Ways to Love Your Neighbor

Kasey Olander: 

Welcome to The Table, where we discuss issues of God and culture. I'm Kasey Olander. I'm the web content specialist here at the Hendricks Center. And today, we're going to be discussing ways to love your neighbor. So how can we reach out to those around us and love them by sharing Jesus with them? And I'm really excited about our guest today. We're joined by Jimmy and Kelly Needham. Jimmy is a singer, songwriter, and speaker who serves as worship and teaching pastor at Stonegate Church. And Kelly is a bible teacher, author, and speaker. So together, they have five kids and they also have a podcast. Thank you guys for being on the show. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Hey. 

Kelly Needham: 

Yeah, glad to be here. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, thanks for having us. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah, really excited for this conversation. So in general, we're talking about how to creatively reach out, how to love your neighbors in general, just the people around you, how to engage the culture so that everyone can hear the good news about Jesus. So the hope for this conversation, the hope for people listening is not just that you realize how cool the mediums are, even though that's true, but also that you can all be encouraged, "Hey, how can I personally seek to love my neighbors? How can I reach out to the people around me and show them Jesus?" So we're just going to jump right in, and we're going to start with a little case study that's going to explain to you why we have Jimmy and Kelly on the show today. So holidays can be a really good opportunity to love your neighbors well, and I know that a lot of Christians have a variety of feelings and convictions about Halloween specifically. But Jimmy and Kelly, what does Halloween look like at your house? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Not like what it looks like in most houses. 

Kelly Needham: 

Right. It is one of the biggest events that we do all year, which seems very abnormal to say for believers. We hand out king-size candy bars to people who come to our house and offer prayer, coffee, and hot chocolate with a team of volunteers in the hopes to display the extravagant generosity of God to a lost and dying world. And that looks like about how many bars did we give out this year? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Well, we give out about a bar a person, and we gave out roughly 1,500 bars this year. 

Kasey Olander: 

1,500? 

Kelly Needham: 

1,500. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah. So we had about, I would say, on the street when, you count the parents who didn't come up the stairs to our house. We're probably looking at roughly a couple of thousand folks that come down our street specifically to do this thing. 

Kelly Needham: 

We just happen to live in a neighborhood that is known in the city for trick-or-treating. Everybody is out, everybody comes. 

Jimmy Needham: 

This street name is Sleepy Hollow, so it's kind of baked in, it's like something's going to happen on Halloween. 

Kasey Olander: 

That makes sense. 

Jimmy Needham: 

We didn't know we were inheriting that when we moved into the house. 

Kelly Needham: 

That's right. 

Jimmy Needham: 

And so, that's what we signed up for. 

Kelly Needham: 

Yeah. It felt like in the beginning, an opportunity for us to steward and a potential place of influence that we saw opportunity for. We would've never considered doing something like this except that it was the place everybody was on Halloween and we just started to ask the Lord, "How can we use this to try and get gospel good news into the hands of people who would otherwise never be entering a church probably." And we have an opportunity to do that. We didn't want to just shut the windows and the blinds and be like, "Oh, the Christians moved into that house. Don't go there." We wanted to... But we didn't want to celebrate Halloween either. So being the generous house on the street was the way that we creatively wanted to display God's great generosity in Christ. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's awesome. I love that. Examples of God's great generosity. So I imagine that you didn't just wake up one day like, "Hey, I hope 1,500 people come to my house tomorrow." What did this look like in the very beginning? How did you get started? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, you bet. So when we moved in, we didn't know anything about this. We went to the grocery store to get some candy for that night because we're like, "Who knows, but maybe somebody will drop by." And they were like, "You live on what street?" They said, "Oh, you need to buckle up partner, because it's about to get crazy." And we thought they were kidding. But we got wiped out of all our candy just in a moment's notice. One of our neighbors told us around that time, "Hey, you know the house that you bought, that was the haunted house of this street." They did a huge haunted house thing and- 

Kelly Needham: 

The previous owners. 

Jimmy Needham: 

... the previous owners did this whole extravagant deal. So like they'd said, "Kids would line up around the block to come to your house. You know that's the house you have." I was like, "Oh my goodness." 

Kelly Needham: 

Oh, okay. Which is why we felt like we were inheriting a reputation and we wanted to strategically look at how to shift that. And so, it did look like just initially, we bought candy bars and we put out a sign that says... You wrote it, babe. Tell them. 

Jimmy Needham: 

So I think it says... So we live up on a hill with lots of stairs. "If you make the climb, there's king-size bars because there's not a king as generous as ours." So that's the sign that you see right at the front of the center. Now, the first couple years we did this, we had 300, 400 kiddos come to the door over that time. 

Kelly Needham: 

Maybe a little more because we kept running out of candy the first three or four years. 

Jimmy Needham: 

But this has been over a decade in the making and so, it was 300, 400. Then the next year, 600, 700, then 800, 900 and now we are easily bumping up to the 1,500, 2,000 space every year. 

Kelly Needham: 

And getting our church involved. And singles and college students from our church come and help us. And we're looking for ways to engage people when they ask that question, why do you do this with a gospel answer. Where we get to tell them we do this because God has been generous to us, that He's given His Son for us. That just for no cost to us, that we now have entrance into eternal life. And we actually have now a sign as you come up to our house that displays Roman 6:23, "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus." Just so that these kids, every year we're hoping that kids that grow up trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, remember the house with the king-size bars, and if they know no other scripture, they would at least know that one because they see it every year. And that they would associate free fun generosity with a God who sent His Son to save them from their sins. That's what we're praying for. 

Kasey Olander: 

I love that. I love that you want people to ask the question, why are you doing this? When I was in college and then after in college, I was a college minister and we would take our students on a spring break mission trip called Beach Reach. And so, we would go down the South Padre Island and give out free van rides and free pancakes. And that's the main question that gets us to the gospel is why are you doing this? You could be anywhere for spring break and you're choosing to hang out with party and college students and you're sharing Jesus with them. It's exactly like you're saying, like that's an opportunity to say, Christians are doing this weird thing actually to demonstrate how much God loves you and meets you where you are, and he cares about you so much. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. And Halloween is actually a really great night to do that because it does have, I know we don't like it, but it has spiritual connotations in it, right? Demonic negative ones. But spirituality is a little bit on people's minds. And so, we were in a foreign country looking for opportunities to share the gospel as missionaries, and there was some pagan celebration, but it was spiritual. That would be a great opportunity to show up in that moment and be like, "Hey, let me tell you about something else. Let me tell you about the free gift of God and Christ Jesus." So we actually feel like it's a really strategic day that you cannot celebrate what Halloween stands for, but actually meet the community of people that happen to be out and about on the streets and interested in having conversations. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's a really great way to put it. I was going to bring up the fact that I know Halloween is associated with a lot of witchcraft, occult themes, a lot of darkness, obviously, understandably, some Christians don't want to participate in that. But how did you guys arrive at that conviction for you? What did it look like for you guys to pray about that together? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, I think when Jesus rose from the dead, everything changed. I mean, just all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. He's not intimidated by our weird little cultic practices and stuff in our culture. I just don't think He's scared. And I think that there is... I don't want to frame Christians who don't participate in this night as being scared because that's not the motivation of every Christian. We know godly people in our church family who are like, "Yeah, we're not going to be a part of it for these convectional reasons." And I totally, think you should have a category for that. But on the other side of that conversation is going, you know that Halloween isn't Satan's night. You know Jesus owns every night. He owns tonight, tomorrow. He owns Christmas and He owns Halloween. It's all His, the whole earth and all it contains is His. The cattle on thousand hills are His. Every day is His. 

Every holiday, He is the Lord over everything. So I think that for us, just having that big God, big Christ theology of just knowing we get to charge the gates of hell. Our savior has been victorious. He's risen, He's made a public display of the enemy. There's nothing scary about this night for Christians. And so, if that sort of fearfulness can be off the table, then we get to ask a new set of questions. How can we leverage this moment? I mean, how many times can it be said? Not every story is ours where you have thousands of people come to the door, but let's say you have a dozen people come into your door. How many people come to your door besides the Amazon guy in a year? Now, it's like there's a night. You're telling me there's a night in our culture where folks show up to my door and ask me for things? Okay. 

Kelly Needham: 

Okay. Well, and if you think a missionary, which we are all called to be thinking like that. We've been sent people, we're saved people and sent people, the mission field is coming to us on this night of the year. And if that's true, then for us personally, why would we not show up to the table in that moment and at least get to know our neighbors, greet them, find opportunities to learn about them, to get to know them, to find ways to bring Jesus into the conversation. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's a great way to put it. 

Kelly Needham: 

It's a really easy night to do that. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. Like you said, leveraging the fact that spiritual things are already on people's minds. And so, that's an opportunity to capitalize on. Obviously everybody needs to follow their own convictions and stuff, but that totally explains how you guys arrived at your conviction that, "Okay, maybe this is something that we can not celebrate Halloween itself, but we can actually use for the kingdom." 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. What does it look like for you guys to make a distinction between yourselves? Okay, we're not participating in darkness. How do you look different from your non-Christian neighbors who are actually celebrating Halloween? 

Kelly Needham: 

Well, one thing we do is we're very particular with anyone who comes and helps us pull off this night that they are not dressed up as anything celebrating death or the demonic, that we actually allow for people to come in costumes, but we want nothing to be celebratory of death. If anything, we display that the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus. We want to be celebrators of life, not death. So in decorations, in anything on display- 

Jimmy Needham: 

The aesthetic. 

Kelly Needham: 

... yeah, the aesthetic. We want to be people who are people of life, not death. And so, we're particular about that. And then even just that we would have down front, we have a little thing that says, "Welcome neighbors. How can we pray for you?" We're trying to just let them know. If you want prayer for anything, we're just raising our hand to say, we'd love to pray for you tonight. We actually turn our guest room into a prayer room throughout the night. And so, any prayer request left that night, we let people know it will be prayed for tonight. And there's something about that that I think changes people's mind and being willing to write down a prayer request. 

Jimmy Needham: 

I mean, over the years we've got hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of prayer requests of folks, just random neighbors, that it's like they didn't think they were showing up about to talk about the deepest needs of their heart and their life. But here we are, and it's been amazing to watch God answer some of those prayer requests over the years and the other fruit that's come too. But largely for us, it's about what's the aesthetic we're presenting? What's the language we're using? Those types of things are ways that we can mitigate the more spooky, weird un-Christian elements and then leverage it for Christ. 

Kelly Needham: 

We also usually have a little hat tip to reformation date, which is also October 31st, and you've often carved reformers into a pumpkin and had it- 

Jimmy Needham: 

Leave it to the seminary guy to have Martin Luther as a pumpkin head up there. 

Kelly Needham: 

But it is. We've done all sorts of little things like that. But I think the main way is to offer prayer to make sure we're celebrating life and not death and anything that we're presenting. And to be quick to have Jesus on our lips as frequently as we can, anyone who's serving with us, to just- 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's good. 

Kelly Needham: 

... "Hey, I love Jesus. How can I pray for you? Hey, do you know about him?" This is why we do it. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yes, that's a really good point. Ways to set yourself apart in distinguishing, "Hey, the reason that we're doing this is Jesus. The whole point isn't actually the candy, even though we hope you enjoy it." 

Kelly Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

That kind of thing. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Right. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

So you've alluded to these other people who are helping you in this effort. What does it look like to involve other people? I'm sure it takes your whole family and probably a village. What does that like? 

Kelly Needham: 

Well, it actually started when we were leading a college small group, and they learned about what we were doing and wanted to get in on it. And so, we had, for many years, the small group that we led of college students that helped us pull it off every year. And now, we don't lead that group anymore, but a lot of them as even they've aged, they come back every year and help us pull it off. And word has kind of trickled out through our church. And so, if there are people that don't have a home themselves that they live in, they have an apartment or somewhere else, they'll often come and volunteer with us. And we have about 20 to 25 people that will help us set up everything, help run our little coffee hot chocolate station. 

They stand at the prayer table and they're just standing as greeters as well with name tags down front to just welcome people, offer prayer, even offer prayer in the moment. So it's not an unusual site on Halloween to look at our circle, drive down front and see people praying with other people right there. It's really beautiful. So they kind of all rotate in stations. People have been doing this long enough with us that it kind of runs on its own now a little bit, which is really neat. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's wonderful. People are so accustomed to, "Hey, this is how we reach the lost and this is how we capitalize on this day and leverage it for Christ." That's very cool. What are some of you all's favorite stories that have come out of this day, either on this day or even throughout the year? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, so many. I'll let you share some. The first one that comes to my mind is a guy that's young guy, probably 16, I think at the time named Ethan, who I had the privilege of leading to the Lord at the foot of our stairs on Halloween night. He's dressed up as this creepy like monkey thing, I don't know. He had a mask, and it was actually very weird. He would just stand there and kind of freak people out, and I think he was doing it on purpose. So me and a group of our crew decided to go over and engage him and start talking to him. And I was asking him questions about his spiritual life, his connection to anything with respect to Jesus or Christianity. 

And we talked about morality and got to the gospel and right there, I mean, there's just swarms of human beings, going around us. And right there, this kid who was this just standing at our house to scare strangers, bow the need of the Lord Jesus and trusted him. And we swapped information and stayed in contact after that. And that one sticks out to me because it was just such a picture of what the enemy intended for evil got intended for good. 

Kasey Olander: 

Of course. That's amazing. I love that. 

Kelly Needham: 

It's amazing. We've actually heard about a lot of salvations happening throughout the year through prayer requests. 

Kasey Olander: 

Wow. 

Kelly Needham: 

We've been doing this long enough that people will come back year after year now and they'll find us because it's crowded that night, and they'll pull us aside or ask people we know, "Do you know where Jimmy and Kelly are?" And they'll come up to us and say, "Last year, I asked you to pray for my son who was far from the Lord, or he was addicted drugs or this was going on. I want you to know that God saved him and has set him free." Or we just hear about salvations that happened through the year just because of the ministry of prayer. And so, that's amazing, those stories are some of my favorite. But one of my other favorite moments that happened was probably about four or five years into doing this, offering prayer, all of that. 

We had a knock on the door around July at our front door, opened the door, and it's somebody we don't know with her daughter, and she says, "Hey, you don't know me, but I just live a few streets over. I came here on Halloween and our water just got turned off. We actually don't have any money and we don't know what to do, and we didn't know where to go. But we remembered you guys and remembered that your generosity in Halloween, and we just wanted to see if you guys could help us." And it actually opened the door for us to have a really unique ministry for a season with this family who just lives a few streets over and was in a really bad place. Not only to minister to them and meet their practical needs, we were able to find them things like a refrigerator because they needed it to raise some funds for them. 

But we were able to bring her and her daughter to church with us for the first time. And just amazing ministry that happened just because they knew us from Halloween as people who would be willing to raise our hands and say, "We'll, pray for you. We'd love to help you. We want to be generous." And so, that's been neat to just see within our community. Our house is being known as a place for people to come to and say, "Hey, I'm in a place of need. Can you help me out?" What a great opportunity to point them to Jesus. 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is amazing. That not just is this impactful on the one day a year, but also it stuck in someone's mind so much that in July, they were like, "You know what? I experienced these Christians back in October and I'm in a spot where I need it." That's amazing. Not only are you guys able to personally minister to her, you also are able to bring her to church with you and those are continuing relationships. That's really sweet. I love that. 

Kelly Needham: 

Amazing. 

Kasey Olander: 

What does it look like to live missionally with your kids? I think you said you had five now and what does that look like over the years? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah. Well, I mean, we just get them involved in everything we do. They're just around. It's not like, "This is what mommy and daddy do." It's like, no, we're on a team. One of our sort of family axioms is teammates, so we are eager for them to see like, no, we're running the same play together guys. And so, with specifically this night, they're involved. They're handing out candy, they're filling the baskets up. They're down front with flashlights, helping people come up the steps. They're running prayer requests up and down to our prayer room, they're doing those types of things. And even not all of our kids have trusted the Lord yet, but just getting them integrated into like, "Hey, this is the heartbeat of us as Christians. This is what it looks like to be missional as Christians." I think there's no way that it's not planting some really deep seeds in their mind and heart over the years that this is one of the family liturgies that we do. We go and we serve and we reach. 

Kelly Needham: 

And even outside of Halloween, they know us to be really interested and invested in the neighbors around us, specifically those that don't know Jesus. They hear us talk about it over the dinner table. I've even trained our children to have some category for, "Hey, when dad starts talking to our neighbor across the street, they don't know Jesus. If that conversation is happening, we're going to not interrupt Daddy's conversation. We're actually going to pray because we want opportunities for Jesus to go to that person." And so, they hear us talking about people who don't know Jesus. They hear us looking for opportunities for that, creating a weightiness around it like don't interrupt. Let's pray instead. And it's actually made our kids now go to Sunday school at church, and they're like coming home going, "Hey, we prayed for people who don't know Jesus, and I prayed for our neighbor too, and maybe we can go..." 

One of our kids came to us and was like, "Can we go across the street and talk to him about Jesus?" And so, it's just neat to just be talking about that with them in such a way that they become now invested in it as well. And to even help them see that they're not interrupting of mom or dad talking to somebody who doesn't know Jesus is a way that they partner with us in it and go, "Oh, this is a great moment. Let's all be a team together and not disrupt this opportunity." So those conversations are happening kind of all the time for us around the dinner table. We've done it around Easter where we've made cookies with the kids and said, "We're going to go bring them to all the neighbors and just ask how we can pray for them." That's just such an easy opportunity to ask a person, "How can I pray for you for the gospel to go forth?" And so, they... 

Jimmy Needham: 

That actually turned into our next door neighbor coming in to know the Lord through that moment. 

Kelly Needham: 

Through the Easter cookies. 

Kasey Olander: 

Whoa. 

Jimmy Needham: 

And our kids were there for the beginning of that. It's amazing. 

Kelly Needham: 

Yeah. She invited us into her home. We hadn't met her yet, and we asked, "Well, how can we pray for you?" She gave us a few things and we didn't... She just opened her hands like, "Let's pray right now." And we went, "Great. Let's pray right now." And we got to pray together with the kids and with her. And again, she later reached out probably two months later needing a ride to the grocery store because she didn't have a car. She was elderly and called me of all the people she could call. And that started a great conversation, great relationship that ended up leading her to the Lord and getting to baptize her in our church. It was amazing. And the kids were there for so much of that. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is amazing. Wow, that's so sweet. And you get to still live life alongside her that you're right next door. It's not like somebody that you met one time, but it's an ongoing relationship. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Jimmy Needham: 

She was our neighbor. Yep, that's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's wonderful. I also love that your kids are seeing this all the time on an everyday basis. This is what's normal, it's important, and it's special, but also it's normal. It's not like, "Wow, once a year we do this weird thing," but it's, "We are sharing Jesus with people continually." 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, that's exactly right. 

Kelly Needham: 

We want them to see us leveraging every opportunity to engage the community located around us in proximity. The physical community God has put us in matters. And when we have opportunities to engage, especially the lost community there, we are going to drop everything else to do that. And they're seeing us do that in little and big ways throughout the year, and Halloween just happens to be a big way we do that. But all these other ways, we're hoping they see us model that, and we have to be willing to invite them into it. Sometimes it's easier not to because you're partly training the child and doing the thing. But we do want to have the attitude of, come along with us, let's do it all together and model that for them. 

Kasey Olander: 

You see that Christianity is not just a thing that we do on Sundays or Christmas and Easter, but we are always looking to make disciples. We're always looking to share Jesus with people and teach them about following Christ. I love that. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

So maybe shifting gears a little bit, we've talked about Halloween specifically. We've talked about that holidays are a really good time. You mentioned Easter cookies as an opportunity to reach out to your neighbors. Are there other things that you can think of, other creative ways that if people want to get started, they're like, "Okay, if I'm listening to this and Halloween's a really long time away, what can I do between now and then to reach out to my neighbors?" What are maybe ideas that you guys have about that? 

Kelly Needham: 

Well, I think one easy thing to have planned is a game plan for new neighbors. So that's something that I think is important. Jesus welcomes us to into His family. And so, that's one of the ways we can picture that is be a welcoming presence to others. So anytime someone new moves, it is like priority number one for us. We want in that first month or so to make it over to their house with some kind of thing. Like a welcome basket, maybe we bake something, but we are going to engage them, welcome them, start a relationship and just get to know them. And then try and find a time to have them over for dinner and build a relationship with them. That's easiest to do when somebody first moves in. But the second thing I would say is a lot of us tend to go, we get home, we pull our car in the garage, we shut the garage, we're tired. 

We don't have any more relational energy, and we kind of just avoid our neighbors. And someone might be listening to this conversation going, "Gosh, there's a neighbor across the street that I haven't talked to in three years, and it would feel really awkward to engage them because I've kind of obviously been ignoring them." I think one great place to start is to own that and approach that person and say, "Hey," knock on the door, or just leave a note. Write a handwritten note, "I know that we kind of see each other every now and then. I haven't really been great about being a good neighbor, but I'd like to change that. Could I have you over for dinner sometime, or could we go to coffee?" Or if you get to talk to them in person, just own that and say, "Hey, I'm sorry, I've been just kept to myself. I'd love to get to know you. We live across the street." And just start with build a basic relationship of getting to know them. That's just such a great place to start. 

Jimmy Needham: 

And I think all that's great. I would also add just starting to create a culture in your family of lingering in public spaces more. So we are a culture that loves our fences and loves staying inside and all that. But some of our best moments with our neighbors and with our kids, with our neighbors has been when we've moved the party from the living room to the driveway or something like that. And now I'm throwing ball with my kid, and now my neighbor comes home from work and he's right next door and he happens to get out. And instead of just one quick nicety, I ask him one extra question about how his day's been. He steps out of the car, now he's moving toward us, now my son wants to throw the football with him. And now, I've just created a situation where I have my kids in the mix. 

I'm engaging with my neighbors. They're watching me ask good questions and love this guy well. And I'm speaking from... This is every week for us with our neighbors around. We'll just move the activity into the driveway when folks start to come home. And it turns out folks come home around five or six. And so, that's actually been a really great, easy low hanging fruit pressures off just like I know I'm going to see this guy here in a minute. I'm out with my kids, get to ask him a couple questions, and that starts to build some really great rapport that you can build on. 

Kelly Needham: 

And I think the buy-in that you have to have as a family in that moment is that engaging with neighbors, especially those who are not believers, is going to cost you something and it's worth the cost. So sometimes that's meant, Jimmy comes home from work, I have dinner ready, but I see him talking to our neighbor, and I'm immediately going, "Well, that probably means dinner's going to be an hour later. That's okay, I'm going to change game plans." And even if we don't get to have what I was planning on making, I'll just save it for another night because this is a moment that Jesus might be proclaimed and a soul might be saved that matters. And that's more important than, sorry, we didn't have dinner on time, or... 

Jimmy Needham: 

Although your dinners are delicious- 

Kelly Needham: 

Oh my goodness. 

Jimmy Needham: 

... sweetheart. 

Kelly Needham: 

Or just anything like that. I was hoping to talk to him about something, but now we're talking to this neighbor or going on a walk and we're just going to commit to the fact that if we see a neighbor that we know that lives near us, we're going to stop and talk with them. And yes, that's going to change the plans later. It means we might not get to everything we wanted to get to in the rest of our evening. But there's a commitment together amongst our family to go that's going to take precedent because those moments don't ever happen in any planned way. They happen spontaneously and they require a bit of margin from us. And so, if you have no margin in your life, that's going to hinder you in actually walking this out. But it just means it will cost you something in the end. But we have kind of a prior commitment to, it's worth the cost, and we're going to pivot to make those moments happen. 

Kasey Olander: 

That's a really good way to put it. It's going to cost you something, but you've already calculated, you've already decided beforehand that it's worth it. So you have an understanding in your family. It's not like, "Wow, this is really disruptive." It's, "Okay, this is something that we already agreed on. We decided to follow Jesus so that we know that He's preeminent. We know that He's preeminent over our dinner plans or whatever it is that we had going on." That's awesome. 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

I love also that you guys are talking about, okay, so we had 1,500 people at our house in Halloween, this really big thing, but you're also giving some small steps. Okay, I saw that neighbor come home and we just happened to ask, "How are you?" Even, I love that you address the people that are like, "I haven't talked to my neighbors in three years." It might be awkward, but that's okay. You just start wherever you are, wherever you happen to be in your relationship with them, whether they just moved in or if it feels like it's too late to ask. It's not too late. 

Kelly Needham: 

It's not too late. If anything, owning that awkwardness with them might actually be something they're feeling too, and kind of clear the air for them as well to go, "Oh, okay, let's start again." "Hi, I'm Kelly. I live across the street. It's good to meet you. Let's start over and get to know each other." And even to let them know this is what a special thing to have neighbors you can trust and that. I think that's something everybody wants at the end of the day. And to say, "I value that. I'm sure you do too." Let's just start with, "Hey, how are you? Let's get to know each other. Maybe you can come over for a barbecue." Sometimes it's easier to invite people over to an outside space than even inside your own home. And so we've had neighbors live next to us that we've just said, "Hey, walk through the back gate and just hang in the backyard with us. We're grilling something. "For some reason, that I think feels a little less intimidating than walking into your actual house. 

Jimmy Needham: 

I agree. 

Kelly Needham: 

And so, that's sometimes an easy way to do that and welcome someone in to just get to know them a little bit better. One other thing I would say we do is we're always aware of moments of crisis in our neighbors, moments of hard. As soon as we hear about it or we're aware of it, we see that as an opportunity to step in and provide care and support for them. We've seen ambulances on our street at parked at a neighbor's house, and I don't want to be intrusive, but I will write a handwritten note to stick in their mailbox, "Hey, I saw the ambulance. I'm not sure what's going on, but I want you to know we're across the street. If you need a meal, if you need something, let me know. Here's my cell number." 

Or we found out from a neighbor once that if you're through texting with them that their brother I think was in the hospital, and we just went, "Okay, well, what can we do to just..." We put a little care basket together. We offered to bring a meal. I think we even sent a Grubhub gift card. I mean, that's such an easy thing. "Give me your email, I'd love to just... Don't even worry about a meal." They don't even have to deal with the fact that they might not like our cooking or that might make them uncomfortable, or do they trust what we would make or what allergies are there. It's like, here's some money to order yourself some food. And we've just seen that open the door and soften people's hearts to just step into moments of crisis and just being aware of those. 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

I love that. And you talked earlier about if you don't have margin in your life, you may not have the attention to notice things like that to step into, wow, this is an opportunity for me to minister to somebody who I don't even know what kind of hard time they're having. But that's a chance to step in and meet a tangible need that you didn't even plan on or that you didn't even know about beforehand. That's beautiful. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Being exhausted works against being missional. 

Kelly Needham: 

Yes, it does. Because if you work and give all your energy to these pre-planned things and then you come home and you have nothing, I mean, you will burn out. But to me, that has helped me say no to things and make sure our family schedule has moments of unplanned activity times, because it allows you to shift your schedule around when those opportunities do come without exhausting yourselves. Margin matters not just for your own rest and recovery, but because mission being missional in your physical community never happens in planned ways. It's almost always spontaneous and in a moment that you cannot predict. And again, that's one of those commitments I think that the two of us have. We're going to say no to enough things so that our life isn't jampacked so that we have margin for being missional. 

Kasey Olander: 

I love that. I feel like that's a whole nother podcast. I could talk about that for a long time about how being healthy is actually what enables you to live in a Christ honoring way. And I love that you guys are sharing things like that. And it even makes me think of like, that could be such a redeeming thing in someone's really hard situation. Nobody wants to call an ambulance ever. But how sweet might that be that you were willing to step into something that may be uncomfortable for you, or for whatever reason, maybe hard to step into, but that's what Jesus does for us, is meets us in our hard things and meets us in our suffering and turns that around. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

Are there other things that you can think of, let's say, okay, now I know my neighbors, I've been hanging out with them, and we're kind of on a talking basis. What are some ways that you can think of? How can I transition to the gospel? How can I make this a spiritual conversation from whatever small talk we were having about work or school or what have you? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah. My answer to that is usually, always curiosity is the way. I'm going to be a wildly curious person with every person I meet, and anybody who's around me long enough knows that's true. I'm just asking questions. I just want to know. Tell me about you. Tell me what makes you tick. Tell me what your favorite blah, blah, blah is. I can't tell you how many times I've asked that. Kelly's smiling because she knows that's all I ever do. But I find that that curiosity has been the gateway for every vital spiritual conversation I've had. Because inevitably, when you ask one or two questions past what a normal human asks, when you just keep asking a little bit, and when you're willing to ask. 

I typically say, "If you can go two questions past what you're normally comfortable, if you can go two questions deeper than what the typical person does, you are almost always going to hit something that's getting at the deeper regions of a person's inner life and heart." Maybe it's a struggle that they're dealing with. Maybe it's how they were raised as kids. Anytime you're bumping up against any of those subjects, you now have very likely open doors for all kinds of things. I remember I was at an AT&T store getting a new phone, and I'm talking to the guy, he's selling me the phone, and we're talking, and he is talking to me about his background. And he said something about being... I forget from what country, but I knew there were a lot of Catholics in that country. 

And so, it's just a shot in dark. But I was just like, "Oh, that's interesting that you're from there. I'm just curious, were you raised Catholic? Because I know there are a lot of Catholics in that country." Again, it was kind of like a shot in the dark, but it was an opportunity for me to get him talking about something more than just my cell phone plan. And what happened was he didn't shut me down. He was like, "Oh, no, actually, my parents raised as Lutheran and blah, blah, blah." And then we were off to the races and we started talking. We swapped numbers. By the end of it, I invited him to church. We did the whole thing, and he was selling me a phone. But it was curiosity that took us there. Curiosity with a little bit of risk, a little bit of, I'm willing to get some egg on my face, it's okay. I would rather have a little bit of an awkward moment and then have an eternal joy at the end of this conversation then not. 

Kasey Olander: 

I'm assuming he got your phone number for more than just the paperwork for the phone, right? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, that's exactly right. 

Kasey Olander: 

Kelly, were you going to say something? 

Kelly Needham: 

Yeah, well, just to affirm that I think that learning about the other person where they're coming from, their background, their beliefs, is the easiest way. We know that the gospel is the answer. In some ways, you just don't know in which inroad to take into a person's heart and life that it will resonate, and you don't learn that without getting to know them. And so, I think the way that maybe many of us were trained to even think about this, how do we get to Jesus as we have a speech and we're just looking for the lull in the conversation to insert the speech. Okay, I told you the gospel. Okay, now I'm out. And that usually, it's not very effective. 

Jimmy Needham: 

It's weird, that's what it is. 

Kelly Needham: 

And it's weird. And the reason we avoid it is it doesn't feel natural in conversation. And so, to learn about somebody's life and heart and what motivates them, what drives them, I have at times, when somebody's mentioned church or something like that, I'm like, "Oh, that's interesting you mentioned that. How do you feel about that? I know a lot of people feel really hurt by the church. Sometimes because that's pretty common. Do you feel that way?" And they're like, "Yeah, I do." I'm like, "It's interesting that Jesus actually had a lot to say to people who were leaders of the church in His day." And they'll be like, "Oh, really? Let's talk about that." And I'll just find interesting ways to talk about how I've understood the scriptures and "Oh, I haven't seen it that way. Well, let's open a Bible together." 

But asking questions about where they are and how they think and what they believe is the easiest way to then know, "Oh, there's an interesting way that I can just start talking about, well, the Bible actually says this about that thing. Did you know that?" And we can go there. And again, we're trying to be as committed as we can to relationships with the people who live near us. So it's never a one and done conversation, and that's really freeing. I don't have to get everything out on the table in this one moment. Sometimes it's just, we talked a little bit about something, and then- 

Jimmy Needham: 

And it's amazing. I imagine somebody on the other end of this podcast hearing this is like, "Gosh, that feels intimidating. Didn't it go south all the time and everybody's hostile to you?" And I'll just tell you, we talk about Jesus with lots of people a lot and almost never do I get a red light in those conversations? It's always curiosity. It's always like, "Yeah, I'm willing to, yeah, let's go get coffee. That's fine." But if you can be winsome and curious and kind, it's amazing what doors that opens. "A soft word turns away wrath," Proverbs says, right. And there is just something true about that. If you are met with a kind person who also happens to be a Christian who has curiosity about you in your life, you're human heart just naturally just wants to open up. 

And so, some of the hardest guys right in our neighborhood that you would normally interact with and be like, "Man, that guy's a nut that's not going to crack." I go to coffee with these guys now. They're in their 60s and 70s, and I'm going to coffee with them just shooting the breeze with these rough Vietnam vets who are just former cops and all this. But they're soft toward me because I built this relationship of curiosity and question asking and kindness. And I know when their birthdays are now, so they get gifts on their birthday. It's like all that stuff pays dividends long term. 

Kelly Needham: 

And you're a good listener. I mean, part of that curiosity is you're learning to be a listener of somebody else, and everybody loves to be listened to. I mean, who doesn't love a good listener? And so, if you can be that for somebody else, it's one very general and an easy offer of kindness and generosity to offer a listening ear to somebody in your time. It's one of the first gifts that you give that softens somebody's heart to then later when you say, "Hey, that's interesting that you believe that. This is actually what I believe, or this is how Jesus has changed me," that now they're usually willing to listen because you have first listened to them. That even in the evangelistic spaces we're in, we're still trying to model, be slow to speak, slow to get angry, be quick to listen. And that has really served us well and produced a lot of fruit and conversations that we would think that's not going to go well. And a lot of times it goes so much better than we ever thought. 

Jimmy Needham: 

For sure. 

Kelly Needham: 

It's always scary, but it's always borne a lot of fruit. 

Kasey Olander: 

That is really helpful and really encouraging to think about all of these different ways that we can be curious. We can ask questions. It doesn't have to be that I have knowledge of every foreign country to know how many Catholics there are in them. But I also like- 

Kelly Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

... yeah. Getting to know somebody personally, genuinely shows, "Hey, I really do care about you. I'm not just trying to make a sales pitch for Christianity so I can check it off my list. I genuinely have this deep affection for you, not in a creepy way. But in a way that Jesus loves me, that people I don't even know I can have genuine care for and empathy for." So I love that you guys are modeling that. I love that you've given so many examples of that. And even Jimmy, your two question thing past, how are you? Good, how are you? Is I think- 

Kelly Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

... yeah, really helpful. Do you have maybe one or two other examples besides of the two questions beyond the normal threshold? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Let's think about that. The thing that... 

Kelly Needham: 

Well, I know with our neighbor next door who is a Vietnam vet, and we would hear a little snippet of that. It gets mentioned briefly. You'll ask questions like, "Gosh, tell me more about that. Was that hard? I bet that was a really hard time in your life." So you can make an assumption that sounds like that would've been hard. Tell me more about it. And then as they start telling you more about it, you're just listening for another piece in the thing that they're saying that's interesting to go, "Oh, wow. You just mentioned that your mom died, gosh." Or, "Oh, you just mentioned that, you had this experience. You lived in this place, man, I know that could have been it this way." 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's one I'm thinking of. There's a thing I didn't know existed until I moved to this neighborhood called National Neighbors Night Out. Have you heard of that? 

Kelly Needham: 

Yes. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Apparently it's a thing. I guess, it happens in October and our neighborhood does it. It's the first time I've ever seen it, but that's been a great time to meet folks. And last year we went and was talking with a guy, just an older guy who kind of presents intimidating, that sort of thing. But we were talking for a little while and he found out I was a pastor, and he kind of wanted to fly a flag too. He is like, "Oh, I believe in God." And I was like, "Okay, well, here we go." And I actually don't think the I'm a pastor thing is a deterrent because immediately, it's like as soon as we're talking about careers, now we're into a spiritual conversation. But then that allowed me to ask him some questions, and we ended with me getting his number. And we meet at Panera on Thursdays now for coffee and talk about Jesus and the Bible and all that, and it's been great. So another thing, this is not the two question thing, but this is definitely a door opener thing that Kelly just- 

Kelly Needham: 

You tell me what I used to do. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah. Kelly is a weird bird, people. 

Kelly Needham: 

Wow. It's going to get better, I promise. 

Jimmy Needham: 

When somebody's talking to her, if you ever want something free, just compliment my wife on anything she's wearing. You like that necklace, you just say, "Wow, that's a beautiful necklace." And what my wife has done over the years I've watched her have it, she just goes... She's in a grocery line, "Oh, that's a really pretty necklace." "Thank you." Kelly says, and then she takes it off and she gives it to the lady. She's like, "Hey, I want you to have it." 

Kasey Olander: 

That's awesome. 

Jimmy Needham: 

And then the lady freaks out, and then that moment happens, and the natural question is, what next? 

Kasey Olander: 

Why are you doing this? 

Jimmy Needham: 

And now we're into a gospel conversation and it's cost me a fortune, but it is a great ministry opportunity. 

Kelly Needham: 

Yeah, it is true. If I have things that... Now, necklaces aren't as weird to give people as earrings. 

Jimmy Needham: 

She's holding onto the wedding ring, she's comitted. 

Kelly Needham: 

There's certain categories of things that would be weird. But there are other things that if somebody has just complimented of it it's like, "Yeah, I would love for you to have it." "What, are you sure?" "Yes, I'm sure. I actually love doing this because Jesus has done this for me. He has given me His very life, so He could set me free, and I couldn't imagine anything better than to just be a generous person to celebrate what He's done for me." So I kind of have a pre-written thing that I've practiced so that in that moment, because I'm sometimes in a grocery line with children and it's kind of chaotic that I can just let them know about Jesus and help them associate that. 

But they're usually so taken aback by it that they're just eager to hear anything that I would say about it. Or if they mention anything else, I'm just listening for, "Oh, I've always wanted a whatever. I love that flower." If they're by my front yard and great, I'm going to go to Home Depot tomorrow and maybe buy a little one. It can't be too extravagant or people get weird, they feel weird about it. But a small little offering of like, "Hey, I heard you love this flower. I just wanted to give you your own." Just finding small ways to extend kindness and generosity to people in surprising ways. So if you can surprise somebody with your kindness, that's usually a way to open their heart to hear more from you. 

Kasey Olander: 

I love that. I feel like there's so many opportunities that in general, I think in our culture's generosity is surprising. The fact that people don't expect you to go out of your way. People don't expect you to take the necklace off your neck and give it to somebody. They're like, "I've never seen anyone do that." I would totally be curious about what motivates someone to do something like that for a perfect stranger that they don't even know. Or even for somebody that they do know, really, you're willing to part with this necklace? And then obviously in comparison to how Jesus has given me new life, of course, take my necklace, take whatever. 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah. I love that. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

I feel like we've covered so many helpful things. You guys have talked about generosity with money and with food, but also with your time. And by listening, not just listening to respond to somebody, but listening to genuinely care about them and to understand how does Jesus meet the deepest longings of their heart? We know that the gospel is the answer, and we're just looking for the right question. We know that other people may not know what questions to ask, but we know that we have them, what they're looking for. And so, we're beggars trying to tell other beggars where to find bread, where we have hope- 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

...and life. 

Kelly Needham: 

Absolutely. 

Kasey Olander: 

So I love that you guys do that on Halloween, and I love that you do it all year round. I feel like this has been so helpful and given so many good insights and questions to ask people and ways to get started with creating our own opportunities to share Christ with people. But also just capturing opportunities that may already be existing in our everyday life if we just have our eyes open to look. 

Jimmy Needham: 

That's right. 

Kasey Olander: 

I hope that you, listeners are encouraged to do all these things, not just again, because the Needhams are cool, but in your own context and with your own neighbors, whatever it is that fits your situation. If you live in an apartment, if you're single, if you're married, if you have kids, whatever, that there are ways that God has equipped you and given you opportunities to be with the people around you and to share Jesus with them. Jimmy and Kelly, what are ways that listeners can connect with you if they're interested in your songs or books or podcast? 

Jimmy Needham: 

Yeah, Kel. 

Kelly Needham: 

Well, you can find... Our podcast is called Clearly. So you can listen to us, we're on our second season right now, Clearly Podcast. Both of us are on Instagram and Facebook. And so, you can follow us there or go to jimmyneedham.com or kellyneedham.com and find more of our books, articles, other things we've written, things like that. 

Kasey Olander: 

Awesome. Well, this has been such a helpful conversation. I'm really excited that we got to have you on the show today. So Jimmy, Kelly, thank you so much for being here. 

Jimmy Needham: 

Thank you. Appreciate it. 

Kelly Needham: 

Thanks. 

Kasey Olander: 

Yeah, and we thank you, our listeners for being with us on The Table Podcast today. We ask that you join us next time when we discuss issues of God and culture.