The People You Need | 10

In this episode, Keith and Megan discuss the kinds of people you need in your life to walk in freedom in Christ. They discuss having a spiritual mother/father, a core group, and a medium sized group of people that will live on mission with you.

Transcript

Hi friends, thanks for tuning into the Everfree podcast.

My name is Keith Peeler and I'm here with my amazing wife Megan Peeler where we're here to talk about the power of prayer, aren't we babe? 

We sure are.

And Everfree exists to equip and mobilize people just like you to walk in freedom and then to teach others how to walk in freedom that is naturally supernatural.

Welcome to episode number 10 where we're talking about the people that you need in your life.

Take a listen and give us some feedback we'd love to hear from you.

Hey friends, welcome to the episode today.

So here's what we want to talk about.

We want to talk about the kind of people that you need in your life, right?

Because some of you are a part of churches that are massive, you know, thousands of members.

Others of you are not fellowshipping in a regular body right now.

And so the question that we want to think about, address, walk through in our own season of discernment and life is who do you need with you? 

Who's on your team? 

How is it that God has put people around you that are there to support you, encourage you, and strengthen you? 

And if you don't have that, how do you get it? 

We were just talking about how we've seen a lot of people hurt by church.

We've seen a lot of people excited by church.

We've seen all kinds of different people in our season of life over these last, well, 10 years of being missionaries and connecting to the church and lots of years before that in our own personal church experiences.

Do you see something different happening today than maybe 20 years ago? 

I think that the difference is we have more access to online preaching podcasts.

And so that can cause us to pick and choose what we want to hear and do it on our own.

And I think it comes down to what are you doing with what you're learning and growing and who are you sharing it with? T

hat's a great question.

Can you say that again? 

What are you doing with what you're learning and who are you sharing it with? 

Are you just keeping it to yourself? 

Or are you wanting to go share and grow with other people? 

I think that's really way more prophetic than you intended it to be, because you said it and I agree with it and then I heard it again, kind of like at the spirit level.

And I was like, oh, yeah.

So let's just be very honest, right? 

A lot of us have gone through church hurts.

A lot of us have gone through leaders in our life, people in our life, whether it's our parents or church leaders or bosses or whatever, who have disappointed us.

They said that they were Christians, but their behaviors did not lead you to believe that they were making decisions either from biblical basis or even ethical and helpful, to some degree.

Or even out of a posture of love, like having a heart to love people sometimes because of judgment, love is just put on the back burner and that is deeply wounding and can cause you to retreat and isolate in order to get away from that pain.

Yeah, there's no doubt about that.

In fact, I'm thinking of a person that we prayed for about a year and a half ago who was a significant part of a local church.

And she, well that church, their church went through some turmoil and eventually she came to prayer with us and it had basically been seven years, is what she told us, seven years since she had been an emotional part of her church.

She was present, she was shown up, but was not connected to it in any way because there had been such turmoil and the way that leadership had handled something had just turned her off so bad.

And we got a chance to walk her through that.

She could see Jesus through the inner healing process.

She got to see Jesus, like, Jesus, where were you when XYZ happened? 

And in that process, she was able to really think it through.

And when she saw that, she was like, huh, I had no idea that this was demonic.

I had no idea that there was stuff tormenting me, keeping me from this body.

And I think that's key right there, understanding that there is a spiritual battle that is preventing people from stepping into freedom in the church.

I didn't know before we got into this ministry, I didn't know that there's a spiritual battle that was in conflict with my even being in a pew, like being even in a church.

There's a lot of pushback that we just have to understand and also have grace for, for people.

And it's just something that we sometimes don't realize.

Yeah.

So let's get right into it, right? 

This is some background.

Here's the bottom line.

Jesus did not intend for you to live this life in an independent, isolating, selfish posture.

He did not intend for you to be in a place where you get to pick and choose everything for yourself.

Because left to that, I guarantee you, you're going to become, you're going to create the God that you want Him to be and not who He really is.

So first and foremost, let me say this very plainly.

If what you are doing is not completely in line with Scripture, then you are not hearing the voice of God.

Okay? 

So if you think God's telling you to go do, I don't know, maybe you got creative and ate some bad fish.

But if you think you're creating some sort of idea of what you want that fits your world, then I would challenge you directly that if it does not line up in Scripture, what Jesus did, what He said, what He asked His disciples to do, then it is not of the Lord.

And so here's what we're going to read.

Here's what I'm going to do.

This is where in Matthew 10, Jesus sends out the 12.

So as we were praying beforehand, Megan would kind of always just say, hey, Lord, what are you showing us? 

And what did, what did God show you in that? He showed me that He had 12, 12 disciples that He spent time with, 12 disciples that He poured into, and 12 trusted men that He gave His heart to and expected them to give their heart back to Him.

And, um, but it wasn't more than 12.

Yeah.

And that was His core, right? 

Yeah.

Sometimes it was even less than 12.

Yeah.

And so here's, I'm going to paraphrase some of this.

I'm going to skip around some of this, but if you want to get to like the core of where I'm at, we're talking about Matthew 12.

I'm sorry, Matthew 10, where He sends out the 12.

Jesus called His 12 disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out demons, to heal every disease and sickness.

And then He named them, right? 

And He had, here's this list of names.

And then He gives them this command, do not go among the Gentiles or enter into any town of the Samaritans, go rather to the lost.

Okay.

So this was a specific call for these guys, but here's what we can hear.

Go to the lost.

How are you, listener, how are you going to the lost with your faith, your freedom, and your life in Christ?

He says in verse nine, do not take any gold or silver or copper with you in your belts, no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or staff, for the worker is worth his keep or worth his wage.

So He's sending them out in a very apostolic, meaning sent posture, and they're going out to do this thing.

Now, it also says that I'm sending you out, this is verse 16, I'm sending you out like sheep among wolves.

Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves, be on your guard.

You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues.

So if we're being reflective and honest, friends, the hurt that you've experienced in your church is not getting flogged.

It's not, it's not some of the, I don't want to minimize your pain, but let's be just very clear and honest.

Like for us to walk with Christ is to take His message, to take a very controversial, it's not a message that people want to hear in this day and age, Jesus is not the truth according to the world.

So you will, if you believe in Jesus and you proclaim Him to be Jesus as Lord, you will face these trials.

So in order to do that, you really have to know who you need around you to help you walk that out.

You also have to know who you are, who you are and who your identity is and how you're wired in order to know what you need.

And I think a lot of times it's hard to know, especially when you've got hurt in your heart over experiences that you've had.

Yeah.

And so, so another part of bringing this into this are expectations.

We all have expectations and often our expectations are unspoken.

Sometimes we claim them.

So I had a recent conversation on this very issue where I was talking with a good friend and the comment came out, well, you know, she's the pastor's wife, she should fill in the blank.

And I said, Hey, that's interesting that you have that expectation.

Where does that expectation come from? 

And they were like, well, I mean, that's, she's the pastor's wife, she should do that.

I said, well, who told you she should do that? 

Did she sign up for that? 

Did she ask for the responsibility of whatever it is that you think she should be doing? 

And it was very clear in that conversation, look, he had a personal perspective.

I have a personal perspective and each of our perspectives are based on where we've grown up and how we've done these things.

So, so to challenge you listeners and friends out there, hey, don't, don't forget to pay attention to what baggage you're bringing into the situation, right? 

You're bringing just as much junk into this as any failed leadership or any other stuff that you may be facing about fellowshipping.

So who do you need in your life? 

If Jesus had the 12 and he sent them out, he sent them out as his disciples to multiply the message, to do the work.

They got back together, he'd minister to them, he'd shepherd them.

They had events together.

I'm thinking like when he fed the 5,000, they did big things.

And then Jesus also retreated and had a lone time in prayer.

So you're not looking for just one thing, but if we're talking about the people that you need in your life, if you haven't found a fellowship, then what do you need? 

Well, first and foremost, I would say that each and every one of us needs a spiritual mother or father, in some regard.

Over our life, you know, I'm thinking back to Dallas for you.

You had a couple of women, primarily one I'm thinking of, I won't name, but one I'm thinking of, tell me, babe, about how you first connected with that relationship and what you got out of that kind of older lady mothering sort of person that was in your life.

She led my Bible study and she walked with a lot of wisdom.

I watched her read the Bible and memorize the Bible and share scripture and understanding of scripture in a way that was so powerful.

And it allowed me to watch her teach and then say, I need that in my life.

So whenever I had anything going on, I would call her, meet with her and just listen to her wisdom.

Yeah.

Did you use a curriculum? 

No.

Did you have questions that you did the same questions every week? 

No, she used the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

So tell me then, because I know that coming from a program to church background where my first ministry was running a very large program and it was fantastic.

It did a lot of great things, but that gave me a programmed mindset.

And then my mentors similarly to you have not been that programmed way.

So what would you say was the most helpful thing about the way she discipled you? 

She would ask me really great questions and push me to think beyond what I could see.

She would really put things out there and then let me stew on it.

She wasn't one to tell me exactly what to do or how to do it, but I could bounce ideas off of her.

So it was extremely helpful for me to process like, why are you feeling this way specifically over the situation or how could you see different options for what you're going through? 

And she just asked really great probing conversations, like questions.

So as a mentor, did you have like a weekly time with her where she was your mentor or was it as needed? 

As needed.

I had other people in my life, friendships and relationships, but she was extremely busy.

Lots of people were pursuing her and I knew that, but I also had relationships with friends that I could go to and pray with.

But when I was in crisis mode, she was who I called.

Yeah.

And so that brings up a very good point.

If you're going to have a spiritual mother or spiritual father, their availability is part of how you have to evaluate whether they can be that role for you or not.

It's a mutual thing.

I'm thinking now of a prayer mentor that I have, I currently have.

It's not as been as regular conversation since we moved, but when I first sat with him, I asked him, would you consider being my mentor? 

And his response, I love that.

He says, we need to meet.

We need to get to know each other a little bit and see if this is going to work.

We got to figure out if we liked each other.

This was a guy that I knew had great wisdom and I was approaching kind of outside of relationship.

So you don't have to have a relationship first with a prayer mentor or a mothering fathering person in order to seek one.

So Megan's situation, the relationship was there and Megan gravitated towards it.

In my situation, I saw something in a person and said, I want to learn from that guy.

So I approached him and we had a lunch, we talked and he said, okay, I think the skin work, but here's my commitment to you and my requirement of you.

He said, I will commit to you that every other week that I will come to your house and we will prayer walk and we will spend two to three hours together as we do that.

But what I'm requiring of you is that I will not meet with you unless you also have someone that you're mentoring.

So what he was building into that was an automatic multiplication.

And so guess what I did? 

I found somebody to mentor and said the same thing to him.

So even before he became my mentor, he was already teaching me something about what it means to be a mentor and that was to require others.

Okay, so first point, you got to have an older person mothering, fathering in some way.

That person may not be at your church.

That person might be at your church and that's great, but don't think that all of your spiritual needs are going to be met by your church.

Number one, that's not your church's job.

That is the church's job.

Our perspective is very broad on what it means to be the fellowship and the priest of all believers.

And so we have a posture that says, if you're a member of a church, you honor the leadership, you're submitting yourself to the authority of that leadership.

So that leadership, if you're going to be a member of a church and submit to it, you better make sure you know what their theology is and if you're comfortable with it, or at least if you're not comfortable with it, you're comfortable understanding that the pastor and or elders, leaders, disciples, whoever's running the church, that they are godly, that they understand the word, they understand the spirit, and they understand how to lead in that posture because you will directly be under their authority.

So we want to honor that, that you join a church and are part of that, but also at the same time, the majority of mentors that we have had, the mothering, fathering types have not been from the fellowships that we've served.

Now that's neither good nor bad.

That's just the fact and the reality of that.

Okay, so you need that in your life on a regular basis, that person, that older person that's with you and for you, you have to have it.

It doesn't have to be every week that you meet with them, but some sort of consistent walk where they're just discipling you and spending that time with you and they have the availability and you have the availability to do so.

All right, now the second kind of person or people that you need in your life are the one to two, maybe three, I don't know, it depends on your personality and your life and what not, people that you can be 100% transparent with.

100%.

And I have that through a group of friends that I have made back in Dallas that we stay connected and the expectation is that we will talk at least once or twice a week.

And we do that with the app, the Voxer app that we use for ministry, but it allows us to hear each other's hearts.

We share where our marriages are, how our kids are doing.

I mean, it is brutally honest and transparent and challenging and encouraging.

Yeah, and let me just pause here for a little brief commercial, if you will.

Speaking of the whole Voxer app, we have created a Everfree Prayer Voxer channel.

And if you're not aware, Voxer is a walkie talkie app, if you will, where you can send a message digitally across your cell phone.

It's on Android, it's on iOS, it's on your computer laptop.

You can download the app on a phone or you can just use it straight off your computer.

And what it allows us to do is to have quick conversations and answer questions.

So as a listener out there, you have access to us through this channel.

Go to everfree.us.

And on that page, it'll direct you to our Everfree Facebook feed, our Instagram feed, our podcast.

But then also, there's a place on the website where you can click the button to get directly connected to us on Everfree.

And if you have a specific question, honestly, that's the best way.

Even above email and text, we can respond.

Megan and I are both verbal communicators.

And so we can hear your message, respond back to you and share it.

Now, it may not be within the hour you send it, give us a day or two to get to it, depending on the volume of messages we have and whatnot, give us some grace.

But that's been a fantastic channel for us to use in connecting with people and sharing the message.

All right.

And commercial.

So in the middle of these Voxer prayers that you have, that's your core.

Now, are those women in the same city as you are? 

None of them.

Not right now.

No.

Nope.

So again, broaden your perspective on who your people are.

Would it be better if those people were in the same city? 

Of course it would.

And those people developed out of that deep time of community that we had in our time in East Dallas.

But each of those families has moved on in a different way.

So some of those core relationships are going to be your lifetime relationships.

And some you have to develop.

Now, as we've come to Bose in Montana, you have also developed another group of women.

Yeah.

I have a group that meets here at the house and we just dive in to hard places.

And we are transparent and open with each other in a way that it just builds trust.

And there's a lot of trust.

And we share things that are hard, but we pray with each other and it has been such an encouragement.

And I don't go to the church they go to.

No.

So again, who are your people? 

Now, how do you invest in your church and how do you connect? 

That's up to you.

All right.

I want to be really, really kind of direct with our listeners out there as a person who has served at churches and on staff at churches for a very long time.

One of the most difficult things to deal with is a person who comes to a staff person of a church and expects the staff person of the church to connect them to people.

So does the church staff have responsibility to try and connect? 

Absolutely.

They create the opportunities in the on-ramps.

But let me just put it out plainly for you.

It is not the church's job to find you friends.

Okay.

It is not the church's job to find you friends.

You have to know yourself.

You have to figure out what you need because the church doesn't know you in that way.

Now, should the church provide opportunities to on-ramps? 

Absolutely.

Small groups and youth groups and children's ministry groups and divorce care groups, all of those things are fantastic.

But if the church that you're going to or partnering with isn't getting friends for you, then first do yourself a favor and look in the mirror and ask yourself the question, who do I want in my life and are they even at this church? 

So your group of people that you're looking to may or may not end up actually being at the fellowship that you feel called to serve and the teaching that you want to be under and be a part of.

Okay.

So first we got you need a mothering fathering person.

The second thing that you're going to want is a couple of people that you're totally, totally engaged with.

Now, the third group of people I'm going to call a team.

Okay.

Who's on your team? 

And here's what I mean by that.

When I have been on staff at churches and part of that, they have what they call small groups or they have community groups or cell groups, depending on your tradition or where you come from, they could call them a couple of different things, but these are small to medium sized groups where they want you to be on mission.

95% of the time those groups fall into the inwardly focused posture.

Okay.

I want to challenge that.

I want to challenge that medium to small size group to say, rather than what do we all need, my question would be for that small to medium sized group in your world, what are you called to do? 

Right.

So here are a couple possibilities of what your team might look like.

Your team might be committed to a neighborhood.

You might live in a space where you have a couple of other families in the neighborhood that you are, that you know are committed Christians and that they want to see, you know, Christ invade the neighborhood.

Right.

So that might be part of your goal.

Another team might be a group of moms that care about their kids' school.

Right.

And they gather together with the same mission to bless their school in different ways and ask the Lord to creatively show them how to do that.

It might be your soccer team or a hobby.

So, you know, a small group of people that are focused on a mission of doing something together.

I think what's also helpful with establishing teams is the fact that there's so many different kinds of personality tests out there that allow you to see how you're wired and what you're gifted at and what you're not gifted at so that you can just kind of put that out there and say, I'm really great at this, but I'm horrible at that.

And just being able to get to know your team members and what their giftings are is really important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And there's plenty of tools out there that we will not mention because some of them are a little bit over the top right now.

Anyway, different people have different postures on that.

But the point is some kind of medium-sized group, right, that you're a part of.

And again, you know, it could be that they're all a part of your church and that would be a fantastic thing.

So first, I want to say this.

Don't hear me saying that I don't want you involved in your church, right? 

I think you should start there.

But I also, what I'm challenging is the majority of the perspective I've seen over the last 25 years of ministry is that people go to the church expecting the church to do it for them or expecting the church to have the resources to connect them.

And what I want to say to you is, you decide before you are part of a church or as you are part of a church or reevaluating your role at your church.

The question I want you to think about is what are you bringing to the table and how are you creating the kinds of relationships that are really going to fuel you and be a part of that.

Finally, I want to kind of talk about this issue of, of course, you need to be a part of a worshiping body in some way.

Now, I have been a part of a worshiping body of two to three people with a guitar, somebody reading some scripture and asking the Lord to show up and have had powerful church with two to three people sitting in a living room.

I've also been at some major mega churches in Dallas for Christian Christmas programs that were over the top productions and the Spirit of God moved in them in powerful church ways, the presentation of the gospel that was there and things like that.

So when I say a church body, you may be thinking about what you grew up with and that's your idea of church.

What I want you to think about is what does church really need to be? 

And this podcast is not about what is the church, okay, but I'm going to just, I want to touch on that, just acknowledge that church is a gathering of people where they're worshiping God and seeking the truth and focused on scripture and focused on the encouragement of what it means to be together, to be challenged by God in that setting, okay? 

And it includes worship, that's a part of it.

So what are other things, babe? 

Are there other kinds of people, we've talked about the three kind of main things we're talking about, right? 

You have that mothering, fathering person, you've got that core one or two people that are going to be the ones that you really like to help everything to because intimacy is important in our relationship with God.

And if we can't be honest with ourselves, we can't be honest with others, then we're certainly not going to be honest with God.

And then we have that kind of medium to small size group and then some kind of worshiping community.

Are there other people that you can think of off the top of our heads here? 

Who else would we want in our life? 

I have friends that are prophetic in nature and so they really listen to the Holy Spirit and they get pictures and words and sometimes they even dream on my behalf.

And the things that they give me, the information they give me, then they'll say, can I share something that I got that I feel like the Holy Spirit is showing me? 

And then as they share it, they'll be like, now you test this, Megan, you go and you listen and ask the Lord what this means for you.

And I really feel safe around them when they share that.

And I also most often feel very encouraged.

So I think that's just so important to have friends that really lean in to listening on your behalf.

Absolutely.

And that also makes me think of one gift in the church that's not really celebrated well and that's the gift of exhortation.

And we have had a couple of dear, dear people in our lives who have the gift of exhortation.

And the gift of exhortation is a very specific and specialized gift to help you get correction.

Now, raise your hand if you like being corrected.

Depends how you do it, I think.

No one likes being corrected.

But if we're speaking the truth in love, and a person has this gift, if they're walking the maturity of that gift, then they will find the right time and the right tone and posture.

It's never perfect, right? 

We're messy people, we're in relationship.

But people in your life that you think are overly critical, I wonder if you might ask them or ask the Lord, Lord, are they critical? 

Or do they have the gift of exhortation that just needs development? 

And the gift of exhortation can be really, really helpful and powerful when someone can look into your life and say, hey, brother, do I have permission to share some things with you that I'm feeling? 

And let me just warn you, it's exhortation.

Do I have your permission? 

And then being honest with yourself about whether you're really willing to listen to what that person has to say.

And again, like the encouragement prophetic people in your world that might be saying, hey, I really feel like you're called to this.

I see this for you, Megan.

Now you go test that.

The ultimate goal of both exhortation and that kind of prophetic praying is for the encouragement, right? 

This is the truth.

I am not perfect.

I know that you guys out there listening think I probably am.

I'm sure that you've heard so many positive things.

So I am because I'm not perfect and no, I'm not perfect.

I know that I need people speaking that into my life as truth.

So exhortation, a person of exhortation is though not always the first person you want to show up to the party.

You definitely need them in your life.

And I would encourage you to dive in to scriptures talking about spiritual gifts and ask the Lord, what is your spiritual gifts? 

And ask the Lord for gifts that you might want.

I think it's a really empowering thing to do to sit with God and just ask him those questions.

So I would really encourage you to now look through the Bible and see.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, I think we're at a place where this is really kind of fleshed out for us, the kinds of things that we want you guys to think about.

And we want to really encourage you guys because you are a part of something bigger.

Okay, this isn't just about, you know, your gifts, your family.

This is about the kingdom of God.

But you do have gifts and your family does have gifts.

And being able to be a part of something bigger than you will help you see what your family and your giftedness role is for the sake of the kingdom.

And it will encourage you and allow you to kind of find even greater effectiveness, right? 

So we want to encourage you to go learn about yourself.

Go do an assessment.

Do the Enneagram.

Do the Myers-Briggs.

Do whatever the APES test you can do to find out if you're an apostle, a prophet, evangelist, a shepherd, or a teacher.

Find out from some of these tools.

And if you want to know what those tools are, shoot us an email.

We can send you the links to a couple of tools that might help you really kind of dig into that for yourself because you got to understand yourself first.

And when you start doing that, then as you're walking with that spiritual mother or father, they can speak into your life.

It might actually help you determine what kind of spiritual mother or father you need in your life.

Then you can also sit with those two to three people that you know you need to be totally transparent with and be open to what they have to say.

And then specifically, here's what this really helps.

When you start figuring out where what your team is, what's your ministry, what's your team, and how are you going to do that together? 

When you understand yourself and how God's made you, your blessing, your DNA, your blessing, your either your creativity or your engineering skills or your finance skills or your social skills or your art skills or what they're all gifts.

So whenever you're honing that in, then you can decide, okay, I'm really great at this, but I'm not great at this.

Who on my team can help me do these things? 

So we want to just encourage you.

We are all the family.

We are all part of this kingdom and we want to hear from God.

We want to be transformed by the power of his Holy Spirit and through Everfree Prayer, through the tools and resources from your churches, our heart and our desire is to simply see you grow into the fullness of who God's made you to be and your identity in Christ.

And as you always say, what do you always say? 

There's always going to be more.

There's always more.

All right.

Any wrap up thoughts, babe, as we're talking about just what we've learned about the kinds of people that you want in your life.

I just want to pray and I want to bless the listeners and bless you and I, babe, to listen.

Lord, allow us to hear what you say and how you say it and allow us to have people that come to mind that you want us to reach out to and just show us who do we need in our lives to help us grow and to be a part of our team in Jesus name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, friends, thanks for being with us today.

We'll see you on the next episode.

Bye-bye.

Thanks for listening today.

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