Creating Space to Belong w/ Steve Carigon

What does it mean to truly belong? Why does it matter so much? 

In this episode, Pastor Steve Carigon returns to explore the deep connection between love and belonging, especially for kids who have experienced trauma. 

Learn how creating spaces of acceptance and hospitality can transform lives, and why feeling seen, safe, and supported is essential at any age of life. 

Whether you're a caregiver, parent, or simply someone who wants to love others better, this conversation will inspire you to help others feel like they truly belong.

View the artwork Steve referenced in this episode: Artwork photos

For more information on the podcast, please visit: https://www.wedgwood.org/podcast/

For mental health resources, please vist: https://www.wedgwood.org/self-care

To learn more about Wedgwood, please visit: https://www.wedgwood.org/

For podcast and/or Wedgwood merch, please visit: https://wcb.myprostores.com/

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hey, hey, it's Hilary. Join me for a helpful and hopeful chat about mental health in our community. So grab a cup of coffee or tea. This is Wedgwood's Coffee Break conversation. It's always a good day to have a coffee break with Pastor Steve Kerrigan, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me. So for those who may have missed your past appearances on the podcast, can you share a little bit about who you are and what you do? I would like to know the analytics on the last time, were they higher than everybody else? Or no, I will look sorry. We just I shouldn't do that. That's fine. That's my fault, Jack. I'm sorry. So sorry. Okay, let's try that again. For those who may have missed your past appearances on our podcast, can you share a little bit about who you are and what you do? My name is Steve Kerrigan. Did I say that already, or did you I said it? But you say too? My name is Steve Kerrigan. I'm a chaplain here at Wedgwood, and I absolutely love being here and love what I do. How long have you been with Wedgwood? I have been here this time, five years. Wow. The first time in the late 90s. Also five years. Which Hillary that equates to 10 years? 10 years. Wonderful. So you pretty often, almost always, are talking about love. I mean, hence your sweatshirt, your love sweatshirt, loving others and feeling and being loved. But today I'd like to chat a little bit about a love adjacent topic, if that's okay, belonging, because I feel like love and belonging can kind of go hand in hand. So first, talk to me about what belonging means to you, and what does it mean to belong. Belonging means to me. And you're right, when I think of belonging, I think of loved. That really is if you say one, you're kind of saying the other. You don't have one without the other, sure, but belonging, being accepted, being included, being cared for, supported, being who you are be being in a space where you can be who you are without feeling you're less than or embarrassed. That's, I'm trying to think of other words. No, I think that's, that's what I would think belonging is okay. And how has your understanding of belonging evolved over time? Are you talking ministry wise or just as a human wise, whatever. Okay, both, yes, ministry wise, that's much of my life. Adult life. I've worked with kids, and I think it was very good that I started out in kid ministry at a care facility like this. So right out of the gate, I got the Accepting of everybody, letting everybody sit around the table. And then since then, I've worked in the suburbs. I've worked in the city. I've worked in between. But that that starting really gave me a good sense of what I would say, what goes along with belonging to is hospitality. It gave me a big sense of hospitality to whoever being prepared for whoever comes through the door, or whoever you cross paths with, and doing that intentionally, just being hospitable and being ready, mentally, physically, atmosphere, sorry, I looked in the room, because I host events here a lot, Yeah, just being ready to be hospital, being ready for somebody to come in and feel like they belong there, just because of the environment that's been created. And you you've seen belonging in all sorts of places. So like, kids have a desire for belonging here in care facilities, but also in the suburbs and in nice parts of town and in the inner city. Like, that's pretty universal. Oh, absolutely, I have. Could I get something right here? I ran across this the the other day, and it kind of not, kind of, it really wowed me, and it put words to my work with kids, and what I what I attempt to do, check this out. This is from this is for a teacher's perspective. Okay, so we need to accept that some kids are not at school for academics. They are there to be loved. Once they get that love and feel safe, we can work academics. I wherever we go. We want to be loved, yeah, and especially if you're talking about kids, they're going to wherever to be loved. And I just love the cut, like once they feel that, once they feel loved, okay, then. Maybe we can work on a behavioral issue, yeah? Or we can work on them being motivated to go to school. We can work on other things, but the absolute rock bottom foundation needs to be them, feeling loved them, feeling like they belong. And then we can do all kinds of stuff after that. But that has to be first, yeah? Well, it kind of goes what they need to feel safe, to be who they are, to just be safe in general before they can do anything else. So why is belonging so important to us as people, not even just kids like you and I as adults? Why is it so important that we feel like we belong? Because if we don't, if we don't, we don't become our true selves. If we don't belong, it's the same I'm gonna enter intermingle loved and belonging a lot. I realize that, but that if we don't feel that, there's no way we reach a potential, whatever that means. I know that's kind of a success driven thing, but we reach our God given potential if we don't first feel loved, we feel belonging. Just being born into a family you are already right away. Belonging is important, obviously, and they've done studies for years on kids who have been cuddled and all that, and kids who have not been and you see what happens to a kid who had been loved and felt like they belong, there, been included, being part of a family unit, all that, and a kid who doesn't, it's vastly different. So I just I feel like that's all we do, even as an adult, you go to a party, or you go to a gathering. And even as a person who I feel like I can talk to people, I feel like I'm somewhat well rounded. I can talk to people. But when you go into a situation where you don't know a lot of people or anything, it's almost like you, you feel like a middle schooler, yeah? Because, oh, is this person gonna accept me? Is this person? It's that's all we're looking for all the time, is to feel where we belong, to feel we're loved. You know, it starts with the family thing, and then, you know, sports start happening. Band starts happening. Being in a musical or a play, we do all those things, to feel like we belong to something, to feel like we're loved. And it expresses itself in other areas of our life. Once you have what you could feel belong, belong to something over here, and it's going to affect positively everything else, yeah, because you have a thing, and it might be a family, but it also might be a sport, it might be jazz band, it might be whatever. As long as you have belonging somewhere, it affects everything that you do. It's like something you can go back to, yeah, yeah. So do you think our need for belonging changes much as we grow from children's to adults, I think it's if we don't feel loved and belong belong to something when we're younger, it's it's going to be harder as adults. Yeah, but again, I feel like at all ages, it is. It's why people join churches. It's why it's so we can feel loved and belong. That's what we're supposed to feel. So when we don't, it affects who we are. So I know it's so important as a kid, as a teenager, to feel like you belong to stuff, but we do the same. We are looking for the same thing as adults all the time. Yeah. So how do you see belonging, or maybe lack of in your ministry and your work here at Wedgwood, our kids that come here have, I think they've missed that piece. They've missed the piece of belonging to something that is rich and good and loving. They've missed the piece of being loved. I always say I named it loved, and with the way we go about doing it is because we're catching up from the love that they missed out on they have. The kids here have not been loved properly, and that should make you mad, yeah. But or it can make you make something called loved, and try to catch up and give them and remind them, as a mutt of how much they're loved in many different ways. And for those who missed Steve's past appearances, we have a podcast where he explains loved, which is our on campus youth group, youth ministry for our kids. And it's really, really awesome. So I will make sure that the episode is linked to so people can check out what loved is. But. I would love to Can I read something that's not memorized? Yes, of course. So our mission statement, our loved mission statement. It says this, the purpose of loved is to show kids the extravagant love of God by our actions, our fun and our words and songs. We want kids at Wedgwood to identify with these three statements, I am loved. We are loved. You are loved. I am loved. Says I am enough and I am worthy of being loved with my Creator and the people around me, the we are loved part is really speaks to the belonging piece. We are loved. This is my group where I'm accepted just as I am, where I can go with questions and doubts and have fun, laugh, worship, sing and hear about who God is and how he loves me. You are loved. God loves the people around me too, even when it's hard for me to For God so loved the world and loved and loved people. Love people. So that's it's been really cool. And the interesting thing about loved is it it cycles really quick. As far as the kids aren't here for it's not like a normal youth ministry where you get kids for six years and you follow them along. So when we started to and a few months ago, two years and a few months ago, it was all new and fresh, but it still, to me, feels new and fresh because lot of kids are experiencing it for the first time. Yes, so it's kids are here from six months to a year, and for youth minister, it's kind of gold, because you can redo stuff, and it's new to everybody. That's great, great, but it still feels we're still becoming but we still are. It's weird. Just to have them cycle through so quickly is a very cool thing, because you still get kids never get sick of it, which is great. Yeah, and they still ask. All the time, when is the next loved? And they still get mad at me when there's a Thursday where there's not loved and they're still, you know, wearing the T shirts and the bracelets and all that stuff. But it's new. It's new to them, even though it's been happening for a couple years and it's a fun journey. Hillary, that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah, and I can attest to that it is, it is a fun time at loved. So what changes for the for the kids here at Wedgwood, what changes for them when they start to understand that they belong and here at Wedgwood and even in the world, that they have a place here we we work on that and it, there is a difficult piece to that, because kids don't want to be here. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's that's why. I mean, it's not like the loved apparel we talked about this when I came out with it. It it doesn't say Wedgwood on it, because Wedgwood is something that maybe they didn't have a choice of coming here. And so it's the piece that we want them to feel belonging at is the relationships with staff and occupational therapists and therapists and case managers and all those people and loved folks, volunteers, me, the rest of the other chaplains, we often feel belonging of a just a loving community of people. So they may not say afterwards that man, I really felt like I belonged at Wedgwood, what they probably will say, and I've heard kids say, is, I felt like I belonged with the girls in my home, or at loved or at ETP, where it you know, they may not say the actual name of the entire place, but it's the small communities of people where they felt like they belonged to. Oh, that's cool that even within Wedgwood, there are like other pockets for kids to really connect to. So what does cultivating and fostering and encouraging belonging look like out in the community or even here at Wedgwood? How do we create those and those microcosms of belonging for kids, right? I know, can I speak from my loved experience, is that okay, everything that we do in the actual time period of loved, even though it's kind of a the whole thing, the relationships, the the reminder signs, all that is loved, but the Thursday afternoon, when we're here, everything is intentional for them to feel like it's their thing. It's their group. When they come in, there's a red carpet that says you are loved on it. There's four to eight adults in the lobby giving them a high fives, saying, Hello, smiling. Amazing. It's amazing what a kid's reaction is when you are excited to see them. These kids are not used to that if you get in, let's say you get in trouble at school. A lot of times you come in and people the adults are like, Oh, they're here, yeah, excuse me, that's we. We light up when they come in the room and they get a raffle ticket for the lunch raffle. They get a sucker that they choose. I don't know why that's so important to me, but it's important because these kids have gotten their their choices taken away years ago. They've lived in all sorts of places that they didn't choose. They came here. They didn't choose to come here. They're gonna choose their sucker. Yeah, yeah, whatever flavor they want. Hillary, sorry, I got it. I got excited. I'm not mad at you, but it's just a it's a small thing, but it's a big thing. Yeah, and, and it also, I learned this from Jeff Manning at Ada Bible Church when I was on staff there. There's a reason why they have coffee. If you're walking into a new room with a bunch of people and you don't know what, at least, you can hide behind your coffee. And the same thing I do with the sucker. They get to choose their sucker, and then you have you. You have a sucker to tend to. You can hide behind a little bit, at least you have something to do they come in, the music is all intentional for them to feel like, oh, I belong here. I know that song. Every time a kid comes on stage, we introduce them, and everybody cheers. And that's again, another thing that a lot of kids in a normal school situation, they play sports, they're in a musical, they're whatever. They get cheered for. These kids have not been cheered for. So every time a kid will come up, they get cheered for. If you win the lunch raffle, even though it's completely luck, that is the greatest thing that's ever happened and you're going to get cheered for, if it's a sense of being loved and belonging. Here, I love, I think you can take the loved model, probably in a toned down version, into your own life or into the community. If you think about it like you give kids a say in what they want to do. You give them a space where they can feel comfortable. You celebrate them when they should be celebrated. And those are all things that we can do in our own world to make sure that the kids in our lives feel like they belong. Could you imagine if everybody did that cheered for everyone all the time? How cool that I'd love it. Just saying hi to folks drives my wife crazy that I say hi to people on walks all the time. But I mean, why not? And I know it can be cheesy, but that whole thing of you never know what someone's going through. And I've heard a saying before like you might be the only Jesus that somebody runs into that day. Just if everybody just smiled a little bit at each other and said hi to each other and created space for each other, cheered for each other, that'd be cool. Yeah, it would be. It would be very cool. Well, I guess we kind of already talked about this, but do you have other practical suggestions for how people can create spaces for others to feel like they belong? It's all about hospitality, being intentional, of being intentional about receiving whoever you're receiving that day, whoever you're running across. I i know that baristas and clerks and stuff get a lot of hassle all day, but you know what I'm going to be the person who says, Hey, how are you? Just because probably three out of the five last customers grunted at them and demanded whatever and left it's just being kind to folks. Is there anything that you do to kind of help prepare you or your loved team to be that kind hospitable group for people that you encounter. It's it's fun, because I don't know if, if they, they probably don't read it every time, but every single time, I always write out an agenda for loved. That's what we're doing, you know this, and then we're doing this and that and this, and this is the song that goes with that and all that. But I always put at the top front door, which is, you know, out there, and I put smiles, high fives, raffle tickets. Suckers love I write it every single time to just remind me and everybody else like. That's the front door. Is extremely important, yeah, how they come in the door, how they received. And I forgot to mention there's also a bubble machine. Bubble machine, there's bubbles, which, you know, who doesn't want bubbles? It's hard to be sad when there's bubbles. Yeah, and I love that even though loving other people is such an important thing to you, and you've been doing loved for two years, plus, you still are intentional about making that note about how important the hospitality is at the front end of loved. So to me, that is encouraging that even if it doesn't come super naturally to me, I can remind myself, Okay, we're gonna smile at somebody today. We're gonna say thank you really nicely to the barista, and we're going to just be kind like it's okay that if we need to remind ourselves that sometimes I love that. So if there is someone who is listening or watching this podcast and they maybe don't feel like they belong. How would you encourage them? I would encourage them by saying that God's not angry with you. I think a lot of people have a problem with that too. They have there's a mindset, whether it's the church they went to or the lack of church they went to, where it's God's angry at you all the time and he doesn't like you that much, and that is so far from the truth. And the other thing I would say is your mind is kind of a jerk, yeah? And don't listen to it, yeah. God is out of all creation. And God made some cool things, really colorful things, really big things, really tiny things, things that can fly and swim and all that stuff out of all that, he loves us more than all that, yeah, and He cares for us more than all that. He specifically sent his son for us to get to know Him more and ultimately die for us. So there's something in that. And I know it's easy to get bogged down with because people are right in front of us, the people who are not being kind, the people who are telling us our own brain is in our own brain, telling us. Oh, you did that wrong. Now, you big dummy. Why'd you all that? It's just stuff you gotta throw away. And know that God so loved us, all of us, that He sent His Son, and then the one verse that people never, they always skip by John 317 John 316 is the big, famous one, right? Football games and stuff, but John 317 says that Jesus didn't come to condemn us, which I think a lot of people think that God is just here to condemn us. Yeah, and be like all the time. But he didn't come to condemn us. He came to save us. So I will, can I? Can I read something else? Absolutely great. Every, every kid gets this when they leave. I have, actually, in a little bit, a kid that's been here for like two years is having his discharge party, and I'm really excited, slash sad, yeah, that he's going because this kid is like Joy times 15. I mean, he i He hugs so hard and smiles so big, and he's he's leaving us tomorrow morning, but he has this goodbye party. He has this in his little loved water bottle. But I'll say this to anybody who doesn't feel like they belong, who doesn't feel like they're loved, who feels like God's always frowning at him. This poem. I wrote it for kids a few years ago, but I try to bring it up to kids as much possible. The qualification of you being worth it. Are you being exactly you? You're the only you that has ever existed. There will never be another you. You are enough. You are awesome. So be you just completely and unapologetically you when you do that, you being you, congratulations. You are officially worth it. You are officially enough, because you are alive, because you are here, because you are you. You are worth it, you are enough. You are worthy of being chosen. You. Belong. You are worthy of being fought for, listened to and loved. You are loved. You are worth it. You are enough. So that's what I'd say. That's beautiful. I've we all need to hear that. I think, Oh, that's really beautiful. Steve, thank you for sharing that you're welcome, and thinking about the kids here at Wedgwood, who have often been told that they are the exact opposite of all of those things, and to have people telling them repeatedly here at Wedgwood that you are loved, you are enough, you are worth it, we're going to help you through it, when the impact that that makes is just incredible. Can I show you? Can I show you a piece of art? Absolutely, so the whole, you know, the the we are loved, part of that mission statement of, this is our group, and there's art now that happens, and kids give it to me, and this is this week's loved flyer, and two girls from our Balkans home made that. But for a kid, two kids who have not necessarily felt this much in their life, that's cool that they they weren't. It's not like they had a, hey, we're doing a you are. Loved craft time, right? They were just doing arts and crafts, and they made this, and they were so happy to give it to me, and I put it on this week's flyer, and I also made T shirts for him. I haven't, I haven't given it to him yet. Oh, that's so cool. If Am I, I have more. There's a kid that just came here like few weeks ago. He loves graffiti. He hasn't even been to a loved yet, but he already made he already made me cool. His t shirt will be made tomorrow. There's, I have lots of them. I won't show every one of them, but this is just another piece of art that a kid made out of. They just wanted to make it. This one was actually for sale at one of their art bake sales, for fun, they're at activities. So I bought it. I paid extra for it. Good. I love that, yeah? But just little things, you know, for a kid to make something that says I am loved, that's kind of cool. Yeah? That is really cool. I am fortunate. My office is getting quite cluttered, but it's cluttered in a good way. Yeah. So good messages. And you even hear kids around campus. I'll hear a Steve, you know, a kid from across campus, and then you hear you are loved. And I'm like, stop, but also Don't stop. Don't stop. And I just say you are too. But how cool is that for kids who have not experienced the whole receiving and giving of loved a ton that they're they're learning that is, is pretty cool, yeah, well, and I'm thinking about, like, in my own life, like the things where I'm really excited to be a part of that's the things where I'm like, I'll buy the merch, I'll do the thing. And that's what kids here are doing. They are buying into and feel like they are part of this loved community. They get free shirts, but they ask for them, so they want to show Oh, and on Thursdays, it's, it's really fun around here, because not only kids, but staff and people in the office, they all wear their love stuff, but watching kids like a whole home will come in, and they all have so fun their group. That's when, you know, it feels like, like it's there, yeah, and this, actually, this was the present this year at Christmas that some donors were kind enough to let us buy sweatshirts for all the kids, and they just really like them. That's, I wouldn't even say, Hillary, that they love them. That was a plan, okay, yeah, that's good. That's good. I will do a small plug that we do have a Wedgwood swag store. Yes, yes, we do the community and loved apparel is available along with podcast merch that is a side plug. But I just had coffee this morning with a kid who's now 30, who I've known forever, and he moved back from Chicago, and I gave his mom a love sweatshirt a few months ago, and he I was wearing this this morning. He goes, Hey, tell me about the love thing, because I wear the sweatshirt all the time. So I told him about it. It was really cool. That guy, really cool, Jesus follower guy, and he heard what it actually was, and he's like, Oh man, I'll wear that more. That's so cool. I love the community that you have created here, and how intentional you are in creating a space for kids and honestly staff to feel like they belong here at Wedgwood, here in the community, in God's kingdom, in the world. It's really beautiful. Thanks, Steve, it was a real gift to talk to you today. So thanks for being here. I appreciate you letting me be here. Work well, anytime you're always welcome back. Okay, I'll see you tomorrow. Is that too soon? Yes, wed is a place where healing and belonging begins for kids and families. You can learn more about how you can partner with us in extending God's love by heading to our website or checking out the links in the description, and I'll be sure that we include pictures of all of the beautiful art if you are an audio listener, so you can see it too. Stay hopeful, stay helpful, and let's have another coffee break soon.