Keith Haney

David W Ebel: Welcome to the God Says Yes podcast. You are welcome here. Welcome to another episode of God Says Yes. My name is David Ebel, and I'm your host. And ⁓ after fifty plus years of ministry, our goal is just to encourage people. We this is a place without judgment, without preconceived ideas. It's just a safe place where we can talk and share. It's just a couple people on the couch chat chatting with a friend, talking about how good God is. ⁓ we don't care Your story, we want we want you to know your story doesn't it matters to you but it doesn't hinder us. Doesn't matter whether you've been betrayed, belittled, be anything w whether it's church hurt or someone that family member that betrayed you or hurt you badly, that doesn't mean God hurt you or wants you to be hurt. Matter of fact, on behalf of the body of Christ, if you've had church hurt from somebody acting out in church, I apologize for the because that is not what God wants us to be. But sometimes People don't realize that the church is the emergency room of the body of Christ. And when you p bring people to the emergency room, not all of them are happy to be there. And some of them act out and hurt others. And that's what happens in church sometimes when people act out and hurt others. And it's not right, but it's it is where it is, and God wants to heal us from that kind of hurt. We are custom made from the inside out by God. The outsides don't look the same because that's not the important part. What's really important is from the inside out that we're like God. We were created in his image from the inside out. We were accustomed to love from day one. There's not a thing you can do to run from God. There's not a thing you can do to earn his favor. It's not a performance sport. He just loves you. He made you to love. He'll always love you. There's not a chance that you can lose his love. He just wants you to trust him, not people, not buildings, not all the other stuff that gets in the way. Just between you and finding through Jesus Christ, finding a ⁓ peaceful road to God so that you can begin to live your life wholly and and and and some with some happiness in it too. So ⁓ I have with me a a dear friend, his name is Dr. Ke Reverend Dr. Keith Haney. I'm gonna just call him Keith because it's too many words. But ⁓ I am grateful that you're here, Keith, and welcome. Well so good to have you to be with you. I'm looking forward to this conversation. I know it's gonna be a f a fabulous opportunity for us to connect and learn more about each other and each and ⁓ and the story that God has given all of us. Amen. And ⁓ so we're we're excited about this week. What I I'm hoping for is that my my my the friends who are viewing will get to see you like we do. You know, to be to be blessed and to and and to be encouraged. So tell us a little bit more about yourself. So I've been a parish pastor for over thirty years. ⁓ this year it'll be thirty five years. ⁓ started out in Detroit, Michigan as a pastor and then served in the St. Louis area. And then I spent eight years in Milwaukee before working in the Chicago area for twelve years. And then now I've been in in Iowa for seven. ⁓ I've been in the parish for f half of the half of that time in those three other three places I talked about. ⁓ been blessed with a wife and six kids and two grandkids. I joked that two of my grandkids are being held hostage in Texas. My son's in the in the military. ⁓ so he's serving his country and ⁓ grandkids are there. But I've I have the unique pleasure of being able to work with a hundred and sixty nine churches right now in western Iowa, helping them. I'm the mission exec, so I help them with their mission, stewardship, and human care needs ⁓ in Western Iowa. So that's what I'm currently doing right now. Wonderful. I'm I I I'm excited to hear more of what you're gonna what you're gonna tell us. It's you know, it's it's important work. And I'm I'm just grateful that ⁓ you're here to tell us about it. So ⁓ we ⁓ we're just we're just grateful that God loves people and he he works with the ones who've already opened their hearts to reach the rest of us. And Keith, we're glad you're here and would would you tell us your story? So my story started out really kind of it's kind of a funny story. ⁓ when I was younger, my mom and my whole My mom's side of family were very much into church. ⁓ and I went along because they they would take me along as as a good parent would. But I wasn't real comfortable at my mom's church when I was little, ⁓ because it was a it was a Baptist church and there was a lot of emotion. And so in the Southern Baptist tradition, you'd have a lot of people who would sometimes be overcome by the power of the word and they would sometimes they would pass out. Well, at four, I didn't get what was happening, and it just freaked me out. And I told my mom, I can't do this anymore. This is way too stressful. I I was I was a kid who liked quiet, and this was not the place for me. So I didn't want to go to church. And ⁓ my mom tried to listen, but she know that was important for me to have that foundation. But then when I was about four, I went to a preschool, it was a Lutheran preschool. And the first thing they do with the first day of preschool is they have chapel. And I'm going, I'm going, ⁓ great. Now I get to watch four year olds passing out. ⁓ but it was a it was a Lutheran preschool and in the Lutheran church body, there's a l lot less emotion in our service for right or wrong. That's just how our we're they're German Lutheran, so there's not a lot of a lot of emotion. And so it wasn't it wasn't noisy. It was just there was a message there, and I could hear it. And for me, and it's just is my preference, I wanted to hear God's word. And I didn't need all the other stuff. I just wanted to get the pure word of God. And that was a place where I could hear it without all the other distractions. And I told my mom at five or whatever it was, Mom, I want to become a Lutheran. Didn't know what that was. ⁓ she honored that. And so I basically converted my Baptist family to become Lutheran. And so I I tell people I was a young evangelist at age six. And and so we joined that church body and right away people in the church noticed that that God had a unique calling on my life. And I think when I was twelve, I was teaching Sunday school and really involved in the church at an early age. I became fender secretary when I was seventeen. ⁓ I was treasurer at eighteen. and people ⁓ people saw something and so they were they were trying to nurture that in me. ⁓ then I Went to a conference when I was a teenager and the speaker there, I remember to to this day, Dr. Joseph Lavelle, was talking about the shortage of pastors, especially black pastors in our church body. And he was asking us to take that step and and to be ⁓ thinking about serving and serving God in his ministry that way. And and God just said, This is something you should do. So I was so excited. I go right back home and I apply to seminary and get a letter back. And then telling me that, you know, we we thank you for your application, but the problem is that you need the undergraduate degree first. You can't just go from high school into the seminary. So I went off to college and then kind of lost the desire to do that and was majoring in computer science. ⁓ but somebody sent my name in again to the seminary and I went for a visit and said this is what I want to do. So I came back and graduated and went to seminary. ⁓ in Fort Wayne, met my wife there. ⁓ and then I transferred from that one to the one in Saint Louis and four years later I became a pastor in in Detroit, Michigan. ⁓ so I I'll let you ask if you have any questions, but that's kind of my journey on that part of it. Mm-hmm. And so you in your story, there's always a before. How ⁓ you know, how when how when did you meet Jesus and how did that happen where you b he became real to you? Honestly, for me, I think it was after I became a Lutheran and I stopped work I I went to church and I could actually hear God's in the message. Because like I said, there was a lot less of the noise. I didn't see him in the services before because to me it was just It was so uncomfortable, all the other stuff around the service that the word got lost to me. ⁓ and so when I could just sit in that quietness and and be trained and nurtured, it's when it became real to me. And then I was I was on fire. I'm like, I I love this message. I want to teach it to young kids. And so here I'm I mean, most seniors are not teaching Sunday school. ⁓ but but God had grabbed me by the heart and says, You need to you you need to tell other people about this. So I was so excited to be a Sunday school teacher at I think I was like fifteen. And every Sunday I'd be there teaching the kids and it was it was great because I had to study it more. I couldn't just walk into Sunday school and and not know something. So I had to to you know take the time during the week and and dig into his word and learn so I could teach it to the younger kids. And it made me really get into it, not just you know, believe it on on the surface, but to actually delve into the word and study it. And that's became one of the things that I I think is a strength of mine today is being able to to take God's word and to unpack it in a way that the that most people can understand it in a nice tangible way. I love it. And then so what when you once that happened, God changed your heart and in in you new ministry was your future. So What but once you surrendered and you went to Bible college and you came out the other side, tell it tell us what happened then. Well, even though I was a pastor, there was still a person in my life, my father, who was not a Christian. I mean, he said he was, but my dad had all kind of personal issues. He had his own demons. ⁓ my dad was an alcoholic. ⁓ and when he was an alcoholic, he was abusive. ⁓ my dad did not go to church. As a matter of fact, I spent most of my years, my younger years, trying to convince him to go to church. And one day I actually did. after me just harassing him every single Sunday, Dad, you need to go to church. Because I believed deep in my heart that if my dad went to church, the word of God would transform him. And that's why for me the word transformation means so much, because I truly believe, and for me, I guess my favorite Bible account is the story of Moses. I believed that if if my father stepped Foot in the church that he would realize he was standing on holy ground and he would meet, he'd come face to face with a guy that trans would transform his life. And so I kept trying to convince him to come. And one day he actually showed up. And he walked in, and the members of the church said, ⁓ your long lost prodigal father, which which ticked him off, and he refused to ever step foot in the church ever again. And and and then my dad died. From cancer ⁓ about nine years ago on Christmas Day. ⁓ so I get a phone call, Christmas Day that my dad's passed away. And ⁓ I always joke with people. My mom had two sons, one's a pastor, one's an accountant. So I told her she had death and taxes covered. but so when when my father died, it was up to me to do the funeral because my dad didn't have a church. So here I am having to preach my dad's funeral. Service because he was not going to go in church. He didn't he would have, he would have never gone in when he was alive. He didn't want to go in when he was dead. And I remember having to get through that sermon and thinking as I was doing that, I never want to see any other family go through this kind of pain of not knowing when their loved ones die where they end up. And for me, that has always been a passion in my ministry to make sure that as a pastor, I was there to help people who had unchurched family members or themselves who were unchurch. ⁓ coming back into the into the family of faith through the through the gospel being proclaimed in our life. And so that was always a passion that always drove me as a parish pastor, and even today, of how do we focus on the lost? How do we focus on those who have strayed? How do we focus on the people like my father? And I remember one day as I was just wrestling with the fact that my father was gone and I just wasn't sure about his his future, ⁓ I was studying God's word. I had to preach one Sunday on The story of the prodigal son. And as I'm preparing the sermon for that particular week, God just reached down to me and he says, Do you ever think I gave up on your father? Do you ever think I stopped pursuing him? And and it just it just ripped me apart to know that God was saying, I never stopped searching for him, I never stopped seeking for him, I never stopped looking for him. And I want you to know that even in the end, I never gave up on him. And and I and I remember preaching that sermon and it was just it was it was one of the sermons that that to this day people will remember from my my parish of that was a different kind of message from you. And cause I i I was speaking to all those prodigal sons out there, whether they were in the church or whether they were family members or people who were had prodigal kids or prodigal family members, and God was saying, like the hounds of Baskerville, I will never give up on you. and So it was just just a powerful witness to me and and always to my ministry because everything I do in my in my work, on my podcast, my blog is about helping churches remember the harvest. Never give up on those people who have strayed. Amen. Wow, I love it. And and I'm so grateful that God has spoken to your heart to do that because we need more people going out in in and winning others or just loving them enough they can earn the right to be heard so they can then share. Right. a lot of times in in the culture we live in right now, ⁓ we it's almost like they you you can't trust anybody. ⁓ people are if you try to give advice they d they don't want to take it. ⁓ and if you bring up God then there's something really going on. So you have to earn the right to be heard, to be you earn the right to be listen to be listened to. Then you can introduce Jesus as your best friend. And it it it it gives him credibility in their lives because they trust you. Exactly. Yeah, I agree. So tell us more, brother. So that was that was that was that's been I would say kind of the underlining mission of my ministry was to help lost people, ⁓ reconnect with the church. But my my third congregation kind of took a had my mission a different direction. I ended up going to a congregation in Milwaukee, Wisconsin that was a church that was divided racially. It was 70% black, ⁓ 30% white. And I walked in there and I found out that this church was one there was a lot of racial tension in that congregation. ⁓ So the white members who there would love their traditional music, their traditional hymns, and the blacks love their gospel music. And it got so bad that when when one side was singing their song, the other side would fold their hands and and close their ears and vice versa for the other side. So when the gospel music was sung, some of the whites would clo cover their ears and go, It's just it's just noise and when the whites were singing, you know, the Bach and the Beethoven and the and the ⁓ anthems, the the blacks would be upset because they're singing this. And we would do one s one service of one style on the first and third Sunday and a different service on a different style, the second and fourth Sunday. And the fifth Sunday was just kind of a mishmash. And I walked in there and they were just always fighting about worship. And I realized that that wasn't really the heart of what the issue was. The issue really was about race. ⁓ we had a we had a school at that particular church. All of our teachers were white, all of our students were black. And I discovered in my ministry that the blacks in my congregation believed that they could not be prejudiced. They could not have racial ish undertones in their heart because it in order to be racist in their definition, you had to have power. And because they didn't have any power, society had all the power. The whites in society had all the power. They could have any kind of attitude they want, any kind of heart issues they want. And they'd be immune from it because they can't be racist. And I'm like, where in the world did did this teaching come from? So I had to go back and begin to unpack what is at the heart of racism and deal with the fact that going back to what what G God said through Paul is that God does not judge the outward appearance of a man, God judges the heart. Amen. The heart is wrong. That's where racism gets the foundation for. So we had to deal with teaching my entire congregation that yes, you can definitely have racist undertones and racist thoughts and and and hurtful things in your heart and be black at the same time. And then we had to begin to heal that in this congregation. And we had to change worship. We had to deal with ⁓ attitudes. We had to, you know, hold people account to the attitudes and things they were doing. It took seven years to begin to get this congregation to start to work together as see themselves as a people of God versus people who attend a church that God has happened to be there on Sunday morning. ⁓ and so we really had to work through that. And out of that, ⁓ formed really became the the foundation of my very first book, which is about healing race in America, because I I don't think we as a church have figured out yet how do we teach. racial reconciliation to the world, especially to Christian church. And so we tend not to talk about it. In my church body, because 90% of my church body is white, we tend to believe that there's no racism in our church. And I'm like, well, there there are there are racial tensions in our church. We we can acknowledge that whether there is racism or not, I don't like I don't like to label people a certain way. But we do have issues in our church that we need to deal with and people's feelings are hurt. And we are not welcoming as we could be, because we don't have to be. If if our church all looks like us, we don't have to worry about whether or not the person who's different feels welcomed or not. And so I got to I got a chance, during especially during COVID, to go around and meet with a a lot of white church and talk about how do we begin to look at racism. And I what I wanted them to understand was is that in this world, racism is not a black or white issue. It's not a Republican or a Democrat issue. It's a spiritual issue. And when I was writing the Bible study, I tested it out in white congregations. And one thing I kept hearing back from the members there is racism will never be solved in the world because it's just too big of a problem. And I remember saying to the to the person who told me that, I'm like, So you're telling me that there's some issue in the world that's bigger than God? I'm like, that's I don't believe that. I don't believe there's an issue that God can't solve. If God could solve the sin problem, he can solve the racism problem. And I said we have to realize that first of all, we're fighting racism with the wrong tools. We're fighting racism with can with more better communication. We're trying to fight racism with passing certain kinds of laws or or or equity, or we're trying to fight it with with this or that. Just opposed to saying this is a spiritual issue. And we have to use spiritual weapons. We have to use Ephesians six and use those tools of God has given us as a church to bring about the ministry of reconciliation. And so I I wanted people to understand that racism is about how do we begin to restore and and see each other as children of God. And so it begins with our identity. And our identity is not found in the color of your skin, it's found in the in the heart of a re person who's been redeemed by Christ or crucified. Our identity comes from God, not from our skin color. Amen. I spend a lot of time trying to teach people that if you start with your identity being how you feel, who you're attracted to, you know what country you were born in, a family of origin, all those things are wrong. Your identity belong begins with who is Christ redeemed you to be, who is God created you to be, and we're all children of God. I love it. I agree with you. ⁓ our ministry in Detroit ⁓ w it wa it was interesting because the the the the the neighborhood we were we were s serving in had used to being at one point a w a white neighborhood, but it it had the all the the people who were there moved away and the building that it was the church building had been made by th those ancestors and they had made it by hand. One saw every piece of wood was hand sawn and everything was beautiful. But the neighborhood had got it so bad that the church sold it for almost nothing just to get out. And this church came in and it it it came in with the idea that we're going to love who's here. We're not going to love who looks like this or looks like that. We're going to find our neighbors and love them. And so ⁓ from the beginning it was all about who who who wants to come and love God. And ⁓ we ended up having to deal with the exact issues you're talking about. And God did a remarkable thing once we got used to the idea that is that God loves us from the inside out. Once we got that settled, everything else began to fall in line. Right. And how we dealt with the worship issue was we talked about the fact that think of worship as a family meal. And that in a family meal you may have your favorite dish, but everybody doesn't like the same dish. But music is people's heart language, the heart language of God to that particular person. And when you dishonor the songs they like because it's not your your cup of tea, your favorite dish, you're ignoring the fact that God speaks to that person through their heart language. We want to remember that we are a family. And if God speaks to them through that particular format, that particular style, then we want to honor that as long as the the music itself is is also God pleasing. But if it is, then let's celebrate the fact that you're hearing God in your heart language. And so we started to say, we're gonna we're gonna have a very diverse musical worship experience because there are a lot of different people here who God speaks to through the word, through music, through the psalms, through ⁓ interaction, through touch, through smell. And we want to make sure that we are we are honoring the way God is is bringing the message of hope and healing. To each individual in this building. And so it's important for us to honor that and respect that. Amen. And how did that work out? Well, it took a while, but we started to not fight about worship anymore. And we started to kind of be able to enjoy the fact that we were all there together. Now they were still, you know, we're still sinful people. So there were still moments where we had to remind people of that. But we got to the point where worship was not the fight anymore. ⁓ and people were there because they they were they were getting fed. ⁓ we actually had the we also that the problem that church had was or challenge was we had nobody in Bible class when I got there. There were three people in Bible class, including me, and the rest of the church didn't go to leaders didn't go to church, the w elders didn't go to church. And so we said we had we created a vision for the congregation that says, We want to be a A church that is being transformed by God's word, which means that we need all of our leaders to be in in the word. And that means that we we negotiated to figure out what time of of day would be better for people to come to church. And we decided that if we moved church up a half an hour and had Bible study after church and we had different groups bring food, then people were more likely to stay. So we went from having three in Bible class to having about 60 to 70. And Wow. Being in God's Word together, that did as much to transform the nature and culture of that church than the worship did. Because now all of a sudden we're studying God's Word together. We started a men's Bible study with a neighboring ⁓ suburban church up in West Bend. And so every every other week we would go back and forth and we'd have ⁓ the men's from that group come down to Milwaukee. We go up to to West Bend and then that travel we had myself and the men in that group were has sharing stories and joking around and having fellowship. And all of a sudden for we've been they've been trying for ten years to get a men's group going there. We got one going and it lasted five years after I left, maybe ten years after I left it still going on. But the men were in the word that it transformed them, it transformed their homes. And all of a sudden the women go, Hey, we want a Bible study too. Why do men get to have all the fun? and so the the women demanded a Bible study and we started one for them women. And what started to happen was when that church got into God's word, God's word did an amazing work in their lives. And that church was totally different than was when I walked in. And not because of me. I love to say because I was a wonderful pastor. ⁓ it was because we got into God's word together and we grew together. Well, the the pastor can bring be the ma the bat the pastor's the mailman. Yeah. He has to write the message, he just delivers it. And it's up to us to open up the envelope and apply it to our lives. Right. ⁓ and and a a good pastor is faithful to deliver the message clearly and and genuinely and lovingly. But it's it it it takes God working through the people to take a church and and get some of the human out in the heavenly in. Yeah. And it was just it was it was a glorious thing to see that church transform and change. So ⁓ now we've c we've covered some of the churches. Is there is there more to the story? There is. After I left the parish, ⁓ I got a I got a call to serve on a district level in the Chicago area. ⁓ it was about at that time we went from serving one church to serving a chur ⁓ a district of two hundred and thirty congregations in the Chicago in Chicago area land area. Wow. And I was one of four mission execs there. And we were called to do church planting and bring church planting to northern Illinois. and so we had we had to create a culture that did not exist there. They did not, they hadn't planned a church successfully in I think over ten years. And one of our ⁓ retreats, we came back with this wonderful tagline that was gonna be our mission statement, New Starts, New Believers. And we went we went around and taught those 200 and some churches. What does it mean to plant a new church? And it may not be a a brand new independent congregation, but it might be a new ministry or a new worship service to reach a new people group. The goal was to get churches to see the harvest and to invest their time and energy into finding new ways to connect with their people. And so I spent 12 years doing that and we saw some ⁓ some amazing change transformations of congregations that had been stagnant. And we had given up hope. All of a sudden, if you ask anybody in that district, what's the district's mission statement? New starts, new believers, they could just tell you because we we hammered into them over and over again for twelve years. and so I did that during that time. ⁓ it's when I wrote the Bible study, One Nation Under God. ⁓ when I left that ministry, after that season came to an end, I ended up go coming to Iowa and I get to Iowa just as the pandemic is hitting. ⁓ And so everything around is shut down. And so God said, Hey, maybe you could use your Bible study on healing, race, and the body. One of our schools reached out to me and said, Would you could we use your Bible study to teach a class on justice? 'Cause this was during the whole George Floyd thing. They were trying to be more aware of justice issues in the world. And how could they approach it from a Christian perspective? And they had no resource that was Christian. So they wanted to use my Bible study. I'm like, Well, sure, that'd be great. Then the professor said, Hey, will you will you teach it with us? I'm like, Well, I'm is I'm under like lockdown, so I have nothing else at this point. I can do a whole lot from my office. So sure, it was online. ⁓ and then he said, Hey, since you're teaching it, you're, you know, you're kind of a smart guy. Have you ever thought about getting a doctorate degree? I'm like, No, that doesn't involve reading a lot of books and a lot of time. I don't have time for that. He's like, What if we gave you a a discount? I'm like, Well, sure. And so I approached, ⁓ My leadership here, and then like, hey, we support you to do that. And so they supported it. And then three years later, I was in a doctoral program. And I said, if I'm going to do this, I want to do something that's not just for myself, but benefits the church at large. And so I decided to study organizational change because my belief is and my role that I have now is that the church is the greatest organization God ever created on the face of this earth. And when it performs to its highest. Lives are transformed and the lost hear the gospel. And this the struggle is 80% of our churches in the country are a plateau to decline. How do we adjust it so that our churches can be healthy and they can grow and be organizations that are changing the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ? So I said, let me study change in churches and how do I help churches to go through the change process and get back to finding the mission of God and having that be on the forefront. of all that they do. So I focused on that and I studied 300 churches around the around the nation. I did him do a survey for me. And the findings of that were in my dissertation and became part of my new book, Guided by Grace, A Nair and Delete Organization of Change. Talked about how do you help churches navigate change and get back to the mission of God again. Wow, I I'm loving this. ⁓ and and now that now when you finish that, is there more? Well, right now I'm I'm I have my new blog, ⁓ my new podcast, I mean my new website I should say, is really trying to digging into the research that I've done and and providing articles and resources to help churches to lead, you know, lead change. And I do a lot of that in my district. I actually do probably about seven to ten a year workshops on vision and helping churches to align themselves with the mission of God, help them discover who their neighborhood who their neighbors are and helping them to discover how do we design a strategic vision to reach those people in their community. That's amazing. So you've got what is the name of your book? Guided by Grace, ⁓ a narrative to lead in organizational change. Okay, and how can people get it? ⁓ it's on Amazon and ⁓ But right now the book is written kind of on a is a story. And I thought it'd be easier to do that than have me get my dissertation kind of give you all the details and all the charts and all that. So it's the story of a young pastor who grit just got a just got a Bible school and he's going to his first church and he's called upon now to take this church and lead it through a change process. And it's the ups and downs that this young pastor goes through to lead this established church to be a missional church that's changing its community in Oak Brook. ⁓ And so that's what it is. I kind of lead people through at the end of every chapter, there are questions for keep people to process so they can help lead their leaders through this process. And what I've heard so far is ⁓ I see myself either as a pastor in this story or I know that lady in the in the book who wouldn't change and her story. And we talk about, you know, every change is death for people. And especially in churches, as you've been a pastor, you know this is when you talk talk about change in a church. There are people who resisted, not because they're necessarily against reaching lost people, but there's a there's a sense of loss when you talk about changing your church. You you grew up there, you you got you might have gotten married there, your kids might have gone through confirmation there or baptisms there. And now you're talking about doing something different than what they're used to. And there's pushback. It's like I don't want they don't want to lose the the the memories of what their church used to be. So I try to help people realize that. When you're leading a church through change, you have to make sure that you listen to people's hearts, you listen to their stories, because there's stories there that they're that they're maybe worried about losing. And how do you like you would a grieving parent or a grieving widow? How do you lead them through the the grief process of having to adjust to the fact that what they've known is different? So yeah, we talk about all those things. And is there a website particularly that you ⁓ you would like us to be able to go to and and and and ⁓ learn more. Sure. My website is becoming bridgebuilders.org and you'll find the book there, you'll find blogs there, you'll find my podcast is also under the same title. ⁓ and the podcast is really kind of a a mixture of the two things. My work on racial reconciliation. ⁓ I have guests on that podcast who are ⁓ Who talk about difficult issues and I also have guests on talking about leadership and organizational change. So we t we cover the whole gamut on that podcast. Awesome. Say that again nice and slow. Becoming Bridge Builders is the name of the podcast. ⁓ and BecomingBridge Builders dot org is the name of the is the p location of the website. That's that's helpful because I know if people are listening to this and they want to write it down, we want ⁓ to get ⁓ every word because that's important. Thank you. So ⁓ we're We're really grateful for you coming on and and sharing with us. ⁓ I'm grateful for your story. ⁓ it's amazing what God does. And it's funny, if you if you only know a small portion of people, you know that story. But when God opens that window wider and you get to meet more people and you see how they serve God, it's refreshing to see what else God is doing. He's not limited, like we we are limited. He he can he can reach people in every walk of life. In every in every mindset of life, he can reach anyone who's open to be reached. And that's so exciting. Yeah, it is. And and I love that. I guess my for me, the the greatest moment in my ministry is when we have what I call those aha moments. When you're sharing the gospel with somebody and all of a sudden the light bulb goes on and you see that God has worked in their heart and and they now it's like, I want more of that. I want to know more about this savior you just described to me. ⁓ and to me that's that's what gives me such joy in ministry. Well, I'm I'm I'm in a hundred percent agreement with you. I ⁓ though mine has been more evangelistic than yours, ⁓ you know, it's all kingdom work and there's and if we all don't do the part that God has given us to do, you know, ⁓ you know, we're we're the body of Christ and there's fingers and toes. There's all different parts to it. Right. But you know, if you've ever watched somebody try to walk without toes, it's it's not a pretty sight. ⁓ we ne we need all the pieces to the body of Christ to d to be functioning for us to do what God really wants done in this world. And I'm grateful for the part that you're doing because it is a very necessary part of the body. And I'm grateful that ⁓ God has used you. And I look forward to ⁓ c connecting with you again at some point and hearing more. I would love to. ⁓ it'd be fun to do. And in the meantime, though, ⁓ we always invite our guests to give us a golden nugget. Something that could be we could mull over the in the next weeks or so, having heard the podcast, ⁓ something they could think about or even pray about or meditate or whatever way that they they process. So what would you like to share with our our viewers and listeners? I want people to know if there are people in your life that you may be frustrated with because they're not believers, that you have maybe lost hope in, that you even lost the fact that you think God can reach them, don't give up on them. Never stop praying for them. Never give up on them. If it if it's a grandchild or a daughter or a spouse, know that God never stops pursuing them. And that's that's been on my heart that knows that even if we get frustrated, God doesn't. Even if we get ready to give up, God never does. God will never, ever stop pursuing them. Amen. And boy, I I don't know about e ⁓ others that are listening, but I can think of three or four people right now that that when you said that I could think of their faces right now. That that g because God needs to continue his work in their life because they're not there yet, but they're on the way. And ⁓ we I want to believe God for those people to discover how good God really is and the and the beauty of of what he does in their lives. So ⁓ Well, normally as we close our pro our our our podcast, ⁓ I c I close in prayer and they give a charge, a challenge. And ⁓ so we're we're gonna look forward to doing that in just a second here. And ⁓ let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are grateful for the privilege we have to gather together as brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, th for those that are struggling, if God can use Keith, he can use David, he can use you. ⁓ doesn't matter what our story was, when we meet with God. and become personal with him, he will reveal to us and show us who who we are and who we are in him. And in spite of people, in spite of situations, what great things God can do in lives, what you can do in our lives if we just give you room. Lord bless every listener and viewer. Minister to them where they are and let them know your love. Bless Keith and his ministry and all the ways he touches people as you touch them through him. Minister to his family and to those that he loves and cares about, and do a mighty work of grace through him and and within his his his realm of influence. Bless those that are listening and viewing, and bless them and and let them see how good God is. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Now ⁓ the char there's always a challenge, and that is if you seek after God, he will be found. If you want to know him better, seek Jesus. He is the way to God, and he'll be glad to reveal his father to you. So keep seeking, and you you'll be amazed by how beautiful God's life is in you. This has been the God Says Yes podcast with David Ebel. Connect with David, email him at GodsaysYespodcast at gmail.com. You can get his latest book, When the Doctors Say No, God Says Yes, at Amazon.com.