Should My Life & Marriage Revolve Around Church?

Transcribed from the episode audio and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels are automated and may occasionally be off.

Rachel: Hi, everyone, and welcome to episode seven of the Conscious Christian Marriage podcast. We're so glad you're tuning in today. Wherever you're at, we appreciate you for being here. And on that note, let's just dive right in

Austin: Right to our appreciations

Rachel: To appreciations. First of all, I'm enjoying that shirt you're wearing.

Austin: Hmm. Thank you.

Rachel: I've been doing a lot of sample eyes, paint samples interesting colors. I really like that shirt.

Austin: Thank you. Yeah.

Rachel: I like that color

Austin: I picked it out. Amazon.com, baby.

Rachel: Yeah. that's not my appreciation for you, though. what I was gonna say is I really appreciate, the fun day we had yesterday, and how we tackled you initiated us tackling the mulch pile. And as a family, literally all scooping into the skid loader and then finishing it up with the skid loader. And the fun moments that we all had as a family, just joyfully working together. And then Malachi on the skid loader with you was the cutest thing in the world.

Austin: It is really fun actually having him in there with me.

Rachel: Skid loader.

Austin: Skid loader.

Rachel: Is that how he says it?

Austin: Yeah. Skid loader, yeah. Yeah, it's like if I even turn it on, like, you know, 300 yards away, he's like

Rachel: Yeah, we have to be

Austin: And he runs

Rachel: Careful about that for sure.

Austin: Yeah, we are. Yeah, we are careful really, but we could always be more careful 'cause yeah. I think the biggest thing I appreciate about you today is that, this last weekend we led a really big marriage retreat for another church and that was really fun. And, and, I just appreciate how, you showed up there. I just appreciate that, despite everything going on in our life and everything that's on our plates, you just did an incredible job and specifically just addressing, one woman, in one setting there, if you remember the morning of the second day. And just really helping this woman figure out some stuff from her past and how that was affecting her heart and her mind, and how she was showing up in her marriage and in her church and everything. And I just It was really cool just to watch you lead her in a way that really helped, I think, change her life in that moment. And, and then to see the way it changed how she engaged for the rest of the retreat and just the progress that it was so clear that she made.

And so just appreciate your heart for women and your ability to just hang with people in tough conversations, tough moments, and to help them get through things that, I think God has really equipped you to help other women with. So it's just really cool.

Rachel: Thanks, babe.

Austin: I'm proud to be your husband 'cause it's impressive. Like, as you're, as we're doing that work together, I'm always just like, "Oh, man, she's, sh this woman's awesome." Like, it just, yeah, it just always encourages me, so.

Rachel: Thanks. I did have a lot of fun, and I think the same thing about you. Not to, like, cheapen or divert from what you said, but

Austin: Yeah. Just focus

Rachel: I know the feeling.

Austin: Just receive.

Rachel: I receive that.

Austin: Just receive. Okay.

Rachel: And I did have a lot of fun with you.

Austin: Yeah, it was a good time. All right, so, today's episode is going to be, really centered around a question we get asked relatively often, and this was actually a question sort of submitted, kind of predicated by the last episode where we went through, I think, three questions. And, and so this one just kinda deepens some aspects of that conversation. So that question basically is, should my life revolve around church? And I think another way it's been asked too is, like, should my life and should our marriage revolve around church? And I think there's a lot of attachment even just with this question. I'm sure anyone listening to this, you know, their first thought might be like, "Oh, no," like, you know, "our marriage doesn't revolve around the church." And for some people it might be like, "Oh, yeah, well, that's like where we're called," you know? And so I think there's kind of like a, a blend there kind of between those two answers that we have really discovered in our marriage and in others that I think we're gonna land on today.

And so the question was should my life, should my marriage revolve around the church? And I think step one to answering this question is actually rephrasing the question just slightly. So what if we rephrase this question into, should my life revolve around the body of Christ? Should my life revi revolve around the body of Christ? Because that's what the Church is, right? I mean, we believe that the body of Christ is the Church in, in, in this present day. And so you know, 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that we are the body. You know, and Paul just got done talking about the body and its different members, and how people have different roles, and the eye does one thing, and the ears do one thing. And you know, and no one can say that one part of the body is not useful, because it's all part of the same body with Christ at the head. And so, but at the end of 1 Corinthians 12, I believe it's, 20, verse 24, he says, "We are the body.

You are the body." And so- Paul made it very clear in that letter and in several other spots that we are designed to be in the body of Christ. And so we, we can't exist outside of the body. Even though we are individual members of the body we are still of one body. And I think that's really, really important because then later Paul says in Ephesians 4, he says that the body is joined up and held together by, the tendons and every other ligament of the body. And so, you know, he's I might have, I might have phrased that slightly wrong, but you know, he's talking about, I believe, that we are all made up of the same body, and we're held together by each other. And so not only are we the body, and it's important to be in the body, but we all hold the body together. You know, it's led and guided and directed by Christ. There's a certain function for Like, think about on a physiological level, the body has We want homeostasis, right?

Where the body's working properly, it's surviving it's thriving, and it's, it's cohesive, and it's working together. That's, that's what God calls us to. And so the body can't work to that degree if all the members aren't participating. You know? So, like, if you're trying to walk forward and one foot is like, "I ain't moving," that makes it hard, right? You know? And so people live with these types of things. Like, I, I have back issues, you know? It's like sometimes I wanna do stuff and my back hurts, and it slows me down. It impedes me. And so we're called to be in the body, and we're called to participate in the body. I think we can make that a really fair statement. Yeah. That we are called to be a part of the body. Mm-hmm. Okay? Yeah. So the answer is yes. Yes. Well, yeah, and, and we'll get there. We'll, we'll, we'll continue to dive into this. And so, I think that, and we've talked about boundaries, agreements, all the, all the things that help you and I serve really well in the church.

Right. Uh-huh. And so, so second point I wanna go to real quick is there is real reward for service in the Kingdom of God- Mm-hmm for, for participation in the Church even. Yeah. And so there's tons of benefits as to being involved with your local church. Yeah. Friendships, being poured into, being discipled, being nurtured- Mm-hmm meeting friends. Like, I mean, so many of our amazing friends, of our closest friends, all go to our church with us. Yeah. it's a place where our kids get to be poured into by other people. It's a place where we have fun, you know? We do, like, really fun things as a church, too, you know? We get to serve the community. we get to be a light in our city, and in the cities around us. But we also get to have fun. Our kids have fun. Every Sunday- Yeah our kids are having fun at church. But the second thing I wanna share is that there is real reward to being a part of the body, okay?

Hebrews 6:10 says, "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them." Okay, Hebrews 11:6 says, "And without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." Mm. And Mark 10:29 says, "Truly I tell you," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive 100 times as much in this present age. Homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children, and fields, along with persecutions, and in the age to come, of eternal life." Hmm. You know, and then he, and then it goes on to say, "But many who will be first will be last and, and last first." And there's a whole nother point to that, but- Yeah when our life revolves around the body of Christ, it affects us in all kinds of ways.

And we'll talk specifically about a couple areas here in just a second. But, I really just believe that, you know, there's kinda two big goals we could have in life, you know? you know, number one is to truly fulfill the scripture, that's been set before us. You know, like number one- Yeah the Great Commission. Mm-hmm. You know, we are called to go make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of Jesus. we are called to love our neighbor, you know. We're called to, to be the body, to work with the body, to be with the body. And I think when we do that, everything else in our life makes more sense. Like, everything else just- Yeah works on a better level. And so the two big goals you could have, number one, you could want to fulfill scripture, and you could want to live a, a Christ-centered, godly, awesome life. But if there wasn't that, I mean, what would we do, you know?

The, the goal would be what? To live as long as you can, accumulate as many riches as you can, accumulate as many safeties, securities, et cetera. Mm-hmm. And then what? Die? I don't believe as Christians we're called to that. Yeah. You know, I don't believe as Christians we're called to, "Hey, we want you to be a Christian on Sunday, and, but for the rest of the week, like from Monday to Saturday, your goal is to kinda just go after the things that the world tells you to go after. But as long as you check in on Sunday and kinda round the base- Mm-hmm you know, okay, I'm back to church on Sunday, back to church on Sunday." I don't believe that is really living for the kingdom or really being part of the body. Yeah. I think, you know, and, and again, the question was, you know, should your life revolve around church? And I think in the most healthy way possible, yes. Mm-hmm. Because I think that at your church, at your local church, being a part of it, is where you can fulfill every commandment of scripture.

Mm-hmm. You know? and so of course, you know, you know, creating disciples can happen at church. It can happen outside of church. Yeah. You know, evangelism- Yeah and discipleship are two different things. Mm-hmm. You know? And so we can't always evangelize at church, even though new, new people are coming into the church, people that don't know Jesus yet are coming into the church, and we can evangelize to them. We still need to go out of the church to evangelize. But most of the great things are happening, that, that we're called to do, are happening in the church. Mm-hmm. So if our life's purpose, mission, vision, calling is to know God, love God, serve God, make disciples, bless our community, be a light, learn more about God, raise up our children to know God- Yeah to be in community with other couples, not just couples, but other people, we do a lot of that at church. And the more that we show up, the more that we are in small groups, the more that we serve, the more that we engage, the more that we plug in, I believe that God's calling on our life unfolds, you know?

And back to the reward piece, and I think I, I've said this on previous episodes before, that we don't believe in this prosperity gospel where, you know, if you tithe to the church, you're gonna get a Ferrari in the mail, you know? I mean, we don't believe that. But I do believe, and I'll take this to my grave, okay- Mm-hmm that the more that we are willing to give our time, money, energy, and resources to things that matter, specifically our faith, specifically our marriage, I believe God rewards us for that. I believe God blesses us for that. Yeah. He's designed it that way. Yeah. And I've seen 1,000 times over and over and over again where someone has decided to really start tithing or really start volunteering at church or really start investing in their marriage, and all of a sudden, right around the corner, some blessing happens. Yeah. And I believe Jesus really validates that in this passage in Mark because he's, he's literally saying, you know, no one who has ever given up all this stuff, poured into to be available for the kingdom of God, has never not received 100 times that- Mm-hmm in this life and in the, the age that is to come.

Mm-hmm. So I think in answering that question, and I'm excited to hear your thoughts on this, 'cause I know this has kind of been a monologue of mine here. It's a good one, though. Thank you. I really do believe that, as long as, and if you've watched our pe previous episodes, you'll kinda know where we stand on these things. As long as- Yeah good agreements are in place between- Mm you and the church, as long as good commitments are being honored, as long as And, and notice that on this list he doesn't say leave your spouse. Mm-hmm. You know, that's one thing. Yeah. You know, and so 'cause we believe marriage is your first ministry. Yeah. Is that even as a Christian, your number one ministry is your spouse. Because from this ministry, all other flow. And Jesus said, he said home, brothers, sisters, mother, father, children, or fields. He never said your spouse. 'Cause I really believe that God reserves that piece where it's like, "Hey," like, "I want your marriage right because you two are one flesh.

I want your marriage right before you're in service to the kingdom of God." You know? And, and, and look at, I think it's in 1 Timothy where, you know, Paul's talking about qualifications for overseers and deacons and leaders. And one of the biggest parts of that is a sound marriage. You know? And so I b- I believe it's a pretty common theme with both Jesus and in Paul's letters that's like, hey, God wants your marriage right. He wants your marriage right. And when your marriage is right, all other ministry can unfold from your life. And so, I really believe that the more we're willing to invest, you know, our heart, time, soul, strength, energy, money, all those things in the kingdom of God, I do believe that God blesses us for that. I do believe God shows up in big ways when we put Him first, 'cause that is a way that we put Him first.

Rachel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And one of the ways that He really does bless our spiritual walk, when we are, focusing on, you know, being involved in, or, you know, letting our lives revolve around the church or, you know, God's kingdom, when we're in church, it's this amazing thing that happens. I kinda had this epiphany today thinking about this where, you know, if we truly believe that God lives in us as Christians, like His Holy Spirit, we are conduits of His Holy Spirit. If we really believe that, then when we're in church, there's all these other people who are conduits of- God's Holy Spirit. So it's like opportunity for God to move here, there, there there, there, there, there. He can speak through you, you, you, you, you. Move here. And when we're all in one place, and we're all there, you know, where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am with them, so we know- God's there. And we know, you know, we're, when we're all there for one purpose, which is to worship the Lord, to seek the Holy Spirit, to ask for Holy Spirit to fill us guess what happens?

The Holy Spirit shows up, and He does really cool, awesome things. And, you know, those blessings that you talk about, I mean, many of them that we've experienced in our marriage is actually when we are in physically at our church. I mean the amount of cool God moments that happen, of course, God speaks to us in other ways, through each other, you know through quiet time,

Austin: Through nature, I mean.

Rachel: Through our farm, through our kids, through, you know, being out at the grocery store. But when I think about, like, compound memory ways that God has spoken to us is, like, the most probably at church

Austin: Well

Rachel: And the biggest, craziest, coolest ways.

Austin: Yeah. Well, and you just using the word compound makes me think about the compound effect of hundreds of people being in a room praying for the Holy Spirit to be there. And so we've seen the most God moments, some of the bi biggest, best God moments mo- God miraculous type moments when we've been in corporate worship with the body. You know? Where you've got, again, if you've got 300 people praying, that the Holy Spirit would fill them, would fill the room. You know, and this is just kind of a theological theory I have, but I think if, if the more people you have together that are praying that the Holy Spirit would be there, the Holy Spirit's gonna be there. You know, the odds are going to be that the Spirit's gonna be moving, and you can't help but osmose the Spirit being in the room with you. A a and there's so many things we've experienced that I've never experienced outside of being in church that I think I'm not sure if I would.

And I, and I'm not limiting God. He, He obviously could. But even times where we've been in services where people have been healed right before our very eyes. You know, I, I truly believe that when you've got a room full of 3, 4, 500 people all praying that God would do something big, and, and it happens, it's like I believe that there's this compound effect. It's kinda like on Elf, you know? There's the, the Claus meter, you know? You know?

Rachel: Did you just

Austin: N n not a direct theological I'm not making a, a hardline theological statement here, you know? But it's like, it's like on Elf.

Rachel: Just a visual picture for our listeners here.

Austin: Yeah, with the, with the, with the Claus meter, you know? Where it's like when everyone believes in Santa, you know, it powers the sleigh, and it's like but you've got this room full of people that everyone's coming together, and their faith is encouraging each other's faith. Their faith is inspiring each other's faith, that I believe that when your life revolves around church, it really does two powerful things, or when your life revolves around the body of Christ.

Rachel: Air quotes for those listening

Austin: Air

Rachel: Not watching

Austin: Air quotes. Yeah, did, did some air quotes there. Because, again, I think a lot of attachment comes with the Church 'cause a lotta people have been wounded, or their story at least is that, you know, maybe And, and, you know, the Church has definitely had instances and, and way too many instances than we probably wanna admit of, of abuse and taking advantage of people. You know? There's definitely been a lot of abuse in the Church. I'm not saying that at all. But for a lotta people, their story might be that they've been abused by the Church, misused by the Church. And of course, we really believe in a model of responsibility. See previous episodes where we talk about that, where it's our responsibility to regulate, our safeguards with the Church, how much we wanna serve with the Church, how to not be burned out at the Church. And so f- I think for a lotta people, life revolving around church might bring up a story of like, "Oh, I've tried that, and I was hurt by the Church."

And there could be a lotta reasons why that happened. Either you didn't regulate your commitment well, you just happened to serve alongside someone who was really broken and really wounded and really messed up and took it out on you, or maybe that church lacked the leadership, the Spirit-filled, convicted leadership that would support healthy culture. Whatever it was. Someone might have kind of an attachment to that idea. But I want those who are listening, I want you just to consider for a minute that your life could revolve around healthy engagement in the body, healthy engagement in the Church, healthy engagement for service in the kingdom of God. And you and I have had every flavor of that in our life. We have. I mean, we've had, we've had, we've had every flavor. You know, I- I've literally had a grown man, who basically attacked me in a board meeting. I mean, I've, I've been there. I've, I've been in those hard places. I've, I've been, you know, where I've come home and cried, you know, because it was just heavy and painful.

And so, but I really do believe that, God calls us- To find a healthy church, healthy people and healthy people can still be wounded. Healthy people can still make mistakes. But to find a church, a local church, that we can be really involved with. And I do believe that if we take the Great Commission seriously, if we take the greatest commandments seriously, if we take the calling on our life set forth by, by, by Jesus himself, we can't not kinda have our lives revolve around ministry, around being part of the Body of Christ. Because, you know, the Church is the nexus for that, you know? Because being the Body of Christ, you know, we have home groups from our church that meet all over the city, right? So it's not just in the walls. We're not talking about should your life revolve being in the walls of the address of your church. But we're saying your life could revolve around being a part of the body and in service to Christ, who heads that body.

That's what we're saying here. So there's two big areas of life that by doing this get affected. Number one is our personal spiritual lives, and number two, our marriage. So number one being our spiritual life, which we already just naturally got on this subject, is when we are more plugged into, when our life revolves around Because I think of the, worship and prayer night we had last year. you know. Why don't you share the story when John Lindell came in? Or actually, before you share it, let me just set it up. we wouldn't have been there if our life did not revolve around, air quotes, air quotes "life," air quotes "revolve around the Body of Christ." We probably wouldn't have been there. It's a Wednesday night. Our kids need to go to bed early. We have work commitments. We have all this other stuff. If our life really didn't revolve around prioritizing being a part of the body, we might not have even been there.

But we were there. And just, yeah, like, how did that night affect you?

Rachel: It was one of the coolest nights of my life. our church is a plant Well, our pastors came from James River. We love, Pastor John and Debbie Lindell. We really appreciate them. Lindell? I always say that.

Austin: Lindell, Lindell.

Rachel: Lindell. It's Lindell.

Austin: Lindell. It's Lindell. Yep, I knew that too.

Rachel: Love you guys. Know how to pronounce your name. yeah, so inspiring what God has done through them in, in their church and, God is really in the last maybe three years, God's been doing There's just been a huge move of the Holy Spirit. And we haven't just seen it at James River. We have friends in Florida. We have friends on different coasts that

Austin: Friends in Africa. I mean, yeah.

Rachel: Yeah. God is healing and moving and, like, physical healings happening, and so many really cool miracles, honestly. And, so John came to our church, and we were on the prayer team that night, which was a huge honor. Like, we were like, giddy excited and really got a short masterclass from him on prayer. And we were expecting to, like, pray for other people, which we did and, like, to see God do cool things for them. I was not expecting God to do anything, like, for me. I wasn't like, "This is for me. This is gonna be awesome." Like, "I wanna be healed." But, through that night, we had not one, not two, but three. You know, God has a s spiritual number with three. three people, three different people came up to us and basically prophetically spoke something over our lives. And so much so, I was laughing, crying. Like, we're- I was just like, "What is happening right now?" Laughing, crying. in between that, you know, praying for people's knees to be healed.

Pop, popping going away. Like, she'd had this popping pain in her knee.

Austin: For pregnancy.

Rachel: Yeah. Oh, prayed for pregnancy. Yes. That's a whole nother story if you wanna share.

Austin: We'll, I'll save that.

Rachel: God did lots of really cool things that night. And it as my good friend Julie Wolf would say, it marked me.

Austin: It marked you. It did.

Rachel: It, it marked me in a really cool special way.

Austin: And y and that happened because you created the opportunity for it by being there. By making our life's, one of our life's ma biggest focal points is being involved with our local church. And so by life revolving around it, like, we made things work. And again, we're not saying you need to, you know, make your life miserable so that you can show up at church as much as you want. That's

Rachel: If you haven't listened to the last episode

Austin: So, so, yeah, someone's gonna swing the pendulum on this episode

Rachel: Go do that

Austin: And say that's the statement. We're not saying that you should not work, not eat, not do anything except, you know, be inside the walls of your church. We're not saying that. But as difficult as it is sometimes to get four kids, feed them all dinner, get them to church drop them off at kids, and then be present and ready to serve on prayer team or worship team, whichever thing we're doing, sometimes that's intimidating. You know, sometimes it's like, "Oh, okay, well, it might be easier to stay home, and we can worship God in nature out in the woods," which we do. But we were there. And because we were there, we got to interact with the Spirit. And it really impacted us. It actually might have changed our course on a lot of things, you know? I mean, I think about just, I, you know, a month ago when you prayed for a woman who found a, a lump in her breast, and you and other people prayed for her at church, and later that day, she felt her breast get warm, and it disappeared.

You know? I mean, like- God has done miraculously cool things because we have revolved our life around the Body of Christ. And so the second area is our marriage. And this is really important because when our marriage revolves around the Body of Christ, here's something really cool. So we've worked with couples that have been married tw e everywhere from newlyweds, w well, everywhere from pre-marriage doing premarital counseling, all the way up to people who've been married 40, 50, 60 years, right? And one common thing we hear from couples is, "Oh, you know, we've been married 30 years. We know everything about each other. We've done it all. We've gone on all the vacations. We've bought all the houses and the cars and the 401 s, and we've raised kids and grandkids, and we've done everything." And sometimes there's discontent that comes with that because the brain loves solving mysteries and finding connections and little sparky things and if you've, if you've married someone for 30, 40 years, and even 20 years, even 10 years, you might know every single thing about them.

And so, w one school of thought we pull a lot from, is Gottman, is the Gottman Institute, and, they have this, Sound Relationship House model that we love, and we use different pieces of it for different things. And, and kinda the, the top of this house, you know, you build a good foundation of the marriage, and the top of the house is creating shared meaning. And, and we also use a, a phrase co-create, which comes from the Hendricks world, which is another place we have training from. And, and we really believe in this idea that when we can center our life around a common vision, a shared vision shared purpose, shared meaning, then the amount of love we can create is endless. Now, in in certain models, that might just be more worldly driven, okay? But in our model, as, as being Christians, we're driven by this idea that when we center our marriage around the body of Christ, our marriage has unlimited vision, unlimited purpose, unlimited potential, unlimited amazing things to do together.

You know, because no matter if we know everything about each other and we've experienced everything in life, there is a, a never ending, man, what's the right word? A n never underending Or a never ending journey, mission, purpose, expansive opportunities, ways to serve love, ways to heal, ways to encounter people, ways to point people to God, work to be done. Call it work, mission field, harvest, whatever it is. That when our marriage is centered around the body of Christ, we'll never be bored. We'll never be bored with each other, okay? We'll never be bored with each other.

Rachel: Rewind this for like a minute and listen to that again. Because that's so good.

Austin: 'Cause so many couples act like they get bored with each other, you know? Because if their vision and purpose and values are unknown and really small, they will get bored with each other.

Rachel: Yeah. And boredom is what people say the devil's playground.

Austin: Yeah, that's right. And so if, if the, if the purpose of their marriage is just to fulfill their own happiness they will come up short. But if the purpose of their marriage is to engage in the, in the Kingdom of God and be involved in the body of Christ, I mean, that I think about that Wednesday night service, where John and his team came in. I could do that every day for the rest of my life, and I would never get bored of that. I would never get tired of that. I'd never get bored of it. And doing it with you- I mean, we're right there holding hands while we're praying for people. Like, and so it's so much bigger than us. It's so much bigger than our daily stuff. It's so much bigger than our household, our ecosystem, all that. It's service in the Kingdom of God. And when our marriage is centric to that, then we will forever have purpose, significance, meaning, excitement, energy.

That will never go away. And that is something that can bond us and keep us together through anything, no matter what, and lead to happiness. You know, that's the other ancillary benefit is happiness, fulfillment, excitement, all those things.

Rachel: Yeah. And when I think of some of the most exciting times in our life or the most intimately connected I've been with you would be in those It's like through that spiritual intimacy that comes through the Holy Spirit, like, moving in such a big, powerful way. And yeah, like, He sustains us in a really cool way to where whatever's going on, it doesn't even matter. We're just so excited, so happy, so joyful. and experiencing that with our kids is incredible. you know, even praying over our kids together, bringing that home, everything that we experience through that and through the move of the Holy Spirit that we've been experiencing over the last, like, three or four years has been incredible.

Austin: Yeah. And I think, too, I think we mentioned this earlier, just the friendships, the relationships, the opportunities and everything that we experience being involved, involved in the body of Christ. We wouldn't get to experience those things if our life didn't revolve, air quotes, around it. You know? Like, if we didn't prioritize being there. Because you can't help it. Like, if you're in the house of the Lord with God's people the Spirit will move. And work will be done for the Kingdom of God. And there's nothing more fulfilling than that. There's really not. Because we've accomplished a lot of cool things, and it's all cool. Don't get me wrong. Like you know. But I think the most significant, most purposeful, meaningful parts of our life, and it's been in service, you know, of God. And I think about you said sustains. God has sustained us, you know? And I believe that, you know, we teach this in, in counseling and when we're doing work with couples all the time.

It's like God could just snap His fingers and heal anything, fix anything just reverse any cycle, reverse any trauma, do all that i i if He wanted to. And if He felt like that was best, I think He would do it, and I think He does do it. And there's some times where He requires us to work through it. I, I know that, you know, we, we talk about reward earlier, right? I know there have been times where in our marriage and with our kids and with our, our world that God has done miraculous things to help us because we have been fully involved, and we have revolved our life around the body of Christ. I believe that just the proximity to the body and the investment in the body, God has done things in our marriage, to bless us, to love us, to heal us, to help us move on from past things to help us connect on more intimate levels as like a, a reward.

You know, as like a reward for, being faithful. And you know, a lot of Christians are afraid to say this, and we're just not. Like, we really stand by this. But if you are faithful and if you are diligent and committed and have high integrity with your walk, with your faith, with your time, talent, energy, resources, money, et cetera, to help advance the Kingdom of God, God will bless you. It may not be a Ferrari in the mail. It might be. I don't know. But it probably won't be a Ferrari in the mail. But it's gonna be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness all the fruits of the spirit. It's gonna be the way God provides for you. It's gonna be the way God takes care of you, protects you. We really do believe that God gives us reward for being faithful. You know, even- I think it's in Peter, you know, the prayers of a faithful man are heard.

Rachel: Of the righteous, yeah.

Austin: Of, of the righteous are heard. You know? And so we really do believe that the way we show up will affect the way God shows up in our life, too.

Rachel: Well, and we've seen that. I mean

Austin: Yeah, countless

Rachel: Without going into crazy detail, one of the hardest, most difficult seasons in our life was right before we had our son, our fourth child. I was nine months pregnant, and that was when there was a really big uptick in COVID. really intense COVID sickness in summer of 2021, and you got it really bad. long story short, we had close friends lose loved ones. The person who gave it to you, the person who gave it to him died. And that person was a close friend of yours that gave it to you. didn't know it. It was a whole thing, and it was okay. Like, there's grace there. Our parents went into the hospital.

Austin: We were in the hospital.

Rachel: Yeah, both you and I were at the hospital till, like, 3:00 AM, as I'm, like, literally like

Austin: Nine months

Rachel: I'm trying not to go into labor right now- 'cause I wouldn't do well, because I'm coughing so much. And so but there was not a day I mean, this was before we had our baby and then after. There was at least two solid weeks where we were literally stuck on the couch with three small daughters in the heat of summer inside sickly

Austin: Sick

Rachel: Like death sickly ill

Austin: Sick, sick, sick

Rachel: That people And people couldn't come in and, like, wait on us, right, because we had COVID. But we were not alone. Like that gets me. We were not alone. The Spirit carried us through that, but through the body of Christ. And every single day, multiple times a day

Austin: Every single day.

Rachel: There was something on our porch. There was a meal sent on our phone, you know, through DoorDash. There was

Austin: Meals left on the porch

Rachel: Gifts and goodie bags for our girls to keep them busy. Non-stop body of Christ showing up. And did this happen because we sat in the back row and didn't engage in our church all those years? No. It happened because we were that. We When you engage in the body of Christ, we don't ever do it to get something out of it, right? We do it because it's our calling, and we love it, and it's fulfilling and for all the reasons that we've said. But when it came time to be poured into

Austin: Yeah, we were poured into

Rachel: Like, man, we were poured into. And it was a huge blessing. And that's what the body of Christ is when we all show up and, and love. You know, you talked about the scripture, you know, the legs and the foot and the arm, you know. Like, when we all do our part and just

Austin: The body works

Rachel: Love others. Yeah, the body works so well, and it's such an honor, and it's such, such a gift. And we've been able to both give and receive. I think a lot of us have a hard time receiving. And I think sometimes God puts us through those seasons to be like, "Hey, you know what? Like, this is part of being in the body of Christ is actually receiving." You love to bless people, but guess what? You can't Like, the body can't just bless, bless, bless with nobody to bless. You know? Like, there has to be receivers.

Austin: And most people become, most people become better givers when they allow themselves to receive. 'Cause that's step one. Step one is really just receiving. 'Cause most people will not give past the level in which they're willing to receive, especially love especially care. Yeah, I, and I kind of forgot about that. I didn't even know where you were going with that. And I appreciate that you shared that because yeah, I mean when it was time for us to be in need, you know- I mean, I remember I, you know, I couldn't hardly walk without coughing and then throwing up and, 'cause I

Rachel: My husband was in the ER

Austin: 'cause I had pneumonia. Yeah, 'cause I had, I had COVID pneumonia. And, and so yeah, I mean, every day people were coming over to our house. We even had a friend come stay at our house for like three days who, has a, a medical practice and stayed with us instead and just took, helped take care of us. And

Rachel: Yeah, she was the one that stayed with our kids when we were in the ER. Both you and I.

Austin: Yeah, I know. Yeah. Wow. And so, so like you said, if we had not been engaged in the body of Christ, would that have happened, you know? And, and we're not, again, we're not guaranteeing some something for something. But we're but here's what I'm guaranteeing you is that if you pour into the Kingdom of God and you are faithful, God will bless you. He will.

Rachel: Well, and another

Austin: We're just promised it. We're promised it in too many places to deny it.

Rachel: Yeah. And another point in that is God doesn't promise us a life without difficulty or pain or humanity or suffering. He doesn't promise Like, that's heaven, right?

Austin: Yeah, that's heaven.

Rachel: Like, that's the promise and the reward of heaven. We are living in a fallen world where there is entropy, there is sickness, there is death, there is sadness. But when we are a part of the body of Christ and when we serve the mighty God we do get to experience that heaven here on Earth. And I believe a huge part of experiencing that on Earth is by being a part of the body of Christ is

Austin: And that's to know the richness of love. Is, is we have to know the richness of pain. You know, and because of that and the, the amount of love, like, that we received in that season like, by contrast, it really showed me how powerful that love looks like from, from the church, from the body of Christ. So, really good thoughts. Appreciate that. all right, so let's take a pause real quick. we're gonna talk about our nonprofit for today. I'm gonna let Rachel share this one. It's pretty near and dear to both of our hearts but especially to hers.

Rachel: Yeah. I'm very excited to tell you all about Mercy Multiplied. Their website is mercymultiplied.com. their founder, Nancy Alcorn, is really closely connected with the pastors of our church, Summit Park Church. she's come and spoken at Summit Park Church. We just love her so much, even though I've only met her once. Actually, she doesn't, she's never met me. I've seen her on the pulpit. I highly respect her love her and her heart for, you know, being the body of Christ to the world. And, her story you can read, I'm sure. Go on her Instagram, on their website. very impactful. But her mission, what she believed God told her, was to start a ministry. It's a resident program where they help women ages 13 to 32, with pregnancy, with, you know, working through trauma and homelessness and, all kinds of different support for them. but she said they wanted it to be a residency program that's 100% free to the women in need. And to this day, the Lord has provided 100% of their needs at

Austin: For 40 years

Rachel: For 40 years. They just celebrated 40 years. So God's moving and shaking and doing awesome things through Mercy Multiplied. But we would like you to go give and donate to them. Take a second to give five, $5,000- $500,000 to their organization because we really love them, stand behind them. And you can know when you're giving to Mercy Multiplied, you are giving

Austin: It's Yeah

Rachel: Directly to some amazing things that God is doing.

Austin: All right, so our big action item, our big action item, intention, commitment that we want you all to consider, after listening to today's episode that we believe will make a huge impact on your life, is pretty simple. It's really just two things. At your local church First of all, if you don't have a local church, find a local church. We'd invite you to ours, okay? And if you live within

Rachel: Depending on where you live.

Austin: And if you live within 30 minutes of Lee's Summit, Missouri, we really want you to come to our church, but if you live outside of 30 minutes, we would encourage you, find a local church, a church that's in your community, a place that you can, be at and thrive and grow. I want you to find a local church, but there's, there's two things. Number one, be a part of a small group or a discipleship group at your church, period. when we talk about our lives revolving around church or revolving around the Body of Christ, one of the best ways that you can get involved and get cemented and connected and excited is to be in a small group. Find other people to do life with at your church. There's a lot of synergy, alignment of values, a lot, a lot of flow. You know, we, we always talk about, you know, things being in our river. we hang out with the people in our life group.

We do life with the people in our life group, and it's just an amazing way to stay really grounded and excited about the church, and to be loved and to be poured into, okay? And number two is find an area of your church you can serve in. Okay? F because, you know, this is also just human nature. It's our spirit nature, but it's also our human nature. We love being stretched. We love being impactful. We love significance. We love, using the talents that God gave us. it feels good. It feels good. What we don't wanna be is this old, dusty tool on a shelf with no purpose, with no use anymore, okay? my goal is someday that I'm, I die on my feet. I wanna die vertically hopefully serving in the Kingdom of God, helping people, doing something great. But, we feel most alive when we're being utilized, when we're being useful. And so find an area of your church you can serve in. Okay, we're on worship team.

We're on prayer team. I, I'm in charge of the security team, and our safety and medical team at our church. And so, we love to serve, and we love to be involved. and so find a place that you can serve in, and that will help you, one, be in service to the Kingdom of God, two, to know that you're giving back the gifts God gave you back to the Church, and that you're helping people. You're really, truly serving people. you're helping people find and follow God by doing that. You will see your marriage expand. You'll see your personal spiritual life expand, when you find yourself invol at least more involved with the Body of Christ than not, okay? and so you might wanna take baby steps in just getting more involved with the Body, but, that's really our prayer for you. It's our encouragement for you. and we believe if you'll do that, you'll see God show up in amazing ways in your life, so.

Rachel: Yeah. All right, until next time, like, subscribe, give us a good rating, and comment your questions if you want your question to be featured on a future episode. We'll see you next time.