Working Sourdough Starter: Have Hope, God is Working Too with Phill Tague

 Elizabeth Norton Gray and Phill Tague explore the themes of hope, faith, and obedience in the context of life's challenges. Phil shares his journey of planting Ransom Church and the importance of community and spiritual practices in maintaining hope. They discuss the metaphor of proofing in baking as a parallel to spiritual growth, emphasizing the need for patience and trust in God's timing. The conversation also touches on the significance of hearing God's voice and the dangers of misplaced hope, ultimately encouraging listeners to choose joy and obedience in their daily lives.

Find more about Phill Tague at https://www.philltague.com/

His book is available to purchase on Amazon. https://a.co/d/buUiBbt

Did you know that VineWorks.gives sells fair trade merch from artisians who live in countries such as Haiti.  When you purchase from Vineworks it can double bless a family.  Once when you buy an item and then again when Vineworks.gives donates 50% of their profits back to initiatives like small business loans, school supplies and tuition for children, or medical care for those in need from that country.  Visit VineWorks.gives today.

This podcast has been made possible with help from Thomsons Bakery 1947.  Visit ThomsonsBakery1947.com

www.ElizabethNorton.com

Transcript

Elizabeth Norton Gray (00:43)
Today we have a guest named Phil Taggue, who is the lead pastor of Ransom Church Susix Falls, South Dakota, a thriving ministry he and his wife Stephanie planted in 2009. Phil is a passionate communicator, a husband and a father, and the author of Jesus Be the Centerfold, Choosing Covenant Faith Over Airbrushed
Christianity. His heart is to help people find freedom in Christ by living surrendered, set free, and called to serve. Through his preaching and leadership, inspires believers to live authentically, love boldly, and hold on to hope, even when life doesn't go as planned. How are you doing, Phil?

Phill Tague (01:24)
I am so good. I'm excited to be here. We're excited to have this conversation.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (01:28)
Yeah, I'm excited for you to be here too. I know that you are busy, so thank you for taking your time to be with me today. I'm so excited about this.

Phill Tague (01:37)
Oh man, I think that was great. My family is just such a critical part of my whole story. so I mean, I do have three kids. I got a 22 year old daughter, 21, soon to be 21 year old son. And then, and then 10 years later we adopted. And so I've got a fifth grader. And so, he's keeping us young and, and, I mean, that balancing ministry and family has been interesting, but that's.

That's the real ministry and that's my, I love my family

Elizabeth Norton Gray (02:06)
how did you end up in South Dakota? Like are you from that area?

Phill Tague (02:10)
Well, yeah,

so I'm actually from Sioux Falls. you ⁓ know, I grew up here. I graduated. I was never coming back. I went to college. I met my wife. We ⁓ right out of college, took a church in North Carolina. We were on a staff at a church in North Carolina ⁓ and God just had different plans. I ended up. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (02:14)
Okay.

Phill Tague (02:30)
at a church about 70 miles from home back in South Dakota, got recruited and I was like, no way, I'm not going back to South Dakota. And the Lord was like, you are though. And so we ended up there, we're there for about six years and then I felt the call to plant the church we're leading in my hometown. And it's been a real redemption story as I've had like a second chance to.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (02:40)
Aww.

Phill Tague (02:53)
reach so many classmates that I grew up with. And Sioux Falls is pretty large. It's metro area is probably 253,000. But the fact that I'm even getting to do this and still in a city that size reach people I went to high school with that I didn't take the opportunity in high school has been really great.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (02:56)
Very cool.

That's really cool. I have a metaphor of the episode. Are you ready for it? So let me just give you, this is my favorite metaphor when I'm baking bread. I use it as a spiritual encouragement to me always. And basically it is even though you can't see the yeast working.

Phill Tague (03:15)
I'm ready.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (03:34)
it does cause the rise. And sometimes when you think you can't see God working, he is working and just taking a long time. And I have some situations in my life where I am just waiting for God to pull the lever. So the metaphor of the episode technically is

Just like dough must rise and rise before it's ready for the oven, hope requires time,

patience. In baking, the proofing stage is quiet, nothing appears to be happening, but inside, transformation is taking place. Our spiritual lives are no different. When we feel unseen or

beneath the surface, strengthening our faith and preparing us for what's next.

Phill Tague (04:16)
I love that.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (04:17)
Do you,

We talked about faith and we know that faith endures. How do you personally define hope in a world, specifically right now, that feels so restless?

Phill Tague (04:29)
Yeah, so scripture talks about hope as the evidence of things not seen, right? ⁓ It's it's not yet developed. You cannot see it. And I love your metaphor. I think where the world is right now is hope and joy go hand in hand, you know, and I think in our world right now, we feel so ⁓ unhappy.

⁓ That we're having that hope is it's harder to come by but we we're basing our hope on our on our happiness

you know, and if I don't, if I don't feel happy, it's harder to have hope. But the difference between happiness and joy is really important. So happiness is based on your happenings. So if your happenings are bad, if the things that are going on are bad, ⁓ that actually affects your ability ⁓ to feel happy, which for a lot of people affects their ability to have hope. But what we've been called to in scripture is, ⁓ you know, to find joy, which is the choice of perspective. know, scripture says, consider it all joy when you go

through trials because ⁓ that will lead to endurance and that endurance breeds hope. know, and so I think that, ⁓ yeah, to your question, I think that ⁓ hope is hard because we're looking forward in the wrong things. We're looking forward in our circumstance rather than looking forward in the unchanging truth of who God is despite our circumstance.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (05:33)
Yes.

I like that answer. The idea of proofing hope implies waiting and trusting. Can you share a time when God asked you to wait longer than you wanted to?

Phill Tague (06:04)
I I would say every time. you know, like, like, ⁓ you know, well, no, no, but I would say, you know, saying that I've had in my life for a while is that God's timing is perfect, just not for me. ⁓ For me, it's either too fast or too slow.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (06:07)
Really? Are you impatient? Is that something you work on?

Hmm

Phill Tague (06:24)
So for some reason it feels like sometimes God calls and he's like, do this and I'm not ready. I don't want to do that. I fight him on it. Other times he gives me a vision of something that's coming or a hope in something or an opportunity that may come up. And that's the part that I want to go faster. Like, let's get this thing to happen. And I found myself far too often ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (06:24)
Gotcha.

Phill Tague (06:50)
I have to catch myself and pull the reins back and say, you can't make God's will happen. You have to wait on God's will to happen. And for sure, for sure. And I mean, that was true. Like that's been true in so many areas of my life. And it's true right now. Probably three years ago, God said, hey, I have something for your future and you're not going to love it. But I need you to say yes. And I'm like, sweet.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (06:56)
Yeah, so you're waiting for that pull of the lever too. Yeah.

Phill Tague (07:19)
And for the longest time, something would come up and I'd be like, well, is it that? Was that the thing? Was that the opportunity? ⁓ I almost got myself ⁓ tied in knots waiting on every opportunity that came up. And ⁓ I finally realized God asked me to wait on Him, not to make it happen. And so I just had to figure out how to go, today I'm going to be obedient.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (07:19)
my gosh.

Phill Tague (07:44)
Today I'm going to be obedient. And if the lever gets pulled, to use your language, if the lever gets pulled tomorrow, I'm ready. But that doesn't mean that I waste today hoping for tomorrow. I have to live today in full obedience knowing that tomorrow's coming.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (08:01)
Agree, agree. We aren't doing video yet with Fermenting God's Not Done With Me Yet podcast, but I'm shaking my head aggressively. Yes, yes, yes. ⁓ I agree 100%. I imagine planning a church is no easy task. How did you, and even your wife, ⁓ keep hope alive during the early uncertain years of ransom church? That's the name of it, correct?

Phill Tague (08:26)
Yes, yes. You know, interestingly enough, ⁓

once we surrendered to the risk, the early days were actually for us easier. And I think it was because, yeah, we were risking it all, but we didn't have much. You know, it was like a handful of people ⁓ meeting in my living room. And then it was a little bigger group, that launched the church. And in those early days, you you take a big risk or you put yourself out there and you're like, well, I mean.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (08:46)
Hmm.

Phill Tague (08:57)
We don't have much to lose, you know. Where it's become harder is actually as a church has gotten traction and grown and I've hired staff. And now when I take the same God-sized risks, I risk 25, 30 jobs, you know. And it feels completely different. I mean, COVID was that big thing for us because...

Elizabeth Norton Gray (09:12)
Yeah, I bet that's huge. A lot of Hmm.

Phill Tague (09:21)
COVID was, you I heard somebody say like every church is sort of replanting after COVID. You just kind of wait till the bottom falls out, see where you are and start over from there. And a lot of times with completely new people. it almost feels like we replanted during COVID. ⁓ But at a time where I had, I had to do layoffs and I had to sell facilities and I had to, you know, those were the harder choices when there was a lot to risk.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (09:50)
Wow, now Ransom Church, is it non-denominational?

Phill Tague (09:53)
No, we're part of the Wesleyan denomination. ⁓ Wesleyan Church is a branch off of Methodist. ⁓ They branched off of Methodist during ⁓ Prohibition and ⁓ Fight for Women's Rights.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (09:56)
Okay.

I used to be a member of the Methodist nomination. So I am very familiar with, is it John Wesley? Yes. ⁓

Phill Tague (10:10)
Yeah.

Yep. John and Charles are the two

brothers. Charles was the songwriter. John was the theologian.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (10:20)
Yeah, and there's actually John Wesley Church located near me, so that's very cool. while still hoping for what's ahead? I know that you kind of glossed over that earlier in the question, but how do you do that? Like, do you have any advice for?

Phill Tague (10:37)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. ⁓ So going back to COVID, know, ⁓ lots of people left the church, lots of people were angry at, they didn't know what, you know, they're just trying to figure out what's going on in life.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (10:41)
people that are just waiting.

Phill Tague (10:56)
And many of them felt, you know, inclined to send emails telling me all the things I was doing wrong. And I know now like it wasn't me that they were mad at. They were just scared and trying to figure things out and upset with God and all the things. But it felt really personal and it wasn't. was it was. And I went on I went on a sabbatical and I was wrestling with it. the Lord just said, first and foremost, you got to get your identity unraveled.

from this church that you planted, the thing that you do for you, it would be the podcast or whatever, you you're baking or whatever. You got to get your identity unraveled from that. Those are things you do for me, but your identity is that you're a child of God. And that never changes. That is solid. And so I needed to unwind my identity. So the way that I'm leading my church now is just an, all it is is an act of obedience. I'm not trying to prove or earn anything.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (11:41)
Right.

Phill Tague (11:54)
⁓ So my advice ⁓ to people in those moments, I felt like the Holy Spirit said to me, stop chasing any other success except for obedience. If you chase obedience, that's all you need. And on your...

Elizabeth Norton Gray (12:05)
Wow.

Phill Tague (12:11)
worst day when people have been terrible for you, to you, you can lay your head on your pillow and if you can say, was I obedient? And the answer is yes, you can fall asleep with peace because you're okay. And on the best day, when things go really great, you don't take the credit, you thank the Lord for it because all you're focused on is obedience. I had to get to that point in order to be healthy. And I think a lot of people,

could really need to hear that advice. Whatever you do, whatever you do for a job, whatever you do, if you raise a family and that's what you do, or you run a ministry, the only success that matters is was I obedient what God asked me to do.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (12:51)
Now you talk about obedience. is your, ⁓ what does your conversations with God look like? how do you hear him?

Phill Tague (13:01)
well, so when I'm not listening, the conversation looks like major interruptions.

So there's been half a dozen times in my life where I can point to a moment where God really needed to get my attention and I just felt this sense in my spirit like, ⁓ for instance, I felt a call to ministry, ⁓ studied for a little bit, but ended up running away from that call and rebelling and kind of trying to hide from God and all that. Woke up the end of one summer ⁓ miserable and just felt like the Holy Spirit said, why do you think the answer to hypocrisy is hypocrisy?

Right. So, so there's, there's been these moments where he just drops these bombs in my lap. ⁓ but that's been a half a dozen times throughout my life. Usually it's, you know, God speaks to us through his word. God speaks to us through prayer. And I have found a lot of, I don't love, ⁓ the act of journaling, but I find it incredibly helpful. ⁓ so I, I do, I journal regularly, actually a time alone with God, ⁓ earlier today.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (13:40)
Mm-hmm.

And you do it every day?

Phill Tague (14:09)
out by a lake in town and did a lot of journaling, just listening to what I think he's saying to me, responding in writing. That's been helpful because then I can go back through those journals and go, God, I answered that prayer. I'm still being immature there. that's, yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (14:20)
Yes, that's the best part about, yeah,

and about journaling, as you can see, hindsight, God answering and God shutting doors and opening them to make things work. I feel like when you're reading your own words, you can see that. I call those big moments where God kind of like tips you over and knocks you down, like in.

I call them a two by four moment where you feel like you've been hit over the head with a two by four. And that's kind of, that's why I call them a two by four moment. I guess you wrote Jesus be the centerfold about being authentic, ⁓ covenant faith. How does that kind of fuel? ⁓

Phill Tague (14:44)
Yeah.

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (15:03)
real and since we're talking about hope today, lasting hope.

Phill Tague (15:09)
Well, you I think it's really easy to lose hope in God when you've placed that hope in a false image of who he is. And so I, you know, I think we're all guilty of ⁓ running into things in scripture.

or in life that challenges and we're like, don't like what God said there. I don't want God to be that way. And so we say, that doesn't apply to me. Or we kind of twist our picture of God in our head. And what we end up doing is we end up ⁓ holding ⁓ God responsible for promises he never made. But we actually may do ourselves in his name.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (15:52)
Mmm.

Phill Tague (15:52)
and

then losing hope in him losing hope in life because I thought God was and now he's not and the reality is ⁓ you know it's a little like remember that movie the matrix right

Elizabeth Norton Gray (16:08)
That's one of those movies that my sons wanted me to watch, but I always fell asleep through it.

Phill Tague (16:12)
Well, yeah, so

I mean, the idea of the matrix is that everybody's, you know, they're looking for the ideal in life, but they're actually just asleep. And when they wake up from this thing, life's way worse than they thought, but at least it's real. You know what I mean? And ⁓ I think that what people need to understand is ⁓ hope isn't dependent. we it's not that we only find hope when things go our way.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (16:26)
Uh-oh, okay.

Phill Tague (16:40)
some of the greatest hope is formed and forged in the hardships of life when we realize that in the midst of that, God is with us too. And if the only place we find hope is when God answers our prayers our way in the way we expected, we're going to feel hopeless quite a bit because we have what I would call misplaced hope.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (17:01)
Wow, how do you recognize misplaced hope? I'm into it, let me just, I mean, my listeners, a lot of them will know this, but you probably do not. I'm involved in a situation where I saw a huge amount of corruption and entanglement, and it was due to the detriment of many children. And I have been working on that situation since 2009.

Phill Tague (17:12)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (17:28)
And I'm kind of at the point where I know that my motives were in trying to stop that and stand up against it. It's political and messy. I know that my heart was in the right place and God was ⁓ giving me strength to be brave and stand up against it. But the conclusion still has not come.

Phill Tague (17:54)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (17:55)
⁓ So, I mean, what do you say to people like, to me? What do you say to people like me that have been dedicating their life to this, to standing up for what is right, but not seeing, I guess, the fruits of...

Phill Tague (18:01)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (18:12)
of

the labor and you go back in your mind and you're like, God, were you with me? And I was so spiritually grounded growing up. My roots are deep in the Bible. My parents raised me to be a Christian. I went to the Baptist church every ⁓ week, multiple times a week. ⁓ So what do you say to those kind of people that are just waiting and waiting and waiting and trying to hold on to every little piece of hope that they can find, but they're not seeing that?

Phill Tague (18:40)
Yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (18:42)
that situation come to a close.

Phill Tague (18:46)
man, I have so many things I

want to say. There's there's just so many things. ⁓ Yeah, I will. So I mean, the first the first thing I would say is ⁓ the issue that that Christians, church attenders have that causes their faith to ⁓ you know, for them to struggle in their faith ⁓ is.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (18:50)
Say them all!

Phill Tague (19:12)
We get the salvation part of this whole thing, right? But we don't necessarily understand the lordship part, the surrender part, right? ⁓ And so situations like you're going through are opportunities where your faith is tested, right? If God is good, why is this still happening? And in that, I would say, man, pick a page of scripture. know, Jeremiah, the weeping prophet.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (19:32)
Right?

Phill Tague (19:40)
was obedient his entire lifetime and never saw a convert. ⁓

King David, as he wrote the Psalms, would cry out, hiding in a cave, being attacked, wrestling for his life. And he would say, God, what I really want is for you to wipe these people off Earth. I don't know what to do. I am I have no hope right now, but he would always end with. I trust you, but I trust you. ⁓ Hebrews, Chapter 11, when you read about the heroes of the faith, what it says is some of them experienced these good things. Others experienced these terrible things, but they had a hope that that remain. And it says, right,

in there many of them never saw things come to fruition in their lifetime but they knew God was faithful and so there is it again it goes back to that if if obedience is the only success worth chasing and if you can go was I obedient in that situation that one of the problems I think Christians run into is that when we don't trust the timing of the Holy Spirit we try to play the role of the Holy Spirit so

Elizabeth Norton Gray (20:40)
true, true.

Phill Tague (20:40)
our

our role we are not the Holy Spirit right we can't bring change we can't produce fruit we can't do those things we are gardeners we can create conditions where growth can happen that's it we prune we weed we we you know cut back branches we water but we can't bring germination that's not upon us and so in a situation that's long-standing like that you have to find hope in was I obedient

Did I do my part? Do I trust it in God's timing? He's going to do this and God's timing is perfect even though it sucks for me.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (21:17)
Yeah, right. my goodness. I often wonder if I ever will see a conclusion to that situation. And I have sacrificed a lot for that. ⁓ And I'm telling you every time I bake a loaf of bread, I say, I know God's still working in that situation. ⁓ And it's just such an encouragement to me, but at the same time, it's exhausting.

Phill Tague (21:44)
Yes. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (21:44)
Maybe that's not

the right word,

Phill Tague (21:45)
I wish I was killing this, you know, I wish I was never struggling with it and I could just...

give you advice. know God is, I like, know up here all the things. I know God is faithful. know I have evidence in my life of when he's been faithful and yet there are still times there are days where I wait really well and then there are days where I fall on my face. There are days where I'm angry. are days where, and you know, Romans 12 talks about offering your lives as a living sacrifice. The problem with a living sacrifice is it can crawl off the altar from time to time.

And what I would say to anybody who's in the waiting is you're going to have good days and you're going to have bad days. And on the bad days, crawl back on the altar. Crawl back on the altar. Because what? We either have faith that God is faithful or we don't. Right. And if we do, we got it, we have to act like he is. We have to choose to believe he is even when we don't feel it. And that's really, really difficult.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (22:17)
Mmm.

So true.

Yeah, I have a saying where I feel like I can either continue with hope or crawl in bed and never get out because I would be so defeated. And so I choose hope every single day. Are you kind of the same way you choose joy? choose hope? And it's like a willingness every single day. Today I'm going to, today I'm gonna choose.

Phill Tague (23:04)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, one of the prayers I pray all the time is for God to give me his perspective. You know, I have I have a choice every morning. I can get up and the first thing I can do is pick up my phone and doom scroll. And I set the tone for my hope for the day. Or I can get up and the first thing I can do is get into his word. And there's a massive. Opposite opposite, right? ⁓ I can I can wake up.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (23:35)
And that's definitely, that's the opposite of doom scrolling. Yeah.

Phill Tague (23:42)
And I wake up pretty early in the morning and I do my devotions. I go to the gym and I can wake up and go, ⁓ I got to go to work today. I'm tired. I got it. And I can I can choose my perspective or I can wake up and I often do every day, you know, almost every day and say to myself before my feet hit the floor today, before I do anything for him, I'm already enough. Right. And so the the perspective you choose to frame

your life with matters and and it's not just ⁓ empty platitudes it's not just words it's ⁓ it's everything in like I used to do this illustration where I'd blow up this balloon and talk about how you know we go to church and we get we get filled up and but but all week long we leak and the balloon would lose air ⁓

If we live as if Sunday's fulfilling and the rest of life is draining, we'll never have hope. We've got to be filling the balloon midweek with God's presence, with His word, with prayer. Those are the things that set the tone for so much of our lives.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (24:52)
Now, as far as your church that

you planted, do you have morning services on Sunday? And then do you meet halfway through the week too? Or do you pretty much just say this is on you, your relationship with God, you need to spend time in the Bible?

Phill Tague (24:58)
We do.

⁓ We have morning services on Sunday. have youth stuff on Wednesday. We have small groups that meet throughout the week. We encourage everybody to, ⁓ you know, you have to find, we tell people you got to find your version of biblical community. You've got to have people you're doing life with that you're not, just depending on Sunday morning to be enough. And so we're constantly helping people get into those scenarios and, you know, serve in the community and have other opportunities throughout the week. ⁓

But yeah, and all of our.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (25:40)
Do you encourage

personal Bible study? I'm assuming you do. ⁓ What if you're not a morning person and you wanna have personal Bible study at night? Do you think that affects you differently?

Phill Tague (25:44)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

I think it is harder to...

I think it is harder to prioritize at the end of the day when you've gone all day. I mean, I think you could do Bible. I think you can do it any time. I also don't think like.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (26:16)
I just know some people that are not morning people and they do it at night. But when I do it at night, I kind of feel like I'm already exhausted, but my brain's still going. And I was just wondering if you felt there was a difference of coming to God in the morning versus coming to God at night.

Phill Tague (26:19)
Yeah.

Yes, that's right. Yeah

I would say, so I don't think everybody should do it in the morning. I don't think everybody should be a morning person, but I would say there is something in the morning that does feel like I'm giving God the first fruits of my day. ⁓ If you're not a morning person, would say, you be, depending on what your job is, can you be consistent to do it on your lunch hour? Can you be consistent to, ⁓ you know, do it.

like if you work till three o'clock before your kids get home from school. don't you know I think the reason that morning tends to be a great time to do it is because of the the lack of interruptions but ⁓ but I get it

Elizabeth Norton Gray (27:19)
If everyone was the same, it would be so boring. So boring.

Phill Tague (27:22)
It would.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (28:03)
What's one thing you want listeners to remember from you about God's timing and the unseen work he's doing? And if we want to stick with the metaphors, the proofing season.

Phill Tague (28:17)
Yeah.

I long for people to understand you are who God wants you to be. Right. You're not finished. You know, I believe in I believe in this. That's right. That's right. I believe in, ⁓ you know, the proofing stage in Christianity is something the big spiritual word for it is sanctification. ⁓ I believe that's a lifetime journey.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (28:27)
Uh-huh. I mean, that's what the podcast is called. God's Not Done With Me Yet.

Phill Tague (28:46)
⁓ I believe that if you let Him, God will set you free to be who He made you to be. I believe that within you is a God-given identity ⁓ that He wants to unleash in you. It's a lifetime journey, but I think that journey has to start and can't start until you realize ⁓ I'm exactly who God wants me to be.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (29:08)
I wanna talk to you about your book a little bit. ⁓ And we can promote it towards the end. But I just kinda wanna know, like how long did it take you to write your book? ⁓ Do you talk a lot about hope in there? I think I love the premise of being authentic and I love how you wrote Airbrush Christianity? Is that what, yeah, I mean I.

Phill Tague (29:11)
Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (29:30)
I see that and I can actually look back at my life and think, was I being authentic and legit right there? And you kind of see that 2020. When did your book come out?

Phill Tague (29:36)
Yeah.

Yeah,

my book came out just this last May. Yeah, pretty recent. was a. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (29:46)
okay, cool. So pretty recent.

Phill Tague (29:49)
It didn't take that long to write, but it took a long time for me to say yes. So if you got time for a fun story, I so ⁓ you know, after planting a church and pastoring it for a lot of years, people are like, pastor, I love your sermons. You know, you should write a book and you're like, yeah, whatever. And it just is a compliment. But you don't really, know, and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, yeah. And, know, and the Holy Spirit.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (29:56)
Tch.

Yeah, people tell me all the time, you need to write a book about this. It never happens for me though. I never

get to it.

Phill Tague (30:18)
Well, the Holy Spirit

just kept tapping me and going, why are you ignoring that? Why are you ignoring that? And I thought, well, what would I even write a book about? So I took time, so I brainstormed, and the outline to this book, I was like, I know what this book is about. I know what I need to say. And still was like, yeah, no, I'm not going to. And the day that I said no to the Lord, ⁓ six times that day.

People text me, email me phone calls and would literally say, hey, I was praying and I felt like the Lord told me to ask you if you're writing a book. I mean, just over and over and I stood six times in the day and I still got to the end of the day and I was like, I'll sleep on it. I'll sleep on it, you know, ⁓ so that.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (30:41)
Really?

That's so cool.

You needed

a 2x4 moment right there.

Phill Tague (31:01)
Right, right.

So here was my two by four moment. The next morning I woke up, I was doing a lesson in Duolingo language learning app. I was doing my Spanish lesson and it said, translate these sentences. We're writing a book this summer. We should write a book together. Let's write a book. And I was like, okay, Holy Spirit, I think I'm writing a book. ⁓ So I began the journey and it was just this cool time with me and the Spirit. I would go to a coffee shop and start writing and I'd feel like the Holy Spirit just took over. And like an hour later, I'd

Elizabeth Norton Gray (31:08)
All right.

Phill Tague (31:30)
look up and the chapter would be done, you know. I feel like the spirit wrote the book and I was just the vessel. ⁓ But yeah, I do talk about hope. ⁓ So the metaphor comes from a very early exposure on my part two pornography and the wrestling match I've had with that in my life. And ⁓ somewhere along the line, I realized that ⁓ my issue wasn't lust. My issue was control.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (31:46)
Uh-huh.

Phill Tague (31:57)
⁓ My issue my issue was that I what I think pornography does is ⁓ it It gives you false intimacy without the cost of real intimacy it's a it's a false version of intimacy without the actual relationship and That's the metaphor for our faith. How often do we want all the benefits of an intimate relationship with God with none of the cost and So the book is ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (32:14)
Yeah.

Phill Tague (32:25)
kind of a look at all the places where we, you know, like swipe right on the scriptures we like and swipe left on the ones we don't. And we treat this like ⁓ a...

Elizabeth Norton Gray (32:33)
Right.

Phill Tague (32:40)
Contract that we're in with God like if you hold up your part and goes exactly the way I want then I'll be obedient But if it doesn't go my way when in actuality he's inviting us into the most hopeful thing which is a covenant relationship with him where he says I loved you so much That I did all this and all I'm asking is for your heart, you know

Elizabeth Norton Gray (32:58)
Do you talk about that journey with pornography in your book?

Phill Tague (33:01)
Yeah, it's not a book about pornography or about getting over pornography, but it is a very vulnerable telling of my life story and following that metaphor. ⁓ talk about ⁓

mistakes I made in relationships, ⁓ the hook that pornography had in me, I talk about ⁓ being engaged to the wrong person and then the right person and the difference between them ⁓ because that metaphor tracks all the way through and really the whole book culminates in a look at all the covenants, all the times God tried to make a covenant with people and all the time they failed him until he finally came back to us and said, ⁓ you know, not only am I going to do

not only am gonna do my part, I'm gonna send my son to do your part. Only you'll accept me. It's just this beautiful, beautiful ⁓ covenant that he calls us into. And it really is, ⁓ again, it's where I find my hope because my hope is found in who he is and who I am in him and ⁓ this call to obedience.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (34:03)
Very cool. Are you ready for some would you rather questions? All right, I told you things get heavy on this podcast. I think it's a great time all right, so I knew that you're married. And so some of these questions, I incorporated your wife. So I hope you answer correctly, because if she listens, you might be in trouble. Okay.

Phill Tague (34:07)
100%. Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep.

No? Well, hopefully I can.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (34:27)
Question number one, would you rather bake bread during a heat wave or decorate a wedding cake together with no AC?

Phill Tague (34:37)
Baked bread during a heat wave. no, I I I My wife and I can do any project together But I think that if we decorated the cake together

Elizabeth Norton Gray (34:39)
Really? You wouldn't want a Decker?

Phill Tague (34:56)
I, it wouldn't be us decorating together. I would be her sous chef, so to speak. I'd be cleaning up after her and she'd be decorating. I have no, no artistic talent. So the baking bread, think is something we could do together. And that's why I would choose that.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (35:05)
no.

It takes three days to bake a bread. So that's gonna be a long heat wave. So, yeah? That's one of my favorite things to bake. Okay.

Phill Tague (35:13)
I know we bake sourdough, so I, yeah.

I actually went to a sourdough class with her.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (35:22)
Are you kidding? My husband and I went on a date night. We went to a sourdough class. And then I enrolled in law school and I started selling my sourdough to pay for tuition. But it was like a date night too. It was really awesome. It was fun thing. Very cool.

Phill Tague (35:39)
Yeah, my wife had plans to

go with a friend. Her friend got sick and she was just going to go by herself and she had this look in her eyes and I said, you want me to go with you? I would love to. And I was definitely the only dude there, but ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (35:48)
Yeah, my husband

was too.

Phill Tague (35:54)
Bye.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (35:55)
don't know why, I don't know why. It's just a great thing to do together. Like you're providing for your family and it's so wholesome. would

Phill Tague (35:57)
I don't

It was super interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it was fun.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (36:08)
accidentally use salt instead of sugar in your anniversary dessert or forget the anniversary altogether?

Phill Tague (36:16)
I would I'd rather, use salt rather than sugar because that's a recoverable mistake. You can always make more cookies. But when you forget the anniversary, ooh. Yeah, okay, good, good.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (36:17)
she laughing?

instead of sugar.

That's true. I think you just answered that question correctly.

Okay. would you rather preach with unmatching clothes for the rest of your life or let your wife pick the temperature of your house forever?

Phill Tague (36:45)
Okay?

Well, my wife picks my clothes and the temperature of our house. So, ⁓ yeah, I probably let her pick the temperature, but I kind of let her do that anyway. but I do, she can pick whatever clothes she wants for me and I can veto. And I, like I get two vetoes a year or something like that. ⁓ No, it's, ⁓ yeah, I think I would rather just let her pick the temperature.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (37:03)
Okay.

All right, listeners, we would love to know what you would rather do. Would you rather wear unmatched clothes for the rest of your life or let someone else pick the temperature of your house forever? You can contact me at ElizabethNortonGrey on Facebook, Instagram and TikTok or you can reach out to me on my favorite platform which is X at ElizabethNorton. And if we wanted to...

Find more about you pastor filler would we do that and can you tell us about where to get your book?

Phill Tague (37:49)
For sure, if you want to find out more about me and my ministry, ransom.church. You can go there, you can find our sermons, you can read about our church, hear about our story. ⁓ If you want to find out more about me and the book in particular, philtag.com ⁓ has, ⁓ yes, philtague.com. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (38:05)
Now spell your last name because it's not.

Phill Tague (38:13)
⁓ If you go there, you'll find a little more info on the background of the book, but also the study guide for the book. That's a free PDF download. Yeah, you can go there. ⁓ That website will link you to my book. It's available on Amazon. ⁓ It's available in print, but also ⁓ I publish through Throne Publishing. ⁓ Yeah, it's available ⁓ in print. It's available Kindle.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (38:13)
Gotcha.

nice!

Did you self-publish?

Okay.

Phill Tague (38:40)
and I'm working on Audible should be out in November. Yeah, for those who want to listen.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (38:43)
Stop it. I love audible.

I am an audible addict.

Phill Tague (38:49)
Well, I hope

to have it up ⁓ by mid-November is what I'm aiming for.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (38:53)
Please let

me know when that gets published, because I would love to hear it. Especially with all the LSAT stuff that I'm studying for. The only way I can read any other stuff is listening in the car, because too much other stuff is in my brain. It feels like it's on fire. Cool, that's really awesome. One more question for you. Why the name Ransom?

Phill Tague (38:56)
I will.

Yeah, I get it.

Well, I'm narrating, so it'll be my voice.

That's a great question. So my wife and I, when we were praying about why does God want us to start a church, we had a prayer weekend that we said, okay, let's pray about this. Let's figure out what does God want from us in this church? But we won't talk about it until the end of the weekend. You pray, I'll pray. And so I was praying and felt like God said, I want you to set captives free.

came back with my wife, let her go first ⁓ to tell me her ideas, because I thought mine were going to be better, you know? And she said, all the Lord told me is that he wants us to set Cactus free. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (39:46)
Ha

Phill Tague (39:53)
It was just crazy alignment. we went, well, what does that mean? And we began to wrestle. And out of that came our core values of worshiping free of inhibition, living free of sin, serving free of self. So you can be set free to be who God made you to be. But we still didn't know. We didn't know the name and ⁓ the week that we were candidating with the church that was going to kind of send us out, they were they were wanting us to to be the planter. telling our story. We sat down and the worship pastor who ended up leaving that church to plant with us. ⁓

Elizabeth Norton Gray (40:05)
Love it.

Phill Tague (40:23)
was saying the song, My Chains Are Gone, I've Been Set Free, My God, My Savior Has Ransomed Me. And it just, ⁓ Chris Tomlin maybe? ⁓ And it clicked in my brain and I started to do a deep dive on this idea of Jesus being our ransom. it's Old Testament, New Testament, it's all through scripture that He ransomed us, that He called us by name, we are His. And so that's where the name came from.

Elizabeth Norton Gray (40:29)
Yes, who sings that song? okay, yeah.

Love it, love it. Thank you so much, Phil, for coming and hanging out with me today. I appreciate it. Yeah. have a great weekend.

Phill Tague (40:55)
It's been great. It's been great.