Beyond Niceness: The Power of Genuine Care

Cyle, Ryan, and Cody dive into the heart of what makes authentic Christian community work—moving beyond surface-level niceness to genuine, sacrificial love. Through personal stories and real-life examples, they explore how caring about what matters to others transforms relationships and reveals Christ's love in tangible ways. This episode unpacks the first pillar of Heart Lakes' culture of honor and challenges listeners to build deeper, more meaningful connections.

Transcript

 Hello and welcome to the HOTLCast. I'm Cyle. And I'm Ryan. And we're here with Cody, who is now on the producer stand. 

Happy to be here. 

Yeah, so Mark is on his honeymoon and he'll be back soon. So yeah. Is it bad that after this year, 2025, I now consider honeymoons just a home moon from, you know, the best show ever?

It's great. Do you know what show I'm talking about, Ryan? 

I'm not sure I do 

demon. Hunter. 

Oh, K-Pop Demon hunters. Oh, I watched, 

I've seen that. 

Just the ending with my children last night. 'cause that's what they wanted to see. Daddy, we wanna see the the ending. I was like, okay. So we watched it and I just, every time I watch it, I go, this is a masterpiece.

Yeah, 

this movie is amazing. 

Eli Brooks came over with the boys and he is like, let's put on K-Pop, even Hunter. I was like, oh, I watched it yesterday. He's like, you did? I was like, yeah. I was just sitting in the counter in the kitchen and just turned it on. Comfort and just had it running. Like, 

it's just like your comfort, your comfort.

Moving on. I just listening and jamming. It was good. But 

yeah, I mean, it genuinely is good though. And I mean, the cool thing is like the elements, like we were talking about this, you know, offline, but like we were talking about how like the elements are, are really like Christian based, right? Like that, that, you know what, what Gima GMA uses to like control them is their shame.

And like, I think it's, you know, there's some good parallels there, but. Yeah, 

I had four. I had three pop culture aha moments last year. 

Ooh. 

Which has nothing to do with our, alright. 

Number one, what was it, number 

one? K-Pop, demon hunter. 

Okay. Number two. 

Uh, it was a mo. The next two were movies. 

Okay. 

They're all movies.

Okay. 

Any guesses? 

Uh, predators. Badlands. 

Predators. Badlands. Yeah. Was it insanely 

good? And then the third one, I know what the third one is. Because I, by process of elimination, 

I put it on, usually I put it on Facebook. Yeah. 

Anaconda. 

Anaconda. Yeah. Crazy good. 

I wanna see it so bad. 

So funny. I laughed funny while I cried so many times.

Like, like one of those. It's so bad. It's good. 

No, they're so good. It's good. Yeah, 

they're making fun of it being so bad 

the whole 

time. 

They're really good actors acting terribly as actors. That's the whole shtick. But I mean, I watched the original in like 1995 when I was in high school. And so it was just crazy to see that come back around in pop culture and in a better way.

'cause the one was really horribly filmed back in the day, but it was just, it was just like my kids went and my two boys went and I'm like. They, they're not gonna, this is probably gonna be a dumb movie, but we were just trying to spend time together and I just thought, this is gonna be a waste of time.

Car told me it was so funny. It was so funny. 

And Carver was like, every single moment you think like, okay, this is gonna drag on, it just got funnier and funnier. And speaking of ba of good actors, acting like they can't act well there's just something to that. That is funny because when Mark did that for the, for the, the play.

Yeah. That we did the, it was funny. Murder mystery dinner. I was crying, laughing. It was the funniest thing Ive ever 

heard. Well, like Paul Rudds in it and he's just acting horribly and I'm like, I know he is a great actor. So it was just really funny to see him like intentionally bad act and it was sort of like Mark did in the Christmas production.

So it was just, it was really, it was a good time, but it was fun to laugh with my boys and we were, we were walking into the store after the movie referencing something that happened in the movie and I'm like almost crying again. Like trying to walk into a store. I couldn't even breathe. I was just laughing so hard.

So it was, it was a good time. But, um, you know, we, and we've had some of those big moments in different ways and just, it was just fun to, to have that, that kind of over the holidays and we had a great Christmas season and some really awesome things with the church and it was just kind of fun to, to just have that space to just laugh a little bit about just dumb humor.

I like stupid humor. It's like, oh yeah, stuff people find corny. We like corny around here, but. 

Yeah, 

that's, if you don't like corny, you might like, not like Anaconda, but if you like corny things and then 

if you like corny, you might not like, 

yeah, that's true. You might not be listening to this podcast if you're listen podcast.

You might like corny. But um, yeah, 

kind of embrace that though. We kind embrace that and here's the deal. 'cause of the culture of honor, the people that care about us. Yeah. They have to care about that stuff because you care about what the people you care about. Care about. 

Yep. Yeah. So welcome. 

That's right.

Welcome to Coville. So, but this year we're talking about, yeah. What we talked about Sunday, we talked about who we are as a church. I think it's, we just had so many new people in our church, both campuses this year. Uh, we, we thought it's good to go back to square ones and say who we are, why do we exist?

What, what's the purpose of Heart Lakes existing in a community with churches? And, um, we call it auto one oh one right now. And so we just kind of go back to some of the basics of what we, our belief is and who we are as a church. We're, we're a church that's part of the denomination. Mm-hmm. Which gives us accountability.

Um, we have leadership, we have structure, and we'll get into some of those things we get in the series, but we, we kind of just went, I went, started right at the core of why we do what we do, which is we love God and we love people. And when we do that, we wanna share Christ with people by loving the people in our lives and our community.

And how we do that is we have a culture of honor, which one of the core tenets of that is care about what the people you care about, care about. Mm-hmm. And we look at scripture, we're talking Sunday, we look at scripture. If you love someone, you truly care about them. You listen to them, you notice them, you hear them, you see them, and they feel seen.

They feel heard, they feel loved. They feel cared about. And the problem is there's a lot of us in this world that don't feel seen, don't feel heard, don't feel loved, don't feel cared about. And that's not the way it's supposed to be for followers of Christ. We should be valuing the people around us. So much so that we sacrifice some of our own wants, some of our own desires, some of our own needs for the benefit of others.

And I think that's the hard part. We're just such a selfish society now in 2026 in the world, and we're supposed to be unselfish for each other, for Christ. And so, you know, when you hear that, how do you guys process some of that? How do you live out caring about people and loving people? 

Yeah. Yeah. I, I just heard a comedian, standup comedian talking about how, you know, we, in 2026, she's hoping people drop self-care because it's just an excuse to be selfish.

Like, she's like, it's not self-care that you stood up my birthday party because you wanted to take a bubble bath. You know, like, that's not self-care. You know, like, so it's the idea. That mom. Yeah, exactly right. That would be a funny joke actually. That would've been hilarious. 

She could, she could borrow that one.

But I mean, really, like, I, when I think of the things that I, especially, especially as I'm getting older, the things that make me excited are the things that I get to do with other people. Like, and the things that I get to show up and be there for, for other people. And so like, when I think about. Why that is, it's not because I am necessarily not a selfish person.

It's because the, the culture of honor, the idea that we train ourselves to care about what people care about it is, is I think that's a cornerstone of starting to think like that. And, and I think it's rewired my brain to go, okay, this is a great opportunity for me to love this person and like show them love.

Not because they're necessarily even going to reciprocate that. Like I, I don't actually go into it with the expectation that they're gonna reciprocate it. I'm just excited that like there's another thing that I can get involved in that somebody else likes. Yeah. And like somebody did that to me the other day, like one of our students actually Nick Newman was like, Hey, I know you love Lord of the Rings.

You're like obsessed with Lord of the Ring. He's like, so I, I went and like, I started reading the books and he's like, and I wanna tell, like, just so you could talk to me about it. And I'm like, that's awesome. Like, it's like, but I also think that's exactly how people feel when we put the effort in to care about the things they care about.

And I'm like, oh my gosh. Like, that's such a cool, you know? 

Yeah. 

So I, I love that. And when you start talking about like. Getting rid of the selfishness. It's like, no, when we prioritize, like it should start to make us happy to do things that aren't about us. 

Yeah. 

Right. That, that's how we should start to retrain our brains, because then it, then it goes from like, oh, I, I want to do this thing.

'cause it's selfish. Yeah. Selfish is, selfishness is easy. Doing the right thing is often pretty tough, but if you can get into the habit of doing it, then it becomes easier. Right. Really becomes something that brings you great joy to do and to be a part of. So, 

oh, no, that's cool man. I, you know, it's something that kind of resonated me when I was, when, when you said that was, you know, this idea for me is what, what struck me is this concept I have that we, we don't really get it until we give it away.

Mm-hmm. 

And, and once we give it away, that's when God is revealed. And, and, and I could say that like, you know, when I think of the world, the world often says. In, in order for me to get somebody else has to lose. Mm-hmm. But God says, no. No. Every time you give, you get tenfold back. Right. Mm-hmm. But it, it seems counterintuitive to maybe the way we think as people when we are extraordinary in our own sense.

Mm-hmm. And so often for me, that is revealed to me when, when I give. Mm-hmm. And, and, and I can, when I can make somebody else greater. It 99 times outta a hundred. It don't cost me nothing but time and a little bit of effort, right. To care a little bit more about somebody than than myself. Mm-hmm. And, and I know, 'cause I spend quite a bit of time on the phone and, and most of the time on the phone, it's really just, just somebody wants to be seen, somebody's calling, say, Hey, I need to be seen.

And, and I know that you care. I know you don't want anything from me. Only everything for me. 

Right. 

And. And I, I think there's a lot of beauty and I think there's a lot of power for, for me, that's where I, where I, I find myself just where God just shows up in my life time and time again. 

Right. I think, I think caring about people is really profound in a world that is selfish because when you're try to be selfless for people, it should be noticed, it should be noticeable.

It should be different than it should feel like counter-cultural. Because it, everybody's just all out for themselves. If you're all out for other people, it should feel like there's something different about that person. I think that's, that's really my heart and hope for our church. Uh, I don't care. I really don't care if this church ever grows.

What I care about is are people gonna say there's something different about Heart Lakes? And it's when they figure out what it is, it's Christ that we love, people like Jesus does. And that should change people. And I think if we really live that out, it should change people. And people should wanna come be part of a community of that loves like that.

And so I think it is kind of a, a cycle that we just have to create by loving people and being selfless, as selfless as we can be. I mean it, life is, is inconvenient at times when other people are going through stuff or they have needs or they, they just need to be heard or seen or loved. But that's just part of what it, what it looks like.

We are all at a, we all go through seasons where we need people to love us, um, when we're unlovable. We love us when we're hurting. Love us when we're broken. Love us when we're sad, love us, when we're experiencing joy. Just do life together, and that always requires some kind of selfless action on the behalf of the other person to get involved and invested in our life.

It also requires us to do that for other people. And I think sometimes we get so busy with our own stuff, we forget. Other people matter more than, than we matter in the sense of we gotta care about people and care about what the people we care about, care about. 

I think when we talk about care, right? We, the, the heart of care is love, right?

And when you look at like, how does love manifest in our lives? When we talk about the fruits of the spirit, I love joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness ness, and self-control. None of those are niceness, right? Like none of those are just be nice. None of those would be happy. Like, because there's a deeper level to the idea and the concept behind what you know, what those things are.

And so I, I, when we talk about like, what does care require? Requires love and kindness to people. You're round, but kindness, I, I think the problem, one of the things I think is a problem is we've been conditioned to be really nice. Like walking down the street and smiling at somebody is nice. That's not necessarily kind like, there's no, there's no commitment or connection to that, right?

Like you're just, you're just doing a nice act and it's like, and sometimes kindness can be nice. But niceness is not always kind like you. And so it's like it, the example I would give is like, it's nice to not tell somebody that they've got something stuck in their teeth, but what's actually kind is to say, Hey, you got something stuck in your teeth.

One of them is uncomfortable and one of them is not. Right, and one of them is actually caring for the person and one of them is not. Right. 

Yeah. So I I, that makes me think about something as an example. I don't know why, but this won't land with people if you're listening, unless you know what a VHS is.

But back in the day, a blockbuster, you probably remember this, right? Oh yeah. Had a block back in Blockbuster. I know what you say, VHSs before DVDs. 

Yeah. 

And it would say they had big signs up. And they, they've even put all stickers on it. Please be kind. Rewind, please 

rewind. 

Yeah, it's not Please be nice.

Rewind, because please be nice. You could, you could, I could hand you a VHS and smile at you walk in the door. That I just didn't rewind. Yeah. Ah, it's nice. Hey, you go. Yeah, but if I really care enough, I'll spend that three to five minutes tore. Rewind, rewind that thing before I take it back because that's kind, because there's some employee that has to rewind all those.

Now we don't have to do that anymore if you don't wanna VHSs, you know. You're, you're lost, but like, it really is the case of this, of, of what we're talking about. Kindness requires some kind of innate action that takes time and investment. Nice. Doesn't, you can just smile. Mm-hmm. And you can just, Hey, it's all good.

And so I think it's the same thing with a tip. I can be really nice to the DoorDash driver. I can smile like I say, Hey, thanks for doing that. 

Give 

zero That's nice. And give zero tip. Yeah, exactly. It's not really kind. It's just nice. And so I think that's a good example, like how you say that caring about people nice is part of it, but it's a very small part of it kind is way more intentional.

Way more selfless and way more action oriented. And I think that's, love needs to be action oriented for it to really, I think, feel like love for people and for them to understand that's the love of Christ through us. 

And I would think, I, I mean, I would argue, I mean, at least for myself, and I think in, in building relationships with other people, I think they would agree.

When they get authentic relationships, like unhealthy relationships that people aren't, like, haven't really gotten out of their system. Or people who are like, no, they're my best friend and they're not. You know, like, but people who have healthy relationships I think would identify that they would much rather their friends be kind than nice.

Mm-hmm. And, and I would much rather have my friends be kind like, and then that means, you know, I loved, you said this in a sermon. A couple, like I wanna say a month and a half ago or so, and you were talking about truth and love and how like the correlation between being truthful, like being honest with people.

And I, you said that truth without love can be harsh or brutal, right? Mm-hmm. But love without truth is hollow, and I love that idea when we talk about. Really, the culture of honor is a culture of love. Like if you honor pe, if you're, if you really love the Lord, you're gonna work to do whatever you can to outwardly show that love by honoring the people around you.

And so that first pillar, that care about which people, what the people you care about, care about is this, this call not just to, not just to do this very face value thing, but to be kind and to invest yourself in somebody else's life. And, and. Um, and that with that kindness, right? When we talk about kindness, the actual genuine kindness, it means sometimes that you have to be truthful.

Like you have to, you have to, if somebody cares about something that's detrimental to them, and you find out caring about them, and caring, you know, what they're involved in, kindness may require you to say, Hey, what you care about right now is not actually very helpful for you. Right? But you don't know that if you don't make that investment.

And so I think they're, they're very. Intertwined because when you start talking about what does honor require of me, what does love require of me? Mm-hmm. Um, I think love requires us to be kind to the people who we are in relationship with, instead of just com a commitment to surface niceness, if that makes sense.

Yeah, 

yeah. 

Yeah. No, you know, it's interesting because listening, listening to that kind of struck with me, I, I spent a lot of time working with, uh, veterans first responders and, uh. And that's, that is a, a disclaimer I often have. 'cause I'm talking to people who, who are struggling with addiction, with, with process addiction, and really just, just with their life working.

And I often have that same, I call it my disclaimer, you know, speech. But it, it's, it's that, Hey, look, I want nothing from you. I only want everything for you. I only want you to reclaim your life with that. Sometimes I'm gonna say things that is gonna upset you. If that upsets you, that's about you. Right?

Because I love you with all my heart and, and the reason why I love you is I'm the person who will tell you the truth. 

Mm-hmm. 

Most of the world won't, and I will because I love you that much. 

Yeah. 

And, and being able to have those relationships. Those are like money in the bank. 

Yeah, 

I remember. So for people who are listening for the first time, you know, I used to live with Cyle.

I lived, lived in his basement. Mark lived in my basement, he just got married. Um, 

I, I helped him move out 

right there. Yeah. Right. And, uh, but I mean, one of the, one of the reasons was because. That's a lifestyle that we both have committed to and we feel like is the best way to really build a relationship and disciple and teach and train and equip and like do life together.

And um, one of the things that Cyle said to me when I first moved in, um. Was, I love you enough to say things that will make you hate me. And I, that was really like, it was visceral. Like when I heard it, I was like, well, what do you mean? Like, I'm not gonna hate you. And then I remember the first time we had to have a really uncomfortable conversation surrounding truth, and I'm like, okay, it makes sense, right?

Like, you know, like, and, and I don't, I don't hate you, but like I do understand like the idea that like you're willing to say harsh, harmful, like things that are harsh and truthful in an effort to make sure that. I have the best chance at doing the things that will honor the Lord the most. And, and, you know, I, I do think all of these things, this is the next level of the culture of honor, right?

As you really dive into what does it mean to really care about somebody, not, you know, as you invest yourself in somebody else's life, like what does that look like? You know, uh, there's a men's group called the Return, and they. Have retreats and guys go on the retreats. And a lot of, a lot of, there's been a lot of guys at our church that have actually gone on those retreats and they come back and they're just, you know, this was amazing.

This was great. But one thing they say regularly that I, you know, I don't know if they created it, but because I think I've heard it other places, but one thing that they say is, is who's your 2:00 AM friend? You know, like who's the person that if you called at 2:00 AM would drop everything and would, would come and help you with what was necessary, you know, in your life.

And, um, like I think about that and I think when it, when it comes down to it, I think that's what people desire. I think that's why genuine. Relationships, you know, in Christ kind of rock people to the core because it's like, I've never had anybody that would do that. And then you start to realize like the people who would do that are the people who have a love for Jesus, 

or we haven't been selfless enough to listen.

Exactly. 

Let people be that for us, which is, I think, a bigger problem. It's 

like 

we're so selfish. Anybody that says anything negative, we gotta cut 'em out. Because you, I don't want that in my life, but that's, you need to be people who are gonna tell you the truth lovingly. Those are the people you actually need in your circle.

Those are the people that make you the best version of yourself. And as a church, that's our goal. We want to care about the what the people we care about, care about, not so they get their own way, but not so they know that we feel love. We, we hear and see their life. We, we understand their perspective and although it may not ultimately change the decisions we make in our life, we understand their perspective.

We always take it into account. And so I'm always trying to take people's opinions in account, whether or not it changes my ultimate decision. I'm trying to value, give them value by making sure they're heard. And you know, their perspective is known. And so I think that it doesn't always feel valued to people.

They don't feel well, you heard my perspective, but didn't listen to it well. I don't think love is listening to what someone's demands are. It's hearing the demands and saying, Hey, I appreciate that, but this is ultimately what we're gonna decide or what I'm gonna do. And I think that's just, it's a different tone, it's just different perspective.

But once you get to that place, it's so much. More healing. It's so much more helpful and I think it's easier to have relationships with people. And so I think we see the example in Christ loving people, but also having some truthful conversations at time in a very loving, honest, real way, while giving people hope at the end of it, that leads to joy.

Mm-hmm. You know, and I, and I think a lot of that is based really on, on the, the, the. The, the solid nature of that relationship. Right, because, 'cause I think we all had people in our life, if they came up and they were like, you know, tell you something, maybe that landed kinda hard. We all might have somebody that we could be like, Hmm, that didn't really, I didn't really land.

Right. But it for the people and like if Cyle comes to me and, and he says, Hey Ryan, we gotta talk about this. I'm gonna sit down and go, okay, what happened? And how do I correct this? Even if he, even if it comes at me harsh. Mm-hmm. Because I know that, that there's nothing but love there. He's, he's only gonna look for me to be successful.

He only wants the best for me. And, and I think that the more we look for people like that, the more we see people like that. 

Yeah. I think it's really important that Jesus didn't say, you'll know. They'll know that you're my disciples by how you follow the rules. Right? Right. Like he said, they'll know you're my disciples by how you love one another.

And when talking about care and what that looks like, that is that first step. Like that's how what we do is different than the rest of the world. That's how what you know when you're talking about what does make, what makes Hoddle. Hoddle. We just had that conversation last night that I was out to dinner with somebody and they were like, I was like, what makes us.

Coddle, like what makes us different? And they're like, we, like, we build community and like, it's not original, right? Mm-hmm. Like, I really have been thinking through this idea of like, it's not special, it's just personal. Right? Or like, 

it's 

not the first church to built community. 

Exactly. Like, it's not, it's not like what we do is unique or like the, you know, the idea like, no over their other place does this.

No other places do it. Like, but it's real for the people that do it here. It's, it's 

authentic 

and it's personal. Right? And so. You know, that I think is one thing. You know that one thing that I think when you talk about what, what does this really, why is the culture of honor so important? Why does this matter?

Is because it gives us a metric to me, it gives us a metric, almost like a litmus test for do you really believe the things that you say you believe and are you willing to live them out? Right. 

A good example and kind of we'll end with this one just as a perspective. We all just went to see, uh, Gary Eastridge, his mom passed away and we all just had, we're a little late starting this today because of that.

And it was just a, the staff went over, people were there from the church, his life group, and I had talked to him the other day and it's just a really hard time to, it was a surprise loss of his mom. And so his response to me and how like, he's just so thankful for our church and the way he described it was.

We've got more food than we know what to do with. People are just coming outta the world with making food to provide care for us in this time. And I've got 14 people coming to help me move my mom out of her place. Some of what she doesn't know, they're just gonna show up Saturday. And this is days after she passed, you know, four days after she passed.

And just, that's what love looks like. And his response to me is how. How he's feeling. The love is people are just showing up unconditionally, giving of their time, caring about what matters to him, and just showing up and providing meals. And so that's what love looks like. People are sacrificing time that they could be doing on Saturday something else.

I'm sure they're taking time away from their families and making meals, but that that's what love looks like. We care about what the people we care about, care about, and people got a chance to show him love by caring about his mom 'cause that's what he cares about. And so I think that's for our church.

That's just who we need to be. If you wanna be part of our lakes, that's, that's a core tenet of who we are, is that we gotta care about what the people we care about, care about, have conversations, build relationships, get to know each other. Show value, make people see, seen, make people people feel seen and heard and loved.

So they know Jesus Christ is real and tangible in the relationships that we have. So we hope you are gonna enjoy this series of huddle 1 0 1. We hope you can live it out and if you need to know more, uh, stay tuned for more in the upcoming weeks and sermons. We'll see you around huddle.