Summer’s Last

This program contains portions from the following episodes:

"When the Spotlight Is Off"

"He Is Our Captain"

"You House Doesn't Have to Be Perfect"

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Dannah Gresh: Do you like traveling? Me too. What do you say about if we take a little end-of-summer virtual trip together? We'll catch up with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth in, oh, Texas, and Rosaria Butterfield in Orlando. But I think the pit stop that'll stir your heart is the one we take with a modern-day musician who fell in love on tour. It's a love story that started like this:

Jimmy Needham: It was a late-night drive back, and we all got out at a gas station. We went up to the counter, and she started talking to this lady, asking her how she’s doing, how we can be praying for her.

Dannah: That’s Jimmy Needham talking about Kelly—a girl who captured his heart on a road trip!

Welcome to Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh.

Well, friend, it’s the last weekend of summer—so grab your suitcase and your sunglasses, and let's hit the road!

For our first stop, we're heading down to Texas to visit my friend Kelly Needham and her husband, Jimmy. But wait—before we hear from them, we need to find a radio station playing some classic love songs . . . or a mixtape! Do you remember those?

Or maybe we should start with some music from Jimmy Needham himself. You may already have some of his songs on your worship playlist. 

Song: Jimmy Needham singing "In the Middle"¹

I'd forgotten how it felt to hit the bottom when
You suffer pain.
It was like tryin' to run a hundred miles in the pourin' rain. 

Dannah: Jimmy is a singer and songwriter. And no surprise, he's written some sweet songs for Kelly over the years. But way back, before their relationship began, Jimmy and Kelly were part of the same band that would travel to concerts together. It was during some of those road trips that they started to notice some interesting things about each other. 

Song:

I will be there.
And if pain is the ocean you are swimmin' in
If I can't pull you out, I'm divin' in.

Dannah: Here's Kelly sharing how they first met. 

Kelly Needham: We were at the same college, and we had a lot of mutual friends. We grew up in the same part of Houston, so we had a lot of connections already. We were introduced by somebody who assumed we probably already knew each other because of those circles crossing.

He eventually found out that I played violin, and he was releasing his first independent record. So that’s how we initially started the conversation and started becoming friends. My favorite thing to say about Jimmy is, he was the first guy that I had met, in that season of my life, that didn’t grow tired of me talking about Jesus.

I kind of had a sense from other people—even though they were friends—that they were like, “Yeah, I love Him, too, but can we talk about something else now?” And Jimmy never grew tired of that, so our friendship really did blossom around what we were reading in the Word, our love for God.

That’s something that has stayed true to this day. That’s still what we talk about on date nights—what we’re reading in the Word and what we’re learning about God.

Jimmy: I was getting more shows, just kind of regionally. I’d bring her out with my band, and we’d play. At some point it was just, “Yeah, I can’t do this anymore without telling this girl how I feel.”

So that moment went down at the gazebo, and the whole process was really quick. It was five months dating, four months engaged. We celebrated our one-year dating anniversary three months into marriage.

Nancy: Wow.

Jimmy: We were the first of our friends to do this, so it was definitely just crossing uncharted territory that we hadn’t seen modeled. It was a very interesting time and a really sweet time, too. I loved that we got married when we did.

Nancy: And, Jimmy, as you got to know Kelly, what was it that really drew your heart toward her?

Jimmy: Really, she just “ate Bible,” which I loved! I’m a Bible guy. I just love the Word; I love meeting Christ in the Word! She kept up, and she challenged me. We’d be driving to shows, and she’d be like, “Hey, let’s memorize Proverbs 4.”

I’m like, “Who says that? Who says that on a band trip?” (laugher) It was those types of things. It doesn’t hurt that she’s just gorgeous—that doesn’t hurt, you know. But it was that she had a boldness about her, too. She was the kind of girl who would engage with strangers and engage them with gospel content.

I feel like God’s given me a passion for evangelism, too, and so we would be on the road . . . I remember the weekend before I asked her to start dating me. We were traveling to a show in Texas.

Nancy: So she was part of the band?

Jimmy: She was part of the band, playing violin. It was a late-night drive back, and we all got out at a gas station. We went up to the counter, and she started talking to this lady, asking her how she’s doing, how we can be praying for her.

I was right there beside her and got to share the gospel with this gal. We get in the car, and I just can’t help but think, Man! Us together . . . we’re really effective for the kingdom in a way that us apart, we were less.

And it was just that thought of, Man, when she’s with me, I thrive. I see the gospel going forth in unique ways. It was like, “How could we not see where this could lead?”

Kelly: And that was actually what you said to me when you asked me to start dating you: “I think we’re more effective together for the kingdom of God than apart.” We both were already on the same page about how dating has one purpose—to see if we should be married. There’s a goal in that.

And so we, from our initial conversations, had already used the “M” word. We had talked about marriage. But in just saying that’s what this would be, and let’s just try that out and see if this is a good fit.

I think that probably played out into how quickly we were ready to get married. It just felt like, in dating, it was quickly apparent to both of us that unless the Lord is going to put some big red flag in our way, this feels like the the right thing for us.

We sought a lot of counsel. We had a lot of older couples in our lives that were speaking into those decisions about getting married. We were still in college.

Nancy: Did some of them think you were a little young for that?

Kelly: There were some words of, “You’re in college. Jimmy, you’re starting a career. Learning to be married . . . those are three, big weighty things to do all at once.” But at the same time, they were saying, “We see a lot of good in this, and we feel like you’re rightly looking at this situation, weighing those things well.”

So not one of them that we talked to had said, “We don’t think this is a good idea.” Everyone of them said, “With help and support, and if your parents are on board, we think this could be a great fit for you guys.”

Jimmy: We brought a lot of counsel in. You know, “With many counselors, your plans will succeed.” (see Proverbs 11:14) And that’s sort of been the pattern for our marriage. We want to invite voices into the mix.

Nancy: I love that.

Jimmy: “Help us see what we can’t see. Show us blind spots.” God has given us a lot of really great mentors and friends to walk alongside us and help us see those things.

Kelly: We would come out of those conversations—especially talking about, “Should we get married?” We’d get in the car and then Jimmy would say to me, “Get out a piece of paper. I want to write down what they said.”

So we would write down the words of encouragement and cautions that they said to us. I still have that paper at home, filed away. I really feel like Jimmy set the tone for that in our marriage of just every big decision, every move, every purchase (like house purchase) that other people have been invited into that conversation.

Dannah: Don't you just love those two? From the earliest days of their relationship, their desire was to be effective for the kingdom of God. 

Today, Jimmy Needham is a pastor, and Kelly is a writer and a speaker. She's the author of Friendish: Reclaiming Real Friendship in a Culture of Confusion. Kelly will be leading a breakout session about gospel-centered friendship this September at True Woman ’22. 

If you're longing for the kind of deep relationships that God designed you to have, I encourage you to sign up for Kelly's breakout session today. You can do so by going to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend. We'll have a link for you there. 

Now, while we've been visiting the Needhams in Texas, I was reminded of something else that happened in the same area. 

Some years back, the Revive Tour started near the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Over the course of several months, the tour stopped in Michigan, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Virginia, and even Lancaster, Pennsylvania—not too far from my hometown! This was a chance to take Revive Our Hearts recording sessions to other cities.

On that trip, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth unpacked thirty-two of the names of Jesus. Did you know that Jesus is our Captain? 

Here's Nancy. 

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Now, if you look up in the dictionary the word “captain,” it’ll tell you something like this: This is a person who is at the head of or in authority over others; a chief; a leader; maybe a military officer who commands a company.

In fact, some translations of the Bible will use, instead of the word "captain," they’ll use the word “commander,” the head, the one who’s in charge. The captain of a ship, we talk about, he’s the one who’s in charge. He gives direction. He knows where the ship is going, and he’s responsible to get it there.

In the Old Testament you have a word that’s sometimes translated commander or captain, and it’s used to describe military leaders of Israel.

For example, if you have your Bible, you may want to turn to the book of Joshua, in the Old Testament—Joshua chapter 5. We’re going to look at several Scriptures today, but this is an Old Testament appearance of this word that gives us a glimpse, I think, of Jesus. Joshua chapter 5, beginning at verse 13.

Now, the context here is that Joshua is getting ready to lead the Israelites into the Promised Land. They’re just getting ready to go into their first battle against Jericho, and this is a city that is tightly walled up because the city’s heard about the armies of Israel, and the people are scared, and they’re locked up in that city. The city has got tight defenses.

The people of Israel and Joshua as their leader could have been fearful or anxious or concerned about how they were going to take this city. But right at that precipice, right at that juncture as they’re getting ready to go into Jericho, Joshua receives an encounter that’s really important preparation for going into Jericho. It’s a reassuring encounter. We read in Joshua 5, verse 13:

Now it came about when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand, and Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” He said, “No; rather I indeed come now as captain of the host of the Lord.” (NASB)

Now let’s stop there for a moment. Joshua asked this question. This looks like a man, but he’s got this sword in his hand; he’s obviously a warrior. And Joshua says, “Are you for us or are you for our enemies?” And the answer is, “No.” That’s kind of an unexpected answer. This is not a yes or no question.

I think what the commander, the captain, as he identifies himself here is saying, “The point is not am I on your side or their side. The point is: Are you on my side?” That’s what this captain is saying.

As I’ve heard, I think it was Tony Evans say about this passage, “I’ve not come to take sides; I’ve come to take over!” That’s what this captain says in effect.

Now, Joshua is the commander of Israel’s army, but now he has this encounter with a superior officer, someone who outranks him. And so this man says, I am the captain of the host of the Lord.” Some of your translations say, “I am the commander of the army of the Lord.”

Now, that word “commander” or “captain” in the Hebrew is the word sar—s-a-r. We’ve actually seen that word earlier in this series where we talked about the name of Jesus that is Prince of Peace­­—Sar Shalom. The commander, the chief, the captain, the prince, the head one—that word sar is translated here captain or commander.

Then some of the translations say, “the Lord’s army,” some say, “the Lord’s host.” This could be a reference to the army of Israel. “I’m the real commander,” says this man. “Joshua, you report to me.” Or he could be referring to a heavenly, angelic, unseen army that is fighting with and for Israel. So he says, “I’m the commander of this army, whether it’s the army on earth or the army, the invisible army in heaven. I’m in charge. I’m the captain.”

Well, verse 14: “Joshua fell on his face to the earth, and bowed down, and said to him, ‘What has my lord to say to his servant?’”

"Yes, sir! What are my marching orders?" That’s what you say to a captain.

The captain of the Lord’s host said to Joshua, "Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy." And Joshua did so. (v. 15 NASB)

Now, who is this man? Who is the captain of the Lord’s host, the commander of the Lord’s army? Well, I believe that he is a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus, what we call “Christophany” in theological terms.

This man, Christ incarnate, a glimpse of Him before He came as a baby to this earth, he took command of the armies of Israel as they moved in to take possession of the Promised Land.

He’s also the Commander of the angelic hosts that assisted Israel in her battles—Jesus—the all-powerful, sovereign Commander of heaven’s army. This is Jesus, the “Captain of the host of the Lord” who leads His people to victory, and He is to be worshiped, and He is to be obeyed. He is our Captain.

Dannah: Amen! That’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, in a message recorded on a Revive Our Hearts road trip, the “Revive Tour.” As we just heard, in our journey with God, we need to go where Jesus, our Captain, tells us to go.

Speaking of going, it’s time for us to head to another destination on our little virtual road trip. How about we head over to Orlando to join Nancy in an interesting conversation with someone who has a special love for the place where every road trip begins: home!

Nancy met up with Rosaria Butterfield, author of the book The Gospel Comes with a House Key. 

Rosaria and Nancy talk about the importance of loving our neighbors. Rosaria and her husband, Kent, live in Durham, North Carolina with their children. And they've given their neighbors an open invitation. Dinner is at 6:00—for whoever wants to join them. 

Since it doesn't look like we'll make it to Durham in time for dinner tonight, let's listen to Rosaria's conversation with Nancy. 

Rosaria Butterfield: We started something we called “prayer walks.” Kent and I would put something out on this app called Next Door, which is just a social media app that organizes about 300 homes in our neighborhood.

And we would say, “Hey, we’re going to meet at the picnic table on our front lawn. We’re going to just get to know our neighbors and pray and walk through the neighborhood and pray. Come as you are. Come join us!”

It was a Thursday night that we’d do this. Sometimes we’d have one or two neighbors. At one point we had twenty-five neighbors!

Nancy: And even non-believing neighbors knew you were doing this.

Rosaria: Oh, yes, of course. And again, this is where Christians need to understand . . . we’re way too programmatic sometimes, I think. I know why we do it, I do. You want to know how many people are going to come, and you want to make sure that you’ve got everything you need for them. Those are not bad things. Those are very good things.

And ultimately, this book is just a taste of what some people do. Everybody needs to practice hospitality with your comfort zone in your way, with your boundaries. Our boundaries have been different over the years. We’re in a place now where we can be a little more wide open.

What we have tended to do is just put open invitations on the Next Door app. And by “open invitations” I mean, “Dear 300 households, please come to a barbecue.”

Nancy: Wow!

Rosaria: Two things happen when you do this—and this is crazy—but if you invite everybody in your neighborhood, 100 percent of your neighbors are going to feel loved, and they’ll tell you that.

Nancy: They’ll feel welcome.

Rosaria: The little old ladies that never leave their house but heard about it, the recent widows, the person going through a divorce who’s lost all of her friends because of that . . . they will tell you that they haven’t been invited to anything in forever, and it just meant so much to be invited!

But then really—logistically speaking—about ten percent of the people are going to come. We’ve never had more than ten percent come.

Nancy: Have you had some just walk up to you that were new to you? Tell us about some of the people who have come by.

Rosaria: Oh, absolutely. In fact, that is a really fun thing. When the Bible commands us to love the stranger, one of the first questions is: “Where do you go get them? Where are they? How would I find them?” An ideal place is in a neighborhood.

We have absolutely met people just by doing that, and we’ve met their children, and we’ve met their dogs, and then we would build ministry from there. When we first got there, we just wanted to get to know our neighbors.

But then, soon after we got there and we were getting to know our neighbors . . . One of the things that happens when you get to know your neighbors is, you get to know their problems. So we learned that one of our neighbors was just recently diagnosed with ALS (also called Lou Gehrig’s Disease).

He was forty years old. He had a two-year-old daughter and a six-year-old daughter, and this is a scary, horrible disease! One of the things that we knew, as a family in a church, we certainly could be putting together meals for these people. But there’s no way that we would have known it without the prayer walk. You know, “Hey, what’s going on at that home?”

So that’s one of the the things that we did, we put together a "Take Them a Meal." We did that for years and years and years, because when you open your arms wide, that’s something that’s well within your wingspan. Churches do this all the time. So that was easy to do.

Rosaria: One of things we discovered was that being regular about open hospitality was very helpful, because when we started these Thursday night prayer walks . . . There were some older people who had bad knees, and they were not going to be walking with us. But what they would do was wait until they saw us. Then they’d go to the porch, and they’d shout out their prayer request. That just became a regular thing. Thursday night, people would wait for you to walk, and then they would tell you how to pray for them.

Nancy: Wow. 

Rosaria: And so, when other things started happening . . . Our house was robbed, other houses in our neighborhood were robbed. When there were problems both at the personal level, but also at the more public level, as a group of people we were able to come together and pray.

When hospitality is consistent, regular, and inclusive, that’s how you’re going to meet people who are "strangers."

Nancy: Some people maybe just aren’t comfortable opening their home at all, but I know some who are. When you think of Christian fellowship, Christian hospitality, I think often we think first of those who are like us. So we’ll have our small group over from church, or some people from the ministry where I serve. That’s kind of the most natural thing.

But you’re expanding beyond that to say, “We want those who are really strangers.” Hebrews talks about this: “Show hospitality to strangers” (Heb. 13:2). That’s not just the people in my small group.

Rosaria: No, but it doesn’t exclude the people in your small group. One of the things we’ve noticed is that, especially when you are reaching out to strangers, having a good core of Christians who know how to minister together is extremely helpful.

And you know what, if you’re struggling with how to be evangelistic, your small group is struggling also, your homeschool co-op is struggling also. So actually having the family of God already populating the table and inviting other people to join in can be amazing!

One thing that happened a while ago, maybe two years ago now . . . I have a friend; her name is Donna. She and I (well, mostly she, because she’s just the driving force), put together things like Christmas caroling in the neighborhood. We call her “Director Donna.” She’s really good at it!

Nancy: First-born. 

Rosaria: I just do what she says. I remember one year a few years ago, we were between ministering. We were singing carols in the neighborhood, and I received a text message from a friend who said, “We just got terrible news! Can we come over and talk about it?” And by “we,” this is a large Catholic family.

I said, “Yes, that’d be great. We’ll be home at six, and I’ll have dinner on the table at six-thirty.” We also had a missionary family staying with us that night, so we had twenty people! We expanded into two rooms—kids sitting on the floor. Who has twenty chairs, right? Who needs chairs!

I mean, if you’re over fifty, maybe you need a chair, but, c’mon, people. The kids can sit on the floor. At a certain point, the dad of this family was really brokenhearted to learn that a neighbor had just been diagnosed with cancer—and that neighbor was the only parent of a special-needs child.

He just said, “Why?” And he said, after we started eating, “Okay, look, I see I’m in a room full of theologians. I need to know why there’s this kind of evil in the world. Can you answer that?” And you know, you want your neighbors to come with those kinds of questions.

It was wonderful to see our missionary pastor and Kent and our family of God minister. We don’t have easy answers to this. But one of the things I remember was clearly taught that night is, “The time to prepare for evil is before it strikes.” 

And that had a powerful effect, especially on the children of this family. We became friends because there was a hard crisis. And you know what they thought? They thought, Well, I don’t know where to take this. This is a philosophical and theological problem. Oh, hey, let’s take it to the Butterfield’s. That’s a great place to take it!

So that’s what we want. We want to create an atmosphere where people know that they can bring the burdens of their heart to you. And it’s dinnertime. We actually sit around a table at dinner, and we eat dinner, and you’re welcome to join us!

Dannah: What a great challenge from Rosaria Butterfield. And hey—I have an another invitation for you. You are welcome to join Rosaria, Mary Kassian, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth and me on Thursday, September 22, for a special summit called Gender and Sexuality: Clarity in an Age of Confusion. 

This is a True Woman preconference event that's happening right before the big event kicks off that night. Of course, True Woman is happening in Indianapolis—do you know what that means? Road trip! 

Text your friends right now, and invite them to travel with you to True Woman ’22. It's going to be the ultimate girls' trip. Get matching pajamas. and t-shirts Pile into a van. Sneak chocolate into your hotel room. Laugh until you can't breathe. And get ready for a weekend you'll never forget—one that will deepen your friendships and grow your love for the Lord. 

Oh, friend, I can't wait to see you there. If you're ready to register for True Woman ’22, you can do that by calling 1-800-569-5959, or go to ReviveOurHearts.com/weekend and click on today’s episode. 

Next week, we’ll talk about clearing our conscience . . . and confessing sin. That doesn’t sound fun as this week's program? But don’t worry, I’ll walk you through the process, and we’ll learn together. 

Thanks for listening today. 

And thanks to our team. They couldn’t take a roadtrip today, so they’re doing the next best thing . . .  having a BBQ. Phil’s adding the secret ingredient to his BBQ sauce. (Don't ask me what it is; it's a secret.) CJ’s cutting the watermelon. Rebekah’s putting finishing touches on the egg salad sandwiches (my favorite!). Justin’s in charge of the potato salad. Michelle’s spreading the red checked table clothes. Katie’s bringing the oreos and apple pie

And a special thank you to Tom Mathis, who is our grill king, and Tom made sure this broadcast is on the radio stations and the podcast platforms where you find us. And for Revive Our Hearts Weekend, I’m Dannah Gresh

Revive Our Hearts is calling women to freedom, fullness and fruitfulness in Christ.

¹Jimmy Needham. "In the Middle." Clear the Stage. (c) 2012 Inpop Records.