Episode 4 - Part Two: The Beauty of True Unity

I know there was some parts that you were hard to hear.

No doubt.

What else did he do wrong, guys? Come on. I thought you were perfect. He misquoted Tolkien. Oh, listen, I know.

As soon as he said it, I was like, babe, I'm so much heat for that.

As soon as I listen to it, I'm laying on the couch listening to it, and you said that, and I look at Christian, I was like, dang, he's getting roasted by the wives.

Dude, I got the heat from that. Don't misquote Tolkien.

This is my favorite I took a college class and then you can't—

wasn't a college class, it was a volunteer class as a child. Thank you for telling the truth on that, because you've never actually clarified, because you always say in a demeaning manner like, oh, look at this nerd that took this Lord of the Rings class.

Did you even show up?

It was at your own pace on the computer as a child.

He still remembers the, um, the, the— I didn't even finish— word for friend.

Mero'lok.

Yep, keep that.

Whatever, he's never read the book, so you can't really—

I haven't read the book.

You can't be in the club.

He hasn't either.

Y'all are not—

I mean, it's a lot for—

I'm not gonna read the book. I'm just gonna—

9, 10-year-old to handle. Like, the movies are coming out, like, oh, you need to read the books first.

Oh, that is a lot, but I wasn't 9 or 10.

Yeah, but you've had several years.

Movies are bad.

Anyway, let's, let's continue.

Okay, so we've talked about the weirdness of frequencies, so a lot of people can turn off. And because you're the tree worshiping lady, from what I hear—

microphone, sorry. But, um, tree necklace on.

Yeah, you got a tree necklace on.

Shout out Kimmy.

Yeah, Kimmy Clark, she did.

She got me this.

Come on down. So one of the questions that I got, it did come out of like this place, like this person's angry, but we're going to address it, is a clique within a community. I couldn't really find like a question on that. It was just more like venting, like, well, Why does so-and-so— and it's so hard to look. I was like, oh gosh. Um, anyways, I wanted to look at what the word unity means. Let me rephrase that.

I got you.

I want to look at what the definition of unity really is, because you grow up singing songs. How good and pleasant is together in unity. Praise the Lord. Nobody?

I remember that one.

Thank you.

I do.

So unity is something that's championed within church culture. It's championed in, I would say, every culture in a way of getting along, coming under this umbrella of this one purpose. Don't ask questions, keep moving forward. And I would say that unity is not uniformity. And that's where we get it wrong. That's the safe place. Uniformity is safe because you don't ask questions.

Yeah.

You get in line and you do what you're told. Yeah. Unity is in diversity. It's in We're not the same. We actually have issues with one another, but we're going to address it while moving towards one another and forward.

Yeah.

So unity is not putting up with one another, not sliding things under the rug and hoping that time heals all. A lot of— I see wheels spinning. Um, anything? Anybody have something on that?

I mean, I got a couple things. A true unity to me looks like creating a harmony out of your differences. It's not everybody coming and— but you don't have to believe exactly the same, like, you know, every single thing. You don't have to think the same. You don't have to— your politics don't have to be the same. Like, that stuff doesn't matter. And you could have tension in those differences, but in like an iron sharpens iron kind of way. Like, you believe this, can you back up why you believe it? You know, and sometimes— because sometimes people just believe things just because they've— that's what they've heard or what they've been told. And, you know, it really kind of opens this, this window for you to be able to, hm, you know, ponder on some things. And it turned into this wonder instead of this tension that maybe it originally was. But to go back to what we've seen unity displayed like in the church under the foundation of this self-righteousness. Earlier I had said it replaces grace with judgment. So instead of having this kingdom unity, it becomes like a silent hierarchy. In a way, like you're categorizing, you're judging based on what people believe, based on how they act, based on their behavior, based on their politics, as sad as that is. And it creates this us versus them mentality, not even like us in the church versus them in the secular world. Us versus them within these cliques, within the church too. So that's my thoughts on it.

I don't have—

I never land the plane.

That's how the cookie crumbles.

That's the way it was. I never land the plane.

So you have the older people.

Yeah.

You have the teenagers.

Yeah.

You have kids church. You have the young adults. You have the sports-loving people. I mean, you have all these different bubbles.

You have the worship team.

Worship team. And so it's evident, like, I don't want to say that that's necessarily cliquey, but it is if there's no room at the table for anybody else. I mean, or it's very difficult for someone to come and and sit at that table.

Well, and those things are manifestations of our human desire for community. So I want to sort of build on what you said about it comes from a desire. I mean, who doesn't like to be in control?

Manufactured.

Right. So what I've seen, okay, So what I've seen, and the person asked in the question about cliques specifically, so let's just talk about a clique. So what you see is there is usually somebody who is the ringleader, someone who's in charge. And then have you ever heard the phrase, they'll say, "My four no more"? You've never heard that? Okay. So there's a phrase that's thrown out about cliques, and it's, "My four no more." which means there's not room for more. There's not room for more people at the table. There's not. And a lot of times I think that is a product of the more people you allow to be a part of something, the less control you have. And there's not this conformity, you know, so it's really easy to say, well, we're okay. You said praise and worship team, which we've all at one point or another been a part of. We have that in common. That's common ground. And we have this natural inclination. Let me say that again. Natural inclination to put the label on that, that that's community. Because we have that in common.

Mm-hmm.

I have to say that there were people that I very rarely interacted with outside of that when I was involved in it. You know, it wasn't anything intentional, I think, on anybody's part.

It just—

there was this just natural separation. For unknown reasons. But I do think that one of the things, let me circle back around to what you said about control and manufactured is I think that starts to play a part in things.

Because it's embedded that you are, you desire community.

Yes.

Like that is something that's in your subconscious, it's in your conscious. I mean, it's everywhere because that's what you were designed to do. If you look at the original blueprint, We keep going back to the triune God is that they are one yet different. That's a hard thing to grasp. So there's ways that they operate that are unique, but they're operating together. So that's the blueprint. So we get when we have this hunger for community and we want to manufacture it because that we're in charge, we always gravitate towards those that are like us, that won't challenge our way of living. That's— it's an easy way to do that. Yeah. Like, if you're not going to challenge me in the way that I live, we can be friends. If you believe the way that I believe, if you can milk a cow, we'll be buddies. Right? Yeah. There's this saying, I don't know why it reminds me of this, I wrote it down in my notes. When you, when you're playing football or playing catch and somebody drops a pass, you go, nice hands, feet. Um, it makes me think like you get in these groups where it's just, just a bunch of feet, you know. Everybody is uniquely gifted in the body of Christ, you know. You have the hands, you have the feet, and that, that analogy, it's not so much like you're a body part, but but you— there's giftings that you have that are relatable. Even at this table, my wife is an amazing writer. I am not. Um, that's evident. We share commonality in the things that we believe about homesteading and things that we believe about how we raise our children, which we should because we're married. I mean, there— that's a unique aspect of our relationship. But there are so many differences as well. But those differences are not barriers. Those differences are opportunities of exploring. And that's why when we talk about eternity, the triune relationship is eternal. I mean, it is constantly— they're finding out That just blows my mind. That's the same with us in terms of we may not see something the same way, but instead of that being a barrier to community and to our relationship, that's an invite. That's an invitation. So if you're in a group of people that are quote unquote different from you, that challenge you, that challenge the way that you live your life, that's not necessarily a bad thing. If you understand what true unity is. Unity is maybe there's issues that this person has with another person. Unity in a true biblical form is we're going to stare it in the face, we're going to address it, we're going to move forward. We're not going to just put it under the rug and keep living our life. So I think even though it wasn't a question, it was a statement. Cliques formed by default of our human nature, trying to manufacture what's deeply inside a deep need.

Yeah.

Hey, Caleb Henshaw here from the Wild Country. Again, I wanted to thank you for all that are listening and subscribing to this podcast. We really appreciate all the support. Did you know that we are launching a brand new community called the Wild Country Uncensored as an online platform. On this platform, we can talk about a lot of things that normally YouTube and other platforms would censor. We'll have weekly lives, we'll have master classes, we'll have how-tos, we'll have a library of books and content that you can join. But most of all, we have accountability. People in this group hold each other accountable on our homesteading dreams. Our homeschooling dreams, and our content creating dreams. If you're interested in joining this community, sign up in the link in the show notes. We are launching this community in summer of 2025, which is this year. It's getting close. Pre-register now and find out more.

I mean, and I think, I think you're right, is that, uh, it's sort of like, I don't know, there's like that animal instinct of trying to protect yourself and things like that. And to do community is like we've said before, sort of goes against some of that grain of making yourself vulnerable. So yeah, I think we've defined it well with it's easy to go to a clique. It's a lot because it's a lot of the same people. We all share the same beliefs. We're going to think the same, those things. And it's a lot harder to be with people who do think differently and operate differently. That's why sometimes we have the harder time with our family members because—

Yeah, that's a good point.

A lot of times our family members just believe totally different than us. And you can choose to be at odds with each other about it, or you can just choose to love each other and have a relationship through it despite that.

We're going to remain no matter what. Yeah, that's a great point. And I think too, going back, not to see this as a step 1, step 2, step 3, but if you've already gone through the process of nothing's going to challenge me, I'm not going to recoil. I know that I'm welcome to the table of Yahweh. It's easy to connect with people that are so different. Because how can they harm you? How can they really hurt you? So it makes it easy to connect with those that are different but beautiful. Makes me think of The Shack, of course. Yeah, name drop that movie.

Started to bring up The Shack earlier.

I'm talking about the movie, not the book, but the movie where He doesn't just see where Mac sees his father coming through the field and he sees all the colors. And Papa is like, it's what Sarah Yu is saying, it's every tribe and tongue. It's Papa's children. It gives me goosebumps. It's probably my favorite part of the whole movie is seeing the diversity and seeing that there are people that are vastly different than who you are. And we're used to avoiding that challenge because that takes intentionality. You have to be intentional in learning that I love cows. You have to ask about cows. You know what I mean? You have to go over what you would say are barriers, but they're actually not barriers. They're invitation to deeper exposure, deeper vulnerability.

So you have to flip your perception of it. It's not a barrier. It's invitation.

Because you're used to building relationship over common ground. Now you're building relationship over differences. And you can find a lot of those.

Right.

So that flips it completely on on its head. You can't tell me you can't be friends with someone when, oh, well, let's build community over the way that we're different. Because I'm in a place where you can't hurt me. You can't harm me because I'm good in who I am in Yahweh. I'm good in my position in this dance that I know you're a part of as well. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Well, and it's the differences that I need. The differences in you is what I need. I don't need the same thing in you that I recognize in myself.

Mm-hmm. It would be a group of feet.

Exactly. And I think, you know, and I'm— it wouldn't be me if I didn't say something about this thing in particular. We, society and culturally, our interactions are very cheap because a lot of our interactions are through social media. You know, it's the cheapest form of interaction. And it's a very false, very, very superficial, very basic community. Facebook where you scroll and maybe somebody puts a need out there, which I don't have Facebook, by the way, but they put a need out there and then how many people will just chime in, "Oh, saying a prayer, prayers, thoughts and love." And I'm, you know, I can make no determinations about how genuine people are when they say that. But I know, and you know, for example, when you texted Christian and I to let us know what was going on with Anna, and said, you know, pray for Anna, I dropped what I was doing right then and prayed for Anna. And it's intentional. And it costs me something. So I think that when we have a clique of people who are all the same, and they have the same common ground, doesn't cost us very much. We don't have to be intentional. Because it's it becomes almost a cheap form of interaction, almost like Facebook where I'm not investing very much. I'm just having to put a little comment and let you know I'm praying. So I think that, and I don't mean cost you something in a bad way. It didn't cost me anything in a bad way to stop what I was doing and pray for Anna, but I was intentional.

I mean, it reminds me of what David said. I don't want something that's going to cost me nothing.

Yeah.

I know there's, some correlation even in that. It's easy to— it's easy to not walk with someone when you have so much in common.

Yeah.

Because you can stand on that leg. You're not leaning into anything. We know about farming. It's easy to talk about farming and know nothing about that person that I'm talking to. It's actually more difficult to go with someone that you have very little in common with except you're children of Yahweh, which is a really good thing to have in common, but you actually have to feel each other out. You have to figure out how you're going to do relationship together. It's going to take a cost. It's going to take being intentional, striking out sometimes. Maybe there's confrontation that you got to walk through, whatever it is. That's not present in terms of where we just have so much in common. Clay's going to laugh at this one. Makes me think of Anger Management for some reason, of Adam Sandler. Like, who are you? He keeps saying, well, I do this. Like, no, not what you do, who you are. My Jack Nicholson impersonation. But it's just easy to have a conversation with somebody when you have so much in common. It doesn't take a lot of effort.

And when there's somebody who's different and there's differences and you can view the barriers as invitation, you are invited into wonder. You are invited into intrigue. You're invited into curiosity. All of those things, like, here we go again, talking about the Triune God and the Trinity where I'm sure there is a, like, oh, I've never seen that before. You know, that's new and this intrigue that comes along with that. And we can drink from that. We can drink from that. And it's a choice. It's a choice. You have to be intentional about choosing to see it that way, as opposed to being like, I don't agree with them on this, or we don't have anything in common, or I have no, I have zero interest in that. Therefore, what does it benefit me? And what does this How does it serve me?

Yeah.

And that's the complete wrong mindset.

You're hungry for uniformity.

Yes.

You're hungry for people that are going to pep up your eagle.

Yeah.

So eagle.

Ego.

Ego. Your eagle.

Well, in uniformity, it's very self-validating too. You're around people that are going to validate everything that you do because they're doing the same thing. So there truly is no iron sharpens iron because each, each part already thinks they're polished. So there's no challenge there at all. There's no like— it stifles what you said, the wonder and the curiosity and the intrigue, because you don't dive deep. Yeah, at all. Like everything is superficial, everything is, is surface value. No one— you are afraid to go deeper because it like makes the steadiness start to shake.

Or I can't, Lord, who knows how many times at this point that I have just kind of thrown something out to you all that maybe Holy Spirit, I don't, Holy Spirit's kind of dropped. And I will say, I just want to throw this out to you all because I can't wait to hear what you have to say about it because I know you're going to come with something that I never even thought of. And it never occurred to me. And we have had some of the most beautiful, deep conversations come out of knowing that each of us is going to have a different take on it.

Yeah. And that type of community doesn't exist in the cycle, in the vicious cycle we're talking about, because it takes too much effort and that takes away from ministry time. It takes away from doing what I think I'm supposed to be doing for God. So I surround myself with people that will say yes and just yes.

Yeah.

Because if I surround myself with people that are different and think different, you're talking about a difference of hours. You're talking about a difference of days of dealing over something, of laboring with someone, of being vulnerable with someone rather than, there's this surface value. Oh yeah, cool. Let me edify what you got going on, your individual project or whatever it may be. Within that cycle that we talked about before, that does not exist. And that's why you have the presence of cliques because it's the culture. It's the lack of fathers. It's the lack of, leaders that are, they're not used to saying, well, what about this? Or disagreeing with the leader. If you just want to push things along, then that's when those little systems start happening within the bigger system. You have those little cliques starting to form and you become again pregnant with what you submit to. And one of the, it wasn't a question, but how do you deal with cliques that happen within your communities? And I think that's one, you show them a true example. Like this is our culture. We are invested. We're entangled in one another. You can question me. That's a big one. Like you can question what I say because ultimately, I value the truth more than my own opinion. I value that what he says is projected no matter who it comes through. So I welcome questioning. We welcome questioning. That's the culture. That will eliminate a lot of clique forming. 'Cause when you're programmed to be, be in uniformity and to fall in line, your soul won't last. You will become tired and fatigued and you will gravitate towards those that you share commonality with because it's refreshing. You know, it's, I just love to be able to vent. I just love to be able to, and that's, you get into another vicious cycle that will breed bitterness and loneliness. And a lot of people that are saying, Why do I feel so lonely? Because I'm around people all the time. It's the system, it's the culture. And I'd ask you guys, like, how would you think cliques would need to be addressed within a community? How do you prevent that from happening?

I think you have to have the conversations that challenge the thinking and the mindset that that the differences are barriers. I'm a communicator. And I try to allow Holy Spirit to wrap what I say in kindness. But I'm a communicator even to the discomfort of other people, if I, you know, as opposed to like there being some pink elephant in the room or something. So I think my recommendation would be just, you've got to be willing to have those challenging conversations where you set the example, like you said, for people and you have the conversations that would challenge them to see differences as an invitation as opposed to a barrier.

And the promise to remain.

Yeah.

To, we'll deal with this. There's not an expectation attached to it, but there is an invitation to walk together. Even in those differences, because most of the time those differences are going to be confrontational.

It's an unfortunate truth too that sometimes when there's questions that would challenge what people are just so certain is correct and true, they get angry, very angry. So that discourages questions. And that, you know, that discourages intrigue and wonder and curiosity. And when you question truth, truth just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. When you question something that's not true, then there's holes in it and there's going to be holes in it. So I think that also being very mindful that when someone has questions that maybe even challenge what you think, you know, what you are so certain of, your response to that cannot be anger.

No, because—

Or that it's a personal attack.

It can't be concrete.

Yeah.

If you've arrived to a concrete theology or an idea, it's like we talked about before, what a tragedy.

Yeah.

So you should not just seek out differences of opinion, confrontational moments. You should welcome them as a gift.

Yeah.

So I think having a culture that displays that would be a good filter for people that would find themselves because cliques are lonely.

Yeah.

Cliques will produce loneliness. You're just hanging out with yourself.

And also I think if you've ever been a part of a clique, and I'm sure we've all experienced it, that even within the clique, you've got people who are kind of turning on the leader. There's even people within the clique that are just like, has stuff to say about so-and-so.

We hate each other. You just take turns.

Yeah.

And what you said about those things that we think are concrete that we're not going to, we have no interest in people maybe challenging that or having questions. My dad has always said, this is the way he puts it, and I got to do a shout out to Gary.

Gary.

Gary.

He's always said, I don't put my tent stakes too deep on that. I love that. I've heard my dad say that so many times about so many things because he's always— he's open to— my dad has always been really open to conversations about what we don't know.

Mhm. I wanted to read Psalms 133. I'm going to bring the Bible out, people. Now it makes it official, makes it not heresy when you bring the Bible out.

You just redeemed us.

Redemption is near. Um, Psalms 133, and we've, we've heard this before. I think I just sang a song on it. Um, behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity. It is like the precious oil upon the head coming down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon coming down upon the mountains of Zion, for there the Lord commanded the blessing, life forever. That's the verse we usually go to to reestablish our uniformity. If we have someone questioning the leader or questioning the group, like, listen, we'll just get on the same page, we'll have blessings. It's commanded, right? I want to break this down a little bit. And I've made some notes. We like word studies because it makes us feel smart. Right? I'm not going to try to say the actual words, but if you do a good word study, right? It's good. It says to dwell. This word means 3 things. I mean, it's a very deep word. I'm going to think that the translation for this word was very difficult. To land on dwell. It says to remain, to settle, and to marry. That's deep. That's more than us being in the same area. It means I'm going to remain first of all. So going through confrontation, going through wounding, going through all the things that we went through, there's this decision to remain. Then to settle, to start putting the tent stakes down and to build life in this area, and then to marry. So this is more than getting on the same page.

This covenant.

This is we're making the decision to eliminate a plan B. So blessed are those that dwell together. So that's the prerequisite for true unity. And then it says, it's good. It's good. And I remember who said something was good. It was this divine utterance from Yahweh in Genesis. I saw what I created and it was good. This is the blueprint. This is right. This is right order for us to dwell together in unity. And then it starts talking about oil, which I remember having the services where you'd bring somebody up and they'd sit down and you'd pour oil over their head. This was the symbolic sermon. I think I've done that. I think I'm telling on myself. This oil was used for consecration. It symbolized holiness, but it ultimately symbolized the presence of the Spirit. It was being set apart. So if you think about it in a timeline, we're dwelling, we're remaining, we're settling, we're marrying, and then there is a divine anointing on that. The presence of God will dwell in that. Not just like a dip of oil, but it is abundant. It is overflowing, is you're being drenched into that, in that presence. So true unity is sacred and empowered by the Spirit. It is not natural. It's not a natural occurrence. It's a divine anointing. It's set apart. It's a special act to come into unity with one another. There is value, there is weight put on that. It doesn't just happen by itself. You don't fall into it. So there's set-apart energy put on this. And then talking about the Dew of Hermon, It was known for lush vegetation. It was known for providing sustenance. So this dew is a result of this unity and it's life-sustaining. And that's important, right? We all gotta eat. So not only does it say this is not a natural occurrence, it's— you actually have to put a lot of effort into it. You have to set it apart. You have to hold it with a lot of value. This is what's going to bring you life. I'm going to take an altar call after you.

Well, and I wanted to go back to the word good. I'm looking at your notes there. It points to divine approval. And he, Yahweh, says this in Genesis, he made this and it was good. And there's a Hebrew teacher, actually it's the same book that you recommended. I'm going to butcher his name. Ventura. Yeah, yes, we'll go with that. But he— I read one of his books and he talks about that word, and he studies all ancient languages. So I wouldn't just— he's— it's not just I'm taking his word for it. Like, there's so many things. Anyway, he talks about the word good, and he says that that is not even close to being an accurate word for that, that, that word, whatever that Hebrew word there is actually means to be in tune with, to be in frequency with. I would take it a step farther into being operating in the dance. So to go back to— well, now you've taken it off of the screen, so I can't go back.

There it is.

Yeah. So you're talking about unity. Like, it's not something that we could conjure up. We can't manufacture it. Yeah, it happens through— it happens through this goodness. Again, it's one of those things like it cannot point to us. We can't look and say, look what we did. Look at the unity that we have. Come be like us. Like you— it can't point to you. It's this very anointed thing that he pours out. And he says, this, this is good. This is what I've designed for you.

Okay, so that just sort of—

go ahead.

Okay.

I've been reading Life Together. You all know that we talked about it. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote this book, and I actually had this highlighted, and I found it while you were reading that. He says, the more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede. The more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. It all, I think that it all fades away. It all, what word do we want to use here? It fades away. It becomes dim. It's dismantled. All those other things that we think are going to add to, and all these other things that we think need to be a part of this. And he just lays it out so plainly. He shoots it straight as an arrow. The more genuine and the deeper our community becomes, the more will everything else between us recede. The more clearly and purely will Jesus Christ and his work become the one and only thing that is vital between us. That's so— it's so simple.

Because it's enough.

Yeah.

It's the only reason we have this. He is the only reason we have this.

Yeah. And it sums up even Psalm 133, where it talks about it commands blessings. And we get into the favor of the Lord, or there's blessings added to my life in terms of money or financial gain. That's not what it's talking about. It's the same language that's used in the Sermon on the Mount. Blessed is he. It's the Spirit of God is dwelling within the person that Same as what she was saying. Same what you were saying. Unity is attracting this community into the presence of Yahweh where that's enough. That is the force. That is what brings life. It's what Peter's talking about when he says, where can we go? For you're the one that holds, your very words hold eternal life. I mean, what true unity produces. So what does that ask of us? Well, probably remain, settle, and marry. And then he's attracted to that. Hey, Caleb Panchau here from the Wild Country. Again, I wanted to thank you for all that are listening and subscribing to this podcast. We really appreciate all the support. And did you know that we are launching a brand new community called the Wild Country Uncensored as an online platform? On this platform, we can talk about a lot of things that normally YouTube and other platforms would censor. We'll have weekly lives, we'll have masterclasses, we'll have how-tos, we'll have a library of books and content that you can join. But most of all, we have accountability. Accountability. People in this group hold each other accountable on our homesteading dreams, our homeschooling dreams, and our content creating dreams. If you're interested in joining this community, sign up in the link in the show notes. We are launching this community in summer of 2025, which is this year. It's getting close. Pre-register now and find out more. Jesus, when he came to the earth and he displayed his relationship that he had with the Father through the Spirit, that's the gospel. Dying on the cross was the light switch. That was your ability to see the beauty of the triune God and the beauty of the blueprint that you're invited into from before time began, before the foundation of the world. It's the light bulb. And so I think we're almost ready to land. It's— I know it's been a lot. Um, I would say let's get practical, as practical as you can with something like that, because I think that we made it pretty simple of how do you form community. Um, I think one of the first things is, is to shift your mindset from you're earning something to you're belonging. I belong here. I belong in community. I belong in fellowship with the triune God. I belong in the friends that I have. I think that's the first step because you can easily, as we talked about, hermit away in shame when you're trying to earn your spot at the table. Anybody want to say anything on that before I move?

I mean, this could be controversial, but there's this huge belief that you don't belong until you believe, you know, as far as salvation. And so we already have this thought, I have messed up so bad, I've been so far gone, you know, from God, from— and so you already in your mind think, I don't belong because the behavior doesn't match. So then you're looking at, well, I don't really belong to God. How can I belong to people? So I think that that in itself is a theology that has messed us up.

And it's easy to not want to be vulnerable with someone when you have that thought process. Me impossible to—

like, if I'm not in right standing with God, how on earth could people accept me until maybe I start to fix myself up? Or there's the thought that, like, they'll take me in as I am, but I gotta quickly get better. I gotta quickly, you know, change my behavior. And so you still don't feel like you belong until you're like, you know, your everything matches up.

It's I would run into a lot of guys that would relapse and they would avoid me. And this is, I'm not even a part of the church at this time, but there were those that knew who I was and they were doing well. Maybe they had a really emotional experience and they were going to discipleship classes and then they relapse and they would see you and they would be so full of shame that they would turn around and go the other way. Because in their mind is, I'm not welcome at the table anymore because my behavior has caused separation. When in fact, from what I've read, he's actually even closer because he knows that that needs to be propped up. There's the fruit that you're not bearing that needs to actually have some special attention. So practically, I think even in the way that you pray, you need to ask, what does it mean, Yahweh, to be welcomed at the table? I am secure to say that I don't have the answers for a lot of this, but I do know who you can ask. I think getting used to asking these questions in your walk with Yahweh is, what does it look like to belong. Do I belong? And have the courage to listen because I bet you'll get a response from that. It may take asking even a couple of times. It may be blinded by a lot of external factors or shame or guilt or whatever it is. But I think asking those questions, just trying to get practical, what can somebody take away from this and start applying in their life? Because it was heartbreaking. Reading all the messages saying, I need community. There's something more than just seeing someone twice a week and just feeling so empty.

Yeah.

So I think that'd be the first step is changing mindset from I'm earning something to I belong right now. I can enter into something right now. And then I wrote down using the blueprint of the Trinity is moving toward and not away, not recoiling, actually moving towards people. And this could be as practical as, let's go have a coffee. What can you do this week? What can you do? Who can you reach out to and just go have a conversation? And that conversation might be awful. It may be really hard to connect.

It's the discipline of intentionality. Because we're not naturally inclined to want to reach out anymore and say, let's go do this. So even if it's awkward at first, it's the steps. It's saying, let's do this. Let's put a plan in place. Let's get together.

Culturally, we think our check-in is we commented on somebody's Facebook post or we put a heart on it.

Send a text.

So it's that cheap interaction that doesn't really cost me anything and I don't have to be intentional. This looks very different from that. And I think that we have to break out of that easy and cheap.

Yeah.

To costly and priceless.

Mm-hmm.

To, I think also I would add that you have to acknowledge and know that the truth is I do not have access to this community. Without Jesus in terms of I get this because of what he did and through him. And I can enjoy this community and I can learn from this community. I can be transformed within this community because of him and that he is the only vital thing between us. I think I'm saying that for myself more than anything.

Are you saying it for everybody? Yeah. It's to look for him.

Yes. Yes.

I'd like another practical thing is I want to get in the habit of sending out like 5 texts a day just to people, just to express how thankful I am for them or just inquiring on how they're doing, setting up times to— because life gets so busy where even our check-in, like I call it a check-in.

Yeah.

We try to get together at least once a week. And some of those times are not ideal. They're really not. I mean, I know how hard you work. Yeah. I know how hard it is with kids and with life going on. There's this intentionality to still, let's get in the same room. Like I have, I'll even be super tired or not feeling well and go infect your entire household because it's important. It's important. So I would even practically like, why don't you make it a daily habit just to send out 1 or 2 texts and start there. Start just investing in someone else besides yourself.

So you just said, you were talking about the times that we make sure that we get together. At least we try to make sure we get together at least once a week. And it's even in times when things are really busy, maybe people aren't feeling well, we try to feed each other. And that's like, Let's face it, that's a lot of people. And, but it's our fault. No, but what he consistently reminds me of is what I said about even if it takes a concerted effort on my part, he reminds me of that all the time. Do you remember what you said? Even if it takes a concerted effort on your part. And Christian and I have even talked about that where I'll say, even if it takes a concerted effort, because I have that that pre-inclination or whatever you want to call it, not to be a hermit, but to just kind of be like, I'm at my house, I'm going to chill out this evening and I'm going— yeah. So I sort of had that. If I'm not mindful of it, that can kind of be my default. And that takes effort and it takes intention.

Yeah. So, and I think too, it's important to have that alone time.

Yeah.

Because Jesus displayed that in the blueprint of going off to himself. Yeah. So that he could recharge and see and hear what Father was doing through the Spirit. So we've made it a point to try to make Sabbath Sabbath, really take that time to rest, to tune into what we feel like Yahweh is saying for us. Refocusing our eyes if they've shifted even during the week. So it's important. I don't want to say you can never be alone because there's some times for that. There's some times where it just needs to be between you and him or special times between your spouse. Those are important. I think people know the difference, like habitually being like, I just don't want to be around people at all, ever. There's something there I think that needs to be talked about. The one point I think I really wanted to make though was about the dances. It's more about a rhythm. It's not a theory, it's not an idea, it's not exercise. It's getting into the flow of mutual indwelling yet being separate.

I like that.

Mutual indwelling. That's a Baxter Kruger's day. Most of the things that you're impressed with have come from other people.

Well, same.

I mean, like Caleb said, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, oh, I brought Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book. So there you go.

No, it's getting into that flow, and it takes some time. Takes time to get into rhythm. Rhythm is important in a lot of aspects of life, in business, in the way that you grow your relationship with your spouse, with the way that you parent. The way that you build community. It's rhythm. Rhythm is the most important part. I think we talked about cliques a lot. I put a note, how do you resist church cliques? You get into a community that doesn't allow that in the culture. That would be one big thing. If your church is full of cliques, I'll even say it, that's a red flag.

Get out. Don't edit that.

Run.

Ask better questions. I put this, and the Trinity listens, loves, and knows. True community begins with curiosity. That's what I put. And I put, try saying, what's giving you life lately? When do you feel the most seen? Where are you feeling isolated right now? And this is in conversation with Yahweh, is you just begin to ask those ask better questions, ask detailed questions, ask the questions that you're afraid to say out loud because somehow you've walked on unholy ground and you'll fall down dead. He already knows they're in your heart.

Yeah.

He's just waiting for you to start addressing some of these things. Because deep questions, they always lead to deeper roots, to deeper tent stakes, I guess. Yeah. And it makes space for people to really be vulnerable and authentic when you're asking these questions. And then the last part, and then I'll let you guys, you know, end this, is as we read Psalms 133, it's not much we can do but just to show up, be intentional, remain, dwell, all that. And then the presence of the Triune God will show up and make it work. I think I put, what did I put? Holy Spirit does the heavy lifting. And when you, in a practical way, you can communicate with Holy Spirit like, how are you doing this? And I trust that you're bringing this together. I trust, like even through what we went through, there were prayers like, I trust that it's going to end up good. I'm not sure on how it's gonna end up good, but I know that you're working. So those are some pretty practical steps. I think for whoever's listening, make a phone call, send a text, get with someone, be intentional. It may be really awkward at first. It may be unfamiliar because you're used to being isolated. It's important because you're not gonna find out who you are you're not going to find yourself walking down a path where it's just you.

So, and I would say too, maybe take a step back from the cheap interactions. If you have this void and you think you're going to fill this void with social media interactions, maybe just step away from that and look for organic, real connection. And interactions with people and just stop trying to fill that void with social media.

Yeah. There's a need for face-to-face because there's a lot of protection behind a screen. And not that there's— there's a place for that, I'm sure, but there's a need for face-to-face. There's a need for it.

It's good. That's a good thing to land on, I think. Also bring out too is the Wild Country. It's the community that we're building. We're all building together. We're starting a community this summer, which is, it is online, but there's a mix of where we can get face to face and hang out and do life together. Do life together. We can do life together. We can dwell amongst each other forever and marry one another. Right. Nothing cultish here. Nothing cultish. You like Kool-Aid. But yeah, I'll link that sign up in the show notes. We appreciate all the support sharing this with others. I had a lot of people say, I'm sharing this with my family, friends. And I'm connecting to what we're doing just through this podcast.

I mean, I had family reach out who listened to your last podcast with Christian and was like, right after that, I just had this desire for some community and invited people over and prepared dinner for them and just sort of an immediate response to that.

Yeah, that's awesome to hear. That's why I think we're doing this. That's why we feel like when we don't feel like we're charged to do this. This is fun. This is, this is something that we really enjoy. So yeah, all right, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Um, but I think this is where I'm going to land the plane.