March 23, 2025 • 30 mins
In this enlightening episode of Bleeding Daylight, host Rodney Olsen speaks with Sara Dangerfield, pastor, author, and passionate advocate for discipleship. Sara shares insights from her over two decades in ministry, including her experiences serving in oil boom communities where she observed Christians hesitant to share their faith with those who needed it most.
Sara discusses practical approaches to everyday evangelism, challenging the notion that we need to know everything before sharing our faith. She emphasizes the importance of one-on-one discipleship, the power of every believer's story, and how simple intentionality can transform casual relationships into opportunities for spiritual conversations. Her book "Leading Spiritual Hoarders: Creating a Culture of Disciples Who Make Disciples" offers church leaders a roadmap for cultivating authentic disciple-making movements.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome.
I'm so glad you've found Bleeding Daylight and the incredible stories of hope we share.
If you've been inspired, help others find Bleeding Daylight too.
(00:31):
Spread the word on social media or just tell a friend.
Who will you tell today?
When we gather with friends, we discuss a range of life issues and yet so often, we find it difficult to talk about matters of faith and belief.
Why is that?
And are there simple ways to reach out to those around us with the things of life that really matter?
(00:52):
Today's guest has some practical suggestions.
Today's guest is Sara Dangerfield, a pastor, author and passionate advocate for discipleship who brings fresh perspectives from her ministry experience across America's heartland.
(01:16):
Together with her husband, Sara has spent over two decades in ministry serving communities and gaining experiences that have given her unique insights into the challenges and opportunities facing modern churches.
She is the author of Leading Spiritual Hoarders, Creating a Culture of Disciples Who Make Disciples.
(01:37):
Sara brings a grounded, relatable approach to spiritual formation and church leadership.
I'm so pleased that she is joining me today.
Sara, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much for having me.
And man, what an introduction.
You make me sound like I know what I'm doing.
Well, we'll find out.
(01:57):
Within the next half hour, we'll find out.
I love the idea behind your book.
I'm looking forward to exploring the reasons that you wrote it and hearing some of the lessons that we can all learn.
But before we do, I'm wondering if you can tell me who makes up your household.
Tell me a little about your life.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
My husband's name is Dan and we've been married for almost 21 years now.
(02:21):
We were very young, just out of college when we got married and jumped right into children's ministry.
And then we do have three kids.
Our daughter, Anna, is 16.
We have two boys.
Ethan is 14 and Caleb is 12.
And they keep us very busy.
Now, I understand that your early years of ministry together with your husband was in youth ministry, which is always a lot of fun, but provides its own challenges, doesn't it?
(02:51):
It sure does.
It sure does.
So we were kids pastors and we worked, depending on the school district we were in, in the communities that we served in, we worked with babies to fifth or sixth grade.
And anyone who serves in ministry knows that the kids department has more volunteers than any other department in the church.
We went in because we loved kids and we learned very quickly that it had more to do with management and working with adults.
(03:21):
We still got all that time with the kids that we loved, but there were challenges because we, at the beginning, didn't feel as prepared as we thought we were coming out of college.
A lot of that work with kids, it's almost like, hey, someone else look after the kids while we do the serious stuff.
And yet it's in those early years that the spiritual formation can often take place.
(03:43):
So you're being handed a very big responsibility, aren't you?
Oh yeah, definitely.
We tell adults and we tell parents all the time that we believe kids are capable of understanding who Jesus is and understanding scripture just as well as an adult.
And we even say there's no junior Holy Spirit.
He is available for every age.
(04:05):
And so we want to teach the kids appropriately because they can understand way more than we give them credit for when it comes to spiritual matters.
Now, it has been said that the church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.
And yet we know that that's so often not the case.
And I guess that's really the heart behind your book saying, hey, it's not just about sitting down and soaking it up, but actually we've got something to do, don't we?
(04:36):
Oh yeah.
When you're serving with kids, especially, it's so easy to tell kids, hey, when you get the opportunity to talk with your friends, right?
You got school lunch that you can talk with them.
You could talk with them on the playground.
You can talk with your neighbors when you're playing outside or you have a friend over or a kid who's on your baseball team.
(04:57):
And kids are like, oh yeah, I could do that.
And they just jump on board right away.
But then you mention it to adults and you get the answers of, but what if I don't have an answer to their question?
Or what if I don't understand enough to be able to share?
Or I'm not a professional.
And so when scripture talks about the faith like a child, I think we also need to take the approach of being willing to share the gospel from the attitude of a child, right?
(05:27):
Like kids are so open to just talk about whatever because they haven't had those experiences of rejection or whatever the case might be that maybe adults have had.
I wish it wasn't the case, but unfortunately it is, especially in the American context that I know.
I really want to start seeing that change.
The desire to write the book, to talk about the fact that we all have a part to play in reaching people for the kingdom really came about through your own ministry experience.
(05:58):
Tell me, when did you first start to see these markers within the churches you were serving that made you say something is not quite right?
It was actually in the second church that we served in.
The first church we served in was actually the church my husband grew up in.
And so I kind of jumped in not knowing anybody and not knowing how everything was run there.
(06:20):
And my husband hit the ground running and I'm trying to catch up.
So by the time we got to our next church and we're able to start together, I lived in a town called Williston, North Dakota.
And this was the epicenter of the height of the oil boom in 2010 here in the United States.
And so we had people coming from all over the place.
(06:44):
I mean, we're not just talking all the states.
We had people coming from all over the world to come and work, whether it was oil field related, or they were coming because the community lost all of its workforce because they all went to the oil field.
We had all these cute young ladies from different Asian countries that came and worked McDonald's to learn English.
(07:09):
And that was quite comical.
But I absolutely loved having them there because learning the culture and where they came from and helping them adapt to our culture.
What I discovered was these people are coming from everywhere.
And a lot of them that I was meeting who were at least visiting the church trying to find a home church that fit for them.
(07:30):
They were coming from all different Christian church backgrounds, different denominations.
And we know even within denominations, depending on where you're at, the church may be different because of the region or the culture of the region.
I was finding that there were a lot of people coming who knew about Jesus.
They knew that the Bible was important, but they had no idea what their role was when it came to Christianity and their faith.
(07:59):
So they would come and they would find a church and find their community.
And then they would just stay within that community.
At first, I didn't think a whole lot of it because everyone's moving from everywhere.
They don't know anybody.
They're trying to create a family that isn't family, but kind of like a family.
And I mean, we were doing the same exact thing.
(08:21):
But then when I would sit down and have coffee with somebody and talk about what their life was like growing up, what their role was in their previous church, like what were they involved in?
What's their hope in this new place and in this new state?
What is their hope when it comes to not just their faith, but their relationship with other people?
(08:43):
I was discovering that next to none of them were interested in sharing their faith with other people.
Part of that might have had to do with the oil field can sometimes bring a pretty rough and tough crew, and you have a different demographic flooding into a community.
But I couldn't help but think, with this rough and tough community, who needs it more?
(09:05):
Who needs to hear the gospel more?
They're coming from all these desperate situations, whether because they made poor financial choices and now they're trying to get themselves out of a hole, or they're just chasing the next best opportunity, or their family dynamics were not well, and they basically ran away to the oil field.
(09:26):
There were so many different stories, and I was sitting there thinking to myself, but who better to share the gospel with than these people and these families who are hurting, silently hurting?
It was just interesting to me because I was like, all of you that I am talking to grew up in the church, yet you have no desire to share the best news that anybody could ever hear.
(09:50):
And it was surprising to me.
Maybe it shouldn't have been surprising, but as kids pastors, we were mostly with kids and their parents, and we weren't necessarily seeing the church as a whole.
Kids ministry, we get hidden in our section of the church, and we don't always get to talk to everybody.
(10:10):
But the more I got to know people in the community, the more I was like, there's something way off balance here.
Even now in the location that we're at now, I'm still seeing it.
So it wasn't just because of where we were living and the circumstances, but it seems to be, from what I've witnessed, and then talking to other friends, this is an epidemic.
(10:32):
We have Christians who don't want to share the best news.
We have, within the scripture, we have the great commandment, which is to throw everything we have at loving God and then loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
And it's not really loving if we know that an eternity awaits that they could experience.
We're not telling them.
But also the great commission, which is to go out and make disciples.
(10:55):
And yet you've touched on a couple of the reasons that we don't embrace that, such as, well, I'm not a professional, and we have somehow professionalized this idea of reaching out to people.
And so, hey, maybe a pastor or a paid evangelist or these specialist people, they're the ones that get to share faith.
(11:17):
And yet we've lost the ability for us to tell our own story.
How do we start to reclaim that?
I like to tell people a lot that our story is a piece of God's story.
If our piece isn't shared, then there's basically a hole in the big God story that's not being shared.
(11:40):
And so it's like you're not getting the whole picture.
We can start to see God's story as something that is so big and so unattainable that we start to see our piece to that story is insignificant.
But our piece to the story is extremely significant, because our story is what's going to affect others in a positive way.
(12:02):
I always say, even if it feels like the most insignificant thing, something that seems so small, it needs to be shared.
And even for those who've grown up in the church their whole life and haven't maybe experienced as many hardships, because I think we can believe the lie that a testimony has to have previous hardships.
(12:25):
I tell people the best testimony is one of someone who grew up in the church.
Thank goodness for the faithfulness of your parents in the generations before them, that you didn't have to experience those hardships.
Even the most what we feel is insignificant is a piece that needs to be shared.
(12:46):
And so that's usually where I start.
And then I just ask pointed questions.
If I met them in a small group, what was your your first experience walking into a small group?
Or you told me about this elderly neighbor that invited you over for tea, tell me a little bit more about them and how they shared Jesus with you or whatever the case might be.
The more you start to ask questions, it's almost like you can see the lights turn on of, oh, I do have things to share.
(13:13):
And it's like, yes, yes, you do.
You do have things that people need to hear.
And one of the other things that you touched on earlier, too, is that we believe the enemy's lie that we need to know everything.
We need to be able to answer every question.
And yet what you're saying is we need to be able to tell our story where we are at this point.
(13:37):
Tell me more about that.
Yeah.
When asked a question that maybe we don't always know the answer, it's the best opportunity to say, you know what, I'm actually not sure.
And it's OK to admit that.
I think sometimes people don't think it's OK to admit that, but it's totally OK to say, I don't know.
But why don't we try and discover this together and figure out what that answer is and whether it's right there in the moment, if you've got the time, open up the word and find it, or it's you go your own way.
(14:09):
And then the next time you meet, you say, hey, guess what?
I was reading out of whatever book in the Bible.
And I think this answers that question that we talked about the last time we got together.
Let's look at it together and go over that.
I think it's OK to do that.
I was discipling a young lady quite a few years now.
She grew up in the church, but she didn't know a lot about Scripture.
(14:33):
So it was very much, I go to church because it's what I'm supposed to do and my parents want me to go and all of that.
And then she's in her 30s and she's got kids and she's like, we should probably start going to church because we've got these little ones now and it's the right thing to do, right?
Like that concept of we should go because it's the right thing to do.
(14:54):
She discovered very quickly that she knew very little about Scripture.
She asked me, hey, could we go get coffee sometime?
Because I have some questions.
And she said, that's really funny.
She had written down over the last month of sermon messages that she heard in church and outside of church in her small group, what she was reading in her Bible.
(15:16):
And she wrote every question that came to mind.
And so I felt like she was just shooting them at me, you know, like question after question after question.
And some of them were as simple as is the Joseph in the Old Testament, so in Genesis, is that the same Joseph as Mary and Joseph?
So she was asking questions like that, very simple, but then other questions like, you know, I heard in this one message, the importance of commitment and being all in with Jesus.
(15:47):
What does that mean?
I don't understand what that means.
We just went question by question.
It was a beautifully long coffee date, but I loved it.
There were times even for me being in ministry for over 20 years, there were some questions she asked me, and I was like, that is a very good question.
I don't know.
I actually don't know the answer to that.
(16:08):
Being willing to admit that I think was actually good for her to see that you don't have to know everything in order to be able to sit down and have these kind of faith conversations with people.
And now to this day, she is now turning around and starting to disciple others.
And she's perfectly comfortable saying, I don't know the answer to that question, but I do think I read a story about it that might be related.
(16:35):
Let's look it up together.
And it's great because what I did, she was able to duplicate and not feel as afraid.
I would love if the church as a whole, the Big C church, if people would just be comfortable
admitting that they don't know everything, because I wonder if that's sometimes the biggest hurdle,
because if I don't know everything, either I look like a fool, or I feel that weight and that guilt
(17:00):
of not knowing what I supposedly should know, or they're just going to write me off as I don't
actually know what I'm talking about.
And it's like, no, I think if someone genuinely is learning and wants to know more, they're going to understand that you also want to learn and know more, and we're growing together.
(17:22):
That's the point.
I wish the Big C church was more comfortable with that conversation.
One of the other things that you touched on is the way that we might feel that people are not open to spiritual matters, specifically talking about those who traveled to your country, were involved in the oil industry, and it can be this very rough kind of place to be, and people put on this tough exterior.
(17:50):
We can mistake that for being not interested in spiritual things, and yet there is a spiritual hunger.
If we believe what the scripture says, there is a hunger within all of us.
It's just that it might present in a different way.
So how do we start to get over the fact that we've been sold the lie that people are not interested in Jesus, people are not interested in learning more about Him?
(18:16):
Yeah, I think especially here in the States, we have become very good at presenting ourselves as if we're okay when we're really not.
Even on the exterior, their face may show a lack of emotion, or the words that they're saying may try to convince you that everything is all good and dandy and they're fine, and be willing to ignore all of that and not be abrasive about it.
(18:49):
But just sometimes attempting to read the signs isn't the best way to do it, because people are so good at holding their cards close and not letting you see really what's going on.
For me, I was like, I'm not going to jump into getting to know someone for the sake of sharing the gospel.
(19:13):
I'm going to get to know someone because I want to get to know someone, because I want to make a new friend, because I see this person who's, in my case, a lot of it was wives that were staying at home with their children, and they're lonely, and they don't have friends.
And if I can start there, and I care more about their heart, they can see that.
(19:39):
And if they can see that, and I care about their heart, ultimately, it's going to come back to Jesus, right?
Because that is what I care most about.
But I'm not going to approach it like they're a project.
I'm going to approach it like this is a person who is lonely, and who needs a friend.
And you know what?
I can be that friend.
And while I'm at it, I can show them the love of Jesus while I'm being that friend.
(20:05):
And then we're just going to see where it goes.
And every opportunity I get when questions are
asked, or a story comes up, or a circumstance happens to come my way, where it gives me the
opportunity to either talk about scripture, or talk about something that happened at church last
week, or a conversation I had with my kid when I was putting them to bed the night before,
(20:29):
and it had to do with faith, I'm going to jump at the chance to share those.
And they're not going to think twice about it, because they already see this person cares about me.
I'm not just another person to check off their list.
And you know what, I'm going to take the time to listen to what they have to say.
And maybe, maybe I'll even have a question about it.
(20:51):
You know, if you approach it that way, I think it's a lot easier, less scary.
And you start to see that that exterior on the outside isn't necessarily what's actually happening on the inside.
You just have to earn their trust first.
It's often the case that we see this idea of sharing our faith as being, as you say, a project.
(21:13):
And we make people a project to share with.
And whether that turns into door knocking the neighborhood, or street evangelism, or all those things that certainly can have their place, we often forget that most of us actually know a number of people who don't yet know Jesus, that we have not actually shared Him with.
(21:36):
And we have the opportunity to continue to build bridges and introduce that topic.
How important is it for us to really take stock of our lives and say, who are the people in my life right now that I need to share faith with?
Yeah, I think it's super important.
And the reason why is because really, we need to look at our everyday rhythms.
(22:00):
And our everyday rhythms are filled with all kinds of people, from our kids as teachers, to our neighbors, to the mailman, to the person who makes my coffee every morning, if you're one that goes and gets coffee every morning, to the person who works at the gas station that I stop at every time I need gas.
In our everyday rhythms, we are surrounded by people that we see on a regular basis.
(22:26):
In my book, I mention a great resource, it's called zume.
And you can actually go online and look for it.
The website is zume.training. And there is a resource on there that's called the list of 100.
What they ask you to do is to go through your day and go through your week and think of every person that you interact with on a regular basis.
(22:50):
And we're talking every person.
And so sometimes you're like, 100 people, I don't see that many people, especially some of our farmers here in North Dakota, they're like, I maybe see like five people every week, you know, because they're out on the farm all week long.
So you make this list of all these people, and you think of every possible person that you see every week.
(23:15):
And then you have an opportunity to either mark them as you know that they are a believer, you know that they follow Christ, you may know for sure that they don't follow Christ, or you're not really sure, you don't know where they stand.
And so what they do is they suggest first to go through that list and anyone that you're not sure of, find out where they stand.
(23:37):
How you find that out can be just as unique as who the person is, but figure it out, ask the questions, invite them over for dinner, or take extra five minutes at the mailbox and talk with them and take some extra time to talk with them and figure out where they stand.
And then from there, you just start praying for opportunities for every person that's on your list that is marked as an unbeliever.
(24:06):
And you pray for opportunities.
And again, they're not a project, but these are people that are in your everyday rhythms already.
So what you're doing is you're just setting your heart right so that when you're with them, if the Holy Spirit begins to prick at your heart a little bit and say, Hey, hey, talk to them about this or bring this up or ask this question or share this story.
(24:30):
If you're attuned and ready and your heart is in the right place to hear from the Holy Spirit and to walk in obedience to that, I mean, the sky is the limit, right?
As long as we're working to be intentional.
And so this list of 100 helps you be intentional because you may have the largest heart when it comes to wanting those around you to come to know Christ.
(24:52):
But if you're not being intentional, then it's just not really going to go anywhere or it's going to be extremely slow moving.
And, you know, speed isn't necessarily what we're after, but we don't want it to take so long that it ends up being too late.
I know that the book that you've written is fairly fresh.
(25:12):
So there hasn't been a huge amount of people who've had the opportunity to read it so far, but of course the principles in it, you've been trying to outwork for some time.
So for those who have read the book or those that you've been working with, and you've already touched on a couple of the people that you've talked to about these principles, it must be incredibly empowering for them to realize they get to be about their Father's business.
(25:38):
They actually have a part to play in seeing the kingdom grow.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, there's nothing more scary than giving your book to someone that you know well and ask them to read it and tell you what they think.
One of my pastor friends said, it's like giving them your baby and having them tell you where it's ugly.
(26:02):
It was so true, but I absolutely loved writing it because it's geared towards leaders, ministry leaders, lay leaders in the church.
That's who the main audience is.
Anybody really could read it and get something out of it, but that's mostly who I'm speaking to.
I just have such a heart to see churches thrive in this area of discipleship because we've done such a good job of making discipleship a program.
(26:32):
And while there is a place for discipleship programming, I think we have forgotten the importance of the one-on-one discipleship as well.
And so I just want to see churches thrive in that area.
But I think the first step to that is that their leaders are also doing one-on-one discipleship and not for the sake of growing their ministry departments, not for the sake of growing their team, but for the sake of people knowing Jesus, right?
(27:03):
I mean, that's why we went into ministry to begin with.
One thing that was really nice is I had a friend tell me that the stories that I shared, because I did a lot of storytelling in the book, really started to make them think, man, you know, I could do this.
I haven't been doing this, but I could do this.
(27:24):
I thought I didn't have enough time, because you hear that story a lot.
Pastors, especially in larger communities, are very busy.
They can fall into that trap of believing that they just don't have enough time.
One-on-one discipleship, I'd rather just have a group and we all meet together like a small group and do it that way, because then I can get more for my money, so to speak, right?
(27:47):
But I think there's so much value in that one-on-one, but they feel that pressure of, but if I do that, how in the world are we going to be able to reach everybody?
I can't reach everybody.
And it's like, well, no, you can't.
But let's say you meet with two people for a year, and then each of those people the next year meet with two people.
All of a sudden you have multiplied from two to six.
(28:12):
The next year, if each of them do two, and it multiplies quickly, and all of a sudden what seems so small a few years down the road, you're reaching a whole percentage of your community.
He had told me, your stories made me realize that this isn't as big of a deal as I've made it in my head.
I've built this in my head where we get together and we go through a curriculum together, and I answer all their questions about Scripture.
(28:39):
And it's like, well, no, it's literally getting to know someone, show them that you love them, read the Bible together, discuss what stuck out to us, what in the story helped us see God's character, what in the story helped us see our own character, what can I learn from it, and then who can I share it with in the next week.
(29:00):
That's all it is.
It's not this overthought out process.
And so I appreciated hearing that, especially from one of my early readers.
And so yeah, I got a lot of good feedback from that, and I can't wait to hear more as more people have a chance to dive into it.
Sara, the book I mentioned before is Leading Spiritual Hoarders, Creating a Culture of Disciples Who Make Disciples.
(29:25):
And I'm sure it's going to be a book that will really open things up for leaders.
But also, as you mentioned, if you're just a Christian who wants to share your faith, there's things in there that are going to help you.
And I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net and to your website so that people can find you easily.
(29:46):
But I just want to say thank you so much for what you've written, for taking the time to actually do it in practice so that we know, yeah, we can do this, and for sharing some time with us today.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
(30:06):
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome.
I'm so glad you've found Bleeding Daylight and the incredible stories of hope we share.
If you've been inspired, help others find Bleeding Daylight too.
(00:31):
Spread the word on social media or just tell a friend.
Who will you tell today?
When we gather with friends, we discuss a range of life issues and yet so often, we find it difficult to talk about matters of faith and belief.
Why is that?
And are there simple ways to reach out to those around us with the things of life that really matter?
(00:52):
Today's guest has some practical suggestions.
Today's guest is Sara Dangerfield, a pastor, author and passionate advocate for discipleship who brings fresh perspectives from her ministry experience across America's heartland.
(01:16):
Together with her husband, Sara has spent over two decades in ministry serving communities and gaining experiences that have given her unique insights into the challenges and opportunities facing modern churches.
She is the author of Leading Spiritual Hoarders, Creating a Culture of Disciples Who Make Disciples.
(01:37):
Sara brings a grounded, relatable approach to spiritual formation and church leadership.
I'm so pleased that she is joining me today.
Sara, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you so much for having me.
And man, what an introduction.
You make me sound like I know what I'm doing.
Well, we'll find out.
(01:57):
Within the next half hour, we'll find out.
I love the idea behind your book.
I'm looking forward to exploring the reasons that you wrote it and hearing some of the lessons that we can all learn.
But before we do, I'm wondering if you can tell me who makes up your household.
Tell me a little about your life.
Oh, yeah, definitely.
My husband's name is Dan and we've been married for almost 21 years now.
(02:21):
We were very young, just out of college when we got married and jumped right into children's ministry.
And then we do have three kids.
Our daughter, Anna, is 16.
We have two boys.
Ethan is 14 and Caleb is 12.
And they keep us very busy.
Now, I understand that your early years of ministry together with your husband was in youth ministry, which is always a lot of fun, but provides its own challenges, doesn't it?
(02:51):
It sure does.
It sure does.
So we were kids pastors and we worked, depending on the school district we were in, in the communities that we served in, we worked with babies to fifth or sixth grade.
And anyone who serves in ministry knows that the kids department has more volunteers than any other department in the church.
We went in because we loved kids and we learned very quickly that it had more to do with management and working with adults.
(03:21):
We still got all that time with the kids that we loved, but there were challenges because we, at the beginning, didn't feel as prepared as we thought we were coming out of college.
A lot of that work with kids, it's almost like, hey, someone else look after the kids while we do the serious stuff.
And yet it's in those early years that the spiritual formation can often take place.
(03:43):
So you're being handed a very big responsibility, aren't you?
Oh yeah, definitely.
We tell adults and we tell parents all the time that we believe kids are capable of understanding who Jesus is and understanding scripture just as well as an adult.
And we even say there's no junior Holy Spirit.
He is available for every age.
(04:05):
And so we want to teach the kids appropriately because they can understand way more than we give them credit for when it comes to spiritual matters.
Now, it has been said that the church is the only institution that exists primarily for the benefit of those who are not its members.
And yet we know that that's so often not the case.
And I guess that's really the heart behind your book saying, hey, it's not just about sitting down and soaking it up, but actually we've got something to do, don't we?
(04:36):
Oh yeah.
When you're serving with kids, especially, it's so easy to tell kids, hey, when you get the opportunity to talk with your friends, right?
You got school lunch that you can talk with them.
You could talk with them on the playground.
You can talk with your neighbors when you're playing outside or you have a friend over or a kid who's on your baseball team.
(04:57):
And kids are like, oh yeah, I could do that.
And they just jump on board right away.
But then you mention it to adults and you get the answers of, but what if I don't have an answer to their question?
Or what if I don't understand enough to be able to share?
Or I'm not a professional.
And so when scripture talks about the faith like a child, I think we also need to take the approach of being willing to share the gospel from the attitude of a child, right?
(05:27):
Like kids are so open to just talk about whatever because they haven't had those experiences of rejection or whatever the case might be that maybe adults have had.
I wish it wasn't the case, but unfortunately it is, especially in the American context that I know.
I really want to start seeing that change.
The desire to write the book, to talk about the fact that we all have a part to play in reaching people for the kingdom really came about through your own ministry experience.
(05:58):
Tell me, when did you first start to see these markers within the churches you were serving that made you say something is not quite right?
It was actually in the second church that we served in.
The first church we served in was actually the church my husband grew up in.
And so I kind of jumped in not knowing anybody and not knowing how everything was run there.
(06:20):
And my husband hit the ground running and I'm trying to catch up.
So by the time we got to our next church and we're able to start together, I lived in a town called Williston, North Dakota.
And this was the epicenter of the height of the oil boom in 2010 here in the United States.
And so we had people coming from all over the place.
(06:44):
I mean, we're not just talking all the states.
We had people coming from all over the world to come and work, whether it was oil field related, or they were coming because the community lost all of its workforce because they all went to the oil field.
We had all these cute young ladies from different Asian countries that came and worked McDonald's to learn English.
(07:09):
And that was quite comical.
But I absolutely loved having them there because learning the culture and where they came from and helping them adapt to our culture.
What I discovered was these people are coming from everywhere.
And a lot of them that I was meeting who were at least visiting the church trying to find a home church that fit for them.
(07:30):
They were coming from all different Christian church backgrounds, different denominations.
And we know even within denominations, depending on where you're at, the church may be different because of the region or the culture of the region.
I was finding that there were a lot of people coming who knew about Jesus.
They knew that the Bible was important, but they had no idea what their role was when it came to Christianity and their faith.
(07:59):
So they would come and they would find a church and find their community.
And then they would just stay within that community.
At first, I didn't think a whole lot of it because everyone's moving from everywhere.
They don't know anybody.
They're trying to create a family that isn't family, but kind of like a family.
And I mean, we were doing the same exact thing.
(08:21):
But then when I would sit down and have coffee with somebody and talk about what their life was like growing up, what their role was in their previous church, like what were they involved in?
What's their hope in this new place and in this new state?
What is their hope when it comes to not just their faith, but their relationship with other people?
(08:43):
I was discovering that next to none of them were interested in sharing their faith with other people.
Part of that might have had to do with the oil field can sometimes bring a pretty rough and tough crew, and you have a different demographic flooding into a community.
But I couldn't help but think, with this rough and tough community, who needs it more?
(09:05):
Who needs to hear the gospel more?
They're coming from all these desperate situations, whether because they made poor financial choices and now they're trying to get themselves out of a hole, or they're just chasing the next best opportunity, or their family dynamics were not well, and they basically ran away to the oil field.
(09:26):
There were so many different stories, and I was sitting there thinking to myself, but who better to share the gospel with than these people and these families who are hurting, silently hurting?
It was just interesting to me because I was like, all of you that I am talking to grew up in the church, yet you have no desire to share the best news that anybody could ever hear.
(09:50):
And it was surprising to me.
Maybe it shouldn't have been surprising, but as kids pastors, we were mostly with kids and their parents, and we weren't necessarily seeing the church as a whole.
Kids ministry, we get hidden in our section of the church, and we don't always get to talk to everybody.
(10:10):
But the more I got to know people in the community, the more I was like, there's something way off balance here.
Even now in the location that we're at now, I'm still seeing it.
So it wasn't just because of where we were living and the circumstances, but it seems to be, from what I've witnessed, and then talking to other friends, this is an epidemic.
(10:32):
We have Christians who don't want to share the best news.
We have, within the scripture, we have the great commandment, which is to throw everything we have at loving God and then loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.
And it's not really loving if we know that an eternity awaits that they could experience.
We're not telling them.
But also the great commission, which is to go out and make disciples.
(10:55):
And yet you've touched on a couple of the reasons that we don't embrace that, such as, well, I'm not a professional, and we have somehow professionalized this idea of reaching out to people.
And so, hey, maybe a pastor or a paid evangelist or these specialist people, they're the ones that get to share faith.
(11:17):
And yet we've lost the ability for us to tell our own story.
How do we start to reclaim that?
I like to tell people a lot that our story is a piece of God's story.
If our piece isn't shared, then there's basically a hole in the big God story that's not being shared.
(11:40):
And so it's like you're not getting the whole picture.
We can start to see God's story as something that is so big and so unattainable that we start to see our piece to that story is insignificant.
But our piece to the story is extremely significant, because our story is what's going to affect others in a positive way.
(12:02):
I always say, even if it feels like the most insignificant thing, something that seems so small, it needs to be shared.
And even for those who've grown up in the church their whole life and haven't maybe experienced as many hardships, because I think we can believe the lie that a testimony has to have previous hardships.
(12:25):
I tell people the best testimony is one of someone who grew up in the church.
Thank goodness for the faithfulness of your parents in the generations before them, that you didn't have to experience those hardships.
Even the most what we feel is insignificant is a piece that needs to be shared.
(12:46):
And so that's usually where I start.
And then I just ask pointed questions.
If I met them in a small group, what was your your first experience walking into a small group?
Or you told me about this elderly neighbor that invited you over for tea, tell me a little bit more about them and how they shared Jesus with you or whatever the case might be.
The more you start to ask questions, it's almost like you can see the lights turn on of, oh, I do have things to share.
(13:13):
And it's like, yes, yes, you do.
You do have things that people need to hear.
And one of the other things that you touched on earlier, too, is that we believe the enemy's lie that we need to know everything.
We need to be able to answer every question.
And yet what you're saying is we need to be able to tell our story where we are at this point.
(13:37):
Tell me more about that.
Yeah.
When asked a question that maybe we don't always know the answer, it's the best opportunity to say, you know what, I'm actually not sure.
And it's OK to admit that.
I think sometimes people don't think it's OK to admit that, but it's totally OK to say, I don't know.
But why don't we try and discover this together and figure out what that answer is and whether it's right there in the moment, if you've got the time, open up the word and find it, or it's you go your own way.
(14:09):
And then the next time you meet, you say, hey, guess what?
I was reading out of whatever book in the Bible.
And I think this answers that question that we talked about the last time we got together.
Let's look at it together and go over that.
I think it's OK to do that.
I was discipling a young lady quite a few years now.
She grew up in the church, but she didn't know a lot about Scripture.
(14:33):
So it was very much, I go to church because it's what I'm supposed to do and my parents want me to go and all of that.
And then she's in her 30s and she's got kids and she's like, we should probably start going to church because we've got these little ones now and it's the right thing to do, right?
Like that concept of we should go because it's the right thing to do.
(14:54):
She discovered very quickly that she knew very little about Scripture.
She asked me, hey, could we go get coffee sometime?
Because I have some questions.
And she said, that's really funny.
She had written down over the last month of sermon messages that she heard in church and outside of church in her small group, what she was reading in her Bible.
(15:16):
And she wrote every question that came to mind.
And so I felt like she was just shooting them at me, you know, like question after question after question.
And some of them were as simple as is the Joseph in the Old Testament, so in Genesis, is that the same Joseph as Mary and Joseph?
So she was asking questions like that, very simple, but then other questions like, you know, I heard in this one message, the importance of commitment and being all in with Jesus.
(15:47):
What does that mean?
I don't understand what that means.
We just went question by question.
It was a beautifully long coffee date, but I loved it.
There were times even for me being in ministry for over 20 years, there were some questions she asked me, and I was like, that is a very good question.
I don't know.
I actually don't know the answer to that.
(16:08):
Being willing to admit that I think was actually good for her to see that you don't have to know everything in order to be able to sit down and have these kind of faith conversations with people.
And now to this day, she is now turning around and starting to disciple others.
And she's perfectly comfortable saying, I don't know the answer to that question, but I do think I read a story about it that might be related.
(16:35):
Let's look it up together.
And it's great because what I did, she was able to duplicate and not feel as afraid.
I would love if the church as a whole, the Big C church, if people would just be comfortable
admitting that they don't know everything, because I wonder if that's sometimes the biggest hurdle,
because if I don't know everything, either I look like a fool, or I feel that weight and that guilt
(17:00):
of not knowing what I supposedly should know, or they're just going to write me off as I don't
actually know what I'm talking about.
And it's like, no, I think if someone genuinely is learning and wants to know more, they're going to understand that you also want to learn and know more, and we're growing together.
(17:22):
That's the point.
I wish the Big C church was more comfortable with that conversation.
One of the other things that you touched on is the way that we might feel that people are not open to spiritual matters, specifically talking about those who traveled to your country, were involved in the oil industry, and it can be this very rough kind of place to be, and people put on this tough exterior.
(17:50):
We can mistake that for being not interested in spiritual things, and yet there is a spiritual hunger.
If we believe what the scripture says, there is a hunger within all of us.
It's just that it might present in a different way.
So how do we start to get over the fact that we've been sold the lie that people are not interested in Jesus, people are not interested in learning more about Him?
(18:16):
Yeah, I think especially here in the States, we have become very good at presenting ourselves as if we're okay when we're really not.
Even on the exterior, their face may show a lack of emotion, or the words that they're saying may try to convince you that everything is all good and dandy and they're fine, and be willing to ignore all of that and not be abrasive about it.
(18:49):
But just sometimes attempting to read the signs isn't the best way to do it, because people are so good at holding their cards close and not letting you see really what's going on.
For me, I was like, I'm not going to jump into getting to know someone for the sake of sharing the gospel.
(19:13):
I'm going to get to know someone because I want to get to know someone, because I want to make a new friend, because I see this person who's, in my case, a lot of it was wives that were staying at home with their children, and they're lonely, and they don't have friends.
And if I can start there, and I care more about their heart, they can see that.
(19:39):
And if they can see that, and I care about their heart, ultimately, it's going to come back to Jesus, right?
Because that is what I care most about.
But I'm not going to approach it like they're a project.
I'm going to approach it like this is a person who is lonely, and who needs a friend.
And you know what?
I can be that friend.
And while I'm at it, I can show them the love of Jesus while I'm being that friend.
(20:05):
And then we're just going to see where it goes.
And every opportunity I get when questions are
asked, or a story comes up, or a circumstance happens to come my way, where it gives me the
opportunity to either talk about scripture, or talk about something that happened at church last
week, or a conversation I had with my kid when I was putting them to bed the night before,
(20:29):
and it had to do with faith, I'm going to jump at the chance to share those.
And they're not going to think twice about it, because they already see this person cares about me.
I'm not just another person to check off their list.
And you know what, I'm going to take the time to listen to what they have to say.
And maybe, maybe I'll even have a question about it.
(20:51):
You know, if you approach it that way, I think it's a lot easier, less scary.
And you start to see that that exterior on the outside isn't necessarily what's actually happening on the inside.
You just have to earn their trust first.
It's often the case that we see this idea of sharing our faith as being, as you say, a project.
(21:13):
And we make people a project to share with.
And whether that turns into door knocking the neighborhood, or street evangelism, or all those things that certainly can have their place, we often forget that most of us actually know a number of people who don't yet know Jesus, that we have not actually shared Him with.
(21:36):
And we have the opportunity to continue to build bridges and introduce that topic.
How important is it for us to really take stock of our lives and say, who are the people in my life right now that I need to share faith with?
Yeah, I think it's super important.
And the reason why is because really, we need to look at our everyday rhythms.
(22:00):
And our everyday rhythms are filled with all kinds of people, from our kids as teachers, to our neighbors, to the mailman, to the person who makes my coffee every morning, if you're one that goes and gets coffee every morning, to the person who works at the gas station that I stop at every time I need gas.
In our everyday rhythms, we are surrounded by people that we see on a regular basis.
(22:26):
In my book, I mention a great resource, it's called zume.
And you can actually go online and look for it.
The website is zume.training. And there is a resource on there that's called the list of 100.
What they ask you to do is to go through your day and go through your week and think of every person that you interact with on a regular basis.
(22:50):
And we're talking every person.
And so sometimes you're like, 100 people, I don't see that many people, especially some of our farmers here in North Dakota, they're like, I maybe see like five people every week, you know, because they're out on the farm all week long.
So you make this list of all these people, and you think of every possible person that you see every week.
(23:15):
And then you have an opportunity to either mark them as you know that they are a believer, you know that they follow Christ, you may know for sure that they don't follow Christ, or you're not really sure, you don't know where they stand.
And so what they do is they suggest first to go through that list and anyone that you're not sure of, find out where they stand.
(23:37):
How you find that out can be just as unique as who the person is, but figure it out, ask the questions, invite them over for dinner, or take extra five minutes at the mailbox and talk with them and take some extra time to talk with them and figure out where they stand.
And then from there, you just start praying for opportunities for every person that's on your list that is marked as an unbeliever.
(24:06):
And you pray for opportunities.
And again, they're not a project, but these are people that are in your everyday rhythms already.
So what you're doing is you're just setting your heart right so that when you're with them, if the Holy Spirit begins to prick at your heart a little bit and say, Hey, hey, talk to them about this or bring this up or ask this question or share this story.
(24:30):
If you're attuned and ready and your heart is in the right place to hear from the Holy Spirit and to walk in obedience to that, I mean, the sky is the limit, right?
As long as we're working to be intentional.
And so this list of 100 helps you be intentional because you may have the largest heart when it comes to wanting those around you to come to know Christ.
(24:52):
But if you're not being intentional, then it's just not really going to go anywhere or it's going to be extremely slow moving.
And, you know, speed isn't necessarily what we're after, but we don't want it to take so long that it ends up being too late.
I know that the book that you've written is fairly fresh.
(25:12):
So there hasn't been a huge amount of people who've had the opportunity to read it so far, but of course the principles in it, you've been trying to outwork for some time.
So for those who have read the book or those that you've been working with, and you've already touched on a couple of the people that you've talked to about these principles, it must be incredibly empowering for them to realize they get to be about their Father's business.
(25:38):
They actually have a part to play in seeing the kingdom grow.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, there's nothing more scary than giving your book to someone that you know well and ask them to read it and tell you what they think.
One of my pastor friends said, it's like giving them your baby and having them tell you where it's ugly.
(26:02):
It was so true, but I absolutely loved writing it because it's geared towards leaders, ministry leaders, lay leaders in the church.
That's who the main audience is.
Anybody really could read it and get something out of it, but that's mostly who I'm speaking to.
I just have such a heart to see churches thrive in this area of discipleship because we've done such a good job of making discipleship a program.
(26:32):
And while there is a place for discipleship programming, I think we have forgotten the importance of the one-on-one discipleship as well.
And so I just want to see churches thrive in that area.
But I think the first step to that is that their leaders are also doing one-on-one discipleship and not for the sake of growing their ministry departments, not for the sake of growing their team, but for the sake of people knowing Jesus, right?
(27:03):
I mean, that's why we went into ministry to begin with.
One thing that was really nice is I had a friend tell me that the stories that I shared, because I did a lot of storytelling in the book, really started to make them think, man, you know, I could do this.
I haven't been doing this, but I could do this.
(27:24):
I thought I didn't have enough time, because you hear that story a lot.
Pastors, especially in larger communities, are very busy.
They can fall into that trap of believing that they just don't have enough time.
One-on-one discipleship, I'd rather just have a group and we all meet together like a small group and do it that way, because then I can get more for my money, so to speak, right?
(27:47):
But I think there's so much value in that one-on-one, but they feel that pressure of, but if I do that, how in the world are we going to be able to reach everybody?
I can't reach everybody.
And it's like, well, no, you can't.
But let's say you meet with two people for a year, and then each of those people the next year meet with two people.
All of a sudden you have multiplied from two to six.
(28:12):
The next year, if each of them do two, and it multiplies quickly, and all of a sudden what seems so small a few years down the road, you're reaching a whole percentage of your community.
He had told me, your stories made me realize that this isn't as big of a deal as I've made it in my head.
I've built this in my head where we get together and we go through a curriculum together, and I answer all their questions about Scripture.
(28:39):
And it's like, well, no, it's literally getting to know someone, show them that you love them, read the Bible together, discuss what stuck out to us, what in the story helped us see God's character, what in the story helped us see our own character, what can I learn from it, and then who can I share it with in the next week.
(29:00):
That's all it is.
It's not this overthought out process.
And so I appreciated hearing that, especially from one of my early readers.
And so yeah, I got a lot of good feedback from that, and I can't wait to hear more as more people have a chance to dive into it.
Sara, the book I mentioned before is Leading Spiritual Hoarders, Creating a Culture of Disciples Who Make Disciples.
(29:25):
And I'm sure it's going to be a book that will really open things up for leaders.
But also, as you mentioned, if you're just a Christian who wants to share your faith, there's things in there that are going to help you.
And I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net and to your website so that people can find you easily.
(29:46):
But I just want to say thank you so much for what you've written, for taking the time to actually do it in practice so that we know, yeah, we can do this, and for sharing some time with us today.
I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
(30:06):
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