Hey.

Hey friends.

And welcome back to Faithfield Woman.

Today we are gonna dig into why it is so important that we show up and that we build community in our our churches, in our neighborhoods, why we become friends and collaborators in our communities with other women and what the impact of that truly is.

Today I have a great guest interview with the author of her most recent book, I Don't Even Like Women and Other Lies We Tell Ourselves.

It's a great interview.

I think you're going to relate to so many things she shares and how you might have felt in the past as well and how we can change the environment, in the atmosphere in our churches and our communities so that we can come together and just do what God has intended for us to do when we work together as women in community.

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I'm Kristen, an encourager, mentor, entrepreneur, wife and mom here to uplift, equip and inspire you with faith filled conversations and biblical wisdom.

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Hi.

Today on the podcast I would like to welcome our guest, Natalie Runyon.

She is an author and she's the creator of the community Raised to Stay.

She has written three books.

Her newest one is called I Don't Even Like Women.

Her past books are Raised to Stay in the house that Jesus Built.

She also works alongside her husband to help churches improve their cultures so that they're healthier cultures for all of us to show up, come together and just be the hands and feet of Christ.

So I'm excited for this conversation because we're going to talk about just the power and the impact that we have in our communities and in our churches.

We're going to talk about the importance of of women in these communities and how coming together, how working together, how being open hearted and just developing friendships and community is so important not just for us and our hearts, but for our communities.

And I just hope that this episode will just inspire you and encourage you to be more welcoming and inviting in your own homes and your communities and your churches.

So I want to welcome Natalie.

Natalie, welcome to the show.

Oh thanks for having me Kristen.

Good to be here.

Oh, thanks.

So Natalie, I would love it if you could tell us a little bit about life or what life's look like.

The other thing I forgot to mention is Natalie's also held many other positions like a worship pastor and a women's pastor.

I know you've done lots of music ministry as well, so I'd love if you just shared a little bit about your background and what you're up to now.

Yeah, well, I'm a pastor's kid, grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We currently live in Kentucky.

I've been married to my husband for 19 years, and we have two daughters who are 13 and 16.

One just started driving last week.

So we're in the throes of teenage parenting right now, but grew up in the pastor's home.

Incredible childhood and ministry.

We were deeply wounded at a pretty pivotal point in my life where it changed my trajectory from wanting to go to a Christian college to going to a very public university where I had to wrestle with my faith a ton.

I had atheist professors.

I ended up being a science major.

So I was really kind of telling the Lord, hey, if this is your church, if these are your people, no, thank you.

I'm going to go do ministry elsewhere.

And I believed that I could, and I still do believe that ministry is everywhere we go as people of God.

And it was in that that I got involved with a ministry called Campus Crusade for Christ at my college campus and started leading worship.

And the Lord really broke my heart for his people through worship.

And I graduated.

I was a gym teacher by day and I was a worship leader by weekend.

And around 33 was able to go full time into chur staff leadership and did that up until the Lord birthed raised this day back in 2022, where I started an online community and started really talking through.

Look, a lot of us have been wounded by God's people, but God is still good.

How can we wrestle with that relationship with the church but also still stay connected to Jesus?

And so the last five years have been me producing content for the church through social media, through books, through traveling and doing conferences and church services and consultation where I basically am able to share.

God has used the church to break me and heal me.

And it's now where I'm in this position of even raising my own kids and teaching them as best I can with my husband and I to trust God before we trust in people, that we're going to be disappointed in people.

But God is still good and faithful.

And I think this is a common conversation that a lot of us were afraid to have until now.

And so that's really my hope, is that this platform opens up hard and holy conversations in a way that points us to Jesus.

So good.

And yeah, you're so right.

I mean, how many.

If you talk to five women, 100 women, or, you know, men too.

I'm not excluding them from that, what you just talked about.

But will they say to you, like, ah, yes, like, I went to a church or this person at the church or this path, like, something's happened to them, whether it was in childhood, you know, with their church experience, or as a grown, you know, person.

But it's so true.

And a lot of times we just want to kind of run away from it or from that church.

And it's not that we don't want to be there, but like you said, people just.

They don't know what to do with it.

Right.

Like, they don't know how to grapple with it and then move forward in a healthy way or feel healthy about the church.

And so it is something.

It is really important how you're opening up those conversations and you're helping people open their hearts and reframe.

I think, you know, like, okay, maybe this happened to you, but it's just like any other part of our lives.

Things can happen and we have to process it and work through it and then decide how to move forward.

Right.

In the healthiest way that we're able to.

So I think that's so great.

Yeah.

And, you know, the deconstruction movement really picked up in 2019, prior to Covid.

Then Covid happened, and all of us had reasons to leave church and watch online.

And I think a lot of people were in some ways looking for an excuse to not have to get up every Sunday and do the religious toil of getting their families ready for church.

And, you know, couple that with the deconstruction movement, the Me Too Church Too movement, where people started coming forward with sexual abuse allegations, many of them legit, others of them not.

We kind of had a perfect storm for, you know, kind of a church bashing season where everybody online was now kind of coming at the church.

And I realized in that moment that it's okay to detangle from some things that were placed on us as women, as children in the church without completely burning it all down.

And I think that that was kind of like a lot of us had matches in our hands.

Like, I want to see the whole thing go down, but the church is God's idea, and anything that God's idea is a good idea.

And if the gates of hell can't prevail against the church, then sexual abuse and things like deconstruction for the purposes of destruction aren't going to burn down the house.

God is going to continue to elevate his church and his bride until he comes back.

Yeah, yeah.

What would you say as you stepped more into this work than just then being in full time ministry inside of the church, what would you say has been the biggest shift you're seeing happen Right.

Over those last five years?

Goodness.

I am seeing revival breaking out in churches and Gen Z is, is really kind of leading that charge, primarily because Gen Z is a generation that values transparency.

So when pastors are honest, when churches are transparent, when leadership is, is offering clarity, there is something so kind about pastors not trying to defend the church leaders, not trying to God's house, but saying, oh, you've been hurt, tell me about that.

Or oh, you grew up in this environment and now you're questioning things.

Let's wrestle with those questions together.

And so I am seeing a church that is slowly starting to welcome criticism, welcome transparency, welcome third parties coming in and saying, let's really look at the financial framework of this house.

Let's look at your scheduling and your staffing.

And really what's happening is that transparency is proving to people that the church can be the safest place on the planet when we're willing to submit to the authority of Jesus Christ and work together in unity to bring that peace and to bring that community that we're meant to be for our neighborhoods.

Yeah, I love that.

Okay, so let's dig in a little bit to your most recent book.

You know, I know obviously in the book you talk about the title, right?

Which is I Don't even Like Women.

But would you just share with us about why you wrote the book and what you've heard from women?

Right.

About.

About the book and about the concept.

In 2020ish, I had been a worship leader for 20 years and I got moved into full time women's ministry.

And I didn't want it, I didn't ask for it.

It was kind of like, do it or don't have a job.

And I remember getting called into my boss's office and he's like, look, you're a great worship leader, but we need you to take women's ministry.

And I literally looked at the man and said, why would.

Why?

I don't even like women.

Like, I've never once said I want to be a women's pastor.

I've never even been to a women's ministry thing.

And I think growing up I had seen women's ministry done so poorly you know, it was like tea parties and country club kind of activity.

And I just didn't want to be part of something that wasn't inclusive and wasn't invitational.

And it was in that five years of being their women's pastor that I really had my heart broken for the women of the house.

And I realized that it wasn't that I didn't like women.

It was that I didn't like myself in some areas.

And so being around other women highlighted my own insecurities of not feeling wanted, not feeling validated.

Like you said, these are things from our past that started on the playground when we were in elementary school that have followed us through high school and college.

And in that starting, raised to stay, traveling, resigning from that position, hearing other women tell me their stories.

Every time I got into a car from an airport and I met the pastor's wife, I met the woman leading the conference, I would say, how did you get into this?

And they would say, you know, I don't know.

I don't even like women.

And it was nine times out of ten that a woman would tell me that.

And I thought, we need to talk about this.

Like, why is it that we say, not just that, but we just spew these lies about each other?

Women are so mean.

Women are so catty.

Women are so emotional.

Women are such drama queen.

And what does scripture say that actually debunks those lies or rewrites the scripts for us that tells us who we are as daughters, not who we are according to pop culture?

Absolutely.

I mean, I think you're so right.

And it.

I mean, first of all, it's throughout all of culture that we hear these things, right?

These messages about women.

If you're a leader and you're too strong of a leader, or if you're outspoken, then we're the B word, like some bad word, Right?

Or not.

Not a nice construed word.

But if it's a man, it's like, oh, he's assertive and he's powerful.

But for whatever reason, it's like, we can never win with culture, right?

We can never win, whether it's within a church or outside of a church.

Like you said, there's all these messages that women are told about themselves and about other women.

And what would you say about that, though?

Would you say that part of that is to just keep us dimmed and keep us so that we aren't stepping into all the purpose God has for us, both individually and as a community of women?

I think it's both And I think that the enemy has been lying to women since the garden when he made Eve question if God actually said, don't eat the fruit from the tree.

I mean, Satan is constantly trying to rewrite the scripts in our brain, from what the word says about us to what he wants us to believe about ourselves, that we're powerless, that we're second place, that we don't have a position, that we don't have any influence or authority to bring the Great Commission and the Great Command into this world.

And so it starts in the garden.

And then with that fall, even though there's a redemptive arc to our story, there is still a fallen world that we live in.

Then you start adding the Hollywood narrative into this.

And if you think about the movies we grew up on in the 90s, it was mean Girls, Gossip Girl.

I mean, we were being told, if you want to survive, then you have to be at the top.

You have to be the queen bee.

You have to be the most beautiful, the skinniest, the most popular.

And then those narratives start being written over us by other women, not only our friends, but our moms and our friends, moms and our bosses.

And now all of those narratives are getting piled up on to silence us and to feeling like we're never going to be good enough and that we don't actually have anything of value to bring.

And in that, we then lessen our power when we're united, because now we're in competition.

We see each other as the competition rather than a collaborator.

And when we look in Scripture, we see a constant arc of women really rallying together to do things that change the trajectory of peace, of the gospel story.

Even in that story of Mary and Elizabeth.

Like, we see so many examples of what happens when women actually work together and work towards kingdom goals.

Absolutely.

It's so true.

Yeah.

I mean, I don't know there's a single woman that could say, you know, if we were talking to them, that, like, they didn't experience some of that.

Right.

Or.

Or those words used about them or that they've heard those.

So it is true.

So what would you say?

I guess the first question I have is, why is it.

Well, let's talk about friendships.

Right.

This is obviously something you talk about in the book is like, why is it so competitive?

Instead of, like you said, collaborative as women, both community, but also in friendships.

Like, why is it hard as a girl and a woman to make friendships, even in the church?

So what can you share with us about that?

I was thinking about this a lot because I started going back to my journals from high school.

And it starts with like, dating.

It's like there's a small pool of men, there's a bigger pool of women.

And.

And you know, you see people start pairing off in college.

People start getting married sooner.

Some start having babies sooner, others get jobs first.

And it feels like for women, there are fewer seats at the dating table, at the marriage table, at the baby table, at the job promotion table in the church.

And because there feels to be like fewer seats or fewer opportunities, it's like this game of musical chairs where women are kind of circling each other like, that's my seat, like, I'm not going to share the seat with you.

And when the music stops, when our biological clocks hit, when we start to feel panic, then rather than be generous and say, oh no, you can have my seat because I believe there are other seats for me, we start knocking chairs out from each other.

Because we've been taught that there's only one or two seats at a table for us.

And when we get into that space, we become really insecure.

We don't operate in our authority.

We also compromise our integrity and our values.

And in the church, when that starts to happen, then women's ministry kind of becomes like this shark infested waters of like, that's my microphone or that's my ministry or that's my friend.

And we forget that we're called to pull up chairs, not to create these silos of who went to college together and who's grown up in ministry and who's been here the longest.

So we can see how those earthly scripts and narratives get transferred to the church.

Because we are human people, imperfect people carrying a perfect gospel that we have to know we are going to have to subject ourselves under the authority of Christ to operate in that pureness as daughters.

Yeah, so.

Yeah, so, but I guess the question is, you explain that really well.

But, like, why do you think it's so difficult for women other than, like you said, like, it's, it's because we feel like there's not enough, you know, so there's this whole, like, what do you call that?

Scarcity mindset.

There's, you know, all these other kind of things going on, maybe swirling around our head and, you know, not really getting caught up in that.

Instead of what, like you said, what God says about women, about each of us.

So why is it still so difficult for us, even women that say, you know, you know, we've walked, you know, in our faith you know, like you said, we're trying to participate and yet we still struggle with this.

I think we walk into church settings and we expect it to be different from the world.

And then when it's not, it's like we have no tolerance for it.

We expect our jobs in secular markets, we expect a little bit of that there.

We expect it in playgroups with moms who don't know Jesus in our whatever.

But when we walk into a church, we have a hope that it's going to be different.

And then when it's not, when we go into women's ministry or we go into the church sanctuary and it's still siloed by different cast of people or by different situations or who's a parent who's not, who's married, who's not, we become, I think, like double disappointed.

And then coming in with our own fears of rejection, our own fears of not being wanted, our past experiences of other churches where things have happened and we're carrying that trauma with us.

And so it's really hard for us to be welcoming and inclusive of other women when we ourselves don't feel welcomed or included.

So I think that's really what's stopping a lot of women from going to conferences, going to the women's Bible study, because they don't want to be disappointed by the ones who should know better.

Absolutely.

So, I mean, yeah, I mean, so what do we, what do we do about that?

Right?

Like how do we one become the person that's welcoming other women in?

Right.

How do we heal our hearts so that we are open hearted towards other women?

And then also how do we just, how do we say yes to ourselves, like to go and trust that like we're going to step through something and then find, you know, that we will find women that are.

Well, for me personally, I've had to acknowledge the fact that I am, I am broken as a human woman.

I am not fully hold or heal.

We won't be that until we get to heaven.

And so I've had to really be intentional myself about not isolating.

And it's really easy for us to be like, I'm just so busy.

I have a business, I have children, I have a full time job, I'll get to community in my 50s when everybody's retired or kids are out of the house, we think I'll do it then.

Yeah, but we forget that, like we need each other right now.

And not just each other.

I need women who have already been where I am and have already raised Their kids have already retired from their jobs, who have successfully launched their children into the world and are modeling for me where I want to be in 20 years.

And then I need women in their 20s who I can invest in, who I can also do the same thing for.

And if I just sit in my house and I wait for people to come to me or I wait for the phone to ring, with every passing day that it doesn't, I become more removed and more fearful of putting myself out there.

And so I, me personally, I'm the one who's sending texts like, let's grab coffee today.

I'm in town for five days.

Do you have time to go get dinner, come over with your spouse and have dinner with my family?

Like, I'm having to be so intentional.

And then when I go into church, I actually know people because I've done the most horrible thing in my mind that could possibly do, I could do.

And that's put myself out there and risk being denied or risk being rejected.

But I've been so pleasantly surprised at 45 years old, how many other women in their 30s and in their 50s are so wanting to be with me not because of who I am or what I do, but because they too are looking for sisterhood in some way, shape or form.

Yeah, to me it's shocking.

So I have a lot of close girlfriends.

I didn't meet most of them through my church or, you know, or that sort of thing.

Although, I mean, a lot of them are obviously Christian and faith based people, whether I, they're my, my closest best friends in person.

And then of course, I've met people online through small groups I'm in and things like that.

But I talked to so many women, both locally and, you know, across the country, and a lot of them struggle with having friendships, like real, true, deep, deep friendships within the, inside the church or outside the church or both.

And so I, and to me it's, I don't say it's shocking because I see it all over the place.

But for me, like, my brother is saying that, he's like, you're so intentional, right, with my friendships, I'm so intentional with investing in my friendships and putting the time right.

Like, I put a lot of time into that.

But you're right, so many people I think, think, oh, one day, one day I will win.

Or we're afraid, like you just said.

Like, it's scary to put ourselves out there and to meet a new friend or to extend the invitation because what if they say no?

What if we're rejected.

What if it's not?

They're not who we thought they were.

But I love in Jenny Allen's book Find you'd People, she talks about what Professor Jeffrey hall says, which is it takes that investment of time.

Right.

And you talk about that too.

Time and commitment.

But it takes, they say, the data says 50 hours to make a casual friend, 90 hours to become a friend, and over 200 hours to become a best friend.

And I think most of us aren't willing to put in the time.

And I don't think we realize how much time it takes to make a friend.

It's not because you encountered somebody twice and then you feel like, gosh, they didn't really pay much attention to me the third time.

It takes a lot more time and face to face, you know, or however it is, like zoom or regular.

And so I think a lot of people, we have a misconception of that.

We'll just make friends after one retreat or we'll make friends.

And I hope we'll make a friendly acquaintance.

But it doesn't mean they're a friend yet.

Right?

Because it takes deeper connection.

It takes that time.

So what would you just say about that?

Well, I think about in like elementary school, we were forced in those 200 hours of friendship because we had to sit together in classes and we were at lunch tables and we were at recess.

I mean, it was eight hours a day of having to kind of find your people.

And I think we get spoiled by that.

We graduate from college and we have to start over again.

And that exhausting.

Or we go into the workforce out of high school and we have to start over again, this process of making new friends.

And I think of the poem that we used to sing in Girl Scouts.

Make new friends but keep the old.

One is silver and the other is gold.

There is value in new friendships, but there is such a deep value in old friendships because you've done the time together, you've put in those hours.

And, you know, I'm like you.

I travel, I'll meet people and we'll speak together at a conference.

And what's been really neat is there are some that I'm acquaintances with now.

We just kind of catch up on social media.

But there are one or two who have become golden girls in my life.

The ones who will send me the text message at midnight, who will send me a word of encouragement that will mail me a package that will say, let's just get away for a weekend and go pray.

Like, those are the ones that are sticking, and they're the rare ones.

I think that's also something really important to note.

I'm not running around with an entourage of women.

I've got one or two that are my golden friends, and then I've got the silver friends, and I love them, my.

My newer friends.

But I think it's really important for women to understand that at 45 or 50, you may not have 12, you may not have 24, you may have three, but those are the ones that God has really wrapped you up in with that time commitment, and that's all you can have to offer.

Great.

Like, but it's better.

You know, it's.

What is that?

Scripture?

And that says that it's one or one is good, two is better, but of three strands, it's not easily broken.

That's speaking of the Holy Spirit.

I believe in the.

In the Trinity, but I also believe it's true of friendship, too.

Yeah, well, and I think you bring up a good point, which is, yeah, you're never going to.

You're not going to typically have more than a.

A small group of close, close friends that you can go to with anything, right?

And because one, it's.

It's hard to maintain that.

That level of time, just.

Just in that way.

But.

So the goal is to at least have one close, meaningful relationship, you know, especially a female relationship.

I mean, you know, obviously we're not really talking so much about, like, marriage and those things as much today, but.

And then you're gonna have circles go out from there, right, of friendships and community.

So then you do want the people that.

Yeah, you can reach out to a group of women and say, hey, I would love to have you guys over.

Let's meet for coffee.

Let's, you know, do something.

So you're gonna have different circles.

I have women in my neighborhood where some of them I don't see very often.

Some of them I do, but I will text.

Others will text sometimes to me, like, hey, who can go walking?

Right?

Who can go walking?

And one time, sometimes it's one person, sometimes it's four or five of us.

Like, it's just kind of who's free.

But, like, there's different circles of friendship and how regularly I see those women.

So we're going to have different circles.

But that also helps bring us together.

Right.

That helps strengthen the community because you don't have to be the closest friend, right.

That doesn't have to be your midnight person that you call, but it's somebody that, you know, like, I Have some girlfriends, they might call me at midnight.

They're not my closest, closest friends, but they know if their daughter needed to be picked up from school because I have a flexible schedule, like, they put me on their list, you know, because they do know that my schedule is more open.

And of course, I would drop everything, right, Unless I was in the middle of.

Unless it was emergency, in the middle of an interview, and go help them, right?

So there's just these different levels.

And so I think it's important to know that too, right.

That everybody meet.

Doesn't need to become your closest friend, but they can be your acquaintances.

They can be casual friends that you enjoy spending time with, you know, in a.

In a different type of setting.

So, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

And like, our neighbor, we have a cul de sac here, and I'm the old one.

Everybody's got little babies, and my kids are the big kids.

And yeah, neighbor across the way, like, she's not a believer.

I believe she will be at some point.

But she brings over a fresh loaf of sourdough bread once a week.

And I just thought about that.

I was like, you know, I love how without even knowing Jesus necessarily, this woman knows she has a gift.

She has a love of giving.

And she does so much beauty in our neighborhood by bringing those loaves of sour bread to just our doors once a week.

And I was thinking, like, what's my sourdough?

What is it that I have to offer that I can bless one or two or three women with that?

I know it might be rising as I run?

It may not be something that's beautiful, it may not be perfect, but it's something that I'm offering as a communication point.

And I think sometimes we hoard what we have because we don't think it's pretty enough or it's good enough.

And she's just trying everything.

She's trying bagels, she's trying muffins, she's trying cookies, and she's bringing them to our door.

Like, I don't know if they're good or not.

You tell me.

And I think that that's metaphorically so beautiful just to think, like, what do I have that I am holding back because I don't think it's good enough, but that another woman would feast on for a week.

Yes.

Oh, my gosh, that's so true.

I mean, so I also live in a cul de sac, and while I don't see my neighbors, we don't get together all the time.

We do, you know, invite each Other over, you know, sometimes just the ladies, sometimes the ladies, the guys and the girls.

But at Christmas time for sure, or like when new neighbor moves in, right?

We'll definitely kind of, we all bring each other stuff.

Some of us like myself, bring baked goods that I make.

Other people are like, I don't have the time, they just drop something, whatever it is off.

And our, our newest neighbor, I guess in the cul de sac, she's been here, she moved her during COVID and you know, she's always texting like, oh my gosh, you guys are just so nice.

And I would say most of my court is Christian.

It identifies, you know, Christians.

But we don't all talk about our faith all the time.

And we definitely have different views on different topics, you know, and yet.

But the point is, is we're all just open hearted towards each other regardless of where we are with our viewpoints, our politics, our faith.

It doesn't really matter.

We are neighbors, right?

And so to your point, we just share what we have.

We share our homes sometimes with each other.

And you bring up a good point.

I think sometimes people hesitate.

Not only like, what do they have that they can give, right?

Like I have girlfriends that if they start crocheting or they start doing some thing for Christmas, they'll give the thing that they, they've been making, right?

To some, to some of us, which is so beautiful because I bake, I cook, I do all that, but I'm not, I'm not a sewer or a crocheter so that I don't have that gift anyways.

But it's like sometimes you're so right.

People think like, oh, this isn't enough, this isn't good enough or oh, it's only homemade.

Instead of realizing like I have so many friends that they don't cook, right?

I mean I have a lot of women friends that cook, but I have other women friends that they don't cook very often.

So like bringing them something that you made and you didn't just go get at the store.

I'm.

Sometimes they're like, wow, this is so good.

Like I would never have made, taken the time.

Even my mom says that, you know, I'm one of five.

She's like, I if it, if it wasn't under 20 minutes to make it, it was never going to happen.

Whereas I'll be like, oh, it took like four hours.

Like it's fine, like, you know what I mean?

But because we all have different abilities and interests and I would just encourage women listening to Say, hey, it doesn't have to be anything.

It can literally be that you're the person that invites people in, or like you said, you're the person that was thinking of your neighbor.

You don't have to be even close to them.

They don't have to be, you know, Christian, but that they said something and maybe they seemed a little down and you dropped flowers off on their porch.

Right.

It's, it's like if what's in your heart.

And a lot of times it's those little tiny promptings.

And when we listen to them, I think more of those happen, more of those come, and we get to show up in the world in these little ways.

But they actually have a big impact.

Yes.

And that's why in the tagline of my book, it's, I don't even like women and other lies that get in the way of sacred sisterhood.

And I think about what those lies are, and I think a couple of the lies, and I don't even really write about this in the book so much, but I think that one of the lies is, is that my sacred sisters have to be my best friends.

When I think of the word sacred, I think of it just being a safe friend.

I don't think of it as being like, braid our hairs and, you know, going to Chicago for girls weekends every couple of months.

What this is, is I'm going to be a sanctuary for any woman who needs a place of rest.

And if that is food, if that's picking up their child, if that is a phone call, any woman should be able to look at me and say, that's a sacred sister.

That's a safe sister.

That's a set apart sister.

And I think the lie is, as we are Christian women, is that all of my friends have to be Christians.

And I think about that and I'm like, well, in an ideal world, maybe if we've grown up in the church or we went to Christian college, that's been our narrative.

But really, some of the most safest sisters I have met have been outside of the church.

And I think that's something that we need to be open to for our own growth, but also for evangelical reasons.

Like, we are to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth.

Like we are to go in and to be that woman.

And so what better way than to like introduce other people to Jesus?

And so I want to debunk that lie that like all of our sisters have to be Christian, because I think that really does limit us to not Just proximity to people, but also to growing and to practicing the Great Commission that we've been called to take out.

Absolutely.

I mean, I have, you know, like I said, I have plenty of friends.

I mean, I have some that, you know, they might believe in God.

They wouldn't really.

They don't really know that they call themselves a Christian, but they're kind of struggling with, what do I think about all this?

Because they see some of the darkness in the world and they just can't quite grapple with it yet.

But you know what?

Over years of knowing them, sometimes we'll be on a walk by ourselves and they'll find they'll, like, we'll have this very deep conversation about God and about why might.

Why does he let that happen?

And so over time, you know, some of those things come up because like you said, how we are in the world, how we are handling things, how we seem calmer or we seem to process all the darkness or all of the things that.

Don't get me wrong, there's so much good, but there's also.

Right.

The other side of it.

And the other thing is I. Yeah, some of my closest friends, you know, are Jewish.

Like, whatever.

Like, it's.

It's all over the place, you know, and it's.

It's important.

Right.

We get different perspectives.

We have different types of conversations, you know, and like you said, our.

Our job isn't just to be friends with other Christians, you know, it's.

Yeah.

Anyway, so I absolutely agree with what you said about that.

That I love that.

So what else would you just share with us about, I think so many women.

And when you share in your book about one of the reasons maybe we struggle with kind of being that safe space, that sacred sister, or finding that, you know, in the world or in the church is the.

We feel, like you said, we've been hurt, we've been persecuted.

We feel like it's that we're being compared right.

To the other women, for whatever reason, the way we dress, the way they come off.

They already have people in the church, they know, you know, we feel like an outsider.

But what else would you just share with us about that?

Like, how do we, I guess, overcome that?

How do we allow ourselves to be more opened?

For me, it's been encouraging to go to the scriptures and to look at historically how God used women together.

Excuse me, women together, to really propel his gospel forward.

And when I see my sisters as my collaborators and not my competition, it almost begins to challenge me of, wow, what could we accomplish together.

And so when we look at healthy church ladies, we have to realize that we make up a huge portion of the local church.

And when we look at our hands and what we're in, we're in kids ministry, we're in youth ministry, we're in administration.

Some of us are preaching and teaching and leading worship.

When you see at how much influence we have in the church, it is vital that we are healthy.

And so I look at like the relationship between Deborah and JL we know they weren't like necessarily friends.

You know, Deborah was sitting under her palm of Deborah.

She was showing up every day, rightly judging the people of Israel through hearing from God.

And then we have Jael, a tent dwelling woman who's just minding her own business, moving her family city to city, as the Lord says, go.

And together, somehow the Lord unites these women to overcome an enemy and SISERA.

And then 40 years of peace falls on Israel because of the obedience of Deborah to speak what God had given her and the actions of Jael to actually execute what needed to be done.

And I think that had Deborah tried to micromanage Jael or if JL thought, well, I'm not as good as Deborah at this, they could have not seen 40 years of peace in Israel.

And so for us as women in the church, we have to stop worrying about what other women are doing, how they're operating.

We got to get our eyes fixed on our own hearts, our own journeys, and begin to invite women in to partner with us in what God is doing.

And that is where we're going to see peace in the church.

We're going to see it in that Elizabeth and Mary relationship, where Mary goes running to Elizabeth and says like, hey, you're pregnant.

I'm pregnant.

Elizabeth's been dying for a child.

She looks at Mary, she could have been like, hey, Mary, way to steal my thunder.

I've been wanting a kid for this long.

Now you're coming in and you're going to give birth to the son of God.

Like, that's crazy.

No, Mary and them are standing together and Elizabeth starts prophesying over what Mary is carrying.

Not in competition with, but in collaboration with.

Because we all know Elizabeth was carrying John the Baptist, who would be the holy harbinger for Jesus, which would go be a forerunner for him, which means that you and I are constantly in partnership, either a forerunner for each other's gifts or a partner and a sister in the faith to champion what the other carries.

What I carry is not in competition with what any other woman carries.

So that's a very long answer to just encourage the women to say, like, if we could just understand the power that we have in collaboration in the church, we could literally see an enemy defeated through our unity, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and bring more people back into the safety of the sanctuary of our local churches simply by being the daughters God has called us to be.

Oh my gosh, that's so good.

Also, I wanted to take a minute to let you know, if you haven't already, on my website, I have several really powerful workbooks.

Some of them are five day workbooks and some of them are a 15 day divisional, but they are workbooks that are totally free to download that can help you reignite your passion.

Just get back in touch with the things that God has put on your heart that you are interested in and how he might want to use you.

Moving forward.

We have a joyful devotional and so many other things.

But if you want to be inspired and encouraged as you walk to deepen your faith, to deepen your relationships, and to move forward to everything God has for you, head over to KristenFitch.com, grab whichever workbook resonates most with your devotional and come join my community.

Let me empower and uplift you each week.

Yeah, and you also talk about that.

I think sometimes we forget that every interaction we have with another woman, right?

Younger, older, same age, is an opportunity and that we, we forget that we are influencing.

Right?

I think you say you were influencing every female and what would you just share with us about that?

Because it's so important whether they're a young person, you know, or whether they're older or the older women, you know, obviously influencing older.

But I think a lot of us forget people are always watching and people are always taking note.

I mean, we see the relationship between Ruth and Naomi and that whole dialogue of where you go, I go, your people will be my people, your God will be my God.

I mean that, that's one example of multi generational loyalty that could have been trauma, bonded, but actually ended up being a really healthy example of why older women need younger women.

Younger people need older women.

We even see Paul talking to Timothy and praising the lowest and the Eunice that was in Timothy's life, his grandmother and his mother.

And that's why so many times women, I think we have to ask ourselves, like, who's my lowest and who's my Eunice?

Who is it that is going to be to be mentoring me?

Who am I going to Be mentoring.

And the church is really good at elevating young people because they have all of the newest bells and whistles, all the technology, but we can't have a bunch of little young people whose frontal lobes haven't even formed yet, not having women who have already gone before them feeding into them.

And so this is really important that older women understand that you're not done yet if you still have air in your lungs.

We need you 80 year old women to be mentoring us in our 50s and our 40s and our 30s so that we can mentor those in their teens and twenties.

And that is why I have such a strong passion for multi generational leadership in the church.

To avoid and basically something going instinct, like an entire generation going instinct because we extinct because we are not valuing what they bring to the table.

Oh my gosh, it's so good.

And you know, if you pay attention to what people say, like for instance, younger people, when I listen to some of the younger young ladies, I guess, right.

High school, coming out of high school into college because of the impact of all the messages they're being bombarded with.

Not that when we were growing up there weren't messages, but it's definitely right more the amount or it can be right depending on how much you're on your phone or social and stuff.

But I'll hear them sometimes and it's like, oh, my hair doesn't look perfect.

Oh, my curls.

You know, it's like they're so worried about the perfect picture and they're so worried about.

And it's like, you know, if I have a relationship with some of them, I'll, you know, I'll just have to like say to them in a note or say to them in person, you have always looked beautiful inside and out.

Like you've.

Their hair's never looked like.

It's like they're so focused on this detail which doesn't matter.

And oh, by the way, it never was even a thing.

But it's like to your point, it's like we always have this opportunity to be encouraging women and to uplift them and to let them know like who they are and what we see, right?

And what we see, what we see and who they're becoming.

And I think the other, the other point of that is a lot of times this is a struggle with everyone, men and women, but we're not present.

We don't realize that we're so caught up in our own busyness, our own to do lists, our phones, whatever it might be that we aren't present.

And so we're missing those opportunities.

Right.

We're missing those opportunities to encourage uplift, to mentor, to have a conversation, to have missed the look someone had that they just maybe are having the hardest day.

But we just walked right by them.

We didn't say hello, we didn't say something.

Right.

Even in the grocery store.

So, you know, I think that's a big thing, is, is a lot of us, people in general, that Christians were not being present and we're missing those opportunities that God wanted us to actually connect with that person in that moment.

Yeah.

And to speak to the Gen X women.

And that would be us, I'm assuming, like, you know, we didn't have a model of this and I don't mean to dog the generation before us.

The baby boomers had their own challenges, the traditionalists had their own challenges, but really Gen X has become the forgotten generation within the church.

We've been this bridge generation that we didn't have it modeled for us from baby boomer women, especially how to lead.

And you think about like us sitting down and having this conversation, like how rich this would have been for me as a 20 year old to listen to a conversation like this of someone 20 years ahead of me and think, oh, I'm going to be fine.

This is going to be all right.

We didn't have this model for us.

So to the Gen X generation, we've got to do a little bit of like more work than what we realize because we're having to recruit, like literally create something that had not existed before and that is women discipling a generation.

We have not had that unless we sought it out, unless there was a woman who was just on fire in the church.

Some of us have been taken under wings, but I would say 95% we've had to try to figure it out on our own as a generation.

So this is going to be a lot harder work for us mentally and spiritually because some of us feel a little jaded, like where were the mentors for us?

So it should feel a little bit uncomfortable because you're basically blazing a trail that was not blazed for you.

And as a generation, I do believe we are pioneers in some of this work that's happening in the church.

That's really good.

And I'm glad you brought that up because, yeah, it's a good point.

And it wasn't even one that had crossed my mind.

But it makes so much sense, right?

Being from obviously having just being a couple years older than you so yeah, absolutely, that's, that's a really good point.

And you know, I think that's another point is like you said there, there you talked about earlier, there is a revival in the church, right.

A lot of people that I follow or see, right.

That are really involved in that, especially you know, going to campuses and doing all these things, you, you're seeing it, right?

Just this, this fire for Christ.

I just saw an article the other day, right.

In the uk, I think church attendance with people, the Gen Xers has really exploded recently.

So that's so exciting.

But to your point, I think you're right, there's so that's, you know, that's going on, that's happening.

But then like you said, the Gen Xers, I think you're right.

A lot of us have sort of been on this really curvy path.

You know, everyone's path looks a little bit different, you know.

So whether it was like you said, people said, oh, I'm going to go do online church, I'm gonna, whatever it is.

I think you're right though.

A lot of us didn't have somebody like all my family was Christians, people of faith.

But you're right, they were more the people that didn't talk about faith so much.

You just had your faith and you practiced your faith.

But it was much more of a private thing, you know what I mean?

Like you go to, you do go to church, you do this.

But it wasn't, I didn't grow up evangelical or anything like that.

And so it was, it was more of a, like you do these things, you know, maybe read the Bible, you know, those types of things.

But like you said, I didn't have a older or woman mentor when I was 20 or 30 or.

I mean I had some people in some church groups I was in, but they, we all came together in a bigger group.

So it wasn't like a one on one where I would go and talk to them.

So I think, think it's a, it really is a strong and good point that you bring up that if you're somebody more towards our age, that we can still find those things and we can definitely be part of that for younger women and that we're called to do that.

Yeah.

And it's going to be uncomfortable.

I mean, I can remember, I mean the greatest gift that I got out of going to a public university that wasn't Christian was having an online ministry like Campus Crusade where discipleship was a core value of that ministry.

So rather than thinking of yourself, Jen, Exer as like, oh, I've got to like, like solve the problems of the 20 year old.

You know, really what you are is you're just being available, which I think we often felt like we were inconveniences, like if we needed something that we were going to be putting somebody out rather than really opening up their arms and saying, hey, I want you in my life.

And so that's, that's going to feel uncomfortable.

It's going to be like asking somebody out on a date to ask someone to be your mentor.

That's going to feel really almost like kind of traumatizing for some of us.

But then also to invite younger women and say, hey, if you have time, I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee.

That's actually like scary too because we feel that rejection or we feel, I don't know if I have the answers.

We don't have to have the answers.

We just need to be available.

Yeah.

And sometimes it might just start with as simply as saying like, hey, you know, like I'm here if you ever want to, you know, you need an ear, someone to listen, or you just need a prayer.

Right.

Or so sometimes it just, it doesn't even have to be an invitation to do something yet.

It's just letting them know, like, I'm available to you and let them decide, you know, what I, you know, it might be a month later that they're like, gosh, I really could use someone to listen to me that I feel like is a, you know, a kind of a older, more maybe settled, in some ways person.

And so, you know, sometimes it's just the letting them know, like, I'm available to you.

Let me ask you this.

What other message maybe that we haven't really dove into yet would you just want to share with women or encourage women or just, just kind of, you know, get, get the message out to them.

Well, you had said earlier talking about like how when women lead with passion, when women lead with emotion, like there's always these negative stigmas.

And I, I just want to reiterate kind of what we've been saying, but like God created women different on purpose.

Like we are the feminine heart of the Father.

He didn't make us as a side thought.

We aren't like second place.

He made us with great intentionality.

And so when I hear people say women are so emotional or women are so dramatic or women are such drama queens or whatever it is, like those are all ways of like saying things that we don't really actually want to say, which is, I don't feel like I was ever heard.

I don't feel like people value what I have to say.

We use these blanket statements to actually define these moments of insecurity where we did feel like a second thought, we did feel like we had to get louder to be seen.

We did feel like we had to compete seat to get that seat at the table.

And to remind you that God is so for you, he, he is not up there thinking, a man could have done this better or oh, you're too emotional for that.

Like, we've got to get better at being able to describe women in a way that doesn't make it sound negative.

Because really, at the end of the day, when I go into a meeting and I cry, it's not because I'm unhinged.

It's because when the presence of God hits me, I weep in the presence of God.

And when I am working towards something that feels justice driven or I'm passionate about seeing people healed and I cry, it's not because I lack emotional awareness.

It's because as a woman, when the Holy Spirit touches my heart, that's going to be my response.

So women, you don't have to try to become like a man to lead or to do anything.

You just need to lead from the feminine heart of the Father.

Emotional regulation is really important.

And I talk about emotional IQ in the book because we don't want to go in and steamroll rooms and not have emotional awareness.

But also we don't have to dumb down how God created us and dress a certain way and speak a certain way just to try to be something that we're not.

And so just remember, like, you are beautiful and perfect as God made you.

You're not a second thought.

He's perfect in all he creates.

But there is always space for personal development and growth and to search our own hearts and ask the Lord, where have I been using my emotions to manipulate?

Where have I been using my femininity in a way that has been more manipulative than scriptural and biblical?

And those are just good things for us to ask ourselves when we have to say, oh, it's me.

Hi, I'm the problem.

It's me.

Because sometimes women, we are the problem.

Which is why biblical accountability and having mentors in our lives is so important.

Absolutely.

So much of that.

Wow.

So I would just add to that, I think, for first of all, as women, at least at this age, I find that so many people and I, you know, I don't Love the word.

But midlife women, a lot of us have allowed our voices to be, we hesitate, I guess, sometimes to speak up or to, to use our voice to express ourselves.

And it's because of the culture, it's because it could be church, but it's.

That has happened.

And so a lot of times we now have to get that confidence back, right?

Like pray to God.

Like, I, I want to speak, I want to share, you know, I want to, you know, like you said, I want to be in the rooms.

And that means I need to be able to use my voice.

I need to be confident that God has me and wants me there and I have something to share, something to say.

So I would just encourage women.

You, you know, we are meant to be there.

And like you said, we might do it different, say it different, but we do have to know that we have a voice and that we don't want to say nothing because we're not sure if we're going to be, you know, criticized.

I even live in a house of all men, right?

My husband and three sons, college age sons.

And it can be tricky sometimes, you know, because they don't.

We literally like the Mars and Venus.

I will say something and they'll be like, you're so off.

What are you talking about?

Like, they just, just we, we kind of drew a lot.

And so, you know, and I have to, I have to make sure that I don't get overly sensitive to that because they're not trying to be criticized, critical or criticize me.

It can come off that way, but they just, that's not how something hits them.

That's not how they perceive something.

And I just have to be really careful and remind myself, right?

I was designed to come into rooms and be different.

I was designed, like you said, with this feminine heart.

And so I just encourage women just because you end up in rooms, whether it's in your home or your work environment or your community or your church.

And you're not, you might be the only woman sometimes, right?

And it's okay, like, you can still speak, you, you still have some things to share and so don't let your light be dimmed.

But I would also say I interviewed a lady years ago or two years ago and she, I think she works with people in pr, but she said, women, just like you said about personal development, we have to learn how to speak confidently.

And what that means is like, instead of saying like, well, I think, or we use these little words that diminish what we're trying to say.

And so she taught, she teaches anyone, but especially women, how to speak with more authority by just shifting some of our language just slightly.

But it's kind of what you said is by keep, by continuing to keep grow in our faith and in our personal development, we learn how to speak with more authority so that people hear us.

I think.

Which is really important.

I think as well, yeah, it was.

Really mind boggling for me when I went through an emotional IQ course to already know that as a woman who's 59 and a brunette and larger built, that when I walk into a room, just my presence can come off as intimidating to especially men who have certain biases towards women based off of their relationship with their mom, their relationship with their wives and their daughters.

And I remember hearing that and thinking, that's so unfair because a man can walk in and look anyway.

And I'm not triggered by any of that necessarily.

But the fact that just my mere presence walking into a room can shift a room is both empowering and terrifying.

And then when I went into full time ministry and knowing that speaking on a platform, that even the timbre of my voice, the shrillness of my voice could impact the men sitting in the room who were screamed at by their mothers or abused by their wives.

And again, I'm thinking, well, this isn't fair because we could say this about men too, that men yelling from the pulpit or singing at a certain level would traumatize women who had father issues.

But for whatever reason, studies were showing that when men heard a woman's pitch at a certain level that they were less likely to hear what that woman was saying.

All of that was so eye opening to me to think when I go into a room, I already have to work a little bit harder than a man has to work.

And that's not biblical, that's just reality.

And so in this fallen world, where that is a reality that I cannot escape, what is my spiritual responsibility before I step into a meeting with mental health?

I'm going to pray, I'm going to ask for supernatural self control, the heart of the father.

I'm going to ask the Lord to give me everything.

You were just talking about just being able to speak with self awareness, with confidence.

The Father will give that to us because we're his daughters and he's that good.

And so I don't want any of us to see these as bottlenecks for us in leadership.

It's just more awareness of, okay, God, I can't do anything without your strength, without your anointing, without Your authority.

And as I have stepped into higher levels of leadership where I am the only woman in the room, the Lord has made it less about being the only woman in the room and being a reflection of the heart's father as a daughter.

And that shifts my posture.

Absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

Okay, so we're going to wrap up.

So last couple questions.

So now that you've written the book, you obviously one of the messages you share is basically how we can all come together in community as women.

How are coming together in collaboration instead of competition literally can change the church.

It can change the work.

I shouldn't say it does change the church.

It does change the world.

But what would you say now to women?

Like, you know, the book title was I Don't even like women.

So what would you say is like your heart for women?

Now, you shared a little bit about that earlier, but just like as we wrap up, what else would you share about that?

You know, I think about the scripture that talks about how we have to love God, love people, love.

Love is a bare minimum when it comes to the kingdom.

Like, we just need to love people well, but liking people is a completely different scenario.

And what I'm hearing from women and what I'm seeing as I'm traveling is that as we have this conversation, that a lot of the reason women don't like each other is because they're just not with each other.

But the minute that they're at the altars praying together, the minute they stay an extra 10 minutes and have that meal together after an event or they hang out after church and they have that cup of coffee between services, that women walk away from each other and truly do think, man, that was a really positive experience.

I really actually like them.

And I would just say this to you women, that a lot of the reason we don't like each other is because we're not with each other.

And it isn't about wanting to be the bff.

It's simply saying at the end of the day, I'm really glad that God made women and I'm really glad that I'm not the only woman and that I don't have to do this alone.

And that is the heart cry of this book is that none of us have have to do this thing called being a woman alone.

Oh, my God, I love that.

You know, what came to me there was.

It's that often it is just sharing a meal or just being available again, being present in those extra moments.

You know, I remember I haven't.

Well, I mean, not in the last year or so, but when I've gone to conferences, you know, it doesn't have to be a faith conference, any kind of conference.

It could have been in tech.

It could have been anything.

And I would often be there by myself.

Right.

I didn't know anybody because I was going to some conference across the country where sometimes a speaker, but sometimes just.

Just attending.

And I would just go because I just felt like this is where I needed to go or for a job I had at the time.

And I would always be so intentional in that room, that networking room, that I'd say, I'm going to go and talk to the person that's just standing there by themselves.

Because I feel.

I don't.

I feel uncomfortable.

I feel all alone.

But they look like they do, too.

So you know what?

I can go and start a conversation with them.

And I would, every time.

But it doesn't mean, like you said, it doesn't mean that I became.

They became a close connection for forever.

But you know, what I did is I was the person that just welcomed other people and let them feel comfortable in a room where I didn't feel comfortable.

And so like you said, it's going and grabbing that cup of coffee or staying after church for a few minutes to chit chat with whoever just to say hello.

And so I think you're right.

It's giving that little bit of extra time makes a big difference.

Absolutely.

Oh, my gosh.

So, last question.

What is fueling you right now into summer?

August?

What's just fueling you up right now?

Well, first of all, summer is my favorite, but this transition from summer to fall is, like, beautiful.

Kentucky is stunning.

I think Virginia is probably kind of the same.

You get all the colors, you get all of the.

The beauty.

So right now, I love Hobby lobby.

I love fall candles.

I love all things pumpkin.

I am about ready to flip my house and my children get involved in this.

My parents live with us.

My mom gets involved with this.

So what is fueling me right now, it is the promise of color and fall.

And I am enjoying all of that.

And then I also am just really loving the age my kids are in, getting to watch them go through first dances and football games and driving.

It really is true that parenting is, like one of the sweetest things that we get to do.

And so I'm really surprised at how much I love being a teenage mom or a mom of teenagers.

I'm really enjoying this season.

Oh, I love that.

Okay, so Natalie, can you share with Everybody, how can they connect with you, Learn about your books, your community and all that good stuff?

We mostly hang out over on Instagram under Raised to Stay.

That's where most of the community is.

And then under Natalie Runyon on Facebook.

And then all books are on Amazon.

Barnes and Noble Books Books, a million Christian book.

You can get all three books there.

I Don't Even Like Women comes out September 2nd.

Oh my gosh.

So good.

We'll definitely go and check that book out.

If this conversation resonated with you and Natalie, I just want to thank you for coming on and sharing your heart, sharing the importance of us as women, understanding our, our role.

And by role, I just mean that when we come together that literally everything shifts, that we.

I think earlier you said we literally change the temperature of the community, right?

By a like working together and collaborating as women in our churches and our communities and in our homes.

And so I love that you just shared this with us today because I think it was inspiring and I hope that it encourages each of us to just be a little more opened that we are willing to invite others into life, do life with us, and that maybe we're open to mentoring or being there for other women.

So thank you for joining us.

Thank you.

As I wrap up today's episode, I just wanted to share two other ideas or quotes with you that I hope will just enrich even further what we shared in today's episode.

The first is by Jenny Allen from her book Find you'd People.

She is talking about basically that we have to put effort forth, right, to find our people, our communities, our tribe, our fronts.

And she says it's choosing to prioritize each other again and again, committing consistent time each day in and day out.

Sometimes that means we get hurt and sometimes it means we are simply inconvenienced.

Then later she goes on to say, but these days, too many of us are experts at quitting each other.

And most of us can figure out a way to hide from everyone while we do it.

What I am calling you to instead, what Paul was calling us to, what God is calling us to, is a wholly different supernatural mindset that is guarded, supplied and filled with Christ Jesus.

He is the way we think, relate, speak, reconcile, forgive and love.

Because we've been given such abundance, we give away our abundance.

This is our story.

This is how we live out the gospel.

And then she says, we choose to be the inconvenienced for the sake of each other.

If you think about it, friendship, all relationships really is a giant inconvenience, at least if we're doing it right.

And the inconvenience chosen again and again changes us, wakes us up, makes us laugh and love and hope and dream.

Yeah, intertwining my life with other people is inconvenient, but I'll take that kind of trouble again and again over the ease and emptiness of trying to go it alone, to leave behind our loneliness and enjoy the reward of community.

We have to keep showing up, keep being vulnerable, keep coming to the table, be together, work together, and share life together over and over again.

Then one day we look up and realize our friendships have grown deep.

Oh, how good is that?

And how much is that just reinforcing what Natalie shared with us today and what we shared about some of the things in her book, that it can be hard to be vulnerable, to put ourselves out there, into communities, in our churches, in our neighborhoods, to make, you know, just to work with other women.

But remember, what we want to do is we want to be contributors.

We want to come together and not be there out of competition or feel like there is some pecking order, because that is not the intent of God's heart.

And it shouldn't be the intent of our hearts either.

The other thing I want to share with you is from the book the Turquoise Table, which is about finding community and connection in your own front yard by Kristen Schell.

And if you haven't read her book, it's a beautiful book, but it's basically about putting a picnic table in the front yard because that's when she can then invite people in her neighborhood over just for a quick cup of coffee where you don't have to have your house ready and prepared or have a meal prepared.

But the overall idea of the book is just inviting people into our homes and our lives.

And in this case, in your front yard, not your home, necessarily, but it's all about having the heart to do life with each other, much like Natalie talks about, much like find you'd people talks about.

So I just want to share this little bit with you from her book.

Kristin says, I started using the phrase gather small and love deep long before I fully realized what it meant.

And she's talking about the idea of the table in her front yard, which she painted turquoise, I think, because she liked the color, because it also stood out.

But then she goes on to say, at first I would ask myself, doubting, is this enough?

Is it enough to know my neighbors by name to spend an hour simply having coffee with only a handful of people?

Does it matter if all I do is nod my head with pursed lips and a wrinkled brow while a friend shares her heart, is it enough to wave at a jogger?

Does inviting half a dozen people for donuts in the front yard matter with the magnitude of problems in the world?

Do these small gatherings at the table matter?

And she says it took a while for my heart to catch up to my head.

My impulsive side, you know, the one that painted the picnic table turquoise and plopped it in the front yard, believed without a shred of doubt that being present in the front yard matters.

I recognize it now as faith.

Not something I control or do on my own, but God's gift to me to keep going, to keep sitting at the table, to keep loving my neighbors as he intends for us all to do.

I was hearing faint whispers of encouragement as I realized God was saying it matters to me when you show up, I'm at work.

Hospitality always feels small when you hold it in your hands.

It's not until you let it go release like an offering that you see how extravagant and hallowed it is.

Sometimes I don't feel anything happening, which in our instant gratification and quick fix society feels like failure.

Building Community Investing in the lives right in front of us requires us to take the long view.

Eugene Peterson refers to this type of relationship, relationship building as the long obedience in the same direction.

How beautiful is that?

So if you needed just a little bit more encouragement after my conversation today, I hope that Jenny Allen's words and Kristen Schell's words and Natalie's words help encourage you in your own lives to be the person that invites other people in, that invites other people to feel welcome and seen and that they have a seat at the table, whether it's inside your church or at a gathering or in your neighborhood or meeting for coffee or even in your front yard.

And if you have a story to share that's about you felt the same way that you know, you weren't even sure that you didn't.

You liked other women because of sometimes how you felt or your past, but you really knew deep down that you needed the connection community of women.

If you found yourself when you decided to be open hearted and welcome others in that, it changed your community, it changed your life, it changed the temperature of your community.

I'd love to hear about it.

You can reach out to me on Instagram.

You can DM me, I'm Kristen Fitch.

Or you can reach me on my website kristenfitch.com through the contact form.

Thanks again for listening to the show.

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