Grace is for You: The Heart of Serge for All People

[music]

Welcome to Grace at the Fray, a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His Kingdom.

[music]

0:00:22.6 Jim Lovelady: Hello beloved. Welcome back to Grace at the Fray. So, just in case you’re new to this podcast and to the ministry of Serge, we’re a cross-denominational global mission sending agency active in almost 30 countries across five continents. We’re committed to keeping the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of his grace, central to all that we do. And we know that we never outgrow our own need for grace, even as we take the good news of that grace to the nations. And we believe that the power of God for mission is uniquely expressed through weak people who know they need Jesus every minute of every day. For us, this podcast is one way that we, as a mission, seek to nurture a culture of grace in Christian communities in North America and all over the world. And the Serge Renewal Ministry has an ever-growing library of ministry resources that you can explore at serge.org/renewal. And at the end of this episode, I’m gonna highlight a few of those resources that will help you to continue to grow in the realm of today’s conversation. 

 

0:01:33.8 Jim Lovelady: My guest today is Kellie Brown, and she’s no stranger to the podcast. She and her husband, Howard, were guests for season 3, episode 10, where they talked about ministry burnout. I’ll leave a link in the show notes for that episode, but today it’s Kellie’s turn to tell her story. She recently joined Serge’s renewal team to lead a new ministry called Kinship, which takes Serge’s gospel Renewal curriculum called Sonship and contextualizes it for the African American community. So when she came into the studio, I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to hear her talk about her vision for seeing the gospel shape a culture of grace in the African-American communities that she serves. So when I was in Peru last year interviewing Serge missionary Ben Lewis, he told me that he feels called to bring the gospel to legalists who have forgotten the love of God. And I was struck by how he’s contextualizing the gospel for the people he’s ministering to. And I think it’s something similar for Kellie. I think of Kellie as a missionary, someone who’s called to bring the gospel to a certain kind of people. 

 

0:02:40.3 Jim Lovelady: She’s a missionary not to another country, a missionary because she’s ministering to folks that God has called her to, folks that she loves and folks she knows God loves deeply, folks that need to hear the gospel. We’re gonna talk a lot about how she wants to see grace get worked out for them, where she sees them struggling, getting stuck, ruining their lives. Where she sees the gospel as an invitation to freedom and joy, her hopes and dreams for the people that she loves. I think of Kellie as a missionary, but really, that’s because she’s a follower of Jesus. And that means if you’re a follower of Jesus, you too are a missionary. Followers of Jesus are on the journey of reorienting their life around the good news of Jesus, which empowers us to love God and to love others. So here’s my question for you. Who in your life needs to be reminded that God delights in them? Who needs a new experience of freedom from the things that are ruining them? When I say, God’s grace is for everyone, who comes to your mind, where you say, well, not that person. Full disclosure. By the end of this episode, my prayer for you is that you would have a more generous posture toward others, thinking, if I can experience God’s grace, I want everyone to experience God’s grace.

[music]

0:04:13.3 Jim Lovelady: We should do a podcast.

 

0:04:16.8 Kellie Brown: I guess. We weren’t?

 

0:04:18.1 Jim Lovelady: You’re dangerous.

 

0:04:18.9 Kellie Brown: We weren’t?

 

0:04:20.1 Jim Lovelady: I mean, we’re recording. We’re recording. I can put whatever I want in the podcast. 

 

0:04:24.8 Kellie Brown: Yes, you can. 

 

0:04:26.0 Jim Lovelady: But when you move here, we should just co-host and…

 

0:04:27.7 Kellie Brown: The third person today to say that.

 

0:04:29.6 Jim Lovelady: It’s because you looked good in that office.

 

0:04:31.3 Kellie Brown: Third person today to say that, too.

 

0:04:33.1 Jim Lovelady: No, you know, I said that to you earlier. It doesn’t count when the same person says it twice.

 

0:04:36.1 Kellie Brown: Oh, maybe it was. Well, third time I heard it.

 

0:04:39.4 Jim Lovelady: So, how has it been going?

 

0:04:41.5 Kellie Brown: Amazing.

 

0:04:42.2 Jim Lovelady: How long have y’all been in Atlanta?

 

0:04:43.6 Kellie Brown: It’ll be three years in August.

 

0:04:47.5 Jim Lovelady: Church planning. Near the airport.

 

0:04:49.8 Kellie Brown: Near the airport.

 

0:04:51.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. It’s hard work.

 

0:04:52.3 Kellie Brown: It is hard work. It is hard work. Yeah, it’s hard work. This is our third involvement with a church plan. Two that we did. Second one that we’ve done together. Done at all. But our third church plant. And we just realized that we have been very different people and in a very different life stage for each one. And so I often find myself, usually I’m in the kitchen cleaning up after an event, thinking, how did I do this last time last time? Oh, I didn’t. I, had newborn and a toddler, so we didn’t do anything in our house. And…

 

0:05:44.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. However many people you had over, and how many Crock-Pots full of beans or whatever. I can’t remember what it was you said, that you were hosting some few people?

 

0:05:52.3 Kellie Brown: Oh, the chili cook-off. It’s a…

 

0:05:53.6 Jim Lovelady: Is that what it was?

 

0:05:53.8 Kellie Brown: Mm-hmm. We did a chili cook-off at the church, and we had a building early, early on. So a lot of things happened there because I’m just going, well, I don’t remember this part. Like that tactile muscle memory of, you know, especially if you’re a hospitality-minded person, there’s an order, there’s a process, a procedure. Regardless of how big or small the event or the space is, some things have to happen in a particular progression. And so I find myself either setting up or cleaning up, and I’m like, I don’t… What did I used to do? And I’m like…

 

0:06:40.5 Jim Lovelady: You were taking care of kids.

 

0:06:41.5 Kellie Brown: I didn’t do it. Yeah, I didn’t do it. So it’s new for me.

 

0:06:45.5 Jim Lovelady: Interesting.

 

0:06:46.3 Kellie Brown: We talk about being, I’m in my 50s, right? So what your body can’t do as well. For me, what I don’t do as well is get overwhelmed. I’m just… 

 

0:07:05.0 Jim Lovelady: This is what you’ve discovered.

 

0:07:06.4 Kellie Brown: Mm-hmm. It can wait. I’m not dealing with that tonight. There is sticky stuff on the floor, and I’ll clean up the basic stuff. We’ll do that together. But it’ll be there tomorrow.

 

0:07:19.6 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:07:19.8 Kellie Brown: I don’t have to do this tonight.

 

0:07:21.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. The urgency of everything has to be in its right place.

 

0:07:25.9 Kellie Brown: Yeah. So that I don’t lose my mind.

 

0:07:27.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:07:28.5 Kellie Brown: Because it’s gonna take a couple of hours, and I’d rather just go to bed. Yeah. I’m going to bed.

 

0:07:34.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:07:36.1 Kellie Brown: Now I also don’t have toddlers that will come and be all in the sticky stuff, right?

 

0:07:41.4 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:07:41.7 Kellie Brown: So I don’t have to clean it up because I don’t have that issue anymore. But just the mental freedom, the grace to give myself and say it’s okay if all this is crazy looking tomorrow. And then it’s, well, what if somebody comes by? Then we’ll say, look what happened yesterday.

 

0:07:59.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

 

0:08:01.6 Kellie Brown: And that’s okay.

 

0:08:02.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. I’ll never forget when I was in seminary, my church got their new building, and it was brand spanking new. And my mentor, the associate pastor who’s at the church. From the pulpit, he’s like, look, we need someone, basically, something to the effect of we need someone to spill something quick, just get it over with now…

 

0:08:24.5 Kellie Brown: To knock that edge off that.

 

0:08:25.6 Jim Lovelady: So that idol of this being the perfect place.

 

0:08:29.4 Kellie Brown: Some precious space.

 

0:08:29.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. He said, that stain on the carpet actually represents something beautiful.

 

0:08:36.8 Kellie Brown: That’s exactly right. Yes.

 

0:08:38.3 Jim Lovelady: Of the life of the church is happening.

 

0:08:40.4 Kellie Brown: That’s exactly right.

 

0:08:41.0 Jim Lovelady: This is what… It’s supposed to have stains. What do you think the building is for?

 

0:08:45.3 Kellie Brown: It’s lived in. 

 

0:08:47.0 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:08:47.4 Kellie Brown: People are getting loved on.

 

0:08:48.3 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:08:49.3 Kellie Brown: Conversations are being had, lives are being changed. And it looks, it looks lived in.

 

0:08:54.2 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. That’s right.

 

0:08:54.7 Kellie Brown: Yeah. That’s right.

 

0:08:55.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So sticky floors and sticky kids. It’s just life.

 

0:09:00.0 Kellie Brown: That’s just part of it. Yeah. That means there’s some good stuff happening…

 

0:09:03.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:09:03.9 Kellie Brown: In there. That’s exactly true.

 

0:09:05.1 Jim Lovelady: So it’s been good.

 

0:09:06.1 Kellie Brown: It has been good. We have not advertised at all. And God just keeps bringing people. And I am learning, Atlanta, unlike Charlotte, at least in my experience, is very networked. You just know somebody that knows somebody. The degree of separation is so much tighter, and it’s so easy. It is. But we went to New York City. New York. What kind of accent is that? New York City. I don’t know what that was. Maybe it was Midwestern…

 

0:09:38.8 Jim Lovelady: New York City. 

 

0:09:40.4 Kellie Brown: We went to a little cigar bar in Village, something Village.

 

0:09:46.0 Jim Lovelady: The West Village?

 

0:09:46.9 Kellie Brown: Greenwich Village.

 

0:09:47.7 Jim Lovelady: Oh, Greenwich Village. Got you.

 

0:09:48.4 Kellie Brown: We went to Greenwich Village.

 

0:09:49.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

 

0:09:50.6 Kellie Brown: And we had gone to dinner, and Howard googled it to find a cigar bar, cigar lounge, and we could walk there, and we did. And we’re sitting there, and I think there was some kind of, somebody’s championship game. I can’t remember. So when championships are going on, people talk across tables, and all that stuff is going. This community, communal sort of experience. Two guys next to us, and Howard strikes up a conversation with him, the two of them. He shares that we just moved to Atlanta. Guy says… And as he’s talking, we’re realizing he’s a big dog in Nike or Adidas or something like that.

 

0:10:31.1 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting.

 

0:10:31.7 Kellie Brown: He’s a big corner office type of dude. He’s a heavy hitter. And Howard is talking about Atlanta, and the guy says, well, I went to school and so and so and so. And I’m from the south and all of that. Thing happens. And, you know, Atlanta, what part? It’s like College Park, East Point, kind of southwest of there. And he’s like, “Yeah, a buddy of mine is in Atlanta. He’s an actor.” Whatever, whatever. And his name is Evan Park. And we’re like, he’s in our core group. 

 

0:11:03.5 Jim Lovelady: No way. It’s a small world.

 

0:11:05.4 Kellie Brown: Bananas. Bananas. Now, Evan is from New York, but this guy is from Georgia. It’s a mind screen.

 

0:11:12.2 Jim Lovelady: I love how the Lord is making sure that these connections are made as you guys are planting…

 

0:11:15.6 Kellie Brown: You cannot say it was you. 

 

0:11:17.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:11:18.1 Kellie Brown: You have to say it was the Lord. There’s just no way that people can orchestrate how all these folks have come and crossed over. And then they walk in the door to an event, because most everything is at our house, and they sit down and in some kind of way, they have crossed over and strangers. Oh, didn’t you go… I was at so and so. Did you used to go there? Oh, I follow you on Instagram.

 

0:11:50.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. Connections.

 

0:11:51.9 Kellie Brown: Connections.

 

0:11:52.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. That’s so cool.

 

0:11:53.9 Kellie Brown: And so it’s, we’re about to outgrow our house.

 

0:11:58.8 Jim Lovelady: Wow.

 

0:11:59.5 Kellie Brown: Which we didn’t expect would happen until at least the end of this year. But when you’re forecasting and planning all this stuff, we were thinking probably 2026, and I think it’s gonna happen. It could happen before the end of the summer. And we have two pastoral families moving from where they are to…

 

0:12:21.3 Jim Lovelady: To come join staff?

 

0:12:22.8 Kellie Brown: Yes. Yes.

 

0:12:24.0 Jim Lovelady: It’s been remarkable.

 

0:12:25.0 Kellie Brown: It has been remarkable. It has just been remarkable. And so we’re really focusing in on our core group and trying to establish deep roots, good connectivity, and community between them, and healthy Christian growth for that core group. Even though all of these people who are sort of kind of dating us, if you will, and there’s lots of them around. But we’re just trying to focus on our, I think, 11 people right now, teaching them what hospitality is, how you do it. Kind of shifting this pattern of the pastor and his wife do everything. They talk to all the people, they make all the connections. No.

 

0:13:11.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, we’re gonna equip you.

 

0:13:13.0 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:13:13.5 Jim Lovelady: We’re not gonna be the “professionals” here.

 

0:13:17.0 Kellie Brown: No, you gotta do it. 

 

0:13:17.7 Jim Lovelady: The professional Christians.

 

0:13:18.2 Kellie Brown: That’s right.

 

0:13:18.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:13:19.2 Kellie Brown: In fact, we’re waiting. The next step is to go into their communities. So the city of South Fulton is southwest Atlanta. We have people coming from 45 miles east in Conyers and Covington. 

 

0:13:35.4 Jim Lovelady: Whoa. 

 

0:13:35.6 Kellie Brown: 35 miles west in Kennesaw, 20 miles south in Fayetteville. I don’t even know how far Dunwoody is. People are coming from literally every corner of the metropolitan area of Atlanta. 

 

0:13:52.9 Jim Lovelady: Wow.

 

0:13:53.6 Kellie Brown: So we’re really trying to also get people to think that their homes and where they live is an extension of this future church. One day God will, God willing, give us a building. Whether we rent it or whatever. But COVID taught us a lot. Church is not the building.

 

0:14:15.5 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:14:16.3 Kellie Brown: It shouldn’t be. Sometimes we think our little building is so precious.

 

0:14:20.7 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:14:21.1 Kellie Brown: But we’re the church.

 

0:14:22.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:14:22.6 Kellie Brown: And where you go, you take the church. And so let’s figure out how to get into your communities and do the same thing at your house to bring in your neighbors and your friends, especially if they don’t have to travel 35 miles to come and hang out.

 

0:14:37.3 Jim Lovelady: Because that’s unrealistic for the long term. But the hope of creating just movements of the Kingdom here and there and there and there…

 

0:14:47.7 Kellie Brown: That’s right.

 

0:14:48.0 Jim Lovelady: In this huge radius of the Atlanta area.

 

0:14:52.4 Kellie Brown: That’s what we’re hoping to do. That’s not the mindset of most, I would say, American evangelical churches. It’s certainly not the mindset of most African American churches, for good and bad reasons. I’m not gonna pass judgment on that, but I do think it’s time to reorient the way we think about the church and the ministry of the church and its reach. The Sunday morning is just Sunday morning. This is the beginning.

 

0:15:24.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

0:15:24.8 Kellie Brown: The whole rest of the week, what is the church doing? You don’t have to come to this building.

 

0:15:29.8 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:15:30.4 Kellie Brown: So that’s what we’re trying to kind of teach and get people’s mindsets geared up around, and honestly just have a chance to do more gospel work without having the boundary of a building or a specific area. But we also don’t know what God is saying. It seems like He’s saying something different than we thought He was saying, because we thought the church would be in the city of South Fulton, but nobody is from the city of South Fulton.

 

0:16:02.5 Jim Lovelady: Which is… Yeah. That is interesting. It really is interesting.

 

0:16:05.2 Kellie Brown: It’s like, what do you… What’s this mean, Lord?

 

0:16:07.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:16:07.8 Kellie Brown: We all know. So we’re just waiting to see what He says, and…

 

0:16:12.1 Jim Lovelady: It looks like you and Howard are like the bishop of a huge area, and you’re gonna be developing all these parishes all over the place.

 

0:16:19.8 Kellie Brown: I think so. I think so.

 

0:16:21.3 Jim Lovelady: I love that all of this is you equipping the saints for mission, equipping them to go on mission. And so you’re doing that. If that wasn’t enough, you’ve joined the Renewal team here at Serge.

 

0:16:37.0 Kellie Brown: I have. 

 

0:16:37.6 Jim Lovelady: Welcome.

 

0:16:37.9 Kellie Brown: Thank you.

 

0:16:39.3 Jim Lovelady: You’re the newest member of the Renewal team. You’ve been here for a while, but you’re still the newest.

 

0:16:44.1 Kellie Brown: I am.

 

0:16:44.8 Jim Lovelady: And so it’s really exciting to see how you’re going to be taking all of these things, integrating all of these things, but also partnering with the Renewal team. And so I just want to hear a little bit about what that’s looked like for you, specifically on this theme of equipping the saints to go on mission. Because I think of you as a missionary.

 

0:17:07.5 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:17:07.8 Jim Lovelady: A lot of people don’t think of… They don’t think of people who stay, who live here in the United States, and are ministering to the people around them as missionaries.

 

0:17:20.7 Kellie Brown: That’s right. 

 

0:17:21.4 Jim Lovelady: But there is a missionary…

 

0:17:22.5 Kellie Brown: Absolutely. 

 

0:17:23.2 Jim Lovelady: Missional energy.

 

0:17:23.9 Kellie Brown: That’s right.

 

0:17:24.5 Jim Lovelady: And that’s what you guys are doing. But then you’re also joining the Renewal team to bring that in. So I want to hear. I want to hear what you love about Serge and renewal and the Sonship and the Kinship stuff, and then also how you’re thinking in terms of the way that the people that you’re ministering to and caring for are discovering the gospel afresh.

 

0:17:49.0 Kellie Brown: Yeah, that’s good. So Kinship is the, we’re still trying to kind of formalize language around it, but what I’ve been saying is it is the contextualized Sonship material. And Kinship specifically for what I’m doing is the contextualization of that gospel transformation material for African Americans and African American church leaders. And so that started as Rooted in 2020, and the first conference happened in Charlotte at the church we were pastoring, Howard was pastoring back then, days before the world shut down with COVID.

 

0:18:31.5 Jim Lovelady: Was it early March?

 

0:18:34.0 Kellie Brown: Literally days. I think whatever weekend, whatever few days that was, it wasn’t a full seven days later. It was coming. It was like everything was; we were on edge. And so we got started, and then we stopped. As anybody who is doing anything, COVID put the brakes on that, and it went from Rooted to Kinship. One, because we like the kind of rhyming element with Sonship, but also because one of the major tenets of the African American community is just that community.

 

0:19:18.4 Jim Lovelady: Everybody gets that… When you say that word. Even apart from whatever theological kind of connotations you’re wanting to bring in, when you say that word, people are like, oh, I’m tracking.

 

0:19:26.8 Kellie Brown: Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It automatically gives you more information.

 

0:19:29.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah. You’re speaking the language.

 

0:19:31.2 Kellie Brown: Yes.

 

0:19:31.7 Jim Lovelady: If we’re talking about what it means to be a missionary.

 

0:19:34.5 Kellie Brown: Absolutely. 

 

0:19:34.9 Jim Lovelady: Learn to speak the language. Yeah.

 

0:19:36.5 Kellie Brown: That’s right. 

 

0:19:37.4 Jim Lovelady: And you just know. You know what Kinship means.

 

0:19:38.3 Kellie Brown: You just know what it means. That’s right. And so there’s this community that I understand who I am as a child of God, not just primarily through my relationship with God, but also my relationship with God’s people.

 

0:19:51.7 Jim Lovelady: Amen. Yeah.

 

0:19:52.6 Kellie Brown: And so got restarted. I think it was ’22 with our second conference, which was also in Atlanta. And then ’23 was the last… Or ’24 was the last one, which was in Atlanta, which makes it great since we live there now. But, yeah, Kinship, Sonship. Sonship was impactful to me. Howard and I did Sonship, Mentor Sonship. Gosh, I think it was like ’17, ’18, 2017, 2018. It was the first time that I, and I’m a former campus outreach person, I’m a ministry leader, church woman for 30 years.

 

0:20:36.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:20:36.8 Kellie Brown: But it was the first time there felt like there was this honed, specific, intentional attention and discipleship around grace. Not just grace being one of the things, but grace kind of being where things flowed out of, specifically about me and who I am, and how I live my life.

 

0:21:05.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:21:05.7 Kellie Brown: I’d never experienced anything like that before so intensely.

 

0:21:08.6 Jim Lovelady: It’s like the Lord goes… The Lord goes, “Hey, you’ve been ministering this, but I want to sit down with you.”

 

0:21:15.0 Kellie Brown: That’s exactly right.

 

0:21:15.7 Jim Lovelady: I want to sit down with Kellie Brown.

 

0:21:16.9 Kellie Brown: That’s exactly right.

 

0:21:17.8 Jim Lovelady: And show Kellie Brown what grace to Kellie Brown looks like.

 

0:21:21.8 Kellie Brown: Because you don’t believe what you’re saying.

 

0:21:23.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. You are enough.

 

0:21:26.0 Kellie Brown: And it was also like, yeah, but I don’t want to do that, like, uh-uh. And so Howard and I did it together. Howard had been to a Sonship conference years, years ago. And he talks… He tells funny stories about that because he was resisting it also at the time. In fact, he would go to the movies when the hardest things, like, the group stuff came, he went nuh-uh.

 

0:21:49.9 Jim Lovelady: I got to get out of there.

 

0:21:50.8 Kellie Brown: I’m going to watch a horror movie instead of sitting. And so…

 

0:21:55.9 Jim Lovelady: He can watch Saw or something.

 

0:21:57.1 Kellie Brown: Yeah, yeah. It was like Chainsaw Massacre, some crazy thing. I’m like, bro, you need help we don’t even know about yet. I saw that impact him and challenge him, and change him, even though he skipped out on half of it. But…

 

0:22:09.8 Jim Lovelady: It still did some work on him.

 

0:22:11.5 Kellie Brown: It did it. It was the mentored part that really got to him.

 

0:22:15.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:22:16.8 Kellie Brown: And so we knew that this was revolutionary for most church folks, regardless of race. And that just led us to really feel like there was such richness, such depth, and such specialized attention that if you come from the African American church, that’s just not something you do or know of, and how transforming it was for how you view God in yourself.

 

0:22:50.1 Jim Lovelady: What is kind of the status quo?

 

0:22:51.9 Kellie Brown: Again, it’s very community-based. So I would say one of the major differences in the Black churches I was in growing up, is it is Sunday morning-centric.

 

0:23:01.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:23:02.7 Kellie Brown: The rest of the week, there was Wednesday night Bible study, but we didn’t have a small group or core group, or community group. And you didn’t really talk about your struggles with the Lord, or Scripture, or places where you were wrestling. Now, we did some of that on Sunday morning, but obviously, everybody doesn’t get a chance to do that. And certainly not have someone ask you questions and challenge you who was not the pastor or on the pastoral staff. It did happen, but it was far less formalized, far less systematic…

 

0:23:41.5 Jim Lovelady: Hit or miss.

 

0:23:43.2 Kellie Brown: Yeah. 

 

0:23:43.8 Jim Lovelady: Effectively.

 

0:23:44.4 Kellie Brown: Effectively that. And there were… It was certain people who were gifted who would show up at your door. And it was a lot more, I would say, empathic. A sister would just know that you were going through something. And the Holy Spirit is moving. This is the way we talk. The Holy Spirit is telling me you really going through something. And so you’re sitting in service after service, everybody is gone, and you’re sitting in the pews, and you’re having your life addressed and worked out with somebody who took the time to do that. But that wasn’t a program. That wasn’t…

 

0:24:20.8 Jim Lovelady: It was an anomaly?

 

0:24:21.9 Kellie Brown: Well, it just was, sort of. Except for there were lots of people gifted, but they didn’t know that that’s what they were doing. 

 

0:24:29.6 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I see.

 

0:24:30.1 Kellie Brown: It wasn’t called mentoring, you know what I’m saying?

 

0:24:32.8 Jim Lovelady: They were just doing it.

 

0:24:34.6 Kellie Brown: They were just being Christians. They were just being big brother, big sister, auntie, uncle.

 

0:24:39.8 Jim Lovelady: Which is awesome, but what about the folks who aren’t doing that and don’t know how?

 

0:24:43.8 Kellie Brown: And don’t know how. And that if we could kind of organize around this, we might be able to help more people. Usually it was a pastor or the youth group leader or the… Really wasn’t youth group. It was the choir, youth choir. So that person led the choir, but they also were like the pastor for the youth or the usher board. There were these little…

 

0:25:07.3 Jim Lovelady: That’s interesting. I never knew that.

 

0:25:08.0 Kellie Brown: Yeah. All these little affinity groups within the church that created community. But it was… There was nothing ever that said, hey, we’re going to actually start the same thing and formalize it. And here’s some curriculum, and here’s some metrics, and here’s a length of time and the desired outcome. That was not what happens. Same thing with Reformed theology. I was Reformed. We didn’t call it Reformed.

 

0:25:36.0 Jim Lovelady: We didn’t call it that.

 

0:25:36.7 Kellie Brown: Nobody went around talking about TULIP and covenant theology.

 

0:25:40.2 Jim Lovelady: Thank God.

 

0:25:40.9 Kellie Brown: No. Right? It’s just, nobody did that. But if you lived in Grandmama’s house…

 

0:25:46.4 Jim Lovelady: You got, you… 

 

0:25:47.5 Kellie Brown: She treated you like a believer, and you went to church. And then she treated you like a believer. That’s covenant… That’s basically covenant theology. You’re a covenant child.

 

0:25:57.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. So, Kinship is happening in so many ways. And it’s kind of like, now there’s a name for it?

 

0:26:04.2 Kellie Brown: Yes.

 

0:26:04.8 Jim Lovelady: Because… And there’s like… I just want to let you know that we’re all doing some really great stuff.

 

0:26:08.5 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:26:09.0 Jim Lovelady: We just need someone to say it.

 

0:26:10.7 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:26:11.2 Jim Lovelady: So that that can be what gets perpetuated instead of all the other potentially harmful…

 

0:26:17.3 Kellie Brown: Creepy.

 

0:26:17.7 Jim Lovelady: All the way to…

 

0:26:17.9 Kellie Brown: Absolutely.

 

0:26:18.7 Jim Lovelady: Just not helpful.

 

0:26:19.7 Kellie Brown: Yes.

 

0:26:20.1 Jim Lovelady: Kinds of things.

 

0:26:20.7 Kellie Brown: Yes. Just not helpful. Yeah. That’s good, too, because I think a lot of that happened. So what we’re hoping to do with Kinship is just equip leaders to be able to have more mentored Sonship or mentored Kinship leaders that look like the people who would be served by it, which we don’t have right now. But we just… Whatever we can do to mobilize and to invite people, too. So we’re also working on content, which usually, a lot of times it happens that there’s a lot of conference material, or not even material, but talks, but that you walk away and you don’t really have anything to refer back to unless you took copious notes.

 

0:27:09.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, right.

 

0:27:10.6 Kellie Brown: And so what we’re working on is getting some content prayerfully, a workbook, a book, something that kind of puts all of these talks together. One of the really exciting and different things about Kinship from Sonship is as a people, as Black folks, we have this history of horror and tragedy and trauma from all the things that have happened. And that has created a space to lament, which is not a part of the Sonship material. Not that it couldn’t or shouldn’t be. I think it should be because we all have lament.

 

0:27:53.2 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:27:53.9 Kellie Brown: But really talking about that from a corporate sense and from an individual sense, what does lament look like? What is lament? How does that impact how we engage or disengage from grace? And how does it shape who we are? I’ve had so many, especially young people, just be shocked that the Bible even says anything about what they didn’t even know was called lamenting.

 

0:28:24.8 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting.

 

0:28:25.8 Kellie Brown: You mean there’s space to just be grieving and mad at God, and questioning God, and confused by God? We don’t have to have this righteous, holy response to everything. No. There is space to just be sorrowful and to not have to have some positive glossed over, hurry up and get over it quick. No, to sit in that, that this hurts. This is wrong. Even God says it’s wrong.

 

0:28:55.9 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:28:57.1 Kellie Brown: And that is a holy space.

 

0:28:59.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:29:00.5 Kellie Brown: And that that is part of how God has equipped us and made us as people. Not religious robots that can just flip a switch and throw pain and trauma, and suffering off. No, our God suffered.

 

0:29:16.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah. Jesus is a man of sorrows.

 

0:29:18.4 Kellie Brown: He is a man of sorrows. And we just like to think that was just for Jesus. Well, why would it be so prevalent in scripture if we weren’t supposed to look at that, and follow that, and embrace that on some level?

 

[music]

 

0:29:33.8 Jim Lovelady: I want to pause this conversation and invite you to join us in prayer for the Serge field workers that we at the headquarters here in Philadelphia are praying for each week. We meet on Tuesday and Friday mornings to pray, and this week we’re praying for our teams in the DRC. Would you pray with me? Lord, we pray that you would bless these folks, give them joy in their work in your Kingdom, and the pleasure of your joy as they follow you. Give them wisdom and let your grace abound in their relationships with one another, with family members and children, and with the people they serve. Heal all sicknesses, liberate the enslaved, protect them from the powers and principalities of darkness. Restore to them the joy of your salvation and let your Kingdom come and your will be done in these places, just as it is in heaven. We pray in your name. Amen. Now, back to the conversation.

 

0:29:59.3 Jim Lovelady: What are the places in the scripture that it’s most meaningful, most resonates with folks? Especially like, you’re talking about young people. My brain goes to all sorts of places, like John 11 with Jesus wept, and…

 

0:30:43.8 Kellie Brown: Yes.

 

0:30:44.3 Jim Lovelady: And some of the Psalms that are just like…

 

0:30:46.3 Kellie Brown: Well, and it’s so interesting when you bring up “Jesus wept” because people joke and say that’s the shortest verse in the Bible. But those two words, the fact that it’s just those two words really just lets your imagination run.

 

0:31:00.5 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:31:02.2 Kellie Brown: That I don’t imagine that Jesus dropped a couple of tears.

 

0:31:07.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. Yeah.

 

0:31:08.0 Kellie Brown: And then took his tunic and dried his face. And then said, Lazarus, come forth.

 

0:31:12.3 Jim Lovelady: Doesn’t say Jesus teared up. 

 

0:31:13.5 Kellie Brown: No. He wept. And when you think about weeping, particularly when you reference the Old Testament, weeping is a season. It is an experience. And why would… I just… I think God is funny sometimes. I think his humor and his wit is all over scripture. That He would make something so impactful only be those two words.

 

0:31:41.4 Jim Lovelady: Two words. Yeah.

 

0:31:42.6 Kellie Brown: And I think we think that that means that He’s literally saying, it was quick. And I think if you look at scripture, to interpret scripture, it actually is saying something else that you usually, particularly in death, you weep in community, again. Mary and Martha, they were still mourning their brother. And they lament, “Where were you? If you had been here.”

 

0:32:10.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:32:11.1 Kellie Brown: Why did God give permission for things like that to be said for all time if it didn’t mean something and acknowledge what we feel? And He didn’t correct them.

 

0:32:24.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:32:24.9 Kellie Brown: He didn’t say, you don’t have faith.

 

0:32:27.2 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:32:27.5 Kellie Brown: He didn’t say, be strong and courageous. He wept with them. He sat in what they were feeling and didn’t just validate it, but experienced it also. Because he loved Lazarus.

 

0:32:41.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:32:42.2 Kellie Brown: If He didn’t love Lazarus, I don’t know, maybe. But He did.

 

0:32:46.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:32:46.5 Kellie Brown: And that love was expressed in those tears. When you tell that to young people, they’re just blown away.

 

0:32:53.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:32:54.1 Kellie Brown: Because it’s not theology. It’s not churchy-osity. It’s not religiosity. There’s just this scene, vulnerability. Even when you think about the life of Jesus, we go straight to the cross, but He had a whole life.

 

0:33:11.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:33:12.0 Kellie Brown: I was joking with somebody the other day that we always talk about Jesus in the boat and the disciples saying, “Don’t you know, wake up.”

 

0:33:20.4 Jim Lovelady: Don’t you care that we’re gonna drown?

 

0:33:21.1 Kellie Brown: Yeah. Yeah. But He was tired.

 

0:33:23.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s sleeping.

 

0:33:25.7 Kellie Brown: He took a nap. If the king of glory has to take a nap in front of… And He didn’t sneak a nap. He didn’t go and…

 

0:33:37.1 Jim Lovelady: True, yeah.

 

0:33:38.3 Kellie Brown: He took a nap. Everybody knew where he was.

 

0:33:40.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:33:41.1 Kellie Brown: And He knew exactly what was going to happen and still took a nap. What does that tell us about ourselves? And I just think a lot of times, young people, but also people my age and older, we just forget that God has made us human and given us certain needs that the world may deem as soft or weak or maybe even immature. I remember when I was a young believer, I was having a bad day at this Christian school I was teaching, and I walked into the office to get a stapler or something. And the receptionist is like, “How is your day going, Ms. Brown?” And I said it really sucks, ’cause I’m kind of honest. Don’t ask me if you don’t want to know. And she was like, oh well, you can’t have that attitude because we are blessed and highly favored and we are more than conquerors. And I was like, lady, if you don’t get out of my face right now because…

 

0:34:36.9 Jim Lovelady: There’s no space in her theology for lament. 

 

0:34:40.6 Kellie Brown: No.

 

0:34:41.1 Jim Lovelady: There’s no space for suffering and hardship.

 

0:34:42.8 Kellie Brown: No. If Jesus said, “Please take this cup from me.” If He had expressed needs for things from his Father, that’s what I’m supposed to do.

 

0:34:55.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. When the shortest verse in the Bible has space, has enough space for lament and suffering and sorrow, and hopelessness and unfulfilled longing.

 

0:35:04.8 Kellie Brown: That’s right. 

 

0:35:05.8 Jim Lovelady: Then we can do that. 

 

0:35:06.6 Kellie Brown: That’s good. Unfulfilled longing. Absolutely. So I think those are the things that allow people’s hearts to be touched in a way that sometimes we think theology and religiosity does. It doesn’t. It actually closes the space for particularly theology when I have a God that is great on paper but sucks at my actual life.

 

0:35:33.8 Jim Lovelady: Right. Yeah. We talk all the time in Sonship, and Kinship is the same, where, okay, you have all this theology in your head, but it’s getting itself worked out in your heart.

 

0:35:42.6 Kellie Brown: That’s right.

 

0:35:43.6 Jim Lovelady: Not consistent with what you say you believe.

 

0:35:46.1 Kellie Brown: That’s exactly right.

 

0:35:47.0 Jim Lovelady: So, how can we make it where the gospel is real for these nitty gritty moments of your life?

 

0:35:53.8 Kellie Brown: Absolutely. Where do you go? Where do you go when you’re feeling that? And I think that reveals a lot. Do you go to anger? Do you drink? Do you curse? Do you withdraw? Do you pray? What do you do? That tells you a lot about what’s going on in your heart.

 

0:36:10.4 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:36:10.9 Kellie Brown: So yeah, we’re excited about that part of Kinship. There’s a justice piece just talking about what do you do when you live in a place that seems to have revoked justice for you as a people group? And I think that, honestly, a lot of people experience injustice. They just don’t know that that’s what it is.

 

0:36:37.5 Jim Lovelady: Oh, interesting.

 

0:36:38.3 Kellie Brown: You know what I’m saying?

 

0:36:38.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Same thing of like, we don’t have a name for this, we have an experience for this.

 

0:36:42.4 Kellie Brown: But that’s what it is. So, yeah, lament, justice, community are some of the differences. And so lament and also joy. I don’t know if you’ve heard the hashtag Black boy joy and Black joy, which has to be a thing. We live in a world where it feels like everything takes that away. And so a lot of times on social media in particular, you will see things that talk about Black joy and that laughing is resistance and self-care, although everything can go too far. But all of those things is resistance and protection of your joy. And so we want to also talk about what does joy look like for somebody whose life is rooted in gospel transformation? That’s also how it gets worked out. Not a happy life, not a, I’m putting a spiritual Band-Aid on everything, but deep-seated, transcendent, unexplainable joy.

 

0:37:49.7 Jim Lovelady: So how do you articulate that in differentiating from the secular Black culture that says, hey, we’re gonna have joy. And you go, let me show you just how that’s a counterfeit, and how the gospel is deeper joy. 

 

0:38:06.7 Kellie Brown: Deeper than that.

 

0:38:07.9 Jim Lovelady: How do you navigate that?

 

0:38:08.3 Kellie Brown: Well, we’re working it out. We’re trying to figure out how to also say it and present that in a way that doesn’t shame the root of where that hashtag Black joy comes from, acknowledging the pain. That means we have to have it in the first place.

 

0:38:28.7 Jim Lovelady: Right. Yeah. We’re not forgetting about the whole lament part.

 

0:38:30.8 Kellie Brown: Right. Exactly. While at the same time identifying what counterfeit joy is. But that kind of joy is what the old saints would say helped them to stand in the face of extreme trials individually and as a people. And how you see, my people say, the world didn’t give it to me, and the world can’t take it away. That’s grandmama. Great grandmama.

 

0:39:04.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:39:04.8 Kellie Brown: How did y’all not crumble?

 

0:39:07.8 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:39:08.6 Kellie Brown: How did y’all not just lay down and not get back up?

 

0:39:14.0 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:39:14.5 Kellie Brown: And that is strength, but it’s also mainly joy. A joy in the Lord that says, I am His and there is nothing that can take that away. And that these trials, this accosting to my dignity, the Lord sees that and will redeem it. This is not the final chapter.

 

0:39:36.1 Jim Lovelady: Right.

 

0:39:36.7 Kellie Brown: That one day is coming. We say the great getting-up morning. Right?

 

0:39:41.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:39:42.4 Kellie Brown: And scripture says that Jesus will come back with a sword. And people don’t talk about this. It’s not just rainbows and celebration. No, he’s coming to cut everything down.

 

0:39:56.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:39:57.1 Kellie Brown: And the blood is, the scripture says, be up to his train on this horse that we can’t imagine. It can’t be the same size as horses we know. So it’s this crazy heavenly horse with the blood of many shed to make things right.

 

0:40:13.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. ‘Cause justice will be served.

 

0:40:15.4 Kellie Brown: Justice is coming. And how does justice, the idea that justice is coming in a person. It is, and it’s coming. It’s the already and not yet that leads to joy.

 

0:40:29.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah. Yeah.

 

0:40:30.8 Kellie Brown: How do we hear these stories of believers who were lynched, reciting scripture and asking God to forgive the people who were lynching them? How do we… Where did that come from?

 

0:40:45.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:40:45.6 Kellie Brown: What’s that about? But that’s our history.

 

0:40:48.2 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:40:48.6 Kellie Brown: Right?

 

0:40:48.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:40:49.3 Kellie Brown: How do people who have been crushed still love their neighbor? There’s some joy there. Something else is informing them. So we haven’t worked it all out. It’s one of the talks we haven’t done yet. But we’re talking about doing that talk and relating that back to all of these things that center around grace. 

 

0:41:09.2 Jim Lovelady: I love that.

 

0:41:11.6 Kellie Brown: And I think it’s gonna be helpful for everybody. Our target audience is the African American community for sure. And things will be contextualized for them. But there’s a message for anybody who was walking with Jesus.

 

0:41:23.6 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. Yeah. I’ve gotten to listen to a number of the talks, I guess almost all of them. And all of them have been impactful for me. Even though I’m kind of like, I wasn’t in the room, I’m just listening to the recording, but I’m a bit of a fly on the wall. But I’m like, it hits different. And I teach Sonship, and so I love it, too. So when I went to Peru, I got to lead worship and give a couple talks for the, basically, it was a Sonship weekend.

 

0:41:55.3 Kellie Brown: Oh, okay.

 

0:41:56.0 Jim Lovelady: In Peru, they called it Beloved Children, Hijos amados, Beloved Children. So like a Beloved Children weekend.

 

0:42:02.8 Kellie Brown: To contextualize it for them.

 

0:42:04.3 Jim Lovelady: Right, right. And so I got to lead worship, a couple songs in Spanish. And my Spanish is super rusty. We lived in Spain 21 years ago. I remember pulling a couple songs out and getting the Spanish translation, and started to sing one of these songs in Spanish. And it… It’s a song that I could sing in my sleep. But I just know the song in English, but I’m singing it in Spanish, and it hit me. And I’m in the kitchen. I was strumming my guitar in the kitchen. Lori comes around the corner, and she’s like, “You okay?” And I was like, “This is just beautiful.” The language…

 

0:42:39.5 Kellie Brown: Opens it up.

 

0:42:40.3 Jim Lovelady: Tweak just opened some space in my heart. And so as someone who gets to be an observer on the ministry that you’re doing and the way that you’re reaching people that I could never reach, but I get to see. I get to watch you do it, and I get to watch all y’all do it. And then I’m like, oh, the way that you said that. Oh, that’s…

 

0:43:03.7 Kellie Brown: Yeah. It hits different.

 

0:43:03.9 Jim Lovelady: It hits different. And so I get to be a recipient of those blessings.

 

0:43:08.1 Kellie Brown: Amen. Amen.

 

0:43:09.5 Jim Lovelady: And so I’m just… Yeah, I’m super thankful.

 

0:43:10.5 Kellie Brown: Yeah, well, and I think that speaks to how we need each other.

 

0:43:15.6 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:43:16.1 Kellie Brown: I just think you get steeped in the same thing. If your mom made spaghetti and meatballs every Friday night since you were a kid, and then you go to Italy and have spaghetti and meatballs, it’s going to speak to you differently.

 

0:43:31.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:43:33.0 Kellie Brown: Than the way… And maybe it will make your whole heart… Now you want to be a chef, or now you really are just more interested in how you make the sauce or something, in a way, because it got opened up to you. And culture and context matter.

 

0:43:49.2 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:43:49.8 Kellie Brown: That’s right. And they matter to God. Otherwise, he would have made us all the same.

 

0:43:54.7 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:43:55.5 Kellie Brown: But he didn’t. For all sorts of reasons. He didn’t make the planet the same. He put all these crazy different weather patterns, and regions, and types of humidity to make people’s skin and hair… Why?

 

0:44:11.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:44:12.1 Kellie Brown: Why?

 

0:44:12.4 Jim Lovelady: Because it’s beautiful.

 

0:44:13.3 Kellie Brown: Because it’s beautiful. And it creates this fuller, more open message. And I can hear something. I mean, I had the same experience. I sing hymns in my Black church experience, but some of them I had never heard of. I went to the white church and started singing these hymns, and I’m the only one sobbing through this… I don’t know. I can’t remember all the hymnist names right now. Wesleyan hymn. I can’t remember. Because it hit me different. I’ve never heard this one, or I’ve never sung that verse before.

 

0:44:49.1 Jim Lovelady: That’s right.

 

0:44:50.1 Kellie Brown: And so I think there’s just so much we miss when we’re not… When we’re just kind of homogeneous and not really opening up, not listening, and also not speaking into each other’s context and community. Because all of that matters. And it’s… You see the Lord.

 

0:45:12.5 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:45:13.0 Kellie Brown: You change.

 

0:45:14.0 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He’s like, hey, check out this is a different aspect of who I am. I’m the same. You just haven’t seen me…

 

0:45:21.1 Kellie Brown: Yes.

 

0:45:21.6 Jim Lovelady: This way. 

 

0:45:22.7 Kellie Brown: This way. Yeah.

 

0:45:23.0 Jim Lovelady: And you look and you’re like, you are more beautiful and glorious than I thought.

 

0:45:28.8 Kellie Brown: Yes. Wow. Wow, Lord.

 

0:45:32.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:45:33.2 Kellie Brown: Yeah, absolutely.

 

0:45:34.3 Jim Lovelady: Those are all the reasons why I’m excited.

 

0:45:35.9 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:45:36.6 Jim Lovelady: No, those are some of the reasons why. 

 

0:45:38.4 Kellie Brown: Some of the reasons.

 

0:45:38.8 Jim Lovelady: I’m really excited…

 

0:45:39.3 Kellie Brown: I’m excited.

 

0:45:40.2 Jim Lovelady: That you’re here with us. 

 

0:45:41.5 Kellie Brown: And Serge is such a… I’m just continually impressed and encouraged at the posture that Serge and its leadership has taken regarding the need for this. And with, if I understand rightly, also with the Korean Americans, same thing. And we’re just in a place, sadly, where acknowledging differences is becoming bad and dangerous even.

 

0:46:16.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:46:17.4 Kellie Brown: And so I’m just… I feel like Serge is brave and courageous, and demonstrating programmatically its trust in God and its commitment to see the gospel go forth. And one of the things that I get so excited about, ultimately, and I think you and I are gonna have a conversation about this soon, but missionary work was very deep and wide in the Black community.

 

0:46:46.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I can’t wait to have that conversation.

 

0:46:48.2 Kellie Brown: Yeah. Very deep and wide. And a lot of them Presbyterian, for reasons that we all know, a lot of that not only went away, but some of those… That history has been erased. So now, when I say missionary, being a missionary, overseas missionary to a lot of people, it’s literally a knee-jerk reaction. It’s like colonialism, paternalism, is all the worst things. And it’s only White people in Brown and Black countries. And that’s just not our history as a people.

 

0:47:22.4 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I’m looking forward to unpacking that.

 

0:47:24.2 Kellie Brown: I’m looking forward to talking about that. 

 

0:47:26.4 Jim Lovelady: It’s gonna be awesome.

 

0:47:27.0 Kellie Brown: But what I am really excited about is if the Lord would, in his kindness, would use Kinship to ultimately have more return to overseas missions.

 

0:47:40.3 Jim Lovelady: Amen.

 

0:47:40.9 Kellie Brown: From Black folks.

 

0:47:42.4 Jim Lovelady: Amen.

 

0:47:43.2 Kellie Brown: To Black and Brown communities.

 

0:47:44.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:47:45.6 Kellie Brown: That would be… Listen, you couldn’t contain me in a podcast, I’d be all over this room.

 

0:47:53.0 Jim Lovelady: I can’t wait to have you on that podcast.

 

0:47:55.0 Kellie Brown: I’ll be all over this room. To return to that and to see the excitement and the interest to be back to that, and not from my people being forced to assimilate or code switch.

 

0:48:10.7 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:48:11.1 Kellie Brown: Or deny who God has made them, but to actually understand that it’s for such a time as this that I have made you these people for people you don’t even know yet.

 

0:48:22.9 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:48:23.7 Kellie Brown: What? I’m looking forward to that.

 

0:48:27.6 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:48:27.9 Kellie Brown: And I see that happening through Serge because they’re wanting to. They’re not afraid of that. They don’t see that as dangerous or scary. And they actually, there is a commitment to a gospel transformation. And this isn’t a huge thing. You wouldn’t think this is some kind of major thing amongst Christians right now. It is. But it’s a very easy thing to do to empower other people, to bring them into your circle, to train them, to give them the space to be who God has made them, to step away. To open their hands to power, to give away power, to listen and let people shape things for themselves, that have broader impact and appeal.

 

0:49:14.5 Jim Lovelady: We don’t do any of those things naturally, though. It is only by…

 

0:49:17.8 Kellie Brown: You’re right. 

 

0:49:18.3 Jim Lovelady: A work of God’s grace that God goes, “Hey, I’m gonna give you some boldness. You’re gonna mess up, and I’m gonna give you some humility to repent. And I’m gonna give you grace for every step of that.”

 

0:49:29.8 Kellie Brown: Absolutely. Yeah.

 

0:49:30.3 Jim Lovelady: And we… Yeah. The reason why I love Serge is because we’ve cultivated this posture that’s like, okay, Jesus, I think I trust you. I’m gonna go repent. I’m gonna go say I’m sorry. I’m gonna go confess. I’m gonna go seek reconciliation with this person that I’ve been arguing with. I’m gonna go… I’m gonna give it a shot. I’m gonna give being a Christian a shot. 

 

0:49:52.9 Kellie Brown: Being a Christian.

 

0:49:53.8 Jim Lovelady: Are you gonna show me grace for this? And He’s like, it’s gonna abound.

 

0:49:56.9 Kellie Brown: It has blown me away. Having been in multiple Christian things, formalized and unformalized, I am just struck that I see people in Serge doing just that. Your regular everyday behavior matters to God, and how you treat people. And when you blow it, and being able to say to somebody and they not blow up or act crazy, even if it’s rough or tough for a little bit. But I’ve not seen that. People, Christian, listen, Christian people don’t do that.

 

0:50:42.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:50:43.0 Kellie Brown: And if they do, it takes programs, and counselors, and…

 

0:50:49.4 Jim Lovelady: Well, again, the only way for it to genuinely happen is for the Lord to reach in and go, Kellie Brown, I love you. Jim Lovelady, I love you. I love you. You are the one I love. 

 

0:51:02.1 Kellie Brown: Yeah.

 

0:51:02.6 Jim Lovelady: Well, what about them? No, no, I’m talking to you.

 

0:51:04.4 Kellie Brown: I’m talking to you.

 

0:51:04.9 Jim Lovelady: Oh, I love them too, just by the way. But I love you. Into like death is deep and growing because there’s no…

 

0:51:11.7 Kellie Brown: And growing. That’s it. 

 

0:51:13.9 Jim Lovelady: I still don’t get it. 

 

0:51:14.8 Kellie Brown: No, it’s a lot of things. It’s a lot of things. But to be somewhere where we would say that they can talk the talk, but they can’t walk the walk. That to be some place where you walk in the walk. What?

 

0:51:27.5 Jim Lovelady: Well, that’s cool.

 

0:51:28.7 Kellie Brown: It just… It doesn’t happen everywhere. And yes, I completely agree. That is the powerful work of the Lord. And it is also the way that the Lord softens hearts for people to receive that. Because I can tell you I love you, but you don’t necessarily have to receive that and operate like it. Right?

 

0:51:49.1 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

 

0:51:50.3 Kellie Brown: So a lot of people hear that and it just gets stuck all up in here. Because if I believe that you love me, if I believe that God loves me, my reactions, and I may have the same kind of plate of reactions, but I might be heavy on the mashed potatoes when I need to be heavy on the vegetables. But I’m just noticing there’s a lot more balance. There’s a lot more openness, humility, holy curiosity. People who take pause and go, “Oh, wow, I did that, didn’t I?”

 

0:52:24.3 Jim Lovelady: Yeah, I didn’t realize. Oh.

 

0:52:25.3 Kellie Brown: Yeah, yeah. And then tell me more. I don’t see that a lot. So Serge is, it feels special to me, and it feels like a safe place for me to invite people like me. You understand what I’m saying? I can’t invite people like me everywhere. I just can’t, because there’s a lot of navigating. There’s… Anyway, I can’t. It wouldn’t be wise or safe for them.

 

0:52:52.8 Jim Lovelady: Yeah.

 

0:52:53.4 Kellie Brown: And I’m not saying Serge is flawless and has it all figured out, but, man, there is an attitude and a spirit that is just different that I appreciate, and makes me feel more confident that this Kinship work will actually be in an environment that it can take root and flourish.

 

0:53:16.6 Jim Lovelady: Amen. Well, in my son’s words, let’s go.

 

0:53:20.6 Kellie Brown: Let’s go. I got a Drake meme of just that. 

 

0:53:25.6 Jim Lovelady: That’s right. That’s right.

 

0:53:26.1 Kellie Brown: Let’s go.

 

0:53:26.3 Jim Lovelady: Let’s go. 

 

0:53:27.4 Kellie Brown: Yeah, I’m excited.

 

0:53:27.7 Jim Lovelady: Well, Kellie Brown, thank you so much…

 

0:53:29.5 Kellie Brown: Thank you.

 

0:53:29.6 Jim Lovelady: For hanging out. Oh man, this is just the beginning.

 

0:53:32.5 Kellie Brown: Yes. Looking forward to more.

 

0:53:34.1 Jim Lovelady: Amen.

 

0:53:35.4 Kellie Brown: Thanks, Jim.

 

[music]

0:53:42.9 Jim Lovelady: This conversation reminds me of James 4, where it says, “what causes quarrels among you? Is it not the desires that war within you?” And James proceeds to pummel us with brutal honesty about the truth of our fallen condition. We’re a mess. We want something and we can’t have it, so we throw a fit. We covet and we battle against each other, and we commit murder. We ask God for stuff to make our lives more pleasurable, not because we love God. And we become friends with the world, and we make God our enemy. James goes on and on about the mess we’ve made, and then he lands on this verse, “but God gives more grace”. After all that, God gives more grace. How is that possible? How is that even possible? It’s because Jesus is alive. Jesus died and he rose again and he’s making all things new. So the world we live in now is a world where God’s grace reigns. And that should humble us and make us quiet and a little more repentant. So I want to give you two categories of resources that are meant to break you out of whatever anti-grace funk you may be in right now that’s made you stingy and unloving. One is so that you can experience God’s grace, and the other is so that you can give out God’s grace. So if you don’t believe God’s grace is for you, or if you don’t really care that it’s for you, and you find that a little troubling, well, pray. Draw near to God, and he’ll draw near to you. And… So the resources, follow these links in the show notes, for there are some blog posts that really become re-centering devotionals. So I want you to explore those things prayerfully. And when I say God’s grace is for everyone, who are the people that come to your mind where you say, well, not that person. Look, our stinginess with grace is no surprise. What is surprising is how gracious God is towards us as we wrestle with him in these things. So I want to commend to you this little book by Ruth Ann Batstone called 𝘔𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘯:𝘉𝘦𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘵. This is a powerful little book that pushes the boundaries of where you expect God’s grace to go. And through brutal honesty, you’ll discover the most surprising reality. God’s grace is for you. So, as you go into the world, a world that is desperate to experience the generosity of our Lord, remember that the grace you give to others is nothing compared to the grace that God has for you. So go with his blessing. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make his face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to you. Turn his bright eyes to you and give you his peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, life everlasting. Amen.

---