody name something that they're walking through where they just said, Hey, I just moved into this new neighborhood, that's like that's a transition. Or we're really nervous because we're about we're we're gonna have our first child or whatever. That's a trans they're they're at a life transition moment. trial is the other one. We're going through this hard
You know, my my mom just died or whatever. And so that if you can train your ears to listen to any of those three Ts and then then if you're in this it's an appropriate space, the next sentence out of your mouth could be, Could I pray for you right now? Yeah. that those become like trigger phrases to you to go, this is a time to lean in. We've all we've also done a lot of work recently. I d one of my favorite new tools that we've been playing with is just the the art of a good follow up question. And you were talking about it when you said
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You know, just you know, the n one to ten and then when they pick a number, whatever, that we've we've been talking about recently called the thread word. So if you just take if you just listen to their sent what they say and pick one word. So they said, Hey, yeah, my my week's been pretty tough this week. You pick that word tough. What what made it tough? And you just pull the thread. You pull the thread, pull the thread, pull the thread, and it keeps the at focus on them. It lets them go a little bit deeper. You're creating that that
environment where you can just get beyond the surface stuff. And that's where that's where the good stuff is, you know. Yep. And I do think that is it is a part of some of the equipping that we have to do. I it almost sounds like, I mean, I'm sure you there's some people are like, wait, wait, we haven't talked about evangelism. I this was about outreach. I thought this was about whatever. in our culture, how to have meaningful
Conversations, how to listen. I there's a psych psychologist who's even has named this is like listening and being loved are almost diff like you can hardly pull them apart in today, like because it it's like, man, if someone listens to me, like I feel incredibly seen today because we don't. We just make statements on that. And so like, and I'll name this Todd, our friend Todd Moore from Simple Missional Made Simple. He's you all around the all the around the world. He's and he said this about Christians.
He goes, it doesn't matter what country I'm in, South America, Europe, Africa, Christians are the worst at asking questions. And so we the the Because we make statements. Because we quickly make statements, we make judgment calls, and things. And I do, I think this is even part of just simple tools of outreach. Like here's another one from s said to me, Hey I was we were, you know, we were engaged in our neighborhood and in some things and
We'd throw parties and just you know, just do different things. national night out, we'd like be a part of that and not in you know, even initiate. But there were just certain spaces, Derek, where it was like we're running into some roadblocks. And I had a friend just say to me, Have you made yourself vulnerable yet? And I was like, What do you mean? Like I go out with all my clothes on. he's like, Well, you're you're always doing something, but have you made yourself like where you can actually mutually be served?
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to where you actually need something. Yeah. And there was a there was a a neighbor, my car something was going on with my car, I would never just take it into the shop, whatever. And I knew this guy to like restores cars. So I just went down, you know, and I I know his name and things and you know, said, you know, we said hi and all the sort sort of things, but I just like, bro, I have no idea what to do and I definitely don't have the tools to fix this. Like, what do you think? Could you just look at it? I'll take it them, you know, I can't we like spent two and a half hours together.
Right. He like super like, here's what you need, here, here, like, you know, and just immediately is like, have you did you put yourself are you in a place of superiority the whole time that you have something to give to them that you're so desperately wanting to give, hopefully. You know, but like you you're in a place of superiority and not putting yourself in a place of vulnerability as well where you also can be served. Yeah. So good. I I just did that with my neighbor too. I we my Kim and I were talking about it and it's like
We we live where if we have family close by and all our kids are here and my mower broke and was in the shop. I need to mow or I was gonna be haying. And I I went over across the the the road to my neighbor and said, This is weird, but could I borrow your mower? This is a very personal man thing, you know. That's my totally. But same thing. It just there's something about need not just going, here, do you want my I've got the shed I've got the shed full of tools. Why don't you borrow
It but going, I don't have this thing and you have this thing and could I borrow that thing from you is is a yeah, it's just a it's a posture that of of more that that in invo evokes more openness, I think, than having all the the answers or stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. I wanna talk about one more skill, Shane, just because we're on it and and
But one of the fun ones we so one of our dream disciple roles is compassionate storyteller. And so it's this idea of, you know, we we really are trying to train evangelism, but but it's some of these pre-skills, you know, before you kind of and one of the things that was so kind of like that we had an aha moment in the creation of it was, you know, a lot of churches and pastors and us for all these years try to train people how to tell their conversion story.
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Right. So when when did you come to Jesus? Like that's the story you need to tell. You know, whatever it was. Right. So whatever's your testimony, like when we say you need to learn to share your testimony, it's kind of the elevator speech of your conversion story, which again, for some of us it was five years old or six years old or whatever. And one of the things that we developed in that class in terms of a skill was we just said we want people to have a library of a a couple of stories that they can mine from.
So we did this story mining exercise to go go back over your youth and adult life, not your necessary childhood life, but youth and adult life and mine some stories where Jesus really showed up for you. So my marriage was on the rocks and here's how Jesus came through or my so and so died and here's how Jesus comforted me or whatever. Because what that person wants to know is not what was the moment you came for Jesus. What that person really w needs to know is does Jesus Christ make a difference in an actual human life?
and if we can answer that question, go here's here's the difference he made in my life. It wasn't just at conversion. It wasn't when I walked an aisle. It was when my marriage was failing and and you know, he showed up for me or my church showed up for me or whatever. And like and so that I so there's the question asking thing, but I think there's a whole bunch of skills. Like if we're thinking about the church of the future going, pastors totally think about let's think about what people actually need and help develop
competencies on our people around those things. Well what I love that you're naming there, and I think this gets back to just like not these like the the moment, right? We have this poll Damascus Road conversion thing in our mind. I love, you know, it's like, or is there a Peter conversion? Like it seems like Peter's was actually really locked. to go out. And actually I think the looking at the both of those is really important to go, hey, most people they do move. I have a friend he that uses this language. I think it's super helpful is
Most people move from somewhere on this, you know, journey from a place of resistance to Christians or Christianity or to Jesus or to anything faith to a place of reluctance. where it's like, I may be kinda interested. I'm not a seeker yet. I have zero, zero desire to change. But I'm
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I'm like, I'm interested in like the way that you think about things or the way that you like talk about things and things. So there's a reluctance, so resistance or reluctance to a responsiveness, meaning I'm willing to at least have conversations around this to a readiness. That's probably where they're a real seeker. Like it's like there's one or two things that it's like holding them back. To okay, I'm like I'm there is a repentance, like I'm ready to turn to to to Jesus on this.
And I think just that's even some of the skill side of just like, where's my friend at like the people, where my coworker where's my coworker at on their journey from what I can tell right now and the conversations that we had? And then what therefore do they need next? And that thing that's we're joining the Holy Spirit on that. I think this is another big thing for people on this is like we're not going to do anything to people. Like we're joining this is Jesus' training thing. I
I like Luke 10 is so massive for me on this. I I this deep well, one it says, and this is I think awakens a missional imagination. I think the church needs this. I think every believer needs this. I need this. the harvest is plentiful, Jesus said. The workers are few. Do I actually believe the harvest is plentiful? That's right. and so even helping people to begin to imagine the places that he's put me.
to just look around. Don't you don't have to do anything. Just start looking around and wondering with the Holy Spirit.
God, it could you use me here? Is there something that you're already up to with the people that are in this sphere of influence in my life? and things. and then the next like the next things he names like around that is identifying what he describes as, you know, persons of peace, or that we sometimes will use like persons of peace of like we don't have to go everywhere all at once. He actually don't even run, like, don't don't run around. Look for people where there's a
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there's a there is a growing responsive like in that journey, like then he says stay stick with them. because they need to keep hearing those drips that you were just naming. Like they're it's like these Jesus threads that most people they say like need to hear the gospel seven to ten times before they would ever actually say yes to Jesus on that. And they need to hear that like it's made a difference and it's making a difference, you know, real difference in someone else's, you know, life on that. which I I think is incredibly freeing.
Like it is. Like Jesus wasn't like, hey, you have to go do this. Right. on this. It was like, hey, I'm up to something. It's like a giant Easter egg hunt. It's like I'm up to something. And like, I really want you to join me what I'm doing. And there's people around you already that God is already working in that you can't see. And the only way you can see is get time at the table. Listen for the th those three T's. Like just, you know, ask, Can I pray for you to see how they respond? Like you start to realize, like, I think
Something's happening here. And it may still be a two year journey, but like there's something happening here. which is a beautiful get to. Amen. Yeah. Yeah. And I I I it's so funny that you said that about the the harvest pass. I literally just preached that on Sunday, but was talking about that same the same exact thing of this curiosity of like because that whole passage starts with Jesus saying it says he saw the crowds.
Yes. And so and he saw that they were helpless with and without a shepherd and you know, and so but th it's just like if we had eyes to see what Jesus sees when he looks at people, like that's the first step to it. But one of the things at the end of that, and I I I pray I pray this for my church. I I say this on this podcast to any like just influencers outside the walls of the church right now that are listening in to pastors, like the w where I
Where I ended up was like, my dream for us is that like when you see with God's eyes and when somebody's in front of you and you have a chance to bless them and you see them moving along, the and and you see that their heart is open and ready, that your response wouldn't just be, as good as these things are, wouldn't just be, hey, you should be meet with my pastor. Or you should come to my church. Yeah. But that you would feel equipped in that moment to like be
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the walk with that person through whatever step of that journey that they're on right then. And man, if if we could just, you know, it if we could just move from like come to the next outreach event at my church to being like equipped and ready for those moments, we're gonna see the church explode. Well, and just I know, you know, and I know we've only got a little time here, but just to play play on that last thing then as you think about the future, because some of what's happening right there
Like, and this is the imagination we have to have in our minds as well. Discipleship is starting the moment you say hello as a Christian to someone, and what you've just normalized in that person's mind is that this is what a normal Christian does. Like loves people like this, shows up, asks great questions, serves all these things, show, you know, and talks about Jesus naturally. Like, and that it's not.
Just a only a well come and invite and things like we're actually naming that. And in that same passage, when the 72 end up coming back, it is the one place where we are explicitly told that Jesus was filled with joy. Yes. So there is another aspect of it of like, hey, do you want increased joy? There there is something about being a part of that. I love it.
Shane, this is always good. I feel like we could talk for three more hours, but we probably need to call it. So thank you. Thank you so much for your wisdom and for sharing it with us and for all the work that you do at Clarity House and the ways you've helped my church and are helping so many others. We really love and appreciate you so much, brother. Always an honor. Love you, man. Peace. All right. My first question. Yeah. Did you give the mower back? Yeah. Yes.
Yes, I did. And listen, this but this is the part. Like, you know, we talk about putting yourself in the vulnerable position. Yes. And it's like some instead of training people, how do you how do you kinda talk down to your neighbor help your neighbors serve your neighbors? There's a whole different thing that goes if you put if you say I need to be served by you. Right. that gives you a different Yeah, we did we did a similar thing with our neighbors, like when they had their kids. Yeah. It wasn't us being like
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Here's the advice. Here's all the stuff. Blah, blah, blah, blah. It was being intentional about like let's have like just conversations about being parents. And like they were the first ones to have us for dinner. And then, you know. So yeah. I mean, it wasn't a hundred percent planned, but once I realized it was happening, I was like, Yes, this is the way forward with these guys. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So I I would just encourage people to, you know, if if we if we're trying to reclaim this relational approach,
Share a meal. Yeah. Grab coffee with one person who doesn't follow Jesus. Don't try to seal the deal. Like just bless them. Ask them how their week was. Be you know that that like those simple questions, like how's your week on a scale of one to ten? Mm-hmm. Like what what was the good, what was the bad? Like what and and just going a little bit lower than newsweather and sports. Right. Invites people to a different a different space with you. Yeah. And you don't have to have an agenda beyond
learning one more thing about them. Right. Yeah. And like we said, you know, just the blessing of praying for them. Like if there is a crack in an in an in an open door kind of thing. To be able to say, Hey, can I pray for you right now? And just pray blessing over them or pray God's you know hand on them or whatever. I just have never met somebody that refuses that. You know and and it's just a it's a powerful way to to to bless
To make yourself a spiritual resource for that person. but it's not asking them to walk the aisle right right away. Yeah. And if you need to practice your relational stuff, do the get the site to take you to dinner thing. It's a time left place. You can practice. Exactly. All right. so next week we're gonna see another everyday influencer named Geo. So that'll be really cool. Geo's great. as always, you can get show notes, transcripts, and other resources at DerekSanford.com.
While you're there, subscribe to his weekly email Everyday Alter. It's an inside look at just both what you're liking and then also just practical ideas and thoughts on how to truly live out your faith and your calling every day. Yep. Okay. So we'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. Thanks.