Tag: Relational Spirituality Podcast

The Band of Brothers – Life in Community |…

June 20, 2023June 30, 2023
by Kep Crabb

Show Notes:

Spiritual friendship – See the Spirit’s work in real time as lives are changed. Connecting with other men in church. Why is community so important? The ripple effects of a Christ centered life are amazing.

Bio: James Shelley

James Shelley by day, is a product manager at Denver Hardwood Company, and has been actively serving in his home church as leader on the worship team for over a decade. James and Kep met in late 1998; they quickly became fast friends and brothers in Christ, and have played in a band together, led worship at each other’s churches, for nearly 25 years. He is proud to have known Larry and is excited to see Larger Story grow. James and his wife Brandy have been married for 28 years and reside in a small town on the eastern plains outside the Denver metro area. They enjoy spending time together at Lake McConaughy in Nebraska in the summertime and are avid Denver Nuggets fans!

Links:

Real Church by Dr. Larry Crabb

SoulTalk by Dr. Larry Crabb

Transcript:

[00:00:28] Kep Crabb: Welcome everybody to Larger Story’s podcast: Relational Spirituality. What does it mean to relate with someone in only a way that the Holy Spirit makes possible? To belong, to become, and to be really known? I’ve got a special guest today who is one of my best friends and we’ve got a story together that’s been really fun since 1998.

Looking at how the Lord has grabbed hold of this guy’s life is why I wanted to bring him on, to share his story with you all as I’ve seen such a tremendous transformation in my brother James. Let me introduce my boy, James Shelly. James, thanks for joining me today, bro.

[00:01:04] James Shelley: Yeah, I’m glad to be here. It’s good to be on and finally getting a chance to do this with you.

[00:01:08] Kep Crabb: This is fun, man. This, by the way, will be the beginning of many. You and I are going to be doing this a bunch, I love to chat with you. We’ve talked about doing this kind of thing many times before in the last 25 years. I think what I want to talk about more than anything is to talk about the story of you; to introduce people to you.

Let me quickly run through how we met when I moved to Colorado in late ‘97. We met in late ‘97, early ‘98 through a mutual friend who you were playing music with at the time. I’m also a musician, as some people know, and you and I hit it off and we started playing music and we had a band. The band that I joined is a band that you had led since ‘93. Then, you and I joined together and it became the Kep and James Show. We hurt some feelings for some people, but we took that off and it’s just been amazing to see what God’s done in your life since that time.

Let me just give y’all some real quick background as well on James. James, correct me, when was it that you took Sam and Grace in? How long ago was that?

[00:02:11] James Shelley: We actually got them in 2018 when they were eight and 10. So we’ve had them, it’s going on five years. In fact, just a couple days ago was our five year anniversary. It was January 26th when we took them in 2018.

[00:02:24] Kep Crabb: In 2018, James took in his niece and nephew, his brother’s children. James and his wife Brandy are now the people in complete custody of those kids and loving them like their own in some really impressive ways.

But that’s just the beginning of James’s story as we talk today. James, you were saying the last three years or so has been a real shift in some things. You said that started with the men’s retreat that you were on at one point.

[00:02:53] James Shelley: It really did. I spent a lot of time going to church with my wife and I was on the worship team. When I started going to the men’s retreat, it started sinking into me that I needed a community of men around me. I could literally just be with my wife, Brandy, and I don’t need anybody else, but that’s really not the way that I started seeing things after attending these men’s retreat. Iron sharpens iron. I came around with this two sessions ago when I went to the retreat. I needed a different community and it really sparked something in the small group sessions that we had at those retreats. The deep discussions, the becoming vulnerable with those guys which I hadn’t before. I was up there on the platform playing guitar every Sunday. People knew who I was, I just didn’t have connection with any of the men in my church.

That started happening after that retreat two years ago. It’s just led to accountability with a couple other guys. We’ve done daily devotionals together, and that’s where it started; the change in me and how God has used that to increase the size of that little group to three or four guys that I have extra devotional times with and connection with. It’s an amazing thing to see how God has used that situation to strengthen my faith, my bible habits, my meditations. It truly is basically a situation where you turn over Lordship daily, and when you do that, then you step out of His way and let Him take control. The days just seem to go a whole lot better when I start off like that.

[00:04:48] Kep Crabb: It’s beautiful bro. It’s so amazing because I’ve had a chance to see from a front row seat what God’s done in your life, and through that what He’s also done in your wife’s life and through that what He’s doing in your kids’ life and through that, what He’s doing in your church community.

You said something as you were unpacking it there that I grabbed onto: the whole notion of iron sharpening iron and the whole thought of the fact that this was all based in community. Why? Why is it so important to be in community and especially you as a man with other men?

Dad used to say, and you may have heard this – just in case you guys were wondering, this guy right here is one of the very few people who ever got to jam with Larry Crabb several times. We could show videos of that at some other point, but we won’t do that. What’s it like to be in community with guys? Dad used to say, your wife wasn’t meant for your weight, but your shoulders were meant for hers.

So who was meant for your weight? That’s brothers. That’s where I think that you and I have really become brothers and so close in the last, two decades-plus, and just where I feel like I’ve got someone in you who I can trust, who I can rely on.

[00:06:01] James Shelley: It’s true. We’re going through a series now; we’re better together as opposed to this world right now that wants to isolate us. The social media, the things like that, that really want to close us off by ourselves, and the importance of getting together with believers. This relational spirituality concept that you’re building on here is the direction I think the church needs to go in this season.

To include everybody just like Jesus did. He never outcasted anybody. He was around everybody – the people that He outcasted I guess were the religious people – so the community is where we get together. It says where two or more are gathered, He is there.

It’s just that community is just becoming more and more important. That’s what I gathered the last couple years getting with those guys, and when the guys step up and start leading their families, our pastor always says, you won’t believe what happens to the church body itself when the men get together and lead.

They’re spiritual families. It’s an awesome thing to be a part of and that’s what God is doing right now in our church and in my life. He is getting us guys together and doing mighty works.

[00:07:25] Kep Crabb: I’ve seen that with you in respect to how you’ve taken control of your family spiritually – the bull by the horns as they say. That, to me, is so important in what that means and what that looks like.

It’s been so encouraging to see how Brandy, your wife, has just stepped in with you. I said this to you today, she’s the kind of gal who I’ve just seen stay by your side. Whether you’re planning a Harley Davidson biker party or you’re planning a men’s church retreat, she’s right there with you. That’s just been a testament, man. Your life has been so encouraging to so many, and I think that the whole notion of how to be in community, what does that look like? You guys are in some small groups now, and you’re heavily involved in your church now.

Let me tell one more story about you before we go on. When you and I first met, I asked you, do you ever go to church? I remember you saying, sometimes I drop the kids off.

[00:08:18] James Shelley: Yeah. What a change.

[00:08:21] Kep Crabb: What a change from where you were to where you are now.

[00:08:23] James Shelley: The sad part about that, I lived three houses down from the church that I grew up in, and we just said, “Hey, kids, all right, it’s time. It’s Sunday morning. Go ahead and go down there to Sunday school.” We didn’t even take them to drop them off. We just said, “Hey, you can walk a hundred yards to the church.” That was that period in young life when you and I hooked up, I was young. Mid twenties. Leading my life, I basically turned my back and said, “God I’ve got this. I can handle this.” Had the job running, the family, doing the thing, and I look back, it was because I had lost my childhood pastor. I didn’t lose him, he retired. There was a new pastor at the church. I didn’t feel connected to that one, so I was in the midst of trying to find my own way and lost and in sin and all that stuff.

That was that period where I just sent the kids to school or to Sunday school instead of going myself. It wasn’t until Pastor Tux passed away and I went to his funeral that I felt a calling when his wife Dolores looked at me and said, you need to get your buns back to church, honey.

I felt that call. It was like a ton of bricks landed on my shoulders. I said, yeah, I need to. That’s where the journey started. I still checked a lot of boxes along the way, but Brandy and I, that’s what we consider that separates us – or, not separates us, but that makes us different than say if we’re in a group of 10 couples, that our faith is stronger.

As we work towards God, we grow closer together. That’s what sets us apart from some couples is our faith over the years. You’ve seen it grow. You were there. We weren’t married all that long before I met you. You and Kimmie, you’ve been there.

[00:10:15] Kep Crabb: I’ve journeyed with you, bro, and I love that. I love the fact that I’ve had the chance to journey with you and see the transformation in what you’ve become as a man of God and to see the ripple effects of that. Your wife is blessed, your niece and nephew – who really are now your son and daughter – they’re being blessed by your commitment to the Lord and how that’s changed. It’s such a great thing for me to see, which is why I’ve wanted to share you with everybody. You get to see a little bit of an intimate side of me, everybody watching this, because this is my boy and we’ve played music together for 25 years and he’s seen some of my story as well.

As we talk about it, one of the things you mentioned was this men’s group and where you are now, what continues to sustain you. Because you seem to be getting ahead of steam in a good way where you really are moving in some really powerful directions.

[00:11:07] James Shelley: About four to six months ago, I felt the desire to share my testimony from the platform. I’m currently in a situation where I led the worship team during Covid when we didn’t have a pastor. Our previous worship pastor left in June of ‘19. I said I’ll be the leader of the group – not the pastor just leading the group. We had a pretty solid group during that time I led, and then when we got our new pastor, Tim. For about the first six months, he was building this thing where he wanted people to share the testimony. Now we’re starting this movement in our church; this year, in 2023, the challenge for the church and all of us is to share 90 seconds of our testimony; not necessarily the whole picture. That day that I shared my testimony from the platform it was a lengthy one because I’d been up there and I knew people knew who I was. I’ve been in the community a long time, my whole life. I would say that 95% of them didn’t know the James Shelley conversion story, even though it happened a long time ago. The movement is the sharing of the testimony and what God is currently doing. We’re all working on that. That has sparked the men in our group.

The elder board has identified 20 men in the church who have shown some extra leadership. Of course, Tim, my worship pastor, interjected me into that group. I’ve always been a leader there at Mountain View, although I’m not the official title of elder, just because I’ve been there long and my age; I’ve been there a long time since 2009, and they started in 2005.

It’s a simple transition to where we’re trying to lead from the front and that community of us men getting together and being spiritual and creating relationships with each other. Becoming more vulnerable with each other leads to clearer spirituality as we meet together and we invite the Holy Spirit in. It’s just a fantastic position to be in. When you’re doing the things that are like this podcast is trying to get across: relational spirituality, being together so that other people can see, so that the greatness of God can show through. That’s really it.

[00:13:53] Kep Crabb: That’s incredible. James, I wonder, what would Brandy say if someone were to ask her, how has James changed the most, or in what ways has James changed the most in the last 2-4 years? What do you think she would say?

[00:14:12] James Shelley: I would say the physical side of seeing me in the Word; studying and circling and underlining, not just reading the pages, but reading it and rereading it. Last October, ashamedly, I finally made it through the entire Bible. I had read everything else except the prophets. The major and the minor prophets. I finally was able to work through that.

I would say over the last two, three years, she has seen a hunger and a desire to be in God’s word for me. We’re in a small group as well, the worship team, she’s in women’s bible study. Sometimes it can become cumbersome having to go to the church three or four nights a week, but it’s becoming more and more because the passion that gets ignited

I would hope she would say that my anger is not quite the rollercoaster it used to be. That hopefully she could say that, that she sees me asking the question, is that what Jesus would do or is that how He would react? Is that what he would say? Because those things are real. They’re more real each and every passing day.

Now when I get confronted with something, I almost immediately think the whole, “what would Jesus do” thing, so that love, that passion, that evenness, that calm and the grace that God gives me, hopefully she says that’s what she sees of me.

[00:15:58] Kep Crabb: Yeah, I love that bro.

I think that’s so cool. It’s funny because in this conversation so far, you’ve mentioned that some of the big changing points have been community with some brothers. The second thing you’ve said is spending intentional time in the Word, which then leads to this outpouring that your wife is seeing happen.

It just helps in so many ways. I remember asking my dad questions one time. I said, “Dad, how do you know the Holy Spirit is guiding you or directing you? I’ve seen people come up to you before, saying, ‘I’ve got a word for you, Larry. Here’s a word from the Spirit for you.’ What does that do for you?” And he says, “Sometimes something, but who knows?” I said, how do you know that something’s really coming from the Holy Spirit? You knew Dad. I said, how do you do that? He said, there’s three things, and you just named them all in respect to, if you hear that voice in community, if you hear that voice in the scriptures and if you hear that voice in your prayer life, you can be pretty confident that’s the Spirit saying, move.

I think that’s what you’ve been in tune with in respect to how you’ve lived your life with these other men and with people. It makes your wife the recipient of a better man, a better husband. My dad used to say to my mom, my goal is not to be a good husband, and I used to wonder what are you talking about, Dad? Sure it is. Come on, you want to be a good husband.He said, no. That’s not to mean it’s not important to me, but he said, my goal is not to be a good husband. My goal is to pursue the Lord. And if I do that with everything I am, well then your mom, she’s going to be getting a pretty good deal.

[00:17:34] James Shelley: She’s the best, for sure. For sure. It’s a good thing to follow that blueprint. Your dad, I look at him and what he accomplished. He’s like the spiritual earthly father that I’d never had, my dad being an alcoholic – he was saved, but he wasn’t practicing. He had accepted Christ, but I think that he thought that he could do enough to get to heaven. Even though I think down deep, he knew accepting Christ’s gift was what salvation was. He’ll be there on the other side – but your dad is a person that every time you were in presence with Larry, it wasn’t just surface stuff. It was thoughtful, thought provoking. You could just tell by Larry’s tone in his voice, he was engaging with you.

One of my goals is to complete the catalog. I’ve got a ways to go, but SoulTalk, I’m sure we’ll talk about that in the upcoming sessions. I just completed that book, and that book was a powerful book because I actually heard his voice the whole time I was reading. I could hear his voice inside my head. I know there’s going to be seasons. David had his seasons of resting by the brook and then running into the caves and hiding and things like that. I’m sure those seasons are still there, but it’s going to be a lot easier navigating when you’re more inside the Lord’s will.

[00:19:14] Kep Crabb: I think the biggest takeaway that we can think about now as we’re chatting is to stay inside the Lord’s will, like you just said. It’s really about being in community with people who sharpen you, who strengthen you, who encourage you. Be in the word daily. I love that your hunger for the word grows when that happens, and I can see that in you. And then to be in constant prayer and just petitioning the Lord and talking to God. I think those are the three things that, if we can live in those, we can be different people in the ripple effect of our life.

We used Dad as the example, and you and I got a chance to see that firsthand.

[00:20:01] James Shelley: From the beginning too. I remember the early days, shortly after we got together and started playing in the band. Your dad was working on New Way. You started speaking about the new way to live.

Since you started Larger Story, it’s that 30,000 foot view that says, Hey, we really are a small part of a really large story. It’s a story that needs to be told every day for the rest of our life: the Larger Story. Our Lord the Savior, His stories. Whatever we can do to promote those stories and tell people what He’s done for us. Why wouldn’t we spend the time and effort to tell those around us. Like He says, love one another. It’s an amazing thing.

I’m peaceful. I’m not complacent at all, because you get distracted. The evil one will come in at any moment. He’s always there to try to get you off the course, but it’s great to be able to stand on the solid rock, and start today with the solid rock.

You talked about being a part of this movement in eastern Colorado and the vision that we have at our church and then your vision and others, the team that you work with ast Larger Story. We’re coming into a good season.

[00:21:27] Kep Crabb: I really am so grateful that you’re part of all that, bro.

I love hearing what you’re talking about when you say, talking about God’s Larger Story. You are such a big part of God’s Larger Story in the sphere of influence that you have with your wife, your family, your friends, your church, your community with me. I think that’s really what it’s all about.

The dramatic change that I’ve had a chance to see with you is something that I wanted to introduce to these people, to the people of Larger Story, because this is a guy you’re going to get a chance to see a lot more of. I’m going to be chatting with him a bunch and maybe sometimes we’ll even break out the guitars and sing a song or two.

We’ll see how we do with some of that, but this is just going to be fun. What does it mean to put on display this relational concept of a relationship, a conversation that we can only have because of Jesus. You have Jesus’ Spirit in you, and I know Jesus, I have the Spirit in me as well.

That just gives me goosebumps, man. It really does make us brothers.

[00:22:31] James Shelley: Yeah, and for people, they’re in my small circle of influence in my church. They can see that it’s real. It’s not contrived, it’s not put on. I’ve always tried to just be as real as it can be in the crazy, in the humor, in this and that and the other thing.

It’s just, it’s the realness, the real-ationship, it’s a good practice to just continue to connect with people and share your story. The testimony is the thing that if people are going to get to know, and people are going to ask the question, what makes that guy tick? What is it about him? The people that don’t know you, they’re going to know shortly that it’s Christ, it’s the almighty God that is working through us: through me, through that guy. That it’s real. They can see that something is going on and it’s real. That’s the exciting part.

[00:23:37] Kep Crabb: Your story has been an incredible example of that to me, which is why I wanted to have you on today. Yeah, I just want to say I love you bro. It’s so good to have you on today and get this first one under our belt. I think this is going to be kind of fun because these are the kind of conversations that you and I have all the time.

We will continue to have these kinds of conversations where iron is sharpening iron. You can talk to me about struggles. I’ve talked to you about struggles, you’ve talked to me. We felt like we’ve had each other’s back so many times, and that’s a great feeling. I would always encourage people out there to find – Dad used to say – find one person that you can be totally honest with, in the sense of telling everything. You said, is that going to be your spouse? Should you tell your spouse some things, whatever. That’s not to keep things from your spouse. You need to use the Lord’s and the Spirit’s judgment in that for sure. She’s not to bear your weight and you’ve really displayed what it means to step into the leadership of your family spiritually and take that bull by the horns, just like I would’ve expected, and I did expect. You’ve got a crew of people following you now, and it’s just fun to be a part of that too, my man.

[00:24:45] James Shelley: Yeah. All glory to God. It’s Him working through me and Him working through all of us. If it’s not for that, then it’s for nothing, and I’m just glad we finally got to this because from where we started, it was a very small part and it has blossomed; God has blossomed it over the years. I think He brought us together. Even though we’re not speaking for hours daily like we used to because we were each other’s “girlfriends,” it’s that relationship that we have that nobody can really touch.

Hopefully we can find people to foster that relationship with so that they can know the Christ we know, so that they can do the same thing and duplicate. I love it, man. I’m loving it.

[00:25:36] Kep Crabb: I am too, bro. I’m so proud of you. So happy to be one of your close brothers.

I just thank y’all for joining us today. I want to remind you that every Tuesday of every week we’re going to be dropping a new podcast. You’ll get a chance to see myself with some friends, and some guests. You’ll get a chance to see Karlene, Rosanne, with some friends and some guests. We’re all going to be talking about relational spirituality. One of the books that we’re looking at right now is one of Dad’s books, actually one of my favorite books. We’ve done a webinar on it. It’s titled The Pressure’s Off. I think as you get a little older, and I’m starting to realize this a little bit, James, the pressure really is off.

We come here and we have this conversation. We prayed before we talked, and we wanted it to go so well, but Lord, this is in your hands because there’s nothing that we can do that’s going to change anybody. We don’t have that power. But through the Spirit, we do. That just blows me away, man.

[00:26:31] James Shelley: You do, Lord, let me get out of your way. It’s funny you say that because I just picked up my copy. I got it yesterday. I’ve started with the first page already, so I’m going to be looking forward to this one. Like I say, I’m working my way through Dr. Crabb’s library for sure. My maturity level now I think is expounded enough to understand and get on your dad’s level, whereas when I was 26 he was a little bit up there.

[00:27:03] Kep Crabb: He’s making you reach for it. He wants you to realize there’s something more.

Bro, I just love you man. Thanks for joining me today folks. Thanks for joining us. See you next Tuesday and have a great day.

Message

REAL Church – The Bride of Christ | Ep.…

June 6, 2023June 2, 2023
by Kep Crabb

Show Notes:

What stirs in me that makes me want to know God more? How is “church” supposed to move me in those good directions? Hear a pastor of more than 4 decades talk about the church and God’s people today. Where are we heading and was is happening to the Church? Is it worth it?

Bio: Jim (Jimmy) Kallam

Before founding their new ministry, Jim served on staff at Church at Charlotte (an EFCA church) for 42 years, 37 as the senior pastor. Jim has a BA in Biblical Literature from Northeastern Bible college where Suzi is also a graduate. Jim has also served on various non-profit boards. Those include Winning with Encouragement, The Barnabas Center (a counseling ministry), Word of Messiah, and the EFCA Board of Directors where he was chairman for the last four years. Jim and Suzi have traveled extensively overseas to teach on marriage, pastoral health and encouragement to national leaders in Ethiopia, China, Costa Rica, Cuba and Thailand. Out of the heart’s desires and their gifting, Jim and Suzi Kallam formed Tandem Spirituality as a response to the many unique needs facing church leadership. Their desire is to support the local church both nationally and globally. Their hearts are to engage with couples and individuals for Christ centered living, a revival of truth lived out in everyday life and to encourage those caught in struggle. Jim and Suzi have been married for 48 years and have three married daughters and eight incredible (just ask them) grandkids. The Kallams live in Charlotte, NC.

Transcript:

[00:00:28] Kep Crabb: Welcome, everybody, to the Larger Story podcast called Relational Spirituality, where you belong, you can become and you can be known. I’m your host today, this week, Kep Crabb, and I’m joined today as we finish talking about Real Church: Does it exist? Can we find it? It’s a book my father wrote years ago on church with a longtime Crabb family friend, a former senior pastor for several decades, who now works with Tandem Spirituality. Please welcome my friend, Jimmy – Jim – Kallum. Jimmy, how’s it going today man?

[00:01:03] Jim Kallam: It’s going good, Kep. It’s great to be with you and I love being on this and it’s good to see your face, man.

[00:01:08] Kep Crabb: Tell me a little bit about Tandem Spirituality.

[00:01:12] Jim Kallam: Sure. Suzi and I retired in 2019 after 42 years at Church at Charlotte, and our heart’s desire was to give back to pastors and their families. My experience in life talking with pastors around the country was, pastors do a terrible job of taking care of themselves emotionally and spiritually in that type of space. Many times they’re busy serving other people, but they don’t take care of their own lives and they don’t take care of their families. It’s been Suzi’s and my heart to give back to that niche: pastors and their families, Christian leaders in their families.

That’s what Tandem Spirituality does. We hold retreats, we talk with people, but we do a lot of one-on-one mentoring, offering spiritual direction to talk through the issues that they face. You look at statistics these days and people are diving out of ministry left and right. Not just older folks, but younger folks who are like, it’s not worth it.

Which gets back to the whole subject of your dad’s book, Real Church. It is an exhausting experience for a lot of those guys. So that’s what Tandem Spirituality does. We actually started a podcast of our own back in November just to take 10, 15 minutes and talk about issues that people struggle with.

So there’s a thumbnail sketch of what we’re doing.

[00:02:33] Kep Crabb: That’s awesome, Jimmy, which actually dovetails so beautifully in with what we’re going to be chatting about today. You did talk about some percentages and different things, and before we had this conversation, I looked up some things just so I had my numbers right, but 44% of millennials have zero religious affiliation. That number has actually gone up by 6% since 2016. When you start to look at some of the other statistics in terms of people leaving, the traditional church really is becoming smaller. I’m wondering, as we do talk about the present day church, what’s going on today with church and – Dad talks about it in the book – why is church important? Why do people not want to go? That seems now to be true more than ever.

Talk a little bit about how you see the church changing today, and maybe where you see the church heading.

[00:03:22] Jim Kallam: I would say this; I think Covid gets blamed for a lot of things. I don’t think Covid is the reason why the church is struggling. I think Covid exposed the faults that were already there in the local church and particularly for the younger generation because it became a convenient way to go, I don’t have to go to church without feeling guilty that I wasn’t going to church. I really do think that what’s exposed in the American church today is, people are tired of something that really doesn’t “scratch where they itch” – is one of the ways I would put it – it feels fake to a lot of people. It feels phony to a lot of people. It feels, I think from the perspective of a pastor, like a pressure to have to somehow entertain his congregation.

Each week it gets bigger and bigger, your dad and I used to talk about. One of the phrases that I hated as a pastor was walking out after a service and somebody’s saying to me, “boy, you really hit a home run.” What’s that make the other week’s? A ground out? A strike out?

[00:04:24] Kep Crabb: “Last week struck out, but today…”

[00:04:26] Jim Kallam: “This time you hit a home run.” It’s that idea that somehow I’m responsible, the church is responsible for…”entertaining” is an easy word to use, but it’s, “I want to come out of there feeling good. I want to come out of an hour and a half – whatever your service time is – and I want to feel good about myself” as opposed to going, “what stirred in me that would cause me to want to get to know God more?”

I think that gets pushed to the side. I think your dad wrote the book back in 2007, 2008, somewhere around in that range. If your dad was still with us today, I think it would just be multiplied, what he felt when he wrote that as to what he would experience today.

[00:05:05] Kep Crabb: I think that is so true, Jimmy. I just think about where things have gone since Dad’s been gone. Yeah. He died a couple of years ago, and it has just spiraled out of control. He did write a couple things in the book that I just want to read real quickly. He says, “So it comes down to this. A real church doesn’t entertain its people on Sunday mornings or merely inspire its people with rhythmic music or exciting preaching. A real church knows that tough times are ahead – and already present for many – tough times that serve a purpose in God’s perfect plan. So the plan must be heard, the love behind the plan must be seen. That’s the big topic was love. A real church longs to know every book of the Bible to know the one who wrote it, to hear the story the books are telling and communicate the story of spiritual theology to its people.”

Dad talked about in this book, there were four things I think he mentioned. I wrote ’em down here and I can’t find ’em now, but it was: spiritual theology, spiritual formation, spiritual community and spiritual mission. They were some of the big topics in that book. You hit on it there, where do you see the church heading today? Churches are getting smaller.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine who’s in a church that we’re part of. Kimmie and I now are part of a small group that has really become our church. It’s very different, and I just see church going in some different ways. This guy that I was talking to last week, Anthony Vartuli, is a former pastor as well. We had a great conversation about where church really seems to be going. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:06:44] Jim Kallam: I think thoughts that I’ve shared along with your dad for years. My unique story is, I went to a bible college for four years, graduated, went into ministry with the thought I’d go back and go to seminary, and I never did. I’m not going to downplay the importance of systematic theology to know what the Bible teaches, to know all those things, but I think spiritual theology is far more important. What I mean by that is that what God says in His word, as I get to know Him through His word and through my experience with the Spirit of God, He’s doing something to change me. He’s working in me. He’s doing things that call out the sin that’s not the obvious sin, but it’s there in my pride, it’s there in my heart. If the theology, I believe, doesn’t enter into a spiritual awakening in my life, I’m not sure it’s worthwhile. If you ask me what I think the church needs, I really do think it needs a growing sense of a spiritual theology that gets proclaimed when it gathers and then gets lived out in their lives.

You do that through spiritual direction, spiritual formation, but you do that in the context of a community. One of the things that was a value we held as a church for four decades was, we wanted our church to be a place where people could struggle well with life; with the realization as they walked through that door of the church that they were a mess.

One of your dad’s favorite spiritual words was “mess”. I don’t think most people walk into a church thinking, I can be honest about what I’m going through or what I’m struggling with. I have to put on – here’s my thing – put on my veneer. When somebody says to me, how am I, say, I’m fine. That’s where I think the church loses a huge chance to impact people’s lives.

When you say, as I come on a Sunday or a Saturday or whenever it is, you gather and I go. Life’s not good right now. I’m struggling. I just want you to know that’s where I’m at now. Point me to Jesus. Don’t lead me there, but it’s got to begin there. I think that’s one of the things that, in my view, is missing in many churches today.

[00:08:54] Kep Crabb: You said some things there that really got my ears perked up a little bit. You’ve been in ministry for four plus decades, you and Suzi together.

I think I know a few of the times where you and Dad would meet for a meal or a hot cup of coffee and chat about different things. It seems to me, as I’ve chatted with guys who are your age and older, Jimmy, this journey becomes harder. Have you experienced any of that? Tell me where you are right now, because it sounds like what you’re saying when you come to church, where’s your red dot, to use one of Dad’s things, where are you honestly? What’s going on? Not, “Hey, I’m doing great. Thanks for asking. Although, my kid’s on drugs and my wife’s got cancer and I lost my job. But everything’s great, all glory to God.” You look at this, it just doesn’t seem like anything gets easier. What are your thoughts on some of that?

[00:09:44] Jim Kallam: I would agree. I think that it’s been harder for me. There’s a lot of things that go into it, but simply put, the last four or five years since I retired, through a series of circumstances which are not important, we lost the community that we’d been a part of for 42 years.

It’s been a journey for us to find a community, and I think we have found one that we can now settle in and hopefully begin to build some things. But what I realize, Kep, is it doesn’t get easier. I used to see the Christian life like an escalator in a shopping mall where you step on it at the bottom and you take a smooth ride up to heaven. That’s just not true. The struggles that I face today are as intense as they were when I was a younger Christian, when I was a younger pastor. Some of that is – and I say this tongue in cheek – thanks to your dad because he would never let my heart alone. He would always dive in and go, let’s go a little deeper.

The truth of the matter is, until I am where your dad is, which is home with my Heavenly Father, the journey will never stop. The journey will have rough edges all along the way that I have to work through in my own heart. They may not be visible to the average person on the outside, but Suzi and I have spent many nights just going, Lord, can’t you just give us a break?

I just think that He is committed. Committed to my heart and committed to seeing me become and look and resemble more like His son in that journey here on this earth.

[00:11:18] Kep Crabb: As we talk about church with that, how does church fit into that?

[00:11:23] Jim Kallam: Here’s the thing. If we wanted to sit and exchange war stories about church, which is not what we’re going to do, I could probably show you more bullet wounds and stab wounds and other wounds from my years being in the church; which I would’ve given up on long ago if it wasn’t for the fact that Christ calls it His bride. Because He calls it His bride, it gives it a unique, high, and exalted place, and so I’ve got to keep pursuing it, although it’s getting harder and harder to do. And so it takes on different meanings. You talked about you and Kimmie right now in a small gathering of people, and that’s your church, and I get that, I understand that.

One of the joys in the last few years of my active ministry, your mom and dad moved to Charlotte and they chose to come to our church. It stunned me that he did, but I felt like there was something that he found there. Not perfect, not by any means perfect, but something that he found there that gave him a place to be able to then springboard into our conversations at breakfast as to what God was doing in his soul, what God was doing in my soul.

There’s got to be a component in my mind of a grouping of people who look each other in the eye and answer the hard questions; point one another to Christ.

[00:12:44] Kep Crabb: How is church different for you now? Jimmy, you were a senior pastor for years and years. I could ask tons of different questions now that are running through my mind that I’d love to just figure out what it was like. What do you miss most about it? Do you miss the teaching? Do you miss the interaction? Because when you said that what you missed now is you lost a community that you were part of for 40 years. I’m thinking, why did you have to lose the community? I don’t know.

[00:13:11] Jim Kallam: That’s its own set of issues. What do I miss? Do I miss preaching? Yeah. I’ll get asked several times a year to preach somewhere, and that’s helpful to think that I can still have that opportunity.

I miss the community of the staff that I worked with.. The interactions that we had on a weekly basis; not even about the church and the organization of the church, but more about what was going on in their lives and how they were, and how their families were. I missed that. It really would be, if I were going to sum it up, losing community and having to start over to find it has been a challenge. And it will be for a while. On a positive side, the church we’re now attending, as I’ve gotten to know the senior pastor and some of the guys on the pastoral staff, I have a chance to live out the Tandem Spirituality with them and have coffees with them, conversations with them, to talk about what’s going on inside of them as they wrestle with the organization of church, I guess is the way I would put it.

I realized how big a part of church was walking down the halls of our church and being known and seeing people. Maybe I didn’t get together with them on a regular basis, but I knew their story and I could pass ’em in the hallway and say, “Hey, how’s your mom? Who’s sick? How’s your kid who was struggling in school?” Or whatever it might be. I walk into a church now and really don’t know a lot of people. It’s that aspect of being known that has been lost.For us, that’s one of the hard things about not being where we were for 42 years.

[00:14:43] Kep Crabb: Are you and Suzi part of any kind of a small group or any of that kind of thing? What does church look like for you? I just heard you talking about the pastor. I assume it’s a church in Charlotte area there?

[00:14:52] Jim Kallam: Yeah, it’s still in Charlotte. Suzi is part of a small group and she’s led some bible studies with some young women in our home. That’s not been my journey, and I’ll take responsibility for that too. I guess I’ve been hesitant to jump in. I have some close friends, two or three guys that I meet with regularly, and that has become my small group in some ways. It’s been life giving, but in terms of an organized small group, we’re not seeing it that way.

But we do meet regularly and we talk about life in each other’s lives, and there’s something life giving about that that has been important.

[00:15:29] Kep Crabb: That is so true. I feel that what’s been amazing about the group that Kimmie and I have been a part of for about the last year and a half – shortly after Dad passed we got involved with this group and there’s five couples, and then there’s a single gal in there who lost her husband shortly before we joined the group – it’s just been, you use the words life giving. That’s where we’ve been, because I’ve had such a bad attitude towards church. You probably heard the stories growing up. I remember sitting Sunday evenings watching the Miami Dolphins playing football and Dad would come in and we’d been to church Wednesday night and we were at church Sunday morning for all the services, and now we’re heading back Sunday night to go to church right in the middle of the Dolphins game. I thought, Dad, what the heck, man? I said, when I’m old enough, I’m not going to church.

I finally realized when Kimmie got sick, we did pull back. It was interesting you saying you almost had the excuse of Covid to not go to church. I had a couple of excuses. Now the way we actually attend is we still go to the same church, but we just watch the sermon virtually and it’s awesome. Then we join our small group and we’ve got people in New York and people in Florida, and so they’re all over the country in this group, which we’re obviously doing like you and I are doing right now in a virtual setting. It’s been unbelievable.

Some of the connection that we’ve made and what I’ve loved most about it, Jimmy, is what it’s done to Kimmie. It’s taken her over a year to be willing to start to move into these relationships. You know how Kimmie is, she plays it close to the vest for sure, especially with all the stuff that’s been going on, but now, to see her opening up has been just beautiful. I know that there’s importance to this community, and I feel we’re in a good place with that right now, but I know that the church seems to be changing and going through a transition now.

[00:17:16] Jim Kallam: Let me ask you a question. You said you guys meet from all over the country for your small group, which I think is great, and technology gives you the ability to do that. Do you feel you’re missing something with not being face-to-face in a room with somebody?

[00:17:32] Kep Crabb: Sometimes, yeah. I had a buddy talk to me and he said don’t give up meeting together. I thought, we’re still meeting together even though I can’t shake your hand. I can still see your face and hear your voice and get to know you. Even as we were developing Larger Story years back, the question was, is there this relational intimacy that can be developed in a virtual setting that’s not artificial in some of the ways we know it can be? I think then we were thrust into that, given the covid piece. That seems to be where some people have landed, but I do miss some of that. I miss the worship time and the music and being around people.

I remember Dad saying too, as he’s talking to a group of people in church, he says, I’ve got all you people facing the same direction looking at me as I’m talking to you, and you don’t know the people sitting around you, maybe you do, maybe you know some of ’em, maybe you don’t, but is this what church is? He starts asking that question, so that’s been my question. What really is church? Because we’re the church.

[00:18:32] Jim Kallam: I think it’s a legitimate question, and as I asked it to you, I don’t know if we have enough data points in our life experience to decide what’s missing, not always. If I was in a setting with this and something was stirring deeply within you or deeply within me, and it brought us to tears or brought us to a point of just being undone, what I don’t have the ability to do is wrap my arms around you. Sometimes that’s important, sometimes it’s not, so it’ll be interesting to see because there’s no doubt that technology has provided these opportunities and I don’t want to dismiss that as being unimportant. I think it is important. If we had gone through covid 10 years before we did, we would not have had church period. There would be no such thing as online live services.

[00:19:23] Kep Crabb: Yeah. We didn’t have the technology.

[00:19:24] Jim Kallam: We didn’t have the technology. So technology has allowed us to do some things that I think force us to ask deeper questions about, what really is church and what does it look like for me?

[00:19:37] Kep Crabb: I loved what you just said, about being able to hug someone or put your hand on their shoulder. There’s something that’s important about that. I know physical contact, just being in the room with people, being able to just be with them, is important. But I think this is a pretty decent substitute when you don’t have that opportunity all the time.

I wonder too, as you asked me that question, I start to think there’s so many things about going to church that I miss. I miss the worship. Now, we have it when we’re watching it in our living room and we can hear the people, but you don’t get the full effect at some level.

[00:20:09] Jim Kallam: No. My singing voice is lacking. When you’re told to be quiet and it’s just you and your wife…

[00:20:15] Kep Crabb: That’s not the full effect I was talking about Jimmy. The way church is going. It’s just it seems that we’ve got to be – Dad used to say, I’d love to give up on the church, but Jesus never did.

Like you said earlier, we could sit here and hash out all the times that we’ve been disappointed or hurt or whatever word you want to use negatively. How the church has impacted us because of hurt or disappointment – to realize that we are the church and what the church looks like through us. One of the big questions I’ve been asking is, where are things going now, given where our culture is going? What’s happening with the culture and how is that going to impact church? One of the things with Larger Story is, how do we develop that community? That gives us the ability to sustain this journey. Cause you can’t do it alone.

[00:21:05] Jim Kallam: No, you can’t. There’s a number of young church planting pastors that I interact with on a regular basis and all of them – I take that back, all but one of them – is bi-vocational. He’s carrying on the expectations of a Pastor-Shepherd to his people. Even if it’s a small gathering, let’s say 60, 70 people, they have their lives that he’s interacting with, but he also has to work because he can’t afford to pay him full-time. I was blessed in my ministry life that I was always given a salary enough to support my family.

I think that’s another trend that’s out there for where the church is heading; more and more guys are not able to make a living by simply being a pastor, so they have to get a job in addition to that, and I think that takes a toll on their families.

[00:21:58] Kep Crabb: I think you can even take it a step farther. I look at what we have and we might be a little unique at some level, maybe not, but we’ve got a group of people where there’s really no leader. We don’t have anybody that’s officially the pastor, or whatever you want to say, but we all just come to the table with what’s going on. There’s no agenda. The thing that I’ve noticed in me is I’m not going to the building and I’m not sitting in the seats and I’m not watching the pastor speak, expecting you to give me something. Now I’m coming in with the attitude of what can I give you that’s deepest in me?

There’s been just a total reversal in my position on it. I was telling you before we started that I’ve been having some incredible conversations with people that I feel are very Spirit led. I think that since Kimmie’s diagnosis and since Dad’s death, something’s been happening to me that’s been supernatural and I’m so excited about it. But I get so discouraged in respect to seeing where things are going. The only way you can make sense of it is spiritual warfare. Satan’s involved. That makes sense of where things are going.

[00:22:59] Jim Kallam: That’s the other component that I think is becoming more a reality; I think our culture has, for years, allowed us to not really believe. We always say we believe that there’s a spiritual battle going on, there’s spiritual warfare. Now it’s right there in our face. What believers in overseas and other cultures would’ve argued for years was that they faced spiritual warfare. We hid behind, we don’t like this person for their view, we don’t like this. We forget that we do not battle against flesh and blood, but against the enemy. I think the rest of the world was willing to face the fact that it was a spiritual warfare going on, and I think now in our culture, in our country, we’re having to face that reality that we hadn’t before.

[00:23:48] Kep Crabb: It’s a hundred percent obvious. This is where it just seems so pervasive now, what’s going on and how Christianity is under attack. That’s my question in this segment of when we talk about church, what is the church’s role in what’s happening today? Because obviously there’s a role, the church has always had a role in every moment of history in respect to what’s going on. How do we have that influence today in respect to what’s going on? How can we have that entree into some of these kids’ lives that don’t want anything to do with God?

[00:24:19] Jim Kallam: This is going to sound cliche-ish, and I don’t mean it that way, but we’ve got to build relationships. We’ve got to engage with our culture. I think the church at times gets fearful and withdraws and pulls in, and becomes more like a fort than a mission to go out into the world. I have yet to find people that won’t engage relationally. Even if we don’t agree on certain cultural issues or social issues or moral issues, they’re always willing to engage. I think that’s where the church has to step in and step into the culture and I believe that’s exactly what Jesus did, so I have conversations. My wife Suzi is much better than I am. We’ll be sitting in a restaurant and she’ll say to the person, “Is this your full-time job? What do you hope to do?” And next thing, we’re having these conversations about this person’s life, and I think it bears fruit. It really does. I just don’t know that we do a great job of engaging, and I think that’s where you do.

I’d have a weekly breakfast with your dad the last few years of his life and we had a couple of different restaurants we’d go to, and he’d always get there before I would. I wasn’t supposed to interrupt until after he was done reading the comics, but he built relationships with the wait staff. I saw that over and over again. These people – a lot of times young women – he would just engage them about their life and it’s amazing. Nobody ever said, no, I don’t want anything to do with that. The church has to be an open place that invites people in and doesn’t get scared of the culture.

[00:26:00] Kep Crabb: It’s funny when you talk about Dad. I was going to talk about some of the breakfasts you had. I had a buddy of his aunt who lives in your guys’ area who actually did the same thing you did: would meet Dad every couple of weeks or whatever for breakfast or whatever. One of the restaurants that you guys would go to, I don’t even remember which one it was, but they have a picture of Dad – according to mom – sitting somewhere up on a little shelf in the corner, just to remember him because of the relationships that he made with those people; with the waitresses and with some of the cook staff. They always knew to bring him a hot cup of coffee.

[00:26:32] Jim Kallam: Nobody ever made his coffee hot enough for him. Nobody.

[00:26:36] Kep Crabb: He and his mom, that’s for sure.

Jimmy, this is just so much fun chatting with you about this kind of stuff and I just love getting to pick your mind about this. Somebody who’s been in ministry and been a pastor and has seen the ebbs and flows of the church over the last, almost half of a century, it just gives you an opportunity to hopefully identify where we’re going and how can we really team up with the Spirit or follow the guiding of the Holy Spirit as He leads us in this battle that we’re in as we try to connect with these people to show them the love of Jesus.

[00:27:09] Jim Kallam: Kep, I’ve enjoyed it. I enjoyed the time just chatting with you and catching up. You may not have a pastor leading your home church, but you, my friend, are a leader. I’ve seen that grow in you over the years and know some of your journey. I watch you grow in what the Spirit of God has done in your life. I want you to be encouraged by that, man. It’s fun to watch.

[00:27:35] Kep Crabb: Thank you so much, brother. This has been fun too.

This will wrap us up for the Relational Spirituality Podcast today. Please join us next Tuesday. We’re going to be getting ready to dive into, what I think is one of my father’s best books, Soul Talk. This was the beginning of some of the thinking that he was talking about in terms of, how do we connect with people? What Jimmy was just talking about there in terms of relationships, how do we really move into the relationships with people in ways that really do allow the Holy Spirit to do His best work?

So, I hope you join us next week. Jimmy, thanks for joining us this week. We’ll see y’all next week.

Message

One Chapter Closes and a New One Begins |…

May 30, 2023May 30, 2023
by Kep Crabb

Show Notes:

To allow His Story to continue unfolding, we must conclude the current chapter and welcome the next. This week, Kep Crabb, the founder of Larger Story, and Kris Gamble, one of its first employees, have a bittersweet conversation as friends and coworkers as they discuss Kris’ upcoming transition to a full-time MBA program and the remarkable journey they’ve experienced personally and professionally while launching the ministry.

Final Transcript:

[00:00:28] Kep Crabb: Welcome everyone to the Larger Story podcast: Relational Spirituality. Where you belong, you become, and you can be known.

Today’s going to be a little different. I’m joined today by a colleague of mine for the past, almost five years. Five years here in about a month. Kris Gamble. Kris has been with me since basically the beginning of Larger Story, and I have been so grateful to have had Kris by my side as we’ve leaned on each other and hopefully relied on the Spirit’s guidance to get us to where we are now with what you know is Larger Story. Kris is, as you can guess, moving on to the next chapter of his journey and he’s going to be leaving us at Larger Story here pretty soon.

We just wanted to spend a little time chatting about his time here with Larger Story, what he’s leaving with, and what the Lord’s going to be doing with him in the rest of his journey. So I guess without any further ado, Kris, thanks for joining me today, brother.

[00:01:29] Kris Gamble: Hey Kep, good to be here. And hello everyone.

I will miss these times, if this is the last one I end up doing. Maybe I’ll make a guest appearance at one point in the future.

Kep Crabb: I sure hope so.

Kris Gamble: As I sat down to think about this conversation, Kep, I started to write some questions: How did I come to the conclusion of leaving? What’s my experience been working with Larger Story? What came out was a narration of my time with Larger Story over the last five years. What I mentioned to you just a little bit ago is, maybe I can jump into sharing some of that and you can chime in along the way, fill in details. I’d love to just share my smaller story within Larger Story here on this episode. I think that can lead up nicely to explaining the transition.

I was first introduced to you, Kep, five years ago, right around this time, by a good friend of yours and a mentor of mine, Rich Cannon. I was, at the time, a couple of years into launching a mobile app startup that was struggling to get off the ground. We had built this app around this idea for more meaningful event networking that was less random and hoping to run into the right people, but using an app to connect people with the right people in real time at the events.

Well, we built an app, but we weren’t making money. Rich knew that you were looking for help with Larger Story and building a website and that I was looking for income and connected me and you and said, “Kep, here’s a guy, if it works great. Kris, here’s a guy, if it works great. And if not, no problem.”

I think we had a good conversation because that first one turned into this, five years later.

[00:03:43] Kep Crabb: If you remember, it was going to be a very temporary situation. You were only going to do maybe six months to a year just to help me out in some ways and get a little dollars to do some of that, to continue to do what you were doing.

It kind of morphed into what it’s been for the last five years, which I always like to refer to as a very divine data point. I think our friend, who I’ve known for years and who’s been a spiritual mentor to you in many ways over the past several years of your life, was just used by the Holy Spirit to put us together.

It was really cool. It was fun to see, even in retrospect, how the Lord’s working and what the Lord’s up to.

[00:04:26] Kris Gamble: Yeah. It felt like a good fit for me because, prior to my app startup, I helped start a ministry in college that I then ran for a number of years after college. Also, Larger Story is the legacy ministry of Larry Crabb. Larry Crabb was a Christian psychologist. My degree was in psychology and my undergrad. And, personally, I did a lot of soul care within my ministry setting and didn’t even realize that term existed until getting into work with Larger Story. So, it felt like a God appointment on my end as well from the get-go.

It’s been quite a journey, Kep, that we’ve had over the last five years with Larger Story. Plenty of ups and downs and twists and turns, but we’ve come a long way since. Today I just wanted to take some time talking about how far we’ve come.

[00:05:37] Kep Crabb: Let me step in for just a second. I know you’re going off some notes, but I think at this point a lot of things happened in your life since you’ve been part of the team at Larger Story. You’ve gotten married, you’ve gotten your home, you got a dog, – which I always think is so cool – but a lot of big things have happened. You went through a lot of big things with me as we were continuing to build Larger Story: Kimmie’s diagnosis, Dad passing away, all these different things that were big pieces. You were in the trenches with me during a lot of those really intense moments that I think will always leave a mark on me, bro. You kept me energized, you kept me encouraged, you kept me moving when sometimes I felt like I really didn’t want to and there were times where it would’ve been easy to say, I want to walk away from this, we’ll do something else, maybe we can honor Dad some other way but this is too important. I think that’s been some of the lessons that I’ve learned in these last five years working with you.

[00:06:46] Kris Gamble: I may get to it here in a little bit, but it’s mutual; getting to go through my major life transitions with getting married and some of yours with your wife’s diagnosis, as you said. I’ll probably share a little bit more later, but you’ve been an inspiration to me through the journey.

Continuing on with the narrative, we hosted our first event since your dad passed – the Larger Story summit – which was a tribute to his life. I think it was a wonderful event. From that, we introduced some of your dad’s very good friends that have learned from your dad and embodied his teaching, but are now expressing those learnings in their own unique voices in their spheres of influence.

We had our first event without your dad. We’ve introduced new voices through that event and through our podcast, which we’ve launched this year. We’ve got another event coming up early next year. Lord willing, as many people know, we filmed the first of a three-part spiritual formation digital discipleship resources, what we call it, and we’ve got the next two on the way as we speak. We published the first of the last three of your dad’s books, Waiting for Heaven. We did that self-publishing when all of his others have been produced by a publishing house. We have a pretty regular following with our podcast, which is cool.

Kep, personally, you and Larger Story and the team have been a tremendous blessing to me in my life. Digging into that and, what you alluded to earlier, just a few months before I started with Larger Story, I had met a girl and started dating her. If I had not joined Larger Story within a few months, I wouldn’t have had the means to take her out on a date much longer, which probably meant she would think, “This guy is not capable of being a provider,” and may have dipped out. She’s probably not that shallow, but I say that to say that I got engaged to and married my wife while at Larger Story.

When I think about my time at Larger Story, a word that comes to mind is that it’s been stabilizing in my life. It’s been the first job where I did work but I didn’t have to fundraise myself personally. Knowing that I did my work and I had a paycheck coming in and it was relatively guaranteed felt stabilizing.

[00:10:14] Kep Crabb: I think what I’d want to chat more about with you today is, there’s a lot of logistical things that we’ve done. I think we’ve had a chance by the grace of God to do a lot of neat things and a lot of things that I think really do have some opportunity to be life-changing. We’re in the middle of some of those now, and that’s really the essence of it.

That’s where I want to go with you; you’ve now worked with this ministry. You didn’t know Larry Crabb from anybody before, you got a chance to meet Dad several times. You actually got a chance to go through the SSD before he passed away. What did it do to you from a relational standpoint in respect to how you look at yourself now as a husband? How you look at yourself now as a son of God? How you look at yourself in different ways? I think that’s where – I’ve said this to you before, Kris, and I really mean it – I’ve known you now for five years. I’ve seen so much growth and desire to know the Lord at a deeper level in a way that really does change how we live. I’ve seen that with you and that’s been the thing that’s been most exciting to me. I’m so grateful to have had you on the team, but now to send you off and keep doing that.

I’ve said this to you, you’re always going to be a part of Larger Story, that’s never going to change. You might not be working for Larger Story anymore, but you’re still going to be with Larger Story and involved in what we’re doing, because you’re part of God’s Larger Story; your smaller story is, my smaller story is and so how do we continue to keep this movement? I guess my big question is more, what has happened to you relationally since you’ve been with us?

When I first met you, you had really long hair and you were like, “I think I know what I’m doing here. I’m pretty sharp.” and you had all these things going on. Now you’re a mid 30 year old guy with a wife that you just celebrated – was it your three year anniversary? Four year anniversary. My gosh. Four years, just yesterday, congratulations on that. How are you different? I want to believe, and I really do, that you are a different person than the first Kris Gamble that I met in 2018. You’re not the same guy. If you were, I think I would be really disappointed in that you shouldn’t be the same guy and you’re not.

[00:12:56] Kris Gamble: That category is one of the ones that I’ve been thinking about. One way of saying it is, I’ve grown in awareness of how I impact others; which is something your dad emphasized knowing, how do we impact others? Some of the conclusions I’ve had are on the “need for growth” side.

I do think I’m aware of – and you kind of allude to it, long-haired guy that thinks he knows what’s up – I do think I’m aware that God impacts people through me in positive ways. But there are also some more difficult ways that I impact people, particularly on our team, that He has helped me to see. I don’t know that I’m over those things, but I can be very judgmental of others and I can wear that judgment or I can even express that judgment. I can be condescending. That is how my judgment can sound. Kep, you unfortunately have been the recipient of that. I’ve said this to you prior, but I’m sorry that you have been the recipient of that judgment and pride and condescending tone. I’m grateful that you’ve been gracious and patient with me in my process of sanctification that is uncovered as we relate authentically and closely, like we do on our team.

[00:14:49] Kep Crabb: One of the reasons, Kris, that I’ve been so patient with you in so many ways – we’ve had our times and I can handle somebody being condescending or any of those kinds of things – I think one of the things that really has given me hope is to see your desire to grow.

We talk about at Larger Story, what does it mean to put Jesus on display by how we relate to people? I’ve talked many times about, you can say the same thing in two very different ways to get your point across. One of my mentors talks about how you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.

The growth process that I’ve seen in you in the last five years as a young man moving into now, where you wouldn’t be considered as young of a man anymore. You know, you’re five years older now, you’re a mid 30 year old man. I love to see the growth that you’ve made in respect to how you love people. I feel like you’ve challenged me in ways in these five years, which has been awesome. I’ve been grateful for that. I think I’ve challenged you in ways and I think that it’s been such a great example of an older guy – I’m 20 years older than you are – and a younger guy who are working together for the same purpose and yet still that iron sharpening iron piece. You know, we’ve had a chance to pray together a bunch. We’ve had a chance to cry together a bunch. We’ve had a chance to laugh together a bunch, and we’ve had a chance to see God’s work taking place – not just in creating courses and producing books and putting together groups and ambassador groups and prayer teams and all that stuff and all the spiritual directors – That stuff’s awesome. But what’s it doing to you? What’s going on in your soul, in your heart? As you get ready to leave us at Larger Story, what are you taking with you?

One thing that you’ve become aware of is, whether you’re on a team of two people, three people, four people, or 25 people, there’s going to be tension. It’s just the way it works. Remember what I said when we were going through some of those times? I said, if Peter, James, and John couldn’t pull it together at the Mount of Transfiguration – arguing who’s the coolest guy of us down here – we all don’t have a chance.

Dad used to say – I’ve said this to you Kris, and I love this line – It’s not about failing because we’re going to fail. But what do you do with that? Where do you go with that? How do you respond to your failure? Know that you’re completely covered in the blood of Christ and you’re completely redeemed, even though this side of heaven you still have that flesh-spirit battle.

I think you’re going to have that all the way up to the very end. I’ve had a chance to see a few people finish and my biggest prayer for all of us is that we understand what it means to finish well. I think what you and I have talked about is, what does it mean to finish well as you finish with Larger Story?

I think, Kris, you have been. I think you are in the process of doing that. I know you haven’t found a job yet, you’re looking for one – we’ll get into explaining that, I want to keep moving here so we can keep things rolling.

Just to tell you all, Kris is going to be starting a master’s degree program at Johns Hopkins University in some very cool things, and he’ll talk about that in a little bit. So, there’s some transition happening. He called me at the beginning of April and he said, very candidly, “Kep, I’ve really enjoyed this andI’m never going to leave you hanging, but I’m going to be looking for another job.”

And I said to Kris, if you remember, I said, “I’ve been waiting for this call. I knew this would happen at some point. This wasn’t going to be the last job you ever had. But let’s finish this thing well. Don’t give up on me and I won’t give up on you. Let’s do this well and continue to have this relationship that we’ve built.”

I love how we’re ending this professional relationship, Kris, but yet our personal relationship continues. That’s something that I’m excited about, because I would want to call you and say, “Kris, I got an idea. Give me your quick thoughts.” Just because I want your mind on it. I like the way you think. You’ve been probably the closest partner I’ve had as we started Larger Story, through all the ups and downs. You alluded to a few of them earlier, but it was rough early on. I didn’t know what I was doing. We didn’t know what we were trying to do. We knew we wanted to do something – this was when dad was still alive. Just so you people know too – I’m sitting here kind of giving Kris some accolades, but he deserves these – before zoom webinars became popular – which of course during Covid, all of us realized that’s how we lived, but probably about a year before we had to live that way – Kris said, let’s get your dad doing webinars and we’ll record them. We probably recorded a couple of dozen of those in that year. That’s material today that, when I watch some of those videos, I’m in tears listening to my father teaching the scriptures.

Those were your ideas. Those then turned into this. Then, dad, believe it or not, said, “Can I do something during Covid on Saturday nights to teach the Bible?” And I said, “Done. We’ll promote it and we’ll do it on our Zoom line, and you do whatever you want to do.”

He started to get excited about doing that, which by the way is a miracle in itself, as you know. All the stuff that you’ve been part of in helping create, helping develop, helping direct, has been so important and you’ve been a huge inspiration to me as we continue to move forward with Larger Story in the post Kris Gamble era.

I’d like you to unpack a little bit about what you’re going to be doing and what’s going to be happening. You’ve kind of alluded to some of the reasons that brought you to the fact that you need to move on. Talk a little bit about that for us now.

[00:20:48] Kris Gamble: I kind of had a “third of my life crisis” when I turned 35 and I realized that I’m getting close to 40 and to that stage where we start to establish ourselves, or at least historically, in a career direction. I’ve always been entrepreneurial minded, hence the startup as I got hired and starting up a ministry before that. I realized through helping you start Larger Story that there is still a lot I don’t know in business finance and product development. I came to this conclusion, maybe I need to go back to school. Not to mention my wife had just graduated with her masters. She got this job with a college starting here in Savannah. Everyone on their staff has at least one PhD, if not multiple. They are very inspiring to be around. It just got me thinking, I think I want to go back to school and learn how to do business and learn more about technology.

That was part of the seed there, and then I started looking at MBA schools; particularly remote ones so that I could continue to do Larger Story but also get the education in the evenings or on the weekends, however they structured it. I found this program. It’s a dual master degree program, so it’s an MBA at Johns Hopkins, and it’s a Master’s of Arts in what’s called “design leadership” at a school called Maryland Institute College of Arts – MICA for short. A master’s in design leadership is a degree in what’s known as design thinking; it’s a way to solve problems and it’s related to user experience design. How does a person experience a website? How does a person experience a software? How does a person experience walking into a store? That’s a user experience design. It’s related to strategic problem solving. So this alternative Masters of Arts in design leadership really perked my interest. That’s how I landed at the particular master’s program that I’m going to.

Then I started to think about the cost. It’s not cheap to get an MBA from a good school and it’s not cheap to get two master’s degrees. I thought, there are jobs out there that do tuition reimbursement. I bet Kep might want to work with me to help me go through school, but I was like, I don’t want to ask more of Larger Story. I then started thinking, what do I ultimately want to do? What direction do I want to go in?

Think about the world we’re in today. We’re in the middle of a technology revolution, and this is a little bit of what I was telling you in the team. We’re in the middle of a technology revolution, maybe like no other in history. I know you’ve mentioned it, but AI, artificial intelligence, is close to the point of being equitable to human intelligence. They think we’re only a couple years off from having a machine that’s as smart as a human and indistinguishable from a human and it sounds kind of sci-fi and farfetched. Elon Musk has a company called Neurolink and he’s implanting computer chips into brains so that brains can control things with their thoughts alone, and that the chip can also influence the brain, which is just scary. We’re in an age where augmented reality and virtual reality are also just around the corner.. I say this, but people are going to be living inside virtual reality worlds. They already do. It’s video games like Fortnite and World of Warcraft, they spend most of their days on these video games, and it’s got me thinking. What is the role of a Christian with all of this hitting us in our world today, and what’s the role of the church with all of this hitting us in our world today? What is biblically ethical? What should we speak out against and say that’s too far?

Something you said at one point or another Kep, at one point the church in history set the standard for culture in arts, in innovation, particularly around the Renaissance period. The church created the university system and hospitals, and commissioned much of the art in the world at that time. Now, this is what you had said, “It feels like the world is dictating our culture and the church is playing catch up.” If we want the church to have an influence on society – there are many aspects, but one aspect is what’s happening in technology – I hope to see more Christian minds in that sector contributing to what is ethical and innovative.

And I hope to be one of those by going into a master’s program at an innovative research institution like Johns Hopkins. Now as I look at this transition and thinking about all this and I was thinking, I want to move in the direction of more software technology, business, product development. It’s got me looking and applying to various companies. And that’s where I’m at.

[00:27:15] Kep Crabb: It’s been so fun, Kris, to see what the Lord’s done in your life and the commitment that you’ve made to Him and the growth that you’ve made in the last five years with Larger Story, with us. It’s been such a fun thing to be on the sidelines watching you grow and watching the Lord use you. I don’t think He’s done, man. I think He’s got big plans for you and I’m excited for you.

I mean, when you told me at the beginning of April, I knew it was of the Lord because I felt so relaxed and so at peace and said, I’ve been waiting for this call. I knew it was time, and you’re leaving Larger Story in a really good place. I think you’ve allowed me to understand what it means to help manage people a little bit and be the leader of this organization in ways that I’m super grateful for. I’m really grateful, Kris, for what the Lord’s doing in your life more than anything. I’m super thankful to have had you on my team for the last five years and I’m grateful for the relationship that we’ll have for the rest of our lives.

We just wanted you all to know what was going on with Kris, because so many of you guys have developed relationships with him as well, which of course will not end when his time working for Larger Story ends. Your relationships will continue, like mine will with Kris. I’m just really proud of what the Lord’s done in your life, Kris and the husband that He’s made you, the man that He’s made you. I hope I don’t sound condescending when I tell you I’m proud of you, but I’m grateful to have had you on my team and to have known you and I can’t wait to see what God’s going to do with you, man. So, anything you want to say as we conclude your time with this ministry?

[00:29:01] Kris Gamble: Yeah, I did have a few more thoughts. You asked how I’ve grown relationally and I could share a bunch of other ways that I’ve realized the sinful ways that I’ve impacted others. I’m just thankful to not just you, but the whole team for the team’s graciousness and patience in loving me through the way that my sin does impact folks. Like you’ve alluded to, it impacts the way that I relate to Allison and want to relate to her differently because if you guys are getting it, how much more is Allison experiencing that?

Also, just to touch on, I’ve developed so many skills vocationally within Larger Story related to website development and maintenance, podcasts, audio editing, marketing, and so on. What a blessing it has been to grow my tool belt while I’m here.

A couple more thoughts for me. You mentioned seeing your dad finish well. I know that I won’t forget how I got to watch your dad finish his life well. My last grandparent died 30 years ago, so I didn’t get to see that. I haven’t actually lived next to older generations passing. Sadly, as you know and we’ve alluded to, it’s common to see folks choose not to finish well, so what a privilege it was to watch your dad finish his life.

I wrote something that I wanted to say to you, Kep. I’m grateful for the risk you took of bringing somebody you didn’t know onto your team, and for what I’ve perceived as a genuine love and care for me and my wife and my spiritual well being, and for doing what it takes to keep the lights on and your employees paid, and that sense of stability that has brought in my life. Ultimately, I’m grateful for seeing you be obedient to God and trying to see the impact that your father had and the legacy that he has established continue on to reach a broader audience for God’s glory.

I also wanted to share that it’s been an honor. We talked about your father’s memory and legacy. It’s been an honor to participate in sharing and stewarding that memory and legacy, one that I hope that I haven’t taken lightly. As you mentioned, in the ups and downs and walking through significant seasons in one another’s life, it’s been an honor to walk next to you as your dad and friend, mentor, and hero passed into glory. It’s been an honor and inspiration to see how you’ve loved, served, cared for and sacrificed for your wife as she has battled for her life in her smaller story – because we know her life in the Larger Story is one that’s eternally sealed. I hope that if I ever have to face something as scary as you have with Kimmie, that I face it with the eternal perspective that you’ve had throughout it and the perspective I’ve seen ground you and keep you when it could be easy to lose hope to quit or to turn to other sources for comfort. So thank you for caring for me, Kep, and this team in the way that you sought to lead us through each step of this journey.

[00:33:13] Kep Crabb: That means a whole lot, Kris, thank you for those words. In respect to Kimmie and the cancer stuff with her, I don’t think I had that perspective early on. I think that’s what’s come. I think that God really put that in my life to allow me to have the perspective to be able to lead this ministry. I don’t think I would’ve had the maturity or the perspective to be able to lead this ministry in the way that I think I’ve been able to get because of the Holy Spirit’s work in my life in these last few years. That’s why, early on, I was operating out of fear, and then you came in and we started to get a little more confidence in what we were we were wanting to do, and made some changes and some decisions, and then all of a sudden we got hit with some big things. That’s just, God’s plan and God’s Larger Story is perfect. Even though it has our screwed up, smaller stories in it, it’s not going to be thwarted, and it’s going to come to fruition. And Kris, I’m just grateful for you, man. I’m grateful for where you’re going. You’ll always be a part of Larger Story, for sure; you’ll always be a big part of it and a big part of establishing where we are now. So Kris, I love you. Thanks for being part of my team and part of this team, and more importantly, part of God’s team, and none of that will ever change, you’re on the team.

Folks, thanks for joining us today. Be praying for Kris and this transition. Be praying for us with Larger Story during this transition as well. Our goal is to put Jesus on display as we wrap up this chapter, but it continues and life continues until Jesus comes back to take us home. Y’all have a great day. Thanks for joining us. We’ll see you next Tuesday.

[00:35:09] Kris Gamble: Thanks guys.

And I love you too, Kep.

Dancing With The Trinity | with Kep Crabb & Duncan Sprague | Ep. 1

We are excited to announce our next podcast series titled, Dancing With The Trinity. Our hosts Kep Crabb and Duncan Sprague will discuss topics centered around relational spirituality, and ponder what it looks like to dance with the Trinity.

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More

Who Knew?

It was an unexpected reminder of my loss, another surprising realization that widowhood continually impacts me in so many different ways, both large and small.

Question #7 | with Kep Crabb, Ken Crabb & Duncan Sprague | Ep. 69

Kep, Ken, and Duncan have a candid conversation on what it means to be a Spirit-led person. Join them as they discuss the seventh and final question of the seven questions of spiritual theology: How can we cooperate with the Spirit’s work?

Subscribe: Spotify | RSS | More