Let‘s Talk: Finding a Mentor and Being a Mentor | Word First

[Music] welcome back to let's talk my name is Melissa Krueger and I'm here with Jackie Hill Perry and Jasmine Holmes and we have been gathering together to talk about all sorts of topics over the past few weeks today I'm excited about what we're gonna talk about because we're gonna talk about mentoring and when we talk about that topic we probably need to say we're not talking about you know a work mentor or someone who's teaching us a skill or something like that we're talking about spiritual mentor which sometimes that's called discipleship sometimes I've heard it called spiritual mothering especially with women I've heard it called all different sorts of things but what I thought might be interesting I'd love to hear who has discipled you or mentored you in the faith and kind of showed you what I like to say it is it's like it puts flesh on the Christian life and it says this is what it looks like so I hear the command be kind but sometimes we see it lived in a life and that teaches us more than the be kind sometimes can so who have you who's mentored you in the faith I had a particular friend miss Pat I was like 17 miss Pat was in her 40s she lived like down the road from us so I would get on my bike and like ride to her house and she went to our church and we always laughed because miss Pat is also a psychiatrist that would do a church I feel like I would go to her house wing lay on her couch let's talk about life and she was always really patient with me and really just proactive in my life and looking back now as a much older I just am blown away by the amount of respect that she had for me in spite of my youth and in spite of the things that I was bringing her that probably seemed really small to her she always made me feel heard and seen I love that yeah I've had different seasons of different kinds of discipleship I think but I think the most significant season was from a woman named sentorria because i lived in her house this is when I was in LA so from I don't know 19 to 21 just about but my desciption was a bit like boot camp ish but I think that's because I'm just a very stubborn rebellious person and so sentorria was the right one cuz I remember she told me you know I mentioned this at earlier podcast that she told me that I was on my way to being a famous hypocrite and how her calling it my life to like ensure that my massive message in my life matched but one of the things that she did early on when I moved in is one day I woke up to get on the computer because this is when desktop computers were still the thing there wasn't a Twitter praise God I think myspace was still kind of popular and so I got on the computer and she had a post-it note and it said before you get on this computer I need you to do one chapter of Nancy Lee Dumas is seeking him and I was like first of all how does she know my schedule like how do you know what I do and so I had to get off the computer and I did that and that was every day every day she gave me an assignment and when she got off work we will walk through the assignment and then through that week whatever the assignment was she would challenge me to make sure that I actually lived it out and so if the assignment was you know James taming the tongue then if I didn't take my tongue she would say remember on Tuesday we read about taming the tongue this is where you apply that so it was it was intense but I think God was using sentorria to just anchor me and secure me in the faith to be honest so that's amazing yeah that's amazing every day Oh every day all day she sees all my sin you got like boot camp mentally I needed it though and I think I would have been a hot mess I really I would have been out here preaching the gospel well but not living none of it so I love that I think the Lord prepared you for the ministry he was gonna give you you so soon after really coming to pay yeah immediately yeah and she knew that she saw it that's all he gave me someone who would be hard on me because he knew I needed it that's good one of the mentors for me was when went to college I was involved in InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and so they had staff workers on campus and the female staff worker just said to me my freshman year hey can we get together and we started getting together every single week we went to a place called peppers pizza okay and we would sit there every week and we would just initially we just talked about life and then we might study remember we studied first Peter together one semester and what she would do is at the end of every semester she would say can we meet next semester hmm and then that went on for three years and so over three years we just met once a week in the same place and talked about God and talked about ministry and talked about faith and it was just again was she older she was but she wasn't that much older you know it she seemed older because she was graduating you know she had graduated so but she was probably 25 okay and I was 18 okay that's that's a big yeah yeah yeah especially in those years yeah those years so it was just it was a gift of time that I think now when you're in the life of the church to meet once a week with someone there's a lot yeah yeah he was really intimidating one of the questions I have for you we had different experiences I think there are two types of mentoring there can be this more formal which is what Deanne did with me formal every week kind of we knew our time limits you know this is when we're gonna meet this is the day this is when it ends she said we'll meet for this semester yeah that's what we wrote string there were good boundaries and then there's more informal mentoring you know as we look at that do you all have any thoughts on that like have you mentored someone formally or informally or have you which one do you like better I mean an informal would be just kind of spontaneous right yeah kind of like jasmine just ridin riding the bike over to the house yeah hey I'm here and then it kind of just happens yeah more when you're sitting over a coffee you may give that piece of wisdom you need yeah I had a height my high school teacher who did the FCA group that we talked about early she was more like that yeah I would just go to her classroom and we would just have conversations she wouldn't have said she was mentoring me yeah it wasn't this I feel official yes it wasn't official yeah I think it I think it depends on the life stage of the person and even the season of life so like my life stage like are they retired are they in college season of life are they really really busy right now but they'll be freed up in six months just because I feel like for me when I was mentoring more actively was before I had children before I got married like though as my life stages have changed I can't mentor in the same way that I was mentor because I just don't have the same time and I think it can sometimes feel like I'm not doing enough you know what I'm saying because I don't have the same amount of availability that sentorria have a she was a single woman that was literally her job was to pour into women versus me I just don't have that kind of margin and so when I do enter into mentorship relationships I actually establish those boundaries upfront I am available for you to this degree and so just so you know so we're clear I just you just can't pop over my house whenever you I mean maybe in 60 years I might be more godly and have an open door but I just I'm not there yet but we can meet for coffee anytime you can come over while I'm doing laundry when I invited you I actually think boundaries are really good yeah I was a woman asked me to mentor her and I realized at the end of this failed mentoring relationship that we both had different expectations going in yeah she wanted a friend hmm I wanted to help her grow spiritually oh that's different yeah and that's very different yeah she kind of wanted to just come and hang out and so I was giving her these assignments and she wasn't doing that yeah yeah because she just wanted us to be friends and then I was like wow she's not really putting into this and we didn't have a schedule time to me so the relationship just kind of petered out into this hey how you doing we should get together sometime but it was awkward because it didn't kind of have a set beginning and ending but yet it had been kind of a formal ass so I feel like if the ask is a formal like will you mentor me right I think it's really helpful to put boundaries on that yeah like well do you want to read a book together and we'll go through this book together and then we'll reevaluate at the end yeah I've learned through not failure that's really helpful to do so the expectations get met that you know why we're meeting yeah and for how long and maybe even win yeah yeah it's gonna be Tuesday means I think that's helpful yeah I I met in a little bit of a different situation because my parents are both really strong believers so I grew up with people who are assigned to me things all the time you know just keeping me on track constantly and consistently it sounds the way that I'm saying right now it sounds like it was kind of annoying sometimes it was but I'm actually really grateful for it but yeah so I already had my dad like coming and coming and knocking on my bedroom door hey how you doing like checking in let's talk mmm what's what's going on I had my mom you know I come home after a date how'd it go what happened you get we did so every other mentorship relationship that I've had I have really enjoyed the informal like drop-in dropout aspect because I mean I looked at home twice 24 so I had that consistent checking in yeah mentorship yeah yeah I got somebody what to make though I do I do it stuff both of you have live-in mentors I mean this was like lifelong yeah you have some of the scene every way you're spending your time in everything you're joined you know what what it did for me is that I think her awareness of my life my weaknesses where I was growing where I wasn't I think it taught me or showed me that that's actually the reality of God's awareness of my life and so I think my being accountable to her at all just kind of made me so much more teachable with anybody one when you got somebody correcting you all the time but also just an awareness and the submission to God like even when she was out of my life God is still here and he still sees and knows everything and so I think it was just really helpful to just be aware that God is you know seeing all my stuff I think that's a really good point a mentor cannot replace God in your life ya know sometimes I think we want a spiritual mentor as someone who is going to make us grow spiritually yeah and we kind of all miss idolize it like well all my problems are because I don't have someone like Jackie was describing know who's every day giving me an assignment to read and tell me hey you're missing the mark here I like to use the image of two trees better beside each other my I remember my dad when I was a kid I came outside and there was this tree that was completely bent over from a storm and I think I think the kids in the neighborhood had all been jumping on it and so we were helping the tree stay bent over and he took a he took out a rope or something and he tethered that bit over tree to a stronger tree and he tethered them together so that it was going to help that bent over tree grow straight and that's the image I like to keep in my head of mentoring because it's not that you know it was the rain and the Sun that made that little tree grow straight yeah the older tree was just standing mossad yeah that's all all they're doing is standing beside but I as a mentor can't make a younger Christian grow no yeah I mean that's up to the Lord you know to grow them but for the younger Christian out there who wants a mentor I think we have to reckon with they can't make me grow spiritually it's always God who's doing the growing and so even if we don't have a physical person I know for the first five years of my marriage we moved every year so it wasn't at a church long enough to actually find a mentor how would you encourage a woman who's out there maybe in a situation where everyone in her church is the same age or maybe even younger how can you get mentored spiritually if there's not necessarily a physical person you can ask those questions to a few things one I think it is a smidge concerning if I'm in a local church where no one is willing to be a Titus to or able to be a Titus too young older teach the younger and so I for me I think first and foremost look for a church that has a culture of discipleship if not that I think there's a lot of ways we got books we got podcasts we have YouTube I think if your pastor is married reach out to his wife those kinds of things yeah I think those are some of the options that many people have had to take yeah that's good I like what you said about the state of the church it was my first inclination when you said like oh there's nobody there to to do it or it's not available as can i well find somewhere where it is available yes and I was worried that that was too like yeah sure the hard core but yeah I mean being willing to go to a place and sometimes there's not a place to go I I totally understand that I get that but living where we live in the time that we live in we have a lot of options at our disposal so if I'm that younger woman and I want you Jasmine to mentor me how do I go about doing that USA hey will you be my mentor for the rest of my life and be my best friend for the rest of my marriage honestly never been asked to marry me like never been I like I'm sitting you're like wow y'all have like all these parameters and like idea Susan never never okay here that is live in Jackson but she's ready rolling according to the hospitality podcast Yolo make some hot chocolate for you guys like the milk you'll have to watch my kids but you can come for sure I think like I I'm fine with drop-ins we were talking about don't drop in on me don't and I'm like yeah drop in if I'm doing laundry didn't grab some laundry which is discipleship too well that's good for me because I'm inviting people into because I one thing I learned from my pastor in Chicago Bryan died who has a discipleship conference so my whole life in Chicago was me learning about discipleship is he talking about how in Matthew 28 Jesus says go therefore and make disciples of all nations and how that go is as you go and so he always would say you don't have to change your day to day life to disciple you just invite people into your day-to-day life so as you go to the grocery store invite them with you they can learn stewardship if as you you know go work out they can learn how to you know run track or something like you don't I think people think they have to create programs to do discipleship but true Jesus just had his disciples just with him healing eating chili going to weddings they was just there and they were able to not only learn from Jesus what like what he taught but also see it lived out in his life that's good and he also did - he limited it yeah he didn't disciple everybody yes he came into contact with he chose 12 know that he walked and really did life with rather than oh everyone you meet now you know can you imagine how many requests hey Jesus can we get coffee you have to say no to survive yeah I mean and he knew you know he limited and built the church through building up 12 people so sometimes I think we think that we have to have these huge ministries or these huge impact yeah whatever and sometimes I think oh wow Jesus built the church by investing in 12 people so day to day again and again you know and he obviously preached to the 5,000 and taught yeah I mean he did other bigger things too but his day to day faithful building up of the church was these men who would go on in acts you know have you had the experience of disciple of Judas well yeah they followed you they decide you I mean you disciple them they followed you you invited them into your home you pour it into them but then they betray you how do you overcome mentorship relationships gone bad I haven't actually had a mentor relationship yeah where it was kind of that close friendship yeah of discipleship pointing one another to Christ I have had that friendship you know and that is difficult too hard there was one situation in particular with a person who was in our home all the time dear friend and you know if some things came out and it was just very difficult because I felt like I've been lied to mm-hm for years and my mom was been touring somebody who is in our home all the time and I was there yeah yeah the same thing just it went really sour and it was really hard yeah and it takes me back to that Matthew 18 principle where they just had to have they just had to have it out they'd have a really hard conversation and they had to go their separate ways yeah it was really tough yeah I had one not recently but recently and it made me not want to disciple again it made me not want to mentor because it felt like dad like I was given a lot of time and energy for you to do what you've done and say and I eventually just had to have after seeing my therapist have to have a conversation because my therapist had to show me that I was hurt ya know cuz I must shut her down person where I just stopped feeling and so I had to see in process oh you're hurt by her you're not just mad you're hurt and so I had to reach out but I think I had to empathize with the fact that I knew her past I knew the things about God that she didn't believe and I think thinking about that reminded me why she treated me the way that she did is like you know her issue you know her struggles so those things maybe your time is over but continue to pray and so we're good now and one of the big hopes on that too was it didn't mean you were a failure of a mentor hmm I think one thing that can be intimidating for older women to mentor is they think what if she doesn't grow spiritually yeah what if it doesn't work so to speak and that's where the good news of it is we're leaving their growth up to the Lord like we're faithful I remember the story of Elizabeth Elliott went her first year missions worked before she was married she spent the entire year translating the Bible into maybe whatever language she was working on at the time and so that's a lot of work you know every day you get up and you do this translation work well the the whole manuscript got put on top of a bus and somehow it got lost okay and there was no yeah she hadn't had saved it on the external hard drive it was just lost so it was a year's work Wow that she had been faithful to do and it was just gone and I think sometimes in our mentoring relationships were faithful to pour into people who may wander what we've given them for now yeah yeah we don't know what will happen I mean seeds have been planted and so that's the hope is that at some point if God is not watering it now that he will again and I think even when we talked about earlier like that cumulative conversion kind of thing where it's like maybe God will send someone else to build upon what I planted and then someone else and maybe 15 years from now they actually begin to yeah bear the fruit of everything that I was trying to say or show so as we think about mentor discipleship one question I have for both of you is what are we actually trying to do what is the whole purpose and the goal of what we're trying to do so in Ephesians 4 Paul talks about how God has given us the Apostles the prophets the evangelists the Shepherd's the teachers to equip the Saints for the work of ministry to build up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God and so for me I think that the aim of all discipleship and all mentorship is that to equip the church to look like Jesus to know Jesus and to be unified with each other and it doesn't feel like it should be that big of a deal like I'm just having lunch you know they're just coming over and sitting on my couch but it's just you have no idea how one word of encouragement really does help somebody keep going or someone love their neighbor which then loving their neighbor could bring someone else to the faith and that person comes to the faith they might plant a church within saves 200 some people which one of them could become a missionary like like our little menial discipleship effort to really do work out to do very big things I think in the kingdom of God absolutely absolutely it's just such a reminder that we're not the center of the story we're working together within the body of Christ to accomplish God's purposes and mentorship discipleship is one of the ways that we do that yeah I like to say I am NOT here to make a disciple of Melissa mm-hmm I'm here to make it a cycle of Jesus and that changes things because sometimes you know the people we mentor are serving in ways we don't serve and so if I'm trying to convert them to me I'm gonna be upset if they're not you know teaching or doing the ministries and I feel called to versus saying I'm here to help you grow in the faith to equip you for the ministry the Lord has given you yeah that's a very different I think of John the Baptist when he said I must become less he must become greater I've learned this from a one discipled me and still kind of mentors me in many ways name melody from Chicago and she kind of got me in the season where I was I was engaged motherhood so she just kind of helps me with that and one thing she always told me is she said that anybody can discern sin and somebody but it takes real wisdom to discern gifts and gems and you you pour into that and so I think what I learned from her is that she discerned the things that God wanted to do with me and the gifts that God had given me and the skills that I had and so she would challenge me in those ways since I think discipleship does take a bit of intentionality and wisdom and just prayer praying for the person that you're walking with God this week I know I had to plan for us to go through Ecclesiastes but is there another route that I need to go is there something that they're dealing with it I may be unaware of like direct me with that so I speak at a lot of conferences with a lot of older Saints and one thing that I run into actually is the insecurity in them that when we say and Titus two older women teach the younger they feel as if they're not equipped or they have nothing to teach what is that why is that a thing and how how like do we even as a younger women encourage the Oder in that way you know I think a lot of older women haven't been mentored themselves and so I think there's this question in their head what does she want me to do with her mmm yeah and I think they feel all the fears that of what mentoring isn't I think they feel like they have to be perfect I think they feel like they have to know the Bible backward and forward and truthfully often the older we get the more we realize we don't know the Bible well at all so we're more intimidated will we hear oh I'm supposed to teach someone something yeah and so I think to the older we get we forget what we've learned along the way so sometimes I told her women you just don't even know all that you know just because you've walked through life walking with the Lord however I will say I also don't always think being older in a equates to spiritual maturity yes so I've seen a lot of 28 year olds who are really spiritually mature and maybe it's because they were like jasmine raised in a Christian home in they had been invested in so you've been taught mentoring by being mentored over and over and over again and you've seen good ones probably and ones that you wouldn't repeat so you're equipped to mentor just because that was the life you grew up that and the same thing for you you had this woman who invested in you well so I think it gives you a vision for it I think a lot of women sadly really have had no one spiritually invest in them and so sometimes they don't know what to do yeah and in you and so I think that's where we do need some training of what does it look like to help someone grow in the faith yeah so Melissa you're so humble that you won't you won't tell the Saints that you have a book actually about this topic called growing together taking mentoring beyond small talk and prayer requests do you have like I guess resources or even ideas in the book that would give people context for how to move forward in mentoring relationships yeah that was actually my goal and writing it I had so many older women with a very question they didn't feel equipped to mentor a younger woman and so that was why I wrote it because it's not a book about mentoring it's a book to help an older woman walk with a younger woman so the chapters are just meant to be springboards for the conversation and there are questions in the back if you feel like you don't even know what to ask this younger woman so you read the chapter about why God's Word is important and then there are questions in the back just so you can say hey which of the things about reading God's Word you struggle with the most and so I tried to make it as easy as possible because I believe the women have it in them they sometimes just don't know how to get it out that's good yeah that is good so the whole time we've been talking this little voice in the back of my head has been whispering what about Titus - what about - because growing up my ideas about mentorship really sprang from that verse those those verses that chapter in Titus and what it says older women are to be teaching younger women and how it says that older women are to be disciple in our women and I'd love to hear your thoughts about the limits that had it's two places on teaching or the parameters of mentorship for women is it different for the parameters for men can you only teach what's in Titus to so on and so forth just so we all know where we are I'm gonna read a little bit of what it says in Titus - sure it says older women likewise there to be reverent and behavior not slanderers or slaves too much wine they are to teach what is good and so train the younger women to love their husbands and children to be self-controlled pure working at home kind and submissive to their own husband's that the Word of God may not be reviled I'll take a stab at it just because I haven't actually really studied this verse like exegetically or nothing but I guess for me when I do read it I feel like the way I've heard it taught oftentimes what has been landed on the most is you know teach them to be submissive you know teach them to be workers at home rather than I think the first verse not the first verse but the the third verse seems to just say teach what is good mm-hmm there's a lot of good things to teach teach people not to be drunk cool teach people to be reverent awesome like I think Titus is hitting it way more than just how to serve your husband's especially it's considering the fact that the entire world is not married and so there are things that to be taught that single women can obey and listen to and respond to but I don't really know what I'm talking about so I agree completely oh thank you well I think this is a specific exhortation not a limitation and that's different so I think that this is a specific exhortation when you are a woman who's raising young you know we have to be commanded to love our children and our husband because we will want to love everybody else in the whole wide world but they are sometimes the most difficult to love so I think this is Paul saying if you are mentoring a younger woman who happens to be married and happens to have young children reminder that it's important yeah it's not saying the only women you mentor yeah are to be married now the only thing you teach yeah and basically when you look at these words look what it says good love self-controlled kind that's half of the fruit of the Spirit and yeah and so I think what Paul is saying make sure they bear the spirit in the home yeah but if I'm mentoring someone who's in the working world I'm gonna mentor her reminding her bared the fruit of the Spirit and your working environment bear the fruit of the Spirit you know when you're going to the grocery store and that cashier is mean to you know bear the fruit of the Spirit wherever the Lord places you and I think this is just speaking to make sure you bear the fruit of the Spirit in your home that's the sometimes that's the hardest place and it's also a corrective I mean I'm gonna be obnoxious and answer my own question I studied this verse a lot this past year because of the little voice in the back of my head and I decided to go back and read Titus 1 which I maybe read once or twice I had read Titus 2 thousands of times on text 10 of Titus 1 is for there are many who are insubordinate empty talkers and deceivers especially those of the circumcision party they must be silenced since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful game what they ought not teach and it goes on to talk about how these people are going from house to house and just upsetting entire families and turning things upside down and before he even gets to verse 10 in verse 5 he talks about the qualifications for elders for an overseer as God steward must be above reproach he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain but hospitable a lover of good self controlled upright holy and disciplined he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it the NATO isn't talking about the circumcision party and so as I reread Titus 1 and Titus 2 anti-de stream in context I saw this different picture emerging of like you guys said Paul admonishing in a particular context and admonishing against super specific sins and I saw Titus 2 3 through 5 and Titus 1 5 through 9 as mirroring and complimenting each other Titus 1 doesn't have every single qualification for what it means to be a godly man and the godly mentor to other men and neither does neither does Titus 2 for women and that might sound really obvious to a lot of people listening but if they are like me maybe it's never dawned on them before and I just remember having that like lightning bolt moment of you know I'm not trying to find an excuse not to obey Titus 2 I want to obey Titus 2 I want to be kind and I want to be good to my husband and good to my children and I want to build up my home but I also don't want to take something beautiful and turn it into a restriction when that's not its original intent absolutely that's good it's always good sometimes these verses get plucked mm-hmm and we've just looked at that one verse and we start trying to interpret it without looking at what's the context it's set in and and that changes everything well this has been such a good discussion thank you both I hope if you're listening that you will consider is there somebody in my life that I should pour back into and kind of pass the baton of what I've learned to someone else and or is there someone in my life that I look up to and I say oh wow she's got a great prayer life I want to ask her if she'll mentor me in prayer just take a moment to think about that today who could you invest in and who could you ask to invest in you because I think discipleship is just the way of spiritual growth that we often miss and we need one another and so it's a great way to grow in our faith and I would always suggest just ask someone to get coffee yeah that's the least intimidating way rather than 40 mentor it's like that kids like tea or tea or hot chocolate come over to my house while I'm holding my laundry and Hayley's change a diaper yeah whatever it might be so we encourage you to just think about that and do that now it is time for favorite things so I'm excited about this one today we're gonna talk about what is the favorite place you'd like to go back to and visit so my favorite place within the United States to visit is San Diego I love their Sydney go I've gone there with my family I've gotten there by myself with my friend I've gone there with my husband I haven't taken my kids back yet but I love San Diego and it's actually where Phillip and I saw each other again after the first time and decided that we kind of like each other San Diego was the place where I was like god I kind of really like him he's kind of interested in somebody else let's see what happens and so it will always have a really nice warm fuzzy memory attached to it did you go over to Coronado yes laughs I love Coronado and we stayed in Escondido and it was just so beautiful I just love it I want to go back as soon as possible but the other place is Israel we went on a two-week tour in Israel and it was like I know right it's like San Diego Israel we went on a two-week like a history Bible tour in Israel and it was phenomenal I want to go have you been no you okay we should do a let's talk Israel I'm with it foods great you know yeah it's good it's good place you how about you Jackie I think um I've been to a couple places in the world but I think one of my favorites is New York just because as many times as I've been to New York I feel like I still don't have a grasp of the city like there's still so many more neighborhoods and restaurants and coffee places and boutiques to see I think next to that would be London cuz to me London feels like a European New York mm-hmm so those are definitely it I love what I love daddy knocks are pretty here did you can I saw told me but if I was single I would live in London for like minimum a year just to do it I love the UK and actually my place is we spent on six months on sabbatical in Cambridge in England so it's about 45 minutes south of London it was just great because you can just take the train up uh-huh but it's Cambridge is this wonderful city you know with this university but it's really small and so there was this specific place I love to go that was called the orchard and so if I'm riding on my bike and if I go left I'd be in the middie middle of this city with this market that's been there since the 1200 but if I go right I'm in the middle of a cow field writing to the orchard where there are like blackberry bushes growing on the side and then you get there and it's this tea place with these slingback green chairs under apple trees so we were there in the fall and it was like my kids kept saying can we you know climb the trees and pick the Apple coat and I was like my kids are gonna be yeah proper British people kid the American kids are the ones coming the trees so I went up and asked they're like well of course they can come the trees and pick the apples that's what they're here for it was just this place we'd love to be and it was it was a it was a great time my kids were young and it was really a fun place to be so I'd love to go back well thanks so much for joining us for this episode of let's talk next week we'll be covering the topic of building friendships with people who aren't just like you this is probably something we all need to be challenged on so be sure to tune in you can subscribe to let's talk through Apple podcasts Spotify stitcher or wherever you like to get your podcast check out our other shows from the Gospel Coalition podcast network at GGC org slash podcasts the Gospel Coalition connects Christians to resources that apply the truth and beauty of the gospel to all of life [Music]