Season 3 Episode 2

Hi, I'm Alex. And I'm Brenda. Welcome to Conversational Counseling where counseling and discipleship meet, but really pause and slow down and think about what Jesus is asking, what he's saying, how he moves towards people. In the Old Testament, the way we see God move towards his people over and over again because again, Until we really know how to receive it from the Lord, we're not gonna be able to let it flow through us to other people.

Well, welcome back. This is, uh, season three, episode two, where we're talking about personal ministry, and today we're gonna kind of give a model of personal ministry. After our last episode, we recap, or I wanna do a little recap of our last episode where we talked about preparing our. Us for personal ministry.

And Brenda, you recently returned from Israel, and so you're, you're interjecting instead of fire hosting us, you're interjecting, uh, different lessons that you learned from your Israel trip. And I really loved the, the metaphor that God prepares us. In the wilderness, that it is the wilderness that is a, is a place of preparation and, um, equipping for personal ministry.

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna continue to try not to fire hose, but interject a little bit more of that in this lesson as well. But, um, you know, today we're really just gonna be talking about a model for personal ministry and what are some of the, the elements, um, that we find in the scriptures. And I think, you know, in our first, um, Uh, episode we really tried to hit home that ministry is to us before it's through us.

Mm-hmm. Um, and what has prepared us most, Alex has not been great lessons and books and lectures and podcasts and sermons, although all of those are great, but it's the application of God's word and through his Holy Spirit to our life lived out, um, in a way that's authentic and real in community.

Community, first of all, being our family. So, um, if you haven't listened to it, go back because it's very foundational for what we're gonna say next. Mm-hmm. But, um, yeah. I'd like to go back to Israel for a moment, if you'll just go with me there. To the ancient paths that we traveled, some of that were, were as old as paths that Abraham actually Wow.

Walked on, which is pretty amazing. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And while we were in the desert, our guide Marty did this lesson on. 16 and, um, it was actually the first memory verse that I memorized when I got back. I'm, I'm gonna try to memorize, I'm gonna try to say it from memory now. Stand at the crossroads and no, I'm not gonna be able to do this.

Stand at the crossroads and look, ask for the ancient path. Ask where the good way is and walk in it and you will find rest for your soul. Very good. Thank you. I appreciate a gold star. Um, well, the thing is, we know from the scriptures that Jesus is the path. As we begin to go along in the scriptures, we learn and we know that he's the good way.

And he knows that he's the, an we know that he's the ancient of days and he invites us to follow him. Now, um, you have to remember when we. Down into the desert. I had just gotten off a really nice air conditioned bus. Mm-hmm. And the, the way we were on was this really nice new highway. Mm-hmm. So it was quite the contrast in my mind because as I'm standing there at the ancient path in the desert, in the heat, with the dust in the sand, I'm remembering Wow.

There was kind of a shortcut up there and it's. Seem like an easier path. And honestly, that's the path I often prefer in my Christian walk. Mm-hmm. Um, but there's a reason why we need to consider the ancient path, not only because it provides rest for ourselves, Alex, but it provides the rest for the souls around us as well.

So along the path, there's a lot of rock. And of course, like I, I said the Israel is not so much like a flat land of desert, but it's more mountainous with a lot of rocks. And so there's all these little pebbles and you gotta climb over and around. And even on the ancient roads, it's not like they're these, you know, smooth, just really smooth highways.

Mm-hmm. Um, And so the rabbis call, uh, all of these little rocks, big rocks, little rocks, they call 'em stones of stumbling. Mm-hmm. And, um, they represent the hardships in our lives. Uh, but the thing that really makes the ancient path walkable. You look at the, the path and you think like, wow, how is it still here?

Like, how did it get started? It got started because people started walking that path and more people came behind them and more people came behind them. And so, What we really begin to, to realize is that the path we take matters. Mm-hmm. Because God has a path he wants us to follow, but along those, we walk that path not just for us, we walk it for the people who are coming behind us.

Mm-hmm. We're walking it so we can clear some of that rubble away. So we can kick it off with our toes or throw it away with our hands or, or understand how we're gonna get over it or around. And so to me it was just a great lesson. Um, and it was really interesting. At the end of that lesson, one of the things I'll remember, uh, for a long time is our, our lecturer, our our, um, Marty, um, at the end he stopped talking and he just starts taking off down.

The trail. Mm-hmm. And we're all just sitting there and he starts just throwing rocks off the path and kicking them out of the way. And it took us a little while, like he had to get around the corner where we couldn't see him, that we realized that we were supposed to be behind him, that he was clearing the trail for us.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And he wanted us to follow him and begin clearing the trail as well. And so it was a powerful lesson. And, um, as we think about this idea of a model for personal ministry and how much our lives are impacted first, and then we begin to impact other people, can you think of a situation, maybe a time in your life, a path that you've been called to walk to follow the Lord?

Maybe a hard path, but you know, somebody who's gone before you that has made it a little bit easier. Well, Brenda, That's you. Oh my. Yes. I just think about it. I mean, you really, when we, when we think about, um, women's ministry in Montgomery, specifically biblical counseling, you went ahead of all of us, and I distinctly remember.

Um, not seeing you often, but running into you in some key places and having one or two burning questions that I just No. I particularly remember after the first year of counseling and you know, that first year is tough. Mm-hmm. And you feel completely unequipped and you feel like you will be crushed under the weight of other people's stories and.

Suffering. And I remember running into you at an event and I looked at you and I said, Brenda, does it ever get easier to carry this? And you said, yes, it, I promise you that the Lord is going to increase. Your faith muscles and increase your ability to hold other people's suffering. And so in so many key places, I just remember, whether it be specifically biblical counseling or women's ministry, like you placed a trail, not just for me, but for many other women to come behind and to, um, to you.

Did you smoothed the path, you made it seem possible to minister within and outside our home. And you offered really some key encouragement and some key times. Aw. Thank you Alex. That really blesses me. I really, I didn't know she was gonna say that. That's right. That's, that's true. That's really sweet.

That's, well, thank you. And I too have people that have gone before me, whether it's in marriage or parenting or personal, you know, professional ministry or just what, whatever, I think we can all think of those people and so we could say that what has happened in our lives is those people have ministered to us.

Yeah. Um, and ministry is a beautiful word. You know, we think about ministry, uh, one of the ways I like to look. And it really is, ministry is God's plan to bring peace to the chaos of the world, one life at a time. And he uses us, he invites us to partner with him. Mm. Um, and you know, a lot of what's. And chaos.

Our relationships, our relationship with him and our relationship with other people. Yeah. Yeah. I think about several years ago, taking some classes with Westminster's Seminary and they continued to refer to us as ministers, and we even had to write reflection papers of what it meant to be ministers. And I was growing increasingly uncomfortable with that word being applied to me because I really did have a paradigm that minister meant pastor.

It meant elder, and it meant man. And so as a woman, I, I was really uncomfortable. Thinking of myself as a minister, and I really had to sit with the term for a long time and really think about what it means in the scriptures. First of all, the word minister, just the D dictionary definition means to attend to the needs of others.

And so that gave me a little bit more comfort that, I mean, I'm attending to the needs of others right inside my own home, and I'm doing that in my friendships and I'm doing that within my local. So grew a little bit more comfortable with the idea of a minister, and then just remembering an old memory verse of mine, which is first Peter 29, talking about the fact that we are a royal priesthood and really recognizing that that royal priesthood is, is not just applying to men.

Peter was not just talking to men, and that I could really rest in the fact that it was okay to call myself a minister of the gospel because, um, Because that's what God called me to be. And so, um, we are described as disciples, we're described as saints, we're described as ministers and we're also described.

Another term I love is ambassadors of Christ. Mm-hmm. That in Second Corinthians spies, you know, that we are making an appeal. We're not just ministering to people's needs in the sense of physical needs, which is what we tend to think of first, but also spiritual. And the way that we do that is that we appeal to people to return to God.

That's what two Corinthians five says. That is ambassadors. We appeal to someone to return to God. So we talk a lot about, bring someone's story into God's story, bring um, someone's actions into God's paradigms. And so all we're, we're always calling out to people. Um, and, and wanting to meet their physical needs, but also wanting to meet their spiritual needs.

And their biggest spiritual need is to return to the God who created them. Hmm. And I love that because I think we see in the scriptures clearly that that is God's appeal. Mm-hmm. Whether we're suffering or whether we're sinning, that God's appeal is returned to me. Return to me. Mm-hmm. Return to me.

Mm-hmm. I love you. I want you, you belong to me. Return to me. Yeah. And so, yeah. It's so great to think too, Brendan, to go back to your ancient paths, like the ancient paths are going somewhere. Yeah. And they're, they're, they're leading, they're leading us somewhere and, and they're leading us back to God.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, well I think, you know, the goal of this podcast series is really that we wanna convince our listeners that they are ministers. Mm-hmm. They are ministers who are called to do personal ministry, and, uh, we're gonna be discussing something that. You know, we, we call it biblical methodology for conversational counseling.

Um, and our methodology is really gonna flow from our theology, our understanding of who God is and how he ministers to us, and how we see him ministering to others. Yeah. And we wanna be careful to say that we're giving a methodology, we're giving different elements of personal ministry, but we're not saying that there's one right way to do this.

I know, um, our mentor who trained us, used to say, there are a thousand biblical ways to skin a cat. Is that the way he used to say that? Yeah. And so there are a lot of right ways to do this. We're just trying to give some frameworks and some structures. It doesn't seem so ambiguous when we talk about ministering.

And, um, we also wanna make an emphasis not just on methodology, but also on the fact that we're specifically talking about personal ministry and we're contrasting that with public ministry. We participate in the public ministry of the word. When we go to church on Sunday, maybe when we go to a Bible study.

These are places where people gather to worship and hear the. Preached or taught personal ministry is gonna happen in these one-on-one relationships where we are applying God's word to our hearts first and then applying it to the person who is beside us. Yeah. And I was really thinking, um, I guess we really have three aspects of ministry.

The private ministry is where God ministers to us. Right. And then yeah, personal, we're ministering to others. And then public is, like we said, more of the. Written of ministry. Yeah. So, you know, we talk about a biblical methodology and the only reason we have any confidence to say that is because the elements that we're gonna talk about, we see in the Bible.

Mm-hmm. We see the Trinity, um, actually using all of these elements and so we, we really have a pattern that we can follow. Um, as we look to the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit, and, and to your point, we're not saying that, you know, as, as this is gonna unfold, this isn't like, do want Yeah, do this first, do the second.

We're gonna see that there's a lot of intermingling back and forth, but hopefully when you begin to. Think about, uh, what I'm hoping this, this series will do is kind of demystify, right? Um, this sense of like, you have to know certain things, be trained maybe in a certain way. Like we're gonna, we're just kind of, kind of unfold that so we can have a clearer picture like, this is work that God has given us to do because this is work that God Himself has done for us and shows us how to.

Right. So yeah, so we're, we're looking into scriptures. We're seeing first the heart of God towards us. We're seeing the ways that he ministers to us as individuals and applying that to other people and the means that he uses for how we walk with people. And so we see that in the Trinity. We see the Trinity.

Um, intentionally engaging us as believers, um, in very personal ways. So we see God the Father, creating a home and promising to take us home with him and that he's active in our lives from the time that he calls us until the time that he takes us home, he hears our prayers, he interacts with us. Uh, we see the sun, um, we see that Jesus came to our home.

I love, um, Eugene Peterson's translation in the message is that the word became flesh and dwell and came to live in our neighborhood. Mm-hmm. Like he came to our homes, he pursued us. He showed us what it looks like to, um, move towards people because he moved towards us first. He really is God with us. And then we see the Holy Spirit who makes us home in our hearts.

We no longer have to go to the tabernacle or go to the temple to commune with God, but Jesus left us and he left us with the Spirit indwelling us. And so the spirit. Um, God making his home with us. And so we see the Trinity interacting with us in these deeply personal and intentional ways. Mm-hmm. And I love the imagery of home, Alex, you know, looking at, in each one of those, each member of the Trinity, you really touched on the homeness, if I can, if I can say it that way.

But if we think about how. Supposed to be, and I know now all of our listeners have experienced this, and so Jesus is inviting them into a different view of home. A home, um, is a place where there's safety and belonging and provision and rest, and I think one of the. Really good questions we can ask ourselves is, are others at home with us?

Mm. Are others at home with us? Um mm-hmm. Do we, do we feel safe? Mm-hmm. Um, do people know that they're protected? That they belong? They can find rest if they spend time with us. And, you know, I also just think about maybe we can reflect, I would encourage everybody to reflect on maybe some people they see.

Um, that welcomingness, that hospitality of personhood. A person who is truly a hospital for sinners and sufferers would be a great opportunity to go back and really, um, tell them, you, you bless God for them. Mm-hmm. And that you're thankful for them. I think we've all been with people who, who feel. Like they're at home with their, with us.

And, um, one of the low lights of my parenting years, one of the saddest moments is when my daughter was bed in the ninth or 10th grade at that time. And she was, you know, having some pretty, what I'm gonna call normal ninth and 10th grade struggles. And we weren't very happy with her. And I'll just never forget being in the kitchen.

I can just see it in my mind's eyes so clearly. And she's just crying. And she turns around and she looks at me, Alex, and she said, this home is not a safe place to fail. Hmm. Like it, it's. It's not home. Mm-hmm. If it's not a safe place to fail. Mm-hmm. So, um, you know, I just think that we wanna be a safe place for people that when they come to us with their sin, we're not shocked when they come to us with their suffering.

Mm-hmm. Um, we wanna bail because we're just overwhelmed. We wanna be home. So I hope everybody will catch that vision. I wanna read this quote, cuz I think it sums up what you're saying, Brenda. This is Shauna Nyquist and. People aren't longing to be impressed. They're longing to feel like they're home. If you create a space full of love and character and creativity and soul, they'll take off their shoes and curl up with gratitude and rest, no matter how small, no matter how undone, no matter how odd.

I love that. Love that. It's just this picture of a safe place to be who I am. Yeah, that's it. And the Lord comes to us just as we are. Mm-hmm. Um, he loves us just the way we are, but too much to leave us that way. Thank the Lord. Mm-hmm. So, well listen, let's talk about some of the elements in our model. Um, this is just a little overview of what the season's gonna be like.

We're gonna talk about the ministry of Presence. Mm-hmm. And again, you know, we're calling all of these ministries because really in a ministry we're thinking about what is. Um, how do we serve somebody else for their good mm-hmm. And for God's glory. Mm-hmm. So all this, you know, how do we, how are we present for this person's flourishing, their good, and for God's glory, the ministry of listening, how can we listen in a way that's for their good and God's glory?

The ministry of asking questions, the same thing, the ministry of words, um, ministry misses, which that's kind of like where we miss it. And we'll talk more about that. And then Alex, we're, we're hoping to have a few special guests on as well. Uh, maybe to. Push some of this into, uh, a little bit more practical areas.

Mm-hmm. Um, so I know Malia's working on getting us some special people to talk to and we're really excited about that. You know, as we thought about this structure, I was reminded through actually several different ways. I feel like the Lord brought the story of Hagar back to me, and that it was just this great illustration of these, um, different elements of presence and listening and asking questions and words.

And so, um, I was hoping we could read Genesis 16, um, seven through 16, and just let's talk through the way that God, him. Engaged Hagar in these different ministries. Sure. I'm gonna be reading from the N I V if anybody wants to follow along. So the angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert.

It was the spring that is beside the road to shore. And he said, Hagar, servant of Sarah I. Where have you come from and where are you? I'm running away from my mistress, Sarah. She answered. Then the angel of the Lord told her, go back to your mistress and submit to her. The angel added, I will so increase your descendants that they will become too numerous to count.

The angel of the Lord also said to her, you are now with child and you will have a son. You shall name him ish. For the Lord has heard of your. So just a little context first, there are actually two accounts of Hagar Fleeing running away, and this is the first one. And this is when Sarah, who is unable to get pregnant and fulfill, uh, she's trying to fulfill the, the covenant or the promise that God gave her herself.

And so she takes matters into her own hands and she. For Abraham to go into um, Hagar's Chamber, and Hagar now finds out that she is about to have Abraham's child. And so Sarah becomes very cruel to her. And so she flees. And so the first thing we see is God visiting Hagar, and it says that the angel of the Lord found her by the spring of water.

Like we know that God knew where Hagar was. But the text is showing us, I think is just, is highlighting to us that God went to where she was to be with her. And we see this ministry of presence that Hagar is distraught and she is trying to get away from everyone and, and the spirit of God is pursuing her to be with her in that place.

And then we see the ministry of questions because God asked Hagar two question. Where are you coming from and where are you going? And those are big questions even for all of us to answer and for us to be able to engage other people with. But the Lord is pursuing Hagar. It's very intentional to get her to be able to articulate to him again.

Does God know the answer to these questions? Mm, of course he does, but he is doing something in Hagar's Heart that's really important. And so he's pursuing her with questions and then we see. Mm-hmm. I was gonna read the rest of it, if that's okay. Cause I only Yeah. I didn't actually get all the way through it.

Mm-hmm. But one thing I did wanna add is, um, just the whole idea is we go through here and we think about God's presence. I want us to notice that part of his presence is his protection and his provision as well. Mm-hmm. You know, he's providing and he's protecting. And we're gonna be talking more about that.

Um, when. On our next podcast because you have a very distinct picture in your mind of the desert that she's Yeah, cuz water in the wilderness, um, in Israel, yeah. The wilderness is not like Tennessee wilderness. Yes, it is desert. It literally means mm-hmm. Every time that, you know, somebody goes in the wilderness, it's the desert.

Um. Mm-hmm. That was very disorienting for me in my western south, um mm-hmm. Southeast mindset. Mm-hmm. All right. Let me just finish reading this because I, as you go onto these, uh, next points, I want everybody to hear what's happening. Mm-hmm. He will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.

She gave this name to the Lord who spoke. You are the God who sees me before she said, I have now seen the one who sees me. And that is why the well was called, these names I cannot pronounce. So, hey, Gar boy, Abraham, a son, and Abram gave the name, him, the name Ishk, um, to the son she born. And Abraham was 86 years old when Hagar bo him Ishma.

Hmm. So I think we see here this testimony of Hagar, that, that God is the God who listens again. Um, he doesn't have to listen to No, he already knows, but he's asking these questions and then he's listening to Hagar. And we know that because she says, you are the God who's seen me. You are the God who knows me.

And. Names God. I think if I'm, I think I'm correct in saying that this is the first person who names God in scripture. Hmm. Up until this point, God has told us his names, but she names God as the God who sees. And then, um, God names her son. God hears. So she gives testimony that God hears her, and then God actually gives her this constant reminder.

In the name of her son that God has heard her. Mm-hmm. And so she has felt fully seen and fully known and good listening does that. And then we see this ministry of words because he begins to tell her what's going to happen. Now some of it's not comforting. Like he's going to be a wild donkey of a man, right?

I mean, but, but she feels so seen and she feels so known through the things that God has told her and the way that he's pursued her, that it put courage in her heart to return to Sarah and Abraham and to have this child. And so throughout this whole account, we just see God being so intentional in his pursuit of Hagar through his presence.

Through asking questions and listening to her, and by giving her words that put courage into her heart to return to a place of suffering. Hmm. That's a powerful text, Alex. And I was thinking about the questions too. How so often, you know, the Bible asks questions of us, not because God doesn't know, but because God wants us to examine our own hearts.

Mm-hmm. And to know ourselves. Um, and to your words, to your point. I mean, there are words in scripture that are hard for us to read. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, God, Completely extravagantly loving, but he's also just, and um, and you know, I just think that we have to be rooted and grounded in the fact that we, we know that we are seeing, that we know that we are loved, that we are in the beloved to keep us.

Mm-hmm. I think it'd be great if we would go through scripture really looking for these elements with the father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Like where do we really see the presence of the Trinity show up and how. Presence manifested. And then what kind of questions does God ask of his people or Jesus ask.

We're gonna be talking more about that. Um, you know, just the, the questions Jesus asked when we get to that episode. Mm-hmm. Uh, listening, you know, that God speaks to us and, um, I'm sorry, God hears us when we're crying out to him. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then where do we see, you know, specific. Commandments or words of encouragement or words of comfort, um, in the ministry of words that God gives to us.

And that's gonna all be very instructive for us as we move forward with each podcast to talk about what we're calling a method with these particular four elements. Yeah. And so each one of these. Elements in, in this model of personal ministry, we would say that they're simple, but they're not easy. So before we got on here, Zachary's talking to us about his son, who's a toddler, and, and his son is able to be present.

His son is able to ask questions and listen and give words. Um, these are simple things, right? Um, that even a toddler. But what we wanna emphasize is that there is a great degree of skill that we can develop, um, as we, um, seek the Lord for wisdom and discernment. And that to ask to, um, have the, to bring the right kind of presence, to ask the, the right.

Pertinent heart piercing question in the right way to listen well, and then to know what words to speak of challenge or comfort or cheer like these things are not always easy to do because, um, we often, I think we underestimate how difficult it can be to do these things well in the right time and in the right way.

Mm-hmm. When I was thinking about Zachary's little boy, I think he's, you know, about 20, 22 months and he's in the backseat of the car. He simply folds his hand, he mumbles. Amen. And we all think it's cute, you know, and cheer him on. But it's not quite that easy because not everybody's gonna think it's quite that cute if we show up and we're just bumbling around.

And so, you know, I, I think that there is value and learning skill, but I think what we wanna say is that nothing will replace your personal relationship with Jesus. Yes. Or equip you to do conversational counseling that is biblically informed and spirit led than having an ongoing, vibrant relationship with the Lord where.

We acknowledge his presence where we go to him in prayer and dependence and have him listen to us, where we allow the Bible to read us and ask the tough questions. Mm-hmm. And God's people to come into our lives and then really begin to know what it is that God is calling us to and actually step out in faith and obedience in those areas.

Mm-hmm. So, you know, I, I think that as we're, we're looking at this, um, there is just even a part of me as we started the season, I thought, oh, In some ways this method, when you just say it, it's like, uh, duh. But then having walked this out for all of these years with people just really realizing that I am a much different counselor to anybody I have a conversation with right now than I was five years, 10 years, 15 and 20 years ago.

And part of it is because there are some skills that I have. To learn, um, and put into practice that have been very, very helpful. And I think when you, when we put our effort, like we, God is looking for partners. Mm-hmm. And so when we take the skills that God has given to us and show us and we put that with the Holy Spirit and dependence and reliance on him, then God is really pleased to show up and do something.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love your challenge, Brenda, and I hope people will take it to heart to just as you're spending time in the word, in the next couple of weeks, just to really look for the ways that God does these things and really think about. Think about Jesus and the gospels and his interactions, just the um, the intricacy, even the complexity of some very simple fast exchanges that we read in scripture that we kind of breeze through, but really pause and slow down and think about what Jesus is asking, what he's saying, how he moves.

Towards people in the Old Testament, the way we see God move towards his people over and over again and just be looking for that. Just develop an awareness of that in scripture because again, until we really know how to receive it from the Lord, we're not gonna be able to let it flow through us to other people.

Yeah, I think one of my favorite scripture verses is Acts four 13. It resonates so much with me, it's just the verse says, um, when they saw the courage of Peter and John the people and realized that they were unschooled ordinary men, they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Mm-hmm. And, um, I think that that's our point is just it's going to be spending time with the Lord. In his words, studying him, studying God the Father, studying the Holy Spirit, and then asking the Lord to take all of these elements and, um, push them into our lives where we can really minister to serve others in a way that shows them that we love them, shows them more importantly that God loves them.

Mm-hmm. Um, when we glorify God, that's what we're doing. We're showing up and showing other people how much God loves them. Mm-hmm. And that's what we wanna do with, um, you know, personal. Yeah, well we are unschooled ordinary women who I hope has spent time with Jesus, but we are particularly unsold and ordinary in the ways of technology and organization.

And so we're thankful for Malia and for Zachary for helping us in these ways and for, um, making this podcast have the quality that it does. And we hope that, um, that you'll not only listen, but you'll sign up for the emails and join the Facebook page and like we said, continue the conversation through social media.

Great. We'll see you guys next time.