Say More about Belonging.

This week we discuss questions submitted in response to the teaching at Fullerton Free Church on May 24, 2026 during a sermon called "Free from Isolation, Free to Belong." 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:20

I did push the button one time. Hey everybody, this is Katie Smiley, and I'm here with the Seymour podcast, which is a podcast at Fullerton Free, where we dig deeper, discuss the message or the scriptures from the last week's message. And we are here um talking about the message from May 24th. And I'm with two precious peeps. That's the phrase I just made up. Christina Mardola, who gave the message. Hello. And Kellen. What's up? Drury. Sorry. I didn't say your last name.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

I just didn't come out. I I I see myself as kind of like a seal guy or like a like a Rihanna, like a one-name guy.

unknown 1:06

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I think it makes sense for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:08

I just can't get past the visual in my head when you said precious peeps. I pictured me and Kellen as peeps, like the Easter candy, just sitting in our chairs. That's all giant peeps.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Yeah. That's all I'm thinking of now.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Next time we do slides, not smiley faces, peeps, and steady ladies.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26

Kellen's birthday is in two days. I would like everyone to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Happy birthday, me. Happy birthday, Kellen.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Happy birthday, Kellen. So we're going to talk about the message uh from Sunday, which was free from isolation and free to belong. So, Christina, do you mind giving us a little recap on the message for those who are here or those who didn't listen, which you should indeed go back and listen?

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I will, and I will do my best to keep this short. It's all right. We're fine. I can handle it. Yeah. So I just started by talking about um how there's a loneliness problem uh that is like scientifically studied now, um, specifically in the United States. I mean, it goes beyond that, but the study I reference is in the United States. And I just use that to argue that um loneliness and isolation are really bad for us. They have serious implications on our health, on societal health. And so there's all kinds of studies coming out about that. And I use that as a pivot point of just saying, like, there's something put into us biologically, I would say spiritually, emotionally, a need, it's a human need, a core need to belong and to have like a rich network of community and belonging and purpose. And um, so then I just with the sermon talked about how I think that that's there because God, God put that in us um, to belong to each other, but um ultimately to belong to him. And then I spent the rest of the sermon talking about how um I I referenced a few quotes from a a guy named Fred Sanders, who's a professor at Biola. He teaches on the Trinity. And one of his books was really um impactful for me when I read it a few years ago, just reading about uh what scripture talks about with the divine relationship within the Trinity and um how God exists in a perfect triune relationship. And so salvation, and and if you map the story of scripture, it actually talks about salvation this way pervasively, like the idea of salvation or the idea of God doing his movement on the earth is very much tied to this idea of him being with his people or him dwelling amongst his people. And so when we're saved, we're brought into the dynamics of God's own triune life, um, which is for me a very different way of thinking about salvation than how I grew up thinking about salvation. I mean, I always knew like God loved me, or God, I would say God loved the world, but I I didn't picture what I'm invited into as something so deep and mysterious and and loving that exists within God Himself, and then He's actually wanting to give us the experience of that relationship. Um so yeah, so I I tried to kind of frame some general picture of the Trinitarian relationship as mysterious as that is, and as much as we can peer into it. And then um, I walked through what are called the seven stages of God's presence. I used an outline actually from uh a textbook, and there they just map out how uh you could follow God's presence moving throughout scripture, starts in Eden, and he creates people to be just in perfect union with each other, in perfect union with him, and then with sin, all of that gets disrupted. And then basically from then to the end of the Bible is this story of God, God's presence moving, as I would say, closer and closer into dwelling with his people. So it starts with a covenant that he makes with a family, and then he's faithful to that family, and that covenant is way more than just like I'm gonna make you prosper. It's like I I'm gonna be your God and you're gonna be my people. And basically through this covenantal relationship, I'm gonna show myself to the world, and other people are gonna see like who I am, you know, and then it moves from a family to this nation. He covenantally binds himself to this nation, and then you know, he's dwelling in the midst of them in the temple, in the tabernacle, then the temple gets destroyed, yeah, and then there's just this progression where God, God is gonna move to putting his spirit in people, and the Christ comes, and through Christ, then we get the spirit indwelling the church, and then the end of scripture ends with God dwelling the picture of heaven, is that God's dwelling place is with humanity, and that is like the description of heaven. So um, yeah, I try to just kind of outline. I mean, it's more detailed than that, and I left out a lot because I there's an entire entire Bible about it, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

And you're like, here's the time limit that is given to you. Yeah, teach these things, but it's worth trying to give people a taste of it.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Yeah, so just wanted people to kind of see that there's an arc from beginning to end, and that arc, one of the major ways you can map it is with God's presence dwelling with humanity. And um, I think that's pretty I don't know, it does I feel something inside of myself with that that I can't even quite put words to, except I feel almost like tears behind my eyes.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

Yeah, you know, connection and yeah, it feels like actual guidance. Yeah, which is great.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Even as you're saying that, you I mean you made this point on Sunday of like this aspect of belonging and God moving towards us eventually like comes to this adoption movement. And I think as you're talking right now, to see it like start with a family and then not end, but continue with this familial language is just so I I mean it's so cool and like like seeing, I guess is the word I'm thinking of. Like it feels like God seeing us and that he's not he's picking the most intense interpersonal relationship, and he's like, and that's what I am to you. It's like, golly, what the Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Fred Sanders um writes about this and and talks about this. He helps connect the dots that um for Jesus to be the eternal son, yeah, is is I don't I don't know the right, I don't want to use heretical words. I know there's all kinds of things.

SPEAKER_03 7:33

I know it's so it's hard to talk about this.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

It's very specific. Yeah, but like Jesus being the eternal son, that that explains something about his relationship to the father that exists eternally outside of his incarnate self. So for us to be adopted as sons, and there we'll just keep the gender because sonship meant something in that culture, but it's inclusive of men and women. But for us to be adopted into sonship is actually us adopted into something that Christ, that Jesus has as the eternal son with the father. So it's not just like, and he's adopting us as his children, he will be our father. It's it is that, but it's more than that. It's like something about Christ Himself and the dynamic and the relationship that he has with the Father, that's what he gives to us. And again, it's like I can't quite wrap my head around it, but I'm like, that is insane. Like there's something there that I want to know, not just intellectually, but like I want to know more and more about like experientially. And that that's what God's bringing us to. It's like such an insane gesture of love and movement towards people, like come come into this. This is what you're brought into.

SPEAKER_03 8:47

Well, and it's so interwoven into how people experience life. Like if you picture God sort of outside a circle and saying, like, no, come here. I want you to be a part of my world, but it's it seems very distant and sort of like cold. But in picturing God sort of breaking through barriers that exist and and really weaving himself into our lives as deeply as like he is a father to a child in a loving kind of way. I mean, that's just it's very deep and meaningful. Yeah. It's beautiful. We did get a comment from oh no, we don't say names. We don't say names from a lovely person. Anonymous anonymous from anonymous from a condiment. That's what I just said out loud. A comment from anonymous.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

A catch-up from uh anonymous listener. Uh no, anonymous listener says, I don't have a question for this week's sermon. I just want to say Christina's sermon with accompanying slides was excellent. The overarching theme from Genesis to Revelations of this relationship-based God is such a foundational concept to Christianity. This sermon is a keeper. Yes, it is. It is. I couldn't agree more. Which plug, if you have if you missed Sunday, you haven't listened to it yet, pause this, go listen to it, and then come back and hear the rest of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

But as I continue, he says, I am beginning a personal study of knowing uh in the Bible, uh, prompted by Matthew 723, he gives a scripture reference and Galatians 4.9, where Paul corrects himself. Uh, it is important that he knows us. He actually does. But he wants us to come to that reality, and that should change us. By his spirit, we are encouraged to be transparent with him, and this can dramatically affect our confessions of sin and our prayer life. Looking forward to this week's A More Discussion. Thank you, Katie and Kyle and the other participants to our triune relational and gracious God, all the glory.

SPEAKER_03 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

I love that ending.

SPEAKER_03 10:54

Yeah. And thanks for the comment. And um, we just felt like it was great to read it because it it gives such a cool impression of what the sermon spoke to him. And it's nice. I mean, hey, you get some good positive feedback, which is always nice in a message. Um, but yeah, I wanted to ask you, like, was usually on a on a sermon that's like free from isolation, free to belong. If you just saw that on a marquee somewhere, you would pretty much like in church, we've all heard this message before, where you're like, Yes, okay, I gotta be in community, I gotta join a small group. Thank you, thank you, thank you. So, like, talk to me about like your thought process um to get to the material and the the things that you chose um to make that a little different than like, hey, you need to show up better at church. Like, what was it that was sort of motivating you?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Yeah, probably a few things that brought me to this. Um, I think one is just through school, um, my learning about scripture and the movements of scripture have like this this has been something I've been chewing on for like a long time and has really ministered to me. Um and so when I thought about belonging, and I was just kind of stewing on like also I think too, um, I have had been given two topics in the past that had to do with like church family and like I taught on you know the church's family, and then also Acts 2 was one of the passages I taught on in Acts, which was very much like if I were gonna pick free to belong, like in the community of God, like I feel like I've already given two sermons on that, which was not a problem to do it again. Um, but I just thought what's there's a different, there's a different angle to this that actually precedes that. Yes. And I feel like that has been something that um not just in my studies, but in my personal life, like there's a personal journey for me with this too, where I think belonging has been uh uh I would say like a pretty painful topic for me personally over the last like handful of years. And just really having to ask, like, what does belonging look like in my life, like as a single person, as the way that our world is set up? Like, I know I have a lot of relationships that are really important to me, but that like kind of core sense of like, you know, now I'm overexposing myself to the church, but whatever. We're all human, right? Um, that core sense of like where do I fit? Like actually, yes. Um, and on my sabbatical last summer, like I spent a long time like wrestling with God on this question of belonging. And um, and God really I mean, yeah, God really met me in that. And I think some of the things that I was speaking on on Sunday are things that like I would never say I know, yeah, but things that I feel like God has like cracked a door to me of like there's a union that we're invited into, and that sense of belonging with God is actually the the foundational like stone that we can stand on that then allows us to experience belonging with others in like the best ways we can. Because anytime we try to place our belonging purely in other people, like we all know that experience. That doesn't it it works for some time and then it doesn't work when those people disappoint you or when they can't people cannot feel like that. Right. I mean, it sounds so cliche to say, but like they just can't feel that. So what the heck is that there for? Like, why do we have that feeling? Um, and I don't believe it's just to be self-filled. I think there's work of learning how to be like self-stable, but ultimately, like, I think that's there for God. So I think that's a combo of things that were going on in my head, like, and just like I don't know, I feel like this stuff for me has been life-changing to like just start to learn this about God. And um, so yeah, I felt kind of drawn to want to go about it from that angle.

SPEAKER_03 15:10

Yeah, I when you were giving the message, I was just thinking about different seasons in my own life of um sort of the the actual grind and like emotional pain of finding my um belonging in people and then having that shift or change and trying to come to terms with this core truth of my walk with God, which is like he himself is the prize, is the goal. It isn't um this situation I find myself in, or prosperity, or health, or lack of conflict, or like even lack of um trouble. You know, like I always pictured a peaceful kind of like older person existence that's like, well, I've already seen all the bad things, you know? And it's like every year that I move forward, I'm like, nope, there's more bad things. I have not seen them all. And um, and even having friends move away or people I thought were my people, like just sort of naturally shift for different reasons. And um just trying to center myself and my grounding on the idea that, like, yeah, knowing God, Jesus Himself, the Holy Spirit in my person, that is the prize. Yeah. And that is the reason for existence. So I I just found myself like taking some of the things you were saying and kind of like filtering them through my own experience and thinking about that as like a very grounding thing, but it's kind of like painful to get there sometimes. Yeah, because you're like it is super painful, but that is not what I thought. When I was 13 and you told me to follow Jesus, you said things would be better and I would have a great life and amazing friends, and you know what I mean? And it's like, oh, actually, what you meant to say was follow Jesus and you will have Jesus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

No, go, go, go. Please. Do you guys want to arm wrestle? Let's make it. Well, I'll first or lose. No, I'm so weak. Me too. I uh I it was it was off this of like this. I was so I was listening to it, such uh joy of seeing that God, and such a good reminder of that God isn't a God that just like kind of instructs us to do these things, but he gives example of what it looks like, whether it be the part of Trinity you're talking about, or whether it be even who Jesus is seeing it. Like, I think there's some times where I think where God's like, I desire you to belong to me. And if I take it the wrong way, I think of it as like, okay, you're just someone who's like up here, I'm right here, and you're just instructing me to do this thing that's better for me. But the way in which you talked about it was such a good reminder of like, no, like God's saying this is he's like face to face with me, and he's like, I want you to belong to me, and here's how that works, here's how I do that, here's how I am with you already, be with me as I'm with you. And it's like, man, for me, that just connects so many bridges of like gaps of like I'm doing this thing, I'm not getting better at this thing. Yet God just being like, no, no, no, abide, belong. Like that is where I'm at. And it's like, oh my gosh, it's so much more freeing than like the I we've all touched on it, than like the doing of something to feel as if you are belonging, even to God in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, and and I agree, Katie. I think like I don't maybe this isn't true for everyone else, but getting to this sense of like my belonging is with God feels painful because it means that you have to go through, I think, the grief of realizing that people can't fill fill you the way that you want, or a community. Uh, you know, I think we all have an ideal in our mind of what like a spiritual community should look like. And I think there is an ideal of what it will be in heaven, but apart from that, it's messy and like life with people is messy. And you know, Jesus, I think is obviously the one, he's our example of one who creates belonging for others in like the most amazing way. But I think the thing that we don't talk about as much is that Jesus so much of his language was about how he and the father were like tight. Yeah, I mean, his union and his belonging was with the father, and Jesus was a man of sorrows, as we know, and not just the man of sorrows on the cross. Like he I can't even imagine like the uh relational experience that he had, the joys, yes, but like the loss. And like one thing that really ministered to me over the summer was just um Jesus when he is about he's he's about to go to the cross, and in John, this is John 16, 31, he says to his disciples, this is 32, a time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home. And then he said, This like kills me. He's like, You will leave me all alone. Yeah, but then he says, Yeah, I am not alone, for my father is with me. And I just like sat and reflected on that. Like Jesus, Jesus, like he was gonna be deserted. And the way that he frames that, well, I can't imagine the pain in that. So it doesn't like I don't envision him not having pain and that experience. But at the same time, it's like, but I'm not alone, like the father is with me. Yeah, and that's how he was like able to be a person who created belonging for others, was like he really was he had a union with the father that that and that's what we're adopted into is that union. So it just I know we're slow, slow to get there and slow to learn it. Um, but I think God is faithful to take us there the more we desire to to know it, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:18

It's also the pain for me sometimes hits when I realize like how even though I know that that is the goal of my existence and is enough for me, yeah, how often I sort of jump off that track and start going down the other one again, you know, and realizing that how often it requires recalibration and like putting my compass back out and remembering the truth. Um, and it just sort of shows me, in some sense, my own temptation towards like the idolatry of other things that I'm looking to fill that sense of loneliness. Um Um and really I'm thankful that God does it and that my connection with him really does draw me back to himself. But um, you know, every once in a while I think, oh my gosh, wait, there I'm doing it again. What was I doing that for? You know. So anyway, just a thought for that.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah. I had a thought coming off it, maybe it would be for for the room in general, but for you, Christina, as well. Um when I think of isolation, I in my head I think evil, right? I think isolation's not a place we want to be, which I think is true. But then so quickly I go to like, but Jesus spent time alone, and we'd call that solitude. So I think if you were to explain um like the the best aspect of solitude and why that is different from isolation and why that is okay for us to still retreat into alone time of times, and sometimes that God even calls us to that in practice or in discipline. Um I found myself sometimes uh as as we talk about isolation being like, well, where's this line? At what point is this isolation, what point is this solitude? And maybe you could just uh uh I don't know, answer or tease the question a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Katie, do you have thoughts?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Um sure. I mean, I thought he was asking you. I just don't want to dominate the conversation, you know. I'm like, I always have thoughts of thoughts too. I don't know if they're good, but well, it just it's all definitional, right? Because like in the dictionary, I mean, I'm sure they're very similar actual Webster's dictionary definitions, but in terms of like isolation having that negative connotation of like I am outside of my control, I am alone in the world to navigate the world by myself. And um, solitude feels a little bit more like I am choosing alone, I am choosing quiet um to connect with the father, to connect with God. And so um, yeah, solitude is like more I'm shutting out the outside influences for a time being, the noises, the communication from other sources, and I'm just trying to to grasp um, yeah, connection with my maker. So that's just what I would say.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

But yeah, I feel like isolation. I feel like with isolation, there is a not knowing that that's a part of isolation. Like you are not known, or you are like uh withheld out of something, yeah, or maybe by choice, taking yourself into isolation, because I think people can experience isolation from their own choice, sure, or it can be something that they experience that feels totally out of their control. Sure. But I don't think of solitude as being relationally isolated. I think of solitude more as like Katie was saying, like um a choice of like I'm going to be alone. Yeah. Because we need to be alone. Like, you know, so many of the church fathers and mothers talk about solitude as a really important spiritual discipline because it's in solitude that you actually hear the noise of your own mind and your own heart and ha have the opportunity to like experience God in those places. So solitude's important, but isolation feels like you're not in a network. You're not people don't know what's going on in your life. You are like like on an island somewhere. Yeah. Um, and you don't have like a lifeline, maybe, or I don't know. I don't know the best.

SPEAKER_03 25:48

Yeah, in any kind of way.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah, I don't know the best way to explain it, but they they feel like they have different in music we call them tambers, different vibes. Yeah, they have different vibes, you know.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

That V-word, we use vibe for everything, I think nowadays. It's for the vibes, yeah. Everything's for the vibes. No, it's great. I I I I lean similar of those things of even when we talk about like disciplines of like solitude, there's always the idea that you're going to come back to debrief your solitude with someone or a community of people, and in isolation it feels like it's just like kind of something that like sits and stays. Like it's it's not really active where solitude still feels like there's an activity to it.

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Yeah. Um, do you guys care if we get like practical for a minute? No, not at all. Um, we talked about this ahead of time, but I feel like this is a good segue into it. Um like if someone is feeling not like they're not choosing solitude, but they're feeling isolated, like something is just not quite right. What do you feel like are some you know, next steps for them? Yeah. What what what can they do in your view to try to reduce the the loneliness impacts like that you talked about, and even just like try to enter into something either with God or with um with others that would help kind of bring down isolation and and bring up belonging in their life.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Do you want to go first? Yeah, I can toss something. Um, it's like such a good question because isolation in itself is kind of like this like up in the air thing. Like it's uh you can see physical ramifications of it of like what Christina explained, but like you can't grasp uh isolation. It's just like this, this, this feeling, this thing that happens. And so uh getting practical with it, I think I I want to, and Christina did a good job of this of like acknowledging that like part of a sinful, broken world are these feelings, and like that being placed onto you by other people, that you retreating to that by yourself, like are products of living um in a world that is not yet complete. And so, like, I I feel very strong about having that be like this wasn't the intended norm. God didn't want you to be isolated, He doesn't desire you to be isolated, uh, yet knowing that doesn't fix the fact that you still are isolated. And so when it comes to practical, it feels hard to tell someone like, go put your name out there, because it's like I've tried to put my name out there, like, go try to be in the small group. Well, we even talked for the beginning of this because I've tried to be in the small group, and so my my head and heart always goes to like um C. S. Lewis has this um has this uh book called The Four Loves, and he talks about the idea of friendship being like the most like selfless kind of love. But to have friendship means to uh have the what me too moment, like to have that like relatability piece with someone else in front of you. And so I always go to like you you to the reverse of isolation is seeking out friendship, and you can only control the amount of friendship you seek out, and so in that seeking out the common um the common ground between you and another person. Oh what you love this sports team too, oh what you love this book too, oh what you like this kind of music to, like putting yourself in a which is really just being genuine to yourself and being genuine to what you're putting out there, therefore where friendship begins, isolation kind of leaves. And so I think it's a beginning answer to my when I when I think about it practically of like being the genuine self, being genuinely interested in the things you're interested in and being open about those things with the people around you to then cultivate friendship.

SPEAKER_03 29:49

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

Yeah, a couple things come to mind for me. I think the first is that I I think for anyone who's listening who feels like that, I feel very tender towards that because I think no matter what people say, like when you are in that place of feeling isolated, it's very, very painful. And it feels to varying degrees like you can have feelings of like despair attached to that, especially if you're like, I'm trying to make friends and it's just not working. So I think that's a really um painful spot to be in. And I think I would say two things to someone who finds themselves in that place. And the first would be like, I think it's a misnomer when people say, I only need God, I don't need anybody else. I don't think that that is actually a biblical perspective. Do I think that our deepest belonging is to be met in God a hundred percent? Yes, but God also created us to be in a network of people, and so if you are not in a network of people, like that will have ramifications on your life experience. So I don't want to dismiss that by just turning to a spiritual answer, but at the same time, like I do think that there is something available to us in God. And I'm I'm speaking on now from my own experience of my own like struggle with this at times that like there is something that is the source of life is available to us in God. And God, I mean, the Psalms, I would just like go through the Psalms of Lament where David feels so isolated. And and maybe you don't have that faith for yourself right now, but like you can leech off his faith in some ways. Like, here's a guy who was on the run for I don't know how many years and betrayed by everyone, no friends, and all he had was God in the middle of this like barren desert for a long time. So there's there's space for those feelings in our faith, which I think is really huge. And I think there's something available to you deeply from God. Um, I also would say, like, if you are like trying to build friends and trying to put yourself out there and can't, like, I would say get a spiritual director or get a therapist, like, and start processing these feelings with somebody else. I know sometimes it can feel annoying that you have to pay someone to do this, but also they are resources available that would actually like really potentially help with like digging up why you feel isolated or whatever. Because there's all kinds of sometimes, sometimes even for me, like I've found I have to change my expectations of what I'm looking for because there's a lot available to me, but I don't want to take the initiative towards those things. That might not be whoever's listening's situation. So I don't want to say everyone feels that way or isn't in that spot. But I don't know. I feel like there are tools available to us that sometimes um are beneficial to utilize, and spiritual direction is an amazing way to process isolation and where God is in that, and then therapy is a great way to process like just relational experiences of isolation and maybe why and just even process through your feelings in that. And then obviously, you know, there's the norms of just try if you can. Um, but yeah, I don't know, I feel hesitant to go to that space unless there's somebody who really just needs sometimes. We just need that.

SPEAKER_03 33:11

You can do it, put yourself out there, you know. Well, and even I've had folks like this is just a church function kind of a thing, but people come, some of you guys come to the wood wall and say, like, hey, I'm looking for a community group, and you quite frankly look terrified. And I am like, I know why you're terrified. Because we're all terrified when because like I've tried walking into a room and thought to myself, like, oh, this isn't what I was expecting, or oh, everybody just came to say hi to me, and I was really hoping to just observe. Like so there's things that have kept you from like joining in that are actually out of your control. So I just want to normalize that. Like, there's stuff that happens that's really crazy. And I I can remember too, like, I think I've maybe even told this story before, but um, like I went to a church in San Diego for six months and probably seven or eight times. They it was back in the days where things were written on this stuff called paper. And um, you like they had this binder of home groups, and you had to just sort of look through the binder. And I was like past the point of being able to fit into a college home group and past the point of like I wasn't a leader like for high school or anything. So I'm just looking at like 60 adult home groups and like I'm just supposed to pick one, just pick one, you know, and I would do it, and no one ever came up to me and was like, let me help you out. Like they just sort of let me stand there and flip the pages six times. And it wasn't until I sat next to someone who was brave who just said, like, she was very short. So I looked up to the sky when I was gonna tell the story. But um, Cynthia would she just looked at me and was like, Oh, do you go to a home group? And I was like, I don't, like, where have you been? You know what I mean? She just saw that I was looking for that. Yeah, and so I guess in essence, this is like a double-edged sort of like calment is that there I understand why you've avoided being in those situations because they're really hard. And then the other thing is like if you are a person who is in that it has people or sees someone looking through the book, like metaphorically, like, is there a place where you could invite them to join in? Yes. Rather than just being like, doesn't it stink? They don't have any friends, you know, just be like, you know what? It might mess with my schedule or it might mess with my afternoon or it might change things, but I could just ask that person how they are and start up a conversation. You know, that's what Cynthia did for me.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Scott Balanis said this since I've been here, and it it always just rattles in my brain because it's such a different perspective of church that's in in the best way of like, what if we were a group of people that turned around during the greeting hour and said, Do you want to go to lunch with me afterwards? That's just like oh my god, it is. It's so but it's so like practical of like, what if you like gave up the community hour and just like, hey, let me take you to lunch afterwards and just like talk to you? And it's like, my God. You like donuts?

SPEAKER_03 36:27

I like donuts.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

Like donuts, grabbing brunch, breakfast or something, but like if if that shift just happened, like not even just with local churches, but like big sea church, like how much more would the fight against isolation and loneliness be like met with like just friendly opposition?

SPEAKER_03 36:44

The idea of like I will be your people, your God will be my God. Like, can we just sort of try to make our culture in that that sense something pointed towards each other and pointed towards the Lord too? So I love it. Thank you for this conversation. I felt like it was really great. Except for Kellen being a one name kind of a guy. I kind of want to talk about that later, but we don't have to do that on the recording. Okay. Well, I hope everybody has a great week. We'll see you next week on Say More.