Relationship Refresh: Helping Your Community Thrive in Christ

Dannah Gresh: Have you

been feeling stagnant in your walk with Jesus lately? Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to point you to a source of refreshment.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: God designed us to need community, to grow in community, to walk in community, to mature spiritually.

The one anothers of Scripture are really, really important. You will get even far more out of your own growth, your own seeking of God's Word, if you'll get somebody to come alongside of you and say, “Let's do this together.”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned, for March 13, 2026. I’m Dannah Gresh.

If you’re walking through the 2026 Bible reading plan with us, today we’re reading Judges 7–9. 

So, here in the northern hemisphere, spring is officially on its way! As our world wakes up and turns all green and vibrant again, I’m reminded that sometimes we need a season of renewal, too. What if this spring we opened our Bibles in community together? What could be better than being refreshed in God’s Word and in relationships? Today, we’ll talk about that.

During a Revive Our Hearts recording session, Carrie Gaul and Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth answered questions from our studio audience, and they talked about everything from Bible study prep to asking good questions for group conversation to really seeing the person in front of us. 

Carrie is a counselor and a former Revive Our Hearts staff member. I think this conversation she and Nancy had will propel us toward the renewal we need! Here’s Krista, with her question.

Krista: A friend and I are considering doing a community Revive Our Hearts study this summer, probably the True Woman 201 study. Can you suggest some prayer prompts for me as we prepare for this? My friend and I know each other only a little, but we have a similar desire and vision to minister to other women. 

Nancy: So if you were thinking about putting together a community study, would this be some Christians and non-Christian women? 

Krista: Probably mostly Christians.

Nancy: Mostly believers? Well, first of all, let me just say, way to go! I'm so thrilled that God's putting this on your heart. I think there are more women that God wants to use in these kinds of ways, and it sounds like maybe something you haven't done quite this way before, and so you're stepping out in faith. That's a great thing.

And there are other women in this room that maybe God wants you to step out in faith in some way of engaging other women in the message of God's Word, and we have resources through Revive Our Hearts that can help you with that. 

Carrie, I know you've been involved in discipling women, encouraging them, and getting in one-on-one and small groups. Any encouragement that you would have for this specific situation, but even more broadly, women who want to be involved in ministering the Word to others? 

Carrie Gaul: Such a great question, Krista.

I think to speak specifically to your question, I would just begin praying that God would draw the hearts of those that He's working in their lives. So often as we interact in the communities that we're in, whether that's our neighborhoods or our churches or the friends of our children, just be asking the Lord to tune your heart to what He's doing in their lives. Lord, who is it? It might be one woman that you meet with over coffee once a week.

It might be ten women who are in your neighborhood, and they have a common interest, and you're just inviting them to come around the Word to meet with Jesus in the places of need where they're at. And oftentimes, there'll be a common bond, a common denominator. Maybe they're all the same age, or they're the same season of life.

They're young moms, or they're empty nesters, or whatever. But the goal of whatever we're doing in meeting and mentoring and discipling women is to just get them to Jesus. We do it through the Word of God, and we do it through sharing our lives, the experiences of our own lives, both the areas where we've had victories and we've seen the Lord work mightily, and also the places where we've known defeats, the places where we have failed. 

As we share those things, it opens the door for others to understand that Jesus isn't waiting for us to get our act together. He meets with us in the place of truth. So that appropriate vulnerability in sharing our own story, I think, is a huge part of that as well. 

Nancy: I love seeing women being used by God to multiply the message and to disciple. You hear things about women who feel bothered that there are things in the church that they would love to be free to do, but that God has given to men instead of women, as if there isn't enough for us to do to serve and bless and disciple and strengthen the body and reach those without Christ. 

We have so much fed to us, and some of you have been doing Bible studies for a very long time. That's great letting other people feed you. But there comes a time when you need to be letting God use you to feed others.

So you may be thinking, I can't imagine doing anything like that, leading a study or doing it with somebody else.

God gives different gifts to different people. Not everybody has a gift to teach. You may have a gift of hospitality or a gift to open your home. But I think all of us have relationships and friendships that we can use to communicate truth and to encourage others in their growth. You might think, Well, I haven't been a Christian all that long. You know what? You learn by having to share with others.

So way to go, Krista, for having the burden to do this. The Lord will show you what to study, how to do it. And by the way, the mechanics matter, but they don't matter nearly as much as the relationships and the heart and the willingness to serve and bless others. 

The details of that are important. You've got to figure out where you're going to meet and what time. You need somebody who has some administrative gifts sometimes to help with something like that. But ultimately, it's the power of the Holy Spirit reaching into the hearts of those women. You may invite a whole neighborhood, and one person comes, and God's got one person for you to walk through that, study with, get them into the Word, get them to pray.

You don't have to be the expert. You just have to say, “Come walk with me.” I'm certainly not the expert when I teach Revive Our Hearts.

What I'm saying is, “Here's where I'm walking.” A lot of what I teach just comes out of my quiet time. Then I get in and dig further and take it deeper. But my quiet time is what sparks the burden for what's ministering to me, what God is doing in my life, what I want to speak about to others. And then I say, “Come walk with me. Let's do this together.” 

Carrie: Can I add, Nancy, or just emphasize, don't wait until you think you have all the answers . . .

Nancy: . . . because you will never do it then.

Carrie: You'll never have all the answers.

The first gal that I got to walk through a Bible study with years and years and years ago came to the faith, and she looked to me to lead her in a Bible study. I'm thinking, I have no idea how to lead you in a Bible study. But God opened that door. 

Every week I would drive to her house. Some days I would drive around her house saying, “It would be okay if she wasn't home.” Because I didn't have all the answers, and she didn't take anything as gospel truth until you could show it to her in the Word. This was such a beautiful tool, really, of the Lord saying, “Carrie, I'm going to teach you right through that journey.” 

Nancy: And when I teach a study on whatever subject, guess who gets the most out of it? I'm the one who gets to dig in and spend the time meditating on the passage, on the Scripture, on the biblical character, on the theme, on whatever.

God speaks to me out of that, and then I get the joy of sharing that with those who come into the recordings. Or, it may just be in a one-on-one conversation. Listen, most of the teaching I do (I don't know if most is the right word there, but a lot of the teaching I do) is not done on the radio or by writing a book or in a group like this.

It's done one-on-one, just life-on-life, standing in the aisle after church talking with a friend or a young mom or texting with somebody who's going through a challenging situation. It's those conversations. You have them. And the question is, are you in the Word and walking with the Lord in such a way that you can say to those people, “Here's what God's showing me; here's how I'm growing; here's how God's working in my life; here's what I saw in the Scripture”?

I'm amazed how many days—I guess I shouldn't be amazed—whatever God shows me in His Word during my quiet time, often will be something that I find is a word in due season that will minister grace to somebody I'm going to run into that day, some situation they're facing. So, the Word of God is alive, it is powerful. As we get it into us and get us into it, then we become conduits, conveyors, channels of that blessing to others.

This should be a way of life for all of us, not just for the people you think of as Bible teachers. We all ought to be in the Word. If you're getting all your spiritual feeding from me, shame on you.

But also, I feel sorry for you, because God wants to show you out of His Word. He wants to speak to you from His Word. He wants you to be able to study the subject. Now, there are years of walking with the Lord and studying the Word that gives an advantage at some points. But I've seen women who have very little formal education, no formal Bible training, but who love God and love His Word. The Holy Spirit is in them, and He shows them things from His Word that I wish I could have seen, but God ministered to them by His Spirit in His word.

So this ought to be Christianity, discipleship. It should be a living, dynamic, vibrant, ongoing, daily, back and forth. I love that verse in Malachi 3 that says, then those who loved the Lord spoke often of Him to each other (see v. 16). That's what this way of life is about.

So yes, sometimes you do a formal study, you take a book, you study through it. That's great, and probably lots more could and should be doing that, but also there's a lot of that mentoring and discipling and encouragement and comfort and ministry we can give to one another just by being alert to what people are going through— listening, not just always talking, but listening, asking good questions. Where are you? What are you dealing with?

I'll tell you something else. I know this is a little off the track here, but so much of our interaction in the family of God is way surface. I had a pastor who used to say that the average church is like a bag of marbles clanging up against each other. He said we should be like a bag of grapes smushed together and our lives intertwining with each other and sweet juice coming out of that exchange.

How many times do you go to church with somebody, work with somebody, maybe even live in the same home with somebody, but we don't stop long enough to ask questions and to listen and to find out what's really on their hearts and to find out what they're struggling with, what they're grappling with, what temptation they're dealing with. How many times have you seen somebody really fall spiritually and you're thinking, I knew that person. I had no idea they were struggling with that.

Why didn't we have any idea? Because we weren't doing life with them. We were just going like a bag of marbles through life . . . and that's a sad thing. That's a shame. We need each other. And so at church and when we see each other, let's do more than just say, “Hi, how are you?” “Fine.” And that's it. Did you have a good week? How about them Cubs, whatever. 

It's saying, “How are you really doing? I know you got those three little kids in your home. Do you ever just get really tired of doing this? Do you ever feel like you just need some encouragement?” 

“Oh yeah, I really do. In fact, I was screaming at my kids this week, can you imagine?”

“No, I can't imagine.” 

Everybody, no sin has taken you but such as is common to man and woman. And God will provide a way of escape and sometimes that way of escape is just another sister in the body of Christ who can encourage.

Don't think that just because you're the older one, or you're the one who's known the Lord longer . . . We have three women here today who are in a residential treatment home dealing with alcohol addictions and other things that have torn their lives apart. They sat through this entire day.

We just had a conversation a few minutes ago, and these women are speaking into my life. I've been walking with the Lord longer, probably, I'm guessing; know more about the Bible maybe than some of them do. Some of them are newer to this, but they're in God's Word and God's speaking to them and He's working in their lives, and they're sharing out of that. It's encouraging me, and it's teaching me, and I'm growing. So we do this for each other. We need each other.

It's one needy woman saying, “Jesus is meeting my need. I'm nothing apart from Him. But He is giving me grace. I'm so thankful for what He's doing in my life and even for the places where I still can't see the answers. But He is meeting me.” I want us together to go on a journey, to seek the Lord, to know the Lord, to walk with Him together.

There's a lot of power. Of course, you can walk with God if no one around you is, but there's something about doing this with others. God designed us to need community, to grow in community, to walk in community, to mature spiritually.

 

The one anothers of Scripture, they're really, really important. You will get far more out of your own growth, your own seeking of God's Word, if you'll get somebody to come alongside of you and say, “Let's do this together.” 

I mentioned the gals who are here from the residential treatment program for substance abuse and other similar types of issues, and one of them was just saying, “We're studying God's Word. We love that.” And then she said, “The community part of it can be really hard. Some days it's really awful.”

She said, “We're all sitting here smiling and looking like we (I'm putting words in her mouth) love each other.” And they were. But she said, “Some days it's just . . . you know . . .” But isn't that true? Anytime you have people together, not just in some treatment facility, but a church, with a roommate, in a college dorm, in marriage, with your kids, the community is hard. It's messy. But it's also where we meet Christ together.

It's also where we see our failures. We see why we need the gospel, because we fail. You know, anybody can be godly living as a hermit, maybe, I mean, I guess you could be an ungodly hermit. But you sometimes think, Wouldn't it be great? I could be a great Christian if I lived on an uninhabited island with nobody to push my buttons.

No, it's when somebody pushes our buttons that we see how much we need Christ, how much we need the gospel. So when we do these small groups or one-on-one discipleship, that's really just extending our community life. It’s to not just study the Bible together, that's really important, but also to do life together and to be honest with each other. It’s not just the good and the pretty and the beautiful, but also the messy and the ugly. 

I sometimes say that when you're a speaker, people love hearing you talk about your sin or your failures. But people have been far more helped by my sharing transparently out of my struggles, my temptations, my battles, my failures than they have been by what I might be able to say about how things are okay.

It's okay to be okay, but we're all not okay apart from Jesus, and we need to be sharing that with each other too. 

Carrie: Nancy, I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about as we begin to connect in community. You mentioned that our questions can remain at a surface, and sometimes that's because we're trying to protect ourselves. But sometimes I think it's because we're not sure how to dive in a little bit deeper. We want to do that, but we don't have the book of questions. Nancy's an excellent question asker. So I wonder if you'd just share maybe three or four; how you dig a little bit deeper beyond the surface in relationships.

Nancy: Well, it helps that what I do professionally is interview people, so I'm used to asking questions and helping unpack people's stories. Because that is often what we'll do in a Revive Our Hearts interview. Somebody's written a book, or they have a story about this or that, and I'll ask them a lot of questions. So I've gotten a lot of practice at doing that. 

It is also a really great thing when you're in your own marriage, when you're riding to church together with your family, when you're having lunch with a co-worker, when you're standing in the aisle after church . . . I think if we would just be more really interested in people and want to know them and want to know about them. 

Now, sometimes we can do that in a way that is off-putting to people or makes them think they have to be on the spot and exposed. So, I don't start with like, “Tell me your deepest sin problem.” That is probably not the first question I'm going to ask in especially a new relationship or a new friendship. 

My husband, by the way, is very good at this with just people he meets randomly doing business around town or traveling. He's interested in people. Both of us are pretty much introverts, so this is a challenge, because what both of us would rather do . . . I guess I should only speak for my own sins here, but what both of us would rather do, we get on an airplane or into a cab and we'd rather not talk. We'd rather close our eyes and have the other person read their book and leave us alone. 

But God puts us around people to be the fragrance of Christ, to encourage, to speak a word in due season, to bring comfort. People are going through all kinds of stuff that they don't know . . . people don't ask them about it.

I mean, sometimes you're talking to a woman who's at the checkout cash register at the grocery store, at the checkout counter at a department store, somebody who's helping you find something. And you just have no idea this woman's mom just died whom she's been taking care of. She's had cancer for all these years. People have hard things going on in their lives. They just got news that their son got kicked out of ninth grade, or they've got this child for whom no textbook was ever written and they're pulling their hair out. But here they are doing their nine-to-five job, and we don't know them. Nobody stops and asks. It's like we're invisible to each other.

So, if we start really seeing each other . . . And nowhere is this any more important than at church with church people. We go to church for like one hour on Sunday morning. We sit, and we do our thing. We stand and pray, and give in the offering, and listen to the message. We got dressed up and whatever to do it, and then we go home, eat lunch, watch football. We've been to church, but we haven't done church. I'm saying that's often true of me. It's a pro forma thing, rather than saying God has put real life souls in my path here. I'm a real life soul who needs somebody to care, somebody to know. 

My husband is so sweet about asking what's going on in my heart, what's going on in my mind, what's going on in my day. I'm very blessed to have a husband who cares to listen to the details of my day. Now, if your husband isn't as interested in that, take it easy on him, okay, because you don't want to put him to sleep telling all the details. But how important that your husband knows that you're interested in his day, that you ask questions.

"How did your day go? How did that meeting go? How did your call go with your guys this morning?" My husband has that 10 o'clock every morning with a call with his team every weekday. I think I can say that hardly a day goes by that I don't say to my husband sometime during the day, how did your call go with your guys this morning? It's not just a ritual. I want to know what's happening that matters to him. 

So, I think a lot of this question-asking thing is just thinking about if I were in that person's shoes, what might I want to be asked? People love to talk about themselves and if we're in a conversation, I don't want to leave the conversation and be the one who did the most talking. I want to leave with that person feeling she really cared about what's happening.

Look at their season of life and ask questions that are relevant to that if you don't know the person. If you know the person, then think about what you do know about them. You know they've got kids who are playing soccer and this is soccer season and their kids are all in different leagues and their lives are full of soccer. So start there and say, “I know this is a really busy season for you, how are you holding up with that? How are your kids doing with getting school and soccer done?” 

Just ask some of the practical questions, but then go a little deeper and say, “How are you doing with this season of your life?” We have our sweet friend Debbie sitting here who's been a prayer partner for this ministry for years. Not long ago her husband had liver failure, and within a very short period of time was taken home to heaven. He had not been well, but this was not expected that it would be that quick. 

Well, I don't think this is the first time we've seen each other since then, but it's the first time we've had a chance to sit down and talk over lunch and just to ask, “How's it going? How's your married daughter doing? What's the connection like there?” Her daughter was very close to her dad. How's that going? Just to be alert and sensitive to what's happening in people's lives, to ask questions that show genuine interest and without them feeling like, “You're interrogating me.”

Sometimes I have some friends who don't care to be interrogated. When I start asking questions it's like, “Who are you, the interviewer?” So you need to be sensitive. Will asking questions bless this person? Maybe they just need a word of encouragement. "I've seen how you've handled that."

Our pastor's wife has, was it seven children? There are a lot of them. They're all about the same age. Her hands are always full. But I watch how gentle and kind and soft she is with those kids. I'm sure there are some really crazy moments in their lives. I maybe can just bless her not by asking questions she has to answer, but just by saying, “I've watched how you're teaching your kids to be respectful in church and to not be running around.” I'm sure they do sometimes, but in church those kids are really well behaved. To just thank her for what she's doing.

And the other day she had her hands full not only of her kids, but she was doing respite care for two children, little ones—a newborn and a two-year-old whose foster mother in her sixties needed a break. So sweet Melissa said, “Well, I'll take those two kids for the weekend” . . . in addition to her own seven. Well, that's a hard season of life. To just come with words of encouragement, to show her that I care. 

Robert and I will often do this with people who are going through any kind of challenge. We'll say, “Can we just stop and pray for you?” And we do. We bless people that way in the name of Jesus. So it's just going a little deeper beneath the facts and the basic pro forma surface things we could talk about. I think we can really bless people by just showing that we're interested in what matters to them.

Dannah: What a legacy Robert Wolgemuth left for Nancy to treasure in her heart. That was Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, alongside Carrie Gaul, responding to a question from someone in our studio audience. 

Nancy and Carrie shared some practical advice to help us flourish in community. Now it's your turn; to go apply it! Who can you notice this week? What thoughtful question could you ask? What encouragement could you give? I hope ideas are beginning to flood your mind. 

As they do, I’d love to remind you about our resource for a gift of any amount. A Deeper Kind of Kindness is a booklet by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth that equips you to show biblical kindness and cultivate a heart shaped by the gospel. This kind of kindness trickles down to impact homes, churches, and communities. 

To make a donation of any amount and request your copy of A Deeper Kind of Kindness, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

Next week, join us as we hear from Nancy’s brother, Mark DeMoss. He’s sharing some wisdom on gratitude and finishing well. Like Nancy, Mark loves to share truth straight from God’s Word. I think it’s gonna be a richly encouraging couple of days. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.