When established churches struggle to connect with their communities, leaders typically reach for one of two solutions: work harder at the inherited model, or import a successful church plant template. But Dr. Dwight Zscheile and Rev. Ed Olsworth-Peter are inviting us to consider a different approach—one that develops church plant leadership skills through deep listening to the Spirit and to the neighborhood rather than implementing blueprints or programs. In this episode, they discuss their new book, The Starter's Way, which draws on stories from both the UK's Fresh Expression Movement and communities across the United States to explore the spiritual foundations and practices that make for faithful, sustainable leadership of new Christian communities.

Dwight and Ed share compelling examples of contextual ministry, from a Wisconsin community that created "Play, Pray, and Popsicles" for families with neurodivergent children to forest churches in the UK where people encounter God in creation. They explore the 15 pioneer principles that shape church plant leadership skills, organized around spiritual foundations (Jesus-centered, prayerful, called, bicultural, and responsive), inward qualities (discerning, self-giving, playful, hospitable, and resilient), and outward practices (noticing, adapting, experimenting, co-creating, and persisting). This conversation offers hope for leaders who want to join what God is already doing in their neighborhoods rather than trying to fix inherited structures or replicate someone else's success story.

I'm in conversation, say, with bishops or of, you know, judicatory leaders who are like, we need to start new communities. My question to them is always why. And this kind of journey we're describing, this contextual journey, isn't about fixing the inherited institutional church. It really is about joining with what God is doing in the lives of our neighbors and bearing witness to the gospel in the midst and in ways that might look very different from structurally what we inherited or...

aesthetically what we've inherited or things like that, even though they're core practices that are going to be shared, it's what Christians have always done. So you're gathered around scripture, we're going to gather for prayer, you know, we're going to ⁓ have community together and serve one another and do forgiveness and healing and all of those things that Christians have always done. But it may look very different. And I think one of the challenges for a lot of church systems is that they don't have a lot of imagination for

that and tolerance for that or even to let alone the kind of permission giving and support that's required.

you

Hello everyone and welcome to the Pivot Podcast, the podcast where we explore how the church can faithfully navigate a changing world. I'm Terri Elton and today we're excited to turn the tables on our co-host, Dr. Dwight Zscheile because we are going to discuss this new book, The Starter's Way, that he co-edited with our other guest who's in visiting from the UK, Ed Olsworth-Peter. Welcome.

Great to be with you. Yes.

So when established churches struggle to connect with their communities, the typical response is either working harder at the inherited model or importing a successful church plant template. But both Ed and Dwight are inviting us to think about something different, a way of starting Christian communities that begin not with a blueprint, but with deep listening to the spirit and to the neighborhood.

drawing on case studies from both the UK's Fresh Expression Movement and from across the United States. The Starter's Way offers not another how-to manual, but it explores the spiritual foundations and practices that make for faithful, sustainable leadership of new Christian communities. It's about cultivating a way of life rather than implementing a program. So Dwight and Ed, tell us

Tell our listeners how you came about writing this book and why did you pull it together and how did you pick the contributors that are a part of it?

Well, it started before the pandemic. at the time, was working nationally for the Church of England. I was in charge of what we call in the UK, Pioneer Ministry, but because of contextual mission and ministry. And I just sort of made connections with people around the world. So we started a Zoom discussion group before Zoom was really actually used by everybody, it that long ago, ⁓ where we had people. So Dwight was there, other people from the US, some people were in Australia, quite a lot from Europe. I we had people from South Africa.

every six weeks or so, every two months, and we just talked about what contextual mission was like in our parts of the world. And so we found lots and lots of things that were in common, even though we were in very different places. So that's kind of where the very beginning of this idea started. And then ⁓ as Dwight and I began to talk, we thought, well, maybe actually there's something about gathering some of these voices together and to think about what a sort of international voice might be.

So in our book, we've got ⁓ a range of all sorts of people who have started new Christian communities or who have written about it. our authors include bishops, scholars, and also some who are previous Pivot podcast guests, which is brilliant. So British contributors are Johnny Baker, Michael Beck, Ali Bolton, Peterson Fittal, Bishop Mike Harrison, Tina Hodgett, Bishop Emma Einsohn.

Beth Keith, Harvick Quiriani, Ian Mobsby and Claire Pedrick.

And then we have some folks from the US. So Michael Back, who's also actually in the US, and Roz Picardo. ⁓ Eun Strawser who's been a pivot guest. Inez Velazquez McBride. Mike Wu, who's actually based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

So this is a very different church planting kind of starting ministries kind of book. It's not a how-to manual. It doesn't have steps. It doesn't guarantee anything or your money back. ⁓ So describe the approach that you're highlighting in this book and why is it called The Starter's Way?

So we think it's great that there are a lot of books out there that are more how-to manuals for how to do this, and that's wonderful. And what we sensed, though, was that we wanted to take a different approach, looking at the whole person of the leader and the journey that ⁓ this kind of work involves, ⁓ which is ⁓ it's not sort of a technical set of things so much as it is as a holistic way of thinking about what kind of spirituality shapes.

the journey of a leader and leaders in community doing this work, what are the kind of inward qualities and dispositions and then what are the actual practices that make this happen? So we thought about it as ⁓ a way of life, you know, in the way that ⁓ we love the language from Jesus's ministry in the Book of Acts or in talking about the Christian movement as a way. ⁓ And so we thought ⁓ for those who are starting, and we use the word starter simply because

There's different language that's used in different places around the world. In the UK, they talk about pioneers. In the US, that's a word that has some more problematic resonances. So people often will use planters, but we mean very clearly a contextual approach rather than just an attractional approach to starting new communities.

So say more about that and Ed, around here we talk about context matters, like in everything, right, is about context. But what's distinctive when you think about doing a contextual ministry versus more maybe even an attractional model or kind of almost like a franchise model where it's kind of like do this same thing and just plant it in different places. So talk about the difference for you there.

So think it's all about where you start. So an attraction approach normally starts with a building and some people. Maybe the building has been empty for a while and a team goes and starts something and worship might happen quite quickly. There's events, things to invite people to, like Christian exploration courses and things. But a contextual approach is the other way around. It's starting from scratch. So it's people who are probably already known and resident in their community in some way. And they're kind of...

starting from a listening perspective by spending time to listen to God, to the Holy Spirit, listening to the world around them, to see how could we love and serve these people? What could we do that would really help them? And I really like Sam Wells' work in the UK of being with, because sometimes it can feel like we're coming to people to be their answer. When actually a lot of communities have got the answers, they just might need someone to help to sort of put it together. And then...

Over time, sort living amongst people and sort of doing life together, then spiritual questions can be asked and often prayer is a way that I think opens the doors to people thinking about Christian faith. But a key phrase I really love is about this group of people along this journey then at some point saying, what would church look like for us in this place? And there'll be certain things that church would need to be for it to be Christian church.

But actually, could it be done in a way that's really representative of that community?

Can you both share some stories about, as I've heard you talk, it's really a range. So share some of those stories of what those different contexts look like and how they've answered that question. So Ed, let's start with you and then Dwight, you add some.

So think one of the new forms of church I love the most is forest church. And we have some really great forest church practitioners in the UK. And I know here as well in the US, there are forest churches. And that's sort of about responding to nature. So people who love being outside, who get a sense of wellbeing from being amongst trees, it's so relaxing, isn't it? And in all weathers actually, in some cases, in the UK it's just raining all the time.

So we love the rain and the trees and you're dry in the forest. That's, know, anyway, ⁓ so, so, you know, you're really into nature and you really kind of find yourself in nature and you find it very expressive. So actually rather than saying, well, let's all go inside to church. Why don't we stay outside? Why don't we use a sense of ⁓ creation theology, a sense of understanding God is in the DNA of the planet that he's made of the trees of us of creation and actually seeing the work of God in creation.

could then be a journey to helping people to worship God. Not worshipping the nature, but we could worship God through the nature.

Yeah, I love it.

Yeah, so our team at Faith Lead worked with a bunch of Lutherans in Wisconsin over the last year to do I've there's some Lutherans There are lots of Lutherans in Wisconsin. We love our Lutheran Wisconsin. they, in this one context, small rural place, and they did listening around their neighborhood. And one of the things they heard was there were a bunch of folks with neurodivergent and special needs children who felt really, we were struggling. were.

they were certainly cut off from traditional church and they felt like they were cut off from a lot of things and community from each other. So they did two, they started two fresh expressions, one called Neuro Spicy Neighborhood and it meets in a Mexican restaurant and some other neighborhood spaces. And it's this time for these parents and caregivers to come together and really sort of share, lament together, love on each other, pray together.

And then alongside that, they also started another one in an inclusive playground called Play, Pray, and Popsicles, where they're gathering the whole family and doing really kind of wonderful age-appropriate activities that are really tailored for that population. ⁓ And what's merged out of this is just community for these families that didn't have that. But it all really started with them listening and then wondering, in our context of this small town in Wisconsin,

What might this look like for Christian community to emerge among these folks?

As you were talking, Dwight, I was thinking about if I was a parent or a grandparent or aunt of someone ⁓ connected to that family, the different feel of trying to worry if I'm at regular church, inherited church, where like, we gonna get stared at or are we gonna be disrupted to actually leaving feeling like I could share my, what was happening in my life, being heard, being fed.

literally with spicy, like anything with chips and salsa, I'm there. But I think the dramatic difference of just what it would be to feel like you wanted to be there. what a beautiful way to reach out to the community with regard to that. I was just thinking, I wanted to go on a hike, right? I mean, as I listen to people in our setting,

They're like, I only have so much time on the weekend or the evenings or whatever. I want to be outside. That would combine, right, for those people that love on that. How would prayer practices or spiritual practices, how are those lived out in that kind of a setting end?

think in different ways. might be that actually, you know, part of being outside is you spend time praying. So we used to go, our local church in ⁓ south of England where we live used to run Muddy Church, which is another version, more kid-friendly.

When it's raining all the time, doesn't take much.

Yeah, it's constantly muddy. But I remember one prayer exercise was going, go and find a leaf that inspires you and we put out this big white blanket and then people brought all the leaves. And, ⁓ you know, that can be a form of prayer. People, you know, can read prayers they brought with them, they can pray spontaneously. Or I think another model is people are enjoying being outside, they're meeting God in different ways. And sometimes then there are spin off things. So maybe, you know, let's say like,

know Sunday afternoons is when we're doing our forest church, but maybe Thursday evenings we're going to our local cafe and actually we're kind of enjoying some refreshments and we're going to do a little Bible study or we're going to pray together. So I think it doesn't have to all happen at the same time because it's not an event. It's about building a community in a way of life and doing life together, which I guess connects back to our books.

No, I really appreciate that and the organic nature of what that is. Now I know from my visit or our visit over in the UK that there's some pioneer principles that the Church of England has developed. Can you explain about those principles and how those helped frame the work that you're doing and how they've played out in this book?

Yeah, so about four years ago, the Church of England changed the way that it changed its qualities for how they would discern and train people for ordination and for lay ministry. So before it was criteria to be met, and now we have qualities to be inhabited. And at the time I was in charge of pioneer ministry for the Church of England. So I was asked to write a set of qualities that would be great for pioneers.

but still were describing the same thing as someone being ordained or someone being in lay ministry, which was quite complicated. we, because they're kind of formed in grids. We have 28 cell grids, which are, contain all these different qualities for anyone. So we came up with the idea of a lens. We took the same framework as sort of regular leaders would have, but we made it pioneer shaped by enhancing some of those things and maybe by decreasing some of the other things. But the DNA fundamentally was there.

But that was quite complicated and there was a lot of information. So we came up with 15 principles that are like a backbone that run through these grids that help to just really frame what it's about. But actually they form as a brilliant kind of shorthand in a way in their depth of then what contextual leadership might look like.

Yeah, we're working that in the ELCA, that same kind of shift that you're talking about. And so I both understand the complexity and the deep need for what you're doing, because I think often we have made tons of assumptions about our ordained rostered leaders and not said about your spiritual maturity, about your practices of faith, by your ability to talk to somebody who's not in church, right? All those kinds of things that

fall here. So talk a little bit about ⁓ the two of you. What are some of those areas and then how have they played out in this book?

Yeah, so we really organized the book around them, kind of in these three main categories, spiritual foundations, so beginning with Jesus-centered, that's essential.

You're in

with Jesus.

It's radical. ⁓

I mean, life of prayer, right? So, so much of this journey is about listening to God and being in communion with God through prayer, calling, that's essential, ⁓ bicultural identity, and by that we mean the ability to inhabit local cultures and to be reflective about culture and to ⁓ be able to kind of straddle cultures, if you will, ⁓ in multiple levels in today's world, and then responsive obedience. So,

You if we live in a culture in the modern West that's really about doing what we wanna do, that's not helpful when we're trying to follow God, where it is really about responding to what the Spirit's doing and then obeying God's call. And if you don't have that as a spiritual foundation, it's unlikely that this is gonna go well. So those are the spiritual foundations.

Can you give a story or two about how those played out or how, I mean, my sense is as you're talking, I'm like, these are hard to take apart, bet. Yeah. Right? But what might be some examples where those really were highlighted as key discernment moments or somebody's life really said, this is what really made this what I'm supposed to do, right?

Yeah, so one that comes to my mind is one of our contributors who wrote on the calling chapter. ⁓ was a banker as a young adult in this promising banking career. And God called him to step away from that and become a church planter. And he and his wife had all kinds of ideas about where they were going to live. maybe they had dreams of even, OK, if we're going to do this church planting thing.

we're gonna do it in Northern California or maybe they had the short list of the cities that they knew people and felt comfortable and God said, no, you're supposed to go somewhere very different and take that journey. So it's a wonderful meditation on how does God's calling shape this journey and ⁓ how do we actually do that along the way. ⁓ So yeah, there's more, mean, if you wanna share others as well, Ed, but- Yeah, think around-

Bicultural identity, so that could mean lots of things. in the book, Harvey Quirani, one of our contributors, writes about ethnicity and race and how that's really important. And in a UK perspective, we're a growing multicultural nation. And so that's key. It can also, like Dirk was saying earlier, be about having a foot in the secular world and a foot in the sacred space, but rather than sort of running backwards and forwards between them.

you're holding them together in the middle of your community. And so there's lots of pioneers that I've worked with who are trying to do that. And that's where then, you know, a sense of church and mission grows right in the heart of the community rather than in somewhere that's, you know, down the road.

Yeah, I love that. Inward qualities. Talk about what those are and maybe share some stories.

So the inward qualities, there's five of those as well. Can we do that again? Sorry. So inward qualities, there's five of these as well. Discerning, self-giving, playful, hospitable and resilient. So some of those might be more obvious than others. Discerning is about being really good at working out what is God asking me to do? Is this the voice of God? ⁓

starters and innovators are often are really good at having ideas, doing things. And I think sometimes you can get carried away, I know I have, with like, this is such a good idea, I've just got to do it. But have we really discerned, is God wanting you to do this? Is it a God idea? Or is now the right time? So big questions of how do we hear from God? How do we know God is speaking to us? Particularly if we're right in this sort of secular sacred space and we've got a lot of influences from other places, and how do we know it's from God?

Self-giving, the phrase actually started out as self-sacrificing and we felt, having tested it a bit, it was a little bit too harsh. It seemed like a large ask and it had some other unhelpful connotations, but self-giving, the sense that actually we're in this not for ourselves, we're in this for God and we're actually in this for everybody else. It's not to make us look great. And often this work doesn't make us look great because the church sometimes doesn't understand it. We're going against the flow, hard.

Playful is one of my favourite though of these 15 qualities because it's a word I don't think I've ever seen in any kind of Church of England official document before. It's there. And the contributor Tina Hodgett who writes a lot about this in other work was writing about the idea that playful is about using what's at hand. The play is the thing. So it's not about I'm to do this to make this happen. It's about just trying it out like children play. And I love one story in her chapter where

she compares adults and children. So we might, as adults, say to children, go and play or it's playtime. But actually children operate pretty much the whole time in a state of play, whether they're learning, eating, whatever they're doing. And there's something quite important as adults. I'd do that. And then hospitable and resilient are about, you know, welcome and being able to stay the journey.

Do have any stories, either of you, from, that would illustrate those?

One story I have. So I was an early pioneer. I worked in London, in central London, and I was part of leading a theatre church for Western performers and actors and artists. And they would come and we'd sort of operate our worship and using the arts and treat them. But I was a chaplain in two theatres and my job there was to sort of be missional in those spaces. And I would go in my dog collar because I was Anglican ordained, but it was one of the toughest places I've ever been.

If you were a tarot card reader, if you could read someone's aura, angel feather, people we had came in, easy. But if you were like a dog collar Christian vicar, I remember people would actually say to my face, why is there a vicar in the theater? Wow. And so I persisted, resilience persisting, like all these things here. So I was a pioneer in London and a theater chaplain, and we ran a theater church in Knightsbridge where we gathered actors and artists.

and we worshiped through the arts. But my role as a theater chaplain was really hard work. Being an ordained Christian minister, wearing my dog collar, I would find it very hard to be led into the theater backstage. But if you were a tarot card reader or you had someone's aura, that was welcome with open arms. So I had to persist and be resilient, which is also in this book. But it involved a lot of self-giving because sometimes I just didn't want to go and be there.

But I had this sense of calling and bicultural identity really kind of kept you going. And actually, there were some amazing unspoken things that happened. you'd send a card to someone who you happened to chat to because their friend had died or something. And then they'd write and say, that meant so much to me. It was a lot about incarnational presence, but it was really hard, really hard. And so there's that sense of giving of yourself, but not emptying yourself. It's being full of the spirit as you then

give out.

No, I really appreciate that. I think our model here in the US is so organizational success driven by some metrics. How many people you have visited in the hospital, how many hours you put in, I don't know. But man, that wouldn't have any metrics. You just got to show up. I had a lot of visions and I had a lot of questions, but not a traditional way of thinking about church or ministry.

Yeah, absolutely really different

So there's one other set of practices, the outward practices. Dwight, you want to talk about what those are?

Right, so there's five more of those. So noticing that ability to pay attention to the context, really pay attention to where God's active among the neighbors that you're sent to be among, and then adapting, because whatever ideas you had about what the church or this ministry should look like when you start are probably not gonna be what's gonna happen. Experimenting, so that as the way that we learn going forward is trying things out.

Co-creating, and this is really important. So one of the leader of that ministry I was talking about working, meeting in the Mexican restaurant with the parents of neurodivergent and special needs children, she says, it's not about setting a table and inviting people to the table. It's actually about creating a table together as we go. Cool. And so this idea of co-creating is really, really important collaboratively. And then persisting.

You know, this is a hard journey. And I think it's one of the things that all of our authors speak to ⁓ in some powerful ways is it's not an easy thing to do, to start something new like this. so those all sort of, again, weave together and help complement each other as we go.

kind of taken by the fact that knowing church history is not on this list or ⁓ reading a spreadsheet or knowing how to run a vestry meeting or a church council, some of the things that might be in another list. Can you say a little bit about what's not on the list and maybe why?

Yeah, so some of

My guess is there's a few things Ed that you had to put on the other list

There's

a long other list. There's like 10 other books we could write about the other lists. But some of the things you mentioned, yeah, might be things you'd naturally assume would be on a list of someone who's running a church or seeking to start one. But I think because these people are starting from scratch, they're not bringing the structures with them. You need structure eventually. all need some kind of structure to hold things together. You need a leader or leaders.

But I also think actually, and we're trying to think about this more and more, we need to work as teams. think still the model, even with sometimes contextual starters, is that, there's the one person, they're going to do all of this, they'll tell us what to do, they'll do all the listening and the noticing and the discerning. I don't think it works like that. And it's not biblical either. So those things aren't on the list because this is a completely different approach. But when you do start...

something that becomes a sense of church. might take five, six years of doing this stuff, something to form this church. You're going to need some of that, but hopefully it's done in a way that's contextually relevant to what you need for that community rather than just inheriting models that perhaps are not relevant for this kind of work.

Yeah, that's really helpful. You talked about being ⁓ a person that's been started some fresh expressions. What lessons would you have for other people that are just beginning this work,

I think to kind go back to the very beginning, it has to be Jesus centered. I think, you know, sometimes if you get excited about wanting to do a new thing, it could be brilliant. It could be an amazing piece of social action or a brilliant community project that's serving people or something that's, you know, wonderfully entertaining that everyone's like, my goodness, let me hear more. But if it hasn't got Jesus at the center, it's not a waste of time, but it's not what we're here to do.

I think that's a big lesson. And I think the other thing is that it really is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes a long time and it's really, really hard work. know, Dwight, in your chapter, you were writing a lot about experimenting and I remember you writing about you do it at the side space, not in the middle in front of everybody else, because lots of stuff doesn't work first time. And I think sometimes the stories that we tell are often the end of the story.

We haven't heard the 10 years of people trying stuff and not working, but they've learned through that time. But also we may sometimes tell the really exciting stories, you know, where it's a really amazing off the scale idea. So actually it's a marathon, not a sprint, but actually often it's just every day, common sense, good local ministry is what happens. It doesn't have to be.

the next great big idea. could be something that the person down the road has also thought of, but you're doing it in your own way. And I think maybe not to take yourself too seriously. can be, you you can get very worked up about these things. Let, let, well to quote, let go and let God, you know, I think that's pretty important.

Yeah, well, I'll do add, Dwane. Yeah, I'll add, you know, I think that one of the questions is, so why do we do this stuff, right? And so I think- And I think often when, you when I hear, I'm in conversations, say, with bishops or kind of, you know, judicatory leaders who are like, we need to start new communities. My question to them is always why. And this kind of journey we're describing, this contextual journey, isn't about fixing the inherited institutional church. It really is about joining

It's hard, right?

with what God is doing in the lives of our neighbors and bearing witness to the gospel in the midst. And in ways that might look very different from structurally what we inherited or aesthetically what we've inherited or things like that, even though they're core practices that are going to be shared, it's what Christians have always done. So you gather around scripture. We're going to gather for prayer. We're going to have community together and serve one another and do forgiveness and healing.

all of those things that Christians have always done, but it may look very different. And I think one of the challenges for lot of church systems is that they don't have a lot of imagination for that and tolerance for that, or even to let alone the kind of permission giving and support that's required. So we offered this book as a way to hopefully expand some imagination, to offer some encouragement, both to those leaders called to do the work, but also to those leaders who are overseeing

intending the inherited church structures, whether it be at the local level or regional or denominational level, to say, you know, it's really important in this moment when so many inherited structures are disconnected and breaking down to be able to make space alongside them for these kinds of experiments and new communities.

So I really appreciate that, Dwight. And I think I have two parts to that that I want to make a comment on. First, I think so many in the US, and I don't know what it's like in the UK, Ed, but people go in, I'm going to be a full-time minister, and my salary is going to be paid for, and my benefits are going to be there, and I might even have housing. This is a different kind of adventure.

say a word about like how these leaders are imagining living their life, say one thing about that. And I think the second thing, and I give you them both because they may fit together, I think the people called to do this have learnings to share with the inherited church, even if the inherited church keeps being in a different kind of structure. But there's just learnings to go back and forth. So what might we learn?

as the inherited church from both the leaders doing this and the ministries that they're doing.

I think in the UK, we've had, you know, what we call pioneer ministry, and I know it doesn't translate too well into the US context, but we've had what we call pioneer ministers for 10, 15 years, ordained paid pioneer ministers and lay paid pioneer ministers. And there's been lots of funding that's been given by the church for that. That really has been drying up since the pandemic times. Dioceses have cut costs and I think they've seemed to have cut out the money for those sorts of things because I think they're

riskier, they take longer, they're really hard to sustain, and the money's been put in other places. So that's decreasing. But it's made me reflect that actually, although on one level, absolutely right, that people are pioneers are paid in the same way that regular priests would be paid, and there should be a parity of esteem, absolutely. And there is a place for that. But I wonder if it's the wrong model, because these people are creative entrepreneurs. And ⁓ a lot of these churches that have been paid

and started by ordained pioneers, get maybe five years worth of funding that pays for the person, the house, the package and everything. And then after five years they're expected to have a congregation who will be 50 people and then they can just generate this money. And lots of them have stopped because it's just not possible. So I think a better way is much more sort of income generating route. And there's people who are doing this where they're setting up a charity, buying a bus, whatever they're doing.

So comes back to our training. We need to train these contextual leaders to be really good at finding seed corn funding and putting in applications. And another key thing I think on that is about asking the community, what would you be prepared to pay for? Which someone a while back was sharing with me. It's a question I never thought about before. Rather than saying, what would you like us to do? What would you be prepared to pay for? Gets you to a very different place quite quickly. mean, within there's a realm of what you'd be happy to do or not.

So I think that the landscape's massively changing and in one sense disappointing, but on another level maybe it's bringing it into what it should have been in the first place.

Well, thank you for sharing these stories, both on our podcast today, but more importantly in these books that are in the book that people can share with leaders and have conversations about. My hope in prayer is that people don't try and ⁓ replicate what's in there, but there's something in those stories that awakens something in them or opens up a conversation in their own context.

with regard to that. So thank you for sharing today.

You're

welcome.

Pleasure.

And to our audience, thank you for joining us for this episode of the Pivot Podcast. As always, you can help spread the word about Pivot by subscribing or sharing on whatever platform that you get your podcasts or that you watch on YouTube. And please leave a review. Until next week, this is Terri Elton signing off.