Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to Made for Good, a podcast where we explore how to live out our purpose through good work, guided by biblical truth.

Speaker 2: 0:12

Hey, I'm Josh and I'm Mark.

Speaker 2: 0:15

Today we're talking about raising awareness in authentic relationships.

Speaker 2: 0:20

As followers of Christ, we are called to really go beyond surface level connections, you know Josh, and truly engage with the people around us, and we believe that those relationships should be motivated by the same love that Christ had and should be built on a goal of encouragement and understanding and really meaningful interactions with other people. Our goal in this podcast is to stir one another up to love and good works, and we want to get into the habit of serving those around us. Often we pray Lord, help us to see the opportunities to do good. So we're talking about wanting to see the opportunity, to have an awareness of those around us and their needs. And you know, josh, it just seems that some people are just naturally aware of what's going on. I know, for instance, my mother was always aware of where I was and what I was doing, even if I was in another room or in another home or even maybe in another city. She just had this natural ability to be aware of what I was doing and just for our listeners, that was before.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Live360. Yes, I was carrying no phone and she still seemed to know, so she was naturally aware. How was she aware? Well, she had a relationship with me, she knew and she cared, so therefore she had an awareness. So let me ask you this question, josh, as we start today. Ok, we've already said some people are naturally aware. Is this natural awareness of what's going on around in the lives of people near us a gift from God? Is it a talent or is it something that can be developed?

Speaker 1: 2:05

Short answer yes.

Speaker 2: 2:07

Yes, okay, expand on that.

Speaker 1: 2:09

Okay, I think that it is true. There are some people who have the gift from God that's a part of that, that's their talent, they are aware, they're actively working in the kingdom. And then there's other people that it can be developed and we've seen it happen. We've seen it happen with some of the young guys here, the college folks we work with in Auburn. We've seen some guys who were unaware and now are aware and are actively serving. But if I think we boil this thing down, there are things that get in our way of our level of awareness. One of them is busyness. We've talked about that a lot because it's just the truth. If we're overly busy with our own schedules, our own responsibilities and here's the thing Our own personal struggles, that can get in the way of us being aware.

Speaker 2: 2:51

Right, yeah, hey, and we have an upcoming episode on that. From a personal struggle perspective, we're going to talk the title is and how does that make you feel? We're going to talk about good works and the impact on you internally, in your psyche, your emotional health and mental health, and there's a direct connection and it's scientific.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Another obstacle is just flat out disconnection. It's wild that, in a time where we live in a world where there's constant communication, we know what's going on around us, that the stats show that we are more lonely than ever. Isn't it interesting? When we know what's going on around us, the stats show that there are people who are lonely.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Yeah, they're not in meaningful relationships. We have the ability to use all this technology to build and support meaningful relationships, but if we're not taking advantage of it and, as you said, you know the endless scrolling on social media that I'm so thankful that you and I have never fallen victim of, we seem to be totally disconnected from that Mark.

Speaker 1: 4:06

it takes intentional effort to truly see and connect with others. Here's the thing, what I've learned. I'm 37. No matter how old I've been.

Speaker 2: 4:15

I thought we weren't talking about ages.

Speaker 1: 4:17

Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, life 360 has been a part of most of my life. Okay, sorry.

Speaker 2: 4:21

It's still not a part of mine. You can edit that part out.

Speaker 1: 4:25

No matter how old or whatever stage of life I've been, I've always wanted a friend and when I've looked around me, I can see that people want friends. And what's interesting is, I think some people think that friends are just going to come to them and they get a little bit jealous of like, why are they close friends? Why are they best friends? Why don't I have that friend? Well, you may have this perception, or maybe people see you as well. You're not really friendly, you don't want a friend?

Speaker 2: 4:49

Well, that goes back to a verse in Proverbs.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Right Proverbs 18, 24. We were talking about this before we got recording. The King James Version says a man who has friends must himself be friendly, but there is a friend who sits closer than a brother. That's the King James Version. A chapter before that, in chapter 17, verse 17,. There's a part of it that says a friend loves at all times. So what I'm getting at, what we're getting at here, is if you want authentic relationships, you have to be friendly.

Speaker 2: 5:18

You know when Paul was writing to the church at Philippi. In Philippians 2, 4, he gives them a direct command. You know, a lot of what Paul talked about, particularly in Romans, is a bit of a challenge to understand fully sometimes Paul's writing. This is not one of those. This is really pretty clear. Philippians 2.4,. Let each of you look not only to his own interest but also to the interest of others. So this relationship, awareness, this authentic relationship really means that we have to choose, we have to act. We have to choose to look beyond ourselves and be present in the lives of other people. Today, we're going to talk about how we can cultivate that awareness in order to build closer relationships and ultimately be able to serve those around us.

Speaker 1: 6:15

We can springboard right into our Bible basis of the week. Jesus models spiritual awareness throughout his ministry. You can read about that in the Gospels. He saw people as individuals, not just a part of the crowd. Well, one of our favorite examples of this is found in John 4, 35-36, where Jesus tells his disciples this Don't you have a saying? It's still four months until harvest. I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest. Jesus wasn't talking about crops here. He was telling them to pay attention to the people around them. There were people who needed help, who needed hope, who needed to be seen that whole scene there.

Speaker 2: 6:54

we picked this out. The fields are white to harvest. We live in the South. We've seen fields white to harvest. We've seen cotton fields.

Speaker 2: 7:00

In this particular case, jesus was talking to the woman at the well. You know he had told her things that she had done that he would have no way of knowing, and she was so struck by this she went back to her community and you know his apostles are walking up. You know they've gone to get to get food and here she's coming back, not by herself. So the scene there, it's just, it's so powerful. If we could see what they were able to see when Jesus was saying this the crowds of people that were following this woman back to the well to hear Jesus. This woman back to the well to hear Jesus. That was the harvest that was white and ready to be gleaned.

Speaker 2: 7:52

It's people and that's what Jesus is talking about here. This is such a great example. If we want to follow Jesus' model, we have to start seeing people the way he sees, not as a distraction, as you've talked about, or even an obligation. Well, I have to do this, but these are valuable people. These all people are valuable people created in God's image. The guy with the tattoo, the guy that doesn't look like us, the guy that doesn't speak our language they're all created in God's image and what we need to do is to follow Jesus' example and, as you've said many times, josh, have compassion and let that turn us into doing something, that compassion leading to action on our part.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Exactly so. How do we develop that kind of awareness in our daily lives?

Speaker 2: 8:47

I think one of the biggest keys to being authentic in our relationships is maybe it's an overused word, but it's intentionality. Right, these deep relationships do not grow by accident. You refer to the passage in Proverbs where if you want to have a friend, you have to be a friend. Yeah, and that means that it takes effort on your part. It takes effort on my part. It doesn't happen by accident. You know the relationship has to be cared for and attended to, and you know Paul describes those types of relationships that we should build in Philippians 2, verses 1 and 2. He's talking about encouragement. So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind and having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. One of the most significant bases of relationship is our faith. Yeah, so if you're able to share your faith with someone, you've connected it at a deeper level than just maybe a social level.

Speaker 2: 10:02

What Paul is describing here is this verse is packed we get encouragement in Christ, we get comfort from his love and from, I think, love from others in Christ, and we're all we're doing things, we're participating in the Spirit. The Spirit is participating in our lives and we're being sanctified. That was a process that we're going through, but then here's something that is precisely Jesus affection and sympathy. You know, these are things that Jesus demonstrated while he was here on the earth and something that we should emulate, as we talked about in our in our second episode. But he says complete my joy by being of the same mind and having the same love and being full of core and of one mind. If we prioritize real relationships, relationships, then we can move beyond just the small talk about how he has it, whether you know what'd you think about that game last night, or whatever and we can start to build trust and encouragement. We can get encouragement and give encouragement, but there's a mutual caring for one another.

Speaker 1: 11:20

I love all of that, you know, but there is something that people want to do and they want to build deeper relationships, and there's probably some right now who are thinking, well, how in the world do you do that? Well, one of my favorite things that happened in class is we took the time to talk about listening, the power of listening, specifically active listening, and what that looks like. So, mark, just for a minute, I want you to touch on how that can be helpful.

Speaker 2: 11:45

Okay, well, number one there are different types of listening, right and kind of. Each one serves a purpose. You know, the first thing in our list here is empathetic listening, and this is listening trying to understand and connect with someone's emotion. Yeah, trying to understand and connect with someone's emotion as they're talking and maybe the experiences behind that emotion or what maybe even caused that type of emotion. So empathetic listening is seeking listening for the purposes of understanding where the person is emotionally. And then there's another type of listening appreciative listening. This is I'm just I'm hoping that some of our listeners are at this very moment appreciative listening. So listening, enjoying, getting value out of what someone is saying.

Speaker 2: 12:41

You know, podcasts have blown up Motivational speakers. That's been a thing for a long, long time where you get enjoyment and value out of it and that's an easy one. You just kind of sit back and take it in. But then there's this comprehensive listening and that's to learn, know to learn. We do this kind of in class where we're trying to learn and gain knowledge. So we're, we're really. It's not. It's not so much entertainment or enjoyment, it's, it takes a lot of effort. Yeah, you really got to.

Speaker 2: 13:18

You know, internalize what's being said and try to synthesize it, and so you can build knowledge.

Speaker 2: 13:25

And then there's a critical listening, and so this critical listening is one where we're evaluating, and in evaluating that listening, we're looking, and this is what we might do when we're listening to a friend talk, you know, keeping your mind, keeping your mouth closed and and listening to what they have to say, but when you're, you're thinking and evaluating so that you can respond, when it comes your time, thoughtfully and responsively to what they're saying.

Speaker 2: 14:05

Not just I'm not listening to what you're saying right now, because I'm trying to think about what I'm going to say. Right, I'm listening to what you are saying so that I can help you, yeah, or that I can, you know, impart some knowledge or give you some level of insight that maybe I've had in my experiences that you haven't had, but it's you know. Again, that takes a lot of effort as well, and so I think what we probably ought to do in trying to build these relationships is synthesize these together in a lot of ways, but what do you think the most important one is just to start off as far as developing a skill.

Speaker 1: 14:47

For sure. Out of the things you've mentioned, I would say empathetic listening. But before I get there, I just want to say this just had a thought while you're talking. I think that you can tell your maturity level and where you are at in a relationship based off of your ability to listen. Let me explain. I walked out.

Speaker 2: 15:02

I'm sorry, could you say that again? I wasn't listening.

Speaker 1: 15:05

No, you can rewind that, okay. One time I was a young guy and there was a preacher that I loved I still love and I walked out of the church building and he was talking to an older woman and he said you can tell a lot about young people they want to talk about themselves and they don't ever want to listen to anything else coming their way. I had just talked to this guy for five minutes and I was so excited Were you younger than him? Oh for sure, okay. Yeah, I just was telling about how excited I was about I don't even remember, but I was talking about me, yeah, but I heard him say that when I was walking out of the building and I thought, oh, I didn't even listen to him. He just listened to me, right? So, going back to your question, if you're thinking about okay, we want to build an authentic relationship, we want to be mature in this relationship, how do we get there? Well, I think it's empathetic listening.

Speaker 2: 15:58

James 1.19 tells us you guys know this let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger when we are focused on listening rather than just waiting on our turn to speak, as you talked about earlier, we start forming deeper and more meaningful connections. Absolutely, I think there's a reason he put that in that order Quick to hear, do that number one. Slow to speak and then even slower to anchor. So you want to be. There's one quick and two slows. Let's slow the speaking down, let's slow the anger down, but let's first start listening, and I think that if nobody is saying anything, what's there to listen to?

Speaker 1: 16:43

That's a good point. I think that we have to know how to get people talking, and what we do know is there are extroverts and there are introverts, and some are not quick to open up, and so some do need a little bit of encouragement to get their thoughts going, or so they feel comfortable enough to share how they feel. So let's just think about a couple of questions that you could work into a conversation, and what I want you to notice as you're listening to this is we're not giving yes or no responses. That's not going to help you in a conversation. Matter of fact, you're going to run out of things to say pretty quickly. Or the conversation is going to end, if that's your main focus. Think about these questions. Or the conversation is going to end, if that's your main focus. Think about these questions.

Speaker 1: 17:25

You're in a conversation, you're listening. You say you ask this question, tell me more about that. Well, that is just open-ended. There's going to be more conversation. Or you can tell something's getting deeper, someone's sharing their feelings. How did that make you feel? Notice that's not a yes or no question. Or what made you decide to do that? Notice that's not a yes or no question, or what made you decide to do that. So casting judgment is a thing, right, we've got to be careful what we say. But maybe if we open a question like that, we're building trust with something like this. And then the last one how can?

Speaker 2: 17:56

I help you. Yeah, those are. They're open-ended questions, right? They're open-ended and they're designed or intended to cause the person you're talking to to share more. And I think that these types of questions show a genuine interest in the person. Yeah, and the person is going to have to feel comfortable. There's got to be a level of trust. Person is going to have to feel comfortable. There's got to be a level of trust when they express something that happened that obviously could have had an emotional impact, and you say, man, so how'd that make you feel? Yeah, when they said that they're telling on somebody, maybe they're saying somebody said something about them in this example and you go, wow, man, how did that make you feel? That shows that you genuinely care for the person that you're talking to and if they feel that you're trustworthy, they may share that and then you may be able to. So now that we've gotten some information coming in, we're starting to have this real conversation. You have an opportunity.

Speaker 2: 19:06

You know, in this podcast we've talked about wanting to do good for others. You know, a part of that good work is not just, you know, getting to the point where we help them, as you stated before, josh, in our conversations, part of the good work is just the listening part. And then, ultimately, you know, when Jesus listened to the rich young ruler, he listened with empathy, and the other good work that he did at the end of that conversation was he told him what he really needed to do. Now, those could have been words of encouragement, and turns out that in that case, they were words of discouragement, because he really was trusting in his riches. So we need to be careful, though, how we phrase the next part of our conversation.

Speaker 2: 19:59

When they say something like and then I did this, and you might be shocked that the person did this. You know what? So I scratched their car. You did what, instead of going? Why would you do that? You could ask the question I mean, that's a pretty extreme example but what motivated you to do that? Maybe they said something, maybe it's not something, or maybe they did something or ignored somebody, or whatever, but instead of saying just the right out, why did you do that? That's very, almost confrontational. You could ask what motivated you to do that, and you're causing them to maybe reflect on what they have done. Another one is well, that didn't make any sense at all. Instead of saying those words, you can still convey the same thing. Okay, hold on a second, I'm not following. Can you explain that? And just give them a moment, give them some space to maybe more clearly articulate what they're trying to convey.

Speaker 1: 21:09

I just want to interject for a minute. I've noticed that your tone is different from question to question. Yeah, so how? How we naturally feel fighting off an urge to say something the way we want to on the first part of your question and then the way you rephrase that to make you trying to establish trust. Why is that?

Speaker 2: 21:25

Why are you doing that to make you trying to establish trust? Why is that? Why are you doing that? I think the tone that we're using in the first example of these questions is conveying maybe a little bit of anger and frustration on our part, and if you say it differently, you actually you can use a tone that's more soft and it's setting the foundation, for I'm not judging you harshly, I'm trying to help you and I'm genuinely concerned about you.

Speaker 2: 21:51

In this conversation, for instance, you didn't really mean to say that did you? Or there's an emphasis, there's an edge, is the word, there's an edge on. You didn't really mean to say that did you, and instead saying why did you say that or what did you mean by that? It's a softer question and, again, it keeps the conversation level, keeps the conversation calm, and these are conversations in this where we're on the responsive side of the conversation. We've already talked about listening and getting them open, but there comes a time where we're going to need to again to try to do good in the conversation and provide some feedback, and part of that feedback may be asking a question that causes them to reflect the thing that's bothering you. Maybe you don't say this explicitly, but what did you do to put yourself in this situation, and we may want to draw that out in the conversation.

Speaker 1: 22:56

Yeah, that is also good. The way we respond just makes a huge difference and, as you touched on, our tone is a big part of that. And choosing words that show curiosity rather than judgment helps build trust. And one of the things I'll say about myself is I uh, I'm a relationship person. I love to have relationships with people, but I've used that as a way out to not do good. Sometimes I think, well, it takes time to build a relationship because they got to trust me. That that part is true, that's true. But also what you've shown is if we're careful in our conversations, people can get a read on someone really quickly and they can see that they trust you quickly and we can act on those things quickly. So we just got to be willing to step into it, not use something as an excuse.

Speaker 2: 23:36

Yeah, and you know, the thing that we're not saying here, that we should say is your facial expression when you're talking to someone. You know, you know frowning versus smiling or nodding, because when you nod you're you're giving this nonverbal. Yeah, yeah, I hear you. I hear you. So here's the deal. Our mission challenge for this week is threefold we want to check in with some people maybe that we don't have a very close relationship with yet, and so to reach out to someone to see how they're really doing. And we're talking about not just you know, how's your trip? Okay, that's a great question. But then if they say it was great, well, good, have a nice day, and you walk off, we're not talking about that Well, what did you enjoy about it? And you know, did you, did you see family or did you see friends? And just your show interest.

Speaker 2: 24:29

Be very, very intentional about trying to connect with someone so that you can be there. Impactful help that we might be able to provide someone might not start in the first conversation. Yeah, it may be the second, third, fifth, 27th conversation where they finally get to a point where you see them how are you doing? I'm really struggling and whoa, I've never heard that come out, but there's a there's a level of trust that's been built up Over this repeated checking in. So maybe somebody you see on a regular basis, that you know tangentially, reach out to them, be intentional about asking how they're really doing and then listen, listen empathetically Listen to try to understand how they're feeling and what they're communicating and focus on that listening more than getting ready to say what you think needs to be said. Sometimes, when people you let them talk, they can almost talk themselves out of the. I know I really shouldn't let that bother me, but, okay, what did I do to help you get to that point? I did nothing. I listened and I nodded, and maybe the person that you're talking to is looking at you, going, yeah, they wouldn't have let that bother them, maybe I should. And then it just comes out of their mouth yeah, I really shouldn't have let that bother me. Yeah, you're right. Look, you know those people who said that may have had some other stuff going on in their life. They didn some other stuff going on in their life. They didn't really mean it. Yeah, I think you're right in that that type of stuff just needs to roll off and I think what you're doing is you're encouraging.

Speaker 2: 26:19

So the last one here is just to send a thoughtful message. It could be by text, it could be in a conversation, but maybe a compliment or a note of appreciation. We've mentioned these types of things before. It's all in the realm of encouraging those around us, and you know. So these three things we're going to do be intentional check in with someone this week, listen, focus on listening empathetically and then, you know, send a message to somebody and that might actually be the impetus to start. You know, that might be the way that you're checking in with someone and the listening might be. You can have this conversation clearly. Yeah, you mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that with all this technology and all this interconnectivity that we have, that we feel alone, we can use that technology still to build relationships. Now, there may be at some point where you go hey, you know what, let's grab coffee today and get to that point where you're in a face-to-face, right. But you can use the technology. It's limited, it's two-dimensional and you don't hear tone. Emojis are not tone.

Speaker 2: 27:35

They do help maybe a little bit, but remember in all this, to try to ask open-ended questions that invite a deeper discussion, rather than just yes or no questions. And so, josh, that reminds me maybe, if we've generated some questions in these conversations, I'd like to ask an open-ended question. Here we go, we're going to ask an open-ended question. Okay, what do you think about our podcast? We're halfway through this season one. What do you think about it? Be sure to drop us a comment or maybe a review, on whatever platform you listen to us on, and give us your feedback.

Speaker 1: 28:14

Yeah, we'd love some stars. It doesn't make a difference how many of the stars we get, so just take some time to like and subscribe.

Speaker 2: 28:20

You said stars, that was plural.

Speaker 1: 28:22

I was hitting at five would be great. Yeah, five would be great.

Speaker 2: 28:27

Well, maybe at least more than that Okay.

Speaker 1: 28:28

So hey, can I say this? This is I know we're ending the podcast now, but we're. We've been locked in this made for good studio that you've made up, you know, also known as the church building, for for quite some time, and we've been working on this secret project. Last week I mentioned it and you kind of shut me down a little bit on air. Uh, what are we? It's it.

Speaker 2: 28:52

It is so secret that the big red microphone that's between us, we had to get an nda from the microphone. I mean it is, we're there's, there's nothing out there yet, but just it needs to stay okay, confidential, okay, but the time is coming soon where we'll be able to talk about it. All right, moving on.

Speaker 1: 29:12

Okay, well, listen. That's it for today's episode of Made for Good. We really hope this conversation encouraged you. Like we said, please take the time to subscribe and we hope that you catch us on the next one.

Speaker 2: 29:24

If you found this helpful, consider sharing it with a friend. Catch us on the next one. If you found this helpful, consider sharing it with a friend. Until next time. Listen well, build authentic relationships and remember you were made for this. Thank you.