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[00:00:17] The MIssional Life - Dan: Welcome back to Missional Life podcast. Today we're honored to have Pastor Mitch iy with us. Mitch has been serving as the lead pastor at Grace Fellowship in Kearney, Nebraska for over 25 years, passionately guiding individuals toward freedom in Christ. He's also the author of the Big Five Beliefs That Transform a book that ves into the power of core beliefs in shaping our lives.

[00:00:39] The MIssional Life - Dan: Pastor Mitch, welcome to the show.

[00:00:41] The Missional Life - Amanda: Welcome.

[00:00:42] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Hey, man, I'm excited to be on the Missional Live podcast today. I've

[00:00:47] Pastor Mitch Ivey: listened several times. It's great to be on here with, with both of you, Dan and Amanda. Hey, man. So glad to have you.

[00:00:53] The MIssional Life - Dan: So, Mitch, let's just kick things off. We've known each other for a while. We've seen God do some incredible things through your leadership and your heart for people, but we'd love for our listeners to hear it straight from you.

[00:01:02] The MIssional Life - Dan: What's the backstory behind the Big five, and how did these five beliefs become so central to how you live? And how you lead.

[00:01:10] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Yeah. You know, it's a little bit of a, in interesting journey and story. . So Danny Silk. Who was at Bethel Church at that point in time was here in Nebraska at a pastor's little group of leaders.

[00:01:23] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And he had this book called Dream Culture, and he gave this book called Dream Culture to my Wife, which I immediately stole from her. And in there I'm reading this book and there's these these five principles that they just kind of gloss over in like a, like a, you know, one paragraph gloss over. And at that moment they jumped out at me.

[00:01:43] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I thought, man, this is who I am. And I began to build some things out of those those belief systems for the next several years to go. And they really became some, some core values that, that I desire for our congregation to like own and live out. And some core values. Some things like God is good and we think God's good, but is he always good?

[00:02:06] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Is he, is he good when things aren't going the way that I want them to go and do I really believe that he's good? So these five values began to be fleshed out and I began to use them in our congregation several times in different sets of messages. And my wife had been telling me for a long time, you need to need to write a book.

[00:02:24] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I've got a couple other things that I've wanted to write about. I. But when I really finally sat down and I, I realized this is the message that is a core message to me that I needed to put out there for our congregation, for starters, and then for others that might be encouraged. And it really has to do with belief, knowing what you really believe.

[00:02:46] Pastor Mitch Ivey: We live in a culture where people say they believe in things all the time. They, you know, they believe in things, but it doesn't change how they live. So we use the word believe, kind of like the, we use the word love. I love this, I love that, but I don't really love it. 'cause if you loved it, you would value it, you would cherish it, you would hold it near to you.

[00:03:04] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And we kind of do that with the word belief. And so in this book, I help people hopefully help people identify, do you really know what you believe and do you live it out? That's kind of the foundation of where this book came from.

[00:03:19] The MIssional Life - Dan: It's really amazing when you do ministry and you . Get to know people at a deeper level.

[00:03:26] The MIssional Life - Dan: You find that a lot of people don't actually know and truly believe at the heart level that God is good because they don't have a full revelation of who God is and his heart for people and his heart for the world, really. And so they see different pieces of scripture and they build their entire belief system off of that one story.

[00:03:47] The MIssional Life - Dan: And they don't look at an encompassing view of Christ and. It's a message that needs to be heard. So walk us through that. How did this begin to unfold then? You had the message guy told you you were gonna be doing it, but then how did it become an actual book where you're holding it in hand and looking at it, saying, Mitch, I the author, pastor, I mean,

[00:04:08] Pastor Mitch Ivey: yeah.

[00:04:08] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I never thought I would ever hold one of these in my hands. I'll tell you that much with my name on it. That would never happen. But my wife just really kept championing me and just saying, Hey, there's some books in you. I believe in you. I believe in you to do this. And I, I stumbled across the publisher through an email man, about a year and a half ago.

[00:04:25] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I, I, this publisher, I thought, why not? I'll reach out to 'em. So I started this conversation with them and they were asking me, well, what do you wanna write about? And I said, I don't know, but I feel like I was to write a book. And so about every six weeks we would have a conversation and. I would throw out all kinds of ideas.

[00:04:41] Pastor Mitch Ivey: There's other things that are on my heart to write, but I just didn't know exactly what it was and where I needed to start. And, and I think they finally got to the end of several conversations with me and realized this man needs some help. And so they said, Hey, what if we, what if you hired us to be your coach and we'll, we'll pull these things out of you and help you write a book.

[00:05:02] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so I, I got off that, that phone call and. I just was talking to the Lord and I thought, you know, Lord, I really don't want to spend money to have somebody coach me. And and I just felt like he dropped this on my heart. It was a sermon series. I preached a couple times about these five values. That's the big five.

[00:05:19] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so I kind of had a starting place because I had these messages built out. I've preached a little bit of a life message, but I didn't know how you, how do you start a book? How do you all these things? And so I just sat down one day. Said, Lord, I need your help. And and I felt this unction in me to just start writing.

[00:05:35] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I started writing and I knocked out a couple chapters. Really the introduction piece of this book. I just kind of knocked it out and I was like, wow, that was. Something was there and I hadn't even got to the five mess at the five points yet. And I remembered going home that night and I sat down and, and I pulled my laptop back out and I started typing some more.

[00:05:54] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then we left the next day to go to a conference. And so we went to this conference and during every break. It'd be like 15 minutes, you know, they got the 15 minutes counting down. I'd pull my laptop out and I'd start typing. I'd just pick up right where I left off. Went to the hotel room that night, and you know, I'm with my wife and I pull the laptop out and I'm typing.

[00:06:12] Pastor Mitch Ivey: She goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm writing the book you told me to write. And so those, those four or five days at this conference, plus a few other ones in about 10 days, because I had some of the bulk of it in about 10 days, I had a. Really good draft of this book done. And I was like, wow, Lord, that is amazing.

[00:06:33] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so 10 chapters were done in about 10 days. It was really mind boggling to me. And and so it was really the Holy Spirit that just flushed this out of me.

[00:06:43] The Missional Life - Amanda: Mm-hmm.

[00:06:45] Pastor Mitch Ivey: So then I went back and started talking to the publisher and, and so then we start to get a game plan of, okay, all right, you got a transcript, we could do something with it.

[00:06:52] Pastor Mitch Ivey: So I edited it twice. Sent it to them thinking, alright, this is good. And I've never seen so much read on my paper in my entire life when they sent it back to me. Like I wondered if I even knew the English language by the time it was all said. But we did the editing process a couple times. Through about six weeks and got through that.

[00:07:14] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then I recorded the audiobook. They helped me write a study guide. There's a devotional for it that's on the YouVersion Bible app that goes along with it. And here we are by March I got the first copies of it and it was published and produced and, and released to the world, which was just a amazing experience.

[00:07:36] The MIssional Life - Dan: There's so much in there. Where God puts something on our hearts and it's confirmed by other people in our lives. For in this case it was your wife. Yeah. And oftentimes those voices in our lives encourage, especially those spiritual voices, they encourage you towards something. God speaks to you through those voices and kind of pulls you into something.

[00:07:55] The MIssional Life - Dan: But ultimately you knew that God wanted to do that, but you didn't quite know. And I think that's really important because so many. People look at pastors, they look at missionaries, they look at anybody in ministry, authors, whatever, and they just say, man, they just, they intuitively know how to do everything and it just comes naturally and flows easily for them.

[00:08:16] The MIssional Life - Dan: And that couldn't be farther from the truth. Correct? Yeah,

[00:08:19] Pastor Mitch Ivey: absolutely.

[00:08:19] The MIssional Life - Dan: But you took that step of faith and you step started moving towards it, and ultimately it cost you a little bit, it cost you something. I'm sure there was a, a price for going to the conference. There were some different maybe prices for coaching and things, but you.

[00:08:31] The MIssional Life - Dan: You put your money where your faith was, and that was really important. And then as you did that we've been talking about the story of, of Jesus healing these 10 lepers. And he says, as you go, I said, as they went, they were healed. Mm-hmm. And so it just as we go, as you started moving towards that goal and taking steps towards that, it just came out of you.

[00:08:50] The MIssional Life - Dan: It came out of you. And within 10 days, the Holy Spirit had knocked it out. Something that you had been kind of. On and off about for a while. He just did within 10 days once you fully committed to that. And I think that's really important for, for our listeners to hear.

[00:09:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Well, and I think it's there's some interesting things of I think you're right, Dan.

[00:09:07] Pastor Mitch Ivey: There's times where we think that somebody records something, writes something artistically, and that, oh, it must just be easy for them. And it's not really just easy. There's, there's, there's a place where when God really is moving, there is a step of faith that we take with him. And there's, that's risk, right?

[00:09:25] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I'm taking what you've given me. I'm gonna put it out here for the world to see, the world to know I'm gonna make a financial investment. I'm gonna do all the things that are necessary to get this, that's in my heart out here for somebody else to use. And it really goes along with the message of the book about beliefs and believing, knowing what I really believe.

[00:09:44] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Do I know what I really believe? Do I live that out? And so the book tackles some things like, you know, the goodness of God is God good, because that has to be a foundation in how we live our lives as believers. And then it tackles this idea of purpose. Do I have a purpose? And what is that? 'cause sometimes we think our purpose is this grand thing and it can be grand, but at the core there's, there's a greater purpose that God's put in all of our lives.

[00:10:09] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then it asks this question, are all things possible? Are all things possible and well with God when he speaks things are possible. How do we let him speak to our heart? So we hear him and know him to know that with God all things are possible that, that I'm lining up with him. And, and so that's that unction of the Holy Spirit piece that moves in us, that where faith is deposited, we could take that place of risk.

[00:10:34] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then probably one of my favorite parts of the belief system is this statement, I am responsible for me. So many times we want to put somebody else, or even God himself as our responsibility. We think God's just gonna do it. When he's asked us to partner with him and take a step, like we're not just puppets that he's moving around on the earth, he puts a deposit in us and we respond to that seed that he's put in us and we partner with him.

[00:11:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I think in a lot of Christianity, we miss that piece. We, we don't take responsibility for what God has placed in us and how we're living our lives, that there's a, there's a reaction to what the Holy Spirit's doing in us that actually produces fruit. I. And that's where great joy comes from. I mean, you guys are living it out right now.

[00:11:20] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You're, you're, you're in Belize by faith because of what God put in your heart to take that step. God didn't just like supernaturally transport you to Belize. There was a lot of work to get to Belize, raising money, all the things that you had to do. That's our partnership with him. And I think Christianity, we miss a big piece of the partnership we have with God.

[00:11:41] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then the last point is just that greatness comes in serving. And those kind of five core values I think are, are foundational stones of who we are as believers. And that's really the foundation of, of the book. And it's kind of some of my life message that really just came out in that. Hmm.

[00:11:58] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah, that's so good.

[00:11:59] The Missional Life - Amanda: Just thinking about what you said about taking the step of faith, and sometimes I, I think these statements that kind of become cliche, like there's that statement, let go and let God, there's some truth in it, but it's not really a Bible verse per se. But it's, you know, again, letting God guide you, but also acting in the way he's called you to and taking action.

[00:12:23] The Missional Life - Amanda: You know, it took opening the laptop. It took that belief of, you know what, I'm gonna open this laptop during every break. And that's when, you know, just like as the Israelites stepped in the Jordan River, the water began to part, the same thing happened with writing this book was the words just kept flowing, by God's leading in that process.

[00:12:47] The MIssional Life - Dan: Yeah. And so we're kind of talking these spiritual things. Let's, you're right. Bring it down to like a practical Yes, yes. Application. I. Personally believe Coke is better than Pepsi. But there are others that believe Pepsi is better than Coke . I think you, you might line up on the other side of the fence and I think, I'm pretty sure

[00:13:05] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Pepsi Pepsi's the one.

[00:13:07] The MIssional Life - Dan: And you live this out in a, in a pretty unique way. So can you share with us how does that belief, you know, affect your Yeah. You, I

[00:13:12] Pastor Mitch Ivey: kind of use, I kind of use this as an illustration of belief in knowing what you really believe so. You know what I, for a while I was a Pepsi or Coke drinker in my life, and then at some point in time I just decided like, listen, Pepsi's better.

[00:13:27] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so I became a Pepsi drinker because of how I tasted and all those things. And so when I go to a restaurant and they don't order, they don't have Pepsi, I don't just say, give me a Coke. A lot of the diet drinkers, diet Coke, diet Pepsi, they're like, yeah, whatever. Just gimme whichever one but, but for me, I'm a Pepsi drinker and so if they don't have coke, I'm not ordering, I don't, I don't order it.

[00:13:47] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I don't take it because I believe Pepsi's better than Coke. 'cause this is a good example of belief. When you really believe in something, you have an attitude about it. So I kind of have an attitude that Pepsi's better than Coke. And when you have an attitude about something, you have an action that you actually do it what you believe.

[00:14:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: There's a lot of people that say, oh, I love God. They have no attitude about that, and their actions don't display that they love God. In other words, they take God where it fits their life. And so if I was just a soda drinker, I would just take it as it comes, right as it fits. Ah, whatever makes everybody happy.

[00:14:20] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Everybody's a coke drinker in the room. I'll drink a Coke and I'll cave and become like everybody else. But I don't, I, I, I stand firm. I'm gonna order an iced tea or a water. Dr. Pepper, but not Coke. It's just not gonna happen. And so and so, yeah, I mean, I really do believe that, but I think that's a, a really good place for us to help us understand, do we know what we believe about God from a practical application?

[00:14:47] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You could think about it in sport, in the sports world, right? Like. Different places you grow up, you become a big fan. Like there are Michigan fans and there's Ohio State fans and you know Ohio State won't even use the word Michigan. It's the team up north. They won't even use the word because it's so strong.

[00:15:05] Pastor Mitch Ivey: They have an attitude. It's their action. We're gonna support only Ohio State and those guys from Michigan. Yes, they're, but it's a belief, right? It's a, it's, it comes out in everything they do. They don't, you go into the trophy room at Ohio State, it says, tUN. It doesn't say Michigan on anything that they've won.

[00:15:23] Pastor Mitch Ivey: It just says TUN team up north. That's a, that's an attitude. That's an action. There's a belief there, and I think we miss that sometimes in our, in our Christian life, in our spirituality.

[00:15:34] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah. I just wanna add into that really quickly as well. You know, in that core belief, you know, that was passed down so much to me from my family being a big Ohio State fan.

[00:15:43] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yes. To not even get, like when, when coloring pictures as a kindergarten, first grader, I. Blue and yellow touch. Ew, that's Michigan colors. You don't wanna mix those two

[00:15:56] The MIssional Life - Dan: beliefs that affect everything. And, pivoting back into more of a serious thing is that there's a lot of people that would say, yeah, I believe that, and they want to believe differently, but they feel stuck and they, they know it's their past, their upbringing and traumas that hold them back.

[00:16:13] The MIssional Life - Dan: And so speak to the listener that's in that situation. Like, yeah, I, I'm, I'm with you. I. I just don't know that, like I've just been through so much. I don't know where to begin to change my beliefs.

[00:16:24] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You know, I think it's what, what a, what a great question. 'cause it's a, it's an encounter with the Lord that takes risk to really begin to take This thing has caused trauma, hurt, pain that I've used to both identify myself.

[00:16:42] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And if I didn't have it, how, how would people look at me? Or can I really let this thing go that's here And it's the beauty 'cause it's really the, the foundation of, of the Christian life and it's, it's this word that we really don't know what to do with sometimes. And it's this word forgiveness that really affects whether it's trauma, whether it's abuse, whether it's neglect, all those things that, that piece of forgiveness.

[00:17:08] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Unforgiveness really is a blockade to belief. It doesn't let us believe, but forgiveness, it already is initiating belief because it's saying, I'm gonna take this thing that's been so hard for me and I'm gonna let God speak into it, and I'm gonna begin to release the, the things that has caused me to become, that's not really me.

[00:17:29] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so I know this as a, as a young man, I was my, my parents went through a divorce, and so the seeds of rejection were planted at me in a young age, and they were repeated throughout my life. Elementary school, middle school, high school, that that seed of rejection would be really quick to like, boom.

[00:17:48] Pastor Mitch Ivey: There it is. There it is. There it is. And as I began to walk through forgiveness, I began to win the battle against the seed of rejection, which allowed me to begin to believe in new ways. And actually 'cause belief is what? It's faith, it's trust. Can I trust you God, knowing that some really difficult or horrible or ugly things happen to me in my life, can I trust you?

[00:18:15] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Because if you are who you say you are, these things wouldn't have happened. And that's maybe a, a misconception of even our theology. We put things on God that really aren't him. Or we think he gave his stamp of approval to something that happened to us, and that's not true. So it's hard to go back to him and say, okay, God, I wanna forgive this person.

[00:18:33] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I wanna relinquish them to you, and so I can be free from the trauma, the hurt, the pain, and we all have it because we live in a world full of brokenness where we hurt one another. And in that it really can damage us or scar us and keep us away from living the life of belief that God really wants us to live.

[00:18:56] The MIssional Life - Dan: So glad you brought that up because you talk about a lot about this is freedom in Christ and you've been pastoring for 25 years. How have you seen Right beliefs unlock real freedom in people's lives?

[00:19:09] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Well, it's really interesting 'cause it's a, it's right believing, even being able to forgive somebody, it's really partnering with the Holy Spirit.

[00:19:18] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Partnering with God to get yourself into that place. And it, it's, it's a step. But I see people when they, they cross that line and they put themselves in a partnership with God and they begin to let those things out and then they let God speak into that issue that they find freedom. They find life. So, you know, there's, there's, I mean, how many stories could I share as a pastor of somebody who's walked in having a you know, very difficult life.

[00:19:44] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And they, they're all guarded, protecting themselves from all this stuff, but yet they know they need something else. Like what they've done, hasn't worked. And so they come and they get to the place where we finally. They're able to lay down their life, surrender it to Christ, invite him in, and transformation takes place.

[00:20:01] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And all of a sudden, all of that stuff that defined them no longer defines them unless they choose to let it. But mo most of the time, they'll, they'll have this moment where they'll walk away from that definition and they'll allow God to begin to define them. And when he speaks into your identity, it does shape your belief, which then begins to affect what you're even capable of doing.

[00:20:22] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Like sometimes our capabilities, we, we see somebody you know let's say just cutting people off in traffic, driving horribly, right? And we're like, what is wrong with you? And they may not even have a capability to be an under control driver because of junk that's gone in their life. They just respond to the people around them.

[00:20:41] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And they're not even, so, they're more like a a thermometer. They're just responding to whatever's happening that's responding to the temperature. When God wants us to be a thermostat, when I know who I am, I can get into that difficult driving situation. I can be under control and not drive like a maniac 'cause I, everybody else is, but I don't have to.

[00:21:00] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Right. So same thing as somebody being angry. You know, if I walk into an environment and everybody's angry, I'll be angry. But can I walk in an environment where everybody's angry and be at peace, be at peace even if everything's going against me? That is where belief really has settled into somebody's life, and they're allowing themselves to be more of a thermostat in a situation where they're setting the temperature of their life than a thermometer, which then affects behavior and environment.

[00:21:26] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Those things all begin to change as belief changes, and that core belief though, all comes from your identity. Knowing who you are as a child of God and who God really is, learning his true nature, learning who you really are and you being in Christ should begin to transform your belief system and everything else begins to unfurl after that.

[00:21:51] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Wow.

[00:21:54] The MIssional Life - Dan: You mentioned somebody walking into a church, and I just know that when we walked into your church before, there's just. There's something unique. We've been to a lot of churches. There's a lot of great churches out there, but there's something special and unique about when we walk into Grace Fellowship.

[00:22:08] The MIssional Life - Dan: There's, there's a, a different spirit and, and the, we've just always been encouraged and blessed. And so I'm just wondering how can the local church create environments where people feel safe to examine their, and transform their core beliefs?

[00:22:23] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Man, what a what a what a deep question, right?

[00:22:26] Pastor Mitch Ivey: How do you, how do you begin to unpack that? Because I think it really comes down to a culture that you're setting. Mm-hmm. And that culture, is that culture based out out of love, or is it based out of fear and even our own church, we could begin to doing, doing things out of fear and, and I think different places we wind up doing that and we miss out on what.

[00:22:46] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Could be going on because we're not responding to love. But when you've been loved well and you can love well, that love will actually transform the culture because that love no longer defines you as as a mistake, but rather as a child of God, that love no longer defines you by the center. But. How God sees you now and as a group of people begin to see that and begin to respond to the love of God.

[00:23:13] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I think it sets culture where people can come in and let their lay their guard down and say, Hey, I'm one of those, would you help me find freedom? And that's, that's maybe a, you know, that's an overview of that whole thing, but it really is a culture that somebody sets and do. And it just comes back down to this, and it is hard.

[00:23:33] Pastor Mitch Ivey: God, can I trust you that everything in that with you, I don't have to be in control, but I'm gonna trust you that your love can flow through your people to impact those that walk through the door. Is that the culture that we can set? And I don't even know how we arrived at the place that we're at. I'm the third pastor here at Grace and and, and I know there's a foundation that was laid before me, but that has always been the culture that, that hopefully when somebody walks in, they, they feel loved.

[00:24:01] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Over judged and, and I think that begins to open up a heart to find freedom. Mm-hmm. That's really, that's what, that's, that's what I try to do. I don't know if that's what happens, but that's what I try to do.

[00:24:14] The Missional Life - Amanda: Yeah. It's like the kindness of God that leads to repentance, it leads to that change.

[00:24:18] The Missional Life - Amanda: Absolutely.

[00:24:20] The MIssional Life - Dan: So, I, I love how you kind of set this next question up. So. You as a person and you as pastor leader, what are some of the challenges you faced trying to help others embrace these belief changes and how have you grown through it? Oh, man.

[00:24:37] Pastor Mitch Ivey: What a challenging place to be for me, and I'm thankful.

[00:24:41] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I've been through some difficult things in life, and as I partnered with the Lord, he's helped me grow in this thing we call faith. Which is belief, right? It's helped, it's helped me grow a foundation of faith in me, and I believe enough in God that now that helps me recognize where somebody else might not be able to let God in, to help them fi feel safe.

[00:25:05] Pastor Mitch Ivey: If I can help them feel safe, I want to get to them, to a place where they can encounter the love of God. And so if I can relate to 'em, I can understand them. So I, I don't just go to somebody and, you know, somebody walks in or even some of my congregation and they're like. I could give them the scripture in verse, that's the antidote for their problem.

[00:25:25] Pastor Mitch Ivey: But when you just come and just say, well, here's what the scripture says, just believe it. That that's really hard, right? Just believe God will provide for you. Just believe God's on, he's with you. Just believe. But as, as you build a relationship to somebody, you can begin to hear them and we can invite the Lord to speak into that situation.

[00:25:44] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And when the Lord begins to speak into that situation, it brings freedom. Then you can begin to plant the seed in a heart that's now opened up. Seed of his word. So now you can come back with his word and plant that into somebody's heart and it will begin to grow. Sometimes we just like throw the seed on somebody's heart.

[00:26:01] Pastor Mitch Ivey: That's still their, their heart. That's still hard, and we need to love them enough to till up that ground so the seed can plant. Sometimes in Christianity we just wanna be, we wanna give the quick solution, which is, lemme just tell you what the scripture says. Lemme just tell you what to do, when, what people really need is relationship.

[00:26:18] Pastor Mitch Ivey: My personal relationship with Jesus. I mean, when I was in high school I moved, I went to three high schools. So I, I didn't, it's not like I, I was at a place where I could develop all these great friendships. I was moving. But the person that did become my best friend in that moment, in those three or four years was Jesus.

[00:26:36] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I hoped to take that friendship, the friendship I have with Christ, and introduce that friendship to other people. I. In that, I think it begins to open up hearts to receive the word define transformation.

[00:26:51] The MIssional Life - Dan: Well said.

[00:26:52] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You got a lot of pastor speak. Sorry. That's,

[00:26:55] The MIssional Life - Dan: that's, that's, that's so good.

[00:26:56] Pastor Mitch Ivey: That's good.

[00:26:58] The MIssional Life - Dan: So about the big five, right? You're, you're a pastor, you're a leader. You're, you're speaking into people's lives. You see. Them come in one way. Oftentimes they begin to change and they begin to walk out a different way. Back to your book, the Big Five. Yeah. Which one of the big five do you think people are most struggling with today?

[00:27:24] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Oh, man. I, you know, in, in the culture, I, I mean, I could say every one of them, but in the culture that God's good. Because we have a lot of perspective that when things are going well, God's good. Hey, I, I didn't, I missed my plane. And then that plane had a mechanical, mechanical failure failure. And then they had to, they had to go somewhere else.

[00:27:47] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so God saved me. Thank you, God, you were good to me. Or I avoided a wreck. Thank you, God, you were good. And then we see somebody else that gets in a car wreck and it's like, oh, well God's not good 'cause he didn't save me from that car wreck. And so we define the goodness of God based on our experience instead of his nature.

[00:28:05] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so we try to look at all of the things that are happening in the world around us through the goodness of God, and, and we readjust what is good and what's not good, and we assign that those things to God. Even you just think about like, we call, what do we call a, a big natural disaster. We call it an act of God.

[00:28:22] Pastor Mitch Ivey: It was a horrible thing that happened, and so now we've called it an act of God and we've, we've basically said, God's not good. If that was his action, he's a mean, cruel God, and that's really not true. But even as believers, we can fall into the category, even believers that have a better grip on the goodness of God, they can still get in a ditch where they'll say, well, God was good today, but he wasn't good yesterday because of X, Y, or Z.

[00:28:46] Pastor Mitch Ivey: What might have happened in my life. But when you get to a core belief that God is good, I want to put myself under the funnel of his goodness. So when something, when I experienced something that was, that I would perceive as bad, I don't assign that to God, but 'cause when I assign it to him, it defames him, but I don't assign that to him because I realize it's his nature to only be good.

[00:29:14] Pastor Mitch Ivey: It says in the scripture that he is good and he only does good. So either I have to believe that or not. Because if I don't believe that, then I don't know if I can trust any of scripture. In his scripture where he says He's only good and he only does good. I have to trust that that's who he is. So I think in the culture we live in today, the goodness of God is probably one of the most important ones.

[00:29:39] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then alongside of that is this other concept that says, I'm responsible for me. Like, do I just think God's gonna do everything for me? I'm gonna rub the genie bottle and he's gonna, I'm gonna put the money in the vending machine. He's gonna give me whatever I want. He's just gonna move me around. Or is there a partnership with him?

[00:29:57] Pastor Mitch Ivey: 'cause a partnership's gonna take a little bit of risk and take this thing called faith to move with him. Do I believe when God speaks to me, he's speaking to me about how he sees me in the future and I get to begin to partner with that picture to get to where he wants me to go. Sometimes people will say that.

[00:30:14] Pastor Mitch Ivey: They'll say, well, hey, I, I believe God's calling me to, God's calling me to go to the mission field like you guys, God's calling me to go and they'll say it for 30 years and never go. And they'll say, God never moved me there. They never looked up a website. They never trained themselves how to be a missionary.

[00:30:28] Pastor Mitch Ivey: They never looked for a place. They just assumed God was gonna take me there and he didn't do it. So now I don't know if I believe anything about God 'cause he didn't do it all for me. But rather when he gave you a picture of being a missionary, I. You guys began to partner with that word and so you began to do the research.

[00:30:45] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You began to find out where I want to go. You began to take big steps of faith. Are we gonna quit our jobs? Are we gonna begin to raise money? Are we gonna, all those things that you had to do that are a huge struggle to get to the mission field and just 'cause you got to the mission field doesn't mean that, oh, now this is where God wanted to be.

[00:31:00] Pastor Mitch Ivey: It's all gonna be roses. No, there's still faith with him. And I think as believers, that's a hard thing for us is partnering with him by faith. So those two things, goodness of God and partnering with God. Those two things are big for me.

[00:31:16] The MIssional Life - Dan: Yeah. He doesn't promise it'll be easy, but Right. But at the same time, it's it's, it's so rewarding to see God work in and through your life and it can be very challenging.

[00:31:28] The MIssional Life - Dan: I mean, you bring up the partnership and quitting jobs and, you know, we, we did. Set aside home, and we did set aside family and friends and, , we took some real risk and there were times where quite honestly, we had to wrestle with it. Man, do we really believe that God is good at, at different times?

[00:31:45] The MIssional Life - Dan: Because those voices, right, like anybody, you know, those voices will come in and they'll try to deceive you and you ultimately have to stake your stake, your claim on this is the truth because this is what the word says. I think that's where we see in our culture that so much of our, like you said, so much of what we believe is defined by our experience and not from the word of God, and that's not the way that God's designed it to work.

[00:32:08] The MIssional Life - Dan: And so I'm just wondering as well with this book, the Big five, this probably didn't come out of just like three, three months of revelation of, of God, right? No. It, it, it probably was a, iterative process and it, it took a long time. Right. And so I'm just wondering, like over the years, how have these principles transformed you , as a husband, as a dad, as a pastor?

[00:32:35] The MIssional Life - Dan: What does that process look like in your own life?

[00:32:38] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Yeah. You know, I think the first one that challenged me the most was when I was in college and had to do with purpose, had to do with identity, who I really was in Christ. And I remember we were I was in college. I was helping the youth group here and for a, we meant to do this for like a month.

[00:32:55] Pastor Mitch Ivey: We, we went through Neil Anderson's book called Stomping Out the Darkness, which was about identity, and we thought we were gonna do it for a month, and we really did it for an entire year. And I'm not so sure we didn't do that whole year in the youth group. For me as a youth leader, that's just one, one who was just sitting in there because my identity got completely transformed in that moment where, where I thought.

[00:33:17] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Who I was was being determined by success and failures and all these other kinds of things in the world. And instead I began to find out who God really said I was. And so that piece of my personal identity started way back when I was in college, you know, 20 some years ago and 30 some years ago. And so that has continued to be a foundational building block throughout my life, which is also an overflow of my ministry.

[00:33:44] Pastor Mitch Ivey: So speaking about identity, ministering identity, that has been something I've done for a long time. And so there's a chapter in the book that that declares, Hey, I believe I have a purpose, and that, that comes out of knowing who you are in Christ and your identity. And so, you're right Dan, that that's something that is fleshed out in my life for a long time.

[00:34:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Even coming up with the goodness of God when you, when you go through a you know, your parents are divorced, and all the stuff that goes with that, is God really good. How is that all defined for you? And so I, I had to wrestle through those things to get to the place where I could say, I do believe God's good.

[00:34:20] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Being able to respond to what he says in, in, in taking some steps into impossible situations that only God could fulfill. Here, there, there's so many things. I I, one of the things we have here at Grace is we have a geothermal greenhouse. And this is a greenhouse that's a little bit below ground.

[00:34:40] Pastor Mitch Ivey: It runs with this fan that pulls circulates air from the earth at 10 feet deep. It's always 54 degrees, so it circulates it. Here in Nebraska, it freezes so you can't grow things like oranges and lemons and all those kind of things. Bananas and because of this. This fan blowing through the earth and just the way this greenhouse is set up, you can actually grow those things.

[00:35:01] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I remember going to western Nebraska, the guy that invented this greenhouse, and I was walking through it and he had 20-year-old orange trees that were, had hundreds of oranges, hundreds of lemons, had avocados, had grapes, had I thought I was walking through a jungle and it was 84 degrees inside and it was 28 degrees outside.

[00:35:22] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And all this fruit and vegetation, and I just remembered right there. The Lord said, all things are possible with me because listen, it's not possible to grow oranges in Nebraska. It's impossible. But this guy was doing it because he heard from the Lord. The Lord showed him how he could do it with God. All things are possible, all the naysayers.

[00:35:43] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I can't imagine this guy as he was building this and started planting those orange trees, how many naysayers were saying you can't do that. You can't do that in Nebraska. You can't grow oranges, but with God, the word from God, all things are possible. And here at our, in our greenhouse, we produced the second ever bananas, banana trees in Nebraska.

[00:36:04] Pastor Mitch Ivey: We produced fruit this last year. The second one ever in Nebraska. And so it's just a great picture of me for me that all things are possible with God when he speaks to it. He'll give you revelation and wisdom beyond worldly and human constraints.

[00:36:21] The MIssional Life - Dan: That's a amazing you or picture of growing bananas, growing oranges in Nebraska, and it's just such a great image of.

[00:36:32] The MIssional Life - Dan: Belief makes something possible. Right? What we believe. If, if he would've said, man, there's no way we could grow oranges in banana, in, in Nebraska, they wouldn't have done it. Right. But belief and power then you're a, you're a big believer. You're a big man of faith, and you're, you're, you're a person who, who's, you know, we've, we've talked to you on the side on different things and, and.

[00:36:52] The MIssional Life - Dan: This isn't, this isn't the end. The greenhouse isn't the end. It's, there's more's more to come. No, it's not. And so I'm just wondering, what's your vision for the belief of these, this book? How could, what's your belief that these could impact not just individuals, but entire churches, teams and, and, and generations even?

[00:37:07] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Right. So, you know with this book first of all, I wrote this book knowing that I wanted to give a resource. To people that were new to our church. So the last time I preached this series with these five core values was in 2017. And we've had, we've almost doubled as a congregation. And so there's a lot of people that, that haven't had this as a foundation in their life.

[00:37:27] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I knew I wanted to give new people a grace. So that was kind of the, the motivation, the low hanging fruit was like, Hey, I just want to get this to our people, which is great. But really, I, I want to help people. Grow in their relationship with God in this place of faith that, that I see missing.

[00:37:47] Pastor Mitch Ivey: In the lives of believers, we can get caught up talking about theology and doctrine and all kinds of things, but we don't, what are we living out? That's my question. Are we as believers living out our faith? And so I think it's a great tool and it's a great resource. I, I have a pastor who ordered a bunch of 'em.

[00:38:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: He's gonna give 'em to new believers when they come into their church because it has seen, like these are new believer concepts you wanna grab a hold of. But they're also concepts that some of us that have been believers for a long time have maybe forgotten about. We've, we've kind of just like, oh yeah, I believe all things are possible, but do I really?

[00:38:19] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And where does that come from? And so you know, I think there's opportunities for people to grow in their life. I have a great story of somebody who attends a church but they attend sporadically. And they had picked up the book. They said they'd never read a Christian book in their life, and they, they happened to work with somebody I know.

[00:38:37] Pastor Mitch Ivey: So happened to work with my wife. And so my wife, she told her about this book. She picks up this book and she devoured it in like a week. And this is somebody that's never, she goes to church, goes, you know, says Christian but's never read a Christian book. And so she read it and she said, wow, I've, I've never thought about some of these things before.

[00:38:59] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And one thing that she didn't never thought about, because I talk about greatness comes in, but in serving, and I, I talked about the reason why we attend church. We don't just attend church for me, we actually attend church for we, for all of us. And she said, I never realized that me being at church might actually help somebody else encounter God.

[00:39:17] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Like I thought I just went to church when I felt like going. And so here's this lady with this testimony right away of like, I need to be more connected, involved in my church as she read the book. And so that was a great testimony. And then, you know, there's some other people that have picked it up that.

[00:39:31] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Have really been challenged to grow in their belief that they didn't, they didn't. They're just trying to figure it out. What do I really believe? And so, you know, my hope with the book is that it, it just is able to inspire some people and help them grow in their foundation of belief in their life, and that it really would be belief that transforms their life.

[00:39:51] Pastor Mitch Ivey: John, in the book of John, Jesus says it over and over if you look for it. He says it over and over. Believe, believe, believe. Most famous first, right? God So of the world. Whoever believes in his son would not perish, but have eternal life. And that word believe goes over and over and over. Jesus isn't into religion.

[00:40:13] Pastor Mitch Ivey: He's into believing. That comes through relationship and that relationship through believing will lead to transformation. Religion won't lead to transformation. Scripture memorization won't necessarily lead to transformation, but believing. When that word comes alive to you, that will lead to transformation.

[00:40:33] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And so, you know, I do have a big belief system, and, and I, I guess I, I just wanted to hit this one more point. And the, the, the middle statement says, nothing is impossible with God. And sometimes we just, we just take impossible things and we say, here, God, here's my list of impossible. Would you do it for me?

[00:40:55] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Well, that's not what he's gonna do. Nothing's impossible with God. In other words, what is he telling you to do? Because that's what's not impossible. What's he speaking to me? Do I do I know his voice? Do I know he's trying to bring revelation to me? Am I gaining the revelation from his voice to say, yes, that's what you guys did.

[00:41:16] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Go on the mission field. That's what I did. Becoming a pastor. I was a high school teacher, and the voice of God said, niche. I want you to step into this. That partnering with his voice, with what he's saying is where all things are possible. Nothing's impossible with God. There's a lot of things impossible with Mitch, but nothing's impossible with God.

[00:41:38] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I think at the core, when belief is raised up across our nation and our world, we're gonna see God do greater and bigger things we could ever imagine. That's my goal.

[00:41:49] The Missional Life - Amanda: Amen. Wow.

[00:41:54] The MIssional Life - Dan: You talk about the goodness and belief, and you do this intuitively and also as as a corporate body. And I just wanna kind of circle this, that we talked jokingly about Pepsi and you acting on a, a belief, but you truly believe in your core, in the goodness of God, and you truly believe in your core.

[00:42:20] The MIssional Life - Dan: The grace of God and you act on that. And I just think how important, I wanna make sure that we cover this, that you at a church are, have just completed this park for the community that is a beacon of, to the community of grace. In fact, the park is shaped in the words of grace , it's pretty hard to miss the message that comes from.

[00:42:45] The MIssional Life - Dan: Your church body and from your pastoral leadership, and I'm just wondering if you could share a little bit of the vision behind that and just how that is already impacting the community in the days that it's already existed.

[00:42:57] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Yeah. Just a couple quick things. Our, our church one, the first was founded was called Carney Christian Outreach Church.

[00:43:03] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And in the articles of the corporation, there was all these, this vision for reaching the community, not just being a silo in a community, but being an extension of God's love within the community. And when I became the senior pastor, I, I read that articles a corporation that things really. Exploded in my spirit.

[00:43:20] Pastor Mitch Ivey: 'cause I was like, this is me. God gave me you know, some, some life scriptures in Jeremiah chapter 29. And we all know the verse that says, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans for a future and a hope. And that solidified in me as I was moving from place to place in high school, that God had a plan and purpose for me.

[00:43:39] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then he began to pull the curtain back on that set of scripture. And it's really when people are in captivity. They're, they're in Egypt. The Israelites are, they're in captivated, they're in slavery, and they think they're gonna be there for a moment. And God says, you're gonna be there for a while. And he says, I want you to do some things.

[00:43:55] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Plant houses or not. Build houses, plant gardens, have children, have your children, get married, have grandchildren. He says, be invested in this place that looks like slavery to you. It's not eternity. It's not the Garden of Eden. I want you to be invested in this place. And then he says this in verse seven, pray for the peace of the city for when it finds peace.

[00:44:20] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You'll have peace. Another translation says, pray for the welfare of the city. Another one says, talks about thriving. Like there's this place where we're planted that God wants us to help a place thrive to be better. And so we're blessed with some land here. And God showed me this and he said, listen. I want you to invite the community.

[00:44:43] Pastor Mitch Ivey: I want you to love the community from where you're at. I want you to bless them. So we build a garden and a greenhouse, a, the community garden where the community's coming in and using garden beds to grow. Fruits and vegetables we're growing things that we're able to give away and bless in our community.

[00:44:59] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And, and one day these oranges are gonna produce on these 12 orange trees. That's six orange trees we have in our greenhouse and lemons. And we're gonna bless people, right, just with provision. So sustenance from that. Great. We built this playground that is unique. I, I was like, man, I do not want just a cookie cutter playground.

[00:45:16] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And the Lord led me to this company called Free Play, and it's the first one ever like this in the world where we took these letters that spell the word grace and made each one like a different way to play. Almost like an obstacle course, but different ways to play. It's huge. It's like 150 feet long and it shouts grace to our community.

[00:45:35] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And I thought, what could there be better to shout to a community than Grace? Grace. Grace to our community. And so we're inviting our community in to come and yes, play, yes have provision, but actually we believe this, that when they come on our property, this is God's property. So guess what they're gonna experience when they come here?

[00:45:56] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Peace. Joy, hope their life is gonna be transformed. Whether they ever walk through the doors of our church or not, they're gonna be gonna experience pieces of God that are gonna be seeds in their heart that's gonna grow and manifest. And we're gonna hear testimonies of things that happen, encounters that people had with God on the letter g.

[00:46:17] Pastor Mitch Ivey: At the playground encounters somebody had from God because somebody gave them a basket of fruit that actually was a seed that led to transformation in their life. We are called to bless the community we're in, not just to retreat from it, but to be a blessing in it, to help it to thrive. And so that is the vision behind who we are as a church and what we're trying to do in our community right here in Kearney.

[00:46:39] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Wow.

[00:46:41] The MIssional Life - Dan: So as we wrap this thing up, you, you said Kearney, Nebraska. You might be the first guest we've ever had on our show from Nebraska. So for our listeners what's the most Nebraska thing about your church that outsiders just wouldn't understand?

[00:46:57] Pastor Mitch Ivey: About our church? Well, there's a couple things.

[00:46:59] Pastor Mitch Ivey: One is we are an igloo. We look like an igloo. The building was, was built in the eighties to be energy efficient. It really is. It looks like an igloo. So we're known in our town as the Big Igloo. No, we're not in Alaska, we're in Nebraska as the big igloo. We also in Kearney, we are the. Geometric center, east to west in the United States, the same distance from my house, actually, 1,733 miles to Boston and San Francisco, or in the center of the United States is an amazing thing.

[00:47:28] Pastor Mitch Ivey: And then there's some other unique things about Nebraska. Every state has their own unique things, and we have this, this like German food here. We got a lot of German people. We have this restaurant called Ronza and they make these German pockets. And there's a man that like. He just fills the pole.

[00:47:44] Pastor Mitch Ivey: When he crosses the border driving to Nebraska, he's gotta find the first rza and, and, and get a sandwich. And his name is Dan Garpy. That's what he loves Rza in Nebraska.

[00:47:58] The MIssional Life - Dan: That's true. That is true. Boy, you know when, you know,

[00:48:01] The Missional Life - Amanda: and those seeds are being passed on to our children too. Yes. They, they want za too. They're champion.

[00:48:07] Pastor Mitch Ivey: Don't.

[00:48:09] The MIssional Life - Dan: Man, there, there's there's this idea of covering somebody's sin like lety, and there's somebody I think I just got exposed by. Oh, it's

[00:48:16] Pastor Mitch Ivey: not sin.

[00:48:17] Pastor Mitch Ivey: You're not sitting in it. You're just, you're enjoying it. It's something you enjoy. That's awesome. I go to Mexico, I want a really good taco, and you come to Nebraska, Dan wants a really good za that that is a hundred percent true. We are,

[00:48:30] The MIssional Life - Dan: we, we know where the first one is. That's the easiest exit off of I I 80.

[00:48:35] The MIssional Life - Dan: So yes, absolutely. Man, so, so good talking with you. So important and so insightful, and I love that grace sits at the center of our country. Mm. Yeah. Come on. That's, that's so important. Amen. That grace is at the center of our country and we just thank you for having that vision. We thank you for putting it into practice and, and being that person that the Lord can say if you build it, they'll come.

[00:49:00] The MIssional Life - Dan: And, and you built it. And they're coming. And we thank you for responding in Faith to God's call to write a book, the Big five. And so tell us where our listeners can get that book. Yep.

[00:49:10] Pastor Mitch Ivey: The big five, the number five book.com. Big five, the number five book.com.

[00:49:16] Pastor Mitch Ivey: That's where it's at. Big five book.com. You can also get it to Amazon. It's on, it's on the, the audio book and the, the book, the study guide are all on Amazon as well, under the big five. Mitch Ivy. Listeners, we'll have those in the show notes for you.

[00:49:28] The MIssional Life - Dan: Mitch, what an honor to have you on the show. What a blessing.

[00:49:31] The MIssional Life - Dan: And we just are so encouraged by what God is doing at the Center of America with grace. And we just speak favor and blessing over everything you guys are doing there and I look forward to seeing how God uses the Big Five to impact nations. Thanks so much for having me on your podcast.

[00:49:48] The MIssional Life - Dan: Blessings.

[00:49:51]