9: FISH: Heart-Focused Community (Part 3)

[00:07] Stephanie: Welcome to Deeper Walk’s On the Trail podcast. You are on the trail with father- daughter duo, Marcus and Stephanie Warner. I’m Stephanie, and I’ll be talking with my father, Dr. Marcus Warner, as we discuss topics that help you stay on the trail to a deeper walk with God.

Welcome to episode nine. In the third part of our FISH series, we’re looking at the “H” of our FISH acrostic, heart-focused community.

Greetings, Father.

[00:32] Marcus: Greetings, Daughter.

[00:33] Stephanie: How are you today?

[00:34] Marcus: I’m doing all right. I was complaining about being tired, but honestly it’s Friday afternoon as we’re doing this, and it’s just  been a long week. But I am excited because I think in a little bit here we’re going to go to the lake. We’re up in Michigan and we are going over to Lake Huron. I always get energized when I see the big water.

[00:52] Stephanie: That’s where you wrote most of Rare Leadership isn’t it?

[00:55] Marcus: It is. I was at a coffee shop there in Lexington, Michigan and I still like to go back there and write when I get the chance. I love looking at, like I say, “The big water.” I love looking across water I can’t see the other side of, and it’s a great atmosphere.

[01:09] Stephanie: I could do that all day. Oh, I’m so excited.

[01:12] Marcus: You and Captain America.

[01:18] Stephanie: Good one.

[01:19] Marcus: Yeah.

[01:20] Stephanie: Well, today we’re talking about heart-focused community. Too many of us don’t think of relational joy when we think of discipleship, we think of discipline maybe, since it’s right there in the word. But the heart-focused discipleship model is a growth model, and we grow best in an environment of joy. I’m interested in hearing some strategies for people to not be stuck in isolation or toxicity.

And I know you’ve really appreciated the book, The Other Half of Church by Michel Hendricks and Jim Wilder. I think we’ve talked already about their analogy of comparing community to soil in previous podcasts. Do you want to walk us through their four key elements of the kind of enriched soil that catalyzes growth?

[02:05] Marcus: Yeah, absolutely. You know Michel Hendricks used an analogy in their book that jumped out at me and it was about growing tomatoes. And he said one year he grew a tomato plant and he took a lot of time and energy to make sure that it was properly nutrient dense. I don’t know if its’ just Miracle Grow or what you put into that stuff, I’m not a gardener. He put a bunch of this stuff in there and he got these amazing tomatoes. Well, the next year he planted the tomatoes again, but he was so short on time or something and didn’t do nearly what he should have done to prep the soil. The final tomatoes that came out were nowhere near as juicy and fresh as all the rest as the other ones.

And the analogy he pulled out of that I thought was just spot on. Which is that most of us if we look back in our lives to when we grew the fastest, or the most in our walk with God, it was when we were in a community of friends. We felt like we were part of a group and there was a lot of joy in that group. There was a lot of sense of belonging, like, these are my people.

And he himself told the story of being in a group like that growing quickly and then going through what he called “A 20 year lull”. I think in hindsight, he realized during that 20 years he wasn’t in that kind of community. He was not in those types of relationships and didn’t have that kind of belonging. And I think most of us can relate to that. That we look back to when my favorite time was to be a Christian, right? When was it the most energizing to be a Christian? It was when I was a part of a people or a group, and there was just a lot of energy in being a part of that people.

And that’s what we want to talk about here. I think you specifically asked me what the four elements of their soil are, right? And I got off of that, so here are the four elements. The first one is joy, and it’s this idea that I enjoy being with people. And one of the ways that you know that you are enjoying being with your group, is that you spend time together outside of the assigned times to be together.

If I’m in a small group and the only time I ever see them is on small group night versus, groups that I’ve been a part of where some of us would get together to play volleyball. Or some of us would get together to go shopping, or some of us would get together for something else. If you find yourself spending time with people outside of “group time”, that means I enjoy being with these people. There’s an element of joy involved in that community, so that’s the first part of it.

In fact, I was just talking to a friend down in Texas who just did his doctorate in ministry on the idea of joy in discipleship. And he was trying to measure, do people grow faster when there’s joy as part of their discipleship journey than they do when there’s not? And he came to the conclusion, absolutely. People grow faster when there’s “joy fertilizer”, it’s a catalyst to our growth. So that’s the first core element.

The second one is, and you’ll like this because you’ve been taking Hebrew, right? It’s the Hebrew word Hesed, which I thought was interesting. So hesed – I have got to put a little “caveat” here, that there are two Hebrew letters for “H”. One of them is soft and the other one is rough, like the back of your throat, guttural. So most people like to say the second one – that’s just more fun. But to distinguish those when you write them into English the first one is usually just an h.  The second one is either an h with a dot under it or it’s a ch, which is confusing. So you’ll sometimes see hesed written, h e s e d, and sometimes c h e s e d. I just want to make sure that people know that I understand my Hebrew. We didn’t misspell this word.

But hesed is a fascinating word and is probably the definitive word of the character of God. And when the Old Testament wants to define who God is and what his character is like, hesed is the go to word, and it has been translated in a variety of different ways. The way I would explain it is this, it is the sense that because you are my people I’m going to do good to you. I can almost hear the Godfather, “Because you’re one of us, I take care of my own. You know what I’m saying?” But I don’t think that that’s core to God’s character, he’s not Don Corleone.

But there is an element, even an echo of that even in the idea that says, “Well, because you’re my daughter there are good things I will do for you, that I wouldn’t do for just anybody.” And so the first time that we see hesed in the Bible is in Genesis, and it’s where Abraham’s servant is negotiating to have Rebekah come marry Isaac. The question is on the table and he says, ”So are you going to show me Hesed or not?” When his point here is that a good family would say yes, you know, that’s what we do for each other. And so there’s this hesed idea. So the idea behind God is that he takes care of his people. You can count on him and you can trust him.

It’s an attachment based word because we have this attachment and because we have this bond. And what’s interesting is God is often bonded to us more deeply than we are bonded to him, but he still treats us out of his attachment love. So you might define hesed as attachment love. Now we take this and we circle back to it as a quality of a small group or my people. And what we’re talking about is highly bonded people.

We’re talking about people who have a really deep bond with each other. Well, how do you form deep bonds with people? You have to have two key ingredients, vulnerability and empathy. So if I’m vulnerable with you, but that vulnerability is not met with empathy then I’m not going to be vulnerable anymore. And on the other hand I can invite people to be vulnerable but I’m never vulnerable myself. That doesn’t work either. So what happens is that groups bond as they are vulnerable with their weaknesses, and those weaknesses are treated gently and like protectors.

The other thing that grows bonding is going through hard things together and getting through on the other side. And so you’re like, “Ah, yeah, I remember when we all had to face this.” It could be as simple as we had final exams and, “Yay we made it through.” Or it can be little things. It doesn’t have to be, “We fought World War Two together, right?” It can be anything on that scale. But you could know how bonded military units are because they do hard things together and they overcome things together, and it just does something to bond you.

[09:34] Stephanie: They build trust.

[09:36] Marcus: You build trust, that’s hesed, right? Hesed is that we are tightly attached together. Yeah, I heard the motorcycle, that’s all right we’ll get by. That’s the idea of hesed, we do good to each other because we know that we belong. The next core element is group identity and what comes out of the belonging is identity. So in the book that I wrote with Jim Wilder, it’s called Solution of Choice. We talk about this model that says belonging plus identity, it’s also in Rare Leadership, equals transformation.

And so the idea here is that if I’m in a group where I know I belong, and I’m thinking, if you were going to have a substitute word for hesed,  it would probably be belonging. So joy, belonging, and identity. I know who I am because I know who my people are. And so my people are the sort of people who handle problems this way. My people are the sort of people who treat weakness, this way. My people are the sort of people who treat our enemies this way. So all of these statements about “who are my people”, and how it is for us to act out of our identity statements?

So a group identity is this idea that we have joy in being together, there’s a sense of belonging with each other, and I know these are my people. And coming out of that is a clear set of values and a clear set of -it’s just like us to do this. It’s just who we are, it’s what we do. And then the last one, the fourth element there is shame but it is healthy shame. Now for some people that’s an oxymoron because they think all shame is toxic. But one of the things in talking to Dr. Wilder that I heard him say about this was, that the right side of your brain when we experience shame, it’s more of a reactionary thing. It’s not until it gets to the left side of our brain when we attach a narrative to it, that it becomes toxic.

So it depends on the narrative that is attached to our shame whether or not it’s toxic. In this case what we’re saying is that in a healthy community, in a heart-focused community, I need to be able to say hard things to you, and you need to be able to say hard things to me. It’s not enough for us just to be happy all the time. It’s a happiness that can get us through hard things together but it’s also a joyful connection. That is we have a strong enough relationship for me to tell you hard things. So one of the tools that we use for this and we explain in Rare Leadership, is the envelope conversation, of making the relationship more important than the problem.

Start with your relational history, explain the problem, and state your hope for a positive relational future. So let’s keep the relationship bigger than the problem. We have to have a group that knows how to deliver a healthy shame message. And the definition of a healthy shame message is one that keeps the relationship bigger than the problem. So those are the four core characteristics as I understand them, as they were taught in Michel Hendricks and Jim Wilder’s book, The Other Half of Church.

[12:47] Stephanie: Yeah, let’s camp out a little bit longer on this idea of weakness. At the heart of building a healthy group identity is how we view weakness, and how we treat it. Can you unpack that?

[13:01] Marcus: When I think of weakness and group identity my mind immediately goes to locker rooms. Probably because I played about six different sports growing up and spent a lot of time in locker rooms. You know when the leaders on a team are bullies and when the leaders on a team are protector leaders. Protector leaders when they have weak members on the team; come around those guys and they don’t let them stay weak, they do what they can to help them get better. Whereas bullies actually have a vested interest in keeping them weak. Now they may say, “I’m trying to toughen you up”, but really what all the bullies are interested in is making sure they stay at the top of the pecking order.

So you cannot grow a healthy community, you can’t have a heart-focused community if you are brutal to weakness. Right? To have a heart-focused community you have to be gentle with weakness. So I think for example, using the  locker room idea, when I was in college, I loved basketball and played basketball my whole life. But they had a requirement at this college that you had to run 3 miles in under 21 minutes before you could go inside to the gym. Well, first of all I almost never ran 3 miles consecutively in my life. I was usually just a gym rat, I ran around a lot but just going and running was not my thing. And then secondly, doing it at that kind of pace wasn’t something I was used to.

And so the first couple times I went out I wasn’t even close, right? I was running in 22, 23, 24 minutes. So the guys on the team – though they didn’t just shame me into it, but they gave me a healthy shame message. And essentially, you know you got to do this, but we’re going to help you. And so four of them said, “Let’s go run this together and just stay with us, and let’s Just talk our way through. Let’s just run it together and don’t even think about the time. Let’s just hang out while we run and let’s get through it.” I ran it in 18 minutes. It literally knocked five minutes off of my time because I was doing it relationally with them and wasn’t thinking about what I was doing. And so they met my weakness with gentleness, but not in a way that just said, “Well, that’s all right, if you’re weak you just stay that way.” It was a way that helped me grow and get better and not stay in that weak condition.

[15:13] Stephanie: That is a beautiful example. It can definitely be overwhelming to look at where you want to be, and then realize where you are and how far you have to go.

[15:23] Marcus: Yep.

[15:24] Stephanie: I know for me, sometimes it feels like there’s this glass ceiling where I can see clearly where I want to be, or what skills I want to have, and I’ve just reached the end of myself. I can’t get there in my own strength and it’s frustrating, but it’s okay. And we’re not supposed to do things in our own strength. Part of this journey is learning to show grace to yourself.

[15:45] Marcus: Yeah well you know, as “somebody who’s completely made it” and doesn’t have any gaps left, you know, I can’t really relate to what you’re saying. Yeah, no, you get the idea. It’s like we’ve all got those gaps, and we all have days where I don’t even know if this works right?

[15:59] Stephanie: You know I’m in seminary right now and working and trying to balance lots of things. And sometimes I have friends who just look at me and are like, “What, you’re human?”

[16:11] Marcus: Exactly.

[16:12] Stephanie: You know realistic expectations. And above all we just need to seek the Lord, he is so good and able. And he cares and he knows what we need when we need it. So all that to say, what are some strategies for people to start where they are? It’s not just, “Oh, now I know the answers and I will be perfect or find the perfect community.” What are some strategies?

[16:34] Marcus: Well, I do think that when we come to strategies, it helps to have a sense of where I’m at in my maturity development. Life Model likes to talk about infant, child, adult, parent, and elder level maturity. If you think about it, in those cases an infant can’t do anything for themselves. So they kind of need somebody to invite them into a group, create the group, invite them in, and get this thing started. And that’s okay. Some of us are in places where I’m isolated and I’ve been living in isolation, and I wish somebody would create this for me. Well, part of the maturity process is taking the next step to create something for yourself, and not wait for somebody to do this for you.

So I would say that part of your growth journey is going to be finding ways to build a little bit of joy into every relationship that you have. We put it this way. You want to be the sort of person who when people see you coming, they go, my problems are about to get smaller, not my problems are about to get bigger. And so one of the things that some of us do if we’re stuck at infant level maturity, what we have trouble with is that we show up wanting it to be all about me, and all about my problems. And so sometimes we are too quick to dump on people all of our problems, instead of coming at it like, “I want to find a way to add joy, so that you leave being happy that I came.” And how you do that is just in a way that you contribute something that is positive. So those are skills that we need to kind of work on and continue to grow.

So our next step in some cases really depends on where you’re at. For some people, it’s going be adding a little bit of joy in every connection that they have. For others it’s going to be you need to go join a group, even if it’s not a great one, just get in a group someplace. And then what you want to do is add joy to the group. You want to be as vulnerable as seems appropriate in that group level, and make sure that you’re meeting people’s things with empathy.

So I think the next steps here for some people, if I’m like an adult, parent or elder, I may want to start a group. And so when it comes to some of us too, realizing that our group options aren’t limited just to our local church, that we can think bigger than that. It’s okay to have my people who are part of my local church and that’s a good thing, and I want that. But I can also, especially in this Internet age, I can have other people and I can make connections online. So we encourage people to consider journey groups if they can. It costs some money, but it’s still an option for people who can’t find what they’re looking for locally, and don’t know how to go about creating it yet. So those are kind of the options. I can just start where I’m at and try to make my relationships a little bit better. I can do something online. I can join a group. I can start a group. Kind of the next options depending on where I’m at in my own personal journey.

[19:45] Stephanie: Sure.

[19:46] Marcus: That’s a long answer. There we are. Okay.

[19:48] Stephanie: Thank you. Thank you for your in depthness. Any final thoughts to conclude today’s episode?

[19:55] Marcus: Well, the word that keeps coming up in my mind is just catalyst. And that is, if you want to catalyze your growth, if you really want to see changes as you’re going deeper in your walk with God, you have to have this. It’s like a tomato trying to grow but it’s in really lousy soil. We have to have this enriched soil. So that means I need to take some next steps and I need to find some ways to get connected. Because if I’m trying to do the christian life in isolation, at best, it’s going to be a lot of hard work. And at worst, I’m going to just find myself discouraged and quitting. So isolation kills. We definitely want to engage. And even if it takes a little bit of a sacrifice, it’s a good idea to make sure that you participate in some type of group activity like that.

[20:52] Stephanie: All right, thank you, Father.

Next episode we will be looking at living in the Spirit. But for now, thanks for joining us on the trail today. If you want to keep going deeper with us on your walk with God, please subscribe to the Deeper Walk podcast and share with your friends. You can find more at our website, deeperwalk.com.

Thanks again, we’ll see you back next week.