196: Say It Louder for the People in the Back! Women, Small Churches, & Culture Change

You don’t need a title to change the culture of your church. You’re already carrying influence—whether anyone names it or not. 

In this Lead Well replay, we’ll talk about how emotional health, spiritual maturity, and everyday presence shift the room around us—and why that matters more than chasing status or hustling harder.

What you’ll hear in this episode:

• Why influence isn’t about titles, but about how you show up
• The link between emotional health and the culture women create in small churches
• How to recognize the impact you’re already making (without burning out)
• A freer, more intentional way to carry your voice and presence

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Transcript

Laurie Graham: 0:01

Hey, welcome to the small church ministry podcast, where we help volunteers and ministry leaders experience less stress, more joy and greater impact as we share strategies that actually do work in smaller churches. I'm your host. Laurie Graham, let's dive in. You. Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of the small church ministry podcast. One of my favorite things to do here at small church ministry is hosting quarterly online conferences. We design them specifically for people in small churches because we believe that small churches are unique, that they're specialized, and that we deserve resources and help and training and encouragement that specifically meet the challenges in small churches. So that's what our conferences are about. This past September has been all about lead Well, our conference for women in small churches, it's the first time we've done something with the focus that this one had, and it just wrapped up this past weekend, in case you missed it, and I know Saturdays get really, really packed, I wanted to share one of the main sessions right here on the podcast. Think of it as a little sneak back inside the lead well conference. The talk that I'm sharing today is called built to shift how emotionally healthy women change the culture around them. Now, at its core, the session is about the truth that no one needs a title to carry influence. We already do. We change the cultures around us by the way that we walk in a room, and sometimes even more, by the way that we leave a room. So grab a cup of coffee, take a deep breath, and let's jump in to built to shift. Hey everybody. My name is Laurie Graham, and we are here with small church ministry for our 19th, our 19th conference for smaller churches. And we're going to kick off. We're just going to introduce the people on stage. We're going to get to know you a bit, and then we will start our main stage, like our session. If you came for the session, we're going to get to it super quick. We're going to do a little more announcements at the end, but we just want to set a little bit of the tone before we do that. Just for housekeeping reasons, we want you to enjoy this entire conference experience. The best way to do that is with a computer or laptop and on Google Chrome. Now if you have to be here on a mobile device, a lot of people do just fine, but some of the features just aren't going to work the same. If you have any issues during the conference for anything, I can't get in. I got kicked out. Something's going wrong. Something happened, whatever. Just email Hello at small church ministry.com Maggie is back there to help you with anything you need. She literally watches email like a hawk. So please check your email and be there. We do have a prayer room that's opened all day in the sessions area. You'll see it there. I know it's on our schedule this year. And we do have conference bingo happening right now. Maggie will drop the link into the chat so that you get the bingo card. How bingo works is if you check off boxes in the same row, column, diagonal, you get you get a bingo and you just post, I got bingo in the event chat, and then we give amazing prizes away from Christ to all.org and you'll see different winners coming up. And if you get blackout bingo, everybody gets a prize for blackout bingo. So that's not random, like if you do blackout bingo, it's fine. You can download the card and get all the instructions off of that. And lastly, the VIP bundle, which tons of people will be talking about throughout the day. It's lifetime access to all the replays, plus, plus, plus, plus, tons of bonuses. You definitely want to check it out. If you have a little bit of funds to pay for it, it's, it's like 90% off a whole bunch of resources. It's really cool. And then also, we do have a network scholarship application that is due today. If you do want to get a free one year for the network, the small church network that we have. We'll hear a bit more about that during the day, just letting you know, in case you're looking for these links. So, but for now, we don't want you to worry about a thing. That's why I wanted to say all that. If you want to learn how to do hop a Ring Central later, we have orientation set up for that. So we're going to give you more later. But right now, we want to just set the day with a little bit of tone setting. Monica, were you at the pre show? You weren't. Were you

Monica Speight: 4:04

I came into the last maybe 15 minutes.

Laurie Graham: 4:07

It was the most unusual pre show ever for us. We're little, we're usually like, I don't know, a little bit spinning off the wheels. Really excited, and we were, but we got into some really cool stuff, of setting the tone for the day. And I invited Charmaine just to yay, get us, get us started with that today.

Monica Speight: 4:29

I love it.

Charmaine Stulp: 4:30

So I was at an event just a couple days ago, and part of the day was a presentation by a professional storyteller, and one of the things she said was, while you're in the midst of telling a story, don't be afraid to pause to just let a thought hang and in the pre show this morning, yeah, we started off with our fun. We were talking out about our mugs. And then we got into some like just depth and some hard, some of the good hard of life, the beautiful, as I call it, which brutal and the beautiful when it's together, Jen talked about the brutal, and what I noticed was Laurie had said something profound and beautiful, and then we there was just this space of silence. And then Jen said some things, and then there was space, and I feel like that is a sign of our growth as women, because we used to be afraid of space, and we probably still are, to some degree or afraid of silence. We don't build enough margin into our lives, often right space. And so today, I just think that the gift of space is here, and I encourage you to lean into it and to rest in it and not know to resist that urge that is like, I need to say something I need to write something down. I should go and run and throw in another load of laundry or, like, what just allow for the gift of space and what that may or may not produce, but what a gift that it is just be. So that's my that's my encouragement.

Laurie Graham: 6:39

If you are coming in here, and this is your first time here. We are loud, crazy, fun. We're going to laugh today. We're going to cry today. And sometimes I feel like, oh my gosh, we're starting so heavy, because for a lot of us, this is something we grew into right enjoying the space. As I often say, the people who find us at small church ministry typically are over functioning women. And I don't think over functioning is good, by the way, like some people say, Oh yeah, we're all overly responsible. I don't think that's good. I think that's something we need to learn, to grow through. And maybe today, if you're not comfortable with space, or if it's really hard for you, Monica, I'm actually going to ask you to speak to this as a coach, a ministry leader, and somebody who grew up as a PK what advice or what tips do you give to us in the room? If we're not we don't want to take space today. We have a list this big. What do we do to get the most out of today and be able to hear God in the silence and like, what would be your tips putting this together for for the women who are here today?

Monica Speight: 7:34

You know, I think one I love what Charmaine said, and I'll say this silence came up last night again. We talked about that in one of a session that I was in. It's been, seemed like it's been a theme, which means it may be something God is saying he's, he's, he's wanting, he's desiring from us. And if he's desiring from something from us, that means he's not desiring to get something to us, right? Yeah. So for some people, it will be, oh yes, I'm ready. And for some people, someone said in our session, silence is scary. You know what happens when you get by yourself? And I remember early in my prayer life and my my walk with the Lord, I did not like silence in my prayer time. It was it was it was heavy, because I had to think and I had to feel, and the truth was I wasn't ready for either one. I didn't want God to reveal things to me that I didn't think I could handle. I didn't want to feel feelings that I had been over functioning through. Because over functioning isn't just a matter of our list. It's a matter of self preservation. Sometime it's a matter of coping, and we call it over functioning. What we're doing is we're coping, we're avoiding, we're suppressing, and we in, all in the name of Jesus, right? And so here's what I would say, for those of us in the room who are like, whoo, honey, this is heavy already. I'm here for it, though, but I'm here for it. I would say this. I would say, you don't need to you don't need to jump into the deep end of the pool. You just tip your toe. Yeah, yeah. All you need to do. I went to a spa recently with my sister, and she turned 50, and we got into the cold plunge, right? The cold plunge is that thing was like 47 degrees, so she got in and I don't know she's human. I always tell my sister in law, like, I don't even know if you're human. She gets in and she just walks straight in and she just goes down. Like, that was it? And I'm looking at her, like, girl, do you know it's 47 like, like, Do you realize this is like, super cool. It was. She was kicking her little feet. And I'm like, she's and I told my brother, I said, Your wife's not normal. I don't care what you say, No one can get in this water. Me, this is what I did. I not only did I tip Nicole in, I tipped it in and I got out, and I tipped it in, and then I got out, and then I it was, we were there all day. And eventually I got in. And even when I got under, I was like, it was so uncomfortable the entire time. So for some of you, this may be a. Comfortable all day. That's okay. I want you to be okay with not feeling comfortable. And I want you to also feel good about tipping your toe in and then going to the prayer room. Yeah, yeah, and hopping out and going in the prayer room and okay, let me process. Let me go get some water, let me get my snacks, whatever it is that you need. And so, because we're all coming in from different spaces. So for some of you jump into 47 degree water and love it. For some of you tip your toe in and walk in slowly. For some of you tip your toe in and then tip out, whatever it is that you need, God is going to meet you right there. I promise

Laurie Graham: 11:05

I love that. Okay, before we kick off the first session, well, we've already kicked off before I start speaking, I want to read some song lyrics for you all. And this is going to be our prayer going into the day. And if you want to look it up, the song is called Quiet. It's by elevation worship. But here are the lyrics, and close your eyes, grab your coffee, light a candle. You know, whatever you're doing, take a second. I sang this in church a couple of weeks ago. Here we go again. My mind racing and I can't seem to win all these crazy thoughts and feelings. It's like it never ends until your voice breaks through my noise. And I know I'm not alone. You will fight my battles. If I will just be still, why would I keep running when you're right here? I'll just be quiet and let you speak through the silence here I am no more hiding. You are in this moment. I won't fight it. I'll be quiet. I don't need to know what comes next. Tomorrow's in your hands. I can trust you with my future, because you're already there. I hear your voice call me forward, and I know I'm not alone. I'm not alone. Away with the distractions I want to hear what's true, the only words that matter. They come from you. I'll just be quiet and let you speak through the silence. Here I am no more hiding. You are in this moment. I won't fight it. I'll just be quiet. I'll just be still in your presence. I'll just be still in your presence. God, because I want to hear you. I don't want to hear anybody else. Interesting way to start a conference when you're here to hear everybody else. And let's just say for all of us, speaking, not speaking, listening, jumping in, being quiet, being in the chat. Let's make it our aim today to hear from God. If you're coming in fresh with us, you don't know us before, I think you can tell we love Jesus very deeply. You also will not hear Bible studies today. Occasionally we get people who think they're going to hear scripture and Bible studies and all this. We all love Jesus. We all meditate on Scripture. You're going to hear some scripture and some talks and some you won't hear that much, but you're going to hear Jesus because we all love Jesus. And part of this conference is about the fact that all of us are an influence. We don't need a title. We're all called to be a light, which means we're all called influence, and in my definition of the word influence is leadership. Now you may have a different definition of that word leadership, and we're not going to, we're not going to parse that out or anything, but for me, we are all called to be light. We're all called to influence. That is what Scripture says. It doesn't say, hey, if, if you follow me, if you want to, you could be a light, if you feel called. If somebody puts you in a position, it doesn't matter. This is what we're going to talk about today. Every single person here and every single you, single person you come in contact with, you are an influence. All right, okay, so I feel like we're done for the day, but we're not so. Charmaine and Monica, I'll see you guys later. You can just click the button that says, stop sharing your audio and visual. Thank you for joining me to start the conference. It's always nice. I hate starting alone, so okay, and both Monica and Charmaine are speaking throughout the day. There's a lot of speakers in the chat, and we're just so glad you're here. So before we jump in, I just want to share just a smidge about who we are, literally two paragraphs. Small church ministry exists to equip volunteers and leaders in small churches with practical tools, grounded hope and encouragement. We are all about smaller churches. If some of you came to this particular event expecting it to be about women's ministry, specifically about women's ministry, that's not what this is. This is actually a leadership conference, an influence conference for women who are leading in all sorts of ways. So just for fun, drop in the chat. What are your main ministries at your church? Are you in women's ministry? Are you in children's I talked to people at the kickoff last night who were in administration and and like in what do you call it like, like, Deacon type positions, people who. Are serving in different ways all over the place. So drop in the chat, and I ask you to look, watch what's popping up in the chat. See the people who are in here, in different positions, and all the things we have in common, because that's what we're talking about today. This conference is just one part of small church ministries, larger mission to support smaller churches, children's ministry, youth ministry, worship leadership. Today we are going to talk about the things that over overshadow all of them as women who are serving in any positions. So think of this particular conference as a bigger picture. We're helping small churches thrive. We pour into women and volunteers and men also. But a lot of women find us because that's who's talking a lot on the screen and a lot of who's serving. But we are so glad you're a part of it. I hope that helps just a little bit. For those of you who are brand new to us as we jump into the day, look at the comments coming in. Oh my gosh. Look at all the different areas where people are serving and influencing and being light. Amen. I love it. One last thing, we are interdenominational. We question we we took a breath before we did this conference, because we know in many denominations, leadership is seen very differently, especially with the role of women. We are not talking about that today. We're not talking about who's allowed to serve where or theologically, where that fits. We are lifting up women in whatever positions they serve, in whatever denominations. You won't hear us talking about that from screen, and we would ask you not to talk about that in the chat. Let's focus on what we have in common, and let's just go, okay, jumping in all the talks today from the main stage with me, and at the very end, we're going to have a Q and A really cool session at the end with a couple different guests from the conference, and we're going to be answering some some questions, the pushback that we'll get throughout the day, the I'm different, or this is hard for me, or this is what's happening in my life, or other things. Okay, so it's really cool then, but we're talking the theme is built to shift that you're going to hear from the main stages, and each session is going to build on each other. And the whole point of talking about being built to shift is that this is how God created us, to shift the world around us, to shift the environments we walk into, any circle we walk into or walk out of the influence that we have. And this morning, we're going to start with just the concept of being built to shift. Have you ever been told that you're too much, too opinionated, too emotional, too strong willed, too anything? If you're a too much person, you may want to drop that in the chat. I'm not saying that's a right label. I'm just saying, Have you ever been called too much? Or maybe, maybe you have been called too little, not enough. Have you ever been called not enough? Because I've been called both, not loud enough, not official enough, not qualified enough. And the thing is, is that this is a continuum. Too much to not enough. We're all on the same continuum. Okay? We're all the same continuum. I don't know how many of you have discovered over the past few years since covid, because most of us have discovered we're ADHD, or we're on the spectrum, or we're autistic and we didn't know it, or, you know, like there's been this explosion of knowledge, right, that that there isn't one normal, there isn't one this is what's common. So we're all on the spectrum where we feel like we're too much or not enough. And sometimes we feel just right. I just want to give that a shout out. Occasionally I feel like I had it in the pocket. You know? I remember walking out of a certain ministry experience years ago going I felt like God was there with me, like it just felt so in the pocket, like it felt right. But to understand that we all have this in common, like, if you've ever felt either side or in the middle, you're not alone, not at all. We hear these stories over and over again from women in small churches everywhere and women everywhere, but in our context today, small churches where we so often feel alone or not enough, or like God isn't moving because we're not big enough, we blow that one out of the water too, because that is not true. I want you to think of an emotion right now. Some of us are very emotionally aware, and some are not. If we can get behind angry, sad, happy, whatever, the other one is, happy, mad, that'd be great. But can you think of an emotion right now that you feel like I'm wondering how we're all coming in today when I just say you were built to influence. You are an influence already you are right now. Tell me what emotion pops up for you like right now today, not just in your season, but literally like today as we're sitting here, for me right now. When I've heard that word before, I've had many different emotions. For me today, I feel really strong as I say that. I'm not saying I always feel strong today. That's one emotion I feel. Please watch the chat. This is how we build community. Here. We're responding to other people's stories. Lenora said she feels surprised. Missy says sad and tired, and we have space for that. Barbara says it makes me feel anxious. Brenda said alone. Betsy said empowered. Angela said, anxious, interesting. Melinda, comforted, how I feel comforted? Michelle said, hopeful. Brittany says, lost. God, just be with us in all this. Confirmed, tired, burned out, wait. I feel a weight, hopeful, energized, anticipation, tired, heavy, weary, scattered, interesting, hopeful, unsure but expectant, tired, alone, tired, empowered. Do you see the commonality and do you also see the differences? Ready but tired, anxious, hopeful, overwhelmed, seeking, unsure. Can I just thank you for dropping your emotions in here. This is going to be a really different conference. Sometimes I ask that, and we don't get this many comments. Everybody's ready, overwhelmed, empowered. For those of you who are watching this replay, because there's going to be people who buy the replays and who watch this later, I just want to invite you to send your emotion to me by email. If you would email Laurie at small church ministry.com, and literally say you're watching this replay. And I feel like this. I'd love to be praying for you. God hears us. God's here. And I also want to say I can't believe we started like this. I know if you've heard the podcast, but I talk about Jesus frosting a lot, where we go into church and we just want everything to be good, and we we say we're good. Life is good. Somebody dies, and we paint a Jesus frosting picture over it. Not that there isn't hope, but I use this term Jesus frosting to when we don't, when we're not being real and human, because I believe God made us human. We've already thrown the Jesus frosting out the window today. Y'all like we just threw it out the window, because God sees us in it all. And I also want to say I believe all of these emotions are are in the tations. This is not good or bad. Never judge your emotions as that's a bad emotion. I shouldn't feel angry. That's not true. Anger, sadness, despair, devastation. These are, I believe they are gifts from God. I believe he created us to have emotions because I believe they're invitations for us, if we never felt devastated, like, Where would we go? If we feel devastated, we have a choice to go somewhere. It's almost like Easter. Like, I love the Lent season before Easter is lent before Easter, and Advents before Christmas is right. I love lent before Easter. People say, some people say evangelicals shouldn't love Lent, because it's about giving things up and sacrificing. To me, Lent is about understanding, like, the depth of of our human emotions, of who we are, of where we've been. It's the light coming into the darkness at Christmas time, right? It's the same thing with advent, like, let's look at our human emotions, all of it, because lent makes Easter a whole lot better. If life was happy all the time, we wouldn't celebrate the same, would we? We wouldn't celebrate the same however you're coming in here today. Maybe you're coming in strong, like I said, I feel strong today. Maybe you're coming in thankful and grateful and all those good that's your good place right now that. Let's receive that. Let's say yay. What's God gonna do next? And still be expectant. And if you're coming in heavy and hard or devastated or sad or confused or feeling stretched, we have that too. We all do, and we have it in common. I want, I want to get rid of every us and them that we have in our minds. Us as leaders, them as sitting in the pews, us as extroverts, them as introverts, us as the committed ones, them as the not committed ones. Can we just all be we, all of us? Let's just be we all the time, because we have so much more alike than we do different. I'm just going to tell you right now. I am a mile away from my outline. I told a friend last night. I love feeling prepared for my talks. I have. I have a whole talk here. You all. I'm not even into section one yet, so we're going to see where we end up today. Yeah, most likely this is the session that's gonna get shared on the podcast, so we'll see what happens. But we're in it, right? Like, let's just be in it. Okay, let's talk about influence by design, not by election. When I did youth ministry, way back when I was 22 my first job out of college was youth ministry, youth ministry and children's ministry. And I remember learning this from people who had gone before me a lot of times, youth youth ministries. At that time, this was early 90s, so you gotta think back to the 80s and things like that. There were a lot of elections. Go like, we're going to elect our president of the youth ministry in certain churches, or we're going to, like, get the popular kids, whatever, and they're going to be the leaders of the youth ministry. And I remember learning how Jesus selected people and that leadership in any way in children's ministry and youth ministry. You know, when you look at those little kids that you want to be the line leaders or the class leaders, and a lot of times we put a lot of pressure on the pastor's kids. Please don't do that. By the way, I raised a few of my own. Please don't do that. But influence by design, that we're all called influence, and we think, when we think about developing people and raising up leaders, who did Jesus go to the fisherman, the prostitute, the tax collector. Jesus could have sought out the speakers of the day, the church leaders of the day, the people who had it together, the people who literally had seeking skills. Even in the Old Testament, God didn't pick the people with speaking skills to be the speakers, right? Like, I just want you to think about that, because they could have there were, there were amazing orators in every time period. Who did Jesus choose? He chose us. He chose every single one of us. Uh, our influence isn't about a title or even a role that's interesting. It's not about rules, either. It's not about qualifications. This is not something we have to earn or move toward or pick up skills for we don't need permission for it, because it's already happening. I want you to think about entering a room. When you enter a room as you are right now, as I am right now, we influence the people around us, tone shifts. Have you ever been in a small group setting or in like a meeting and one person walks in and everything shifts, another person walks in and everything shifts. We were actually designed for this. All of us automatically. It happens now. It could happen for good, it could happen for bad, right? But it always happens, whether we like it or not, whether we choose it or not, whether we would rather be hiding under a rock. We're still an influence. So what we're talking about today is, what do we do with that? How do we walk with that. We don't choose whether or not we influence people. We just choose how to carry our influence like let that sit for a second. We don't choose whether or not we influence people. We get to choose how we carry that influence. Who comes to mind as I'm talking about this, somebody in your life who was an incredible influence and did not have a title. Now I don't mean they didn't have a title anywhere. I mean with your context, with them, there wasn't a title. I want you to drop their initials in the chat, maybe their first name, if you want who in your life was an influence without a title. And please as you're reading the chat, and I want you to read the chat if it's already gone by too fast, I want you to scroll through. I want you to look at the first names of the people who dropped those initials, because we're telling our stories right now. We get to honor Betsy right now, and Diana and Monica and Alicia and Val we're hearing their stories now. Today we're going to talk about a lot of things. Hopefully you've looked. The session titles. Before we close today, I'll make sure everybody knows how to find the conference schedule and how to move around this platform. It's actually really easy, but maybe you've experienced we're going to talk a lot of different things, and I want to talk about some of the pain that comes with influence as we get going, because maybe you've experienced what it feels like when you have been ignored, when the influence that you carry has been ignored or dismissed or blatantly thrown out of the room. Said it wasn't needed, it wasn't wanted. I have 100% been at the receiving end of somebody telling me they don't care what I think. They don't care about my opinion. My opinion carries no weight. Have you been there in any of these places? I think we shut down our own influence. Have you ever talked badly to yourself? This counts here. I'm not good enough. I can't speak that. I don't know how no one would listen to me. I I don't have enough weight here to say what I really believe God's calling me to say. I think we need to name that. Because if this is part of your story, and honestly, I believe it's part of all our stories, even when we've kind of shut that part down in our lives, which is part of the reason why you need to get to know Katie Quigley and Janine McConnell, because most of the time we shut painful things down in our lives, and it's not good for us developmentally, even in our 50s and 60s and 70s, because God has so much more for us. But if this has been your story, and there's some pain and some hurt around leading or influencing or stepping out or failing, you're not alone, and also you are not broken. You're not broken, you're human. We're all human. This is where we're at. This is where, why we're on this journey together, and these experiences do not define our value. They also do not erase your influence, and they didn't then, either they didn't then. People watch. People see. They see how we respond. They see us one more quiet. They see us one more loud. And we're talking about all of that today. Mm, I'm leaving some space because it's Charmaine. You did this to me today, Charmaine influence, and I'll tell you, influence does not ever start with a microphone, a platform or a title, never. Sometimes we end up with those things. Sometimes we end up with them and we don't want them. Sometimes we strove for them and we got them finally. But that is not how influence starts. Influence starts with presence. Influence does not start with a microphone or a title or a role or a platform influence. Starts with presence. And quite honestly, the people that I follow, the people that I learn from, who do have a title or a microphone, the reason I follow them is because of their presence, because of their character, because of who they are. It is not because of their speaking skills. I don't know about you guys, but I am not blown out of the water by somebody who can preach well anymore. I honestly don't even care. I would rather listen to somebody who is preaching out of an authentic place, and it's not as fancy and it's not as smooth, and maybe they stumble a little. Honestly, I would rather hear that. Wow. This is such an interesting piece to throw into me today, because I wasn't thinking about this at all today. But this is probably why I love our conferences so much. It's the vibe we have. We show up, we bring our coffee cup, we light a candle. We're in our home office are my room around me right now is a complete mess. Okay? I'm going to totally show you this. Hope I don't mess up my chords. I brought out all these coffee mugs to show during the during the pre show today, and we're here. We're not on fancy stages. We don't have expensive microphones. You're going to see people today literally broadcasting from the school where they teach because it has better internet. You're going to see people today who their internet goes out, and it's going to be frustrating. You're going to hear people today who don't speak like the rock star preacher that you were hoping to hear. What you're going to hear and experience are people of influence, because we all are an influence. Too much, too little, too loud, too quiet, too shy, not educated enough, not having enough, not being enough, being too much. What do we do with it all? What do we do with it all? I'm going to give just something, just something, just something practical to practice. And, oh, I didn't even say this earlier, please get a notebook and a pen. We should have started with that today. You're going to want a notebook and a pen. And we even asked throughout the day, what did you write down that was important to you? We're all going to have different things. We're going to have different quotes, different speakers. This is part of us being together in community, learning from each other, knowing that we are not the smartest person in the room, that together, we have so much more than any one person. If you don't have a notebook and a pen beside you right now, please go get it right now. You're not going to miss anything. Go get something to write with and something to write on. One of the practical things I just want to throw out today is just practice showing up fully. Fully doesn't mean loud. It doesn't mean demanding your way. It just means practicing being somewhere fully. And I do want you just to think about like one place in your life where you'll be this week, where you know you're not really showing up fully. Now, this could be a place that you hate to go. This could be a role you hate to be in. This could be a difficult conversation. It could be a relationship. It could be your family. It could be your home, like maybe you feel like you're not really showing up fully in your home. It could be in front of Jesus. It could be not showing up fully in front of Jesus because you've been trying to hold all the weight and you need to let it go. It could be church where you're doing too much, and by the way, we're going to address that throughout the day, being too doing too much, being over scheduled, that is not showing up fully, you all that is not that is showing up as a robot, as a machine. When I say showing up fully, this is where we can acknowledge our emotions. This is where we can have some space. This is where we can acknowledge that we're human, mind, body, spirit, relationally. What is one place that's coming to mind right now where you feel like you're not showing up fully again? This doesn't mean you're not achieving or producing. Okay? Please hear that you could be the rock star in your ministry area, or in your family or in your workplace, and not be showing up fully, I'm saying with all of who we are, and I just want you to drop in the chat, what that place is that's coming to mind right now. Maybe you don't even understand why you're not showing up fully, or what that means, but you could drop in work, or if it's a relationship, maybe it's maybe you want to say a sister, or maybe put initials. If it's a ministry area, maybe it's that. If it's church, it might be a specific place for me. I've been working a lot this year on showing up fully on Sunday mornings to be present with people. In fact, when people poke me and want me to do things, I say, Hey, I'm not doing that this morning. I just want to hear about how life's job hunt is going, and I want to hear about Esther and how she's doing in her health, and I want to hear about so and so and what's happening with Vicky's brother in law, who has cancer like that's why I'm here someday, that's a new thing. I'm practicing. If you look in the chat and see people's stories right now, I want you to notice how many of them, it's not church. And can I just say Hallelujah to that we're here to learn how to lead. Well, we're talking about the small church ministry context, and we are admitting right now that that we have whole lives, and that they're intertwined, and that God is at work in all of them. Christine just asked in the chat, is there such a thing as too fully, like we're overly invested, or overly anything? And that's not what I mean by showing up fully. So I think when you show up that way, and you're getting burnout and stretch, I don't think that's showing up fully. I think that's showing up as a workhorse. Does that make sense? Or sometimes we're showing up with only our emotion and not wholly. So maybe when I say showing up fully. Maybe I mean holy, like, W, H, O, L, L, I showing up fully and holy, I love the chat that's happening right now. And how do we practically show up fully? I honestly think a lot of it has to do with creating some space, space for conversations. A lot of times it has to do with doing less. If you know Reno Anderson's talk, I think it's coming up soon. It's about, it's like, it's the best title ever. It's like, yeah, burnout isn't a strategy if you want to show up more wholly and more fully. I think it almost always involves doing a little bit less than we're already doing, because that's why we don't show up wholly, because we're divided everywhere our capacity is shot. There's a thing that a lot of therapists will talk about, which is called a window of tolerance, and we've got a window of tolerance. It's as big as it is, right? Could vary for different people, but as things start pressing on it, the window starts closing. Do you ever notice how you get more sharp with people when you have bad things happening at home, or there's a sickness in your family, and this window closes and closes and closes. We don't get sharp with people or lose our temper because we're terrible people, and I don't even equate that with sin. Some people will say, Oh, that's sinful. I think we get sharp and harsh with people, or go into shutdown mode because our window of tolerance is closed so much we don't have any more capacity. So if you want to show up more fully or more wholly somewhere else, you have to have more capacity. People talk about a balanced life, and they draw these little pie charts and say home and church and family and all this. You know what my my view of balance is, um, can you picture, like a scale, like a legal scale, where there's like scales on either side? What balance is, to me, is pouring in and pouring out that that has to be, you know, pretty close to the same. I know it goes back and forth a little bit, but when you feel like you're pouring out is getting way, way too heavy, the solution is not better time management. It's pouring into our spirits and our souls and our health. People talk about self care sometimes like it's not needed, which it I hope you all believe that it is needed, or you're in the wrong place, because we will talk about that a lot. Self Care is soul care to me. Self Care is is not selfish. It's not about me. It's about being a steward of what God's given me, the greatest gift he's given me, which is me. Now I'm not saying I'm the greatest gift to mankind. I'm saying we need to steward our gift, all of our gifts. We think about stewarding our money, giving 10% of our money, we think about stewarding our time. We've got to steward ourselves. That is mind, body, spirit, relationships. So if you feel like you're overly fully, too full, or showing up too much or showing up too little, the solution isn't better planning or time management. The solution is growing personally, spiritually, building that space the presence of Jesus, having a better understanding of our hearts, of our childhood, of our wounds, of our relationships. You'll hear me talk about psychology. I believe God works through psychology. I believe we've learned a lot about shame over the past few decades, and I believe shame is a big thing, and I believe our churches push shame a lot, and I don't believe Jesus ever did there's a lot we can learn and grow to be whole people. God created us, physical, spiritual, relational, social, spirit. What am I missing? Something emotional. That's all of us and it's all of you. I hope you're watching in the chat and seeing people's stories as they add. I hope that you're going to be with us all day today. I know you may not be, if you're in and out, it's okay, it's what has to be. But my my hope, really, is that that you could be with us all day. I just want you to imagine this with me. Charmaine, you can come join me on the screen. Could you imagine if every woman here just here right now, there's almost 200 of us in the room right now that'll go up and down during the day as people are able to come in. Can you imagine if every woman right here, right now, stopped apologizing for being too much or too little, stopped worrying about what kind of influence we have, and just started carrying the influence that we do have, being present, showing up in rooms, non anxious, leaving rooms and. Where we need to leave, where we need to not be a part of can you imagine every woman here just did that? I just want you to think of the ripple effect, because people are watching you and you are modeling for people that you don't even know are watching I've known pastors wives who've taken sabbaticals. Charmaine is one of them. And how many other women saw that as permission, not that they need permission, but like I can do that. I can take a break. Amy Satterfield, who's also speaking today, took a sabbatical. She took a month, I think a little more than a month. Maybe it was six weeks off of her ministry position. She can share so much about what happened with that when you feel like you have to do it because nobody else does. Can I tell you there are tons of people in this room right now that can speak and say that is not true. I used to think that that is not true. If you are one of those people, would you please drop that in the chat? You do not have to do it because nobody else, because nobody else will you don't need to do it. Nobody needs to do it. Yes, and watch people are posting in the chat right now. This is true. This is true. This is true. This is true. Now, if you feel like that, I'm also going to tell you, all of us have also felt like that. We get it. Yeah, we totally get it. Charmaine, before we drop for everybody where to go next and what's happening next and how to move around the platform. What is coming up important for you just from this first session, or what did you see in the chat? Or what do you want to ask others?

Charmaine Stulp: 47:03

Like, I mean, amazing Laurie, you always, I love that you are open to the leading of the Spirit and the mood and your crowd. You know your crowd, which is like number one rule of speaking right, knowing your audience, and you do that, and you're willing to leave your script to say what needs to be said. And I love that. Thank you so much. What I what I'm noticing. So you said, we don't choose whether we influence or who we influence, but we do choose how we carry our influence and what we do with it. And I think that was amazing and such a great point. We can't make anybody do what we want them to, right? And, yeah, Christine's comment about, is there such a thing as being, like, overly invested or showing up too fully? And I actually think those two things connect, because I think we can a word that has stuck out to me for a number of months now, is enmeshed, and we can actually be so enmeshed with the people we're trying to do ministry with or for or to that when they don't respond, we, like, take it personally. And I think there's some health there to stepping back, which just speaks into your conversation about, like, let's be responsible for what we can be responsible for, and and leave, leave what we can't. And, yeah, over functioning, it always comes up absolutely and so we hope by the end of this day that women will have found their no margin.

Laurie Graham: 48:53

And I want to say also, you don't just arrive. You get kind of pulled back a little bit like a rubber band now and then. So none of us have arrived. I'm just laughing because Brenda just put in the chat. I finally got bingo. And then she said, distractions abound this hour, you guys, this is the reality of our day today, and we love you so much. Would you drop in the chat? What is most important to you this morning, just from what we where we started, whether it was something in the pre show, whether it was something that somebody said, or something that you like, feel like God's nudging you toward.

Charmaine Stulp: 49:25

Can I say one more thing? Yeah, here's the other thing that stuck out to me when I was looking at so many of the comments, and Laurie you and I talk about this, stop using the word but minimize your first emotion. So so many of you said, you know, I'm sad and I'm tired, but hopeful. You are sad and tired

Laurie Graham: 49:50

and hopeful,

Charmaine Stulp: 49:54

don't I think that we do this as like, Oh, but I want to be a Christian woman who's hopeful, and so I'm this, but oh, I am showing you are you are both. You are weary and tired and you are empty and hoping to be filled. So can we say that? Get rid of that word?

Laurie Graham: 50:20

But 100% Yeah, my friend Becky and I get rid of that word too, even, not, not even in that context, but pretty much in any context. Like I've had a hard day, but I know that God's doing something. No, I've had a hard. Day. And, yeah, I've had a hard day. And, well, I hope you liked that little peek into our lead well Conference this past weekend, and I hope it gave you some encouragement. Every time we do these conferences, there is so much that is shared, but one of the biggest things, the biggest impact that we have is just being together, if you have a chance in the future to join us at one of our online conferences, they typically happen on a Saturday, and because they're online, they're accessible all over the world. It's always fun to be connecting with our friends in the UK and Romania and Poland, and we've had guests from Tanzania in smaller churches who have the same challenges are facing the same struggles, sharing the same joys. So keep in mind that you don't have to hustle harder, you don't need a title. You don't need to feel like you're carrying the whole church on your back to make an impact and to be an influence. We were created to shift the rooms we walk into simply by how we show up. If you love this conversation, this was just one little piece of what happened at the lead well conference. The good news, you can still purchase the full set of replays. You can check them out at small church summits.com. All of our online conferences are 100% free to attend live. We do sell the replays so that we can continue to offer all the things that we do for free for small churches all around the world. So thanks again for listening today. If you do want to check out the replays, just go to small church summits.com and they'll be up there for another couple days. Thanks for showing up for your church. And as always, until next week, be light you.