
The Life Challenges Podcast
The Life Challenges Podcast
Building Bridges Within the Community
Embrace the transformative power of community engagement as we navigate the complexities of expressing Christian love beyond the church walls. This episode promises insights into how you can glorify God through your personal passions while making a meaningful impact. Learn how common interests can become bridges to deeper, more meaningful connections within your community. By aligning personal hobbies with local activities, you can forge genuine relationships that may blossom into faith-based conversations. From the comfort of book clubs to the excitement of sports coaching, discover how your actions in these neutral grounds can reflect your beliefs and open doors to impactful interactions. Through patience and authentic presence, witness how shared passions can lead to a profound witnessing journey.
The Balance of GrayGod, doubt, and proof walk into a podcast... it goes better than you’d expect!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
On today's episode.
Speaker 2:When you find things that you're passionate about, if you're into collecting cars, or you're into antique cars or whatever, or you like different clubs, community organizations, bowling, dartball, whatever it is that gets you to mix with other people, god has given you something that you enjoy. Embrace it, use it, but then remember it's also been given to you so that it can be done to his glory, and so when you look at it, the mission field will be there.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death, marriage and family, health and science. We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more. Join us now for Life Challenges.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome back. I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson, and today we want to do an episode called Making a Difference in your Community. This is something that personally, I've been pretty passionate about recently, and it is where we kind of want to talk about just ways to get involved in the community importance and doing that both with being a part of a church but also maybe individually too. I think sometimes maybe we do kind of focus on getting out into the community as a church but maybe less focus on doing it as an individual or even a family unit, and so just wanted to be able to talk about different aspects with that and excited to see where the conversation goes today with that. I guess maybe a place that we could just start is why do it? Why would somebody want to get out in the community, get involved in the community and what that really looks like?
Speaker 4:Well, I just want to start by saying one of the first things that I thought of when you suggested this topic for the episode is that this goes back or relates to one of our very first episodes, which was on activism, and I think that had a little bit more of a focus on pro-life activism. You know, this is a bit more general, but of course, everything that we might talk about more generally can be applied particularly to a pro-life type of work. But why is it that Christians talk about getting out into the community? It's really assumed as part of the church's mission. What did Jesus say? He said go, go out into all the world. And where does all the world start? It starts right outside your doors, and so that's why it's really an assumption there and just kind of looking at it negatively too. If we want to make a difference in the world and we do because we love our neighbors we can't just stay behind our closed doors and look out at the world. We need to actually be in the world in order to influence it.
Speaker 2:There is the idea of kind of isolating yourself from the world. You know it's a bad place, bad influences and so forth, which, by the way, describes the mission field, you know, and it's what Jesus had done in his own ministry. And the calling to spread the gospel is into all the world. But so is the calling to be charitable, to be loving, to sacrifice for others and to love your enemy, to turn your cheek. Those kinds of things involves you getting out of your little safe, little cocoon that you've wrapped yourself in and venturing out. And it was interesting this morning one of my staff members and I were talking about do I see myself as an extrovert or an introvert? I generally see myself as an introvert. I tend to. I like the safety of not being bothered, kind of just doing my own thing. And yet we've been called to go into the world and to be Christ-like in all the world. And I'm very happy that he was not an introvert.
Speaker 1:I don't think it would have gone as well for all of us.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, when we think about kind of going out in the community, I mean first I kind of want to talk about it from a church perspective. I think last year at the conference, the Christian Life Resources Conference the conference, the Christian Life Resources Conference we had Jonathan Hine speak. Pastor Hine and he talked about really yeah, I mean just how different we have maybe become in churches, like how, you know, setting up a really awesome coffee bar in your church isn't going to probably attract the people that really need to be there now and that getting people like through the front door is really the hardest part. And so, as churches, we do see I mean a push maybe to try to go to where the people are at. And so I mean what have you guys kind of seen just with churches trying to get out there into the community and maybe either reasons why or just ways that people and churches get out there?
Speaker 4:It might be helpful to think of this as different levels of engagement. The zero level is we as a church just stay here, do our thing and we don't really want the community in, because that complicates things and that actually worked a bit at some times when you had families that were regularly having large families because you grew biologically and you didn't see the need necessarily for anything beyond that. It wasn't following the mission Christ has given to the church, but people still felt fairly comfortable with it. But the first level is what I might call just kind of a hey, we're here level. Maybe you do parades in your community, you have a float or you march in a parade or you have a booth at the county fair or something like that, and, yes, it gives you an opportunity to talk to people, maybe. But the main thing is you're just kind of announcing hey, we're here if you're interested in us. It's a first step of a witness but it's not usually going to do a whole lot in terms of getting people in your doors. A second level is well, we're not quite going, but we're inviting. You have presentations and activities at your church that you invite the community to. Maybe you have a parenting expert, come and give a presentation about that. Maybe you host a sports league, use your gym for that, or like a Mornings with Mommy program for parents of young kids in the community. Maybe addiction recovery events. These are things that you're doing. You're trying to reach the community, but mostly it's having them come to you.
Speaker 4:Third level is where the risks start coming in in terms of I have to step out of that comfort zone a lot more, because the congregation gets involved as a congregation in various community events and activities. They are identifiable as such. They are mixing with the others. We're careful not to cross any fellowship lines and things like that. But maybe there's some kind of town cleanup day. You go out as a congregation to do that. Maybe it's something with housing the homeless or feeding the hungry or something like that that you're doing that out in the community. And sometimes it's just you're all going and taking part in something that everybody's taking part in, but you're, all you know, maybe wearing your St John's Lutheran t-shirts or something like that, or maybe it's that you say, okay, our church is going to take care of feeding the homeless at the shelter every Wednesday, or something like that.
Speaker 4:Where you're doing it, you know as a special, specific thing. And the next level from that is the one that I think is probably closer to your heart, krista, is the members getting involved in the community individually. You know as individuals, you know community organizations on boards, on volunteering for events, coaching or something like that, your local PTA or something, and that's being done not just as a lone wolf but with the church's support, that they know what you're doing, they're praying for you, they're helping you in various things and you are actively witnessing to your faith in those situations, so that people then say, hey, this is a real person that I kind of like, and what is it that makes you different, and can I have some?
Speaker 2:I believe that there's an in-reach and an outreach component to church life and I think many of us don't have them well-defined. I think we do in-reach and we call it outreach and then we don't do outreach, for example, what I mean by that is that, taking some of those levels that Jeff talked about, you know, and what we would call an outreach effort really is, we want people who like our culture, we want people who like the way we do things. So come in here. We have this nice coffee bar, we have this, you know. We invite you, come, welcome. We're going to have, you know, a contemporary service that'll bring it in.
Speaker 2:But it ignores, I think, what it means to reach the lost, which would be genuine outreach. And we're not equipped for it because we tend to attract around us people who are just like us. So oftentimes outreach might mean we accept, by profession of faith, people from another church that they just felt they weren't being fed, or something like that, which all of that is valuable, but it's not outreach, it's just simply moving around believers, genuine outreach. I don't believe the church itself as an entity has a major role in outreach. As an entity, its role is to be a trainer for its members. In my view, a congregation that's outreach-minded is actually training its members to get involved with various community resources, community activities, community things, training you to talk to people about Jesus. I mean to simply have a church and say, this Sunday we're doing this and this Sunday we're going to do that. And that's where I've always said you know, let me tell you this story my first year in the ministry 1983, got into a conversation during a pastor's conference with a fellow who was only two years ahead of me and he was in a church and we were talking about the practice of close communion, the fact that you know, we don't want everybody who just walks into the door to come up for communion. We want you to be part of our fellowship Discussion for another day. You know that.
Speaker 2:But the point is this he said that he favored moving communion to a separate members-only event at nighttime. He said, because we're always doing Friendship Sunday and Outreach Sunday and we're doing all these things, we bring these people and if they happen to walk in on a Communion Sunday, it always was kind of weird you know, welcome to our church, but don't come up. And he said that way we could shift it around. That was my first exposure to what are we really trying to do and I think you know this idea, that you know. The in-reach part of our ministry looks to what believers are looking for and that is to be nurtured in their understanding of God's Word and will for their lives and to offer praise, and that's why a lot of emphasis on church service, those kinds of things. But then when we train them for outreach, the unbeliever doesn't want to step into your church, any more so than the unbelieving wanted to step into the synagogue. Unbelievers are going to hear the message from your believers, your members, and they need to be trained in that regard.
Speaker 1:You know you touched on some of the things too both you did really on just this idea of is it good enough to just get out into the community as a church or you know, do you really want to kind of push yourself as an individual to get out and I think you know kind of what you were saying, bob is that the church's job really is to equip the individual out there.
Speaker 4:And I think too, this idea of even and just getting out in the community where you live and work to be able to connect with outsiders, or I mean maybe not outsiders but to be able to connect with individuals in the community- yeah, I think that one of the things that causes Christians the most apprehension, or even fear, is oh, I just I'm not sure how to start a conversation, I'm not quite comfortable putting myself out there and some people who are extremely extroverted, that's like what are you talking of? Found in Scripture. But I'm going to simplify it, and that's the difference between evangelist and witness. The New Testament uses the word evangelist. That's a person who is specifically gifted by God and called to serve as somebody whose main job is to go out with the gospel, to be that kind of a professional extrovert, you know, in terms of sharing God's word. It uses also a verb that we would call evangelize, which is sharing the good news, or you might even say it's good news-izing. You know, it's getting the gospel to people.
Speaker 4:There is no evangelism word, and yet that's the thing that we talk about so often is we need to do more evangelism, and I think part of the problem with the emphasis on evangelism is we start telling everybody in the church, every Christian, that they need to be an evangelist, which is, you know, as scripture talks about it, a very specific thing, which is specific gifts and calling. What, instead, scripture does call every Christian is a witness and you can either be a good witness or a bad witness, or somewhere in the middle there or whatever, but every Christian is a witness because they see you and they see a Christian and that sends a message. If you are super introverted, could never open your mouth at all. That sends a message. If you are super introverted, could never open your mouth at all. You can still be an effective witness for Christ by living a Christian life, by standing out for that and being the kind of person that sets up the first Peter three situation where somebody asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have, and you haven't even had to start that conversation. But you're ready. You're ready to give some answers to that because every Sunday you recite the creed, you know the gospel message, you know sin and grace. You can talk about these things. You've done it every Sunday. You don't have to have this super special training to do it, which means that you can go into your community and you can serve on that board, you can volunteer in that organization and if you maintain your solid Christian witness through that, you don't have to be turning every conversation into hey, can I tell you about Jesus. You're still being a witness to that Now. Obviously, if you are able to start a conversation and say, hey, can I tell you about Jesus, that's great. And I've been going on for a minute or two here.
Speaker 4:But I'll just pick up on one thing that Bob mentioned before, that so much of our emphasis, also over generations, has been well, once you get fine to prospect, get them to church. And, as Bob's illustration was kind of talking about that, why are we making that the first step? And especially today, when so many people in our society have no church background, that's asking them to go to a really strange place. You need to start with the. Can I tell you what the Bible says? There's this class that my pastor teaches. Would you be interested in attending that with me to go through? You know you don't have to go to church on Sunday. There's no commitment involved here or anything. You're not exposing yourself to anything. And start with that level of reaching heart to heart, mind to mind, before you're getting somebody who's like, oh, if you're going to do this, you've got to go all the way.
Speaker 1:First step I think too, you know and Bob, I think, or maybe both of you kind of touched on this too is that sometimes people just don't really want to put themselves in any uncomfortable situation.
Speaker 1:Because sometimes, I mean, when you surround yourself with people that are not in the Christian community, you can get in situations that make you feel uncomfortable too. And I remember doing this yoga workout video one time, like from Julian Michaels, and one of the things that she would say was you know, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. And you know just this idea that I mean, once you're uncomfortable, you're probably getting a pretty good workout in. You know, and I think that kind of goes to some of the things with being in the community too, because, as I have been out there in the community, there are times where, yeah, like I am uncomfortable with some of the things that are, be that come up or being discussed, discussed, and you try to navigate those things as best as you can, but being in those situations can open doors to share your faith and just have other people see that. Okay, maybe not everybody thinks like this way or not everybody does something this way, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:When Jeff was talking about you know the distinction between an evangelist and a witness. I thought that that was valuable. You know, the Apostle Paul talks about how we all have different gifts and that is suggesting different tools that we use in ministry. Different tools that we use in ministry, and some people have a gift for explaining difficult things in ways that are easy to understand. Other people have the ability to understand extremely difficult things, but you never want them to try to explain that to the general audience because they're going to be six miles above your head. I mean, there are just different abilities that can be utilized in different ways.
Speaker 2:The church as an entity, the leadership of the church, should look at the gifts that are given. It's kind of like assigning Stephen and others to make sure the allocation of the food is done correctly in the early church. You look at different abilities. We're not looking at anyone being less spiritual. We want them all to be spiritual, but you tie them to where their gifts lie and use them that way. At the risk of sounding formulaic, oftentimes we do so many things, both in the church and as individuals, that we don't really have a clear understanding of what we're trying to accomplish and of what we're trying to accomplish and then why we are trying to accomplish it, like, for example, when my church says we're having Friendship Sunday next week you know, of course, being a little bit of a combatant, the way that I can be, there's a part of me that says so.
Speaker 2:What do you mean by that? What do you mean? Friendship Sunday Can I bring in my enemies? So we're trying to make friends of everybody? And then why are we doing it this way? In other words, nothing's done about it. That's right.
Speaker 2:It's not thought through. No one has asked what they're trying to accomplish and why they're trying to accomplish it. And is it realistic, for example, if I have an introverted personality where I'm not comfortable talking to people and I'm not that introverted, by the way, but I mean where I'm not comfortable talking to people to simply say that therefore I must never share the gospel with anybody, that's not correct. To say that I must share it like the great preacher shared it, that also is equally wrong. It's not being realistic. Well, look at it this way. You know, right now, the big deal in churches today are teaching what's called an apologetic approach to reaching out, and I very much like that approach and we use it in life and family issues too. I just got done sharing with somebody this morning this idea that when society says that slavery is wrong and prostitution is wrong and child abuse is wrong and whatever they want to declare to be wrong. I may not disagree with them, but I want to know why do they think it's wrong? Because there are people who thought it was right, for example, slavery. There was a time in history where people thought it was right and defended it, and not only defended it, but defended it successfully. They made their point. They owned slaves and so forth.
Speaker 2:Personally, I thought that was very wrong. But why? Okay, in apologetics, you know, you've got to give me more than your opinion, because there are people who will differ with you. So I think, as a church trains its members to be witnesses, today we have the nuns. You know N-O-N-E, the nuns. These are the people who are going to church, don't profess any church affiliation, but they may be believers. They just for reasons and most of them are wrong reasons have severed a relationship with the church. You approach them differently than you do the ones who are unbelievers.
Speaker 2:But the one thing that I'd like to point out to people is never presume that people know Jesus. They just don't care about church things. It's amazing how many people I've encountered in my life who don't even know who Jesus is. They may know him as a television character or somebody they saw in a movie or they heard about, or somebody that only surfaced in their life at a funeral, but otherwise they don't know.
Speaker 2:So I think a realistic expectation is maybe people need to be taught to understand their audience, who you're talking to, and then understand the best way to approach them. Now, if you've got the ability to be a handyman, to fix garage doors, to put in electrical and that kind of stuff, god has given you a forum to establish a relationship into the community with people who need to know Jesus and you use that forum. If you've got the ability to book club, talk about things, you're constantly looking for the forum. But the other thing too and I know we've talked about this in other episodes take people with where they're at, not with where you think they should be, because it sometimes took many years to get you there and it may take that long to get them there. So you've got to start. You know, at a low level you don't come out swinging.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the things too I was going to ask about is kind of what it looks like to get involved in the community.
Speaker 1:Going to ask about is kind of what it looks like to get involved in the community, bob, I think you really touched on one of the things too, is that sometimes it looks like just finding what you're interested in and doing that, and I mean you know it doesn't have to really be really much more complicated than that. I mean, I think for myself recently, I mean I was on the library board just because I kind of got into the library more with my kids and caring about that and was involved in a mom's club too in the community, and just because my kids were young and you know, and that was just something that really was a thing that I was doing at that time in my life too was a thing that I was doing at that time in my life too. And so if you're good at coaching or something or you like sports, join a local softball team or just that type of thing can help build relationships too in the community.
Speaker 2:But sometimes be careful that what you decide to join isn't just solely ideological. Now here I'm head of a pro-life group, but I think joining a pro-life group is not quite what we're talking about for outreach. When you want to do outreach being part of a mom's club, coaching, something like that that provides a forum in which people's guard is not up right away I think you're always trying to look for neutral ground to be involved. Neutral ground in which a lot of people think, well, I'll get involved, I'll get on the planning commission, I'll show up at the town board meeting, I'll get on to the county board. Those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:I believe in those things. I think some people are designed for that, but it's hard to give a witness. Maybe at best you can maybe protect your environment a little bit from things. But by far I think you make a bigger impact by being an active member of the JCs or something like that, a community organization where you meet new people, you kid around, you do things together and it provides low tension opportunities to talk. If you're going to meet people where they're at, you got to first find out where they're at.
Speaker 4:And along with your point, krista, about doing things you're already interested in, maybe it's something that you should be doing anyway or that's going to benefit you anyway. I mean, like doctor's been really telling me I should exercise for the last 10 years, well, maybe I join a gym or start going to that Zumba class or something like that. It's good for you, but even more than that, it gives you the opportunity to meet people and to be a witness in that environment. And maybe it's that extra step, maybe that extra thing of saying is like, well, I won't do this for myself, but if I'm going to be helping love my neighbor by doing this, okay, now I'll do it. Maybe that's the extra little oomph push that you need.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and when you get close to people too and develop friendships and different things too, you are just there naturally. When people then go through hard times, and that is really when sometimes I mean when I've noticed where I'm able to share a little bit more, to just that natural conversation that comes when oh, you know my, you know my parent is sick, or something where you can really talk to that person a little bit, maybe on a deeper level because you've known them now a couple of years through.
Speaker 1:Zumba or through whatever it is that you're doing.
Speaker 2:You know, picking up on how to do this. A lot of times we use relationships as opportunities to grumble, to grumble about things that we don't like. And just remember that if you're grumbling about the headache you feel you have with your spouse, the challenges you have with your church and so forth, don't be surprised if nobody wants to ask you the reason for the hope that you have. You're not looking all that hopeful. You have, you're not looking all that hopeful. But when you find things that you're passionate about if you're into collecting cars or you're into antique cars or whatever, or you like different clubs, community organizations, bowling, dartball, whatever it is that gets you to mix with other people God has given you something that you enjoy. Embrace it, use it. That you enjoy, embrace it, use it. But then remember it's also been given to you so that it can be done to his glory, and so when you look at it, the mission field will be there.
Speaker 2:I think the most impacting messages, conversations I've ever had, encounters I've had, has never been with large audiences, and I've had plenty of large audiences, but it's usually been one-on-one. Usually very often, if not always, starts off kind of benign, kind of like you know, we'll talk about the weather. We'll talk about the Packers. We'll talk about baseball. We'll talk about gardening. We'll talk about things that I'm interested in. I have a very broad base of interest because I want to be able to approach people on different levels and talk to them about different things, and that's what you want to do, because then they start telling you and talking and unloading and you know, hopefully you're there to serve serve, yeah, and I mean I think also to just.
Speaker 1:I mean so people kind of know too. I mean I mean I've never had anybody and maybe I'm doing it wrong and stuff but I've never really had anyone come and say, krista, you know what is the reason for the hope that you have, and but I mean and I guess I just say that to like as a disclaimer to people that you know you might not get like those words coming at you and stuff too, but don't ever discount your position as a Christian and your ability to give a witness and stuff too. I mean I'm just reminded, when I first joined mom's club too, I would go to these gift exchanges for Christmas time and you'd bring like a gift and then you know, kind of those white elephant gift exchange. Well, there was a girl who every year brought something designed for a woman's pleasure, okay, and I always made sure that I would never get one. And this, the reason I share this story is that it does like go to like that idea of like being in an uncomfortable situation, right, so you interact with the community, you're in an uncomfortable situation, okay, and I mean I always, you know, was able to get out of getting that gift and everything.
Speaker 1:But this individual, about four or five years into Mom's Club, was diagnosed with cancer and she had been raised Catholic, she had a Catholic background and everything too, and she had it for a couple years. And it was probably about maybe a good year and a half into it that I just was realizing that this was pretty severe and that this was something that really she was probably not going to recover from. And I started just messaging her every week because Wednesdays were the days where she would have chemo and I just started making that my day to send her messages. And in my mind I had thought I'm going to send her messages so that if it ever gets really bad, she'll ask me questions about the faith I have, or something like that. Or she'll ask me how could God let this happen to me, or anything like that. And it never became that, it wasn't that. But I mean she saw that every week I sent her a message, I would share scripture with her, I would tell her you know just different things. And I did it up until when she passed away eight months after that.
Speaker 1:I mean I just I share that story just with people, because I never would have met her. I mean, she was not anyone I ever would have met, like outside of that group. And you know, and even too I had Christian friends like that would join the Moms Club group and yeah, you get to that Christmas party. Okay, maybe they wouldn't be a part of that group anymore and stuff too, but I mean I really felt like God was having me in that situation to be a witness to somebody. That's just my encouragement to people too is that sometimes you might kind of be in uncomfortable situations and have been in other uncomfortable types of things too, but you know, sometimes you are really the Christian that people will see and that if you retreat from all of those uncomfortable situations, I mean, who are those people going to know, going to see?
Speaker 2:If somebody writes and says how inappropriate, da, da, da, inappropriate, we don't have any problem talking about. Some people are loveless, they don't care and we talk about. Some people are slanderous and get away with it and see we can talk about all that as if that's like a different kind of sin. The reality is that sometimes the world seems I always use the phrase always looks to spin my collar. In other words, they're trying to get a rise out of me. And it goes back to when I was at the seminary and in the job that I had. People knew that I was going to the seminary to be a pastor and some of them would just go out of their way to try to offend me. They would either start a joke that sounded innocent enough and then the punchline was a real doozy, you know, and stuff like that. But that's where they're at. And so sometimes you have to deal with the people who don't make right choices. And I will tell you, because we have an organization here that deals with all sorts of people who make wrong choices, and when they make those wrong choices, sometimes they become the most incredible witnesses later on.
Speaker 2:I always thought it was interesting that how Jesus picked the audience that the religious leaders automatically rejected, and I don't think there's a real subtle message there. I think it's a pretty obvious message, and it takes a lot and you sometimes have to swallow hard and so forth and maybe they see that it bothers you and that might even give them cause to be even more indignant. But I'll tell you, what leaves an impression is, when the chips are down, you're there for them. And why would that be? Because you and I do this to Jesus all the time in different ways, and yet when the chips are down, he's there for us and that's all you're doing, is you're just basically reflecting Christ's love.
Speaker 4:Responding to something that you're talking about with your story. Kristen, I'm not saying you felt this way, but I could easily imagine somebody saying oh man, I did all that good work there, you know being friendly and everything like that, and I never got a chance to witness. I guess it was a failure. And you know that can be an attitude that a lot of Christians can inadvertently get. It's like, well, if I do something like getting out into the community, it only matters if I get to that point of a witness, or maybe even it only matters if then I get that person into church or something like that. It's like, just remember that when you do a good thing for someone, that is a good thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's true.
Speaker 4:I mean, we are called to love our neighbor, yeah, no, it's who we are and so we don't have to. You know, keep some running tally of. Okay, well, I did this many nice things for somebody but I only got this many people asking me about Jesus. We don't friend. You help your friend because that's a loving, christ-like thing to do. That's reward enough in itself. If you get that chance to witness to that person, if you get a chance to tell them about Jesus, that's icing on the cake. It's worth doing because it's worth doing.
Speaker 1:Right, and you don't ever have those opportunities if you don't go out and do them.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and.
Speaker 1:I think you know. That's just, I mean, maybe the point to really drive home that you know, if there is something that you think you can be doing in your community or something, give it a shot, because just getting out and meeting more people, god will bless that.
Speaker 2:God will bless that, and making a difference in your community means that you have to go to the part of the community that needs a difference to be made. There always does seem to be that kind of isolationist that we do as Christians, and if there's a temptation for you that you could be drawn into sin, you flee, you run away from that, but if there is not a temptation there, step into the lion's den. I mean, that becomes the mission field and I commend you for it.
Speaker 1:Hope this episode did inspire you to think maybe about some of these different things, and if you have any questions on this topic or any others, please reach out to us at lifechallengesus and we look forward to having you back next time. Bye.
Speaker 3:Thank you for joining us for this episode of the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources. Please consider subscribing to this podcast, giving us a review wherever you access it and sharing it with friends. We're sure you have questions on today's topic or other life issues. Our goal is to help you through these tough topics and we want you to know we're here to help. You can submit your questions, as well as comments or suggestions for future episodes, at lifechallengesus or email us at podcast at christianliferesourcescom. In addition to the podcasts, we include other valuable information at lifechallengesus, so be sure to check it out. For more about our parent organization, please visit christianliferesourcescom. May God give you wisdom, love, strength and peace in Christ for every life challenge.